Epic Moments

OK... I'm sitting at a bar at the airport waiting for my flight, having calamari and my second Bombay sapphire martini on my way from freezing rain in Baltimore to beautiful sunny Florida, where a red haired goddess awaits my arrival, and i get a notification that I've received money for doing the stuff I love to do.

Just thought I'd mention it.

Cause this is what it can be like.

Black Friday: Red Work

Hey all, you could spend all your money on material goods that make you happy for a little while, or you could spend your money getting the foundation necessary to live in intentional enjoyment of your life. I mean really, which would you prefer?

To make the (obviously right) choice easier for you, the complete Red Work series of courses (normally $275) is available through this blog post only for $175. This sale is good from now until I get around to editing the Buy Now button out of it later. I'll keep it up at least through Sunday, but as soon as I get around to remembering it afterwards, this sale is over.

Happy Thanksgiving!

On this Thanksgiving, brothers and sisters, I strongly urge you from the highest celestial heavens and the deepest chthonic caverns, do not be thankful for shit that sucks.

Do not dress up those things that bring you misery 364 days a year as blessings. Do not pretend you are happy if you are not. Do not justify putting up with scorn, ridicule, hatred, or abuse by focusing on some fantastical reward in the far off future, or in hopes that if you suffer long enough, patiently enough, things will just get better.

No, instead be thankful that you are intelligent, brilliant shining stars made in the image of God. Be thankful that you have received the power to create your world. Be thankful that you know better, that you can do better.

Be thankful that if you woke up today, you have everything you need to change your world completely. To make it brilliant. Beautiful. Fun. To find love, and happiness. To bring light and liberty to your world.

If this holiday secretly creeps you the fuck out, there's a reason. 

Change that shit.

Amen.

Rufus Opus is Not a Prophet

Rufus Opus is not a prophet. Or he's a false prophet.

Rufus says everything you do will eventually lead to things being all right. Just do your will, and you'll be good. You'll gain riches, love, your will, etc.

A prophet tells you everything will go to hell if you don't repent. You must turn away from yourself, and turn back to God (the Source, the Divine, whatever). Maybe it will go to hell even if you do what the Divine wants. See Jeremiah chapters 14, 28.

I'm not saying that what Rufus says isn't correct, or useful. I'm not saying he can't be an inspiration. 

I am saying that Prophet is not his title. And to you I say: If you are not inspired, even sent, by the Lord to warn of calamity, do not claim the title of prophet. If you speak of peace, you will be proved false, for the Lord did not send you. 

I have met prophets, men and women sent by God to warn of calamity. They've been correct, but they were not nearly as personable as RO is. He's no prophet, he's not nearly disagreeable enough.

- Monsignor Scott Rassbach 

I am totally a false prophet. And I should be stoned, dammit! Why am I not stoned?

He's totally right, in every way. I am not a prophet, in case you thought I claimed that. I do not claim that. In fact, if you start acting like I'm a messiah or a guru, you will be receiving your very own electronic version of this quote going forward, or a link to this blog post. I am not a prophet.

What I am is a Magus. Of the Ecstatic Hermetic type. I like the passionate pursuit of power and transformation. I love the burn of the dross as it is consumed, the charred hot dry smell of purified ME in the morning. I love to stand in the power of the forces of creation, and feel it rise up within me in harmony with the power in them and course through me, and into the universe at large. I love watching it take shape in my life, the lives of my clients and students, the lives of my friends who come along for the ride.

I'm a bit of a junky.

When the juices are flowing, God is in his Heavens, his Angels surround you, and You are in your place, and all is right with the world. There's nothing wrong then. You're plugged in, and your will is manifesting, you aren't even thinking anymore, you're just sort of thrilling with the rise and fall of the music as it dances in time to the motions of your wand, like conducting the biggest and best orchestra ever playing the Ode to Joy, or the 1812 overture with full cannon accompaniment. It's fucking awesome, and I love it. And I want everyone to feel it.

And I'm a fatalist. Amor fati, Love your fate. Fate, Will, same fucking thing. Everything you do will work out. It will work out faster if you know what you really want. You could sit there and wait for shit to change, or you can just change shit. It's your choice, your will.

What do you want to do? That's your fate. What you end up doing, that's your Will.

The only thing that changes with this magic stuff, really, is what you're paying attention to, and the technology you use as a result. Eventually, shit happens in your favor, wealth and health and love just fall out of the fucking sky whenever you need it. Spirits you don't even think you need to conjure pop up and make themselves known, and then turn out to be exactly what you needed right when you needed them. Gods bring a touch of divinity to everything you do. You start rubbing off on people just by being near them.

Weird shit.

Happens.

A lot.

Other shit falls from the sky too, especially at first, but it gets better, and better, and better. And then it's fun. Really fun.

It's not a perfect life all the time. Shit gets wrecked for me as much as it ever did, and I still have to deal with it. But I find I'm happy Working on whatever I'm doing these days, whether it's cleaning up leftover shit piles from bad decisions in the past, or diving into the brilliant mysteries of the gods...

I'm not happy about everything all the time, but I get there as soon as I start applying what I learned about using magic to create and influence my world. I don't get what I think I want every time, but I do get something interesting, and I learn a bit more about how to do things.

It's a passion in and of itself.

So in summary: RO is not a Prophet. Just a Magus.

Exploring a new Service

So I've been talking to some students and clients lately about offering a Hermetics based counseling service. Sort of a live version of the Hermetic Diagnosis, but more dynamic, personally focused, and, well, live. I'm thinking 60 minute sessions. They have to be coordinated carefully and scheduled in advance. 

If you're interested, the cost will be $125 per session. Contact me via email and we'll make arrangements to speak, either via Skype, or some other kind of technology.

Everything I've Ever Done*

On the post about how you really are Moses when you say the magic words, The Unlikely Mage asks:

"So then is sin, for a magician, to ignore or repress that yearning to express their will?"

It's a good question. So it gets a full post essay on the Sins of a Magician.

Crowley said the "word of sin is restriction" in the Book of the Law. That one gets quoted a lot, even though it's talking about fucking, really, and fucking a lot the way you want to, in context, because fucking is cool.**

Sin is a useful concept within religious thought. In my Chrsitian (Protestant, Calvinist, Puritanical) system, "Sin" is any act that keeps you away from God. Applying that to Hermetics,  yeah, ignoring and repressing the yearning to express your will is sinful. Not expressing your Will obviously keeps you away from God, right? It's not doing it right, it's doing it wrong, it's bad. It's evil. It's sinful.

Sin implies a punishment, because it's been used as a means to control people instead of as a means to bring them spiritual enlightenment. Folks who did this had less interest in having an enlightened populace than a terrified one. Whatever, the use of the concept of "sin" to control instead of inspire has rendered it pretty useless. 

People don't understand that "sin keeps you away from god" is the total punishment itself. Being away from God sucks. You can only know that if you've been around him though, and it doesn't make as much sense to folks who haven't felt the presence of god personally loving them up as it tumbles around you, in you, through you to bounce laughing out your vocal chords.

And really, think about it. Can magicians sin? I've explained that we're beyond good and evil, right? I meant it. I'm serious when I say that shit. I can give you several applicable soteriologies from my Hermetic belief, if you want to know why sin doesn't exist for us. 

The folks who did the Seven Spheres in Seven days with us got a taste of exactly what I'm talking about, though. That was pretty awesome. They tasted the powers of the planetary spheres, the forces of creation. They experienced these powers. They felt them flow. They got a hint that they are all gods put here on earth to manifest their reality. They remembered collectively that they are visiting gods from other worlds here on individually missions of extremely sensitive personal import.

There's no sin, magicians. There's just what you do. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. That's it, that's the Law. There's just what you Do, what you Will. There ain't no middle ground. Those things are one thing, Do/Will. What you DO... that is what you fucking WILL. 

So what kind of god are you? A shitty mean small minded ignorant one? A benevolent force of joy and wealth? A frenzy of illuminating madness spreading amongst all who touch the hem of your garment?

You are expressing your will all the time, in everything you've ever done, in everything you ever do, everywhere you've ever been, everywhere you're going to. ***

Magic teaches us to do it better. We learn who we are by observing what we do. We do things to get what we want. Sometimes the stuff we do works, sometimes it's broken. We learn to fix the things we do that don't get us what we want, we change our approach using the wisdom, techniques and powers of the forces of manifestation. We learn to be ourselves better, more intentionally by becoming aware of what we're doing.

* If you don't recognize the title reference, click the link, you poor unfabulous person.

** Just wanted to point that out to the Crowley haters... You hate a guy who wrote a holy book about how cool it is to fuck. Seriously. Think about that some time.

*** Awww yeeeeeahhhhh!

I am Moses, your Prophet

"I summon you, Headless One, who created earth and heaven, who created night and day, you who created light and darkness; you are Osoronnophris whom none has ever seen; you are Iabas; you are Iappos; you have distinguished the just and the unjust; you have made female and male; you have revealed seed and fruits; you have made men love each other and hate each other.

"I am Moses your prophet to whom you have transmitted your mysteries celebrated by Israel; you have revealed the moist and the dry and all nourishment; hear me."

The Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphicist, Translated by Hans Deiter Betz.

Who is Moses, the Prophet of Osoronnophris?

Das me. 

(Das you too.)

You are of a people not like the people you have been raised with. I know you've noticed. There's something different about you.

You were cast adrift among the rushes, raised by natives of this oppressive land, but your real people have always found a way to reach you, to draw your attention to the signs and wonders of your home world, the miracles your people can experience regularly by right of birth.

One day you learned you were not of the oppressor's native race. You learned that you, in fact, were the spirit of the oppressed, and enraged, you murdered that which oppresses. Though maybe none saw you murder the oppressor, you imagined all around you could see your guilt, that you are indeed an alien, and you ran, you hid, you blended in as best as you could.

But Moses didn't get a break, and neither do you. It might have taken a while, but you met your burning bush, and accepted your fate. Or maybe you haven't yet, but I tell you, it's coming. It might take 40 years. I honestly hope not. They're coming though, those serpent flames that speak to you and tell you you're not free to do what you want, but if you think about it a bit, you'll be able to do what you will.

And you'll do it. And you'll understand that damned desert god, Osoronnophris, who none has ever seen, and you will receive the mysteries that were celebrated by the Israelites, mysteries of cleansing, of selection, of holiness and a spiritual status. You will understand your place as a child of that Source of Light, of your existence as Light in Extension, and you will do what you must.

Because you can.

One is the Magus

"For Unity doth most simply go through every number, and is the common measure, fountain, and original of all numbers, contains every number joined together in it self entirely  the beginner of every multitude, always the same, and unchangeable..." - Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book 2, Chapter 4.

"Geometrical Figures also arising from numbers, are conceived to be of no less power. Of these first of all, a Circle doth answer to Unity, and the number ten; for Unity is the Center, and circumference of all things; and the number ten being heaped together returns into a Unity from whence it had its beginning, being the end, and complements of all numbers. A circle is called an infinite line in which there is no Terminus a quo, nor Terminus ad quem, whose beginning and end is in every point, whence also a circular motion is called infinite, not according to time, but according to place; hence a circular being the largest and perfectest of all is judged to be the most fit for bindings and conjurations; Whence they who adjure evil spirits, are wont to environ themselves about with a circle." - ibid, Book 2, Chapter 23

"Thou art God," Mike repeated serenely. "That which groks. Anne is God. I am God. The happy grass are God, Jill groks in beauty always. Jill is God. All shaping and making and creating together — ." Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration—that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves." - Bill Hicks

Seven Spheres in Seven Days: Phase II

[Meant to get this out this morning, totally got lost in other stuff, my bad. Will extend this thing another week though if you missed it.]

Last week was awesome. Those of you who joined in the rituals and festivities know what I'm talking about. Those who watched from the sidelines know what I'm talking about. Its fun, it's exciting, and the current we've got going right now is fuckin' huge. I just checked it this morning, and ... yeah. Good times this week.

Now, here's the deal if you want in: you have to have the Gates Rites. If you're a student of the Green Work course, you have all seven of the Gates Rites. If you bought all the courses at once in a special deal a while ago, you've got all the Gates Rites. If you don't have the Gates Rites, they can be purchased at my ebooks page.

If you missed a couple rites the first week, or if this is your first week, now's a good time to get started. I'll be doing one more week after this, to get anyone starting late a chance to go two full weeks with some direction and guidance.

Today's the day we launch Phase II for the folks who've spent the last week packing their spheres with the powers of the planets. I put together some mitigating filters on the forces to keep folks from getting fully burnt out if their spheres weren't prepared for the forces, and it was still a little rough on a couple people. Pay attention to that shit. Those are the planets you need to Work with more.

Phase I is about pumping in the powers to create a critical mass. Phase II is focused on preparing you for the Eighth Sphere. The Eighth Sphere is the sphere of silent hymns. I'll try to write more about that on the plane today. For now, just know that it's the sphere of the Mansions of the Moon, the Fixed Stars, andthe forces that are directed through this sphere downwards are just-barely crystalized Ideas from the Mind of God. Moving from this sphere to the Ninth moving up requires a transformation of the self into the form of a "Power." More on that later.

In the Eighth sphere, we learn to Hymn in Silence. The Hymns are hymns of CREATION. We are creator gods, and the most holy form of worship is the creation of our world. Hymning in silence seems, from my experience, to mean that we get apply the forces of creation at will through methods such as imagining a shape or form, tensing a muscle, and paying attention (focusing awareness) to a certain thing happening. t's an immediate thing that has a great deal of potential.

That's the downward-facing stuff, which is awesome, because that's like our day job, what we do while we're incarnated. We create the material world as we see fit. All of us, magicians and non magicians alike are creator gods, creating our reality second by second, thought by thought, paying for our experiences in the coin of our realms, our attention.

But when we're done with our day jobs, we go home to our lover. That's where the real payoff of this is for us.

In Phase I, we catch glimpses of the power, we get that ecstatic blissful rush, we experience God in extension. It's awesome. It brings tears to your eyes sometimes, other times it feels like you could fly, or set the world on fire and dance among the coals. It's a rush, the magic-high, and it's fuckin' awesome.

And while that's necessary to be the Creator God of your world, it's not the really really good stuff. That's just a taste. The Feast remains higher, and can be found by turning your attention to where those forces of the planets come from.

Phase II is about revealing to you the next level of the Source of all things. You catch the scent of your quarry in the seven spheres, but in the Eighth, you begin the Hunt. You're chasing after the big prize, and when you get the scent in your nose, see the signs of its passing, nothing will stop you from catching your prey. Phase II is preparation for the Hunt for God.

And oh, sweet brothers and sisters, such a beautiful hunt it is. Because he's also hunting us, and is greatly desirous to be found, the conssumate lover