The Myth of Guilt

Long ago, and far away, there was a beautiful garden in a tropical paradise. God made man, and told him to go and enjoy the Garden, enjoy its fruits and everything, take care of the animals. Have a good time, man, and watch out for that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eat that, and you'll die.

Fast forward.

Looking down from the heavens, the Logos saw what was going on below. "First Father, you sure about this? I mean, if you're for serious, ok, but man... Look, alright, we'll just get this over with."

Fast forward.

Rufus Opus, aged 10, cutest kid in Christian Camp. Climbed up in a tree with a Bible because he wasn't getting it. The other kids got it. They prayed, cried, and got baptised. He prayed, read the right parts (Romans Road much?), prayed some more, and finally did cry.

In freaking frustration.

Fast forward again to a couple years ago. Rufus Opus Gets Saved. This hammer fell down and knocked some sense into me, and I cried for real then. Not in shame or pain, but in awe. God was friggin' huge! And He was KING God. Oh boy did I fall down and worship Him, for in all honestly, no sarcasm, I tell you the TRVTH: He is worthy to be praised.

But he's got praise  and worship already. He didn't make Man in His Image so that he could have another psychophant. The original intent was to have a companion like himself.

But then Man got enmeshed in the material realm. Fell in love with his own image. Entered material existence. And "Fell."

OR... he was made perfect in the material world, which was also perfect, and told to watch out for that nasty apple. Knowledge of Good and Evil. That shit will fuck you up, dog. God said so.

But Man went for it anyway. Ate that apple, and wha-bam - INSTANT GUILT. They knew right and wrong all of a sudden, and the emotional offspring was guilt. They hid from God and put on clothes for why? For shame. For serious.

And God said... "Well, shit."

And Logos said, "Yeah, I know, right?"

Look at what we do out of "guilt." We give to charities that make us feel guilty for having life so good. We apologize for stuff that we didn't do on purpose. We support churches, pay ministers to drive fancy schmancy cars and wear tailored suits, we buy indulgences... We keep jobs we hate, we hang out with people we don't like, and we don't have fun. Because fun is wrong... for some reason.

But wait, there's the Logos. He came down as Jesus Christ, and performed a holy hell of a damned fine ritual for all mankind. He ATONED for the SIN of eating the apple. He made up for it. Now, lots of my readers don't believe in original sin. They don't believe in the Fall. I don't care. Look around you. The world has a lot of shit that isn't beautiful, isn't right, and isn't fun. It can be a beautiful perfect place, but it can also be a house of horrors. That hellacious horrifying mess is part of life, yes, but remember for centuries people believed THEY DESERVED IT.

Karma? That's really practical consequence, but in the West we pretend it's punishment for "sins." Bad decisions lead to bad stuff happening. Bad. As opposed to Good. As in, stuff we feel guilty for, or should, because it's BAD. Knowledge of good and evil, the consequence of sin...

But wait! Logos came down and made up for that. What does that mean? It means (and this is going to piss off a lot of Christians) there is no more guilt. Right and Wrong are illusions, Good and Evil are points of reference. They are necessary for everyone who doesn't get that we aren't servants to its law anymore, but for those who seek God, who seek to return to being the originally intended human being, there is no more sin. No more guilt. No more right or wrong.

The crucifixion was totally God saying, "You think you can't get to me because you know Good and Evil and feel guilty? You feel unclean unless you do all that shit? Well surprise, surprise, surprise! You're all CLEAN now, and you've got no excuse to hang back at the edges of the dance hall while I'm whirling my bride around the floor. You're the bride, and you're clean, now let's hang out and talk!"

So let's face it folks. Guilt is a myth. Whatever reason we have for feeling guilty is gone now. Can we do whatever we want? Yes! There will be consequences, of course, but the aren't "Good," they aren't "Evil," they are "consequences." And it's harder to live without God. We were designed to be his companion after all, but he gives us space if we insist. The thing is, there's no more reason for us to feel guilty over shit we screw up. the point is to recognize that what you've done didn't result in what you intended and try something else instead.

I got a kick out of the picture above. I don't know where I found it, but I thought it was hilarious, because that's really what it was all about. The crucifixion was a drama play. It was played out to prove once and for all that there's no excuse for you or anyone to stay away from God. No more sin. No more punishment from God. We aren't pre- mid- or post-adolescent children anymore. Logos fixed that.

Now go see god.

Forgotten Things

I was talking to a friend of mine, Frater Servitor Lucem, in IMs a few minutes ago. We got to talking about the coming Depression, the economy in general, and what to excpect. Along the way, he gave me a brief history of the things that have happened since the last Depression. These are important things to know. He lived through it, as his mother and grandmother immigrated to the US in the 1930's and he grew up knowing what had happened. I'm younger than he is, and most of my friends have the same general understanding of history I do, I suspect. Chances are you know all this, but here is the brief overview of what happened that lead us where we are today.

And this is important to you magicians that seek to become members of the Invisible College. Our role in this world is to take notice of these things. You may not feel called on to do anything about this with your spiritual resources, but I am.

His comments begin below:

See, when the Depression was underway, there were also Commies. The rich people were really afraid of the Commies, because the Commies had a nasty habit of killing the people they took over from.

So, the New Deal came about. Not because the rich people were being so nice about things, but because they were afraid they might die. Communism was seen as a really serious threat. Nazism was, in part, a reaction against the Communist threat. Democracy was in some big trouble in the '30's. People seriously wondered whether it had a future.

So, the New Deal made for some social re-engineering that helped people along, but mostly because people who have nothing to lose, and know it, are extremely dangerous.

Enter the Second World War, and things really heat up.

Democracy pretty much successfully defends itself against the Fascists, but only at the cost of allying with the dreaded Commies. Afterwards, the Cold War was the big showdown between Communism and Capitalism. Both systems are more or less bankrupt in many of the same areas, but capitalists have more wealth, and provide better incentives.

Besides, what we had in the West wasn't at all pure Capitalism, anyway. There was a strong Socialist streak left over from the New Deal. More equitable distribution of wealth led to enormous overall wealth in the West. So much so that we were able to bail Western Europe out of certain death by starvation.

However, after a few decades, the rich, once again, became tired of sharing, and started to take back what the New Deal had given the rest of us. And when Communism finally gave up the ghost, they said, "Hey, don't like what we're about? Tough shit, where are you gonna go?" And they took away all the restrictions that had been put in place to prevent another depression.

And they took back a lot of the social programs that came out of the New Deal, and bankrupted the rest (like Social Security).

And here we are.

Pretty much where we were in 1929.

My Man Sense is Tingling

Cool pic, eh? Any mechanical engineers reading this spot the problem with any gear set up like this?

I was just thinking about how sometimes a woman will make a suggestion about something that a man would never even consider. It happens a lot in my work. the Department Heads are mostly white males. They can't do anything but guide others in their work. Literally, they can't. They can barely work their email and blackberries most of the time. Most of them have assistants that schedule all their meetings.

It's the mid-level management that is chock fulll of women. They have this intuitive grasp of how things need to work. In my career, I've found that there were many times that I wouldn't know the details of a situation, but I had a pretty good grasp of the situation in hand. I made some decisions, set the ball in motion, and then talked to a woman about it. "But isn't this, this, and this true?" she would say. "Hmmm.... yes...." I would reply, realizing that I had just screwed up.

The simple fact is that women have this ability to know things. They don't communicate it well to men, usually because men and women have different ways of looking at things. That is the main problem between the sexes. Clear communication.

But I've developed this sense about things. There are times now in my life where a woman will be telling me that I'm wrong about something, and they'll have all these reasons to prove their point, but they just don't add up to me. It's like they're using words I use in completely sideways ways.

But there's this feeling I get around my right shoulder blade. Sort of an extension of the heart chakra, or maybe (this just occurred to me) it's where God took the rib. I call it my Man Sense. It gets warm when a woman is correcting me, and I don't know why she's right, but she is anyway. I've learned to trust this feeling. It guides me, and it improves my performance.

Men and women are complimentary. We are different in design, function, interpretation, and approach. These differences have caused countless clashes, but they are supposed to be there so we can understand this world we live in better, and do our jobs right while we're here.

Men, learn to use your man sense. Next time you're frustrated with a woman who's babbling on about why you're an idiot, instead of arguing check your man sense. Is she right? If so just accept it and move on. You don't have to understand why she's right. You possibly never will. Even if you do, it won't change the fact that you'll be doing the same thing regardless of your understanding. If you want to bend your brain into feminine angles, go ahead, by all means. But me, I just trust the man sense.

You can do magic

Morning, folks. Just a reminder... this blog is for you to learn to accomplish the Great Work. I like to try to make money off it sometimes, because it's fun. Money is a marker system, keeping track of time and worth and value and everything like that. It's fun to use it as a mundane scorecard for my magical Work. Not that you have to be rich to be successful, I'm just saying. It's fun. For me. When I'm winning. It sucks when I've let things slip, but it's always recoverable. So far. Your mileage may vary.

But what's even more fun for me is when I get emails or comments about how people are using the experiences I've had to further their own Work. I'm trying to show people that magic is relatively easy. Any bumbling bafoon can do it. EVEN ME. You don't have to be a highly skilled artist to do this stuff. Your Work can look ugly. Ugly works too.

Looking at the requirements of making all the stuff you need to do magic "by the book" is intimidating. But if you're willing to experiment, and keep some basic safety mechanisms in place, your experiments won't be any more dangerous than any other mad scientist on your block. And you'll have invisible forces helping you, grateful that you're putting them to work.


And let's face it folks, the Spirits are a lot more forgiving and flexible than we like to pretend. If you don't have silver, draw a Moon Talisman on a blank piece of paper. You can consecrate it to the Moon by drawing her planetary sigils around the border if you like. The spirits will work with that. Wands and Daggers and Cups and Disks are fun to collect. Planetary talismans are fun to make. But they aren't the magic. They aren't required to do the magic. What's required ultimately from any magician is little more than a pen and paper and a whole lot of ambition. Aim for God, and if you only come close, hell, you've come a long way.

The other day someone sent me an overview of what they're working on, a bit of their setup, and they talked about a technique they're developing to cast silver. It looks really interesting, and I can't wait to see his work. Awesome stuff. Made me feel really good, because one of the reasons I talk so much about how to do stuff is to get people doing it. Finding other magical crafters is fun. So if anyone else has any special neat tricks they're working on to produce some powerful artifacts, feel free to let me know. Heck, start a blog about it and email me a link. I'll publicize you to the fullest extent of my abilities.

Red Stone

A friend of mine started a yahoo group years ago, invited a few friends, and set up a place where we could all get together and compare alchemical notes. Planetary magic, the Great Work, etc. Everything you'd expect to find at a group called "Red Stone."

Well, no one really did much with it. I blame Jupiter.

I had talked about starting my own group where we could talk practical applications of the Great Work rather than magical theology and doctrine. But that's exactly what the good Frater intended Red Stone to be, and it's already there.

So...

Click here, and join the group, and we'll all start chatting.

Goetic Kings

As I commented before, I learned a lot about how engraving seals of spirits gets them into your sphere. What I didn't realize at the time was that when you are dealing with Goetic spirits, you don't leave them around with nothing to do. Because they will be themselves. It's important to remember that "idle hands are the devil's work shop." Or however the cliche goes.

So I made these 9 seals for someone. The seals turned out beautifully, and I wrote all about how wonderful it is to get to know the spirits by drawing their seals. Beautiful, useful, intelligent stuff, if I do say so myself. I wrote in detail about how when you draw the seal, you have begun to conjure the spirit. The spirit is there.

But I didn't think about what it means to have a Goetic King hanging around with nothing to do. They were themselves. The one that can bring a man all the love he desires until he's had enough, Beleth, also happens to be adept at starting fights between lovers when she's not busy. (Or he. I'm pretty sure it's a she. I get this vision of a harpy, smirking to Herself, like a Sugmad bird.)

So one day it hits me, there's some serious shit going on in my life. I never have shit. Well, I actually have a lot of shit to deal with. Rather frequently; the unpleasant side effects of living in a physical body that happens to be run by a paranoid psychotic who lives only for the pleasure of the moment. I'm talking about the Nephesh, not "me" the Ruach. I'm pretty much perfect, it's that crazy bastard under the hood that freaks me out.

But there was more shit on the road than usual, and the nut driving wasn't dealing with things very well. The Nephesh is lost in a fit of road rage that's left him blind from the froth spattering his face as he swears incoherently at other drivers, it's pouring down rain, and there are potholes the size of minivans in the road. While I've been sitting there in the back seat, carefully polishing these nifty talismans, finding a nice cigar box to ship them in, writing long emails of advice and warning to the buyer, I'm literally driving on the fucking railing, and did I mention there's a thousand foot sheer drop just past the railing? All of a sudden, I wake up and smell the shit burning.

So yeah, you betcha, I called my HGA. It hit me during of deep meditation. I was in one of my frequent moments of pure Zen, when I realized that I REALLY needed to talk to HGA. You know, deep in trance. My consciousness was in perfect equilibrium, not knowing, not thinking, just being. Finding Dhayana, achieving complete harmony with the celestial spheres...

Ok, so I was playing Guitar Hero. It might at least have been Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas, but I don't really remember. Anyway, I sat up straight(er) and hit pause. (Didn't want to ruin my 100% streak.) Closed my eyes to slits until just a touch of light filtered through. Took my consciousness through the back door escape hatch and entered the Astral Temple.

"HGA?" sez I, conjuring him by Name.
"Yo?" he answered in all his transcendental wisdom and resplendent Glory.
"WTF!?" sez I.
"Demons, fool!" He graciously aswered.

Ok seriously, I conjured my HGA, and he showed me what was going on, showed me that I knew better, pointed out the damned blog post that I had said what was happening to me would happen to the careless magician and everything. He also showed me some pictures, and this is where it gets meaty.

So I had these Nine Spirits hanging out. (Nazgul much? No thanks, I'm trying to quit.) They were bored, they reverted to their natural inclination. Driving people nuts with distractions from the world. HGA shows me how they're these... blobs of undirected forces in my life. They were mushing me, prodding my sphere by their presence near me.

And he sez, "Put them to Work."

Ok, sez I, I can do that. And I get this vision. I'm at the center. There's this greenish background, like the color of a mini-golf green. Only it's like it's behind a sheet of smoked glass, or like some graphic artist had inserted a layer of barely opaque black over the top of it, and I was standing in the middle. Around me facing outwards were the Nine Kings of the Goetia. If you've see The Dark Crystal, it was like that. Me and HGA were in the center, and they were radiating outward.

It was sort of like the picture above, looking down. It was more like the picture below, from a side view.

So that's what he was telling me to do. Put a circle of the Nine Goetic Kings around me. Then I got this other vision. Like the picture above, seen from the top down, but from each of the Kings extended their servants. Every spirit under their control was lined up, radiating outward. It was really cool.

Ok, sez I, I'm not about to do a full conjuration of nine Goetic Kings, no friggin' way. And certainly not all at once, that's just plain stupid. I've got enough shit to deal with just from drawing their seals. Also, I'm right in the middle of this song, and my Ring of Solomon's all the way in the other room with the silver pentagonal figure...

"No. Now."

Clear and to the point, HGA doesn't let me off the hook. "Ok," I think at him, "but no way I'm doing this alone."

"Never; never have, never will."

So we conjured all nine Kings, gave each specific instructions, and lined them all up. It took a while. There was no stink, the Kings were amiable enough. They seemed to settle into the ... right ... places. Weird to explain. And everything has worked out perfectly since then, with no massive adaptation to having this kind of force around me all the time. Of Course.

Now, for fun, superimpose a Tree of Life over that side-view image up there, with Tiphareth at the top of the column. The base of the column rests in Malkuth. The Nine Kings are nestled right at Yesod. Neat huh? That wasn't even on purpose.

Long Week

Well, faithful readers, it's been a remarkably long week. My "real" had me working until after 11:00 p.m. for a change. Most weeks go by with only needing 20 minutes of work. This wasn't one of them.

That doesn't mean I don't have a tone to say, of course. I had some extremely interesting things happen with the Goetic Kings, and learned a valuable lesson, thanks to my HGA. I had a healing thing happen that left me stumped. A friend wrote a huge-ass essay on why Obama isn't really black (friend is of African-American descent, so he gets away with that without being labeled a racist, even though he totally is). People have been asking for help with their Genius/Daimon names, and I haven't had any time to get to them. I think I even sold an eBook that I ahven't sent out yet.

And there's an essay project I'm working on about ... well, you'll see.

Anyway, sorry for the hiatus, faithful readers. I'll be back to full-R.O. mode soon enough.

Getting K&CHGA using Agrippa's Genius

With the recent posts about the importance of K&CHGA, this is probably a good time to plug getting K&C using the Name of your Genius. You get the name, draw it a few times in a few scripts, and enjoy getting to know it. Then you conjure it. (Oh spirit NN, I conjure you in the name of the Most High God Eheieh, appear before me in this mirror/stone/bowl/whatever. Improvise using the Bornless Rite or Samekh.) Then you ask it to facilitate K&CHGA. Then perform Samekh or Abramelin, or whatever. Having a friend in the Genius to recommend you paves the way a bit.

To get the Genius name, use Agrippa's Book 3, chapter 26 or 27. Can't remember which off the top of my head. You need a natal chart from somewhere like Astrodienst.com. Go to free horoscopes, enter your info, and make sure you select the option to show the Part of Fortune.


Run your horoscope and write down the degrees and signs of the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Part of Fortune, and Prenatal Syzygy. To get the Prenatal Syzygy, you have to figure out when the previous new or full moon was closest to your birth date. Run a chart on that date and time and location, and get the degrees of the Moon from there. That's your Prenatal Syzygy.


Plug it into the table you develop from Agrippa's Book 3, chapter 26 or 27. If you put Aleph in the 1st degree, round all your values up to the next degree. Or put Aleph in the previous degree and round down. When you get the five letters, add an EL to the end to conjure the active aspect of your Genius, or an AH to the end to get the passive aspect. Think of Jacob's Ladder, where he saw the angels descending and ascending. The Descending angels were coming down from heaven to carry out god's will, so their names all ended in EL. The ones Ascending were returning to God having carried out their mission, so their names ended in AH.

To speak about information concerning your personal "return to God" conjure the AH version. To speak with the Genius about active things, like getting a job, or money, or physically doing anything, conjure the EL version. It's convenient. The AH suffix aspect will be the one to target for K&CHGA.


Don't be intimidated. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil, and draw out what you read in Agrippa. Think about it, and draw it again if necessary. I drew up three circles, and took the time to divide them each into 360 degrees using a protractor. Then I put the alephbet in each degree, clockwise starting in 1 Aries for the Genius Name, counter clockwise starting in Pisces for the evil daimon name. I think. I did this a year ago, and my memory gets dusty. Now I just use the spreadsheet. One column has the alephbet, another has the degree, and the third has the sign. I run the charts for people and get their info, round the degrees up, and derive the Names from the chart values. It's a series of simple steps. They just get tedious.


So I charge people to do it for them. It takes about 15 minutes, I charge $6.95. That's $28.80 an hour, if I had enough demand for this service to do it for a whole hour. I get paid a lot more than that at my job. I take a pay cut to do this stuff for people. I do it to get people in touch with their HGAs. So I can talk to them about magic and learn from them.


Oh, and Chris Warnock includes your Genius and Evil Daimon names when you buy your natal chart from him. It's on my list of things to have done when I'm bathing in filthy lucre.

Learning Goetia the Easy Way - Kinetic Meditation

I sold a set of the plaster seals of the nine Kings of the Lemegeton's Goetia last week. The images in this post are scanned wooden blanks that I used to make the Sculpey molds for the plaster casts. I discovered some flaws in my process, but it all worked out in the end. I had to soak the wooden seals in oil to get them not to stick to the Sculpey. The "size" used to make the gold leaf stick to the seal gets rapidly absorbed into the plaster, so the leaf doesn't stick to regular plaster, unless you use all the size, and then you can't make out the engraved seals. I'm trying a polyurethane seal now. As soon as they dry, I'll see if a couple coats of poly seals up the plaster enough for the glue to stay on the surface. (Edit: It worked!)

But that's not the point of the post. Just passing along information I've picked up. The point is this:

I have learned SO MUCH about the personalities of the Kings of the Goetia by engraving their seals. I worked from the online version of the Goetia primarily to get the seals. I like some of Crowley/Mathers more stylized seals, but there's something more authentic, more "down and dirty" to the seals on Joe Peterson's site. They were carved into wood, I think, or were drawn by an unsteady hand. They look "lived in." The seals in the Crowley/Mathers translation are too perfect to be made by the hands of any but the most practiced or naturally talented craftsmen. I'm neither.

But to engrave a seal into wood, you have to know it pretty well. I drew each seal a couple of times, getting the feel of the proportions, learning how it was "supposed" to go. Then I had to scale it to two-inch disks. At first I tried doing it all technical using graph paper and rulers and protractors and compasses like I was some kind of master draftsman. Things kept turning out wrong. They looked straight, and the proportions were technically accurate, but they felt wrong. So I went back to free-hand drawing, and it worked much better.

As I drew the seals, I found myself immersed in each one's details. Little circles that might have marked the beginning or ending of their name on a Kamea, crosses and daggers, hearts, tridents, and classic demon tails with the pointy barbed tips. I saw how the seals were expressions of each spirit, direct revelations of themselves to people. I saw how tracing each seal was itself an act of conjuring the spirit. I understood Nazca Lines, Pictographs, and the development of writing from the moment we took on fleshly form through James Joyce.

(It stopped at James Joyce because, frankly, NO ONE UNDERSTANDS JAMES JOYCE. That was the point of Ulysses, and all the Bloom freaks out there can't prove anything. It was just bullshit.)

But in tracing out the seals by hand, you are joining with the countless aeons of other people who have evoked this spirit, from the crazy drunk blonde in Australia getting revenge on some shiela to the African engineers of ethnic cleansing, to the Popes of France. I mean, you're joining together with bastards and kings from across time to conjure up the spirits of hell to get what you want. You're entering the myth, becoming the myth, and making it real. It's some powerful stuff.

I've come to understand why people think the Lem's Goetic Spirits are manifestations of the human psyche. It's more than "They don't know what the fuck they're talking about." Honest. I can grow spiritual compassion.  Anyone can. If they want.

It's because they do the magic, and they feel parts of their brain warm up when they trace the seals. They feel the shift in the vibration of their spheres that comes when you start drawing out seals. They attribute it wrong, of course, but that's fine.

(Note: "Of Course" almost always denotes SARCASM, or that which should be mocked. And not just when I use it. That's what it "really" means for everyone. Watch tomorrow, and every time someone says "of course," you'll see that whatever they're referencing is completely worthy of endless ridicule. When I use "of course," I do it on purpose. Unlike those dweebs you work with. They don't know what they're doing, they're barely fucking human. Of course.)

When you put that pen or pencil to the page, and move it along the ancient pathways, you immediately get the attention of the spirit you're working with. It checks in on you and sees what's going on. If you seem like you've got something interesting going on, it sticks around and helps you understand its seal a bit more. You feel where the guy recording the Seal was coming from. You get the feeling that you know where he messed up and had to leave it that way because it was close enough and he was out of parchment. You get the feeling you know how to extend something just right.

So how do you know it's "real"? I mean, how can you tell a spirit is influencing you, and it's not "just" your ego thinking it knows better than the grimoires? Do it a lot, and you'll get what I mean. Do it with different seals. Draw them out, and pay attention. Here's what I mean:

Balam. He's got this three-humped B, an arrow, what looks like an IAO permutation, a trident and a spear-thing. Oh, and a pointy pointy tail. The three-humped B has these little squiggles coming of the top and bottom where the humps meet the vertical line. They could be artistic flourish, or they could be the remnants of the starting and stopping points of the spirit's name on a Kamea, or Tablet of some kind like the Great Table of Enochian Magic, or the Tablets of the Planets in Agrippa. You can't tell by looking at it, and it's apparent that the one in the manuscript at Joe's site is drawn freehand. The squiggles are disproportionate. You can't tell if it was on purpose or not. I went with my intuition on this one, and made the squiggles more reflective of one another. It was that feeling I described above.

Vine. The Peterson seal from the manuscript is just ugly. In trying to copy it out, I understood why. If the original dude recording the seal didn't grok the spirit, then he would make the kinds of mistakes that were made. It's got seven "humps," and one in the manuscript is heinous. It has an out-of-center cross coming down, and you can tell it's just not right. There's little circles inside this one part that don't line up with anything. I tried "fixing it" the same way I tried with Balam's seal, and it just didn't work. I stylized it, I made it my own, I tried rulers and measuring so each hump was equidistant, I tried everything I could think of to make it look right, and I still had this empty feeling, like a void where the "Eureka!" should have been.

Then this warm inspiration hit to check the Crowley/Mathers seal. I did, and I saw how it had been presented, and what the "right" way was. I remembered something Belial had shown me about his seal, and it all clicked together. The seal is a picture of a crown, or a helmet, or a mask. As soon as I understood what it was, I was able to sketch out the seal just "right." That feeling of correctness that flooded me left my arm hairs standing up.

See how the techniques were different for different seals, and yet still informed by one another? That has become a hallmark of the spirits in my Work. In my day-to-day existence, I find a way to do something, and I use it from then on. Like in Microsoft's Word, you can do the same thing like a bajillion different ways. Some are faster than others, some are actually logical, sort of. I'm using the techniques I developed in Word when its releases were still numbered. Even if I find a faster, easier way to do something, once I've learned how to do it I usually stick with it. That's how I am in myself.

When I'm being informed by the Spirits, I can feel them offering new ways to do things, and they appeal to me. It's a very subtle thing about myself that I've noticed in my getting to know me, and I can tell when I'm not doing things the way I normally do. That's why it's so important to Know Yourself.

Someone posted on the Solomonic group the other day that they wanted to learn the Goetia. Almost everyone on that list is an author or aspiring author, and they're almost all interested in the Goetia. The archives are fabulous resources of excellent information. I can't recommend enough that people interested in learning Goetia should go out and research other magicians that have worked with these spirits to familiarize yourself with their experiences. From Lisiewski and Konstantinos to Jake Stratton-Kent's pact work to Moloch the Radionics Sorceror. From Poke Runyon to Lon DuQuette. From the liberal chaos magical blogs to the conservative reconstructionist traditionalists of the world. From Chris Warnock to Pat Zalewski. Crowley, Mathers, Agrippa, hell even Levi.

But not Dion Fortune. Not ever her. And don't read the Kyballion. I mean it. If you do, do not ever quote from it. Chances are very, very good that you're misrepresenting it, and it's misrepresented to start with.

Read, read, read, and read between the lines, with one ear cocked and listening to the Voice of your HGA, Genius, or the Holy Ghost of your belief system. Listen from your spirit to the spirits of the authors, not their personalities, but their experiences that lie behind their words. Separate the message from the word the way you have learned to separate the voices of the spirits from the voice of your own mind. Study.

But... A faster way is available. Draw the frickin' seals! Read the description of the spirit. Draw it's seal. Write out its description. Draw its seal. Draw its seal again. Draw it some more. Buy a dremel tool and some wooden blanks from Wal Mart. Make sure you've got a steel cutter tip of some kind, the smallest spherical ones work best for me. Wooden disks are in the craft department. They have squares, circles, triangles, and a ton of selection of just wood stuff for crafters. I bought a boat to paint for fun for a buck too. Pick up some of that. I don't care what it's made of, this is kinetic meditation we're talking here. It's not an actual conjuration and communication with the spirit. It's a tactile communion with it instead.

Anyway, once you've got the sketching of the spirit seal down to an art and science, then sketch it on the wood. Engrave it. Start by tracing over the design lightly with the tip of the tool. Focus on how the tool behaves as you work with the grain of the wood as opposed to how it behaves when you work against it, or worse, if you're trying to engrave a curve diagonal to the grain...

(If a dremel tool is out of your financial budget, get a wood burning tool. It's like $12. Wood's cheap. Scrap works for this. Go without lunch for three days, or dinner. Save $12 and buy a damn tool. It's an investment, you cheap bastard. Some readers of this blog might not even make $12 a month, and that's shitty... but I'll bet you have SOMETHING you can engrave wood with. A knife. A nail. Be creative. Adapt. Or you'll never be a decent magician. Nothing works exactly as described, ever. Get used to it and make do, or give up and go get a job. And a shower and a haircut, you hippy.)

As you focus on the crafting of the seal, you'll find your mind detaches itself from the process, but it remains silent. The process of engraving the Seal draws the attention of the Spirit it represents, and you become aware of its presence. Pay attention to information that comes to you at this point. The spirit is watching you engrave the seal, and talking to you as you make each part. A scene unfolds, or you hear a story about that part of the seal. You understand what each part of the seal represents within the textual description of the spirit. It becomes illustrated in a way that it wasn't before.

Now, when you're ready to conjure the spirit, you know a bit about it. You've Worked with it a bit, and your sphere is being affected, adapting to the new vibrations. It is incorporating the harmonies of this new entity. You're performing a part of the Great Work, adding a crescendo to the overall melodies of existence.

Oh, before you do any of that, you should work with your HGA. I mean, do the same thing. Figure its Genius Name and write it a few times in every magical script you can find a reference to on the internet. Focus on Agrippa Book 3, chapters 29 and 30. As you do, you'll get to know the spirit. Engrave its seal or Name in wood, or metal, or something. Make a talisman. This communion with the HGA is essential to your work with the Goetia, in my opinion. In my Work as a magician, I strive to be the fulcrum between the manifest and unmanifest. As you work with the goetic spirits, your sphere adapts. Keep Working celestial spirits to maintain your position relative to God. Don't lose sight of the big picture and your place in it, or you'll end up in a "wasted burned out nut job" phase of the work, and that's no fun.

(Kittens make terrible blog helpers. In case you were wondering.)

The Puppet Masters

Fellow blogger and general gadabout E. Keith Boyne tipped me off to this cool service called "WOWIO." You may have already known about it, but it's free books, legally. You can read them with a web browser. I read The Puppet Masters by Heinlein the other day. Today I'm going to delve into something about the relationship with my HGA, and I'll be using that story to illustrate my points. Click the title to read the story if you want more context for the post. It's relatively short, and Heinlein writes easy.

Ok, so the story line is this: aliens invade and take over people, riding them like mules, only without consent. Being a Heinlein novel, it's fairly sexist, but with an eye towards radical femininism (no, not feminism; there's a difference). He's always got the hero metamorphisizing from an observant, pragmatic, but weak underling into a Juggernaut of right action. There's always a Father Figure who oversees the initiations and development of the hero, and when the metamorphosis occurs, it is the Father Fgure usually who identifies it and acknowledges it. In this story, it takes the Father Figure to point out to the Hero that the metamorphosis had even occurred.

Metamorphosis. It's one of the first five-dollar words they teach kids. They come home and carefully pronounce it and tell you about pupa (poo-pa-... and much giggling ensues), and crsya-crysa-chrysalises. Their eager faces are thrilled, and they can hardly belive what they learned themselves. And they crown it off with the shining medallion, "That's Me-ta-mor-pho-sis."

How important is progressive metamorphosis to us as spiritual beings if even the secular atheist scientists that design the school curriculum insist on teaching that big old word so young? They don't teach a-biogenesis first, even though you'd think that was more important since life supposedly sprang from not-life. No, they start with metamorphosis. It's something the kids understand and have experienced, and it sets the scene for what's to come. It's also the fundamental process of Natural Law.

In our relationships with our HGA, a spiritual metamorphosis is going on. We start out like the main character in the Puppet Masters. He's a servant of a shadowy intelligence gathering organization that reports directly to the President. An agent. He takes orders and does his job. The details of his life are foggy, as he shifts from identity to identity with each passing job. He can't even remember what he originally looked like. He goes by Sam, the name his boss gives him for most of the book. Much later we learn his name was "really" Elihu, although he ultimately becomes Sam.

As we get to know our HGA, we go through some shit. Not pleasant and happy shit. In the story, the shit was the aliens. They were basically a goo that attached to the back of a human and took over through the nervous system. They made the host totally submissive, and thoughts from the entities seemed like their own thoughts, and were obeyed without question.

That's us. We're ridden by our nepheshim. It's the Master that must be obeyed, no matter what. The HGA comes along and tells us that we're slaves, and we can be reborn as free men, if we're willing to overthrow the Master and take control ourselves. And he helps us get there.

Fast forward over a lot of important stuff, and you've recognized the problem, and learned a lot about the enemy, and you've got some good ideas about fixing it. The people around you are jabbering away about shit, and not doing what has become obvious to you as a result of your experiences with the HGA. You stand up in a moment of frustration and say the obvious, and all eyes turn to you. You've solved the problem, and not only that, something else has changed.

In the story line, the Hero hits this point and the Old Man steps aside, and hands the mantle of authority to the younger man. He recognizes that he has been replaced in the leadership role of the battle when Sam comes up with a brilliant solution to the problem while he stood there unable to do it himself.

Sam had no clue, and didn't want the responsibility, but at that point it was too late. The Old Man knows when the time has come to pass on the crown, as it were.

In our relationship with the HGA, I think we go through similar stages. In the beginning, we get awoken by the HGA. We're basically trying our best to stumble around after its voice, like walking in someone else's house at night trying to find the bathroom. Eventually we learn to see, and can guide ourselves without bashing our shins on the coffee tables. The HGA teaches us, trains us, and tunes us to the frequencies of the higher spheres. It paves the way upwards, gets you in good with the other angels, and even watches your ass when the demons come prowling.

Then, when you're ready, it steps out of the way and demonstrates that you're the one who is the Man, made in God's Image to be a cohort and friend.

Metamorphosis. Progressive sanctification. Transformation. Trans-Abyssal Technologies. Living in the knowledge of who you are and what you are. Contemplating your (divine) Race and (eternal) Value.

And then Returning to the Earth in Great Power, as the Emerald Tablet says. Me, I try to exist at the fulcrum between the macrocosm and the microcosm, and then go to whichever end of the "lever" I need to at the moment. I suspect a Buddhist may posit that there is no fulcrum, no lever, and no macro to this micro -cosm.

Which is one of the many reasons I'm not a Buddhist. I've seen behind the illusions, yet the illusions remain... AS IF THEY SERVED A PURPOSE. And me, I've found that purpose through my Work with my HGA. It's still being refined, metamorphing into what it will become, and that's alright with me.

Ron Paul: Looking better than ever

What more do I really need to say?

We can't, in good conscience vote for either a phoney Democrat or a looney Republican, can we? I mean, really? They're both puppets on the same noodly tentacled being.

Come on, let's shake it all up for once and say, goddammit, if you're just going to give us fucking crazy assholes to pick from, I'm picking the one neither one of you want to see win

I think Ron Paul's new slogan should be "Ron Paul: Looking Better than Ever."

Thar be Gold in them thar Grimoires, Arrrrrrr...

Pirate treasure hunters. For the duration of this post, ye do be pirates, arrr, and pirates searchin' fer the treasure hidden in them thar grimoires...

Abramelin, the Holy Guardian Angel, the Agatha Daimon, the Nativity Angel and Other Important Things that Must be Discussed

Prior to finding any gold, and really, I can't stress this enough, you need K&CHGA. You aren't going to get anywhere as a pirate without a ship, or a sea, or a map, and a magician without K&CHGA is exactly that. You aren't going to find the kind of success I have found without it.

I used Liber Samekh and the complete and total intention of conjuring my HGA. Every night, or every other night, I would sit on my couch, light some Abramelin Incense (from Soma Luna), anoint my forehead and temples with Abramelin Oil (also from Soma Luna), and I would perform Liber Samekh in my Body of Light.

In other words, I imagined a temple. I stood within it and performed an LBRP. I then performed Liber Samekh. When I got to the hard parts to remember, I cracked my eyes and read the printed rite, while trying my damnedest to keep the Temple and Body of Light in my mind's eye at the same time. After that I'd meditate a while, stilling my thoughts and waiting for some kind of response. Then I'd perform another LBRP and call it a night.

A couple of weeks into it, I met my HGA and we started hanging out formally. At that point, I got the spirit's name, and it agreed to come whenever I called it by name.

Now, you don't have to perform Liber Samekh to get K&CHGA. You can also contact your Nativity Angel, who can foster a relationship with your HGA. You can contact Agrippa's "Genius," which I believe Aaron Leitch equates with the Nativity Angel for the same purposes. You can acquire a Supernatural Assistant using the Greek Magical Papyri. You can go to a pentecostal worship service and get slain in the Spirit of God. You can perform the Abramelin rites (I would use the Dehn translation of the Book of Abramelin).

The point is to get in touch with the "Good Familiar" who has the authority to Speak For God into your life. I recommend reading through Bill Heidrick's "An Abramelin Ramble" a couple of times, reading Crowley's Notes on Liber Samekh, and reading the descriptions of the Good Daimons and Familiars in the Greek Magical Papyri. I believe the Dehn translation of the Book of Abramelin is a must-read for every modern magician who has been spoon-fed the concept of the HGA that we've inherited from the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. Mather's Introduction to The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage is also required reading, in my opinion.

Take all these points of view together and look at the differences and similarities in the descriptions of the experiences. Get to know the authors of the work as best as you can. There are biographies of Agrippa, Eleazar of Worms, Crowley, and Mathers all over the place. Read through Heidrick's other stuff to get a grasp of how he writes and what he means when he puts phrases together in different contexts. Try to see where the authors were coming from in their presentation of their experiences with these entities.

When you do, you'll find that you have an inventory of reports that you can use to help understand your own experiences with the entity that has so many names. You'll be able to fill in the gaps that aren't apparent in the writings of these authors as you develop your relationship with this spirit. You'll be able to see what parts of Liber Samekh were just Crowley being Crowley, and what parts are effective techniques derived from thousands of years of practice.

The cool part is this info is all online. I've got links above to everything I've mentioned. The only thing not free is the Book of Abramelin. You should also get Tyson's modern translation of Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy and read it a chapter at a time. That's optional, but it teaches you more about magic than the rest of your occult library combined.

Goetia Gold

Now, assuming you've got that bit of business out of the way... You do be ready, arrr, for ye next steps.

Get ye the Map to the Treasure. I used the Lemegeton's Goetia. I went through the spirits and found one that brought riches to a man. Bune. That's good. He brought eloquence too, and I'm a writer by profession, and that makes sense to me. something about spirits on sepulchres. Ok, whatever. I needs me some riches and I needs me some good talkin', the rest is fer whatever, y'know?

I made a "Spirit Pot" based on Aaron Leitch's article at the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition. I got a pot from Goodwill, brass, had a lid. I drew up the Seal Solomon used to bind the spirits in the vessel. I printed a Triangle of Art from a drawing on the Internet. I wrote out the stuff that was supposed to be on the side of the pot on thin strips of paper, licked them, and plastered them with spit to the side of the pot until I had a chance to get my dremel tool going and engrave it properly. I used 777 (that was a mistake, arrrr) to get some corresponding materials to line the pot with, herbs, associated "weapons", and I threw in some dirt and rocks from a local branch of my bank.

I threw it all together on a Thursday, lit some purple candles, and conjured Bune. I asked him to live in the pot. He was thrilled at the idea. I asked him to bring me riches in the amount of $7MUSD, and change. I drew up his seal with the prayer "Bring riches to the man [my name] in the amount of [an exact amount to the penny that I had come up with to cover the lifestyle I wanted based on the house, the cars, and the income I wanted left over after bills were paid]." I licked that and stuck it to a purple seven-day candle. When it burned out I wasn't rich yet, so I stuck it to another one.

A few months later, when that wasn't working, I tried just lighting anointed candles near his pot, and left the seal I'd been licking for months in the pot. It had started to taste pretty gross. Oddly enough, my health improved after that. Must have been magic, I'm sure.

So fast forward through several increasingly better jobs, a house, vehicles, and some Exorcisms and other sepulchre-related stuff to the present. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a statue I wanted to be able to buy. It would have cost $30,000. I was pissed that I couldn't just buy it, and also that for TWO YEARS almost, I had been dicking around with Bune, and there were months when the money I had left over after paying bills and everything was like $35. Sure, I had everything on the list I had made and shown Bune all that time ago. But I never got the lump sum amount that I needed to get set up for life.

Arrr.

So I turned to my left from the computer I work at, and there is my Spirit Pot housing Bune. "THIS! This is what I want, Bune," I said. "I want to so rich that I can see something that costs $30,000 and be able to BUY IT on the spur of the moment without it even DENTING my finances.

That was on a Friday. By the next Monday, I get an email from a relative with an awesome opportunity. It's going to take work and savvy to make this as profitable as possible, but not THAT much work. See the link for an explanation of the opportunity I got if you're interested.

That's my story, my advice, and my experience. This is what I would do if I were you:

• Get K&CHGA
• Read the Goetia and the Pseudomonarchia
• Make a Spirit Pot
• Fill the pot with the herbs and other items that are related to their assigned planet or attributes (Use Skinner's Complete Magician's Tables instead of 777)
  
• Engrave the sides with the right words
• Leave off the seal that binds them to the pot so they can get to work
  
• Conjure the spirit and ask it to get in the pot
• Develop a relationship with the spirit
• Tell it you want it to bring you SO MUCH WEALTH that large purchases won't make a difference to your net financial worth
• Watch for opportunities
• Take risks to get rich only if the risks are not going to bankrupt you

That's it. The last line is just advice. Will this work for you? It should. There's no reason why it shouldn't, that's for sure.

And if it doesn't, feel free to contact me. AFTER you've tried it out on your own and have some informed questions to ask. Like, "I read the Goetia, do I HAVE to have all that shit?" Not like, "Can I have some money to buy all the stuff I need to do the work?"

And if you want me to pay me to do magic on your behalf because I'm SO successful... I'm totally going to refer you to other people. Like Jason Miller. He does work for people. I'm not up for it.

I'm leaving my blog up and intact. That comment I made about taking it down, publishing it, and selling the info to make even more money was just greed speaking. Refer to my archives, and learn from my experiences. I'm going to keep writing here too, even when I'm rich, because I'll be able to focus more on the Thaumaturgical stuff when I'm not worried about making the mortgage payments. That's the goal, anyway.

Rufus Opus Products and Services

I don't plug my stuff much. Only every other post. I try not to be rude.

I updated my web site's products and services page to let folks purchase plaster casts of the seals of the Kings of the Goetia. I'll get around to the rest of the seals some other time, and eventually I'll sell affordable seals in the appropriate materials. I'm not a master craftsman, so they may be ugly compared to some sites, but the ugly is effective, and the ugly is affordable.

For now, check out my Products and Services page if you're interested in buying my stuff.Proceeds from the web site go directly to my pocket, where they stay for a little while before I spend them on whatever I want. I also pay for the site that way. Makes me feel like this is worth it to get a ten dollar sale here and there. I know, it's petty, but it just feels good to make money, even little bits of it.

http://www.rufusopus.com/products_and_services.htm

What's the Deal?

I've already gotten a few "What's the opportunity, can I get in" emails from my readers. If you're wondering but haven't felt comfortable asking, here's how I'm getting wealthy.

I'm basically doing PR for a company that sells condos and townhouses. They snatch them up from developers that are going bankrupt at a huge discount because they buy the units in lots of hundreds or even thousands. Then they take the appraised value of the place, knock off a percentage, and resell them. The buyers get instant equity in the property.

Then this company offers to lease back the property for up to 30 months. They pay everything and a little more, so the buyer gets instant profit. The buyer isn't obligated to lease the property back to the company, if they don't want to, and it doesn't affect me one way or another. The company is only offering it as an incentive to turn over the properties fast and make their markup. In 30 months, they expect the market to have turned around enough that most of the buyers will be ready to sell at a nice profit. In the mean time, everyone's renting until the market stabilizes, so they make a profit sub-leasing the properties to whoever they can find.

Even if the properties sit empty for 30 months, they still pay the buyer the same amount as if they had sub-let to another tenant. They can do this because they already made a profit on the original sale. For the duration of the lease, they pay for maintenance, repairs, equipment, and everything else that a home owner is stuck with if they try to manage the property on their own.


It's pure gold. Everyone wins. The properties have never been lived in, and come fully equipped with the latest amenities. It's a beautiful thing. All a buyer needs is around $20,000 to cover ten percent down (on the lowest-end properties, much more if you want a million dollar property) and closing costs, and you're in. Each month the buyer gets a check from a company that has never missed a payment in 38 years. That check is more than the mortgage if they've put at least 10% down, and the difference goes right in their pocket. Or towards the principle. It's 30 months of guaranteed rental income that can be used to qualify for more properties. It's a sweet deal.


That's the opportunity. I get a percentage of the sales. If you want in, refer some business or invest yourself, and I'll pass on a percentage of the total sales to you. $1,000-$10,000, depending on the amount of the property your referral purchases. You won't get paid until I do. That means if you're investing yourself, you'll be paying some money up front, and when I eventually get my referral check, I'll send it to you. Don't try to include that money in your calculations to figure out if you can afford to invest. It's a trust thing, but the only way I can succeed at this is by being honest and building a good reputation.

It's only good while the market is cold. When it heats up again in about 18 months, we'd better have made all the money we need to retire, or at least invest in other money-making ventures. Otherwise we'll have to go back to work for a living. And I ain't goin' there. Fuck work, pardon my French. I hate working for other people. Shit rolls downhill, and I want to be as high on the hill as I can get.

If you have dire warnings about this opportunity, feel free to send them, but they will be ignored. I'm already making money on this.

Plaster Cast Talismans of the Goetic Kings

Well, everything's all set. I'm now taking orders for plaster casts of the talismans of the Kings of the Lemegeton's Goetia. They'll be leafed in gold-colored foil, not real gold for now. After I get some overhead capital built up, I'll invest in some real gold leafing.

For now, I'm selling at $4.95 each, or $35 for a set of all 8.

Email me if you're interested. I'll get it set up on my web site later this weekend or some time.

This is not the "how to get rich" using the Goetia post. I lost steam on that article, and it's going to be pretty long. I might just post it as a web page on my site. I dunno. I'll keep you all updated.

Saturn and the Sun

I strongly urge you to do a ritual today that involves conjuring the Intelligences of Saturn and the Sun together at the same time. There is a beauty in the interaction between Saturn and the Sun that is truly profound and life changing.

For your convenience:

Saturn: God name - Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh (IHVH Extended), Archangel - Tzaphqiel, Magical Calendar Archangel - Cassiel, Intelligence - Agiel, Spirit - Zazel.

Sun: God name - Eloah, Archangel - Michael, Magical Calendar Archangel - Raphael, Intelligence - Nachiel, Spirit - Sorath.

Links for sigils:

Agrippa's Seals of the Intelligences and Spirits
Magical Calendar Sigils of the Planetary Angels

The Great Work in Theory and Practice

Well, today the Great Work died.

Not the real Great Work, I'm talking about the Yahoo group. It's been on its death bed for a while, but it was fun, nevertheless, to visit. Sometimes it would sit up in its hospice bed and talk about magic, or the "good old days," or have pieces of wisdom to pass on.

Today I woke up and went over recent messages from the group, and as usual there was little to do with the Great Work. There was an interesting thread on politics though. Obama and McCain. Both of the Moderators are Obama supporters, but one of them, "ILV" is a little more ... bombastic and caustic in his support of Obama.

Someone stated her reasons for supporting McCain after ILV asked, and like a rabid dog, ILV attacked her mercilessly, claiming she had no ethics, was racist, and so forth and so on. The last thing he had to say about the subject was an insult to her, saying he should know better than to engage in a battle of wits with the unarmed. That kind of arrogance was completely uncalled for and way over the top.

I know the woman he attacked. Not personally or anything, but from other groups. She's not as eloquent and trained in classical rhetoric as ILV is, but she's a damned fine magician whose wit is proved in her Work, not her Words. Her ethnic heritage is racially diverse, to say the least. She's had a shitty life. She's had a run of really bad luck. Yet she still takes care of the oppressed. She's a New Age spiritual healer and teacher, and she travels around the world performing exorcisms for people. She doesn't get paid much for her services, and she's downright poor. She really does it to help people. I don't think she's got everything 100% correct in her spiritual cosmology, but I know I don't know everything either. It's her heart for people that I admire. That's the fruit of the seeds of the Great Work in action. You can visit her web site at www.astralhealer.com.

She's not a Christian, as far as I know. This isn't solidarity with Christians or anything like that. And it's not worldly politics either. I don't like what McCain has become this year. It's like he gave up the straight talk and hard-line moderate-centrist stance he had in 2000 just so he can win. ILV pointed that out, and he's right about that. If I bother to vote (I agree with the global view that the puppet on the left and the puppet on the right are on different hands of the same puppeteer), then it will be for McCain in hopes that after he gets in office, he'll go back to being the maverick he was before. But that's if I bother, and that's not likely. If I really cared about politics, I'd go to the spirits that run the world, like John Dee did.

I left the group today because its leadership, the co-moderator ILV, acted like an asshole. I've talked with him off-list, and he's a good person at heart. He's a trained magician, and has a great deal of information to provide. He's really smart too. But in his interactions yesterday with list members, he demonstrated a lack of objectivity, tolerance, and respect that is required to be a leader of diverse people.

Obama spent twenty years in a church that taught hatred. He voted with his presence and his finances in support of that church, and as a Senator, he sanctioned the teachings of his preacher by belonging to the church. He should have, as a responsible leader, recognized that the hatred being taught was unacceptable from any race. The fact that he didn't until it threatened his ambitions is sufficient for me to realize his "hope" and "change" rhetoric is only skin deep, but his ambition goes all the way to the bone.

Me, I don't sanction the leadership of the "Great Work" group anymore. Scarlet, the list owner, is too busy to monitor it herself. She's not to blame here, except in her support of ILV as a co-moderator. I left another group she started and co-mods with ILV as well, Spirit_Summoning. Mostly for dramatic effect, as he didn't have much to say there, but also for the principle. She killed the thread and the topic as soon as she became aware of it. She's a good moderator, and this isn't about her at all, beyond the fact that she kept ILV as co-moderator.

Part of it is for the current drama, to have a chance to make a stand that is somewhat meaningful. Part of it is old-fashioned revenge. I was co-moderator of the Great Work list for a while, but then I went off on a caustic and vitriolic attack on ILV when he started acting like the veteran of Golden Dawn egroups that he is. I got reprimanded, demoted, and put on probation. I deserved it. I wasn't living up to the responsibilities of being a moderator for a diverse group of people. I didn't behave the way a moderator ought to. Now ILV has fallen into the same trap I did, and I get to raise a stink over it. Yay for me!

The truth though, if I'm being really honest, is that I've lost interest in the droning of magicians who treat magic like a religion, with doctrines and dogma, but don't use it in their lives. The Great Work list was intended to be a place where pursuants of the Work could discuss the Work. It's become a place where believers in magic talk about stuff. That's fine if that's what you want, but it used to be the place I learned some very basic key concepts about the Great Work that lead me to where I'm at today. That group died to me today. ("You're dead to me! Dead!")

I'm considering starting a list for people to talk about doing magic(k). Something interesting to me, something that can challenge me to do more and be more. Something like Agrippa's Magic in a Modern Age, or Traditional Techniques for Modern Magicians. Somewhere to talk about how we apply the teachings from the old grimoires in a modern context, without worrying so much about trying to pretend like we live in the 15th century. If I do, I'll announce it here.

Oh, and tomorrow, look for the "how to get rich using magic" post. Or Thursday, if I don't finish writing it today.

Hope all my American readers had a great Labor Day yesterday. Mine rocked.