Looking Forward

Ahhh, things are shaping up nicely at the hearth. I only have half my stuff in boxes, and I'm down to only two rooms left needing to be furnished. Of course, one of those rooms is the new office-study, which means I'm still limited to writing in my son's room, which has the only desk in the house and is currently decorated in "How to train your dragon" stuff (Toothless is not a good inspiration for writing occult materials), or on a laptop. Feh, and feh, respectively.

But nevertheless, I see things coming together and giving me both the time and space to do some serious revisions to the NeoPlatonic Basics, Modern Angelic Grimoire, and Modern Goetic Grimoire in the next few weeks. I also will be able to revise and refocus on the Red Work Courses, which should be starting again in a month. I'll be posting a link to register for the series of courses as soon as next week to give folks time to determine whether they think this is the right path for them.

The revised courses will still include some Goety stuff for two reasons. One, I already have a shitload of experience and material based on that subject. Two, the material is practically useful. I've been down on Goety lately, but the fact remains that it is a powerful system that provides tangible results quickly. It's like speeding while driving, it's not the smart or legal or proper thing to do, and it comes with risk to life, limb, and legal fines and potential jail time, but there are times that you do it anyway. And until you've mastered some of the more useful results of learning to Hymn in Silence with the Powers of the Eighth Sphere, it provides an avenue of manifestation that has little competition in the occult realm. Expect lots of caveats to come along with that section of the material.

I'll be beefing up the "Hermetic Merkavah" material, because I'm learning that the things I did in these seven spheres over the last few years really laid some major groundwork for the experiences I'm having now in the Eighth Sphere. I knew the Work in the planetary spheres was important for Goety and for Theurgy, but I didn't realize how much of a base framework was being put together while I was going through it. I'm seeing now that the last few years of Planetary Magic Work, rising through the spheres, gaining attunements and initiations was like putting together a spiritual circuit board that's a lot like a motherboard* in a  PC. I've got connections for various devices, a versatile processor socket, multiple connections to various storage devices and operating systems, and plenty of RAM and lots of bandwidth on the bus. For my non-geek friends, you can click the link, or see the footnote for a more condensed understanding.

Doing the Planetary Work feels more like the job part of the Great Work while I'm doing it. It's like a Review-Revise-Repeat process, or the maintenance stuff that doesn't seem that important until you haven't done it for a week. It's not boring, but there's so much of it that it gets to be routine. You start seeing Raphael every week of the month, and you end up getting to know him like an office co-worker you see in a weekly staff meeting.

But that steady practice is what keeps the process flowing smoothly, it's the regularly scheduled tasks that end up making a quality end product. Very important stuff. Once you've got the results of this work firmly in place, or have the product promoted to the Production Environment so to speak, you get to start using it, and it's pertty incredible what you can do with it. I suspected before, but now I know. Or Gno.

In a comment, someone asked me to write up a post on the new techniques I'm picking up. The Eighth Sphere stuff is still too new to me to start teaching, but as I gain experience and understanding, I'll be adding it to the Red Work series of courses. It will explain how to go through that particular Gate, or pierce that particular veil, as well as some of the techniques I've been picking up that make the process easier. I'd start posting about it in detail now, but it's still way too raw.

And besides, I don't know what might happen to you if I start giving out the secrets I've worked so hard for without providing the framework to turn the current into work. With a fully developed motherboard, hard drive, input/output devices, a processor and stable operating system, plus the necessary RAM to run the programs and the devices to enjoy the full experience, you don't have everything you need to make a computer. You wouldn't expect to access the internet by sticking your fingers into a power socket directly, right? It doesn't work. You need a human interface device between you and the power source for it to work, and that's what the Planetary Work provides.

But this is all still to come over the next few weeks and months. My current goals are to start offering the Supernatural Assistant and Hermetic Merkavah courses again next month. I'll start taking registrations next week, or maybe as soon as the weekend if I can get a writing desk and chair. Future courses will include the Eighth Sphere: Hymns of Silence.

I'm also going to rewrite my Modern Goetic Grimoire and turn it into a Goety Mini-Course. I'll probably pull it from the blog's available titles, and only make it available to those who have completed the Supernatural Assistant, and maybe the Planetary Magic courses.

Tentatively it will look something like:

Red Work Course Series
The Black Work

Acquiring the Supernatural Assistant

Topics covered include:

• Neo-Platonic Basics
• Trithemian Conjuration Technique
• Solar Attunement & Genius/Evil Daimon Names
• Attaining the Supernatural Assistant
• Working with the Assistant

Goety Mini-Course Part 1 (Optional)

Topics covered include:

• Elemental Magic
• Genii Loci
• Necromancy
• Demonology

The White Work

Planetary Magic 

Topics covered include:

• Intelligences, Initiation, and Integration
• Spirits, Legions, and Manifestation 
• The Things We Leave Behind

The Red Work

Topics covered include:

• Entering the Eighth Sphere
• Hearing the Hymns of Silence
• Becoming a Hermetic Power
• Eighth Sphere Magic Techniques

At least, that's what I'm thinking today. Expect it to get more developed over time.




* The motherboard's main job is to hold the computer's microprocessor chip and let everything else connect to it. Everything that runs the computer or enhances its performance is either part of the motherboard or plugs into it via a slot or port.