My Experiences with Aghama
by Taylor Ellwood

DISCLAIMER: For those who like to be warned of such things, please note that within this essay is some explicit sexual content comparable to that found in a Storm novel or story. So don't be surprised!

For me the Aghama is not a fantasy character, but as real as any other god that one might work with. I say "work with" because I do not worship him so much as work with him. Though he originally comes from a trilogy that is typified as fantasy, there is a reality to him that goes beyond fantasy. It is the reality of belief and also the reality of love.

The reality of belief is quite simply the willingness to infuse energy into the existence of another being. We commonly call this belief. So when a Christian says that he or she believes in Jesus Christ he or she is giving Jesus Christ energy and through that energy good old JC exists. The same is true with the Aghama. I infuse my conception of him with energy by believing in him, by believing that the reality of him has validity beyond the written word. The written word gives him the flesh of paper and the blood of ink, but my belief gives him the spirit of life and this is true of anyone else who chooses to believe in him or the other Dehar.

The reality of love is more sublime and essential to that of belief. One can easily believe in a god, but actually loving that god, or Dehar as the case may be, is something in and of itself. Love is more than energy, more even than a feeling, but I won’t get sappy on you and say it’s everything. Love is acceptance. In loving Aghama, I accept and acknowledge his existence.

The beauty of magick is that reality is so malleable, so easy to shape to our whims. You want to believe in Aghama and for you Aghama is real. This is true of any dehar or god one chooses to believe in. But what has strengthened this reality for me is the workings that I have done with Aghama, workings which have allowed me to know him, even as he has come to know me. And the knowledge I have of Aghama is different from the Aghama that is known in the original trilogy of Wraeththu.

The original Aghama of the Wraeththu series is a brilliant manipulator, a bit vain, quite powerful, and seemingly all knowing, but the Aghama I’ve come to know is not just all of that, though he certainly those aspects. The Aghama I know is a sly trickster full of humor and fun. He laughs at himself even as he laughs at everyone else. He is a being of emotion and intellect, feeling the full range of emotions that any of us can feel and having the intellect of the sharpest strategists of all time. He is confident, but not arrogant, a sacred being, but one that does appreciate the person, though he might use that person as one would a chess piece. He is the Dehar of strategy, of intellect, of creativity. He is the Dehar of the stars, a brilliant pulsating rainbow light that has all shades of color in him. He’s far from perfect, but of course that’s what makes him so real.

Still it’s not enough to talk of him so I would like to relate a three-month experience I had with him, one which culminated on my birthday into a ritual that to this day continues to effect me powerfully.

At the beginning of August 2002, I had begun to do a lot of solar-oriented magickal workings. I was also getting ready to move to my new home in Kent, Ohio, where I would start my Ph.D program in Literacy, Rhetoric, and Social Practice. The solar workings I associated with Aghama, as I have always conceived of him as being like the sun and indeed in the Wraeththu trilogy he is described as having long flaming red hair.

What I did not know was that Kent State University had chosen as its sigil the sun with the word "Imagine." For me the Aghama is the Imagination, the creation of all the other Dehar. Aghama is the sun. So when I came to Kent and saw not only that the university had the sun as its sigil, but that the solar influence spread itself outward into the city of Kent itself, so much so that many of the homes have a sun motif I knew that this place would be ideal for doing a working with Aghama.

Noting this energy, I began to work with it on a more conscious level in September. The first thing I did was a walk around the campus late at night, getting a sense of the place. While I walked I found power spots, places where people invested energy into the entity of Kent State. At each of these spots I did a spit sigil with my own personal sigil. My rationale for this was to embed my energy into the entity energy and create a link. The way this would work is that as the sun rose it would shine on the sigils and dry them and in the process of doing that would embed my energy into Kent State and would do this through the medium of the sun. This would in turn begin the empowerment of myself with the entity and with the idea of the entity "Imagine."

The next step for me was to do a painting. When I did this painting I merged the Wraeththu with the other working. It was a painting focused on Aghama the main dehar (God) of the Wraeththu. I incorporated three sigils beside the Aghama sigil: .my personal sigil, a sigil of the word Imagine, and a sigil of Kent State. Further, I put the words "Imagine Reality" into the painting to serve as a focus. The purpose of the painting was to create a doorway to these various energies and to strengthen the imagination. This went hand in hand with my Kent State walk, which was designed to tap me into the energy of imagination and belief toward the KSU entity.
I also walked in the Homecoming parade, something I never do, but this was for Kent State, my devotion to the entity by walking in its homecoming parade, embedding myself in the heart of the entity. It was also a way of imprinting Aghama and myself into the Kent State area.

The final day of the ritual: To prepare for this ritual I had abstained from sexual, alcoholic, or other pleasure for a week. I did this to purify myself and build up energy for the ritual. On the final day, I woke up did my usual exercises and rituals and went to a meeting I couldn't get out off. I noted however that no one had a problem with me leaving early. Got back and put in Ienakis Xenakis, a Greek musician from the 70s who did music for the Shah of Iran. This music is industrial before industrial came about, very magickal and very appropriate for this work. It invokes a feeling of magick, a sense of being in the abyss. This worked out perfectly because Aghama I associate with time-space and the ability to create an abyss of time and space.

I stripped down and pulled out the body paints. I painted the four sigils on my body, all the while chanting to Aghama, to Kent State, to Imagination and to myself, invoking all four forces, creating a mixture of essence. I pulled out the painting. Today I would empower it. I wrote the sigils on a small piece of paper. Today I would empower those and already I had written on my flesh. Sat down and began to jack off. A week without sex makes it rather easy. Focused on building up the energy, breaking through the spheres, creating the connection between the sigils. When I came I took the fluid and spread it on the back of the painting, embedding with my essence, creating the connection between the DNA of myself and the DNA of the other forces I was working with. I put the fluid on the piece of paper as well. This piece of paper would be my sacrifice: I would burn it after this was over, my votive to the forces I invoked. Finally I ingested some of the fluid. There was enough for all three and it was appropriate for even as the painting and paper absorbed the fluid so too would I absorb it, creating another connection.

After this happened I laid down in the corpse pose, letting let my essence flow from my body, and found myself trodding beside this red cord to this door of the four sigils. It opened and I found myself staring into the DNA of the universe: DNA spirals of planets and stars and I was drawn to the sun. Inside was Aghama, waiting for me. Took my hand and I felt a bolt of fire go up my arm. He smiled kindly and told me to follow him.

I suddenly saw connections between the DNA spirals to each other. I saw multiplicity occurring in one place, saw all the variations of myself and was told that the multiplicity grows every time we make a choice. We split off from ourselves more and more. There are realities where we exist as only text, characters in some kind of fantasy story whiling away our times. And there are realities like this one where we exist as we are, flesh and blood. Is it an illusion?

The music I hear is the sound of the universe, one noisy production, a combination of everything in one place, a multiplicity spawned by everything we do. Draw it back into yourself: Find that essential being. He showed me reality after reality, branches upon branches and then he took it all away.

I was standing in a dead universe. Everything was gray, hardly any energy, just random connections of the dots. This could happen to us. The key to avoiding it is the imagination, the desire to grow and learn move beyond what is known. He showed me worlds and I saw those worlds within myself, outside of myself. I was like him: a star.

I was part of the DNA and everything I did affected the DNA, the power, the energy, the way things moved. I felt my multiplicity shift and then I felt energy shoot through my body: every chakra open, every bit alive, screamingly alive, almost on fire. This is life when we are on the edge and could die.

Aghama shares breath with me and then the other dehara and I feel energy enter into me even more so. A combination of forces. We are making you part of us. I shift and writhe on the ground, but it is not in pain. It is the energy entering me: We'll call it ecstasy. The sharing of breath Aghama is the sun, a heat so intense you cannot feel it. It goes so deep in yourself that it becomes a part of you, melds with you.

The heat was so much that I could feel it, but only in the sense that I could feel that this was the sun at work. The sun changed things. It could bring life or death depending on how I respected it. Rebirth, please. I gasped for air and came out of trance. Shivered for a moment, but I wasn't cold. I was alive. I stood up and took the paper sigil. Did a last chant of thanks to each force invoked and burned the sigil. Ashes wafted away. It is done. I am connected.

That was my first experience with Aghama. Since then, however, everyday I have felt him in my life. Is he a fantasy character or a real being? For me he is real, brought to life by not only my belief in him, but the belief of everyone else who has read the Wraeththu series. For me the Aghama I talk to is a dehar that I know is in my life. Does it matter that he originated from a fantasy book? Only to those people who are too narrow of mind to appreciate the subtle magick that is within all writing, the magick that is evoked every time a reader picks up a book and visualizes the characters. I am connected: to Aghama.

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