Jim Kirkwood, aka Lucifaere, The Ancient Technology Cult, Beyond the Fields We Know, has been writing Electronic Music since the late 1980’s when he stepped back from fronting a black metal band to explore a solo career in instrumental music. He has his own unique style of Gothic EM which moves easily between huge symphonic slabs of music, dark ambiance and sequencer driven soundscapes, inspired by the fringe side of life - strange esoteric cults and religion, conspiracy theories, ancient mythology and civilisations, sci-fi and fantasy . Jim was one of the founding editors of ASH Magazine, and he contributed several thought provoking articles to the magazine. He was artist in residence between 1988 and 1991 and he produced 24 drawings for the publication in total. The article submitted here was first published in issue no. 1, Autumn 1988, which went on sale almost exactly twenty years ago today - happy birthday to us! To sample Jim's comprehensive music catalogue click here, or view his brand new website here.The Sacred Flame
by Jim Kirkwood
Kyrie Eleison.
The air is heavy with incense and the sound of a strange chant. I glance across the small chapel to a statue of Mary the mother of God. I like Mary, which I'm told is unusual for one of a protestant background. It seems only a short step from Mother of God to Mother God, yet the Christian faith is still content with the masculine half of the Tao and gets nervous when the subject of God and sexual equality is brought up.
For the third time in my life I am attending a Roman Catholic church. It is exactly twenty one years since the first, confused encounter. A priest dressed in white walks around the perimeter of the church and back to the altar. The white robe reminds me of something, a Druid I think. I wonder why they walk round the church carrying a burning censer and a crucifix on a pole. Then I realise he has just formed a circle around the people. A different kind of magic.
This time I am singing along with the rest, I now know what the strange chant means. Children are playing in the aisles and the music is accompanied by two ladies playing guitar and keyboards making an ethereal sound that echoes round the chapel. The priest, a Dominican brother, talks about love and reads from the Gospel of John, the gospel most favoured by the Celtic church and the Christian mystics down through the centuries. It is the gospel of fire, so called because of the strong image used in the opening chapter of an eternal flame burning in a sea of darkness. Tolkein used exactly the same image in his book, the Silmarillion, when writing the creation myths of Middle-Earth.
The idea is of course borrowed from the religion of the Magi and it is interesting that the three wise men who followed a star to the birthplace of Christ, were themselves Magi and astrologers from Persia. The worship of fire forms an essential part of the religion of the Persians, called Zoroastrians after their founder Zoroaster who lived, according to Parsee tradition, between 660 and 583 BC. The element of fire though, was sacred to the Persians long before Zoroaster. The worship of Mithras, a sun god, can be traced back to 1500 BC and there are many aspects of this god which have been attributed to Christ, especially concerning his birth. A hymn, sung to Mithras also reveals importance of the sacrifice of blood. "Thou hast saved us also by pouring out the blood eternal". It is It is an interesting fact that Christ claimed to baptise with fire and his death coincided with a solar eclipse.
Apart from the Findhorn community, what do Christians and pagans have in common? To have asked this question a few centuries ago, the answer would have been the stake. Heretics made just as good burning as witches. But it is 1988 and the law, for the moment, is on our side.
The answer is simple, yet it would seem difficult for most to accept. We walk the same earth and breathe the same air. The fire of the sun gives us light and warmth to good and bad alike and the same water sustains all life. If we can agree that there is only one power in and around, creating and maintaining all the elements of life forms dependent upon these elements, then we have found the supreme harmony between our apparently different religions.
Whatever name we chose to give this one power, whether we see it as a trinity or a duality, this one power has poured out His/Her blessing through the elements on all, regardless of their religion or beliefs. This article is the first in a series on the elements, and in particular, the elements as seen from the Christian point of view.
In the closing chapters of the excellent book by Marion Bradley, The Mists of Avalon, Morgaine of the fairies enters the Christian chapel of Mary at Glastonbury where she discovers a statue of St Brigid and recognises the goddess of that name. At last she sees, after a lifetimes struggle with a bigoted Christian church, th
at the powers that be were not limited to working in the way that she thought they should. The goddess had been reborn in Mary and Brigid and her worship continued.
St Brigid, the abbess of Kildare was born on the 1st of February 450 AD at Fockhart near Dundalk. Her life and that of the Celtic triple goddess Brigid have become so interwoven over the centuries as to be almost inseparable. One particularly close link is that of the element of fire. A perpetually burning fire among the Druid oak groves in the central plain of Ireland was part of the ritual worship of the goddess. When the abbey of Kildare was built on that site the flames did not die but were kept alive by St Brigid and her nuns.
As hinted at in the above mentioned book, the early Celtic church did indeed share much in common with the pagans and the fire of Brigid could be seen right up until the reformation. Today only the ruins remain, but who knows, the wheel turns. The oaks may grow again and the fire rekindled on the plain of Ireland.
The writings of St Francis, himself heavily influenced by the early Celtic church, left us a rich legacy of their beliefs and practices. Brother sun and sister moon are familiar to all of us. His faith was simple, and like the druids he worshipped his God mostly in the great outdoors. The elements, far from being static, to him were living beings with whom he shared his life. This was not a romantic ideal that he lived. At the end of his life, his eyes had to be cauterised with a white hot iron. These words are his reaction to being told what the treatment would be.
The air is heavy with incense and the sound of a strange chant. I glance across the small chapel to a statue of Mary the mother of God. I like Mary, which I'm told is unusual for one of a protestant background. It seems only a short step from Mother of God to Mother God, yet the Christian faith is still content with the masculine half of the Tao and gets nervous when the subject of God and sexual equality is brought up.
For the third time in my life I am attending a Roman Catholic church. It is exactly twenty one years since the first, confused encounter. A priest dressed in white walks around the perimeter of the church and back to the altar. The white robe reminds me of something, a Druid I think. I wonder why they walk round the church carrying a burning censer and a crucifix on a pole. Then I realise he has just formed a circle around the people. A different kind of magic.
This time I am singing along with the rest, I now know what the strange chant means. Children are playing in the aisles and the music is accompanied by two ladies playing guitar and keyboards making an ethereal sound that echoes round the chapel. The priest, a Dominican brother, talks about love and reads from the Gospel of John, the gospel most favoured by the Celtic church and the Christian mystics down through the centuries. It is the gospel of fire, so called because of the strong image used in the opening chapter of an eternal flame burning in a sea of darkness. Tolkein used exactly the same image in his book, the Silmarillion, when writing the creation myths of Middle-Earth.
The idea is of course borrowed from the religion of the Magi and it is interesting that the three wise men who followed a star to the birthplace of Christ, were themselves Magi and astrologers from Persia. The worship of fire forms an essential part of the religion of the Persians, called Zoroastrians after their founder Zoroaster who lived, according to Parsee tradition, between 660 and 583 BC. The element of fire though, was sacred to the Persians long before Zoroaster. The worship of Mithras, a sun god, can be traced back to 1500 BC and there are many aspects of this god which have been attributed to Christ, especially concerning his birth. A hymn, sung to Mithras also reveals importance of the sacrifice of blood. "Thou hast saved us also by pouring out the blood eternal". It is It is an interesting fact that Christ claimed to baptise with fire and his death coincided with a solar eclipse.
Apart from the Findhorn community, what do Christians and pagans have in common? To have asked this question a few centuries ago, the answer would have been the stake. Heretics made just as good burning as witches. But it is 1988 and the law, for the moment, is on our side.
The answer is simple, yet it would seem difficult for most to accept. We walk the same earth and breathe the same air. The fire of the sun gives us light and warmth to good and bad alike and the same water sustains all life. If we can agree that there is only one power in and around, creating and maintaining all the elements of life forms dependent upon these elements, then we have found the supreme harmony between our apparently different religions.
Whatever name we chose to give this one power, whether we see it as a trinity or a duality, this one power has poured out His/Her blessing through the elements on all, regardless of their religion or beliefs. This article is the first in a series on the elements, and in particular, the elements as seen from the Christian point of view.
In the closing chapters of the excellent book by Marion Bradley, The Mists of Avalon, Morgaine of the fairies enters the Christian chapel of Mary at Glastonbury where she discovers a statue of St Brigid and recognises the goddess of that name. At last she sees, after a lifetimes struggle with a bigoted Christian church, th
at the powers that be were not limited to working in the way that she thought they should. The goddess had been reborn in Mary and Brigid and her worship continued.St Brigid, the abbess of Kildare was born on the 1st of February 450 AD at Fockhart near Dundalk. Her life and that of the Celtic triple goddess Brigid have become so interwoven over the centuries as to be almost inseparable. One particularly close link is that of the element of fire. A perpetually burning fire among the Druid oak groves in the central plain of Ireland was part of the ritual worship of the goddess. When the abbey of Kildare was built on that site the flames did not die but were kept alive by St Brigid and her nuns.
As hinted at in the above mentioned book, the early Celtic church did indeed share much in common with the pagans and the fire of Brigid could be seen right up until the reformation. Today only the ruins remain, but who knows, the wheel turns. The oaks may grow again and the fire rekindled on the plain of Ireland.
The writings of St Francis, himself heavily influenced by the early Celtic church, left us a rich legacy of their beliefs and practices. Brother sun and sister moon are familiar to all of us. His faith was simple, and like the druids he worshipped his God mostly in the great outdoors. The elements, far from being static, to him were living beings with whom he shared his life. This was not a romantic ideal that he lived. At the end of his life, his eyes had to be cauterised with a white hot iron. These words are his reaction to being told what the treatment would be.
"My brother fire, outdoing all things in splendour the Most High
created you mighty, fair and useful. Be kind to me this hour,
be courteous, for I have long loved you in the lord."
Such a belief in the elements as living beings figured very strongly in the religion of the Hebrews.created you mighty, fair and useful. Be kind to me this hour,
be courteous, for I have long loved you in the lord."
"Who makest the winds thy messengers,
fire and flames thy ministers."
"Who maketh his angels spirits;
his ministers a flaming fire."
fire and flames thy ministers."
"Who maketh his angels spirits;
his ministers a flaming fire."
Psalms 104 v4
Above are the same quotations. The first, a modern translation from the RSV bible. The second from the older King James version. The difference between the two give us some understanding as to why the modern Christian fails to see anything spiritual within the elements. One quotation implies that God merely uses creation for a purpose. The other reveals that the elements are living, thinking, moving beings.
In the Hebrew/Christian tradition the archangel Michael was the master of the element of fire as well as being the guardian angel of the nation of Israel. The other three archangels, Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel being air, water and earth respectively. Such designations of angels to the elements and cardinal points was an essential part of the belief system of the ancient Hebrews, long before the kabbalah came on the scene. It was during the bronze age, 1200 BC, that the Hebrew peoples, wandering for forty years in the wilderness, developed the idea that the four archangels stood at the cardinal points to protect them, each holding a key to one of the four elements, which were believed to be the weapons of God's judgement. The arrival of Christianity saw the designation of the elements to the Holy spirit, the symbol of fire being a single flame. belief in the angels did not cease, but they lost their elemental significance, being seen more as messengers and rescuers than interacting with the powers of nature.
J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S.Lewis, apart from being very good friends, were also strong advocates of the Christian faith and much of what they believed can be read in their books, Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. In Tolkein's works, angels, or divine spirits, took the form of wise old men with supernatural powers, an idea straight out of the old testament and certainly a prominent feature of the Celtic church where angelsoften appeared as beggars in disguise to test the faith of the religious. Gandalf, the wizard/angel who walked middle-earth dressed like a beggar in grey rags, also possessed one of the three elemental rings of power, Narya the ring of fire. The other two were Vilya and Nenya of the elements of air and water.
According to Robert Graves, the colours of these three rings, white, red and blue, were a reoccurring sequence symbolising the lunar-vegetation goddess as new, full and old moon and as maiden, bride and crone, of which Brigid is certainly an example.
This great work of fantasy, which borrows so much from the mythologies of the Celts and Norse interwoven with Christian ideals, presents us with a vision of marriage between heaven and earth to which both pagan and Christian can easily relate. It is a vision of the past, a vision of the Christianity of Jesus the gentle carpenter from Nazareth whose parables were full of the elements of nature so beloved of the Celtic church.
It is also a vision of the future once this dark age has received the sacred flame. I'll see you there.
Kyrie Eleison
Credits
ASH Magazine Autumn 1988 cover art by Jim Kirkwood
Celtic Cross and Dragon by Jim Kirkwood (was published in the same issue as this article).
Brigid by Paul Atlas-Saunders (not part of the original article).
In the Hebrew/Christian tradition the archangel Michael was the master of the element of fire as well as being the guardian angel of the nation of Israel. The other three archangels, Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel being air, water and earth respectively. Such designations of angels to the elements and cardinal points was an essential part of the belief system of the ancient Hebrews, long before the kabbalah came on the scene. It was during the bronze age, 1200 BC, that the Hebrew peoples, wandering for forty years in the wilderness, developed the idea that the four archangels stood at the cardinal points to protect them, each holding a key to one of the four elements, which were believed to be the weapons of God's judgement. The arrival of Christianity saw the designation of the elements to the Holy spirit, the symbol of fire being a single flame. belief in the angels did not cease, but they lost their elemental significance, being seen more as messengers and rescuers than interacting with the powers of nature.
J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S.Lewis, apart from being very good friends, were also strong advocates of the Christian faith and much of what they believed can be read in their books, Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. In Tolkein's works, angels, or divine spirits, took the form of wise old men with supernatural powers, an idea straight out of the old testament and certainly a prominent feature of the Celtic church where angelsoften appeared as beggars in disguise to test the faith of the religious. Gandalf, the wizard/angel who walked middle-earth dressed like a beggar in grey rags, also possessed one of the three elemental rings of power, Narya the ring of fire. The other two were Vilya and Nenya of the elements of air and water.
According to Robert Graves, the colours of these three rings, white, red and blue, were a reoccurring sequence symbolising the lunar-vegetation goddess as new, full and old moon and as maiden, bride and crone, of which Brigid is certainly an example.
This great work of fantasy, which borrows so much from the mythologies of the Celts and Norse interwoven with Christian ideals, presents us with a vision of marriage between heaven and earth to which both pagan and Christian can easily relate. It is a vision of the past, a vision of the Christianity of Jesus the gentle carpenter from Nazareth whose parables were full of the elements of nature so beloved of the Celtic church.
It is also a vision of the future once this dark age has received the sacred flame. I'll see you there.
Kyrie Eleison
Credits
ASH Magazine Autumn 1988 cover art by Jim Kirkwood
Celtic Cross and Dragon by Jim Kirkwood (was published in the same issue as this article).
Brigid by Paul Atlas-Saunders (not part of the original article).
