Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Raging Success Machine

There is only one thing you need to learn to get whatever you may want in life, and it's a really simple thing to get. It's free, even. It's the key to the universe in a way that magical symbols and occult practices will never be, because without this Key, you'll never learn magic at all.

I'm not talking about a piece of information here, either. It's a process that you need to have to be a successful magician. Over time it becomes an ability, a skill that you can develop and hone into a skeleton key that will open every lock, tear down the walls between you and your desires, make straight the way and short the path.

I figured it out the way I figure all this shit out: I took a look at myself. My lover was telling me I was awesome, and while I'm the first to tell OTHER people how awesome I am, I'm mostly kidding. On the inside I had to wonder wtf she was talking about, because I don't really think of myself as being all that special.

It's not my good looks. Although I am rather handsome, I'm not much better looking than the average geek who takes care of themselves. It's not my intelligence, because even though I'm smarter than the average bear, most of my friends are smarter than I am. I thought it was my adaptability for a while, because no matter what situation I find myself in, I find a way to excel. I rise to the top. I figure out the process, and go through the steps, and then the next thing you know, I'm at the top of my field, hobnobbing with the elite.

In conversation with my lover last night and this morning, I realized what it is for real though. It's a skill, an ability. It's a skill my mother developed in me, and raised me to believe in. It's a thing I've used naturally and consciously to get ahead, to achieve great things in the occult realms, to win awesome friends and influence beautiful people, to make six figures a year and to be the kind of man who attracts the most amazing women.

It's something that other people don't have. The Bud Light Brigade, the food stamp using, potato chip eating, coca cola drinking, gas station working, Wal Mart shopping hu-manatees don't strive for anything better because they don't have this Key to the Universe.

Wait, that's not true. They do have it, but no one ever told them, no one ever encouraged them to develop the skill. No one pointed out to them that they were doing it, or showed them they could apply it to every aspect of their lives to make things better for themselves, their kids, their spouses, their parents, their friends, their co-workers, everyone on the planet.

I'm talking about the ability to learn.

Everyone has the ability to learn. We learn things all the time. The stoner at Burger King making Whoppers had to learn the process. He watched videos about the broiler/toaster machine, learned the order of bun-meat-cheese-pickle on half the bun, mayo, lettuce, onion, tomato on the other, the pinch of bun and tomato to keep it from falling apart as he deftly flips the top on the bottom, wraps it in a fluid motion and tosses it into the window for pickup. Dude can make a Whopper in less than 15 seconds during the rush. And he had to learn to do that for half a dozen sandwiches, the fry station, and the single station. And how to do the prep work necessary for him to be able to make a Whopper in less than 15 seconds. And how to break down the broiler and clean it at close, and how to reassemble it at open. And the rhythm of the lunch and dinner rushes, to know how many burgers to put through so he doesn't run out.

He had to learn a lot to do that job. The process he went through is the same process on a small scale that an Engineer goes through to learn to design and build microprocessor based ROM circuit boards for kiosk machines or nuclear armature circuitry. It's the same stuff you go through to get a professional certification in project management, or the same stuff you go through in a university to get a PhD. It's the same stuff you go through to learn a new magical technique.

You gather information, you see how it fits together in predictable ways, and how to apply that knowledge get specific results. That's learning. We do it all the time. All of us.

But there's more to it than that to become a raging success machine. There's an attitude that separates the hu-manatees from the entrepreneurs who rage their way to the top. I believe I can learn. I believe there is nothing anyone else can do that I can't do too. I might not be able to do it better, but I don't have to. I believe there is a process, a series of steps that I can perform that will lead me to a place I want to be, and that if I perform them to the best of my abilities, I will end up where I want to be.

I said my mom taught me to do this. She was 36 when she had me. I was a high risk pregnancy in the '70s. I was not planned, if you haven't figured it out. I was a surprise. My mom had done moved on from the baby-raising days, and diapers and shit were not her preferred past time in her late thirties. She wanted her career back, and her time was precious. She didn't have time to teach me all the shit that you have to teach little kids, so she fucking cheated like a boss. She taught me I could figure stuff out on my own by watching, by asking questions, by trying, and seeing how shit worked out for myself. She encouraged that because she didn't want to have to teach me all that shit herself.

And I am so thankful.

Most of my really awesome successful friends are the types who have had, for one reason or another, to figure shit out on their own. By circumstance or design, they ended up learning that they could learn anything and put it into practice for themselves.

Assess yourself: has there been anything in your life that you'd like to do, and you think, "I don't even know where to start," and then you stopped there?

Here's some stuff that you should use instead of giving up on things you really want:

Google.com
Yale Open and Free Education
MIT Open and Free Education
JSTOR

And ... Magic. Magic helps you put the information together, to learn, to absorb the processes, to put it together into a useful set of reality-manipulation tools. Do the magic of the spheres while you're studying, while you're learning. It gives you the edge to lead a charmed life. Blessed. Holy. Awe-inspiring.

32 comments:

  1. This is will. Will works. Will works *better* with maths/reason. Sure you can hammer in a nail with your face, but any rational man will use a hammer.

    And teachers, teachers are really important and the best teachers work by creating learning environments, they work by creating space. This is the essence of pupil-centred learning. Sounds like your mum created space maybe as a cheat but its more effective than just didactic lecturing.

    That said 'whatever' does not work. Its the flake's dream quotation. Its the trademark of the ironic living, cat-pic posting hipster who is scared by serious *mathematical* (calculating) people - its the chant of the dancer at the end of time, the collapse of their civilization. They are the last civilized men with their vague anti-intellectualism. They are the sad progeny of the original post-modernists who pondered on the essence of meaning, most of the serious philosophers I know are embarassed by the current state of things and they know its their fault.

    We are the first barbarians of a new age. A sorcerer in Dee's day was referred to as a calculator. Maths was completely tied up with the esoteric sciences in this time. We are post-Chaos, intellectual barbarians armed with ancient proven mathematical weaponry. The rest of the decadent world is post-future - in essence they have given up. We are pre-future. We are HERMETIC.

    Its not 'whatever' that works, its MATHS that works. And applied MATHS in the form of science, both esoteric and exoteric science work *better* than anything else because they have maths backing them up. People can have the will, and the capacity, but they are going to do better with the maths than without. This is why your version of esoteric science and my own are better than the error-ridden (logical contradiciton ridden) stuff posted in a 'whatever works' esoteric environment - because you and I and others of the New Future have celestial maths behind them. Look at Patrick Dunn's post on 'what he believes in'. Whether you believe in reason or not, hipsters who may be reading this, it believes in you - and its coming to get you, and you're friends.

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  2. Success in business? Maths.
    Success in science? Maths.
    Success in photography and the arts? Maths.

    It doesn't matter how you learned the maths, there are all kinds of pathways to learning - visually, intuitively, musically, systematically, by rote and subsequent application, etc etc. But you're learning the maths.

    And this is no different when it comes to success in the arts. Behind all that success is maths. I like that Patrick referred to Socrates but Socrates for all his doubts pushed maths big time.

    Time the operation. Consult the probability. Enhance with geometria and trigonometria. Incant the divine algebra. Season with chaos theory.

    Do the work?
    Do the maths.

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  3. Well I was thinking about correcting that but then I felt you're friends with reason as opposed to your friends had its own special meaning.

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  4. Well, whatever you feel is right is fine then, neh? Because emotion is more important than reasoned rational rules, right?

    As anyone with an English primer reading my posts will quickly realize, I could give a shit about proper grammar. My correction of your "you're" mistake contributes nothing to your point, and has nothing to do with anything you're trying to say.

    Much like your rant about maths has nothing to contribute to the point of my post.

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  5. You are saying that the only thing required to be a successful magician is the ability to learn. But learn what? This is the question. Its like saying the only thing required is hope, or valour, or will.

    I think your post is empty motivational rhetoric and lacks technical details but don't allow the comments if you don't think it contributes. After all I am trying to contribute so there is no point otherwise.

    Its not your ability to learn that is behind your personal success as a magician, nor your belief in your ability to learn - its your ability to apply the actual maths (learning and believing is not the same as applying). Do you know what percentage of people actually stop doing the work when it becomes technical or requiring more discipline than they expected?

    Maybe I am not contributing maybe I am just agreeing in my own way and trying to develop the point a little further than the empty rhetoric. Excuse my lack of skills in sychophancy, sir, its really not my way, as you may have gathered.

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  6. #1: What I REALLY love and why your blog is on my daily go-to-list is the FIRE and PASSION behind your writing- ya know, "inspiration" and so on. Gets me in the MOOD! Even if the "hu-manatee"-terms may be oversimplifying things or may not be politically correct, it gets my blood a-churnin' and sets me straight on my course towards being a better being.
    I had a close death in the family about exactly a year ago, and what transformed it from a tragedy to a new beginning was my realisation of the possibility of CHANGE for the BETTER, and the myriad ways one CAN learn and improve upon life. Truly enlightening!

    #2: About the maths: Me, I personally enjoyed Taleb's "Black Swan" on the topic of predictability of success in increasingly complex systems.
    #2.5: On the topic of "reason": I enjoyed Horkheimer's "Dialectic of Entlightenment" on the topic of reason=salvation.
    Reason behaves itself just like sensibility and the rest of the menagerie, or else it gets the hose again.

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  7. "You gather information, you see how it fits together in predictable ways, and how to apply that knowledge get specific results."

    One could say you are dangerously close to espousing the scientific method. Gather data, form a hypothesis, etc . . .

    I love it.

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  8. Holy shit! I drink coca cola and shop at Wal Mart. I'm doomed I tell you...doomed!

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  9. In perhaps one of the more bizarrely synchronous events of the year (go RO, go!) MIT has, one day after this post, has now started to offer a free online course in Creative Learning.

    I swear, the longer I live, the less I believe in coincidence. At least among magical practitioners. :-P

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  10. So true! Learning is integral to adaptability, which is vital to evolution.

    All the people who have led me to important discoveries about myself (including you through your course material)have qualities that inspire one to be increasingly tenacious in the pursuit of learning. Teachers I dismiss are the ones who say, "The buck stops here, this is all you'll ever need to know."

    You're the man, RO!

    Better yet, Ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος! :)

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  11. As a teacher interested in creating learning environments and learning opportunities — and who does so both in an esoteric way in lodge/coven/grove-space, and in an exoteric way in classroom space — I must say that this was particularly an interesting blog post... but the argument about will vs. maths is disheartening.

    Of course the will to learn is important — the determination; the focus; the intellectual and social skills to work through material, ask questions, and consult both experts and experience... I'd argue that it is a mission-critical skill in both life and magic. It's also different than curiosity, which is the love of learning and the desire to know (which of course relates to the first line of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics - "All men by nature desire to know, and the proof of this is the delight they take in sensation, and above all the sense of sight..."

    But as Blogos indicates, maths are important too: arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy are the underpinnings of magic and of much success, as well. The desire to learn is improved by knowledge of rational methods — of quantity and quality, of relationship and structure, of our place in the universe (partway between the very smallest being and the very largest), of pattern and of pattern-recognition, of codes and cyphers, of similarities and differences.

    Yet it's not an either-or. Let me, as the teacher, argue also for the importance of materia: construction paper and cardboard and glue in my Design Lab at school, of textbooks and notepaper in my classroom, of metals and wood and glass and stone and plant matter in my lab*cough*temple*cough*studio*cough*sanctum at home. These things are worked upon with tools — scissors and glue and tape in the Design Lab, sacred inks and consecrated pens at home, #2 pencils and hole-punches and classroom discussions in the school room.

    None of these things are free. They have a cost, whether purchased at a store or manufactured in a mill or even in time if gathered up and made personally by the magician.

    And these three things — the genius to learn, the the intellectual/mathematical relationships, and the physical materials of the elemental world — seem to roughly parallel the three categories of the three-fold world described by Agrippa.

    It seems to me that single blog posts are more easily attacked (or in the case of my blog... ignored, really) than the full ... argument? gestalt? frame? structure? ... of a person's overall thought, both as it is now, and as it was presented, and as it becomes or changes in the passing of time. Yet Blogos and Rufus Opus, in your remarks ON THIS POST, seem to argue for only one part of the threefold world as being important, when in truth you have both said in various times and places that all three parts of the three-fold world are important — sometimes in your remarks about the practicalities, sometimes in your comments about construction of magical tools, sometimes in your discussion of magical theory.

    I don't think either you really believe that it is one thing or the other, but that in truth elements of all three take precedence in their turn — sometimes the world of intelligences, sometimes the world of materia, and sometimes the world of celestial phenomena. And indeed, it seems to me that your best works, each of you, participates in all three realms.

    Is this not so? Or have I missed something important?

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  12. You're talking about a couple different planes here. Will is before reason, which is why some Kabbalist somewhere said "there is no reason for [behind, motivating] will (ratzon)." Will is a motivating force that clothes itself in reason and calculation, or math (I'm not putting an s on it) if you like, in order to express itself. Which is why learning is so important for anyone wishing to accomplish big things.

    The ability to learn, what RO is talking about, I call Intelligence, with a capital I, stemming from the presence of the Intellect, or Neshama. Knowing that one is capable of learning more than what one currently knows, or in other words, becoming what one currently is not, is an outward reflection of the striving or "reaching upward" of the soul to God which goes on in all humans, even if it is often stymied by life's circumstances. It's "simply" the pulling of potential traits, skills, and talents, out of the vast pool of everythingness of Future/Kether/Ratzon, and filtering them down via reason and calculations until our stupid human minds and bodies can make sense of them.

    It's not until our lower portions, i.e. those living in physical space, grasp these things that we can truly say we're different or MORE than we were previously. Thus our Will often instructs us to simply READ and WATCH and LEARN, to analyze, pay attention, heed examples, etc. We're pulling ourselves along through time and space so that we can change, literally, top to bottom.

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  13. Hi Andrew, look at my first comment. I am not arguing against will or capacity to learn at all. I am just saying there are lots of bad systems out there that will impede your progress so why leanr them? The hallmark of a good system is its basis in reason.

    Rufus seems to be stuck on this point that when I emphasis reason I am downplaying the role of emotion. As a ToK teacher, I see emotion as an equally valid pathway to knowledge as logic but 'reason' is meant in the wider sense of logos - a large component of logic, but an equally large component of 'raison d'etre' and some spiritual substrate for seasoning.

    The point I am trying to make to Rufus is not that his post is invalid but that his success *in this area* is not because of his capacity to learn as a general quality but specifically his ability to apply astrological mathematics accurately.

    My problem with the current state of the WMT is that there are systems out there, particularly anything derived from the Kircher Tree which contain logical contradictions because of poor research or transpositional errors that are now being defended by the this post-modern line of 'whatever works' which seems to me the height of ignorance - both cultural in the sense of not researching Jewish Kabbalah adequately enough to find the rule of 3, 7 and 12, and logically/mathematically in not being able to spot glaring errors for what they are - coupled with vested interest in perpetuating the system (corrupt as it is) because of books or essays that may have been written based on a dogmatic acceptance of this error.

    Rufus' original genius was to actually research core texts and apply systems that were more mathematically accurate before the corruptions occured with the Kircher/GD/Thelema business. The success of his magic is as simple as applying himself astrologically correctly as opposed to 'making it up as he goes along in a whatever works kind of way'.

    I hope that clears up my position a bit!

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  14. Hey Paul if you want to go mad deep into this this link http://askville.amazon.com/teachings-Kabbalah/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=69392678 a little bit down has Scholem's account of the differences between will, thought and nothing as opposing titles for Kether from the book Kabbalah. Kicking it around a bit in the mikvah, I'd go for Machashavah Belimah :-) as the 'first' thing, and perhaps coidentify Ratzon, with Reshit and Hokmah as second (Hokmah/Fire as Will is pretty much the modern Hermetic position as well). Capacity, then will i.e. the Tzimtzum has to create space as the first act and then send a beam of light into that space as the second act. The 'no reason' behind Will would equate to this identity of Machashavah with Ayin. Intelligence is third, and I loved the reference to Lamed BTW.

    This is by the by now though, I entered this because I kind of find the post disheartening because it seems shallow to me. A whole post about Rufus being a raging success machine and a sexy beast because of it :-) because of his ability to learn??? And then 'yeah do magick' as a ****ing footnote? ;-)

    Magick, and I am sorry the maths and skills behind it, and the details of those operations and relative wins/fails are why I read this blog and in terms of differing traditions and approaches, other blogs. (Andrew I will be sure to catch up with yours over the holiday and thanks for the comment about the elegance of pathwalking, I look forward to more mutually profitable discussion with you.)

    Where I think Rufus went right was returning to some of the root sources of the (his/ours) tradition and focusing on specific technicalities of getting shit done, doing it and sharing results - this was highly useful to the community. Where I think Rufus is going wrong at the moment, sorry Rufus I am not picking a fight this is an opinion, is by digressing into modern generalization and posts about how awesome he is. It feels a bit like bluster, or glamour, or hubris and because I like the guy and appreciate his earlier work on this blog I'd rather him get back to the nuts and bolts of the craft and the technical details of his work and results stemming from it. I also think it is important that this becomes about dialogue and discourse as opposed to monologue. Yes there will be fights and disagreements amongst the spheres but the silence is actually deafening and the comments brought up the other day about how nice to see dialogue suggests that it isn't happening enough!

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  15. "'Friends,' he said, 'if victory is denied us now, it is because we are neither worthy nor capable of victory. Let us determine wherein we have failed. Nature shall not be ruled, the sceptre of the Universe shall not be grasped, Godhead shall not be won, save by knowledge alone. We must conquer the thunder; to that task we must apply ourselves unwearyingly. It is not blind courage (no one this day has shown more courage than have you) which will win us the courts of Heaven; but rather study and reflection. In these silent realms where we are fallen, let us meditate, seeking the hidden causes of things; let us observe the course of Nature; let us pursue her with compelling ardour and all-conquering desire; let us strive to penetrate her infinite grandeur, her infinite minuteness. Let us seek to know when she is barren and when she brings forth fruit; how she makes cold and heat, joy and sorrow, life and death; how she assembles and disperses her elements, how she produces both the light air we breathe and the rocks of diamond and sapphire whence we have been precipitated, the divine fire wherewith we have been scarred and the soaring thought which stirs our minds. Torn with dire wounds, scorched by flame and by ice, let us render thanks to Fate which has sedulously opened our eyes, and let us rejoice at our lot. It is through pain that, suffering a first experience of Nature, we have been roused to know her and to subdue her. When she obeys us we shall be as gods. But even though she hide her mysteries for ever from us, deny us arms and keep the secret of the thunder, we still must needs congratulate ourselves on having known pain, for pain has revealed to us new feelings, more precious and more sweet than those experienced in eternal bliss, and inspired us with love and pity unknown to Heaven.'"

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  16. Andrew, there are annoying subtexts to the Blogos' focus on Maths that are truly ignominious.

    Earlier in the morning here in the states, a friend of ours had done some bad math that impacted his job, likely because he was tired or possibly hung over, and had joked that math was his enemy. In fraternity and full understanding, I had agreed, that math was the enemy of us all.

    As a result... this. And why? Por nada. My point was that the ability to learn, and the confidence in that is what is missing in so many people. That is all. Confidence in the ability to learn. Blogos himself tried to instill that in his students, as do you, Andrew. And it is a wonderful thing.

    Meaningful interactions in the three worlds are entirely dependent on the ability to learn.

    Most people who read my blog are way out of the age when they are forced to learn, regardless of their desires. If they are going to learn something new, it will be because they are called to a subject, or because someone has made it interesting. Before they will even begin to do that, they need to have confidence that they can learn.

    I had written this post as a result of a discussion with my lover about how some people never learned how to learn, never realized they COULD learn something new, never understood that they were learning all the time. If any of my readers are in that group, it was written to them.

    If they want to learn maths, yes, it is important, I wouldn't suggest otherwise. Rationality? Yes, I think Rhetoric should be a required course from middle school onward. My AP English teachers began teaching us persuasive writing far too late, in my opinion. The ability to analyse a system or construct, identify its purpose, formulate a response, and develop an evolved iteration, either pro or con the thesis of the original is vitally important in all areas of life.

    But that's the third leg of the trivium, neh? First comes grammar and logic.

    And before any of that, there must be the ability to learn.

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  17. Sorry I thought this was a blog about magick not life coaching.

    Again my point is that *your* success is down to your ability to apply the mathematics of your system accurately, i.e. the esoteric 'science' of it. Its not about your ability to learn it although that's an important precursor. I think good magick will actually work regardless of whether you believe it or not.

    I am not talking about studying pure maths. I am talking about studying and applying *your* maths.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFmWhwyA0NU

    For the record I am a reader of your blog, I don't just come here to lambast you for the sake of it. I read it to cross-reference it with my own work on traditional sources and the relative successes/failures of them, as I read the other Gentlemen's work for the same reason. Obviously amongst them there is a range of material - some are selling products, some researching highly esoteric material, some practising highly esoteric material at an advanced level and being open and transparent about it - where are you in this spectrum?

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  18. Magick, especially in that spelling wrapper, has fucking always been about life coaching.

    LIFE.
    COACHING.


    Fuck. Yes. That. It's the grinding of the ispaklarioth to focus the fucking light that manifests in every place and time all at once. What else would it be?

    As for your spectrum, I am not on it. I am a gate through which information flows, bidirectional, in everwidening and expanding streams.

    I am but AN EYE.

    Watch me, and interpret my intent as you will.

    τη καλλίστη

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  19. It really hasn't been about life coaching, with or without the K. Its really been about the maths. I've always been somewhat tired of the universe as school metaphor. I like to the think the universe has more respect. I like to think that ultimately this relationship is between equals.

    I understand that you exist as a point of focus of cosmic identity (because of maths). I understand that you are then capable of learning stuff about the universe (because of maths). I understand that you are not only capable but doing so and willing it and wishing the same for others (because of maths). Thats lovely man, really lovely.

    But what now? What are you learning now and what are you doing with it and how successful is it and is your will/learning the only thing that is making this all work? If its only your will that is important, why practise any system at all why not just will everything into existence with pure mind that you want without the scaffolding of the maths of your system or evoking the spirits? Who's on your table? Crowley or Iamblichus? Do you think they are the same?

    Forgive me, sir, I obviously don't want to speak for the masses, but I don't come here for lifecoaching.

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    1. I disagree. The maths are the means to explain and predict the outcome. Maths let you say, "when this amount of force is applied to a ball in a vacuum barring all other influences, it will travel at this speed. Add gravity and friction, and it will travel this far." And as long as you actually have all the variables, you'll have some pretty awesomely accurate and useful resuits.

      Life doesn't take place in a controlled environment. In real life there are other factors that influence how far a ball goes when you kick it down the pitch. You don't get accurate measurements of force applied, you never have all the variables identified and quantified. It's life, not math. Math is great for explaining what happened in detail. It's a great lens to see through for detailed hodian understanding. But it doesn't let you calculate exactly what will happen next time.

      Let's look at chemistry, the modern outgrowth of our Alchemy, eh? A great deal of maths go into the planning before the mad chemist mixes her ingredients to make the solutions she's after. But in real life, even in the lab, there are factors that slip through, that weren't calculated, and she's going to have to improvise to get a real life result within an acceptable plus or minus of her mathed out intent.

      In the real world, the maths are useful to a point, but ultimately not going to be accurate when it's really happening. You'll need to adapt a lot to get close to what you want in real life, no matter what the maths say should happen. Ultimately, you'll need to be skilled and experienced to figure out that this reaction at this phase indicates the chemical component wsa not as pure as advertised, and will require this extra step to get to the desired outcome.

      What is a hierophant, if not a lifecoach? Or a magus? A priest? A king? A boddhisatva? A shaman? A guru? A prophet? A seer? maybe they aren't what you'd call life coaches, but that's part of what we do.

      You want to know what I'm learning and what I'm doing with it. You want to learn too. You want to improve your ability to manufacture and enjoy your life. You want a chance to grow, if I can offer it. Neh?

      You wouldn't consider yourself coming here for life coaching, but what's the difference? You think I have something to offer that will improve your life, or you wouldn't be here.

      Call it what you will.

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    2. As for what I do, it's the same things I've done for years. I conjure spirits, I talk to them, they tell me the secrets of the universe, I apply those secrets, and if I don't like the results, I make adjustments or scrap the lot and start over.

      You want to talk tech? My table of practice has changed, I think I posted about that. I get better material results now. I've been working with a seer lately, and I can talk about that too.

      But I can't talk about an operation I'm performing with my lover without getting weird and gross correspondence from people around the world. I can't talk about another project because we're in the analysis phase, and divinations indicate we keep the results to ourselves for now. I can't put the pieces of the 8th sphere stuff into words because it's 8th sphere stuff. Hymns of silence can't be spoken.

      But I can talk about how they manifest, in attitudes, in approaches, in understanding and wisdom and insight. I can point out the secrets like the pleasure principle, and expand on the role of desire in the understanding of the Will. I can talk about the things that lead to joy.

      And that's what I'm doing. There's a shit-ton of information about technique out there. I've talked about it already. Now I'm talking about what happens when you use it. What I see when I go up to the heavens and return in power to create the world.

      And to frame some stuff for you, I'm also going through divorce proceedings, which are moving nicely, but are still legal hoops through which I must jump, and that gets my attention. I am also still raising two kids, only now I'm left with cramming all my fathering into a couple days a week instead of living with them. I'm working out the logistics of an amazing romantic relationship, and I'm traveling a lot. I'm writing two manuscripts, one should be out by Wednesday, the other shortly after that. And I'm putting together courses for this Spring, Summer, and Fall conventions I'm presenting, and I've got a backlog of client work.

      And I post here as the spirit moves me, and I participate in these discussions as time permits, but I have learned the value of my attention, and sometimes it's more important to post funny pictures on FaceBook than it is to argue about things with people who really know better.

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  20. 'And I post here as the spirit moves me, and I participate in these discussions as time permits, but I have learned the value of my attention, and sometimes it's more important to post funny pictures on FaceBook than it is to argue about things with people who really know better.' - surely you know what you are saying!

    You are still missing my point though. There is a lot of mathematics in what you do. In the geometry of the sigils and in the timing of your operations. Its the maths that is the power behind your success not your individual will or capacity which could and are applied to utterly useless endeavours such as posting ironic pics on fb.

    Your will in fact derives from the fundamental maths of the universe. I am not in the maths is a language camp, I am Pythagorean/Parmenidean - the maths *is* the universe at its finest - science may be 'Hodian' but maths is the system - SEFIROT. Using pure mathematical symbols as opposed to letters or material objects Iamblichus considers the highest form of sunthemata - noetic sunthemata. Its the maths in what you do that is the most important. I worry when you deviate from the fine maths and crafts of your traditional schools and start posting 'life-affirming' vagaries from Aleister Crowley.

    Many of your associates are not interested in you as a guru or a priest, they are interested in your POV and dialogue as an equal and peer. I don't need you to be my guru or priest FFS. Really?

    I do want to talk tech, yes. I understand you're busy so I'll leave it for now. Good luck with everything and I hope things figure themselves out so you can take time away from posting amusing pics for some vigorous debate.

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  21. "There is a lot of mathematics in what you do. In the geometry of the sigils and in the timing of your operations. Its the maths that is the power behind your success not your individual will or capacity which could and are applied to utterly useless endeavours such as posting ironic pics on fb."

    Hm. I couldn't disagree more. The maths are significators of a higher reality. They are not perfect in themselves. Calculus had to be invented. Another form will be required before we get closer. That too shall be insufficient. Because that which the maths attempts to explain is ineffable.

    The maths are no more the power than the compass is the intellect of the geometrist dividing it into degrees to chart the relative locations of his planet.

    It's all a model, and you've not only confused the model with the thing it represents, you've ascribed powers of creation to it. That's not just a trap for the ignorant noob, it is blasphemous. Repent.

    "Many of your associates are not interested in you as a guru or a priest, they are interested in your POV and dialogue as an equal and peer. I don't need you to be my guru or priest FFS. Really?"

    Heh. Really. I think you need to review the final phase of the Great Work. The phase that comes after the Stone has been created. It doesn't sit there all stoned, and the Alchemist isn't enlightened. The creation of the Stone is the beginning of the Work, really.

    And maybe my blog isn't where you want to come to talk shop. This is where we hack into the matrix and broadcast our pirate signal.

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  22. Are you suggesting that the highest reality is not One? Here begins the Counting - for before One where would you start?

    There are many who believe the underlying nature of reality is Mathematics/Mathematical.

    שמע ישראל, ה 'אלוהינו, ה' אחד

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  23. I suggest you cheapen the concept of Unity expressed in the Sh'ma by thinking of it simply as a number. It is the beginning of the counting, but no amount of counting will ever bring you the understanding of the summa rerum. The counting is but an attempt to model, to predict, to understand. It is derivative of the source, it is not the source.

    That it can be understood through mathematics is beautiful, but that doesn't make it math. Math is a tool in the repertoire of the aware magician, a lens through which the light of God can be focused, analyzed, directed, infused, and influenced, and that's awesome.

    But it is still a lens, one of many we are given to experience and to focus the Light of God through.

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  24. Oh, and another thing....

    Are there those who say "the underlying nature of reality is Mathematics/Mathematical," or would they be more comfortable saying, "the underlying nature of reality can be expressed in mathematics/mathematically"?

    I'd be glad to say the latter.

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  25. I know you are in the language camp, but myself and a few of my colleagues outside the G4J are firmly in the IS camp.

    Now you are saying that unity does not equal unit. I agree this is a problem which Parmenides solves in his On Nature any why Pythagoras on his own is misleading. The universe is not made of units persay but it is made of number. Unity is not 'a number' but it is the fountain of Number.

    Regarding the Kether = 'God' this is again stemming from a fairly limited understanding of what is meant by 'God'.

    Your individual 'will' is necesstitated by 3 which is necessitated by 1 - kether, ratzon, machshavah. i.e. Unity expressed as subject, object and context. 3 necessitates 7 which could be called 'spectrum' but which applies to planetary Kingships of seed, health, wealth, grace, wisdom, peace and dominance as much as it does to Colour.

    '7 and not 6, 7 and not 8.'

    The idea that maths is a language would fall under the auspices of doxa or opinion, maths itself is logos which is truth. Yes mathematical language is a lense, possibly the finest lense coupled with philosophy, but what you are seeing through it is the Number and the kaleidoscope of its Necessity.

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  26. "I know you are in the language camp, but myself and a few of my colleagues outside the G4J are firmly in the IS camp."

    Why? You are a smart guy, and I know you've spent a lot of time in Netzach, gaining a depth of experience that is poignant and enviable.

    The essential forces of Venus, purified, refined, condensed, ground, and consumed ...

    Does math capture that essence, that experience? Can it express the Joy of Jupiter? The pachad of Mars?

    If so, how?

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  27. Well Art is spectrum and composition. As people's aesthetic tastes deviate from mathematical harmony and proportion, although generally they don't, is in as much as they distance themselves from maths via an 'antimathematical Gnosticism'. But the grotesque is only grotesque in its relationship with mathematical harmony - its only 'anti-mathematical' in the mind of the individual. Or take the beauty of Evil, as the ultimate anti-mathematical rebellion (Lucifer as beautiful) is to do with, in analysis, the beauty of freedom in the sense of freeing oneself from mathematical definition, freeing oneself from the 'Matrix'. Yet this superficially anti-mathematical stunt is derivative :-).

    Or Love. Love is all sorts of things often its do with ratio in terms of power/attractiveness but sometimes it might be something 'more' or 'less' like + 1 - 1 = 0, although this kind of mutual annihilation is difficult to pull off without a suicide pact. It gets back to ratios fairly quickly after the initial buzz. But ratios are beautiful too.

    Is this description the same as Rumi's poetry? No, of course not. But Rumi's poetry exists within and is derived from Unity like eveything else - 'he is in love with the One to whom every that belongs'.

    'Why are numbers beautiful? It's like asking why is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony beautiful. If you don't see why, someone can't tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.' - Paul Erdos

    'It seems to me now that mathematics is capable of an artistic excellence as great as that of any music, perhaps greater; not because the pleasure it gives (although very pure) is comparable, either in intensity or in the number of people who feel it, to that of music, but because it gives in absolute perfection that combination, characteristic of great art, of godlike freedom, with the sense of inevitable destiny; because, in fact, it constructs an ideal world where everything is perfect but true.' - Betrand Russell

    I express, as do you all, the beauty of all things, a mathematical beauty expressed by a mathematical being.

    Final point: I don't correlate Netzach directly with Venus anymore. I haven't done for a long time. One of the sources of confusion in the WMT is because of the confabulation of spheres with Sefirot and thence to planets with Sefiort as opposed to just associating planets with the double letters.

    Rightly placed the path of Pe (correctly attributed to *Venus* - think the sensuality of the lips) leads from 'Chesed' to 'Netzach' or again more correctly from Depth of South/Warmth/Expansion to Depth of Up/Out/Rise.

    I was an acolyte of Aphrodite for about 7 years, she remains very important to me. She was instrumental in my shift from the sciences to the arts and my completion of the SY study.

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  28. Interesting.

    If I were to be a reductionist prick I'd say that the root of the magics that interest me are Dreaming and not Maths.

    Yes, yes, yes. Fuzzyheaded, post-ironic, post-chaos anti-intellectualism.

    What are the Maths that govern Dreaming? There's brainwaves, theta/delta states, and the release of neurotransmitters during REM phase sleeps but those don't account for but a fraction of what experienced Dreamers can accomplish.

    Not saying a rational approach to magic is wrong, just not where some of us hold interest.

    And yes an ability to Learn is integral to Dreaming.

    Other than that, this blog post cracked me up. Magickal Anthony Robbins. Good show RO.

    Fu Mang-chu

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  29. am i the only one who now has a little duffy dude in my head bleating the word 'maths' every few seconds?

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Thanks for your comments, your opinions are valued, even if I disagree with them. Please feel free to criticize my ideas and arguments, question my observations, and push back if you disagree.