Crucible Roundup

Whoa. What an excellent weekend. By far the best weekend of my life so far.

Crucible was amazing. Arthur continues to do a great job bringing together an interesting cross section of the occult community who are ready and able to present advanced topics in occult practice that you just don't see happening anywhere else.

It was brilliant. I got to be on a couple panels, which will be airing on Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole soon. The panels were myself, Omnimancers Arthur and Tony, Andrieh Vitimus, and Jason Miller. We had interesting discussions about magical mishaps in one panel, and polarities and balance in another. It was a fun conversation.

Then I was honored to witness some cool initiations, and it was the first time I got to see Mr. Miller do any serious ritual type magic. In addition to his sorcerous insights and spiritual skills, the man has amazing vocal talents. Fortunately for me, it wasn't the last time I got to see him do some cool magic that night.

Next we went to Jason's Financial Sorcery presentation. It was awesome. He presented the 16 lightning glyphs, and folks, there's a secret to those things that makes them powerful. Really super powerful. You should totally check into that, use them a lot, and see what happens. I promise you'll love the results. He closed out the presentation with a really cool rite. He had the people on the outer edge of the room chant one thing, the people inside the outer ring chant something else, and he performed an invocation of Jupiter. There were four Gentlemen for Jupiter present during the rite contributing out resonance with the current, and I loved feeling that current fall.

Then it was my turn. I headed across the hall to start setting up for the presentation, and the first thing I noticed was that there were a lot of people there. Last year I think I had four or maybe six people in my presentation. This year the place was packed. I remember every single seat in the house being filled, but there may have been a couple empty chairs here or there. The back wall was lined with people too.

I was a bit nervous at first. Pretty soon I found myself immersed in the presentation and the particular story I was there to tell, and it started to flow nicely. I had the best audience ever. The members of my course were in the front row on my right, looking sharp. Most of the people present were regular readers of my blog, and I felt somewhat comfortable skipping over the basic basics and getting to the fun stuff. Pretty soon I felt like we were all friends and we had a great time.

There are some rumors that I got a little Pentecostal Hermetic Preacher at some point. I won't deny it, the spirit was thick within me and wanted to get out. I found myself near tears at a couple points. At other times, I felt like all the people in the room and I were all one living organism, and that I was directing the flow of forces through the organism in time to the internal harmonies of my soul. I loved every minute of it.

The best moment of the presentation for me came when I got to the final section of the presentation, "The Key to Making all Hermetic Magic Work." I knew that the key was so simple and obvious, to have the impact necessary, I'd need to have everyone else jacked up to a certain state of awareness. If I'd woven the spell right leading up to this moment, it would be the brilliant moment of satori, and if not, it would just be a bunch of people looking at me like I was an idiot.

When I flipped to the section title slide, everyone in the room started applauding the subtitle, I knew I had 'em. I knew I had won, and ... oh, brothers and sisters, it was beautiful.

Afterwards, I was higher than fucking God. My lovely companion (who made a great weekend a truly perfect one instead) helped me keep my feet on the floor long enough to change clothes and unwind a bit. We ran into some members of the Red Work courses at the bar, and had a couple drinks before attending the last half of Andrieh's presentation. I honestly don't remember much of it. I kept thinking about the things that worked and the things that didn't work in my presentation, things to do differently the next time. My mind was racing. And I'd had some Polyphanic gin.

I got to meet and hang out briefly with a few of the Red Work Course members, including Tolderoll, Polyphanes, and Pallas Renatus for the first time, and Jessica, another of my students I had the pleasure of meeting last year at crucible.

I noticed something right away about the Red Work Course members. They are, objectively speaking, very attractive men and women. They are intelligent, and able to carry on advanced conversations about occult subjects in meaningful ways. They dress well. They're almost all taller than me. They have a tendency to cuss like sailors.

And they can all drink like fucking fish.

I felt like throwing my arms around them and saying, "My people, at last I've found you!" There was a strong sense of family between us. They are made of pure win. These are the next generation of expert occultists, ladies and gents, and I'm happy to say the future is in good hands.

I can't wait to meet the rest of you as soon as possible.

I think the Red Work Course convention will need to be modeled on our special shared qualities. Maybe one or two presentations throughout the day, but otherwise a series of comfortable rooms well stocked with fine liquors, wines, and eccentric beers where we can hang out and talk. There were conversations to be had that I didn't even have time to get started. Or maybe a set of presentations until like 7 or 8, dinner, and then after party. It will definitely more drinking and talking earlier in the night, for sure.

Anyway, all things to consider for the future.

This year's presentation has been recorded. I'll be getting a link to the electronic version soon. I'd love to turn it into a sellable product, but there are details to work out if I start making money on it. We'll figure it out and make things available to people in different ways. I don't think I'll charge anyone who is a member of the Red Work series of courses. I might just keep it available only to the Red Work members. That would be a lot easier.  Hm. Thoughts and thoughts.