Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for a lot of things, but at the top of the list where the blog is concerned are my readers and the personal friends I've made through this medium and other online forums. You guys are a constant source of inspiration in my life. Thanks for everything.

I sit in the basement office with no windows, often not even aware of whether it's day or night, especially since daylight savings time changed. It's usually while the kids are asleep or are playing with friends, and I'm relatively free of interruptions. I sit in here reading magical tomes, reading blogs and emails, doing magic, and writing out my thoughts and experiences as I go along performing the Great Work.

Yet I'm not alone; I have a plurality, a social network of magicians also performing the Work a few keystrokes away. I understand about us being a family unit, brothers and sisters spread throughout every continent on the planet, except Antarctica. No one practices magic in Antarctica. It's too freakin' cold. Seriously.

So, it's to readers, writers, and to all my brothers and sisters of the Work that I offer my thanks. May your days be as fulfilled as you make mine.

What you should do about it...

Martialis asked what we should do about the Christian extremists like the ones praying death on Obama...

Magic. We should do magic.

Gaap to release the spirits they've bound to their missions, Michael to enlighten them with the true message of Christ and to defend their victims, Cassiel to bind the bastards, Sammael to strengthen the warriors on the front line and to bring swift and just victory, Raphael to heal and to confuse their minds, to disrupt their communication network, and to bring a permanent Merc. Retro effect into their lives so they're too busy trying to figure out why nothing works right to pray, Anael to keep their prayers from reaching fruition, Gabriel to enshroud them in harmless fantasies.

Conjure Purson to reveal any local hotspots of prayer warriors, conjure Paimon, Aimon, Oriens, and Egyn to confound their lives, call upon their daimons to drive them into the true presence of God where they will see their actions for what they really are.

Ideally you'll be healing them so they not only stop what they're doing, but begin to help instead. Ideally you'll be in a position to love them completely and take responsibility for aiding in their enlightenment.

But it's better to do something than nothing, so just do something.

Thanks, Ron!

There are 100 people following the blog now. Woohoo! That's only counting the people with Google accounts.

Whether you "follow" or not, may your holidays be blessed with peace, enlightenment, and joy. And no stupid relatives making inappropriate conversation at the dinner table.

Oh, and may Bune bring you many riches, plus some left over! I'll light a candle this weekend for you.

Thanks!

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Today's blog title comes from the Roman poet Juvenal, who, bemoaning an unfaithful wife, said:

audio quid ueteres olim moneatis amici,
"pone seram, cohibe." sed quis custodiet ipsos—
custodes? cauta est et ab illis incipit uxor.
  
I hear always the admonishment of my friends:
"Bolt her in, constrain her!" But who will guard
the guardians? The wife plans ahead and begins with them!

Wikipedia has an interesting entry on the phrase. You should totally read it when you get a chance. It presents the more common translation in English, "Who watches the watchmen?"

The magical implications of this question are multifaceted, multi-layered, and as deep as any question we can ask ourselves. While reading Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, I was impressed with the Dzogchen practice of observation during meditation. I'm no Dzogchen adept, I'm a bumbler who read a book about some aspects of it while researching something else entirely, so don't think I'm trying to teach something about a system I don't understand. This is just what I took away from it.

Instead of meditating, you watch yourself without judgment. You observe your thoughts, and where they are coming "from." Fear, hunger, desire, what is the source of the thought? What triggered the thought? Is it coming from your own head, or is it a whispering spirit?

You observe, you don't try to influence or control the mind. You see what you're thinking, and simply practice awareness.

Then, after you've done that for a while, you turn your attention to the observer. Who is it that observes? What is it that is watching?

Remember the words of Perdurabo in the Book of Lies (Falsely Called So):

But FRATER PERDURABO is nothing but AN
EYE; what eye none knoweth.

Palin's Power

Have I mentioned my fundy background? I just learned on a pagan site that I'm part of the "3rd Wave of the Holy Spirit", loosely. See, I attained K&CHGA after being born again while immersed in the outpouring of the Spirit that was popping up here and there around the country in 2003.

So Jason mentions Palin today on FB, and I ended up at the Wild Hunt blog through Joe's blog, and there's another article on Palin, this one pointing out her affiliation with a group of Christians who used "imprecatory prayer" to allegedly give a witch cancer and drive her out of Alaska.

Now, on the one hand, I personally write Palin off out of hand. She's a gimmick, and she's distracting America from the next real Republican candidate. And that shit about her receiving the mantle of the presidency that's been prophesied over her... who really believes any of that shit? Like Christians have any access to divination, or the power to set destiny through concentrated prayer...

Right. Which brings us back to the Wiccan who went bline in her left eye, was diagnosed with cancer, and fled Alaske while this coven of Christian busybodies "prayed against the spirit of witchcraft in Alaska."

Am I the only person who has seen the power of Charismatic Christian Magic? Come on! There's more healing going on in the name of Christ than you can shake a stick at. Prayed for rye grew taller than not-prayed for rye. Prayer affects bacteria. Whatever model of magic you adhere to, the results are the proof.

I know these people. I know what they're capable of, and what their ambitions are. In many ways I agree with the Ideal they strive for. I don't trust them an inch to be able to accomplish their goals when faced with the temptations that come with power.

Palin's Power base is an effective team of experienced "prayer warriors" who are not above praying down fire and brimstone, locusts and plague, and cancer and blindness. There are even teams of these people working on killing Obama. It's easy to sit in liberal educated armchairs and laugh at the imaginary threat of the ignorant Christian True Believers, writing them off as "nut-jobs" and staying hidden, safe, watching Oprah alone in your little apartment when Palin's at the local Barnes and Noble signing her book.

But don't get so wrapped up in your comfy blanket of smug dismissal that you can't get unglued long enough to trace out a circle and mutter a few eldritch phrases from musty old tomes you've tracked down on the Internet. Rest assured there are ladies on arthritic knees sequestered amongst their pleather shoes in their closets, calling on God to empower Palin and anoint her in the mantle of the Presidency. Whether it's God or whatever spirits they've got at their beck and call, bet your ass that something is doing everything in its power to make sure Palin gets elected.

What are you going to do about it?

Here's a clue for would be spiritual warriors: expect a lot of the spirits around her to be Nepheshim, the hungry ghosts of the dead. These and similar spirits are the most abundant resources that respond to prolonged prayer. Check the Greater Key for sample Solomonic rites that require nine days of careful prayer to gather the spirits local. These are the kinds of spirits you'll be facing.

Bring a brass pot, or the equivalent. No point in letting the little buggers go to waste.

(Picturing a Hermetic Exorcism of Palin at a book signing; dude in robes reciting the Headless rite over her. As amusing as it may be, he'd have an interesting discussion waiting for him with the Secret service after pulling that stunt. The Black and Tans wear shiny black shoes.)

Tis the Season

The Flu Season. And there's H1N1 mania sweeping the nation on top of that!

So here's a little "get rid of the ick" technique that works really well for me.

Close your eyes, and listen to your heart beat. Visualize it pumping blood all over the body. Follow its paths in your mind's eye, seeing the blood flowing to the different regions of your physical shell. Now turn your awareness to areas of illness or pain. Look at it with your mind's eye, seeing the elemental building blocks that make up the frame. Earth and Fire, Water and Air, blended together in a myriad of proportions at the elemental (like atomic) level. Now see the ones that represent the illness turning black. To me they look like little cubes spinning in space in close proximity. The ones that are the illness turn black, and the one that aren't turn red and white.

Picture the black ones leaving your body. Move them along with the power of your Will. Keep them moving until they're all out, fading away into the background of existence, returning to their raw forms. A little heat applied to the stubborn ones, carefully so you don't hurt the good stuff, seems to work well in loosening up sinus infections.

And take vitamin C.

Some of you may recognize the technique as the result of my Work with EHNB a while ago. I was suffering in silence through a sinus infection last week when Frater POS (His motto is not "Piece of Shit," in case you were wondering) said it's too bad I don't know any magicians who could heal me. (He was home from work because his back was out again, and I magnanimously let that slide. The sinners mocked Jesus with "Healer, Heal thyself" too, after all.)

At the time I said I didn't do magic for sickness because a full ritual takes 2 weeks to manifest, and it doesn't seem worth it to deal with a three day cold. Mostly because I was embarrassed that I hadn't thought of it myself. Then he reminded me that we get to do some things instantly as magicians, and graciously changed the subject.

Of course later on I was thinking about it, and I remembered the Enochian technique that had worked so well last year. I fished it out of the memory banks and put it to use. The next morning I was significantly better.

So, since I had to have a reminder to jog the old memory banks that magicians can heal themselves (after all, I'm not Jesus*), I figured I'd pass it on. Healers, heal yourselves.

* Really. Neither Lon, nor Jesus Christ.

Ceremonial Redneck

I just looked over at my altar, and it seems that some GENIUS ( ... er, no, not the spirit kind, the really sarcastically human kind) needed to light a candle to Bune a month or so ago, and he didn't have a candle holder. What did he use to put the candle in? His empty chewing tobacco can, of course!

Sometimes I worry about myself.

At least my Camaro is Cthulhu-green.

Ha! HA HA HA!!!!

From the ritual magic yahoo group:

BTW Fr. Rufus Opus is Lon Duquette, who is chief adept of OTO's inner order.

Hee hee hee!

Yeah, that's why I publish my books as eBooks instead of going through CCC or Weiser. Because I'm SECRETLY a world-famous author and Thelemite high muckety muck.

snerk.

Ok, FOR THE RECORD:

I'm not Lon, I'm Josh. I live in Baltimore. He lives on the Left Coast with the rest of the hippies. I'm 35. He's ... not 35. I weigh 220 (and shrinking), he weighs more, or is shorter, I can't tell. My hair is still brown, with just a bit of gray in the goatee, and I like to think I look like Christian Slater from the Heathers years, but that's just not true anymore. His hair is white and he looks rather like Santa Clause.

I love that this Chico fellow thinks I'm Lon. I'm honored. But I'm not Lon.

Although, after this, I may start taking pot shots at Chico, just to keep him confused.

Enochians

Fr. AIT over at Heavens Within Earth recently posted the question, Is Enochian Theurgic? I'm interested in whatever follow-up he may have to post about it.

In the Corpus Hermeticum, when Man came to Earth, seven Governors were made in the image of the seven celestial Intelligences. Eventually they became the Urges in later gnostic interpreatations, but originally they weren't considered evil by any means.

Sometimes I think the seven Terrestrial Governors and their legions are the Spirits of the Lemegeton's Goetia. Other times, I think they're the Seven Winds that make an appearance in the Picatrix.

Right now, I suspect they're the seven "Angels" on the SDA. I think it would explain the elemental attributes of the Enochian spirits, as well as the whole "I'm the savior of the WORLD" trip that the Enochians seem to pull on people, or at least, that people seem to pull on themselves after Working the EE's for a while.

I was just talking about this to a friend and student from the course earlier this week, and lo and behold Fr. AIT posts his corroborative hunches. I'm sure it's all a coincidence.

In my limited experiences with them, I felt like they were terrestrial spirits, akin to the Goetia spirits I've worked with previously. I think it's odd that they express the kind of jealousy over the Goetia that they showed Kelley. It reminds me of stories of the Ghede and the Loa and other packs of spirits.

Making Goals

There are certain steps that must be done in any process. I pay attention to things going on around me, and I try to take action when I have an opportunity to advance my own secret goals.

Some days I get to take steps forward, other days I get to make new goals because I learned I'd been thinking too friggin' small. Today I got to make another goal. This one will take some doing. I need a little help, but I think I know who to ask.

Not too late...

Just a reminder, it's not too late to sign up for Course 1 of the Red Work series, Acquiring a Supernatural Assistant. You can sign up through November 15th, and you won't miss too much to be able to catch up.

Not crazy, no mad prophet here...

For anyone disturbed by yesterday's post and thinking I'm some kind of doom and gloom mad prophet, good news! I'm totally not.

I was trying to express frustration with the role of suffering in existence. I'm not happy with it, and I wanted to know what the alternative was. Why the hell can't we just not suffer? I asked God, and he said it's just part of the whole thing, and you can't exist without it.

Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone not to exist than for the people who get hurt the most to have to suffer as badly as they do. I am he who hates that evil should be done on the face of the Earth, and all that.

But the question I get stuck with is, if it is either this or no-thing-ness, which is really the better option? To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?

That's mortality-talk, I suppose. I don't want to die any time soon, and unlike Hamlet, I don't think death is better than life, not really, no. I'm not concerned with what comes after death the way Hamlet is in his famous soliloquy, I'm not afraid of death or of anything that may or may not come after, I'm totally fine with that. I'm just contemplating the role of suffering in existence, that's all.

Nothing big.

I picked the plague for the allegory last night because H1N1 was on the news earlier in the day, and was fresh in my mind. It could have been the next ethnic cleansing that was getting rolled out from the heavens, or the next tsunami, earthquake, flood, or terrorist bombing, whatever major event is next on the docket for killing off people in mass quantities. One thing we can count on for sure is that people are going to die, a lot, from today through the end of humanity on the planet. It's a given that every human death is going to hurt the people who interacted with that human. Maybe not a given, but it's a high probability.

According to some statistics, the number of people dying in the US each year from flu-related symptoms is around 36,000 (from the CDC web site).  Globally around 200,000-500,000 are estimated to die yearly (from a Bangladesh news site) from flu-related symptoms. Across the duration of one strain of influenza virus, it's reasonable to expect it to be a contributing factor in the deaths of millions. Each year, new strains mutate and become viable, so it's a given that there are some spirits rolling out pandemics consistently. Job security.

To take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. I hate that evil should be done upon the Earth. I recently wrote a long email about good and evil, and how good is what we like, and evil is what we don't like on the Lemegeton yahoo list. There's really no such thing as objective evil. It always seems like a good idea from some perspective. Humans overpopulate, and mass death controls the number of resource-consuming people on the planet, yada yada yada. There's always some justification for it.

Even though there is no objective evil, there is subjective Evil.I see things I don't like in my world, a sea of troubles, and as a magician, I have the power to take up arms against them. I feel like it's my responsibility, as well. I take a lot on myself, I know. I don't care, it's how I am. I feel like I should be doing something to mitigate suffering on Earth. Even if it has to happen, I don't have to like it, and I don't have to let it happen around me. God obviously isn't going to stop it all on his own, and maybe he expects me to do my part to stop whatever suffering I can, and that's why he made me a magician, or something. I don't know.

All in all I was disappointed in yesterday's post. It seems to have failed to convey what I intended. Disappointing.

Unfortunately for you, Head for the Red is not only the place where I talk about my experiences in the Great Work, it's also where I work on my writing skills. Sometimes the experiments are successful, other times, not so much.

But I'm not crazy. The Work hasn't turned me into a mad man, no, not yet, not yet. :)

Supposedly i can post from my cell phone now. Like twitter. This would be a test.

It's this or nothing.

As I was meditating one day, the Spirit descended upon me and took me up into the heavens, whether in body, or in a dream, I do not know.

In the Workshop, I saw my Brother overseeing a manifestation of Plague. It was time for the new pandemic to be rolled out, under the supervision of the appropriate spirits of  Saturn and Venus.

"It's going to kill millions of people," I said, and my Brother looked up at me.

"Yes, it is."

"But why? Why like this? That's going to hurt, and leave families without children, children without parents, and it's going to hurt the poor worse than the rich. It's not fair to any of them."

Gently, he sighed, and got that look he gets when he's going to tell me something I won't like, agree with, or understand.

"They have to die."

He just looked at me. His face is always so compassionate. He knows what it means to be human, mostly cut off from our birth-right, yet still conscious enough to be aware of the disconnect. He knows I don't see the beginning and the end the way he does.

"Like this?" I asked.

"Yes. Exactly like this. It has to happen."

"Why? You're God, or close enough for it not to matter any more. You can let them live and find their deaths of old age. What could happen if you just had mercy and spared us from this stupid plague?"

"This," he said, and took me over to a corner of the workshop that seemed dustier than the rest. He sat me on a stool and sat across from me. "Close your eyes."

He's totally done this before. It's a vision trip, where he shows me shit that I can't understand in words.So I know what to expect; he's going to show me a future with too many people, or something to justify the horrors this disease will cause.

Instead, all I see is nothing. Deep nothing. Nothing without even anything to compare it to, no way to know it is nothing. Nothing. No eyes to see, no me to look through eyes, even if they were there, nothing for my brain to process, no brain to process with. Nothing. Empty.

"See?"

"I didn't see anything," I said.

"Right." My blank stare spoke volumes.

"Look," he said. "Remember the sign on the Boot Hill Saloon?"

(The Boot Hill Saloon is a bar in Daytona across the street from the old Boot Hill cemetery, where outlaws and the destitute were buried.)

"You're better off here than across the street?"

"Yeah."

"That's the big mystical secret? It's this or nothing?" There was a brief pause, and I heard laughter in the distance. "Nothing's a hell of a lot better than unleashing this disease and suffering!"

He returned my gaze without flinching for a long moment, and when he had my full attention again, he simply said one word.

"Really?"

Cthulhu Comments

So Cthulhu was reading the comments on my blog today, and he saw Wind's comment "it makes me wonder... you attained your HGA some time ago and you're just figuring out that you want to serve mankind now? Maybe the path ain't what I thought it was."

"Mlaroeognhchth!"

"Yeah," I said, "I get that all the time."

"Granachlethtulku?"

"Nah, I'll just write a blog post."

"Ng yalthkaz ruek."

"Heh, yeah, I know, right? But I'll just put it in English my way. It's not so messy."

This is one of the reasons I started writing the blog and eventually got around to starting the Supernatural Assistant course. The fact is, the path isn't what a lot of people think it is. The HGA isn't instant enlightenment. It isn't a path to becoming compassionate and wise and everything you think a spiritual guru or enlightened Master is supposed to be. It's nothing like the point of Eastern Mysticism at all.

The HGA is primarily a spiritual assistant. It's got the powers of a lot of the entities from the Lemegeton, entities largely considered "demonic." It also has the power to bring you entities often considered Demonic. It's also a straight and direct line of communion with your Source. It's also a powerful motivator and Teacher, a Guide that can direct you to spiritual wisdom and the whole guru thing. It can help you attain compassion and service to others, if that's your purpose in life.

But it's not a given. Just because you can talk to your HGA doesn't mean you will. Just because you can have it make troops appear to frighten off your King's enemies doesn't mean you'll ever be in a position to need that.

The primary goal of the HGA is to help you do more magic. More magic causes spiritual transformations that may lead to compassion, or it may lead to wisdom, or it may lead to wealth, or something like that. But there's no guarantee, and above all, it's not a process that happens over night.

I started out an asshole who literally hated people. Misanthropist barely describes the hate I felt for "other people." After years of doing magic with my HGA, I have changed. I generally get mildly annoyed by people now, and even then I recognize that whatever's annoying me is only temporary, and does not mean I need to write off that person entirely because one area of their life is annoying to me. I've learned that I don't need to curse people, because their lives are usually pretty shitty, and that's why they're acting so annoying. I've learned I don't have to be a dick, all the time.

I'm not a perfectly compassionate, lay-down-my-life-for-a-friend kind of guy. I still want to do things for me, regardless of the impact it has on others. I have a hard time getting out of bed and doing a load of dishes or laundry when my wife's sick. I'd rather play video games than mow the lawn. I'd rather have a ton of money than have to earn it. I still see people do stupid things and think, "God! How flippin' STUPID!" and feel better about myself because I'm so not-STUPID.

I'm petty and mean, sometimes. There are days when I regret ever writing this blog, ever trying to help people, ever starting the path of the Great Work. There are days that I hate the responsibility that comes with it, and frankly, there are days when I ignore the responsibility that comes with it.

But I've progressed a great deal, in my own estimation, from where I used to be. I hear it from others as well, that I've shown growth in understanding aspects of the path I'm on that they thought I'd never achieve.

The bottom line is that the HGA doesn't make you perfect, it makes it easier to approach perfection. But that's not it's primary function at all. It's primarily there to aid you in performing magic, magic that is intended to create the world. There are things that need to be created on the planet that aren't going to be fun for everyone that participate, things that will hurt, maim, and kill. Conjure a daimon to help your brother in a battle in Afghanistan, and you're helping to kill Taliban-believing humans. For what? To protect your brother? What makes your brother special compared to the Taliban?

But that's what the spirits are there for. We're supposed to be concerned about this level of "petty" human interaction. Why would God create a spirit that causes pustules and death if there weren't a time that pustules and death were necessary?

We don't take on a flesh suit and manifest as human beings so that we can transcend being human, or so that we can attain an understanding that makes us more than human. We do it to be fully human. We aren't supposed to be perfect. If we were supposed to be perfectly good and do only the "right" thing all the time, we wouldn't have bothered being human in the first place.

Yeah, I found out I like helping people. The interesting part to me was that I enjoy it. I mean, I'm really fulfilled by doing it. I've helped people before, but in general I usually resent having to help people. I would rather help myself. I've never felt so happy about it, I've just sort of felt it was a necessary burden, an obligation to pass things on that I didn't have a lot of choice in. I've always looked at the Hierophant thing as a burden, not a joy. I've said before, "I do it because I gots to, Mister!" It's true, too, I do have to.

What's surprising to me is that I'm enjoying it too. I'm actually having fun.

An interesting observation

I realized something about myself today. I'm totally happy helping people. I mean, I'm actually fulfilled by this shit. I like teaching, I like it a lot. I like writing books that help people do magic. I like giving people access to the power to change the world. It makes me feel happy. It makes me feel good.

Helping people is fun; who knew?

About that curse on the book...

The "curse" on the book is just for pirates stealing my work and putting it out on the web intentionally depriving me of income off my work. There's little chance that you'll accidentally trigger the curse by saving the book to a thumbdrive, or even letting a your friends read copies. I consider that "fair use." The curse is directed at anyone loading anything I write up to a torrent or file-sharing service that is geared to spreading the information for free to millions of members or just your average web surfer.

It's also aimed only at the person that uploads the material. I think the sites that provide the service with the intent to rip off writers are deplorable, but most file sharing sites are providing the service with good intentions. I respect those who make the Great Work accessible to more people. I just don't want my stuff given away until I've been dead for at least 25 years.

After that, it's fair game.* I think I'll put that in my will. I want people to ...

Oh my god. I just realized I'm talking about leaving my stuff for posterity. I'm not as arrogant as I may seem, really.

Ok, maybe I am. Maybe I do think the stuff being written today by people like me and Jason Miller and Patrick Dunn and many of my up and coming blogger friends is going to change the world and make it a better place for magicians to live in. We're doing the magic, changing the face of the world a little bit, one reader at a time. I am proud of that, proud of being a part of it.

This is the best time in history to be an occultist, ever. We have access to so much more, and our generation of magicians have left the armchair for good. I don't think there were this many practicing magicians with Knowledge and Conversation with their Holy Guardian Angels ever before on Earth. And we have access to their materials, their experiences, their Work online that no magician in history has had.

It's fabulous, really.

*Not until I'm dead for 25 years, or I'll haunt you myself.

Lesson 1 Available

For those who signed up for the course, Lesson 1 has been posted and is now available.

As I developed it, the structure for the whole series of courses came together. Each is a progression from the one before, and each covers a part of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. I'm calling the course series The Red Work.

The Red Work series of courses is designed to take the magician through these phases of the Alchemical Work allegorically.

In Course 1, Acquiring a Supernatural Assistant, we will go through the Black and White phases, applying the Heat of the Sun to a crucible in the Moon, drawing out the imperfections and other negative qualities that distract us from the Work, and preparing us to perform the next phases of the Work.

Course 2: Hermetic Merkavah picks up the Green and Red Works. During the Green phase, the magician undergoes a series of initiations into the celestial spheres of the planets and fixed stars. You begin a technique of traveling through the spheres, and receiving spiritual attunements that bring you into harmony with the spheres around you. During the Red Work phase, you’ll be learning to apply the powers and lessons obtained in the Celestial spheres in the mundane world. Early efforts are clumsy, and there’s a learning curve involved, but the awkward stage is mercifully brief. By this phase, you’ve learned to learn, a skill that mitigates all challenges.

Course 3: Goety begins the Projection phase. In this phase, I’ll be going over the ways to conjure the spirits that I discuss in the Modern Goetic Grimoire. This style of magic focuses on working primarily with the Terrestrial Spirits, the spirits of Nature, the Elements, and the Genius Loci, or spirits of place. It touches on working with our ancestors, and other entities of the recently (and not-so-recently) dead brothers and sisters. It also addresses working with the daimonic spirits of the Lemegeton’s Goetia. 

While I strongly urge everyone to take them in order, or at least have accomplished the goals of the previous lessons before beginning the next, each course is independent, and you are not required to have taken either of the other 2.

On a second track, I'm going to develop the Neo-Platonic Basics into a full-blown system that makes use of the series of initiations acquired through the other courses. It'll be the system that puts a consistent framework around the information in Agrippa, and it'll teach the practical applications of Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy.

But that won't be until the The Red Work courses are complete.

Weight Loss

Long ago and far away, I had a pact with Jason to lose weight this year. We had aimed to lose around 60 pounds. I started at 238, a weight I was proud of being at, since it was less than the 270 I had managed to accumulate after my last child was born.

Over the summer I managed to lose about 15 pounds by doing a lot of walking and exercises. I hit the 225 mark and stalled, but I finally broke through that plateau and made it down to about 220, before Halloween hit.

Optimystic asked me to do a write up on the element of Fire over on the Lemegeton list, and this is one of the elements I had planned on working with (at the beginning of the year) to get the weight off. I was hoping to simply increase my metabolism with some gentle work with Oriens, Prince of the East. I was thinking of doing a conjuration of Oriens for the article, and then while I was at it, asking him to up my metabolism.

Due to the experiences of a certain blogger who shall remain nameless related to magic and weight loss, I have been hesitant to use magic to lose weight. A hasty ritual that doesn't take into account basic physiology can be hazardous to one's health. I think that simply increasing my metabolism under the tutelage of Oriens will work. But at the same time, the biggest driver for actual weight loss is always exercise for me. If I build up some meaty major muscle groups, my body burns more calories throughout the day. Long walks and hours spent on the old exerbike seem to work wonders for me. I don't want to inflame my metabolism, and then give it no outlet to burn.

So I'm taking a holistic approach, and resisting the urge to conjure up Oriens and get him to do the driving for me. I'll probably end up Working with each of the elemetnal Kings, and doing some kind of Work on the Guf itself. the Moon's waning, so I'm thinking it's a good time for it.

Even though I've only got a couple of months to lose the rest of the weight. Sigh. I don't think I'll make it to the full 60 pounds this year, but I do aim to at least break 200 by January.

Neo-Platonics Basics

I've compiled the Neo-Platonics Basics series into yet another eBook available over on the right. The original blog posts are still available in the history, and on www.rufusopus.com, but for those who like eBooks to print out and have, it saves you some editing.

For those who have signed up for the course, DON'T BUY IT. You'll get a copy as part of the course.

Attention Supernatural Assistant Course Members

If you've signed up for the course, you've been invited to join the yahoo group. 3 of the course members haven't joined yet, so check the email you used to set up the google checkout account, and look for an invite to the yahoo group. If you have another email address you want to use, let me know, and I'll send the invite there.

Clouds of Incense

In the book of Revelations, there's a section that talks about how the incense that the angels offer up to God in his throne room are the prayers of the saints. I think it's a neat analogy.

Jason Miller presents an offering technique in his books Sorcerer's Secrets and Protection and Reversal Magic that consists of visualizing clouds of "energy" expanding out on behalf of the spirits. He advises you to mentally multiply whatever offering you're making, visualizing it being a ton more stuff than it actually is. It's a cool concept.

As part of the development of the course for the Supernatural Assistant, I've been praying. A lot. I had sort of stopped praying sometime around February, which contributed to the overall troubles I faced this past summer. I've been making up for lost time, as it were, inflaming myself in prayer the way I intend to have the class participants do it, and man... I can't believe I stopped.

The power of prayer is incredible. Think of every moment you spend immersed in prayer as a moment of offering up some smoking incense to the source of your being, clouds of incense filling the Holy of Holies with the pure essence of worship, love, and the sanctifying power of Grace. As I finish the session, I've been magnifying the incense in my mind's eye, filling the Throne Room of God with huge thick thunderheads of clouds of incense, the way Jason advises. I even picture lightning flashing within the clouds.

I've also been incorporating the breathing techniques he provides in Sorcerer's Secrets. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Jason's book is a welcome addition to any magician's library. The techniques he provides are very cool to play with in practice. I've had my prayer sessions enriched and reinvigorated. It's definitely a highly recommended resource.

But the prayer has been like ... I want to say its like recharging the old batteries, but it's more than that. I haven't had the amount of "energy" I have now ... ever. Maybe the two months spent in fear of no-income, and the three months of not-praying and over-stressing are coloring my perception, but I really feel like the batteries were taken out, the whole system was redesigned to handle more power, and a whole new power pack was installed. And it doesn't seem to drain. My new job is totally stressful, I'm busy most of the day, and the deadlines are hilarious, if they're happening to someone else, but I have a steady reserve of mental alertness that other people on the project don't have. They get burned out quickly, it seems, while I'm feeling as fresh as I did in the morning after my first cup of coffee all day long.

I have noticed I'm sleeping a lot deeper than I used to. I've attributed that to not having the same level of stress I was living under for so long, but now I'm not sure. There's probably more to it than that. I'm on from the time I wake up until about 11:30 at night, and then I'm off, like someone flipped a switch.

I've resumed my regular daily regimen of Hermetic Merkavah before going to bed. I've been going through a spiritual metamorphosis that seems to pick up where I left off in my dreams. I wouldn't say I was lucidly dreaming, but there's definitely something going on.

I'm still digging out of the financial hole I made for myself over the last couple of months, but I keep thinking of new ways out, through, and I'm not freaking out over stuff that I can't control. I've taken steps to exert as much influence as I have access to over the things that are most pressing, and I have peace over those issues: they're in stronger hands than mine, and I have a sense of acceptance that it will be taken care of by those best suited to address the issues, leaving me free to pursue God in prayer and ritual.

I've been spending a lot more time with my HGA/Supernatural Assistant too, in preparation for the class. I'm going over the strategy I have planned with him, and we're cleaning up the things that I had penciled in. He's got some great ideas (as you can imagine) about making things easier for the students as a whole. I'm excited to see how things turn out.

I think the trick is to pursue God first, take whatever problems that interfere with your pursuit of Him (however you see him or her or it or whatever) to the appropriate celestial/terrestrial entity, and then get back to pursuing Him. Everything else just seems to take care of itself.

Goetic Blessings

I recently saw a comment on one of the message boards mentioning that someone added themselves to my "followers" list on the right over there, and that they soon received an unexpected windfall. I'm assuming I also managed to get my 10%.

It's got me wondering about online magic in general. I'm by no means a "cyber magician" or anything like that, but, apparently, blessings online can be passed along with triggers using Goetic Magic, at least. Innn-terrresting.