The HGA: Can it turn you into a Power?

I've had some things on my mind a great deal lately. I've spoken before about the goal of the magician as long as we are in the flesh. I may have mentioned that the goal of a magician, per the Hermetic texts, is to become a Power. Last night while reading the Greek Magical Papyri, I found this:

"When you die he will embalm your body as befits a god, and taking up your spirit will carry it into the air with himself. For an aerial spirit [such as you have become] having been united with a powerful assistant will not go into Hades." (Papyri graecae magicae I.54)

I've mentioned before that I think the Supernatural Assistant described in the Greek Magical Papyri is the same entity as the HGA. I asked my HGA while reading the description if he could do all the things described, and he confirmed it.*

I just realized I haven't written up (or at least I can't find) my dissertation on the Emerald Tablet here. It explains a lot of basic concepts about the Great Work that I wanted to link to so I didn't have to repeat it yet again, but apparently I haven't written it. I did talk about it. I remember writing it though. Shit; shit shit shit.

Ok, well anyway. The goal of the magician is to ascend to the heavens and return in power to create the universe, according to the Emerald Tablet as I see it. That's a quick summary. We're images of God, God created by emmanating, and that's what we should be doing to, and we do it by going up through the Seven Heavens, getting purified, getting more Power, and returning to the earth. That's the "while we're in the flesh" part.

But in the Corpus Hermeticum, it talks about how we're supposed to also be leaving behind at each sphere some negative aspect of ourselves. I'll get to that expanded post eventually, but I touched on it here. When we have accomplished this, we become a Power.

Now, "Powers" in the time of the writing of the Corpus Hermeticum were sometimes Arial Spirits. In the Corpus, it's pretty clear that they're talking about becoming an Angel like the Angels that help you become an Angel. Of course, you don't become literally an Angel, you become a manifestation of God with more supernatual Powers that you can use to help other people.

Note: Powers, Angels, Spiritual Guides, HGAs, Geniuses, Gods, etc. all have one thing in common: No Body. No flesh suit to flap around in on the earth. So I think it's safe to say we can't become a Power the way the Corpus suggests while we're still flapping meat to wheeze sounds at each other. Most folks** don't get out alive, so there's a death of sorts involved.

The Emerald Tablet covers what to do while you're in the Flesh. It also covers how to get to a point where you're ready to get out of the Flesh and become a Power. It's a roadmap, sort of. It doesn't tell you how to get out of the Flesh and become a Power, but performing the activities described in the Tablet will result in you getting ready for the Eighth and Ninth Spheres where this can occur.

Enter into the picture the Rainbow Body. Jason mentioned it to me in passing, and I totally got sucked into it. We were talking about the East vs. the West in the big miscommunication, and I was trying to get in touch with all the power of my past lives or something. He mentioned the Hermetic work "The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth," which has been extremely interesting and has lead me to Working Iophiel from Agrippa's Scale of the Number Ten. I'm trying to learn the Hymns of Silence now, and they are truly beautiful.

But the Rainbow Body of Dzogchen and becoming a Power in Hermetic practice are similar enough that I think they're different manifestations of the same spiritual "impulse" that Fr. BH calls spirit communications, only received differently in different cultures. I've been working out how to accomplish this Rainbow Body thing at my death. I even told my spouse about it in case I die and all that's left is some hair and fingernails. I wouldn't want her to freak out.

So last night I was going over the Greek Magical Papyri again, and lo and behold, there it was, buried in PGM I.54. This spiritual assistant, this angel in the rite that you get that has all the same characteristics as the "Supernatural Assistant" and the "HGA" is also able to "embalm your body as befits a god." Embalming was the process of preserving the body, but the gods don't. have. bodies. So I'm thinking there's a transformation of the body going on here that is illuminated by the other references we have in the Western mystery traditions in the Corpus Hermeticum. These things were all coming out of the same part of the world at around the same period of time. Lots of overlap.

My understanding of the Rainbow Body is that when you die, your Ruach gets a new body and can basically do all the things that a "Power" as described in the Corpus can do. I believe the Neschemah-eternal part of the soul goes on to reincarnate, but I'm still in the tentative-formation phase of the theory, so that might change, I dunno. Rather than sitting in the Akashic record gathering dust while you wait for the Immortal spark of yourself to finish reincarnating, you get to continue to "live" and "breathe" and "have your being" in a Body of Light. Pretty cool shit, actually. Those Tibetans have stories of people that were reborn as demi-gods and stuff, and we have our Saints in Christianity. Except our Popes and Pastors don't tell us not to propitiate Saints because they cause trouble. Unless they're Protestants and call it idolatry.

So, in conclusion, I think (the spirt that we modern magicians call) the HGA might be able to either physically transform you into the Rainbow Body, or at the very least provide the instruction, initiations, and empowerments required to be able to transform into the Rainbow Body at the time of death. Like Yoda and Ben Kenobi did in the Star Wars trilogy. And you know you want that.

*For those who prefer to make their own inferences from more scholarly than the Voices in my head, compare the description of the HGA rites in Mathers' introduction to The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, the descriptions of the Genius in Agrippa's Book 3 of Occult Philosophy (chapters 21, 22, 26, and 27), and the description of the good and evil daimons in the Divine Pymander (verses 22 and 23). Check out the rest of the Greek Magical Papyri over on Al Billing's site, and read the essays there on the spirits. The history of the HGA can be readily traced through these sources.

**Enoch; Elijah. Exceptions. If your name doesn't start with an "E," you're fuct, apparently. Don't tell me Jesus doesn't start with an E, he totally died. And even if you buy that stupid "swoon theory," his name was also Emmanuel, so fuck you, I'm totally right, and you're a lu-hooser. I mean, scholarship demonstrates the lack of foundation to your arguments.

Emerald Tablet.... is MISSING!

Dude....

Unbefuckinglievable. I don't have a dissertation on the Emerald Tablet here. I totally thought I did, but I've checked and rechecked, and either I never have explained in detail the Emerald Tablet as I see it, or I just can't find it in my blog posts. I'm trying to link to it because it's all the stuff I need to talk about in another post, but I never talked about it here, it seems. I talked about it to the folks at Thelesis when I gave the Modern Angelic Grimoire talk, and I think I mentioned it in the neoplatonic basics series, but ... shit. It's got to be here somewhere.

If I can't find it, I will write one up. It's the CORNERSTONE of my practice, my understanding and application of the Work. Or at least the best representation of that that I've found.

I'll get around to it.

The Reincarnation of Gods

At the Doing Magic blog by Fr. POS, I was recently exhorted to comment on a comment to his blog. So there will be something magical posted here today before I go to sleep.

I'm snipping the interesting background of Anonymous, mainly because I'm not a Pagan. I have no insight into the approach or the specifics she mentioned.

I can, however, comment on the following question she posted:

"Does magick allow for continual reincarnation for the sake of change in time, culture and social context?"

First, there is no good reason for putting a "k" in magic. I do it, on occasion, and when I do it's because I usually read the word in Agrippa, and he spells it with a "k." I think. Or it could be that I've been indoctrinated by all the Ckrowley I read in my youth and sometimes I slip.

Second, I totally agree with the Frater's essential message of his post: I unequivocally believe that yes, Magic allows for continual reincarnation for the sake of change in time, culture and social context. To me, Magic is based on understanding how God (the Monad, First Father, the Good) manifests through the different Heavens, the Spirits he emanates to represent aspects of himself, and most importantly, the REVELATION of himself provided by each Spirit you Work with as a magician.

I would rephrase "reincarnation" with "revelation." Magic not only allows for the continual revelation of God, but is the interaction of Man with these continually revealed aspects of himself.

I would quibble with certain parts of Frater BH's post, but I really liked 99% of what he said and how he said it. Terming the communications of the spirits (or gods) as "impulses" that we then interpret is excellent. It encapsulates the basics of how I have experienced communications with the spirits. People ask me if I hear voices, or see visions, or if the spirits appear physically before me all the time. I receive "pulses" of communication from them that may unfold to me as a vision, or as a voice, or something else, like a tactile sensation, or a smell. I have a deep love of words, so I often get words in my communications. Artists like Sucae would likely hear more music or see more visuals.

I do strongly disagree with the idea that one should write off symbolism that doesn't align with the spirits' standard symbolism. A friend conjured Raphael, and ended up with a being that was carrying a sheaf of wheat. He performed the LVX signs, and the spirit wavered and disappeared, and Raphael came forward in a more appropriate form. Fr. POS is more restrained than lots of folks that dabble in magic though, so I think his response to a spirit appearing with whacked out symbolism would be that of an experienced magician: note the differences, challenge the spirit with something like the vibration of the appropriate name of God, or asking it to perform some act (symbolically) to prove it is whom it claims to be representing.

But at the same time, I agree with what he was saying about being open to a spirit presenting symbolism that is within the spirit's purview, even if it doesn't match what you think you know about the spirit. They know more than we do. He's just experienced enough to understand what to do if a spirit looks off somehow. Maybe I'm used to dealing with newer magicians than he is, I dunno.

But getting back to the point, I work in a lot of traditional ways, but the spirits I conjure are not stuck in the 15th century. They are alive and well in the 21st century, and they are not ignorant of the changes that have occurred in the last 600 years. I draw from the older traditions because they aren't as muddied as the post-1899 occult sources are. They don't include a bunch of "scientific" theories that have been discredited, rephrased, and discredited again in their language the way Bardon and Chaos Magic do. They don't try to appeal to modern institutions for validity the way so many modern texts do. It's true that they appeal to the institutions of their time, including Catholicism or Protestantism, depending on which religion was being implemented by the State where they were written, but I can identify with that, and it resonates well with my own beliefs and experiences. We're so far removed from when these institutions had to be appealed to in secular America that the texts can be weighed and evaluated on the success or failure of their rites alone.

It's vitally important that we remember that the word "Kabbalah" in Hebrew means "revelation" though. It's not a static thing. Emanationist theories from Persia and Greece that form the foundation of my Work and beliefs more than the Kabbalah were also considered to be constantly revealed. The words we use for spirits, be it angels, daimons, or malakim originally meant "messengers," and let's remember that's what they still are: bearers of messages, revealers and representatives of specific aspects of God.

So if you use gods of the Pagan myths to interact with the Monad in his various incarnations, don't expect them to be stuck in the forms and thoughts of their myths from 2500 years back. They will reveal what they represent, and we will interpret their pulses of communication as best as we are able to. In 2000 years, it will be different, and yet the same.

Weird Wide web

Nothing Magical today of note.So far anyway.

But I found this image in my ongoing battles with workplace stress and boredom:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/suecae_sounds/2271579673/

A nice tribute to his daughter? A horrifying image that will haunt my nightmares? I can't tell.

Maybe it's the curve of the arm?

I really love the photos Suecae takes of nature stuff, and mad props to his blog.

But that face on that arm... And when they're old, and the skin cells have regenerated a few hundred times, and the detail is gone, and the image has that old tattoo look... I just... no. Never mind.

Hermetic Course Outline

Before I LOSE all my work, I'm posting the high-level outline. There are additional specific tasks under the following bullets that are detailed assignments and instruction.

This will be a paid course. One of the sessions will include the Modern Angelic Grimoire, specifically rewritten for this course. I'm charging for it because:

• I'm investing a lot of time into the development of this course
• I will also be grading the work from my students, providing insight and direction as necessary
• Most importantly, people who don't pay for stuff don't do the Work. It saves me a lot of wasted time.

Now, there's this idiot friend of mine that got all stoned and said that I should NEVER charge for spiritual teachings because if it was RIGHTEOUS, then the UNIVERSE would support me.

For all you people that expect the UNIVERSE to pay my mortgage for teaching you, please feel free to go directly to the UNIVERSE for your education (i.e., fuck off).

There are three basic levels I'm working on:

The "Novice" Level

Covers the core basics of Hermetic Magic.

• The Elemental, Planetary, Celestial, and Trans-Celestial Spheres
• The Goal and Role of a Magician
• Finding and Using Occult Resources
• Holy Guardian Angels, Geniuses, and Agathos-Daimons
• Spirit Conjuration Basics
• Practical Magic for Every Day Activities

The "Adept" Level

Covers The Great Work in Practice.

• Attaining Knowledge and Conversation with the HGA
• Practical Planetary Magic (Modern Angelic Grimoire)
• Introduction to Hermetic Merkavah
• Practical Sub-Lunar Magic

The "Magister" Level

Covers the "PHD" level of Hermetic esoteric practices that don't even get really interesting until you've done the preparatory work of the initial levels.

• Hermetic Alchemical Transformation of the Body, Mind, and Soul
• The Eighth and Ninth Spheres
• On Becoming a "Power"
• The Final Transformation

This is all pretty formative, and as I provide the sessions to my test crew, we'll see how it works out. I'm still working on the cost per session. I expect to be running these in parallel, so at any given time any of you could be taking any level of the classes, assuming you have finished something of the previous levels. In plain English, that means they won't cost too terribly much.

If you're already sure you're past the Novice stage, I'll take an essay explaining some basic stuff in lieu of the first course, but the things I'm teaching build on the previous Work, and it won't do a lot of good if you haven't done some basic initiatory stuff I'll be covering in the Novice sessions.

Found some Time

I managed to free up some major bandwidth the other day. For the last three years I've been a member of a yahoo group called "RealMagick". For the last year or so, I've moderated it at the request of the owner. Last week, a couple of trolls popped up and I handled them, but then the list devolved into a long series of character assasinations and other stupidity.

I realized that I'm spending no time developing the things I want to develop, and still spending time trying to get people who have little interest in learning true magic stay on topic. So I quit. It's been amazing how much bandwidth that freed up. I was getting between 20-80 inane emails a day, worrying about people's mutual respect, and trying to get the topic of conversation to somehow be related to magic.

The final strawwas when the people that consistently posted on topic had their characters assasinated by the people who don't. I figured out that the real problem was that people who know about magic aren't really liked by the people who pretend to want to know about magic. They pretend to respect us, they pretend to have an interest in what we're saying, but when it comes to questions like, "Have yuo started performing Samekh yet?" the answer is always "No, because..." Likewise, "Have you conjured ANY spirits yet?" or "Have you read that chapter of Agrippa I referenced that is the source for the book you're talking about?" or "Did you follow up on the tips so and so gave you?"

Fools. Most of my angst with the magical community comes from being surrounded by fools. I had hoped to teach them bout magic, had hoped to at least provide a forum where they could express their thoughts and questions about magic, but primarily they are only interested in yelling at one another and playing "My dick's bigger than yours." And that's a game women play as readily  as men on the message boards, believe you me.

So enough with the groups. There are a couple I will maintain a membership in, those that discuss magic, or at least consist of my social network of magicians, but all the large groups can bite my ass. Much more time for blogging and book writing now. And course REDEVELOPMENT because I STILL haven't found my motherfucking thumb drive. I'm annoyed about that.

The Silver Key

A reader sent me the following link to a bit more of the story of what happens to Randolph Carter. It's a jointly-written extrapolation of the original story by Lovecraft and an "E Hoffman Price." I don't know who Price is, but the expanded story, while interesting, I think somehow loses something in the rewrite. At the same time, it provides more of what I wanted to talk about. The Opening of the Gates.

In the original Silver Key, we read about the slow wearing-away of Randolph's abiltiy to Dream, and the misery and detachmnent, the apathy with the things of the world that came about as a result. In reading this part of the story, I couldn't help but find parallels in my own spiritual growth. I've also been hearing "Wish you were here" by Pink Floyd a lot lately. The lyrics, "Did they get you to trade, your heroes for ghosts, hot ashes for trees, hot air for a cool breeze..." keep popping up in my mind lately. I feel a certain peculiar resonance with the almost neo-Modernist pathos expressed.

One of the things I've learned about this particular feeling is that it means there's something going on spiritually that I need to address. It comes along with a certain inertia that is difficult to overcome, and a frustration, an unfocused angst that doesn't have any real reason for existing.

Personally, I know that I'm feeling this way because I have not been making time for either a relationship with God or my magical practice, two things I consider separate aspects of a healthy spiritual life. I have been doing some Work with Iophial, and Rising through the Spheres at night before I go to bed, but I haven't had the time to really finish the projects I really wanted to pursue lately, that is, finishing up the Hermetic Course curriculum (which is stored on a thumb drive that has annoyingly disappeared) and the new and improved Tepaphone.

I haven't gotten to it because my job is very busy right now. I'm happy with it, but it is sapping my brain power. It's getting interesting though. I get to do things in a leadership role now that I haven't before, and it's rather exciting. Good for my resume, and stuff. I'm also taking training for a certification that will increase my earning potential by leaps and bounds. It's not BAD work, it's just time consuming, and like a teen that would rather be getting everything they want RIGHT NOW, I'm all angsty.

So when I read The Silver Key again, it resonated in my sphere. It brought about a reminder of things I know, things I've been telling people in instant messages, and in my blog for years. It reminded me that the things that wear us down only have power over us as long as we are trapped by our inability to dream, to travel through the spheres, to open the Gates and pass through them into time and space.

The expanded story gets into some very interesting Gates and heady philosophy that is usually missing in as much detail in Lovecraft's other work. I'm thinkng Price must have at least studied a bit about traveling through the planes, merkavah and hekalot, possibly the Kabbalah, or been a member of one or another esoteric society. There's just too many things that are right out of the meditative and contemplative experiences I've had Working with the spirits, especially of Saturn, in that particular work of fiction for it to be a coincidence.

I didn't turn into something clawed and monstrous though. That part was totally made up. Honest. Typing with scaly claws wouldn't be too likely.

At any rate, we cannot forget that our paths are going to be muddled and distant from our long-term goals, on occassion, and when we do find ourselves in the valleys where we can no longer see the peaks, it is imperative that we stop in the midst of whatever is going on, and return to the Dream-realms to remember, to reclaim what we are.

I do this in acts of contemplation, because frankly, I don't have time to conjure right now. I can throw a talisman on the Box at will, but when I try to scry lately, I see my boss and the deliverables I'm tracking peeking out at me.

I took a moment the other night, when I normally meditate on the Seals of the Archangels of the Spheres, and I focused as I went up through the spheres not on just getting up and back down before I fell asleep, but on listening, seeing, feeling the radiance of each sphere. I let my own sphere relax in the presence of the Archangels, instead of keeping it all business and messaging, and I just enjoyed their presence. I think I ended up leaving behind some of the crap of each sphere that I'm supposed to. It helped.

This morning in church, I took time during the worship service to pursue the silent hymns of the 8th Sphere. Doing so in the midst of vocal hymns was interesting, and I highly recommend anyone working with Iophial or the Archangels of the Zodiac to take the time on a Sunday morning to go to a church that sings. It doesn't matter if it's contemporary or traditional, but if you've forgotten the essence of what a hymn to the highest is all about, then you won't have the context to understand what they can teach. If you're a pagan, review the Orphic hymns, I'm pretty sure they're around somewhere. The point is to worship, which is not a debasing or limiting thing at all. IT is freeing, and you can't begin to understand the image you were made in until you are able to understand what you're an image of. If that makes sense. My fingers are typing the wrong words lately.

Back to the Silver Key, in conclusion, I'd like to remind you of what it was that brought the Dream back to Randolph when he had lost it. He redressed his house the way it looked when he was a child and was still able to Dream. When he did, his dreams returned, and he learned from his ancestor of the Key, and how to open the First Gate to the realms of the Dream (Luna, Yesod anyone?). In the expanded story, he then learned the way to the Ultimate Gate.

So if you find yourself wondering when you exchanged hot ashes for trees, go back to the beginning. Recreate through similitude your surroundings from the time they were still trees, and see if that doesn't jog your memory, or bring back to your mind the conversations with the mentors, elders, or ancestors that were also the keepers of your destiny.

Required Reading

For those who haven't.

The Silver Key, by H. P. Lovecraft.

Soon you can expect a post on this. It's a short read, worth the 15-minutes it took me.

To those interested in the Hermetics Course

And those already taking it...

I have received your requests and expressions of interest, and I am not ignoring you. I have been moderately overwhelmed lately, but I hope to get my shit together this weekend.

Cthulhu pictures

For those looking for pictures of the Cthulhu plushie, please see the Artist's Blog Post where she talks about it. She's got awesome sketches she's done there too. Everyone should visit her sites and enjoy the mystical and magical Work she does.

To get pics off my camera, I have to plug it into a wall outlet, then plug it into the PC, then find the files, then copy-paste them, then upload them, blah blah blah. And my office is thoroughly trashed at the moment. Cthulhu fits right into the chaos. I'm still unpacking from the move a month or two ago. And seriously, as annoying as it is to read my whining about the work that goes into getting pics off my camera, that's how annoying it is to have to do it. The cords are packed away, and I'm out of outlets near my PC. The camera cord has a huge transformer on it that takes up all the plug space on the thing (with the thing).

Susanne's got the pics already up.

Cthulhu dropped by the other day...

I am the proud owner of a hand-made Susanne Illes original piece of signed art. The Cthulhu Plushie! She also sent me a bunch of other awesome stuff that arrived last Saturday. It is SO cool. The kids want to play with it, but I'm sorry, it's MY stuffie. Besides, they'll bend it and ruin the signature, and that thing's going to be worth beaucoup bucks some day. They have to keep their grimy little paws off it.

Planetary Tinctures

So the subject comes up on a list today, you can make planetary tinctures using radionics. I've actually been working on something like that using the Initiation into Hermetics technique of quenching red-hot gold in holy water to create a fluid condenser, then placing that over the LED in The Box with the appropriate spirit conjured and their Seal on the 'trodes.

But what good is this planetary-charged fluid condenser? I mean, I can get some powerful vibes off the charged water using this technique, but... so what? I mean, I can put a vial of Venus water in Bune's Spirit Pot. I can baptise candles for planetary magic. I can anoint my forehead for explorative mediations in the Seven Heavens. I can use it to Lube the Merkavah Chariot, or at least water the horses...

But big deal, you know? I already have seven planetary talismans that knock your socks off on my altar. It's not like I make a lot of hocus-pocus stuff for people to use in their every day life. I have a planetary power generator, and it seems like it would be just AWESOME... if I could only think of something to use it for.

Anyone wanna buy some Planetary Tinctures? Low low rates. :D

Or if you have any ideas for how this kind of thing might be used that I haven't thought of, let me know. I'm thinking I could put them in mojo bags (I can put the charged water in these little brown glass vials), but again, what good would that do? I really don't want a ton of mojo bags in my house.

Invisible College Re-Org

Ok folks, I'm reorganizing the focus of the Invisible College. It is now a teaching organization, an International School of Hermetic Studies. If you're interested in taking classes on your basics of true Hermetic magic, not the stuff that is based on Levi, Bardon, Theosophy, or the Golden Dawn, please feel free to contact me. The courses are outlined, and by the time you get to the lessons that haven't been written, they will be available.

The class will consist of correspondence courses, primarily, and remote initiations. These initiations will consist of me conjuring an archangel to guide you into a a particular sphere's influence. I'll set up your picture over the Box during an appropriate astrological hour, and do that magic that I do so well. It won't do diddly squat for you if you're not doing the Work, but hey, them's the breaks. Check out my products and services page as they become available. Each course will have prerequisites, because the intent is not to demonstrate that you've studied magic, it's to make you a WORKING magician. there will be tests, grades, and the whole lot. Don't waste my time if you're not serious.

You will be doing magic using this course, early and often. You will not be performing LBRPs or Middle Pillars or other ritualized forms of the relationships you should be building. You will be doing the transformative Work that makes you a better person. It will hurt, sometimes, but you will emerge a more powerful, equipped magician in control of your life. Or at least in tune with the forces that are in control of your life to the point where it will appear to you and everyone else like everything that happens to you does so on purpose, and really, what more could you ask for?

You will also be conjuring spirits. You will develop the senses to see and hear them. You will have wealth, power, prosperity, love, joy, and true authority in all the things you do as a result of this course work. Whether you accept the responsibility to take on that authority is entirely up to you.

The Tepaphone!

The Tepaphone!

Yes, I read about in Jason's Blog. It's a device used by a black lodge to kill people no matter where they are. It was described in a Bardon work of fiction. Can't remember the name right now, the Magician Something That Starts With an F. Frabato! (I looked it up.) It's a ... well, it's ... Ok, it sucked, Bardon was ashamed of having written it, it reads a LOT like Crowley's Simon Iff mysteries...

But that's not the point!

The POINT is that he describes a nifty fluid condenser in the story. There are a lot of descriptions on the internet of what it is, but you can't trust the internet descriptions. Some folks say it had a current going through it, others say it has copper coils, others say it definitely had a lens. Crap, now I can't remember whether it had a lens or not. I have a copy though, and it starts being described on page 34.

It was the lodge's most strictly guarded secret: a magical vibratory instrument which could emit fatal vibrations across any distance and constituted the deadliest weapon in the arsenal of the lodge.

If the picture or mumia of any human being or animal were placed at the focal point of the tepaphone's vibrations, both the astral and physical bodies of that entity would be affected. Substances of any kind could be destroyed by this instrument from any distance. Furthermore, it served as a wireless transmitter of energy - something modern science could only dream about.Any kind of thought could be transmitted by the tepaphone as well. Finally, the device made it possible to cause nervous diseases and poisonings which puzzled the medical establishment. Typically, a picture or personal object was sufficient to establish contact with the intended victim - And remember, distance was of no consequence.

[... snip ...]

The Grand Master now secured Frabato's photo to the focal point of the tepaphone's ray and ignited the fuel, a specially prepared mixture of high-percentage alcohol. At the same time, the other brethren formed a magic circle around the apparatus to begin combat telepathy by condensing the element of fire to the physical plane.

After this, Fabrato experiences the attack. He gets supernaturally heated, and is about to be cooked when he calls out to The Good and gets a messsage to avert with Water. He lives.

Again, not the point. From the description, there are no mentions of copper tubes, wires, electricity, or lenses. It is merely a device that includes a fuel source, and a focal point for the "vibrations" that could hold some form of sympathetic link to the victim. Later in the story, we learn that the tepaphone always worked because of a pact made with the King of Hell, no entity less than SATAN!!! (Duhn duhn duhn!)

So anyway, the tepaphone is your basic radionics box. I built The Box based on a vision I'd had of the Goetic seals being something like circuits, and the knowledge that spirits feed on electro-magnetic forces of some kind. Haunted places often exhibit geo-magnetic anomalies, and the things that would feed spirits who cause discomfort in their victims are usually triggered by the electromagnetic fluctuations of the amygdala. At least, these were the things that fed into the theory at the time. A conversation with an engineer friend confirmed my suspicions, and from there I built The Box.

Rather than having a group of magicians channeling the element of fire into the device, I use a metal seal, through which passes a small current on its way to light up a little LED. Rather than making a pact with the KING OF HELL (Duhn Duhn DUHN!), I just use the seals of the angels or goetic spirits, placing them across the electrodes and letting them temporarily power the LED. The LED projects upwards through a Magic Circle burned into the cover, in which I usually have my Crystal Ball. The other day I used it for other purposes.

I have a mini-cabal of would-be magicians I work with. Some are learning the basics of Hermetic occultism (Pre-Golden Dawn), others I'm initiating using Goetic entities (think of it as the Saturn initiation between Malkuth and Yesod on the Kircher tree). This second group was meeting and requested some magical support for an operation they were working on, but they were doing it well after I planned on being asleep. I set up The Box with an appropriate spirit, the Archangel of the Sun for this rite, placed a photo of the guy that was leading the rites over the LED, and left it there. Reports from the rites were very positive.

Overall after reading up on the Tepaphone and understanding what it is that it's designed to do, I think my Box is at least in keeping with the spirit of the device. Space doesn't seem to be an issue. In a way, passing the current through the seal is sort of like the pact between the Grand Master of the black Lodge and Satan in the story.

I'm thinking of a new version of the Box. I'm thinking of creating a copper coil that the current would pass through, and have the magnetic field going up through the focus point, and the light down below passing up through a lens to the subject plate. Any item could be placed on the plate to be "charged" with the "fluid" of the spirit. For the Venusian Spirit Bottles, I'm "charging" the herbs using Haniel of Venus. Then when we place them in the spirit bottle assigned to the Goetic Duke, they have an added incentive to work with the magician.

Time to wrap this rambling thing up. I've been writing it off and on throughout the afternoon, and it's headin' home time.

In Absentia

Well, faithful readers, I got an IM from a friend asking if I LIVE. I assure you, I am alive. I've been particularly not-interested in sitting at my computer lately. Spring is Springing, and I've returned to my garage when I have time to. I also had my washing machine break down over the weekend, requiring some moving and rearranging of stuff that I had stored across creation. One should always have a spare washing machine stored somewhere, imho. The weird thing is that I started to take apart my old machine as if I would be able to fix it. I had the top off and the internal basin about removed when I realized I would have no idea what to do next when I got the basin out. If I could get the basin out. At that point it made more sense to get the other one out of storage.

I don't know where I get the idea that I know how to figure out whatever I set my mind to. I mean, in magic it's pretty easy. If you want to know something about anything, chances are Agrippa's written about it somewhere, and Google can fill in the blanks. And at this point in my magical career, I have a really good relationship built up with the seven governors of the seven planetary realms, the demons of the Goetia, and hell, even the Enochians. I have a lot more resources for magical information than I did three years ago, and most of them aren't physical.

But this can-do attitude of mine, a definite boon, can have its drawbacks. I end up having stuff all over the house that I've taken apart and realized later that I had no business taking that apart...  And I clean it up, eventually. I have managed to scrounge a lot of copper and tin and other odd bits of metals for mercury talismans out of electronics as a result. But still. I don't know how to fix the laptop. I might think I do, but I'll likely only break it more. I don't need to take it apart and play with it.

Yes, I am trying to convince myself, and no, it isn't working.

Anyway, I'm alive and well. I quit one of my jobs and am now looking for a way to make some extra money. You can expect to see some updates on things that I sell in the near future as a way to make up for some of the lost income. The problem is, I don't make nearly as much for an hour of time spent making something magical as I do at my day job. I'd need to charge more than the stuff could possibly sell for to make a profit in this niche market. That explains to me why Chris Warnock's talismans are so expensive, not only are they pretty and really effective at magical work, but they take a lot of time to make, both for him to set up the elections, and for his jewelry guy to design and develop the molds.

By the way... All you cheap bastards that think we should give away our knowledge and learning for free, everyone who thinks spiritual teachings are OWED to you by the people that spent years researching, practicing their art, and developing methods of passing on the information: KISS MY ASS. You'll spend $107 per credit hour at the local community college, $780 per credit hour at a medical school, but you'll tell me it's unethical to charge someone to teach them how to conjure Raphael. How in the fuck are we supposed to support ourselves while we spoonfeed you cheap assholes the fruits of years of our intensive studies? You want it free? Go read the source material and put it together yourself. You're not obligated to buy anything I sell. I tell people where it is for free all the time on my blog. Joe Peterson's site is beautiful. Take the years it takes of using the material and figuring out what cross references are being made, experiment with the demons and angels, and figure that shit out on your own. The experiences you get will be worth thousands of dollars of teachings you can get from master magicians. Do the Work yourself. No one's telling you you have to buy it from people like me or Jason to get the results.

Fuckin' freeloaders.

Ok, end of rant. I meant to post on that last week, but I got distracted.

So anyway, yes I live. I will be publishing more often now that half my workload is gone.