Quetzalcoatl-Mictlantecuhtli: an analogue of Typhon-Set

[Deleted]

Quetzalcoatl-Mictlantecuhtli: an Aztec analogue of Typhon-Set


Quetzalcoatl-Mictlantecuhtli manifesting as Ehecatl



Codex Borgia, pre-Hispanic Aztec: Post Classic Period
Painted manuscript on deerskin with plaster ground.
Thought to originate from Puebla in East Central Mexico,
a region that came under Aztec control in the 15th century. 

The business of this manuscript is divination and ritual.

The fusion of the feathered serpent deity Quetzalcoatl with
Lord of the Underworld Mictlantecuhtli manifests as Ehecatl,
one of the driving forces of the world.

Mictlantecuhtli is the Lord of Mictlan the deepest and most northerly
division of the Underworld. His domain - Mictlampa- is ever to the North, the zone of death.
He is often portrayed as a blood-spattered skeleton, the skull in which there are yet eyes, eyes which
are sometimes shown closed, since he has no need of them.
His creatures are owls, bats, and spiders.

Mictlanteculhtli is the god of the Dog day-sign Itzcuintli in the Aztec calendar, and as such provides the souls for those who are born on his day.

According to Klein*, Mictlantecuhtli is characterised as the 'Lord of the Underworld, Tzitzimitl, the same as Lucifer' in the early colonial era Codex Vaticanus 3738, which will come as no surprise to the Typhonian reader. 



* Klein, Cecelia F.  The Devil and the Skirt: An iconographic inquiry into the pre-Hispanic nature of the tzitzimime. Ancient Mesoamerica (Cambridge University Press) 2000,  11: pp. 3-4.

[stephen]

Great image, Simplicissimus.  I am rather fond of Aztec and Mixtec Codices.

But surely a better analogue for Typhon-Set would be Tezcatlipoca.

And while I'm not intimately familiar with Tzitzimitl, I think our Cecelia might be stretching things a bit in comparing any Meso-American deity with Lucifer. 

[Deleted]

Thank you for your interest, Stephen.

I chose the example of Quetzalcoatl and Mictlantecuhtli because the fusion of the two into a singularity to produce the third  entity, Ehecatl, seemed an important modus operandi, something worth thinking about.

The ability of the gods to seemingly change their identity by presenting an 'aspect' of themselves makes flow-chart cosmology difficult, and direct one-for-one comparison with foreign gods difficult, for me, at least.

I have very recently had to do with Tezcatlipoca of the Smoking Mirror in my Frater Achad Scrapbook thread in the Contemporary Occultists section, with interesting but unclassifiable results, to which I shall return.

My project is simple: to discover, by sorcery, if any part of the Aztec magical system still contains any energy, live wires that we could tap into, stored memories, or special qualities and abilities that could be re-vivified.

The codices are stuffed full of sigils and highly evocative images, as you know, with the purest sources being the pre-Hispanic painted manuscripts, especially, for our purposes, the codices in the Borgia group - Codex Borgia itself, the Codex Laud, (one of my favourites)  the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, the Codex Cospi, and Codex Vaticanus B.

My methods thus far combine elements from contemporary Mesoamerican shamanism with sigil activation and skrying in the Smoking Mirror.

There is no reason why other sorcerers should not participate in an online coordinated effort against selected sigils and images from the codices, so long as they are of robust constitution and not easily frightened.

The adaption of sorcery to cyberspace - the merging of sorcery and cyberspace - is one of the great tasks of the age.



New Fire Ceremony

Codex Borbonicus p. 34
 

[stephen]

Read your piece on Tezcatlipoca: intense material for an intense deity.

Skrying in the Smoking Mirror - one of John Dee's shewstones was, of course, an Aztec obsidian mirror; therefore the connections between the magical traditions may have existed for some time.

Much "contemporary Mesoamerican shamanism" appears to have got mixed up with the very New Age 'Toltec Mystery Schools' and a so-called Toltec Tradition.  Not related to some of these groups on the web, but using the Toltec label, were the articles that appeared in the last issue of Starfire, and I have to say that I was not very impressed with these, in fact, I actually disliked the one "On Toltec Art" by Koyote the Blind.  He came across as another wannabe Carlos Castaneda cult leader. And there was not any actual Toltec art in it either !

Which brings us to the fact that it was Castaneda who began referring to his teachings as being Toltec rather than Sorcerous sometime around 1992.  After mentioning the above articles to a friend, he loaned me an excellent book - The Life & teaching of Carlos Castaneda by William Patrick Patterson (Arete Communications, Fairfax, California, 2008).  As an appendix it contains a very interesting essay by a Daniel G. Brinton M.D. University of Pennsylvania - "Nagualism: A Study in Native American Folklore and History" dating from 1894. I liked this so much, he said that I might as well keep the book.

We seem to have drifted some way from Kenneth Grant here, perhaps we could stray in to the Quiche Mayan territories of the Popol Vuh and the Bat Lord Camazotz, at some point.....

[Deleted]

Rest assured that there is nothing 'New Age' about my methods, Stephen, nor much in the way of cultural appropriation, or reverence for 'mystery.'  My efforts are directed at de-mystification, in pruning back magickal processes and practices until the minimum number of parts needed to make them function can be determined. I would define my method as magickal instrumentalism, by which I mean that ideas and theories about sorcery  are only instruments that function as guides to action, their validity being determined by what is successful and what is not. Nothing is worshipped, and all the rest goes in the bin. This is my Axiom:

The primary purpose of sorcery is to discover what can not be discovered in any other way.



I am sorry you were disappointed with the last issue of Starfire, and suggest you address your dissatisfaction in a letter to the Editor.



Of Castenada's decline, I'd guess that he used up all his original material in his first few books, and thereafter had to resort to invention to maintain his lifestyle.


As for 'drift[ing] some way from Kenneth Grant', I'm sure he'll drift back again erelong! 

But in the meantime, here is Izapa Stela 2, where The Hero Twins attack the impostor Seven Macaw, whose vanity went so far as wearing jewelled dentures.

[stephen]

Hello Simplicissimus, Just to clarify, I did not say that I was disappointed with the last issue of Starfire, I simply did not think much of the essays dealing with so-called Toltec methodology and in the course of things thought that mentioning it here was as appropriate a place as anywhere. I expressed my opinion to the editor on the matter quite some time ago and he took it in his usual stoical manner.

As for stripping sorcery down to its bare and functional bones, if that works for you that is fine, but it sounds too much like 'Chaos Magic' for me; I prefer to take the meanderings by which I find the path direct, or some other such paraphrase of Austin Osman Spare. Functionality deserves its artistry after all.

Nice stela.  Are those the same Hero Twins who ventured into Xibalba ?

[Deleted]

May 29, 2014 15:09:35 GMT stephen said:

Nice stela.  Are those the same Hero Twins who ventured into Xibalba ?

They are indeed the same Hunahpu and Xbalanque who outsmarted the Xibalban bosses One Death and Seven Death.

I am glad you have your own methods, Stephen. It is the business of sorcerers to have their own methods.

I do indeed dwell in the House of Typhon, but not as others do. I am a ghost in the attic who feeds on rotting parchments and crumbling scrolls, an infestation in my own right.