The Kabers: A Chthonic Theology Hidden in Plain Sight
by Jae Cro
“Jake has embedded a hidden answer to this question in his written corpus, an answer hidden in plain sight, and he leaves us a series of clues and hints that point us toward this solution, a solution that is perhaps as important as his theses in Geosophia. Enter the Kaberoi.”
It is not hyperbole to say that the late Jake Stratton-Kent did more to unearth the ancient pagan and underworld roots of the ritual techniques found in the grimoires than anyone else in the modern era. Jake’s groundbreaking Geosophia[1] I and II trace the many lines of evidence connecting: 1. ancient proto-Greek and syncretic-era underworld spirit magic, and 2. what may be termed the Spirit Grimoires. Jake then made a move in his Goetic Liturgy[2] which can only be described as pure genius (in the most ancient connotation of the term): leveraging this connection to ancient paganism as justification for replacing the various Christian theological and cosmological elements found in grimoiric ritual with Thelemic or pagan theologies and cosmologies. This was a move that would reorganize our understanding of western magic – a move that Jake would later refer to as a theological transplant.
Jake’s transplant would include such innovations as replacing the often-Christian preliminary invocations in grimoiric practice with invocations to EQ-derived Thelemic deity names such as Ra-Hoor-Khuit or ancient Greek underworld deities such as Hekate. Jake’s Goetic Liturgy also includes conjurations, which rather than name-dropping Christian or Jewish deities, lean instead on chthonic pagan deities. In short, Jake’s work functions to jail-break grimoire ritual techniques from their Christian façade and open them up to other theologies and cosmologies by showing their clear roots in pagan magical technique. But, which deities are available for such transplantation if one does not happen to be Thelemic or Christian? Throughout his extensive corpus, Jake has embedded a hidden answer to this question, an answer hidden in plain sight, and he leaves us a series of clues and hints that point us toward this solution, one which is perhaps as important as his theses in Geosophia. Enter the Kaberoi.
Who then are these Kaberoi (Ghebers/Kabers), and what are the clues in Jake’s work that point to them? The Kabers are a pantheon of chthonic deities also known as the Megalon Theon or the Great Gods of the Samothracean Temple Complex, and they represent some of the oldest and most ancestral deities of the proto-Greek world, predating the arrival of Mycenaean colonists on the Isle of Samothrace in the seventh century BCE. Several easter eggs in Jake’s writings point to this particular set of deities as being of special import. Jake’s selection of Hellenic deities to inculcate into grimoiric practice in his Goetic Liturgy are an initial clue, as this set of three Hellenic Deities all have their roots in the Kabers, as we shall soon see. Another prominent clue is to be found in Jake’s pamphlet from Hadean Press entitled, The Magick of the Ghebers,[3] which very strangely does not bother to mention the Ghebers at all, despite their titular appearance. Careful readers are likely to have asked themselves why Jake would give a text a title so apparently unrelated to its contents and never mention why. Other little hints in Jake’s writing include: the seemingly tangential passages in his Rosicrucifixion[4] concerning hieros gamos (sacred marriage), a theme of great import in the mysteries of the Kaber cult; and the emphasis Jake places on the earlier, more chthonic expressions of Hermes, Hecate, and Hades in Geosophia. There are more such clues dispersed throughout Jake’s writings, but I will allow the diligent reader to discover these for themself. For now, what I have listed above will be sufficient to make clear Jake’s intent. All these cases point to the Kabers as a particularly viable answer to the question: ‘what would be an appropriate replacement of the Christian theology of so many grimoires?’
The more daemonic spirits of the grimoires are in places implied to be of a subterranean or even infernal nature; what better set of deities to call on for the spiritual power to summon those underworld spirits than a set of deities which are themselves chthonic or of the underworld? This underworld connection may go a long way toward explaining why Jake left so many hints regarding the Kabers. But, how do we know Jake meant to point us in their direction, and who were the dramatis personae – who were these Great Gods, these Kaberoi? A brief exploration reveals the answers.
The Kabers were a set of underworld deities venerated in the extensive temple complex built into the side of a mountain on the Isle of Samothrace in the Mediterranean south of mainland Thrace. The central deity of this mystery cult is the mountain goddess herself, the great mother (associated with other mountain, earth, and fertility goddesses such as Ida and Demeter); her name is Axieros, and she is the invagination of the mountain, the cave leading into the underworld, and the earth itself. Her representatives in the mystery cult of the Megalon Theon of Samothrace were priestesses called Selene or Cybele, solidifying her mountain-cave associations as well as her connection to later magics and the grimoires. Her symbol is the magnetized ring worn by her initiates. The central male deity, and Axieros’ consort, was Kadmilos, a precursor of the later Hermes Khthonios, that psychopomp-deity who was the guide of the recently-deceased, bringing them to the entrance to the underworld. Kadmilos’ symbol was the staff, the Kerykeion, a wand with a circle at the top and above that a half circle, not unlike the astrological and alchemical symbols for Mercury. Along with the great mother and the great father are to be found another male-female pair among the Kaberoi: Axiokersos, an antecedent of Hades, and Axiokersa, who will become Persephone-Kore. As in the later myths, Axiokersos takes Axiokersa without her consent. Lastly, we come to the final and seemingly unpaired Kaber. Her name in later antiquity is Hekate, but her “secret name” within the cult of the Keberoi was Zerynthia, and she, like the others, was an underworld deity of great power.
The mysteries of the Kaberoi included two degrees of initiation, The Myesis and the Epoptia. These were led by priestesses and included all the usual accoutrements: altars, votive offerings to the Great Gods, cleansings and ablutions, sacrifices to the Kaberoi, a baptismal rite with blood, the showing of sacred objects such as the magnetized ring of Axieros, and the staff of Kadmilos – both yonic and phallic symbols respectively (symbolic of the sacred marriage of the deities) and, importantly, a descent into a grotto and cave system that was connected to the temple complex; i.e., a descent into the womb of the mountain mother herself, a journey of catabasis into the underworld where reside the dead. I trust I need not explain the significance of the latter, nor its impact on the later Orphic and Eleusinian mystery cults. At this point, the informed reader will likely perceive the appropriateness of this set of deities to serve as general patrons and overseers of goetic-chthonic ritual, especially for the sort that is used for conjuring spirits that are associated with the underworld/hell in Christian myth.
The appropriateness of these deities for theological transplantation into grimoiric conjuration rituals being thus established, the only question that remains is implementation: how can we incorporate these deities into grimoiric liturgy? For examples of how to do this, we need look no further than Jake Stratton-Kent’s Goetic Liturgy, which demonstrates the insertion of the successors of the Kabers, namely Hermes, Hecate, and Hades, into various grimoiric invocations and conjurations. Following this lead, innovative practitioners who are interested in alternative theologies may follow suit and simply replace the Jewish and Christian deity names found in certain grimoiric invocations and conjurations with the appropriate Kaberoi names at will. The results are in my experience both satisfying and highly effective.
[1] Scarlet Imprint, 2010.
[2] First published in The Equinox: British Journal of Thelema, Volume VII 9-11 as ‘Liturgical Approaches to Invocation & Evocation’ and reprinted as a standalone work by Hadean Press in 2015.
[3] Hadean Press, Guides to the Underworld series, 2018.
[4] Hadean Press, 2020.
Further reading:
Lehmann, K. (1955). Samothrace: A Guide to the Excavations and the Museum. 5th ed. Thessaloniki: J J Augustin, 1983.
Burkert, Walter (1985). The Kabeiroi and Samothrace. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-36281-0.
Schachter, Albert (2003). 'Evolutions of a Mystery Cult: The Theban Kabiroi’. Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults, ed. Michael B. Cosmopoulos. London–NY: Routledge, pp. 112–142. ISBN 0-415-24873-6.
Image shown is from Gazette archéologique; recueil de monuments pour servir à la connaissance & à l'histoire de l'art dans l'antiquité et le moyen-age, 1875, p. 113.
Jae Cro is a certified biology teacher finishing a masters in educational leadership, with three decades of experience practicing western magic beginning with Golden Dawn and Thelemic (AA) magic, then transitioning to witchcraft and a focus on grimoires in later years.
© 2023 Jae Cro
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