"I salute the Deathless gods, I make my way, secure in the simple path I follow: AMMA, AMMA, PAR AEON ORION."

("Arise, Arise, the forthcoming of the Aeon of Orion.";
"Bind it, Bind it by the Aeon of Orion." ^__ Doric Greek, 12th Century B.C.)  —A Prayer received in Twilight, 2.7.82.

The Moon is necessary for life on Earth, but what kind of consciousness might percolate through to us from the vast coldness of eternal night between the stars? For the spidery webs of starlight we see splashed across the night are nothing more than luminous flecks of foam upon dark waves of a mysterious outer ocean upon which we and the galaxies ride, for most of the universe is invisible to our eyes, made of dark matter, shadow matter. Similarly, human personality and dayside awareness are but luminous flecks upon the vast ocean of primordial consciousness which is dark, shadowed, hidden, yet which contains all possibility within itself and has the power to birth all possible worlds.

Star Magick reaches outward beyond the aura of the Moon and all She feeds, seeking extraterrestrial points of contact for human consciousness and Will. Lulled into forgetfulness of our birthright as beings seeded from the stars, compelled by animal desire, sensation and emotion, joy and need, and ruled by tides of hormones, tides of pheromones, body tides of the fecund Moon, we are sleepwalkers immersed in the waking dream our planetary lifewave daily weaves. Yet whether we are consciously aware of them or not, new and subtle currents, corroding stellar rays of alien systems continue to bombard and penetrate the tellurian web, pulsing frequencies rare and strange, coloring our perceptions with unearthly hues, luring unformed minds into as yet undreamed dimensions.

The thread of human history is shot through with tales of contact with transmundane entities and worlds, angels, demons, goddesses and gods, discarnate intelligences, E.T.'s, U.F.O's, and fairy folk of heavenly, i.e. extraterrestrial, origin. Numerous accounts exist: The Bible, The Necronomicon, A True & Faithful Relation by Dee & Kelly, The Sacred Magick of Abra-Melin the Mage, Liber AL. Similarly, the Cthulhu Mythos, sprung from disturbing dreams, powerfully evokes the presence of such vast alien Intelligences who at a time before humanity was birthed held sway upon our earth, whose origins remain obscure, whose destinies we can little comprehend, yet who eternally attempt to penetrate our Lifewave. Who even now are curving toward our space-time, listening, watching.

Those whose consciousness is bound into the tellurian life web, who are not attuned to stellar currents may experience as "evil" such energy or influence from Outside our little world. Yet there is urgency, power, and evolutionary possibility in now opening our auras to these primal currents of consciousness, subtle tendrils of awareness, and strange geometries of mind that flow from the distant alien stars. There is possibility and power in seeking contact with those transmundane Intelligences that mutely dwell in the vastness of dark space between the stars. For timetables of extraterrestrial contact have rapidly compressed as human population has exploded. Human consciousness has multiplied, accelerating at a rate which will soon turn on the planetary exo-system and activate the consciousness of sleeping, dreaming Gaia, as we draw daily closer to the Comity of Stars.

Roots of Star Magick lie in West Africa. The Sirius Mystery speaks of the Dogon tribe of Mali with its complex mythology of pre-eval contact with extraterrestrial beings from the binary star-system, Sirius. Sirius, which figures importantly in Aleister Crowley's own traffic with transmundane intelligences: Amalantarah, Aiwass, Abul-Diz, LAM; Sirius, the Dog-Star, Star of the Dark God Set, which also figures importantly in the magickal writings of Kenneth Grant.

In Hecate's Fountain, Kenneth Grant speaks of the planet Emme Ya in the Sirius star-system as the origin of the Loa—Voudoo goddesses and gods, the Orisha in Yoruba tradition—who are "presently concerned with infiltrating the aura of earth". The Dogon know Emme Ya—Star of Women—as the planet of the primal goddess, the Orisha Yemoja. Mother of all African goddesses and gods, Her name—Mother of Fish—recalls ancient tales of the amphibious Nommos, powerful beings of god-like stature who brought civilization to earth from the star system of Sirius, and whom the Babylonians knew as the Musari.

Voudoo is a religion of possession. It's practitioners open the gates to Stellar Contacts, and invite their goddesses and gods to mount and possess them, to come down upon their heads and ride. Thus they commune intimately with their gods, the Loa, contacting directly in the numinous present the ancient stream of consciousness that first penetrated this planet from Outside. In traditional practice of Voudoo, the use of vevers—magickal designs and linear patterns used to identify, honor, and call upon the gods—springs from ancient memory patterns implanted in cells and blood and bones, of sigils in use long ago for establishing earth-contact with sentient stellar streaming.

For long ages have the Loa stood as the Inner Contacts which connect human consciousness with the Stellar Current—with the Current of LAM the terrestrial link for practitioners of Western Magick. Time out of mind the Loa first rayed to earth, infiltrating our planet as star-seed from Outside, seeking immortality. Thus the Loa, entering human space-time at the Point of Crossing, Tiphareth, seeded life on Terra with consciousness of Self by which each sentient being experiences itself as distinct, and as divine: for eternal life lies within the consciousness of cells.

Via the rite of Opening the Northern Gate (c.f. Waters of Return: The Aeonic Flow Of Voudoo, Louis Martinie, Black Moon, 1986) for the Loa to enter the akashic pathways to the group soul of magickal practitioners in the States, the current of Yemoja-Emme Ya was transmitted to this writer and others of her group through powerful dreams and in 1988 was earthed into a painting. "The Northern Gate" is 110, 11 x 10 by English Qabalah (E.Q)—c.f. LIBER CXV: The English Qabalah, L. Falorio, Headless Press, 1994), the number of "Amma Amma par Aeon Orion", and number of "A Wordless Aeon"—the Aeon of Zain. Eleven times ten is also the number of "The Backward Paths" upon which the Loa tread, and the number of "Hecate-Moon in Yesod", through which the Loa may be called forth into our dimension.

Yet the Loa stand in relation to beings more vast and more mysterious: the Outer Contacts, "the pre-eval Nephilim," "Gods of the Shadow" (both 11 x 10—E.Q.), who pre-figure the ancient Loa. These, the Old Ones, Ancient of Days, eternally time-traveling from star-system to star-system via transmission and mutation of information anciently encoded in sentient strands of DNA, first pushed forward life on Terra toward forms more like themselves. And in their progress from star to distant star, these alien forms of consciousness, vast, and of a symmetry beyond our comprehension, left behind a foam formed upon receding waves—seeds of awareness, seeds of consciousness, antennae—earth-bound sensitivities receptive and resonant still to their distant whisperings of dreaming sleep among the stars.

In Twilight dimensions of awareness accessed in trance and magickal sleep, we may open a deep and long-forgotten gateway via Daδth to call upon the Outer Contacts. Channeling through the magician's lens of awakened consciousness and Will, we invite these vast transcendent beings to once more intersect our world. Through such a series of magickal workings by the Pittsburgh Group, directed toward contact with LAM and the Maatian Current, was produced an astral vision of "the Black Planet where there are 2 Suns" (253;11 x 23—E.Q.) Emme Ya, planet of the Sirius binary star-system, would be just such a planet with two suns. Through the same series of workings an ancient sigil was received—a form of the Voudoo vever of the Marassa, the Twins of the Aeon of Zain,its ritual use perhaps dating from Atlantis—which automatically activated a long disused Stellar Gateway deep in the Shenandoah mountains, and through which the primal Goddess of Space emerged, awakened into our dimension.

NODENS, God of the Deep and the Abyss, and all the Elder Gods first came to Earth from Betelgeuse, in Orion. In Voudoo-Orisha practice, Orion is known as "Oxossi, the Blind Hunter in Starlight" (23 x 11—E.Q.). In Afro-Cuban Palomyumbe tradition, Oxossi is the Witch Doctor, the Sorcerer of the kingdom, the Master of Powders who flies through the air. Dispenser of Justice, Oxossi is the Divine Hunter who lives in the woods with Osain, Orisha of the Dead, who is also known as Olade, Ruler of Space. There are secret clans in Nigeria and Brazil that follow only Oxossi—in Nigeria, they dress in Leopard skins; in Brazil Oxossi is the Jaguar, and his cult is one of the most respected, i.e.feared.

Oxossi, "The Jaguar, God of Night", "Hunter in Moonlight", "Master of Powders", "The Sun behind the Sun", is "The Lord Initiating": Uriens-Orion.  Orion the Archer, "The Sagittarian Influence Manifesting" (23 x 11—E.Q.), is the herald of Sirius-LAM; and the Dog-Star is none other than the Dog of Orion-Oxossi, the Hunter. The great nebula Ensis, the "sword sheath" in the constellation of Orion/Set which has the power to magickally "blind", is the phallus of the god Set. "Carajo!", a Spanish expletive—Ass's Phallus—is used to call upon the long-eared Set to show mercy, to avert his Evil Eye. Orion, having been blinded: "He came to see by gazing at the Black Sun, by going into Darkness" (418—E.Q.).

Crossing the Abyss from Tiphareth to Kether via Daδth at the dark time of the Moon when the Stellar Current most potently penetrates our conscious field, Orion-Oxossi treads the 13th path of the Priestess, Gimel, Neptune, Moon, path of "Khonsu, the Strider of the Stars", the Traveler of the Night Sky. Oxossi also links with the Voudoo Ghuedhe, Loas of death & sex, who are called by Petro rites—rites of the Shadow, of atavistic resurgence, of the widdershins world and left hand path, whose drum beats follow "in-betweenness" patterns, and whose vevers draw their power from the unseen spaces between the lines of force which unite the eight directions.

It is Legba, God of the Crossroads—Carfax, the Point of Intersection—who is called upon to open the gate for the Loa to enter human space-time at the Point of Crossing, Tiphareth. And as Legba/ Ellegua/ Baron Samedhi opens the Gate via Tiphareth for the Orisha to enter human space-time, so we may call upon Oxossi, as intermediary between Inner and Outer stellar contacts—as intermediary between what we know ourselves to be and adumbrations of far-future selves, time-travelers forward from a non-existent present to the distant stars—to open the Gate to Outside via Daδth that the Old Ones may pass from their universe into ours, and enter our consciousness dimension.

The Eight Stellar Gateways:

The eight directions of space are Stellar Gateways into dimensions of the Void where the kalas of the stars ray through. They are channeled by the magician in communion with the Angel at the point of Tiphareth, through the crystallizing lens of the single Star that informed the moment of the magician's birthing into flesh, and which signifies the Will.

In the East, the Great Old Ones rise from their twisting caverns deep within the earth to the call of those who channel the Ophidian current. They come readily, with hissing of serpents, and croaking of frogs, when Orion, SAH, the Eye-Star, Horus of the Resurrection rises with the rising Sun at Spring Equinox—Ostara—in the House of Ra, and the risen star-body of Osiris resurrects in the womb of Nuit, Lady of the Stars.

In the South-East, the blue and golden Goddess Sirius, Stone Serpent, Serpent's Tooth rains the honey of her kalas upon the little earth as the star Sirius, sparkling, scorching, Heavenly Wolf, the brightest visible star, regarded by the ancients as another, greater, Sun rises at Sunset on the feast of Imbolc, heralded by the dread voice of Hastur, Howler in the Waste.

In the South await the Thunder Dragons—Druk Pa—of the Draconian current, and the winged Fire-Snake, who swoops into consciousness with thunder and lightning when Algol, Ra's Al Ghul, the Demon's Head, Caput Medusa, the Head of the Gorgon, Piled up Corpses—"the most evil star in the heavens"—rises with the Sun at Winter Solstice.

From the South-West swirl stellar vortices, black holes that shed corroding stellar rays and kalas of alien sentience, sucking all into themselves, spewing dark matter into being, as worlds die and universes come to birth, and the Pleiades rise in the East at Sunset on Samhain, the feast of Great Cthulhu, who lies dead yet dreaming in the deeps of space.

In the West, the watery abyss, lies the lair of the Deep Ones, cephalopodous dragons who manifest with gurgling sounds when Orion, the herald and husband of Sirius-Sothis-Isis rises with the setting of the Sun in the House of Tum at Mabon, Fall Equinox.

The North-West blazes with meteor star-fire of a million dying suns as Sirius rises with the rising Sun at Lammas, Feast of Set, the beginning of the Egyptian year, the beginning of the Dog Days, scorched by the dog-star, Sirius, rising with the Sun.

In the North, Realm of Space, hive the Maatians, whose presence is signaled by humming of bees, the chirping of bats, and dry clicking of nocturnal insects, the desolate cries of night birds, and the sound of vulture's wings that flap against the night, when Algol-Lilith rises with the setting Sun in the House of Kephra at Summer Solstice, Feast of Yog-Sothoth.

In the North-East shine the Pleiades, with Alcyone, the brightest star__Al Wasat, the Central One, Temennu, the Foundation Stone, Amba, the Mother__revered in ancient times as the central Sun around which the Universe revolved. Here resides Tsaggothua who flies by night, toads, frogs, leapers behind the Tree and Voltigeurs, as the Pleiades rise with the rising Sun on Beltane feast of Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat with a Thousand Young.

The Rite of Opening the Gates:

Assume the Spider Mask, at the center of the Web of Stars as they weave from Equinox to Solstice and cut cat's cradle across the quarters of the year:

Make sacrifice to Oxossi, outdoors, at the crossroads of the Stellar Gateways, at the rising of the Black Sun, the Sun behind the Sun, Khonsu, the Moon at Midnight. Call upon Oxossi with his colors, deep space blue & star-light yellow. His emblems are the crossbow, bow & arrows, pigeons and doves, his numbers 3 & 7. Offer Oxossi anisette & grenadine (50-50), as well as absinthe—The Kala of Wormwood—invoke The Wormwood Star!

In Twilight trance of magickal sleep, on the threshold to the Mauve Zone, call upon Oxossi to open the secret door of Daδth at the intersection of the 8 directions of Space, the 8 Stellar Gateways, opening dimensions into the Void through which the Old Ones—those transmundane Intelligences that dwell in the cold vastness of dark space that lies between the stars—may enter our dimension and communicate their sentience to us. Via the Angel and the beacon of its single Star, channel their transforming stellar kalas, distilled essence of the silence of dark matter, Shadow Matter, the Dark Wine of the Moon, and the secret whisperings of primordial consciousness rayed to us from the mysterious wellspring of the outward racing Stars.