But I’ve been visiting some power spots in between other responsibilities while I’m here, and Wayland’s Smithy had some big juju kicking.

Ayizan has been demanding a lot from me since I began working with her intensely last summer, but for everything she demands I am repaid many times, and I know that it’s for my own good and spiritual growth, even when I don’t always understand exactly why at the moment.  For instance, when I got in touch with Loko in 1995, I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground and had been largely approaching the lwa through ceremonial/qabalistic structures for years prior.  Loko kicked my ass quick and turned my life upside down; it was what I needed and the way I needed it at the time.  It took me until 2008 to “balance the building” and work with Ayizan, and the results were similar in that she turned a lot of what I thought I knew on its head; I’m still sorting it all out. One thing I never really thought of until *after* she came up as the “loa in question” last summer is her relationship to Loko.  I really grok it now.

What I didn’t note as quickly, what I knew but didn’t “grok,” was their relationship to the peristyle.

And until last month I didn’t grok her relatiionship in particular to the lave tete.

Ha ha.  Ok, I get it!
Both of these have become very important in ways I won’t go into here and now, but things are changing, for sure.  It has something to do with points chauds and geography, something to do with genius loci, and something to do with family.  In the midst of lots of other changes and more growth in our local community as well as around the world In Free Communion, the Gnostic and Gnostic Vodoun currents merging here in my little neck of the woods mean that, for me at least, the Work is very much about building and maintaining that community, and about making the space to house it.

Rele Ayizan ye
O lese koule
Kimedevi-ya Sobo
Rele Ayizan-O

Ghuede’s altar at a private event after the lave tete service

Erzulie Dantor’s altar in progress early in the day

+ Naamah ties + Dositheos’ head after a lave tete

“In this episode, we are joined by our friend Tau Allen Greenfield and two more Gnostic Bishops, Tau Dositheos and Tau Naamah. Our initial focus is the history of the Antient et Primitif Rite of Memphis-Mizraim. We talk about the origins of this branch of esoteric Freemasonry and how it has transmuted into a variety of modern strains, this particular one being ecclesiastical and magical. This is illustrated by the close associations of lodges and Gnostic churches and the necessity for consecration in the Gnostic and Apostolic Succession for those involved in Points Chauds Workings.”

“Our discussion then delves into the subject of Points Chauds.”

“Lastly, we talk about Congregational Illuminism.”

+ Naamah administers points chauds

Points chauds being administered at Ormus Lodge event.

The points chauds do NOT map one for one onto acupoints, and the
little red dots you see are NOT “the one true place the point will
always be.”  Let’s take an example by way of illustration.

Let’s take a simple one first to get us used to thinking about how
stuff gets measured in acupoints work.  Let’s take point 4.  Our chart
says Upper Forehead, and our acupoint column says Du 24 at the top of the head on the midline, .5 posterior to the hairline.

This one is pretty damned close to a matchup in an overlay.  If you
are new to acupuncture stuff, .5 posterior in this case means half a
cun below the hairline.  A cun is a unit of measurement that is
derived from the body of the patient herself.  A cun on YOUR body is
considered to be about the width of the bit of your thumb that you
would wear a ring on, or about the distance between the second and
third wrinkle on the inside of your middle finger.  My cun is not your
cun and there is no ruler for this, hence (part of) the importance of
“seeing” or “feeling” the points. Acupoints on the human body are
measured by other landmarks on the human body (I’m oversimplifying measurement in acupuncture work a bit, but this is an attempt at a start – if I have stepped in it anywhere please correct me).

But all in all, the little red dot on the chart gives us a darned good
idea of where to start looking for point chaud number 4.

Now let’s take what we have labeled as point 35, which I am picking
because I have twice experienced it as a very important point in the
body of the recipient, a point that seemed to “connect” or “finish” a
circuit and thus something I took note of.  Our chart tells us point
35 is the second of 2 points on the left thigh.  Our little red dot
suggests we look on the inside of the thigh, some distance below where our leg meets our torso, and probably closer to our genitals than to the front center of our thighs.  Our acupunctcure column groups points chauds 35, 36, and 37 together (but not 34! I’ve been meaning to ask Zeitz about this), and gives us the following correspondences:

Bladder 31
Gall Bladder 32
Bladder 37
Stomach 32
Stomach 33
Stomach 34

Six acupressure points on three different meridians.  In other words,
these are very different things for an acupuncturist doing work on
you.  They are on three different lines of chi in teh body and they
work on three different systems in the body.  Needless to say, none of
them are on teh spot that the red dot is in in the picture.  The
important thing is that these acupoints seem to *correspond to* the
points chauds in the working papers – and in some cases it might be
useful to think of these correspondences as similar to the
correspondences between tarot cards and perfumes in 777.  That they have to do with each other does not mean they are interchangeable.

Now, if you look at an acupuncturist’s model, you will not find ANY of
the above named points in the same spot the dot is in.  In fact, some
of them are nowhere near the dot, nor are they actually very close to
the inner left thigh.  Stomach 34, for instance, is very close to the
knee – is in fact located by measuring 2 cuns from the edge of the
patella.

And then, of course, there are the points chauds that don’t correspond to an acupressure point at all – like at least four of the genital points.

And to top it all of, points move.  Not only are they not in the same
place exactly on every single person, they are also not in precisely
the same spot on every person every time.  Sometimes they even wiggle a little while you’re trying to get at them.

Now PLEASE understand I am not dissing anybody’s work, far far from it.  The chart we have to work with is a great aid and a great
starting point and has in fact led us to some discoveries that we
might not have come upon yet if it weren’t for these guidelines.  But
it’s not dogma, and I encourage everyone to take good notes when they receive points, sketch where the points were given ON YOUR OWN SKETCH rather than just circling the points on the pre-made chart, and see how stuff lines up for you.  Every human vehicle is going to be slightly different, and in fact the “sets” or “connections” – ie, what poitns complete a set or plug something in – may even differ from person to person, depending on a number of factors.

So I hereby encourage everybody to make notes about the points they receive in relation to other places on their bodies instead of just
circling dots – if we’re ever going to really grok this system, we’re
going to have to get away from that chart to a certain extent – or at
least be willing to.

And now that I think about it, we really ought to get ourselves an
experienced seer and adminstrator of points and a willing model, and
actually DRAW points on a human being some time for people to see
(those who can’t see the points).  If we were to begin somehow getting
a better record of where points are on individual people, where they
are almost always the same and where they are almost always different etc, I think it would be a great benefit to our knowledge base as we continue to work with and theorize this material.

Cheers,

+ Naamah

The points chauds Work is vast, intricate, ongoing.  As it’s emerging, organically I would say, various people and various “organizations” (I use the term loosely) get involved and take an angle and run with it.

Some are researching apostolic succession, as our work is so closely related to the history adn tradition and power of these consecratory lineages.

Some are working with modern neo-shamanic currents involving ecstatic dance and kinetic trancework.

Some are exploring the current from a background or interest in yoga, some taichi and qi gong, some the meridian system, some the marma system, some the chakra system, some the star system of our very own universe (and possibly others). There is so much to be done that a lifetime sometimes seems too short.

Personally, my main interests lie in mapping and grokking the energy matrices of the human body and their relation to power points on the planet; working with Haitian vodoun, New Orleans voodoo, and Gnostic Vodoun angles of the current; and exploring the practical effects of the empowerd and duly consecrated human being on his or her universe.

Eventually (note to self) I wonder if it might be useful to throw up a sort of informal listing *by main research interest or focus* of the various people and groups in free communion, so as to better direct interested parties to the synod in which they will feel most at home?