Cybersamhain

Introduction

All over the world, for at least five thousand years (and probably very much longer), people have celebrated this time of year as the death of the Sun, of the Male Solar God; Apollo, Cerne, Pan, whatever the form – this is the end of the year, the end of the wheel. The God exits the wheel of time and passes into the Shadow Lands, the realm of the spirits, where souls await their rebirth.

In the brief span of pre-millennial time now left us, there is a growing understanding and respect for these archaic festivals, and an unconscious acknowledgement that our spooks, and how we celebrate them, tell us more about our selves than our gods. Unlike the rationalist, who would ignore the dark side of imagination, or the spiritualist, who accepts only the imaginary as real, we could find a middle path; one in which a consciousness of death is the consciousness of the mutability of our lives and selves, one in which we can remember our dead, and let them leave their gentle touch upon our spirits.

But the end of the twentieth century is not merely a recapitulation of the human past; we have planted our flag upon a new continent of collective imagination, which has been named for us; Cyberspace. A place where we can communicate through infinitely mutable forms, in an inconceivable galaxy of sensation, this place awes and terrifies us; whatever we want in Cyberspace, we will find.

Cyberspace is the Shadow Land of human techne; at the end of our striving we will find the perfect, still mirror in which we see only ourselves. This can be either good or ill; when a monkey looks into a mirror, no god looks out. But perhaps we would do well to acknowledge the divine within ourselves within Cyberspace; perhaps this will help us to understand the emanations which compose our reflection.

On 27 October 1994, at Life On The Water in San Francisco, California, we will perform a ritual of CyberSamhain, a ritual which acknowledges and welcomes the God into his realm on the other side, within Cyberspace. He must pass through the Goddess, who is everywhere present and need be welcomed nowhere; before cyberspace took form, she was its firmament.

The great advantage of a ritual within cyberspace is very clear; everyone who wishes can join with us, wherever they may be in the world, and participate in the ritual. We will be using two wonderful channels into cyberspace; Mosaic, which allows you to view hypermedia documents which span the Internet, and Labyrinth, a brand-new Internet visualization tool which creates a three-dimensional “view” of a space on the Internet. Real cyberspace.

Using these tools, we will be casting a magick circle whose center will be everywhere and perimeter nowhere. The ritual will be available through Mosaic and the World Wide Web, as well as a Labyrinth-based view of the magick circle. Further, if anyone reading this feels compelled to participate, they may contribute text, graphics, or other media which will also be added to the site. Also, anyone who wants to contribute a totem (a three-dimensional representation) to be placed within circle during ritual will likewise be able to do that.

If you are interested in participating or attending this event, please send mail ASAP to mpesce@hyperreal.com. We will get back to you with all details.

Thank you.

IO EVOHE, and Blessed Be!