Secrecy vs. Openness

Commonly believed to be a repository of secret knowledge. Actually a fancy tomb.

"From the very day when the first mystic was taught... he concluded that to abandon this mysterious science to the desecration of the rabble was to lose it."
-Helena Blavatsky

"Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

-John Kennedy

In the Western occult traditions that I have had some experience with (no longer a part of), and also in many other traditions, there is sort of a "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" mentality. You don't talk about the weirdness, you don't talk about what you do, it belongs in a circumscribed sacred space that is not a part of normal space. This is even to some degree shown in Native American traditions for instance and many others, although the context may be very different. With one exception, I don't agree with this state of mind for several reasons.

First off, I should try to address why that opinion exists and what it's proposed merits are. In this post, I do a lot of picking on Western occult traditions because I think they are part of the overall Western disease and aren't as focused on fixing it as I think they ought to be. Even Wicca, which is overtly a nature religion, has the same worms gnawing on its roots because it arose from a very Western occult tradition, not particularly an animist one. The diseased roots are the same as the civilization as a whole, focused on power, abstraction and individualism.

The first idea is that the opinions or feelings of the "many" somehow desecrate or desanctify what you are doing. This doesn't hold up to much examination: something doesn't cease to be what it is depending on how people feel about it, and there are more than enough bad vibes to go around in this world anyway, mostly going unchallenged.

The second idea, and one that should be taken more seriously, is that potentially dangerous and destabilizing powers are encountered that need to be kept in a circumscribed ritual space. In fact, in Western occultism I read that failing to "keep the circle closed" would cause you to lose sleep, have a mind continually on overdrive and this would lead to exhaustion and other bad consequences. Well in fact exactly that happened to me, except the exhaustion and bad consequences part. When I set up my version of a "kamidana" in the only space I had available, above my bed, I did lose sleep. I still lose it. My mind was on continual overdrive. This was in fact unsettling at first. 

And you know what? I'm feeling great. :) I still often don't get more than 5 hours sleep a night. My head is still in fifth gear most of the time. I've adapted to it.

I feel that in part the desire to keep the circle of secrecy closed is a desire to have power without accountability: to be weird in secret but still have your workaday life. Stand in the forest nekkid with witches at midnight, close an advertising deal with the lumber company that is cutting down the forest during the daytime.

There is also elitism (or reverse elitism) involved. To use an example in popular media, in Harry Potter there are the magic people and the "muggles," and never the twain shall meet. There is this feeling of "I'm not going to bother explaining anything to you, don't worry your pretty little mundane head about it, you wouldn't understand." Partly this may be because "sensitive" people appear to be kind of rare, but also perhaps more to the point there is a sort of reverse exclusion which arises when you feel that your points of view are discriminated against or not taken seriously. Because you feel excluded, you exclude. Needless to say, I don't agree with this. We should be above this kind of nonsense.

Another reason is totally practical, and this one is the only one I agree with. It's just inconvenient and counterproductive to do what you are doing totally in the open at the time you are doing it, because you have to stop what you are actually doing and deal with all the people who are looking at you like you have lost your mind. ;) For instance, when I hung the shide on the cedar tree, I did it at night. Why? I simply didn't want to risk having to stop this act of respect and explain a totally alien worldview to someone who was unlikely to be sympathetic. So secrecy while you are doing something, that I do totally agree with, for totally practical reasons. Afterwards, I'll tell you pretty much anything.

Having explained why the secrecy mystique exists in a wide variety of traditions, why don't I ascribe to it (aside from the example above)?

First off, if you are openly a little weird, the circle of sacred space is self-closing to a large extent. The problem that Western occultists have is that they want to be considered normal respectable citizens in their daily lives. There are a number of examples from the Golden Dawn of leaders in the group that also had very high and public positions of power, and that wound up being a big problem for them sooner or later. I don't have that problem, I am overtly weird. :)

What happens when you are overtly weird is, most people disregard you and only people who are themselves open to and curious about such things will take you seriously. Meanwhile, you are making yourself available to the largest possible number of potentially receptive people. So we don't have to close the sacred circle, it closes itself if you are open about everything. It hides in plain sight. If this is what you want to see, I am the literate equivalent of the street person mumbling to himself on the sidewalk. You can pigeonhole me neatly and go on with your busy day. Nothing to see here, move along. These aren't the droids you are looking for. ;)

For another thing, we as a species don't have time for this shit. 

Many Western occultists seem to act as if the things they do are just a superfluous addition to life with no connection to much of anything else. Like rich people having an eccentric hobby, or in other words, something that fits in with the rest of the Western worldview. I don't have a strictly Western worldview and I do think that what I do has some relevance to the larger world. Viewing Nature as sacred again is not about your personal growth or how you feel about yourself or some sort of airy mysticism, it is about life and survival. It's about as esoteric as a tumor. Until we start viewing our relationship with the natural world as a two-way relationship with non-human beings and ecological communities worth respecting, we are at risk as a species. While not everyone is going to experience these things the way I do, the more widespread transformation of consciousness to one that views all life and the world with respect is not that far-fetched. It's a very difficult project, but not at all an inherently impossible one.  

This is why I want to be completely open with what I do, because it isn't just a lifestyle accessory. It's your life, it's my life, it's the life of that bird in the front yard and the bees that pollinate our crops. In a sense, it is the most practical of things: life itself. It is only our twisted worldview that makes it seem bizarre. Yes, I will hide what I do at the time that I do it, but afterwards I am not hiding anything.

Fundamentally as I said before, my most important message is respect. Respect the natural world, respect the other beings that share this world with you, respect the food you eat and the water you drink. I would not be respecting you either, if I were to withhold these crucially important things from you. You are one of these living things too, however alienated your worldview might have become. I have no secret messages, no secret wisdom. They are only secret if you will not look at them.

Sacred space IS normal space, normal space properly seen.