A New Jerusalem in Cyberspace? John L. Crow University of Amsterdam [Slide 1] Initial thanks to Anneke Kline for her assistance. Preliminary comments. [Slide 2] In a conference in 2004, the American occultist, Margret Ingalls, also known as Sorror Nema, stated that on the new moon of every month, she and her magical lodge members from across the world “meet astrally at Moonbase Temple situated in the center of the visible face” of the moon. Here they perform the agreed upon magical working and then send their results to the Horus-Maat Lodge for evaluation and comparison. In 2006 I interviewed Ms. Ingalls by telephone and asked her about this process. She confirmed the astral practice and stated that while in Moonbase Temple she could feel the presence of others, but she was unable to see them. What Soror Nema is doing, astrally traveling to the moon and performing magic, is not new. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, occultists have entered the astral realm for a number of reasons. Emma Hardinge Britten discusses using the astral realm to travel to distant cities and converse with others. Madame Blavatsky and other members of the Theosophical Society tell of ascendant masters who astrally travel from Tibet or that letters and other objects were transferred to them astrally. Two other Theosophists, Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater, used the astral to perform a number of functions. They traveled back in time to see the distant lives of people; they used the astral to see the astral structure of matter calling it occult chemistry. They described the appearance of the aura and how thought and feelings visually manifest in the astral. Members of the Golden Dawn had a variety of practices that involved the astral. Today modern magicians of a number of types, such as chaos magicians, use the astral to peer into other worlds and to cause willed change in this one. [Slide 3] Over the last couple of years, I have been researching the various ways the astral is described and used by nineteenth and twentieth century occultists. In doing so, I have created two broad categories that most of the narratives fit into. The categories are called GeoTemporal Astral travel and Symbolic Astral travel. 2 Geo-temporal Astral travel focuses on the types of astral projection that are relatively rooted to the world we live in. For example, when Leadbeater looked at the past lives of Krishnamurti, this astral projection backwards in time was still based on a conception of this world. Leadbeater simply went to another time in its existence. The assertions of Leadbeater and Besant were based on a view that the astral was a natural part of our world. When Emma Hardinge Britten describes the Berlin Brotherhood’s travels, it was to very real cities that existed but that the astral was used to bypass the limitations of the physical body. These types of astral projection are in contrast to symbolic astral travel. In symbolic astral travel, the individual enters a wholly different world than ours. This symbolic realm is governed by different rules and processes. When members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn traveled through spirit vision or rose on the planes, they entered symbolic worlds that were not based on the universe we are familiar with. When Aleister Crowley and Victor Neuberg scryed the Enochian aethyrs in the desert of North Africa, they entered astral planes that were other worldly and symbolic. These categories are useful when examining the narratives of occultists who travel in the astral, but recently I have been confronted with a question: how useful are these categories when looking at the phenomenon of three-dimensional virtual worlds on the internet? Why should this question arise? because cyberspace has been characterized by many esotericists as a gateway to the astral world. [Slide 4] In June 2003, a new virtual world was introduced on the internet. It was called Second Life. Within a matter of years the service had over ten million subscribers. Computer based virtual worlds are not new. They have existed in some form or fashion for decades. What made Second Life different was that, unlike many virtual worlds where the environment is given fully formed, Second Life was not. Also, unlike Massive Multi-user Online games where there is a goal of some kind, Second Life has no goal. Participating in Second Life is the game. For those unfamiliar with Second Life, it may be worth taking a few minutes to describe the environment. [Slide 5] Second Life is a multi-user virtual world that anyone with a computer and internet connection can access and participate in. The basic service and software is free. Within minutes any person can enter Second Life and begin exploring this virtual realm. When the 3 system was released, it was a framework environment. Everything seen in Second Life was not created by the makers of the software but is fully user created. Everything you see in Second life was created by someone playing the game. [Slide 6] Upon being born, as an adult by the way, you are given the option of being a male or female, creating a pseudonym, and having a basic set of clothes to wear on your avatar or the digital version of yourself. From birth you can walk. You can also talk, via text chatting or speech if you computer supports this, and most fun of all, [Slide 7] you can fly. When people began entering second life they were confronted with the awesome task of populating the world with objects. Not surprisingly, people turned to the world they knew and began building [Slide 8] houses, neighborhoods, stores, and other buildings in ways almost exactly like the real world. [Slide 9] Thus they began creating houses with bedrooms and beds for avatars that don’t sleep, [Slide 10] and they began creating kitchens for avatars that don’t eat. They also created other household objects that similarly have no use in Second Life. [Slide 11—pause a moment]. But second life also lets people do creative things. [Slide 12] For instance you can build a house in the sky. [Slide 13] Or you can have a house with no walls and have it snowing continuously. After all, your avatar does not get cold. Some of the objects and places created were esoteric, at least in appearance. I first heard about the combination of Second Life and the esoteric when, on a mailing list I monitor, it was announced that an OTO body in the United States had created a replica of the Gnostic Mass Temple in Second Life. [Side 14] Unfortunately this site was not maintained in Second Life, financially, and so it has since disappeared. Another site that has come and gone was a three-dimensional replica of the kabalistic tree of life. [Slide 15] One would enter at the bottom and teleport from one sphere to the other and inside each sphere were images symbolically representing the correspondences of each Sephirah. [Slide 16] Second Life also allowed sub-cultures of form irrespective of location on the earth. This led to the formation of a myriad religious group creating spaces in Second Life. Amongst these were a number of esotericists. Neo pagans and occultists embraced Second Life and today there are thousands of them in the system. [Slide 17] My recent research has been with a couple of groups, the first being one of the largest neo pagan communities in Second Life called Covenstead. It has well over one thousand members. [Slide 18] I have 4 also been interviewing a number of occultists, but these individuals are generally less interested in forming large communities and so are harder to locate. [Slide 19] I also have interviewed a number of people participating in vampire role play. There are large vampire communities in Second Life and even specialized software that allows functions of blood drinking and biting others. If Gordon Melton and Massimo Introvigne have not looked at this sub-community on Second Life, they should. [Slide 20] Yet, there was one significant difference that I found about the vampire community versus the neo pagans and occultists in Second Life. The neo-pagans were extending their real life practice and identities into Second Life whereas the vampires were role playing in the game but did not role play being vampire in the actual world, at least the ones I interviewed. I was told there were a few that do role play in both. [Slide 21] Nevertheless, a neo pagan community in Second Life is not necessarily esoteric. Much of the research over the last five or six years about Second Life shows that dozens of communities form in the virtual world and the basis of the community can be religion to hobbies, to music. There are large Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish communities in Second Life, just to name a few religions, and so what is different about them compared to the neo-pagans and occultists? What makes this an esoteric community? [Slide 22] I found it is their view about the virtual world. Most of the people I interviewed saw Second Life as a kind of representation of the astral, and in a couple of cases, some asserted there was no difference between the two. To understand this complex relationship between the astral as it has been traditionally understood and how many were seeing it in regard to Second Life, I interviewed about a dozen neo-pagans and occultists. [Slide 23] The interviews were not structured because I wanted the conversations to flow freely and I did not want to lead the participants overtly. Some of the interviews were one-to-one, so to speak, and some were in groups. The interviews were via text. I openly identified myself by name, institution and project. To my surprise, most of those interviewed were very pleased to participate and had much to contribute. 5 [Slide 24] The first point that became clear is that there is no unified view on the relationship between Second Life and the astral. The range was from the two being completely different to them being completely the same with most participants somewhere in between. One of the most interesting interviews was the first one I conducted. It was with a neo-pagan with an avatar name of Jimmy. He identified himself as a male living in Philadelphia. He said that in real life, as opposed to Second Life, he was a solitary practitioner who used the group in Second Life as his main pagan community. He stated that when he attended and participated in Second Life rituals that he could feel the energy and connection to the others. Moreover, when he participated in ritual, he put his computer onto his altar and had candles, incense and other ritual objects incorporated. In this way the computer itself became a ritual object. [Slide 25] In another interview, this time with an occultist, the connection between the astral and Second Life became linked to such a degree that Second Life was seen as a sort of lower level of the astral. For this person, who claimed to be involved with ceremonial magic for many years and having a number of students, Second Life was a beginning point in training those who had difficulty with the astral. One of the difficulties Second Life presents is that avatars need to be programmed to perform actions whereas while visualizing one can imagine almost anything. To this end this magician was also a programmer and was actively working on scripts and software to be used in Second Life to cause the avatar to perform certain actions including the drawing of pentagrams and hexagrams, and forming of the LVX and NOX signs as given by the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. Interestingly he mentioned that he has also been asked to create actions for the Hare Krishnas who also want to use Second Life and have their avatar perform certain ritual actions. He had already written some scripts used by neo-pagans. [Slide 26] For instance here are a few images of an avatar performing the Wiccan five-fold kiss. [Slide 27] [Slide 28] [Slide 29] Here is another example of scripted positions, [Slide 30] this one for use in ritual when the charge of the goddess is given. [Slide 31] When I interviewed a Wiccan Priestess whose avatar name is Tamara, she told me that she and a friend of hers scripted a Second Life sacred circle to have the stones in the quarters light up when called upon. She also stated they made a script to visibly draw the magical circle made by the avatar during the ritual. [Slide 32] In contrast to Tamara, another Wiccan Priestess whose avatar is named Ainsley and who is also the founder of Covenstead stated that drawing the circle with the avatar was unnecessary and somewhat silly. For her 6 rituals, the participants must do more of their own visualization and projection. Yet, both stressed the necessity of energy projection and connection with the participants. [Slide 33] Energy work was often an important topic in relation to SL and the astral. One interviewee stated that since Second Life is all energy, it is easy to connect to and project into it as well as get energy out of it. [Slide 34] In an interview with a Wiccan Priestess whose avatar was named Rhea taken right after the performance of an online ritual, she stated that when doing the ritual online, she is completely engaged in the ceremony energetically and that after it is over, she is completely tired and in need of rest. By this point, I am sure that many are curious to know what a ritual in Second Life is like. Fortunately, for the time of year, we just celebrated the Summer Solstice and there were many Second Life celebrations commemorating the moment. I attended one virtually and will present a few of the images from the ceremony. However before describing the ceremony I must note that all of the rituals were given in text chat. This is very common and all the interviewees that ran ritual stressed they use text. This is because some of the participants cannot receive sound, but more importantly, they stressed that a number of participants are hearing impaired and Second Life allows them to participate whereas in real life, they would be at a disadvantage. Wanting to be inclusive they use only text. [Slide 35] The Summer Solstice Ritual: This ceremony was perfumed on June 20, 2009. It was scheduled for 10am Second Life time which is also the same as Pacific Time in the United States. This turned out to be 19:00 or 7PM my time. There were about 15 participants and the location was at the virtual stone hedge in Covenstead. [Slide 36] The leader of the ceremony was named Rhea and her avatar was in the form of a fairy. On the altar in the virtual east were virtual jugs of mead, virtual plates of cookies and pans of bread. These were to be offerings. Since the ritual was taking place at ten in the morning Pacific Time, the first instruction was to reset the environment to be mid-night, a function of Second Life. This changes the blue sky to a starry night and changes the colors. [Slide 37] Once we began, Rhea instructed everyone to “Breathe deeply and slowly exhale. Breathe in the energy of the Goddess and exhale all your worldly stress. Feel yourself connect with the earth and her bountiful harvest.” Then Rhea slowly gave the narrative of the shift of the seasons and the tale of the battle between the Oak King and the Holy King. This 7 lasted about three or four minutes. [Slide 38] During this time everyone just stood watching the fire and her and reading the text she sent. Rhea had already typed out the ceremony so she was cutting and pasting line-by-line slowly. [Slide 39] It ended with the statement “With perfect love and perfect trust we invite you to join our circle. So mote it Be.” At which point every participant entered “So mote it be.” [Slide 40] Then Rhea invited everyone to drum the virtual drums, dance around the virtual fire, and to come to the altar to get a portion of the virtual cookies, bread, and mead. Her last statements confirmed the connection between imagination, belief and Second Life. She wrote, “The more you believe in fairies the more comfortable the Fae will feel and perhaps will come and join us. Remember the Fae are particularly fond of Honey Mead, Absinthe and fresh bread.” [Slide 41] This ended the formal part of the ceremony at which about half of the participants left. The remaining ones began dancing, virtually, and playing the drums which were programmed with six different rhythm patterns per drum so people could select different patterns which were played for those who had the computer and physical ability to hear them. It was also at this time I interviewed Rhea, via private messaging, and also another person whose avatar was named Jenney. [Slide 42] I had seen jenny online a number of time and she had participated in group discussions. Jenny was new to Second Life and paganism. From Ottawa, Canada, Jenny identified as a Christian but felt drawn to paganism and was exploring it in books and online. At the time we interacted, she had not located a local group. I asked her about her experience with the ritual and she stated she did not feel much energy from the text, but really connected to the virtual dancing and drumming. The whole ceremony lasted about an hour. [Slide 43] Returning to the two categories I spoke of in the beginning, Second Life, in many ways, could qualify as a symbolic astral world. It certainly is otherworldly and the objects and people who populate the virtual cities only have an indirect connection to the people behind the computer in real life. [Slide 44] From another point of view, Second Life generally tries to emulate the world as we know it, with a number of exceptions such as flying. [Slide 45] As we saw, the store hedge was modeled after similar structures in the real world; the rituals performed are frequently adapted from real world rituals, and similar to Emma Hardinge Britten’s Berlin Brotherhood, the participants can communicate with others from across the world. Of course all this is predicated on accepting that Second Life is a form of the astral and similar to what nineteenth and twentieth century occultists engaged. This is 8 certainly up for debate. However, what isn’t in question is that many of those who use Second Life and are occultists and neo-pagans certainly see a connection between the two and this is significant and cannot be ignored. [Slide 46] Ideas surrounding the astral are complex and varied. My initial taxonomy may or may not be useful when looking at Second Life as an astral world populated by esoteric inhabitants. The title of this presentation mentions a New Jerusalem. This label has come to represent the idealization of a new spiritual community. The internet offers a number of ways that this new spiritual community may manifest and these communities are clearly taking root in Second Life. They are still driven by real life desires, hopes and needs, but they also cause the participants to conceive of self in a new ways and manifest these in a world without borders or physical limits. For many, these benefits offer the opportunity to create a New Jerusalem in Cyberspace. Thank you. 7/1/2009 Soror Nema – Moonbase Temple • Margret Ingalls: Soror Nema • Horus‐Maat Lodge • Rituals on the Moon astrally 1 7/1/2009 Types of Astral Travel • Geo‐Temporal Astral Travel – Based in actual world – Bound within time and location – Examines other parts of this world • Symbolic Astral Travel –B Based d iin symbolic b li world ld – Outside dimensions of space and time – Based on correspondences Welcome to Second Life 2 7/1/2009 User Created Content User Created Content 3 7/1/2009 You Can Fly! 4 7/1/2009 5 7/1/2009 6 7/1/2009 7 7/1/2009 8 7/1/2009 9 7/1/2009 10 7/1/2009 11 7/1/2009 Informal Chatting Jimmy 12 7/1/2009 Thaleenin Five‐fold Kiss 13 7/1/2009 Five‐fold Kiss Five‐fold Kiss 14 7/1/2009 Five‐fold Kiss Charge of the Goddess 15 7/1/2009 Tamara Ainsley (Redheaded avatar) 16 7/1/2009 Rhea 17 7/1/2009 Summer Solstice Ritual Summer Solstice Ritual 18 7/1/2009 Summer Solstice Ritual “Breathe deeply and slowly exhale. Breathe in the energy of the Goddess and exhale all your worldly stress. Feel yourself connect with the earth and her bountiful harvest.” Summer Solstice Ritual 19 7/1/2009 Summer Solstice Ritual “With perfect love and perfect trust we invite you to join our circle. So mote it Be.” “The more you believe in fairies the more comfortable the Fae will feel and perhaps will come and join us. Remember the Fae are particularly fond of Honey Mead, Absinthe and fresh bread.” 20 7/1/2009 Summer Solstice Ritual Jenny (Avatar in White Dress) 21 7/1/2009 Symbolic Realm? A world like ours? 22 7/1/2009 23