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Eddy Gutierrez is the host and webmaster for
The Unnamed Path. (He uses his
magical name, Hyperion, for teaching and podcasting.) His road to
discovering this tradition is a winding one and it continues to unfold
each day. He was raised Roman Catholic, is a
first generation American and discovered that he was gay at the age of
eleven. His spiritual education began shortly after discovering his
sexual orientation, when he found himself being ostracized by the
Catholic Church he attended, worked at and volunteered for. His deeply
religious sense and constant relationship with God led him to explore
alternative religions. While studying and investigating most of the
world’s major religions, he learned to read tarot, magical herbalism,
candle magic, astrology and meditation. After seeking through most
conventional major religions he still didn’t find a good fit for him
as a gay man and as a magical person - until he came across the occult
section in the local metaphysical bookshop. After reading one book in
the store he came to realize that there was a religion that captured
all of his personal beliefs and practices in one place and put a name
on it - Wicca.
He then began studying Wicca and Magic as a solitary
practitioner for a few years then sought out a community. While
attending an open Lughnasadh celebration run by Lance and Grail (DCW)
in 1994, he found his new spiritual home. He began an intensive
magical apprenticeship with the Druidic Craft of the Wise and after 3+
years, was fully initiated and a functioning member of their Coven. He
became a blessed teacher and conducted classes in the DCW, candle
magic, herb magic, astrology, divination and many other topics. He
grew in the Craft until his group elected him their Priest. He was
ordained in 1998 to the Priesthood of the Craft.
While serving his coven as their Priest he still
felt a lack of cultural connection to the DCW. It didn’t speak to his
Latino roots. What did, was the religion of Santería (La Regla de
Ocha) which was so deeply present in Cuban culture, music and lore.
While his personal upbringing never involved any of Santería’s
elements, its magic, music and art called to him. He was introduced to
a Santero and learned from him to approach the religion with an open
heart and genuine passion to learn. While he was involved in Santería,
he learned about mediumship, how to communicate with the dead, he
experienced trance possession and grew his relationship to the spirits
of the land. Eventually, when the time came for initiation, he was
crowned as a priest of Shangó in The Bronx, New York, November 3, 2001
at the hands of a different Santero from the original one that
introduced him to the religion (due to a reading performed that
indicated that this needed to happen).
While in his initiatory year, he was religiously
abused at the hands of this new Godfather, as was his friend (former
Godfather) who had originally introduced him to the religion. Both
left this unethical man’s spiritual house and went solo. As part of
this life-altering experience of religious abuse, he rediscovered his
sense of self, left the religion of Santería and returned to his home
with the DCW and witchcraft.
After returning to the Craft, he was re-elected as
the leadership of his group and was eventually elevated to the High
Priesthood in 2004. He began integrating the experiences of spirit
contact, energy working, and trance possession into his personal
spiritual path.
In 2005, while serving his group as their High
Priest he was (re)introduced to Shamanism through a close friend and
began using the Shamanic Journeying techniques to deepen his
connection with the spirits of the land, the divine, his own guides
and the ancestors in order to sort through any issues and work toward
his personal evolution. As part of this process, he came into contact
with the Ancestors of Men-who-l0ve-men who taught him an energy
healing technique that uses a set of symbols to channel universal life
force toward the recipient and engages the ancestors in directing the
energy.
In addition to this healing technique, the Ancestors
of Men-who-love-men began to teach him a way to integrate all of these
separate parts of his spirituality into one path, while disposing of
other parts that didn’t have anything to do with the energy current
that gay men naturally tap into. He began capturing all of this in a
series of lessons, and finally one day, his spirit guides instructed
him to begin teaching classes. Taking advantage of technology, he
opted to put these classes in the form of podcasts to build awareness
of the tradition.
He plans to offer in-person classes once enough
interest is generated by the podcasts, as well as giving lectures and
classes at pagan events across the country including Between the
Worlds in Ohio, and Pantheacon in California.
-- from
The Unnamed Path |
