Offense and Defense in Post-Trump America

Wow, what a week, eh? I'd like to be on record as saying, "That was total bullshit, man."

So:

THAT WAS TOTAL BULLSHIT, MAN. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, AMERICA?

Ok. That's mostly out of my system, but I'll probably be saying that again. Often.

Already my friends and colleagues in the occult community are facing piles of steaming feces. One woman magician living in a very blue state, in a very liberal town, had this happen:

"Yesterday in broad daylight a total stranger, a man, came up to me and told me that he could do anything he wanted to me because "Donald Trump baby" and as I walked away said "What the hell lady, you aren't anything special."

That's bullshit.

Lesbians, gays, the trans community, women, and people of color and alternate religions are feeling at risk after this election. Powerless. As if the support they felt they had last week disappeared.

It has not.

We are still with you. Most of America supports gay marriage, most of America believes Black Lives Matter, most of America still thinks your gender and your sexual proclivities are your business. We still live in the country we lived in last week.

We just learned, as Harper put it, that Boss Hog lives next door, and we never realized it until he burned down the fence.

So what do we do?

REMEMBER: You have the rights and privileges to being treated decently that you had a week ago. The laws haven't changed. The courts haven't changed. The business policies haven't changed.

1) File charges. Assault, harrassment, whatever you can think of. Put it in writing, make it a federal case. Demonstrate that you aren't going to put up with that shit. Call the cops if someone threatens you. Press charges. Don't back down.

2) Pepper spray in self defense. Make them suffer. The cost of pepper spray did not increase as a result of the election yet. Go get some. Use it. Make a stink out of inappropriate interactions. Defend the rights you've achieved.

3) Magick:

Magick has always been the resort of the oppressed. The Goetia, arguably, is the non-freeman's access point to the education we were denied by society. It is the equalizer. It is the invocation of the invisible powers of creation and maintenance of the universe we experience to protect us and to provide the privilege society would deny us.

First thing: Next Tuesday at dawn, or in a Mars Hour, make yourself the "Sixth Pentacle of Mars." Draw the seal in red ink on some virgin parchment, and on the back put the First Pentacle of Mars, the one with Gheuriel, Ifiel, Barchafiel, and Madimiel on it. These are the four spirits (in my understanding of this stuff) that will actively work to achieve the intent of the Sixth Pentacle on your behalf. Light some incense and a candle in front of it, offer a shot of whiskey to it once a week, and tell them to continue your defense. If you want a metal engraved version of this, properly consecrated, I'll be making them next week.

Next: Start doing Jupiter rites. Conjure the spirits of Jupiter at least once a month on Thursdays, and request Health and Wealth, and the Favor of those in positions of authority over you. Pay attention to opportunities afterwards, and use your resources. People will like you, and they won't even stop to consider why they like you. They will listen, and your influence will just grow, naturally. You'll find yourself in a position of authority, you'll be respected, and you'll be able to help others.

Then: Keep doing the Great Work. Make yourself better. Talk to your allies. Get better tools. Develop a cadre of invisible friends that give you the tools to change the world as you see fit. Jupiter spirits for wealth and prosperity and the favor of kings, Martial spirits for defense and offense, Venus spirits for love, harmony, and the community of support you need. Mercury spirits to break through obstacles and bring you transactional forutnes, Solar spirits to purify yourself and the world you live in. Saturn spirits to build your foundation, guard your borders, and rain death down upon your enemies. Lunar spirits to look good doing it.

It's Work, it's a process, but stake out the ground we've claimed, and don't let them take it away. We'll have to be more vocal, more adamant, we'll have to write letters to representatives, protest, fight, and make a stink of things in the streets, in the office, at the coffee shops and fast food restaurants. We'll have to call the cops, call H.R., deal with the backlash against us, and keep on making strides towards liberty and justice. We'll have to drag all the scared disenfranchised mouth-breathers with us into the bright future kicking and screaming until they learn that equality and respect works out for them personally much better than their mental and financial impoverishment ever did.

Same as last week, but more apparent.

But remember:

We got this.

On Scarlet Imprint and Disagreements between People

I really have to ask, what the hell is wrong with people?

I disagreed with some things one author at Scarlet Imprint said in one piece that was presented in one place without, when I read it, any other context.

Yesterday I get informed that people are taking that one thing and turning it into some kind of fucking crusade against the entire corpus of their work. People are bashing all the authors, all the books, everything they've done.

Look, grow the fuck up people. Nicholaj Frisvold did some amazing work, and he's getting panned? Seriously? What's next, Gordon White? Jake Stratton-Kent? Scarlet Imprint has been a vehicle for many of this generation's best writers to present information to the community that has changed our lives, and how we understand and work with magic itself. They are a huge resource, and the occult community owes Scarlet Imprint a huge debt for the positive impact they have made on our understanding of magic.

Yet some people have lost their entire sense of proportion.

There was a time when you could call someone on bullshit and not have the entire world come crashing down on people's head. You could have civil discourse. You could criticize one work without criticizing the people who wrote it, and having that get turned into the demonization of everyone they ever worked with.

But those days are apparently gone.

I don't like *the way* Peter Grey made his points in the Forging of the Body of the Witch presentation. I don't agree with some conclusions he reached in Lucifer Princeps, and I don't agree with some things he said in Red Goddess, either, I experience Babalon a lot differently.

That doesn't mean the man is shit, his work is shit, his partner is shit, the entirety of everything he's done is shit. Christ, we're writers, we make things to read, and like any craftsperson, some people will like our work, others won't.

But if you don't like something, don't like the thing. Don't try to ruin it for everyone else. In the original critique of the single piece I made, I closed the piece with respect to the people who get something out of that approach on purpose. People get to do what they want to with their bodies, their spiritual path, and their lives. That was entirely my problem with *some* of the things he was saying.

And when you read it with the "sister pieces" of his presentation written and presented by Alkistis Dimech, you realize that they aren't intentionally saying things to oppress women, their intent is the same as every other writing magician I know, to free people from the traps of their own minds so they can reclaim their personal power.

The worst thing I can say about Peter Grey is that in one piece that I've read, I found his choice of words and the implications of those words disturbing because he sounds like too many of the voices people hear growing up that tell them they aren't good enough, and they aren't good enough because of their bodies.

It's ok for me not to like what he wrote there, and it's ok for me to like other things he does, and it's important to be able to have civil discourse about things that you disagree with.

I offered Scarlet Imprint a chance to talk to me about all this stuff, and they said they had no interest in it. Then they accused me of deliberately misinterpreting things because I have previously expressed disagreements with Peter Grey. I think that's ridiculous, but I understand, when you see the shit people are doing on social media over this. They're angry and upset, and it's apparently all my fault, but whatever.

They suggested I needed to make a retraction and apologize, because of what other people have turned this into. I disagree. My critique of his presentation stands. There are probably holes in my critique that could be filled with a conversation, but that isn't going to happen.

But people need to back off on attacking Peter, Alkistis, and the authors of Scarlet Imprint. There is no need for a witch hunt and wild accusations. If you don't like his approach, don't use it. If you do like it, and it works for you, go for it.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Really.

Maybe we should let the witches out of the dungeons, after 600 years?

Last week I saw an interesting article on what makes a witch a witch, "Forging the Body of a Witch," by Peter Grey. Written in the language of a true bard, this essay is packed with rich language, complex sentence structures, and a turn of phrase that brings powerful images to the mind and heart. It was a fascinating read.

After getting past the prettiness of the words, though, I started thinking about what he was saying, and it really started to bother me.

First he was saying witches are basically broken:

My proposition is that witches are un-made by the social process, by the constrictions that distort the body of desire and are played out in a landscape of lost dreams. Witches are not only born and made, they are undone. They retreat, out of fear and out of necessity.

And the cures he suggests? Don't be fat. Move more, don't be still, society tells you to be still, but the witch's body moves (but later he says you have to be still, but it's different when he says it, because then you're tied up). Have you tried vitamins? Herbs? Be more sexual, sexually liberated, but really, it's women that need to hear that:

To celebrate the erotic furor that has always been condemned as witchcraft and that characterises female sexuality and female sexual response in particular. That is not fetishising the female but stating corporeal and historical matters of fact. Jouissance in the sense of Cixous, rather than Lacan, is the essence of witchcraft. Men can also learn these skills, though that is less common because for the most part, they do not need to.

Note he says he isn't fetishizing the female, but then he goes on to say that an active actual witch is someone who is thin, fit, lithe, erotic, and into BDSM for the spiritual aspects of it, really.

Any resemblance to an adolescent male's ideal sex slave who is somehow empowered by her submission and embrace of the icons of actual slavery is entirely coincidental, I'm sure.

And he goes on to talk about how witchcraft of this type was, after all, the product of the dungeon. The mythos, the cosmology, the entire foundation was based on a warping of the idea of the Sabbatic Goat, an idea that was created in the minds of sexually repressed Christian torturers, who then broke the bodies of women, with penetration and blood, and bondage, and pain, until the women adopted the fantasies of these psychotic men as their own, their broken psyches longing for the release of the flames.

And this is the mythos he suggests we embrace, including the methodologies. A return to a thing that never was, the adoption of a view of female sexuality that was foisted on them by men with red hot irons, who tortured, maimed, and finally killed those whose intelligence and psyches they had shattered.

I don't see how that witch is a model for today's women. Embracing an ideal that never was? That happens to be a sex slave, or sure looks like one?

I think today's witches can do better.

What if your power as a witch had nothing to do with how you look, how you fuck, or don't fuck, whether you believe new age theories of the vital importance of vitamins and herbal supplements, and whether or not you want to be tied up and spanked to enlightenment?

What if your power wasn't measured according to a standard of a 14-year-old male's ideal submissive bound sex toy? What if...

And this is kind of wild, I know...

What if you're actually already powerful?

Regardless of your body type, if you can achieve an orgasm when you want to, what if that was ok, and there's no need for you to subscribe to a narrative of innate brokenness that can only be redeemed and healed through pain? What if you weren't really robbed of a childhood of innocence and bliss and purity because it never existed?

What if you're actually fine, but you're just tired because life can be hard sometimes?

Meh.

Hermetics teaches that we already have the power to do what we will, we just forget because we get distracted. Remembering that is the point of the Work. You don't have to lose weight, take magnesium or witchy herbs, or be a nymphomaniac spewing crotch fluids on everything in sight to prove you're a strong independent human who don't need no other human, even though you're trying to live up to (usually) his standards anyway.

You're already powerful. You can change your entire life today, by making different choices. Where you work, who you work with, your career path, whatever. You can go to another country. You can leave the family and friends you've had all your life and go on an adventure. You can join a coven, take up new forms of magic, write a book, start a blog, volunteer in a political campaign, start a stand-up comedian career, clean out your basement, or order an amazing pizza. You have the power to change your entire world, every day, and the experiences you have in that day.

And you can use spells and rituals and curses and hexes and blessings and sabbats and equinoxes and solstices and community and politics and whatever you feel like to aid in that, by sitting still, or moving, as you see fit, when you see fit, as you see fit, regardless of whether anyone else sees your work as fit.

You can do other things with that mind of yours walking around in that body of yours, you powerful witch you, and it's the doing of other things that makes a difference.

So yea, if Peter's article speaks to you where you're at, and you found something valuable in it that you want to pursue because it's actually what you want, then great. You have the power to become a lean mean vitamin chewing herb taking BDSM scene queen machine, if you want that, and more power to you if you find what you're looking for in that path.

But your power isn't about your sex. It's about what you do with yourself.

A Bune Spirit Pot, and Some Bune Spirit Pot Fun

A few months ago, a client asked me to make him a Spirit Pot for an entity from the Lemegeton's Goetia. I bought the ingredients, and before I put them together, he canceled.

This morning, I was doing some Work with Bune, and I got the urge to take those ingredients and swap them out for a Bune pot to send out into the world. An inspiration, if you will.

Putting thought to word to deed, I did.

So here's a Bune Spirit Pot. It started out as a small box from Amazon, ivory colored and trimmed in brass. It received a generous amount of hyssop and high john root, some dried raisins, some amethyst, and a piece of coral I found on the beach in Florida. I was also compelled to include a raw copper ingot I had laying around, something I made a while ago before I started ordering my copper disks from online stores. Of course, it has the engraved seal of Bune (the one that works best in my experience) on a copper disk inside.

Duly consecrated, the spirit invoked and quite happy in the home I've made it, I am happy to offer it to anyone who wants it. I only have one, but I could make a couple more if there's an interest, but it takes me forever to get around to it.

These are going for $275, and I've got one made, and the stuff to make two more, but that's it. Three total available, I'm trying really hard not to do deficit selling these days:

Now for some Bune Spirit Pot fun...

I sold one of these Bune pots to a client on request, and after he'd received it, I got the following messages from him on Facebook:

I was getting ready for a ritual myself, and had to wait until later to talk more to him about it, but eventually we got to talk, and he told me about what happened after he did the rite. He had performed the evocation I sent him for the spirit pot, and had included a couple of other things in it that I don't remember now and am not familiar with anyway. 

But he had also bought the solar seal from the Key of Solomon that allows you to see spirits, and he held that in his left hand, and the Bune talisman in his right when he did the ritual. Didn't see much in the moment, shut things down and had himself some cheese bread, as one does.

About a half an hour afterwards the presence of the spirit was made apparent to him...

So yea, I've been sitting on that "testimony" for a while now, and it was difficult. There's a lot more that I'm not posting because he was really excited, and a little scared, and eventually we talked on skype about it. 

I hadn't realized he'd never conjured any spirit before when I sold this to him, but as with all this conjure stuff, it turned out fine eventually. We still keep in touch, and he hasn't had any more physical manifestations, even though he's tried. He's working on understanding the spirit, building a relationship, and learning how to go about requesting assistance in an effective way. 

Getting the language down, and learning to ask for the right amount of change at a time is key, I think. Incremental changes are easier to get than massive life changing ones, for reasons that are pretty obvious when you think about them.

Anyway, three Spirit Pots, $275 each:

Magus Dads

Hey all you dads, hope your Father's Day was awesome. I got to speak to most of my kiddos, and to my own Dad, and that was pretty great. We had "good speaks" as Harper likes to say. Connected, joyful, in-jokes, self-deprecation, the occasional ayyyyyyy, and terrible puns. It was awesome. I can die tomorrow and trust I did my part to make the world better JUST by having the kiddos I have.

But today I'm thinking about another thing.

Dads have a power we don't like to own, because it's scary as shit:

Every dad is a Magus... to their kids.

Every word we speak is a seed, and it falls on the most fertile of soils, and it stays with them for the rest of their lives. I hear my dad when I work on a car, or go fishing, or every time I screw up in life's projects because I forgot to ask, "What do I do before I do this?" But I also hear him telling me how proud he is when I do well, even if he doesn't even know what I'm up to. I got lucky like that.

I've talked to people a lot over the years about how they view the idea of "God" as a divinity, and as I've gotten to know them, I've learned that every one of them have an understanding of "God" that aligns 99.999% with their understanding of their fathers, in real life.

We shape reality with everything we do, as dads. We make the next wave of feminism with our choices with our daughters. We shape the politics of our nation by example. We lay out the framework of the next generation's experience of the Patriarchal Archetype of Divinity, just by playing shitty guitar to them when they're falling asleep, fighting the system for them when they're being wronged, believing them, listening, and loving them because they are awesome.

So dads, and father figures of any type, don't forget to be cool.

It matters.

Interview with John R. King IV, a.k.a. Imperial Arts

Below you'll find a link to an interview I did this weekend with John R. King, IV, also known on the internet as "Imperial Arts."

John and I go back about 20 years, and have had our share of shenanigans. When we met he was mostly a chaos magician, and then 20 years later when we ran into one another again, he was still sort of a chaos magician at heart, but he'd applied it to his life and his studies, as if the tenets of Chaos Magick were for real.

And it worked out really well for him.

While I disagree with a lot of his interpretations of systems, and practices, I really enjoyed talking to someone with his depth of devotion and practice. I think his real-life views on the spirit-conjure path we travel will challenge many people's opinions, and also demonstrate a thing about the people who Work with grimoires has been proven true across the course of interviews with people I've done lately:

In the end, whether we consider what we are doing to be "going by the book" or not, we all create our own system based on our experiences, and its effectiveness, regardless of the opinions of detractors, is only going to be determined by one person:

The Magician doing the Magick.

Also, whoever said I should get some music intro involved, it wasn't a lot of fun.

So without further ado, here's the interview:

We Do (and are planning to do more) Magick to Stop Things Like Orlando

Nine or ten paragraphs in, I get to the point, sorry, but there's reasons.

This post is about what is best for the good of humanity. TL;DR - What's good for humanity is Magick, the Great Work, Gnosis, Illumination, Enlightenment, and getting together as practitioners to remind ourselves that WE DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

And we're planning an event related to that. And it's not the royal we. So, on with the first things:

At a recent O.T.O. event, I got to hear Dr. David Shoemaker say something that has stuck with me. He was discussing the Guf-Nephesh-Ruach-Neschemah parts of the soul, and he was talking about the evolution of consciousness over time. Specifically, he said in a couple thousand years, we'll look back at the people of our time as savages who lived primarily from the Ruach instead of from the Neschemah in the same way as we today judge historic peoples who acted from the Nephesh and Guf as savages.

Our society shows records of when our laws and customs were Guf (or the physical body)-based, primarily; clan warfare for resources, marriage that treated the participants like property, laws based on preserving the property of dynasties that provided for the well-being of the bodies of the tribe, and the leaders of the tribe.

Then the concerns about the Nephesh took prominence, and it was not just property that mattered, but the affairs of the heart, the emotions, the feelings that became of value to society in the Romantic periods. Divorce became functional and useful, because the welfare of the body was more of a given as we evolved socially. Marriage became an expression of the feelings of the heart, and the emotional wellbeing and safety of the participants with the introduction of the prenuptual agreement.

Today we live in a world that values the Ruach, the intellect that analyzes and determines the value and worth of our choices rationally, recognizing the needs of the body, and of the heart, but also the consequences of pissing everything away on a poorly-thought-out emotional decision.

Sometimes, and mostly. There are pockets of hold-outs, and sometimes we still screw it up, because this is a practice, a process, not a science that works out the same way every time.

But one of these days we'll be a society that is founded on the principles and values that come from the Neschemah. We'll be operating from that image-of-god part of us, or that god-particle consciousness, or that Enlightened/Illuminated state, and we'll all still have struggles, but not these struggles.

Not people getting murdered because of what they choose to do with their genitalia.

The whole hetero-normative thing is a hold-out from the guf-consciousness. We had to pass on genes to the next generation, we had to have 6 kids to make sure 2 survived to replace us and maybe grow more of us a few hundred years ago. But the global body-consciousness is over that genetic track, and we've overpopulated, and are killing our environment in ways that will kill us all. So we have queer traits popping up to control our production of offspring. It's natural and biological, and normative behavior in most of the animals on the planet. When a species overproduces, we get fabulous gays to make up for it. It's normal Guf-stuff, really, but our culture hasn't caught up yet.

And in truth, every culture that has thrived has eventually developed a normative queer aspect to it, guys, so let's quit pretending it's unnatural, and start maybe just culling the folks with problems with this fact from the herd? I'm down for a three-strikes-and-you're-out law for homophobes, for the good of humanity.

And that is what this post is all about.

The good of humanity.

I got a ping from Tony Silvia, a Gnsotic friend who hosts Talk Gnosis regularly yesterday, asking what we can do as magicians to stop this shit. I was all "Mars, Saturn, The Lightning of Jupiter!" when I read it at first, but I stopped.

And thought a bit.

And realized STOPPING the shit that happened at the Pulse nightclub is exactly what we're trying to do on a global scale for all humanity.

Tony does it with Gnosticism.

I do it with Hermeticism, and the Ecllesia Gnostica Catholica, within the A.:A.: and O.T.O. It is the purpose of the Great Work of the Rosicrucian systems, it is the outcome of the production of the Philosopher's Stone. It is the Panacea to all ills that plague mankind upon the Earth.

The idea is that as we raise ourselves, all those we interact with have an opportunity to be raised with us. It's the same boon extended to the demons by some medieval magicians, as I am raised, so shalt thou be raised, or peace between us forever or whatever. It's the boddhisattva vow to not go on until everyone else gets it, to be the tutor until everyone manifesting is on the same page with the same short cuts as everyone else, no one left behind.

It's the compassion for everyone else who suffers brutality, and also for those who suffer being brutes.

We do magick to make the world better. For us, through us, by us, yes, but not just that. Our lives, we see eventually, are better when everyone else's lives are better. So we magick for them. We solve (Salve) their problems, and let their solutions coagulate around them. That's what we do as magicians. We Solve the problems.

Tony is working on an Event. It will be Sunday June 26th. It will be geared towards getting the planet's human population to kick things up a notch, and to be better to one another. To fix the things in us plural that result in us singular being total fucktards. Including, but not limited to the kind of things that unfolded in Orlando.

So whatever belief you are, whatever path you follow, if you think the world could use some enlightenment, a little illumination, join us on Sunday the 26th. I'll post the details of the rite I'll be doing, he's putting together more stuff.

Anyone else interested in throwing other hats in the ring with the same aim, by all means, let's do this.

Kick the world up a notch, get the rest of 'em to catch up and lap us, so we're trying to catch up with them, instead of getting them to catch up with us.

Do your part, magicians, to change this world a bit. Add some momentum to the evolution of the population.

Sunday.

June 26, 2016.

Illuminate the World.

An Interview with Jake Stratton-Kent

This afternoon, Jake Stratton-Kent and I got to touch base on a couple of different topics, including the role of integrating post-1899 magical practices into grimoire rituals, and the state of the Occult Revival as it stands today, and where it makes sense to see it end up in the future.

I really enjoyed speaking with him about the state of "occulture" today. Jake's been a constant source of inspiration, encouragement, and has consistently challenged modern occultists to look beyond the easy texts on magical practice to the latest and greatest resources we have to inform our practice, hone our skills, and become better at this thing we do.

Hekate: When the Gods Show Up with a Skeleton Key

Tl;DR Click here

A couple of weeks ago, Harper and I got to go down to Indianapolis to talk about the Seven Spheres and the art of conjuration and scrying in general. It was awesome good times.

A couple long-time friends showed up who had been former pupils, but have long since become co-workers in this world-manifestation project we're all participating in to various degrees, and it was so much fun to hang out with them, and shoot the shit.

I noticed right away that they were both sporting some obvious Skeleton Key bling, and over some delicious Greek (and later Indian) foods, we got to talking about what it represented. It turns out they are both part of Jason Miller's Strategic Sorcery class, and had opted into his Sorcery of Hekate class. The Skeleton Key was a symbol of their particular Workings at the moment, and I was like, cool, neat.

But then they started talking about what it was they were experiencing, mutually, in their relationship with Hekate. It wasn't long before the hairs on my arms were standing up, and I felt this harmonic resonance between the two of them. It was pretty incredible.

Both these guys are on top of their games, socially, economically, and spiritually. They know what they want, and how to get it. They aren't afraid of doing the magic that it takes to change the world as they see fit. When you run into magicians/sorcerors/whatever who are actively doing the lines of reality-shifting that we do, you recognize it, and it resonates.

And they seem to have found a key to opening things in this Hekate system Jason's pulled together.

Jason talks more about it in his blog posts, and even more about it in the Strategic Sorcery group. In short, his Work with Hekate over the years has resulted in the development of a seriously potent system of working with the powers that manifest and maintain the material and spiritual worlds we work with. It's got elements of Goetia (in the Chthonic sense), but also taps into the psycho-pompic aspects of this Goddess, and her influences at the crossroads.

Man, honestly, I can't even represent it well enough.

But Jason's just offered the course publicly again, after a long period of capping it for further development. It's a great time to get into the current, adopt, adapt, and implement a modern system of underworld/overworld interaction that creates a thing that you want to create.

And it's friggin' potent. Sitting across the table from these guys when they were talking about it, I felt wave after wave of power radiating from them that "spoke" to me at some deep levels. I couldn't wait to let y'all know what's up with this stuff.

So here's the link with full information and the way to join:

http://www.inominandum.com/blog/sorcery-of-hekate-7-month-course/

This is not your average magick 101 bullshit. This is the next level stuff that people who have done the boot camp, seen the front lines, risen through the ranks, and taken command of their own troops should be working with.

Power, prestige, and potency.

The Visible College Presents: "The Time of the Gods" in Glastonbury

Ahhhhhh, so once again that angelic genius Sef Salem has managed to balance his work/life/reason-for-incarnating, and has put together yet another amazing opportunity to interact with some of the best minds Europe has to offer on subjects of occult interest and Applied Hermetics! The Visible College is hard at work.

The schedule this year includes:

Saturday's Programme:

• Elaine Bailey - The Isis Revival (Lecture) and the Golden Dawn (Workshop)
• Dr Liz Williams - The Hellfire Club (Lecture)
• Damh the Bard - Worldwide Druidry (Lecture) and Bardic Set
• Matthew Levi-Stevens - Strange Gods for the New Age (Lecture)
• Siany DragonOak - Modern Witchcraft for Busy People (Workshop)
• Sef Salem - Summoning Angels (Workshop)

Sunday's Programme:

• Taster workshops from local practitioners
• Cavan McLaughlin - Open-Source Occultism
• Emma Doeve - Babalon: Where is She Now?
• Jake Stratton-Kent - Goetia Renewed
• Julian Vayne - Future Magicks

Tickets are available at the door only at this point, but you should totally plan on going.

Last time I worked with Sef on Summoning Angels, it took three years to figure out what the actual fuck went down. 

Full details can be found here:

http://www.visiblecollege.co.uk/the-occult-conference-2016

On Getting Roasted on the Inter-tubes

This morning I awoke to a concerned message from a long-time friend and mentor about the ongoing roast of me and everything I do or say on the internet on a tumblr site. I was like, no, no worries, it's fine, and went on with my day.

Then I got another concerned message from another friend, and then another from someone who was expecting old school RO thunderous cursings and retribution involving demons and public disgrace and so forth and so on. 

So with the third time being the proverbial charm, I'll go ahead and address it:

Julio has spent a lot of time making fun of me on the internet lately.

GASP! 

But ... 

So what? 

I've seen his posts, and they're funny. I get where he's coming from. That shit I said about the Kybalion would have set me off in 2006:

Rufus Opus: “The Kybalion is a, you know 19th century, early 20th century distillation of, you know, 12000 years of emanationist evolution of thought, you know, belief systems.  It's come down to us from, you know, the Chaldeans, you have, eh, uuh, the Persians. It’s a very ancient system”

See this Link for original.

I would have posted blog posts about it, with cussing and swearing and mockery galore. I hated the Kybalion with a passion for a ton of reasons that were totally valid to me at the time. 

Then I went through the Seven Spheres, reclaimed my race and value per Pymander, accomplished the Great Work, created the Philosopher's Stone (and he makes fun of me for saying that too, and that's also ok), and now I regularly provide the Panacea to the sick, the old, and I bring healing to the world.

Like in the deal.

And my opinion has changed, and it's informed by some other stuff these days. And maybe I'll get around to explaining that when I have time, if I feel like it.

So I get where he's coming from. I'd have made fun of me too, back in the day, and you know what? 

It worked. 99% of my readers reading this are only reading it because I challenged and mocked almost all the well-known icons of the occult community at the time, and carved out a niche, and made a name for myself, and then in that niche I was able to offer courses, and conferences, and ebooks, and talismans, and I got published.

The "Challenge established authorities to get attention" schtick is exactly what I did to establish the very "Rufus Opus Brand" that I'm so pleased with today (and irritates people to acknowledge that's what we do with this stuff). 

So how can I legit give him shit about this? 

And besides, he's not wrong to challenge me on this shit. The things he's mocking should probably be mocked. I've said some silly things over the years, and recently, and no one gets a pass on things just because they have a reputation or some silly brand they've worked towards establishing. 

Mostly his mockery is expressing a dogmatic traditionalist grimoire practitioner's view towards the kind of living Hermetic tradition I practice, and it's not new, folks. Traditionalist grimoire practitioners were telling me I'm wrong years before Julio could sign into Disney.com without his mom's permission, and they had better arguments than snide gifs. 

But they weren't nearly as amusing about it as Julio is.

It's honestly ok to come to different conclusions about how magic is done. The important thing to me is that the magic is done. If Julio has already, or ever does start creating a magical corpus to promote the practice of magic as he understands it and uses it to change the world, then honestly any aggrandizement he gets from roasting me is worth it. 

We get a world that is being created by magicians on purpose, and that's all I ever wanted.

So yes, thanks folks, I am fully aware that Julio can't go a week without talking about me on the internet, and honestly I'm flattered that he thinks my opinions on things are so important to the community that focussing his attentions on me will serve to advance his own brand, and I sincerely wish him all the blessings in his Work. 

HF-RO: Conjuring the Seven Spheres in INDY!

Ahoy, me beauties!

The lovely and talented Harper Feist and your devilishly handsome, illuminated, (and not to mention modest) blog poster Rufus Opus will be appearing in Indianapolis on April 23, 2016!

That's right, the Midwest Americans! We're coming to your
town, we're gonna party down, we're an American Occult Specialist Team Focused Mostly on Hermetic Conjure, and Angels, but We have been Known to Do Demons and Bar Mitzvahs with enough notice!

Harper will be discussing the Art of Scrying that is essential to make any of this stuff we do work. Harper has an instinctual understanding of communion with the invisible world, and has developed a series of techniques that put her "in the zone" to be able to interact with the entities we call into our crystals. She'll be discussing methods of moving out of the way, the cultivation of an internal emptiness, and the premise that the entire human body is a sensory device that the spirit world will use to commune with you, if you're paying attention.

I'm going to be talking about the traditional Hermetic cosmology, the role of the Seven Planetary Spheres, and about the intent of my book to transform its users into fully activated and actualized human beings, with all the divinity that comes along with that.

After, we'll create some talismans, and conjure the spirit of the hour and day to consecrate them, to strengthen our foundations, to expand our borders, and to reveal the hidden knowledge we need to better understand who we are, why we're here, and how to get that thing done.

This event began its life as an invitation to discuss the book the local Indy OTO group, Anabasis Encampment, about the conjure book "Seven Spheres," but it's becoming kind of a thing. People are coming from Kentucky, Tennessee, New York, and Ohio so far for sure. Most of them have been friends of mine for years, and it's totally not just an OTO event anymore.

It's a party, bitches! I'd love to have as many people show up as possible, we don't get out as often as we'd like to see the coolest of the cool.

When:

Saturday, April 23, 2016 E.V. at 10 AM - 4 PM EDT

Where:

Sacred Path
1818 W 57th St, Indianapolis, Indiana 46228

Full details can be found at this link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1567534966870042/

Tickets are $25, and seating is relatively limited. I'll be bringing copies of my book to sign as well. If you're interested, send $25 to treasurer@anabasis-oto.org with a note explaining it's for the HF-RO Seven Spheres event.

On the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

Jason Miller recently committed the blasphemy of suggesting that the Litany against fear has been over-done in most modern cultural references, and as much as I love my brother, I take offense at that particular implication, because my brothers and sisters, this one can never be over-done.

Can you say it with me? From memory?

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Why the fuck is this the thing it is? Why is it so important that it gets brought up by every would-be  mystic god-king of their own lives? Why is it so damned important to us?

Well in point of fact, it addresses the most basic issue that stops all of y'all from doing the things that you're capable of accomplishing if you'd just get over that shit. And I'm saying that because I use it all the frickin' time, and it has LITERALLY changed the course of my life.

Before every interview for jobs I wasn't qualified to perform, I said that motherfucker.

Before every date I wasn't qualified to attend, I said that motherfucker.

Before rituals, before turning in tests for esoteric orders, before going into some scary-looking initiations, I said that motherfucker.

Because fear is the thing that stops everyone. It is the core of every problem every woman and every man upon the Earth faces.

And it's even worse than I ever thought it was when I was just using this litany thing for mundane tasks. I started meditating a couple years ago. I put my usual all into it, and I became a pro right away. That is, it took a couple of years to see the real fruit that comes from regular meditative practice.

I found the thing in my head that's always talking. The part that just. won't. shut. the. fuck. up.

And if you haven't found that part of yourself, start meditating. It's key to that whole "know thyself" thing that people pretend isn't Western Mystery Tradition.

So you know what that little thing is saying most of the time? It usually starts with "What if..."

What if she's sleeping with someone else? What if they're going to end your contract? What if your ex is abusing the kids? What if your choices are screwing up your kids lives? What if you screwed up that one kid forever? What if they figure out you're making this crap up as you go along? What if you're wrong?

What if you're wrong? What if you're wrong? What if you're totally and completely wrong?

It's not fear, even. It's just anxiety. And it's vital to humanity's existence. We need fear like we need to breathe. It keeps us alive. It focuses our awareness to the things we need to pay attention to so we don't fuck our lives up a lot more. We need fear. It is our first warning system. Fear is a tool.

But it triggers too big of a response, as anyone who's had to go through a panic attack, or lived with people prone to them can testify. Uncontrolled fear is crippling, and it's rarely in proportion to the crap we have to deal with. We're still evolving past the animal instincts, and it's a necessary thing to get over those aspects of what we are.

I like the idea that we're extensions of a cosmic consciousness, and we're all nodal consciousnesses plugged into some convenient monkey bodies who managed to contact our immortal spirits through the convenient interface of hallucinogenic fungus, but I don't talk about that a lot because it's cray-cray.

So to use fear as the tool it should be, we need things like the Litany. It friggin' works. It gives you something to do to calm down the monkey mind and let you think. It can get you out of bed in the morning. It can get you through the job interview. It can get you to talk pirate to the lover you want to bed. It can shut down all those "what ifs" the monkey mind throws at us, and gets us to a point where we can take a look at the actual situation without all the exaggerated crap that the triggered fear response tries to make of it.

It puts us in a place where we can take control of a situation in which we are otherwise victims.

Left Hand Path Consortium Removes Controversial Speaker

Quietly, and with little fanfare, the International Left Hand Path Consortium has removed a controversial speaker from its list of presenters. Augustus Invictus, a Libertarian senatorial candidate from Florida, had been invited to speak at the conference on the subject of magick. When it became public knowledge, it sparked an online debate.

You see, Invictus' online presence (and some statements made by the former chair of the Libertarian Party in Florida, who resigned over Florida Libertarian's failure to denounce his candidacy) left many believing that he held fascist and racist ideals. Comparing, for example, his twitter feed and his facebook pages to the Wikipedia description of "fascism," it looks like he intentionally took all the agreed-upon criteria of "fascism" and set about ensuring he had something present that fulfilled the obligation. His decision to speak at American Front, a white supremicist organization left him looking racist as well, despite having fathered four children with his hispanic wife.

Laurie Pneumatikos, the conference organizer, stood fast by her decision to host him in spite of calls for resistance by Antifa-Atlanta. This organization is a local extension of the anti-fascist group that had allegedly attacked one of Invictus' supporters and destroyed property they believed belonged to him during a visit to Portland, and who protested his presence in Canada, successfully getting him detained at the border and sent back to the United States.

Laurie's reasoning was simple: freedom of speech. Regardless of whether people agreed with him or not, she believed he had the right to say what he thought. Even when presenters Taylor Ellwood and Ken Henson publicly bowed out rather than be identified with him, she stood by her decision. In the face of my continued impassioned rhetorical statements in various media in opposition, she stood by her principles.

It was her Will to create a conference that taught the magical principles of the Left Hand Path, and as far as she was concerned, his political beliefs were separate from her intent to have him at her conference.

Ultimately, his removal from the roster came as a result of his own words. He apparently posted a long invective against me and anyone else who was protesting his presence. He acknowledged he was considered a fascist, and rather than deny it, attacked all who didn't agree with his politics for being afraid of what he represented, comparing us to swine, and sheep. In his rant he called on his detractors to come to the conference armed, with his post culminating in a challenge to actually kill him.

At this point, Laurie recognized the danger of having this person at her event. His invitation of violence against his person at her conference had legal ramifications that were just too much to accept. His vehement response resulted in her decision to remove him from the list of presenters.

It's worth pointing out that it had nothing to do with outside pressure from the likes of me or anyone else. She did not cave in to the opposition. She judged him by his own actions, and determined that he was not only a controversial person politically and ideologically, but also a person who seemed intent on bringing harm and violence to himself, and perhaps others.

To my knowledge, there has been no word on whether the speakers who withdrew over his presence will be invited back to speak, or who will replace Invictus at the conference.

While I respect Laurie's choice to stand by her principles, I am also pleased that he will not be given a podium to address the world with his toxic views.

In his vehement denunciation of those who disagreed with him, he mocked the attempts to shut down the conference over "words." I would suggest it's a very poor magician who doesn't appreciate the power of words to change the world. It was, in the end, his own words that eliminated him from the conference, words spoken in response to words from folks like me. Words are a powerful thing indeed, and should be respected.

Laurie has worked hard to establish the Left Hand Path Consortium as a place where occultists can gather and receive instruction from people who are effective and knowledgeable, where beliefs across the spectrum of the occult are presented equally. I am confident that her decision has only furthered her aims along these lines. This year's conference quality has been immensely improved by her decision.

On the Responsibilities of Conference Organizer to other Speakers in the Occult Community

To begin, I'd just like to say, Jake Stratton-Kent is always getting me into trouble, and this, as usual, is actually ALL his fault. And that's one of the reasons I love him so much.

He posted a link to an article on his Facebook page recently with the comment "douchebag" about how a known racist with fascist tendencies is going to be speaking at an international "Left Hand Path" conference.

I recognized the guy, he pulled a huge nutty in 2013, couldn't handle some initiatory stuff/Enochian Aethyr Scrying he was going through, and declared himself the Second Prophet of Thelema, and the Successor to Aleister Crowley in a massive email to just about everyone he could think might care (they didn't) with an attached 2-meg PDF file of his "proof" which he claimed was Class A material, as in, on par with the Book of the Law, Liber 65, Liber VII, etc.

Standard implosion that you basically can expect narcissistic megalomaniacs to go through if they get the urge to use Occultism to express their mental illness?

Perhaps.

Harmless nutter who shouldn't really matter?

Yea, probably.

Except... Wait for it.... Wait for it... A couple of years later, he's running for the Senate... As a Libertarian... In Florida... To replace Marco Rubio... And he's so toxic Canada wouldn't let him in to speak.

CANADA. Wouldn't let him in. To speak.

You couldn't make this shit up if you tried.

So apparently, the organizer of the conference saw "controversial occultist running as a libertarian with racist-fascist views" and thought, oh YEAH, that's what I want to see! And then she got all bent out of shape when people were like, dude, no, don't give fascists a pulpit, that's how we got WWII, remember?

Now, as an occultist who's been invited to speak at this conference in the past, [Edit: Apparently, they are denying ever inviting me to speak at the conference, AND SENDING THE POST TO THEIR LAWYERS FOR REVIEW, but I remember being invited to speak in Indianapolis, I was looking forward to it because my friends would be there, but then I couldn't make it because of kid visits and other issues and had to decline, but I can't find any proof that I was invited at this point, so it might never have happened, or I just didn't think I'd need to keep that kind of thing, so ... whatever] I was like, oh my gosh, no way. I checked the other speakers attending and was like, guys, do you know what's going on? In retrospect, I should have not tagged them publicly in a post on FB that gets broadcast to a couple thousand people who are in our shared circles of magician friends, that may have been a dick move, but it was sincerely about, "Hey, you know what is going to happen if you go to this with him, right?"

Because I happen to know the value of our reputations in the occult community. Basically, that's all we've got. I spent years building up the "RO Brand," and when I was making a decent income off my magical studies and practices, that reputation is all I had to make my sales. It was my brand's integrity that got me invited to speak, publishing contracts, book sales, and a decent supplementary income on the side.

Even more importantly though, I'm all about making Hermetics available to people to change their lives for the better, mostly because I want to live in a better world. The people I want to reach care a lot about things like racism, fascism, and not being part of a plot to establish a megalomaniac's dictatorship over the American people.

No one is going to listen to me if I get associated with racist fascist douchebag.

But it's not just personal loss that matters. When we attend these events, we are giving an implicit blessing to other people who show up to speak at the event. When Fr. Lux ad Mundi of Thelesis lodge invited me to speak on angel magic the first time, he was saying to his lodge members that Rufus Opus knows his shit and can teach us things we need to know. He was putting himself on the line, saying my presentation had value to the community. Had I shown up and made a spectacle, it would have reflected poorly on him.

Likewise, Arthur Moyer put his reputation on the line for Crucible by inviting me to attend, and Jason Miller's support of my work had a lot to do with that. They were both condoning and supporting whatever I had to say, one by inviting me, and the other by speaking with me.

But when you go to one of these things and there's one person who is, for example, publishing things about neo-masculinity and "men's rights," and another whose senatorial campaign twitter feed is 90% racist posts, and the other 10% is a furthering of his goals to become the next Mussolini, it starts to look less like an occult conference and more like a gathering of douchebags.

And your name is on the list, right up there with them.

Fortunately for me, I had some friends let me know that I was on a list of people to speak at a conference with a known stalker who had a history of domestic violence and abuse towards women. He'd been expelled from at least one Order, if I remember right, and the first thing I did was tell the conference organizer that I wasn't going to speak with him at any event. You lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas, after all. This organizer was like, oh crap, yea, didn't know that, he's off the list. And it was done.

And that's the way it should be. Conference organizers have the responsibility to know and understand that they are representing the brands of everyone attending the show. they need to do the vetting of their guests, know what they represent, and understand how that will impact the reputations of everyone else at the event. They need to have some standards about what it is they will accept, and let people know what that is.

When you find out that someone on your guest list has been, for example, barred from entering Canada because they are fascist trouble makers, you need to let the other conference speakers know what they're getting into. You need to make updates to your event, and send emails to the speakers as the speaker list changes, letting us know how our topic will fit in overall, and giving us the opportunity to decide if we really want to associate our Work with the intent of your thing.

And if your intent is to give people with racist and fascist agendas a podium to speak to people who are paying to hear this person speak, you need to make sure that's clear in your description of the event in the first place. Not just for the speakers, but for the attendees as well.

So, since I'm planning on putting together some conferences in the future, my "lessons learned" from this situation is:

1. Define up front the intent, theme, and standards of the event.
2. Invite only those speakers who will aid and abet the accomplishment of the intent of the event.
3. Research the histories of the speakers to ensure they won't smear the reputation of my events, or the other speakers presenting at my event. Controversial speakers aren't to be avoided, per se, but they need to be noted as such so other speakers can make informed decisions about their attendance.
4. Send out the list of speakers with the results of that research to the other speakers, with updates as the list changes. 

Now I know that's actually a lot more work than it looks like. I'm on a staff of people working on an event right now, and honestly, putting together a conference is hard. Venues, contract negotiations, budget, speaker proposals, travel reimbursement, registration coordination, web site development, online social media promotions, and managing the inevitable crazed haters who will try to use your event to further their interests is a lot of work. Adding on researching your presenters to see if they are nut jobs and letting other presenters know about potential impacts to their reputations is just adding a lot more work.

But it's necessary, and fair to the presenters.

"RO, what happened to your ebooks and classes?"

I've been getting this question a lot lately, so I'll address it publicly.

I don't sell them anymore.

I joined the A.'.A.'. a couple of years ago, and as I went through the actual Work involved and earned the degree of Neophyte, I came to realize that I was charging money for A.'.A.'. teachings, or rather, things that you learn in the A.'.A.'. as you do the Work.

But the things in my courses and ebooks are incomplete, and lack a context that adds to the overall experience of the Work, it turns out. I didn't have a problem charging for that information when it was my hard-won knowledge that I deduced by conjuring spirits and performing the Great Work. I sweat it out in hard labor, and figured my experiences were worth money, and if you wanted to do it yourself, go to esotericarchives.com like I did and figure it out.

But as I progressed through the Work of the Student, Probationer, and Neophyte, I've come to appreciate that I was doing it the hard way before, and the "pioneer" approach left a lot to be desired. Having the things I was teaching others in intense outpourings presented to me moderately in the context of actual spiritual practices changed my opinion.

And the A.'.A.'. stuff is free. Charging for an incomplete system that doesn't give you as much as a free system in Applied Hermetics felt ... skeevy.

Also, there's a thing about Rosicrucianism being about healing the sick, and that gratis that applies.

So, if you can get your hands on copies of my old stuff on the interwebs for free, go for it, but know it's not as good as the A.'.A.'. stuff you can get for free. The A.'.A.'. stuff is harder, in some ways, but it's a lot more complete.

It's not for everyone, of course, and there are built in spiritual ordeals that every Student, Probationer, and Neophyte must face (probably the rest too, but I can't speak to that yet) and overcome. But it presents things in a way that make sense, and lead you from understanding to understanding, while giving you practical methods of integrating the forces you're tapping into along the way.

If you think you can handle it, the A.'.A.'. group I affiliate with can be found at www.onestarinsight.org. There are others, but imo, this is the group that makes the most sense.

IVth Pentacle of Jupiter

I happen to have a few extra 4th Pentacles of Jupiter that I made back in 2013 when Jupiter was in Cancer, as per the requirements in the Key of Solomon. I've been sitting on them because you can only make them every 12 or 13 years or so, and I figured they'd be worth more in 2019 than they are now.

But I have some minor issues that a little extra money would help with, so I'm going to part with two of these beauties for $450 plus shipping for each.

Note that there are only 2 available at this time.

I will be raising the price on the remaining stash as time goes by.

You at your Worst: Not that Bad

So this morning I found myself going over the RO Behavioral Balance Sheet for 2015, making lists of the best and worst things I did last year to see how I've been doing on the overall "expression of my Word" thing in this Great Work business.

It was mostly good. I'm way behind on a lot of things I said I'd do, but the wrap-up is in sight. I'm happy, successful, and people are happy with me in general (unless they're waiting for a Seven Spheres Conjure Kit, some of those people are pissed, but they should be ready by end of January, I promise).

But one thing stood out in my mind in the "fucked it up" column. One memory. The worst thing I did last year. The thing that as I'm falling asleep five years from now my brain will pull out and be all, remember when you did THIS? HA HA, YOU SUCK.

The worst thing I did last year was this:

Someone posted a pic of what looked like an altar designed to conjure, with absolutely no exaggeration, the Primordial Archetype of the True Hipster God (you probably haven't heard of him).

The table it was on was like one of those spools that construction teams use to wrap fiber optic or copper cable that you see on construction sites. Like a huge wooden spool made out of terribly cheap plywood, obviously found on the side of the road. I can't remember all the details of what was on it, but I remember a large can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, some cheap looking tea lite candle or other kind of candle, some really vintage looking stuff that had a shabby "found-item" look to it all, and it was like really scarcely decorated.

I took a screen shot of it and posted it to Facebook with a hilarious tag about conjuring the Hipster God, of course. It was brilliant, and witty, and funny, and barely mocked anyone who isn't already self-deprecating.

After getting a lot of likes, because likes are important, and my friends posting some really funny stuff about what the Hipster God was all about, I get a PM from the dude who posted the pic. It turns out they were honoring a friend who had committed suicide. The stuff on the altar as stuff the guy had liked in life. Things that defined who he was.

And I turned it into a joke. Centered entirely around the kind of guy he was.

Before he killed himself.

For fuck's sake.

I felt like TOTAL SHIT. Deleted the post, apologized profusely, and basically tried to make things not shitty for that guy and his friends. I was an ASS.

I'll do some Work on healing that memory and get on with my life over time. This isn't the worst thing I've ever done, but it's pretty shitty. I'll move on and do other terrible things this year, and one of them will stick out, and it will haunt me, and like most people on the planet, my first urge is to keep it to myself.

So why make it public now?

I don't entirely understand how it all works, but for some reason people listen to me when I talk. More people will read this post than belong to the OTO and A.:A.: combined in the entire world.

And a lot of you are like me. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading this.

You fuck up a lot, but you don't mention it, you keep it to yourself. You punish yourself for being a total asshat that one time, and that other time. You think the things you do were awful, and there's a part of your brain that will punish you all year for some shit you did.

And no one else is talking about how shitty they are as a person. We post the good stuff most of the time, and we roll our eyes at the people posting their shitty stuff. We keep our own shit to ourselves.

Everyone is doing that all the time.

So there's no honest, true standard of behavior we can use to figure out how we're doing, compared to other people. So you flipped off that asshat in traffic and later felt bad because you were PMSing or hungry or horny or something. You made fun of the fat people at the gym, who are actually there to do something about getting healthy. You did that one thing that no one else knows about, and it haunts you and you feel stupid, dumb, ugly, insensitive, awkward, whatever.

And I got to thinking this morning that always posting how awesome things are is bullshit. Sure, I completed the Great Work, created the Philosopher's Stone, spoke my Word of the Magus and everything.

But I also made fun of a memorial to a suicide victim.

I wanted you all to know that other people, people you listen to and respect, are fuck-ups who did terrible things they feel guilty about. I want you to feel better about that one thing you did that you think is so awful. I want you to know that the worst thing you did last year probably wasn't as bad as you think it was, really, and you should cut yourself some slack.

Unless it was worse than what I did, you sick fuck.

If it was, don't do that again, for sure, eh?

But don't beat yourself up. You'll do far, far worse things before you die, probably. Let that one terrible thing go, and look in the other column, the awesome things you did last year. I got a bunch of people to do magic to make their lives better financially and emotionally and intellectually. I inspired some crusty curmudgeons to see their religion as alive and hopeful and active instead of as a backdrop to their personal dramas with their lodge mates.

You did awesome shit too.

You're awesome.

Move along.