A Rose by any other Name: Babalon & Pomba Gira

A Rose by any other Name:  Babalon & Pomba Gira

Peter Grey

Both Babalon and Pomba Gira are concerned with human sexuality, both are clothed in diabolic imagery, both exhibit strong female red energy, both came demanding roses and respect. Perhaps this was not a fork in the road for me, but a crossroads. Could Pomba Gira answer some of the questions I had as I sought for the Beloved?

In the West we have been prone to treating goddesses as psychological constructs, and smudging the lines of kohl or chalk to suit our own designs. This too is a genuine attempt by a secular and disconnected culture to find a way back to magick. The revival of the grimoire tradition shows that an awareness is returning to magicians that the spirits are real and through trafficking with them, the world can be re-enchanted. It is inevitable given this history that our approach to the spirits of Quimbanda will often be coloured by what we must honestly acknowledge as our inexperience. We are still finding our way

Though we have possession and mediumship in the West they have been made taboo, first by scripture and then by science. In the fascinating Place of Enchantment by Alex Owen the schism between spiritualism and magic is discussed and this makes valuable reading. Spiritualism has not been developed and has fallen out of vogue since the table tapping and planchette mania. The parasitic television mediums are the last unpleasant vestige of this social role, perma-tanned necromancers whose connection is made through the ghosting away of credit card details from the grieving bereaved. Our current generation of pagans, witches and magicians will have to re-conquest the oracular connection which was severed by John on Patmos, and buried with scorn in the catacombs of Ephesus. Our role now is to experience possession and give voice to both the divine and the dead. This is sacred work. We can certainly avoid some of the obvious mistakes in this process by learning from Quimbanda and Quimbandeiros.