Cropdusting an entire town with holy water is a massive re-escalation of Catholic colonialism and it is inviting imitation. I’m sure a number of parishes are already considering something similar.

Unfortunately, many in our society think that holy water is simply a form of well-wishing. They think of “blessing” in the same sense as someone saying “bless you” after a person sneezes. While asking that someone be blessed certainly has a benevolent aspect, blessing has some very specific esoteric functions. Namely, it is a form of sanctification, though much less total than consecration.

The process of sanctification involves asking a Holy Power to bring someone or something closer to Them. Much of what humans do in this regard involves prayer, contemplation, ritual, offerings, and works that align the person mentally, emotionally, and spiritually towards that Divinity so as to invite Their grace. Blessing is the act of requesting that sanctification on behalf of a third party, for example a priest asking blessings upon a parishioner.

Holy water is a fungible means of storing such a blessing and is a used in a number of different faiths worldwide, not just in Catholic Christianity. The exact liturgical process differs but the esoteric foundation is usually similar. Such blessed water is typically used for ritual purification and to bring the faithful closer to their Gods.

Here’s the thing- holy water is NOT generic. Holy water blessed by Asklepios is, on a fundamental level, closer to Him and His nature. Holy water of Yah is closer to Him. Holy water of Isis is closer to Her. Some Gods might be favorably inclined towards those aspersed with water blessed by a colleague, but it’s still an individual consideration. It’s Their choice, not ours.

The spiritual technologies of sanctification and blessing exist only because of the inherent diversity of the Gods and therefore, of Creation. If there was only one God, humans would have no need for holy water- everyone would naturally flow towards That One.

But we do need it. Whichever Gods blessed the holy water are the Gods towards whom the recipients will be drawn. Similarly, holy water can attract spiritlife friendly to or in alignment with those Divinities. It also tends to repel spiritlife inimical to those Gods and their ways.

That repulsion isn’t an absolute, though. The stronger the spiritlife in question, the more likely it is to simply piss them off. Given how angry much of Louisiana’s spiritlife seems, this is probably not a good idea.

Old-school perfume counters were infamous for randomly blasting passers-by with their scents. I don’t remember the film or TV show, but there was a comedy many years ago in which a man goes to a department store to get a gift for his wife and gets sprayed. His wife then suspects him of infidelity because he smells like some other woman’s perfume.

It’s a crude analogy, but holy water is a bit like that- it identifies those blessed with it as aligned with, or even the property of, the God(s) in question.

Thus, blasting a whole area with holy water is a deliberate offensive. It lays claim to that land and everything in it- all of its spiritlife (including humans). It’s quite literally an act of spiritual warfare- a term that proponents of this kind of atrocity are fond of.

I don’t know if modern Roman Catholic priests are taught this aspect of their spiritual tech, but any competent priest should know it. Indeed, much of history involved a great deal of deliberately leveraging spiritual technology for purposes of conquest. Missions, especially the big Spanish ones, served not simply to convert the populace, but to exert esoteric influence over the land itself and the spiritlife thereon.

That’s not to say that a priest blessing his parishioners is bad. My objection is to the indiscriminate nature of the spraying and the willful ignorance of those who think it was an innocent act of kindness. It was not.

It was an act of war and we are caught in the crossfire.

-In Deos Confidimus

I’m studying these texts, despite their questionable provenance, because the UPG I received suggested that the ancient Irish possessed a form of the spiritual technology necessary to address (or at least begin to address) the Texas Problem.

Furthermore, I got the impression that this method was pretty darn fast-acting and that echoes of it had survived in “the lore” even beyond the depredations of Patrick and Cromwell.

To that end, I’m looking for examples of ceremonial actions related to the establishment of working relationships between a group of invaders and the local land deities (and by extension, spirits). We have lots of partial records of Gaulish, Irish, and Welsh kingmaking ceremonies (the Wiccan “Great Rite” is based on these), but I’m pretty darn sure that’s not what I’m looking for. Similarly, there are other purported rituals that I’m certain I can discount- these display their authors’ obvious biases and are typically wildly impractical and/or highly illegal.

On the other hand, there are hints of other rituals that are less well recorded and which were likely no longer in use well before these stories were recorded. While the kingmaking ceremonies were in use in historical times and occasionally commented on by outside observers, the techniques I’m looking for would have been used very early in the Celtic conquest of an area.

That’s the key difference, in my mind. The later kingmaking ceremonies appear to have been undertaken after an area was settled- i.e., by generations following the conquest. By contrast, when the Celts first entered an area, they had to establish diplomatic relations with the local land deity (or deities) and spirits. Doing that of course required establishing a mode of communications- which is normally a job for shamans (which is to say, not me).

But in the case of conquest, it meant doing so over the objections of (and esoteric sabotage by) the indigenous people. It meant esoterically “blowing up” or “burning down” those other peoples’ connection to the land and figuratively sticking a giant “this is mine” flag into the crater.

Yeah, that sounds pretty brutal.

My modern, Westernized mind recoils from it, but it’s clear that humans worldwide seem to have known how to do this from ancient times. By the early Middle Ages, though, Europeans appear to have lost this knowledge- at least on a conscious level.

By the 1800s, European-Americans in Texas almost certainly did not even know they needed that capability, let alone have the knowledge of how to do it. Why are certain parts of the United States more “awake” than Texas, despite Anglos’ lack of land-bonding technology? I have a theory about that, but it’s much too long to deal with here.

Back to the Irish.

Here is an example of the sort of thing I’m looking for, in this case from the Lebor Gabála Érenn (“The Book of the Takings of Ireland” – Book of Leinster version) as translated by R. A. S. Macalister:

§74. As he set his right foot upon Ireland, Amorgen Glúingel s. Míl spoke this poem—

I am Wind on Sea,
I am Ocean-wave,
I am Roar of Sea,
I am Bull of Seven Fights,
I am Vulture on Cliff,
I am Dewdrop,
I am Fairest of Flowers,
I am Boar for Boldness,
I am Salmon in Pool,
I am Lake on Plain,
I am a Mountain in a Man,
I am a Word of Skill,
I am the Point of a Weapon (that poureth forth combat),
I am God who fashioneth Fire for a Head.
Who smootheth the ruggedness of a mountain?
Who is He who announceth the ages of the Moon?
And who, the place where falleth the sunset?
Who calleth the cattle from the House of Tethys?
On whom do the cattle of Tethys smile?
Who is the troop, who the god who fashioneth edges
in a fortress of gangrene?
Enchantments about a spear? Enchantments of Wind?

This is implied by the text to be a powerful, ritual poem related in some way to the Milesians laying claim to Ireland. It’s essentially a fancy and esoterically potent version of “We claim this land for Spain”. Side note- the Milesians are said to have been Iberocelts (or Celtiberians)… Celts from Spain.

Clearly, the translation is corrupted. The name “Tethys”, for instance, refers to the Hellenic titan Goddess of fresh water- not an Irish deity at all. It’s possible that this is the result of a poor transcription of the translation, or a messy translation. Either way, it’s unclear.

Going back to the Irish, we see:

Ic tabairt a choisse dessi i nHerind asbert Amairgen Glúngel mac Miled in laídseo sís.

Am gáeth i mmuir. ar domni.

Am tond trethan i tír.
Am fúaim mara.
Am dam secht ndírend.
Am séig i n-aill.
Am dér gréne.g

Am caín.
Am torc ar gail.
Am hé i llind.
Am loch i mmaig
Am briandai.

Am bri danae.
Am gai i fodb. feras feochtu.
Am dé delbas do chind codnu.
Coiche nod gleith clochur slébe.
Cia on cotagair aesa éscai

Cia dú i llaig funiud grene.
Cia beir búar o thig Temrach.
Cia buar Tethrach. tibi.
Cia dain.
Cia dé delbas faebru. a ndind ailsiu.

Cáinté im gaí cainte gaithe. Am.

Here, the same name is written as “Temrach” or “Tethrach”. While neither of these terms has an easy translation provided by Dr. Google, there are a couple of interesting hints.

Firstly, Temrach appears to be a poetic reference to Tara, the seat of the High Kings of Ireland- a central point of esoteric significance. Tethrach, on the other hand, appears to be a possessive or adjectival form of words that can mean “crow”, “champion”, or “sea”. In some versions I’ve found, “Tethrach” appears on both lines.

In other words, either way, we are likely dealing with a poetic name for Someone or someone. In all likelihood, many of the lines refer to a specific deity, person, or entity.

On the surface this appears to be part of an invocation to the ruling deities of Ireland, the Túatha Dé Danann. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the account deals with Amorgen and the Milesians fighting the Túatha Dé Danann for control of the island. So, is this an invocation in pursuit of a blessing, or a mockery intended to provoke conflict?

Is the source even useful to my search, or am I chasing down the rabbit hole of a cargo cult? The entire story could be purely a medieval fantasy with no ancient basis at all.

There is a lot more to go through, and it is not exactly stimulating reading.

-In Deos Confidimus