Working with Jesus as a spirit/Deity

[iseht]

I came across this Coptic text in which Isis invokes Jesus to heal Horus in one of the cool instances of ancient world syncretism.


Horus the son of Isis went onto a hill to rest. He cast his line and he pulled in his net, he caught a falcon, a quail, a wild pelican. He cut it without a knife, he cooked it without fire, he ate it without salt, and he was in pain, and his belly ached. He cried out a great cry, saying, “I will bring my mother Isis to me today. I want a demon to send to Isis my mother.”

The first demon Agrippas came to (him), he said to him, “Do you want me to go to Isis your mother?”

(Horus) said, “How quickly do you go? How quickly do you return?”

(Agrippas) said, “I go in two hours and I return in two.”

(Horus) said “Go (away), you will not do for me.”

The second demon Agrippas came to him, and he said to him, “Do you want me to go to Isis, your mother?”

(Horus) said, “How quickly do you go? How quickly do you return?”

(Agrippas) said to him, “I go in one hour, and I return in a one.”

(Horus) said to him, “Go, you will not do for me.”

The third demon Agrippas came to him, the one-eyed one, the one-handed one, and he said, “Do you want me to go to Isis, your mother?”

“How quickly do you go? How quickly do you return?”

“I am there in the space of one breath of your mouth, I return in the space of one breath of your nose.”

“Go, you will do for me.”

He went onto the mountain of On (Heliopolis), and he found Isis, his mother, with an iron head, kindling a bronze furnace. She said to the demon Agrippas, “Why have you come to this place?”

(Agrippas) said to her, “Horus, your son, went upon a hill to rest. He cast his line, and he pulled in his net, he caught a falcon, a quail, a wild pelican. He cut it without a knife, he cooked it without fire, he ate it without salt. He was in pain, and his belly ached.”

She said to him, “Even if you did not find me, and you did not find my name, the true name that the sun carries to the west, that the moon carries to the east, that is carried by the six altar stars that are beneath the sun, you could adjure the three hundred sinews that are around the belly, saying ‘Let every sickness and every suffering and every aching be healed that is in the belly of NN son of NN be healed now, it is I who calls, it is the lord Jesus who grants healing.’”

 

[Beyond Everything]

It's an egregore (or series of egregores). You can work with it anyway you like. That is, if you don't put inner freedom as a paramount value.

 

[MorganBlack]

I always thought of "Christ" (not Jesus) as a title again similar to "Buddha" or like an ascended master or something. Mary and sophia being connected here is interesting but i found something you might think is interesting.
This see's hekate as the world soul or "womb"

Love it, yep yep. World Soul. Neoplationism is a pretty great framework for ceremony. Needs updating but can do a lot of heavy lifting

I don't "work with" Hecate, but I like her. Mary, in her manifestation of Queen of Hell, fulfills a similar role for me, but one tied into a specially Catholic mythic structure.

I do not like erasing other people's viewpoints, but maybe they are manifestations of the same principle/consciousness. It gets messy trying to square world mythology. The best I can say is, when in ceremony, take it all very literally - then, when out of it, take it as metaphor. Then we can have these conversations.

I'm not saying we need to revive a monolithic Catholic culture (I like secularism and neoliberalism just fine. Look at the 50 kinds of craft beers you can buy.) But some more sympathy and awareness might help to unpack a lot of magical discipline. For 500 years we had a shared Catholic worldview to provide a mythic framework, where "the usual" in ritual would be pretty obvious and not subject to a bunch of randomization from silly and pointless New Age esoteric speculation.

But even saying "work with" has so many assumptions and uncritical inferences baked in.

Just by saying it, you're implying Hecate is a spirit you can meet. Technically, in a Neoplatonic mode, any theophanic manifestation you can interact with is a daimon that a god, or God, has created for you - but it's pretty rude to call Thor or even Mary a daimon. See?

The Church is actually very flexible here, they call whatever we experience where it matter, on a personal level, "apparitions." It keeps the persona alive while also air-gapping personal gnosis from randomizing the culture and all societal institutions.

(Soapbox warning:
Some randomization is fine, but taking it too far it all fractures and factionalizes into pettym atomized little tribes, making us prey to transnational finance, which is why they fund a lot of smaller and smaller local identities and put them against each other. Anglo Esoteric culture is a perfect example. So much backbiting and fighting among ourselves. That was the plan, I feel.)

About Vodou:

OK there is no such thing as hegemonic Vodou. Everything is at the family level. Many Vodou houses are just as well-read on esotericism, if more French Continental esotericism than British-encoded ones found English-speaking cultures. So I have to be careful because I am an Anglo-Latino American and not Haitian, so this is me translating.

In Vodou, there are different kinds of lwa. Anglo neopagans usually totally misunderstand Vodou, because the lwa are not neopagan gods. They are elevated dead people, which would be called saints. And they are very localized into Haitian culture. There is no way to change the lwa into neopagan gods without destroying legitimate manifestations ('illegitimate' heave meaning torn away from Haitian culture).

So, there are different kinds of lwa - an all-purpose word that I think should be translated as "a spirit." There are wild spirits called djabs, that are not "in the House." There are zombis, which are the shades from the local cemetery who are not elevated, who are called to do work. You need to use names they recognize from when they were alive.

Now this is awkward, because I actually don't believe in ghosts (while having exorcised a few of them), but like I said, you must take it literally when you are in ritual and ceremony. Calling them apparitions, damaions, gods, spirits, lwa, egregores, masks, Offices, or even shdes- none of that ultimately matters, and each is coded to a specific culture's time-and place, and is mostly just our left-hemispheric rationalist brain trying to make sense of The Mystery.

Then there are the Catholic saints.

Jesus Christ fits here as an elevated dead person. He is mostly gone to... and this is my language... providing authority to call the rest. He is not a "work spirt" Some saint like St. Cyprian are teaching spits, and are called to do work, and provide Authority in the quantum 'mythstream' you are in. This is woven into the open prayers of the Priye Ginen, which is a whole litany of Catholic saints called into the opening of the ceremony to come and bless the proceedings, keep out djabs, and form a recognized signal in the spirit world that the party is getting started.

Legba is an elevated dead person who is called to open the gates to the Rada Vodou nation (nachon). There are rulers for each of the nations and they have point in the ceremony where they are "flipped" to.Jesus Christ opens the way to God and grants authority to do this, but he is not standing there as the ritual impresario. Each of the points has a master who rules there. Met Kalfu for instance, is Petwo nachon, and is the opener of the crossroads of night and demons, but he is not Lego, and is Christ. The total "vibe" is very different.

It gets tricky theologically if people are looking to make a Neopagan Platonism, which I do not recommend, trying to fabricate a single Tree of Life to fit everything. For instance, in one Vodou house, King Lucifer rules what they call "the Hebrew spirits," which includes the demons of the grimoires. He is not the Neopagan Lucifer very mcuh, and is much more a manifestation of something far darker. More like Met Kalfu. I hope that helps.