The Black Work Course Outline

Ok, so the Black Work Course is going to be freaking AWESOME. It's what I should have come out with first. The SA has been moved to the White Work Course, and Hermetic Merkavah's over in the Green Work. 8th and 9th sphere stuff is coming in the Red Work Course. Whew. Dude. Lots and lots of work to do.

I've broken up the Black Work Course into three phases, naming them as pretentiously as I could. This is still a tentative outline, because there's more I want to cram in there somewhere. I can't seem to think of everything just yet, but this is the minimum of what I plan to cover:

Neophyte

Introduction

• You have Cleansed me with Hyssop, Oh Lord: Banishing and Cleansing Rites
• The Art of Contemplation
• Self Assessment: Whoever therefore shall know himself...

Cosmology

• In the Beginning: The Creation of the World
• First Father, Nous, Logos, Workman, Governors, Man
• Spheres of Emanation
• The Emerald Tablet: Map of the Great Work
• Meet the Family: Dad and the Uncle-Aunts
• Where are you from?

Spiritus Mundi: Hermetic Animism

• Chain of Manifestation
• Genii Loci
• Meet the Family: Mom? Is that you? And you had kids!?
• What are you?

Elementary

• Elemental Hierarchy
• Four Angels of the Corners of the World
• Princes of the Four Angles of the World
• Meet the Family: The Cousins
• What makes you tick?

Apprentice

The Altar: Table of Manifestation

• Altar Layout
• Elemental Weapons
• Planetary Talismans
• Constellations and Mansions
• The Lamp
• Miscellaney
• What do you do?

Conjuration

• The Table of Practice
• The Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals
• Variations
• Elemental Initiations
• What do you want?

Magic without Tools

• The Astral Temple
• Dream Work
• Path Working through the Spheres
• How are you going to get what you want?

Magician


About that Great Work

• Who are you?
• What's wrong with you?

Meet the Genius

• The Threefold Keeper
• The Genius and the Evil Daimon
• Conjuration of the Genius

On Working with the Genius

• Spiritual and Practical Applications
• An Introduction to the Seven Planetary Governors

The Red Work Series of Courses

Courses are now available for registration. See the links on the right on the top of my blog for more information. I'll be writing up detailed descriptions over the next few days.

I'm only running the Black, White, and Green courses right now. I'm sure that will be enough for me to handle at one time. Since I'm only one person, I'll be providing materials on the following schedule:

• Black Work: 1st lesson July 16th, additional lessons every other week.
• White Work: 1st lesson July 23rd, additional lessons weekly.
• Green Work: 1st lesson July 23rd, additional lessons every other week.

Remember, the Black Work is for people totally new to magic in general, or those who want a solid foundation of stuff that I know works based on my experiences. It's a lot of work and is the most expensive. This is the Hermetic Magic Basics class, the stuff you'd study in the first few degrees of an organized lodge. There's a lot of core doctrine teaching, with explanations of your role in relation to the world around you and the spirits above (and below) you. There's also a fair amount of practical Work, the creation of your altar, the creation/accumulation of magical tools, and introductions to the conjuration process I use most frequently. We'll be doing conjure rites with the Elemental spirits, as well as learning to work in harmony with the Spirits of Place, the Genii Loci. This course includes an exploration of the Emanations of our Mother, the Spiritus Mundi. As we go through this process, we'll begin the Great Work, begin turning up the spiritual heat and seeing the things that stop you from being who you were meant to be rise to the surface where they can be observed, contemplated, and addressed as needed. This course will include the establishment of a firm foundation in the Sphere of the Moon from which the White Work can begin.

The White Work is some major heavy lifting. We'll be aiming to attain the Solar/Supernatural Assistant, and that will be the bulk of the Work. A lot of shit rises to the surface. Hopefully the Black Work we've done will prepare you. We'll also explore the relationship between the magician and the assistant, and we'll Work on exploring in closer detail the practical and spiritual applications of your relationship with the spirit. I'll go over the things I've learned about Goety at this point, along with some heavy-handed warnings and not-so-subtle admonitions to avoid a particular grimoire that bites. We'll end this course with a series of introductions to the 7 Planetary Governors.

The Green Work will explore the Seven Heavens in detail. This will be at least a 17-week course, if I remember the outline right. Haven't checked lately. The goal in this stage is to establish relationships with each of the Seven Planetary Intelligences, Archangels, and Governors. We'll obtain initiations into each sphere, and integrate those forces over time. We'll also be Working with the Spirits, Angels, and Legions of the planetary spheres, exploring the ways they affect the material realm, and ways we can increase our abilities to work in harmony with them in our daily lives.

When we have enough people who are ready, we'll begin the Red Work, where we start knocking seriously on the gates of the Eighth Sphere and take the next steps in the transformation into Powers.

Before signing up for the courses, take a look at where you're at. The people who succeeded in the Supernatural Assistant Course were those who had been through some version of the Black Work course I described above. Witches with an initiatory tradition, Rosicrucians with an initiatory tradition, people who had done the "grunt work" that needs to be done to start getting you clear and prepared for the communion with the Supernatural Assistant. If you've been through that already and feel confident that you've dealt with the happy horse shit that comes out in the early Work, start at the White Course.

If you've been through the Supernatural Assistant Course and feel ready (VG, I'm looking at you), start at the Green Course.

Shoaling and Schooling Magi, and Magic Diaries

Gordon's post today talks about fish. Because fish are cool. Fish nerds are also cool, but they smell funny and I really don't feel comfortable shaking their hands because I walk away and hours later catch a faint whiff of brine that makes me wonder if it was really fish they were handling. And then I have to scrub.

But Gordon's post was about shoaling sigils. He also went off on magical diaries, making a lot of valid points about how they aren't that necessary.

I want to talk about shoaling and schooling magicians.

Gordon says:

Shoaling.
Think of it like birds flocking but with a few key differences.
Firstly, the aerodynamic (in this case hydrodynamic) advantages aren’t as great.
That’s because fish ‘shoal’ when they aren’t heading somewhere, and ‘school’ when they are. Schooling gives a hydrodynamic advantage.
[snip]
Anyway, fish ‘shoal’ for some obvious reasons:

• To protect against predation.
• To indicate where there is food.
• To raise young.

Shoaling Magi

The blogosphere we play in is a lot like a shoal of magicians. It protects against predation by creating a community of generally respected magicians, and people are hesitant to critique a member of the shoal because they are likely to get called out by another member of the shoal and get publicly ripped to shreds. It indicates where the food is by letting us all know what each other is into, and we "feed" on each other's systems and experiences, enriching our own Work. It also provides a way to "raise the young," that is, provide a single place for new and budding magicians to see a variety of approaches and receive a bunch of complimentary training from people whose primary system or approach might be too specialized for everyone.

Seems to me, this occult blogosphere provides the kind of stuff a lodge would provide, ideally, only without the dues structure and benefits of initiation and a cohesive regimen of structured progressive material, and that's ok, shoaling doesn't have to do that.

Schooling Magi

Schooling of magicians, on the other hand, is different. I recently got to participate in a small experiment with some other magicians, and the effects have been awesome. Working together on a team provided a very hydrodynamic advantage. It's worth doing, and I'm looking forward to the next level, and future collaborations with people on projects. I like that it was research based, and not results based. I think that helped a lot. We weren't working towards manifesting a pile of gold for each of us, or anything too restrictive, we were just doing the same things and recording our results, and then comparing them.

The courses I offered before provided a similar experience, but I think I had too many people at different levels of attainment to reap the same rewards. Generally, those who had done significant work before hand clumped together and succeeded, while those who didn't have the same kind of experiences (from different backgrounds) had less impressive results. I'm going to be applying the results of the small experiment to the courses, and see if that helps streamline some of the benefits we all share.

On Magic Diaries

And then he goes on a rant about mandatory use of magic diaries. His main argument is against the idea that writing in a little secret book is some kind of universal magical requirement. If that's why you're doing it, because you have to, I agree that there's no point in doing it. I think anything done only because it is mandatory will be a lot less useful than something done because its value is known and appreciated.

However, the use of a magical diary in a flexible way is totally useful. Gordon implies the benefit of applying Project Management techniques to your magical efforts, and a magic diary is one of the tools that will help you accomplish that. It provides a record of your intended goal, the path you took, and where you ended up. Going back and reviewing that from time to time is essential. Otherwise you forget the original goal and think you're right on target when you've completely turned around and went way over budget. It's called "Scope Creep."

I advocate the use of something like a Magic Lab Book. Record your hypothesis, your planned experiment to prove it, the actual results, and any adjustments to your hypothesis that must be made. In doing an extended working, keep track of your results after each operation, and record the things that happen relative to your project. It helped a lot with the recent Schooling project we did.

It doesn't have to be that rigid, either. This is magic, we can do what we will. A Flip record of your Work, like the video log in Avatar would be pretty fun and useful. You can't rely on your observational skills, but a record of what you thought you experienced is going to be a lot more useful than no record at all. The process of magic is sort of like going to the gym in that you do make progress towards a goal, and seeing where you were at, where you are, and where you hope to be compared to where you were before is damned useful. And who cares why the Victorians did it? If we use it for our own purposes, it can be redeemed and made valuable regardless of the errors of rich white pissing English men.

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and even if that is inductive logic*, it holds true. A diary might not be a completely accurate and perfect record of what happened, but it's better than having none at all.

Shit, I just realized that I'm a documentation specialist. Technical Writer. I record project history, progress, and report on it for a freaking living. Of course I'm an advocate for keeping a written record. He's in MEDIA and MARKETING, for Christ's sake. Heh.

Yeah, we may very well disagree on the importance of maintaining a comprehensive document trail. :D

But like he said, it's an "if you want" kind of thing. It helps, I use it, it might help you.

* I totally disagree that inductive logic is inherently an error. I'm a fatalist with Calvinist tendencies, so I'm not surprised. I'm also a Taurus, and I use Practicality as a philosophical knife when dealing with philosophical Gordian knots. Even though you can't really determine that the sun will rise tomorrow based on the fact that it has always done so before, you aren't going to divest your holdings in solar panel production companies, are you? Even if it's an imperfect tool, it can be used effectively, with caveats.

The More things Change, the More they Stay the Same

Kathy, a long time friend and the original inspiration that got me doing the Work in the first place*, lo those many years ago, brought up a good point in the comments on my last post.

Kathy pointed out that abandoning all forms of terrestrial, or sub-lunar spirits would leave a gaping hole in my practice, leaving me all unbalanced and ready to topple over. Toppling sucks.

But for the record, I'm not abandoning sub-lunar spirit work, nor is my core philosophy changing all that much, really. I'm just achieving some goals I had aimed for and lost sight of, and getting rid of one set of tools in favor of others. I'm de-energising the Lemegeton's Goetia, but there are a myriad of other spirits that are available without the bite.


At my core, I am above all else a practical magician. I know lately I may have seemed sort of flighty, but there's a lot going on up above and down below. As it stabilizes, things will return to a more normal flow, and all these neat little tricks I'm seeing so easily now will likely fade, and I'll have to work my ass off to reclaim this post-initiatic high I'm on. If it's anything like what I've been through before.

But the point of all my magic and striving towards reclaiming my full potential, the point of becoming a Power if possible is not to ascend and be beyond all this pesky material reality, oh no, the point, the freaking essence of what I do is all about being fully me, to the most, for the highest purposes of all: to do what I want, when I want, and have the world be a better place as a result. To do as I see fit and have that be the Right Thing to do, and not just for me, but for everyone.

The goal of making the Philosopher's Stone is to reach the phase of Projection, where you grind it up and use it and make lead into gold, sick into health, mortal into ... well, still mortal, but with longevity, long life. And that's still my goal.

I want to make the world a better place. Cheesey, eh? I don't care, I just want to tend my garden, and to have all who pass through feel at peace and at rest.

And have some good conversations along the way.

* Kathy was a single mom who had gotten the shit end of the stick for many years. She had limited resources, but a strong calling to the Occult. She singlehandedly figured out the Ars Paulina, pretty much, with a little help from Chris Warnock and Aaron Letich and a couple others, and started making traditional magical equipment in her home. She lived 40 miles from civilization, if I remember right, and she still managed to overcome all kinds of hardships and achieve an amazing amount of success with her Natal Angel. Seeing how much one person could accomplish in this art of ours inspired me to get out of the arm chair and start doing real magic per the grimoires. Her inspiration of me also resulted in this blog you're reading. I figured if it was possible for her, it was possible for me, and then I wanted more people to be encouraged by seeing my success, so I went public. You're reading this because of her. It's all her fault. Pretty much. :D

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me... 

-David Bowie, Changes

So I've been playing more with the Eighth Sphere magic I've been learning from the spirits lately. It's pretty amazing stuff. It really is about intent, and I'm finding parallels to the Energy model that are so ... very ... well, yeah, a bit annoying, bur mostly damned useful, honestly. I tense a muscle in the back of my hand, and this power just flows out, palpable to others. I was working on a household project that had me out in the sun on a really hot day, and I thought of Raphael in the West, Prince of the Air Elemental direction, twisted my head a bit, sort of, and a cool breeze came drifting in, followed by a really nice, cooling shower that only lasted long enough to be pleasant. I'm experiencing the Chain of Manifestation directly, and finding that everything I'm going through was right there in Agrippa the whole time.

See, manifestation is a lot like the scales of a fish, or overlapping chain mail. You move one piece, and all the ones nearby are moved. Muscle control combined with symbol and intent releases a flow of power that has an instant effect on the environment around you. Everything, every link or scale has an intelligence, an awareness that can be spoken to, if you only know its language.

And it's really weird for me because I'm used to being able to put things into words. But in the Eighth Sphere, you learn to sing hymns of silence in preparation for the Ninth. It's a matter of directing your intent in worshipful observation, in celebration of the process of manifestation. You tune your observation-with-intent to harmonize with the manifestation current, and you find yourself as the conductor as well as a player in the orchestra. And see, there's no limit to what can be accomplished. You name a thing, and it responds, and then it returns to where it used to be.

You know all the things the spirits of the Lemegeton's Goetia are capable of accomplishing? You can accomplish them too, without the negative consequences. You want riches? You've got a Midas Touch in your right hand's ring finger. Everything you touch with intent will turn to gold. You only need to speak with the right spirit at the right time to release this ability.

You want to curse someone? Flip them off with intent. Sex on your mind? Tense that Mound of Venus with intent, and see what happens.

This isn't the kind of thing I can put into words, at least not yet. I've got to experiment more, and pay attention to what's going on when I figure something new out. I'm at a point where I can think about a desired effect, clear my mind, and just feel how to make it happen. There's a mind-body connection (also discussed in Agrippa) that is directly plugged straight into the Source outlet. And when we do it ourselves, there's no demons with a "fuck you filter" in place by nature to suck it all away.

This isn't, for the record, me adopting the Energy Model and abandoning the Spirit Model. I can see now how it all fits together, like the scales of a fish, overlapping and rubbing hard against one another in unison. Here, Agrippa says it better:

Hence saith Aristotle in the sixth book of his Mysticall Philosophy, that when any one by binding or bewitching doth call upon the Sun or other stars, praying them to be helpfull to the work desired, the Sun and other Stars do not heare his words, but are moved after a certain manner by a certain conjunction, and mutuall series, whereby the parts of the world are mutually subordinate the one to the other, and have a mutuall consent, by reason of their great union: As in mans body one member is moved by perceiving the motion of another, and in a harp one string is moved at the motion of another. So when any one moves any part of the world; other parts are moved by the perceiving the motion of that. The knowledge therefore of the dependency of things following one the other, is the foundation of all wonderfull operation, which is necessarily required to the exercising the power of attracting superior vertues. - Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book 2, chapter 60

That whole chapter is pretty deep. Note the final sentence:

In the first place therefore we must implore assistance from the first author, and praying not only with mouth but a Religious gesture and supplicant soul, also abundantly, uncessantly, and sincerely...

 See? Pretty cool, eh? Religious Gesture? It's right there.

Now the reason I'm even talking about this cool stuff that I can't put into words yet is because I want to give you some insight into my recent decision to take the Goetic Grimoire off the list of things I sell. I overestimated the value of those spirits, and underestimated their negative effects. At this point, I wouldn't teach my son to conjure demons, you know? I can't in good conscience keep telling people that the demons aren't that bad when really, they aren't that great. Especially when there's a much better way that doesn't nearly kill you just to get what you want to manifest.

Kill you? That's a bit extreme, right?

I haven't mentioned it publicly before, but without getting into too much detail, I almost died a couple weeks ago. Spent Memorial Day and a couple more in the hospital. My heart muscles and the surrounding tissue were literally dying, and the necrotic biomatter of my decaying heart was killing me. My heart's inflamed to this day, and not in prayer. In virus.

So look, I've got really good reasons to think twice before calling up the spirits of the Lemegeton's Goetia. Conjuring them really isn't worth it. That's coming from a guy who has conjured damned close to half the spirits of the Lemegeton over the last few years, and developed close and personal friendships with some of them. I've reaped rewards from them, and I'm still telling you: they aren't worth the price.

Especially when everything you need to get everything you want them for is sitting literally in the palm of your hand. I wouldn't have seen it, not clearly, not without receiving the initiation I've been through, without learning that they just aren't necessary to accomplish the Hermetic goal. That, combined with some rather forceful revelations about the nature of the Lem's Goetia spirits has led to a lot of soul searching and evaluation of my role in the lives of others. I don't want to play any part in getting anyone else into as much trouble as I've gotten myself into over the last couple of years.

So the Goetic Grimoire is no longer for sale. To those who purchased it, I advise extreme caution. My methods might have gotten me hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I haven't got a penny to show for it. What I do have to show for it is a lot of stress, and physical scars.

And my heart was physically rotting in my chest.

At some point, even a Taurus has to see that maybe, just maybe evil spirits are bad to conjure, you know?

But still... NO REFUNDS. And the curse on uploading it to torrents still stands, pirate bitches.

Cosmological Review

The cosmology I use is based on the system used by the Hermetic magicians of the first through third centuries AD as recorded in the Corpus Hermeticum, specifically the Divine Pymander. In this system, the Earth is the manifest physical realm and is at the center of a series of concentric spheres. Within the physical sphere are the four spheres of the elements. Closest to the Earth is the sphere of Earth, followed by Water, Air, and then Fire. These four elemental spheres combine to form the Sphere of Sensation, the physical realm.

Surrounding the Sphere of Sensation are the Celestial Spheres. They consist of the Seven Planetary Spheres, also referred to as Heavens, the Sphere of the Fixed Stars, and the Sphere of the Prime Mover. Agrippa and the Hermetic authors of the Corpus Hermeticum began numbering the spheres at the Sphere of the Moon:

• 1st Sphere - The Moon
• 2nd Sphere - Mercury
• 3rd Sphere - Venus
• 4th Sphere - The Sun
• 5th Sphere - Mars
• 6th Sphere - Jupiter
• 7th Sphere - Saturn
• 8th Sphere - Zodiac, Fixed Stars (includes the Mansions of the Moon)
• 9th Sphere - Sphere of the Prime Mover

Note that this system counts "up" from the Earth rather than "Down" from the Prime Mover. Students of Modern Magick are familiar with the Golden Dawn's kabbalistic Tree of Life, and tend to count "Down" from Keter, which corresponds to the 9th Sphere of Hermetic cosmology.

I think the difference is that in Hermetics, you start from where you're at consciously, the physical realm that gets most of our attention, along with all the drama and thrills we go through on a regular basis. As you progress through the spheres, performing the Great Work, you "de-energize" the things in your sensate sphere that keep you from reclaiming your full potential, your rightful heritage as a member of a divine family sourced in the Prime Mover.

Armchair Initiates

The oft-maligned armchair magician, our Sunday-Morning quarterbacks who read the grimoires, or at least the For Dummies versions of whatever system they're trying to be Subject Matter Experts in at the moment, or even those who spend twenty or thirty years reading about magic without ever stepping into the Ring are the subject of today's thoughts.

I've bashed these losers in passing for years, in part because I was one for many years, and in part because they seem on the surface to know what they're talking about, and I ended up wasting a lot of time arguing with them about details they didn't really have a framework to comprehend. I loathed them for many years.

But recent events have caused me to reconsider my stance. You know how to conjure the Ruach of a dead magician to teach you the finer points of something they've written? It's fairly simple, really. You simply take their written materials and use that as a talisman, and you call on them in the names of the Intelligences of the Moon. You go on an astral journey to a meeting ground in the lower heavens, a sitting room beneath your astral temple, or a preserve in an astral national park.

They teach you in dreams, or in inspirations or conclusions reached while reading their books. They help you understand the meaning they were pointing to while writing.

You know how when you as much as look at a seal of a spirit with intent, it starts seeing you back? I've noticed it while practicing sketching seals of demons and angels. They're closely tied to the patterns of squares, lines, circles, crosses, triangles, and all the other geometric shapes that make up their images. You can't really read about a spirit in detail without it noticing a flicker of a disturbance in the force.

Now think about these armchair magicians... not the really annoying egotistical asshats that only read magic books to be able to proof text their way into looking smart by tearing apart others. Their surface knowledge of a system leaves them woefully inept at attacking people with experience. Ignore these knuckle dragging dweebs.

But the serious student of occult knowledge who reads and studies and discusses the principles of magic, have you ever thought about what's going on inside their spheres over the years? The Great Work is the art of amassing the ore that contains the Stone, and then treating it through pressure, heat, time, and various chemical purification processes until it is refined and rarified. These armchair magicians are absorbing tons of occult material that sits percolating in their spheres, being affected by the stresses and pressures of life. It makes an egg, and it incubates, waiting the signs and signals that it is time to be hatched and revealed.

A friend of mine thinks he's not much of a magician because he's studied more than he's practiced. Yet his insight and understanding exceed my own in many ways. Practical work is necessary to attain initiations into the spheres, you've got to conjure the spirits to Work with them consciously and attain the full benefit of their influence, but there is still Work being done in the spheres of the Armchair Initiates that is valuable and worthwhile in ways they won't appreciate until later.

The animosity towards armchair initiates in general leaves them feeling embarrassed, ashamed, I think, and less confident in their results than they should be. I think it's about time for scholars of the occult to be given a little slack, and a lot more encouragement than they've gotten in the past.

How to Write a Book without Being a Writer

Gordon's post on publishing better than Crowley is pretty wicked stuff.

I'd like to add a trick for would-be occult authors. If you haven't noticed yet, a blog is a book nursery. Ideas are spawned, developed, organized and published, in nice chapter-length sequences. They give you a place to hone your craft, and help people at the same time. Writing a post at a time is less daunting than a whole entire book, and after a year or so of steady blogging about whatever you're magically dealing with, you'll have a manuscript's worth of material ready to go on a cohesive topic or three.

All it takes is editing at that point, sewing it all together into a pretty little poppet, and you're good to go.

Larvae, Larvae, Larvae

Jhonn, and then Jack posted about this guy they know who both agree has some kind of spiritual parasite on him. Both expressed a mingled compassion and disgust, and I can fully understand that. I didn't watch the videos because I'm trying not to pollute my brain with any more bull shit.

But running into people with parasites is pretty common in the occult world. Working with spirits tends to give you spirit sight, the ability to see when people are being influenced by spirits. Once you've started seeing them in your Work, you'll see them everywhere if you pay attention.

While doing my Goety Work, I ran into a lot of Nepheshim, the parts of the human soul that are supposed to die with the body, but often find ways to linger through offerings made to ancestors, finding geomagnetic or geoelectrical sources of food, or by attaching themselves to the living and triggering the amygdala (panic attacks, depression, and multiple forms of anxiety disorders) to release the emotive food they live on. These spirits are the most common entities I've seen, and while they are individually rather weak as a rule (with some exceptions), gathering up a legion or so isn't that difficult, and they're the original "Will Work For Food" spirits. With enough of these guys aimed and working for you in creative ways, there's potentially no limit to what you could get to happen.*

But for most who end up running into schools of them on the astral, you become host to a spiritual parasite. Regular banishings and visualizations of golden or white light helps, even the stuff you read in Fortune's Psychic Self Defense or whatever it was are effective against these guys.

But sometimes, as in the case Jack and Jhonn's acquaintance, people can pick up things that are ... bigger, stronger, worser. Some are like beefier versions of a Nephesh, something that's been around a while and has learned not only to feed and survive, but to thrive on people. Other times people can pick up a spirit of place with ill intent. Not all the Genius Loci are friendly. Heracles had to fight several Genii Loci in his Tasks, for example.

And of course, there are demons who will demonize humans given a chance.

I like the term "Larvae" to refer to these entities. Gordon posted a neat ritual from ancient Rome that was performed yearly and involved scattering black beans around the house while performing an oration. I suspect the beans absorbed the spirits, and were then planted. This returned any spirits that were haunting people to the cycle of reincarnation that Plato and Hermeticists loosely followed. They believed that those who did not attain their potential in the form of a man were demoted to the form of a woman**, and then to an animal, and then to a vegetable, and finally to a mineral state of being.

Jason's first book on Protection and Reversal Magic offered a lot of useful techniques for getting rid of these kinds of things, but when they're attached to one's self personally, it can be difficult to accept you've got one. Or a Legion in some people's cases. They can be pretty convincing that they're innocuous, and even helpful entities. They can offer techniques that really work, and they can appear as many things.

How can you tell if you're being possessed, obsessed, or demonized? How do you know if an entity, or paradigm shift is really what it appears to be, and not the product of something looking for a free lunch, or up to some plot that requires you doing a certain thing at a certain time?

You can drive yourself crazy worrying about it, and even if you didn't have an infestation of spiritual Larvae eating your essence, the anxiety generated by worrying about whether your HGA is secretly SATAN can attract a pool of 'em in no time.

If you're worried about it, the first thing to recognize is that you have a problem. Either there is a Larva, and that's the problem, or you just think there's a Larva, and that's the problem. Either one can cause mischief in your life. Fortunately, the solution for both is the same: Exorcise. If you do have an infestation, a good Exorcism will clean you right out. If you don't, it won't hurt. Incorporating some form of Exorcise in your regularly scheduled Work is useful.

The Stele of Jeu, that is, the Headless Rite makes for a formidable Exorcism. I generally stick to the Betz version, with a few modifications based on my experiences. I substitute the name of my HGA where appropriate, and "Agathosdaimon" for "Good Messenger of God." I also change "deliver him, NN, from the daimon that restrains him" to "deliver me, [my name/Hermetic Title] from any daimon that restrains me". It takes very few minutes, and can be worked in at any time. I prefer Sunday nights or Wednesdays, or both as necessary.

One of the more important things to realize as a magician, however, is that you always have a spiritual ally fighting off these things on your behalf. It comes with being born, and wears the names Agathosdaimon, Genius, and Holy Guardian Angel. Its name is hidden in your Natal Chart, and regardless of the level of conscious communion with this entity you have attained, it is still working on your behalf all the time. It's not proof against stupidity. We can conjure up a dark passenger through ignorance or just corrupt intentions, and that can limit the effectiveness of our Spiritual Ally in protecting us.

Learning to trust this spirit is essential, and if after performing an exorcism with its assistance you find yourself losing a spirit or source of peace and power in your magical Work, don't panic. Learn to accept it, don't conjure it back into your life, no matter how beneficial it may appear. The HGA will explain why it removed entities if you ask it. It will show you in vivid detail the tendrils of disgusting ooze the thing had immersed in your sphere.

Performing regular exorcism and trusting the results will build up your relationship with the HGA, and will  open more avenues to reclaiming your divine race and value than it will close. Trusting your HGA also provides a level of peace in your approach that itself becomes a natural barrier to attracting Larva.

* Of course, that's necromancy, and tends to leave the magician who works with these fellows infested if they slip and forget to cleanse their spheres well after working with them. If you get into necromancy, and then find yourself all nihilistic, depressed, or anxious, you've got a problem you need to address. You've picked up a Larva. My Work with Bune granted me a degree of native exorcist, and directing them away with a statement carried enough weight to keep me clean, mostly, but regular Exorcism involving something like the powers of the Agathosdaimon or Michael the Archangel is a best practice mages do well to adopt.

** I disagree with the idea that being a woman is less than being a man, for the record. I think that's a cultural oppression thing that reflects the politics of the time rather than the spiritual truth. It's actually a step up from older beliefs, though. Before Plato's Republic talked about Soul Mates, theologists and spiritual cosmologists doubted women had souls at all.

On the Alien known as the Lady Bune

Dude, are you nuckin' futs? There are things that are no one's god damned business, things that are not going to be discussed.

But there is no bottom to the rabbit hole you're going down. Tunnels of Set indeed.

Now taking PayPal

It's annoying to have to use it, and I prefer the Google buttons, but for those who use PayPal, I've set up some buttons for my eBooks on the right.

Looking Forward

Ahhh, things are shaping up nicely at the hearth. I only have half my stuff in boxes, and I'm down to only two rooms left needing to be furnished. Of course, one of those rooms is the new office-study, which means I'm still limited to writing in my son's room, which has the only desk in the house and is currently decorated in "How to train your dragon" stuff (Toothless is not a good inspiration for writing occult materials), or on a laptop. Feh, and feh, respectively.

But nevertheless, I see things coming together and giving me both the time and space to do some serious revisions to the NeoPlatonic Basics, Modern Angelic Grimoire, and Modern Goetic Grimoire in the next few weeks. I also will be able to revise and refocus on the Red Work Courses, which should be starting again in a month. I'll be posting a link to register for the series of courses as soon as next week to give folks time to determine whether they think this is the right path for them.

The revised courses will still include some Goety stuff for two reasons. One, I already have a shitload of experience and material based on that subject. Two, the material is practically useful. I've been down on Goety lately, but the fact remains that it is a powerful system that provides tangible results quickly. It's like speeding while driving, it's not the smart or legal or proper thing to do, and it comes with risk to life, limb, and legal fines and potential jail time, but there are times that you do it anyway. And until you've mastered some of the more useful results of learning to Hymn in Silence with the Powers of the Eighth Sphere, it provides an avenue of manifestation that has little competition in the occult realm. Expect lots of caveats to come along with that section of the material.

I'll be beefing up the "Hermetic Merkavah" material, because I'm learning that the things I did in these seven spheres over the last few years really laid some major groundwork for the experiences I'm having now in the Eighth Sphere. I knew the Work in the planetary spheres was important for Goety and for Theurgy, but I didn't realize how much of a base framework was being put together while I was going through it. I'm seeing now that the last few years of Planetary Magic Work, rising through the spheres, gaining attunements and initiations was like putting together a spiritual circuit board that's a lot like a motherboard* in a  PC. I've got connections for various devices, a versatile processor socket, multiple connections to various storage devices and operating systems, and plenty of RAM and lots of bandwidth on the bus. For my non-geek friends, you can click the link, or see the footnote for a more condensed understanding.

Doing the Planetary Work feels more like the job part of the Great Work while I'm doing it. It's like a Review-Revise-Repeat process, or the maintenance stuff that doesn't seem that important until you haven't done it for a week. It's not boring, but there's so much of it that it gets to be routine. You start seeing Raphael every week of the month, and you end up getting to know him like an office co-worker you see in a weekly staff meeting.

But that steady practice is what keeps the process flowing smoothly, it's the regularly scheduled tasks that end up making a quality end product. Very important stuff. Once you've got the results of this work firmly in place, or have the product promoted to the Production Environment so to speak, you get to start using it, and it's pertty incredible what you can do with it. I suspected before, but now I know. Or Gno.

In a comment, someone asked me to write up a post on the new techniques I'm picking up. The Eighth Sphere stuff is still too new to me to start teaching, but as I gain experience and understanding, I'll be adding it to the Red Work series of courses. It will explain how to go through that particular Gate, or pierce that particular veil, as well as some of the techniques I've been picking up that make the process easier. I'd start posting about it in detail now, but it's still way too raw.

And besides, I don't know what might happen to you if I start giving out the secrets I've worked so hard for without providing the framework to turn the current into work. With a fully developed motherboard, hard drive, input/output devices, a processor and stable operating system, plus the necessary RAM to run the programs and the devices to enjoy the full experience, you don't have everything you need to make a computer. You wouldn't expect to access the internet by sticking your fingers into a power socket directly, right? It doesn't work. You need a human interface device between you and the power source for it to work, and that's what the Planetary Work provides.

But this is all still to come over the next few weeks and months. My current goals are to start offering the Supernatural Assistant and Hermetic Merkavah courses again next month. I'll start taking registrations next week, or maybe as soon as the weekend if I can get a writing desk and chair. Future courses will include the Eighth Sphere: Hymns of Silence.

I'm also going to rewrite my Modern Goetic Grimoire and turn it into a Goety Mini-Course. I'll probably pull it from the blog's available titles, and only make it available to those who have completed the Supernatural Assistant, and maybe the Planetary Magic courses.

Tentatively it will look something like:

Red Work Course Series
The Black Work

Acquiring the Supernatural Assistant

Topics covered include:

• Neo-Platonic Basics
• Trithemian Conjuration Technique
• Solar Attunement & Genius/Evil Daimon Names
• Attaining the Supernatural Assistant
• Working with the Assistant

Goety Mini-Course Part 1 (Optional)

Topics covered include:

• Elemental Magic
• Genii Loci
• Necromancy
• Demonology

The White Work

Planetary Magic 

Topics covered include:

• Intelligences, Initiation, and Integration
• Spirits, Legions, and Manifestation 
• The Things We Leave Behind

The Red Work

Topics covered include:

• Entering the Eighth Sphere
• Hearing the Hymns of Silence
• Becoming a Hermetic Power
• Eighth Sphere Magic Techniques

At least, that's what I'm thinking today. Expect it to get more developed over time.




* The motherboard's main job is to hold the computer's microprocessor chip and let everything else connect to it. Everything that runs the computer or enhances its performance is either part of the motherboard or plugs into it via a slot or port.

On Being Busy, and the 8th Sphere and Jack

I have 6 frickin' unfinished blog posts that I've started over the last week that were inspired by some deep insight, fellow bloggers, or magical Work. Every time I started one, something's come up, so I'm just publishing this fucking post to get something published that I started this week before it's over.

Oh, and I did some magic before going to sleep last night that was awesome. Jack's Self Love and Desire post has more than the usual bits of Hermetic/Great Work Gold sprinkled throughout. The Work I did last night was 8th sphere stuff, mildly, mostly to keep my toes in a current that started flowing a month ago. Under the section he titled "Traps," specifically the "I Can't Do That" bullet, he mentions shooting fireballs and walking through walls. While the fireballs out of the fingertips may be beyond the grasp of those that Hymneth in Silence to the Father, I do know that guru thing that I've seen on video of the old guru or yogi who can channel prana or chi or whatever through his fingertips, touch someone, and throw them against the wall as a result... You know what I'm talking about? That thing. Anyway, I know that's possible.

There's this thing you do with this muscle in your wrist, I think, and this power just flows, but you have to be in just the right frame of mind, objectively observing while having a mild intent that also is without expectation. And you have to smile.

You know all those hokey hand gestures you see magicians doing in fiction? Turns out there's something to all that. As I learn more, I will pass on what I can, but it's like Hermetic Mudras. The power is activated using minute muscle control and mental awareness. And an attunement from one of the spirits, I think, or at least direct training.

I haven't tossed anyone across the room yet, but I can feel it flowing and pooling in my palm when I get the mind and body properly harmonized and aimed right.

I think fireballs may not be beyond the realm of possibility, eventually, and walking through walls? That's actually Ancient Christian Tech. Heven't figured it out yet, but it's on my list.

I like this a lot.

It's fun. I may have gotten over a lot of my money-fixation, but still. This is a worthy presentation of at least one aspect of my being.

That Ten Book Thing

Ok, everyone else is doing it...

But I just can't stand it. The rules are too stringent.  I get about halfway through and realize there's no way it can really work on 10 books alone. Ten web sites would work better for me, I think, Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Alchemy Website, Hermetic.com and Peterson's Esoteric Archives are the very bestest resources for mages seeking power and Hermetic success.

But I'll take a stab at it. All the cool bloggers are doing it.

If the goal were to create a traditional Hermetic magician empowered to fully attain the heights described in the Corpus Hermeticum and to consciously realize and implement the process defined in the Emerald Tablet, I think the following books would be useful.

1. The Bible. I think to understand the things that subtly, culturally have impacted the magical traditions in the West over the last 5000 years, you've got to read this. And you have to read it from cover to cover, and without anyone telling you what it means. If someone tries to tell you what the Bible means (that's called Hermeneutics, which is a fun word to say), one of two things is guaranteed to be true: they are wrong, or you won't get it because you haven't figured it out on your own yet. Note: If you read Chronicles, you can skip the Kings, or vice versa, but really reading Leviticus is the only way to grok Paul's epistles for serious.

2. Prometheus Rising. I hate RAW. He fucked me in my brain for years. He'll fuck you too. With his dead dick. And it will help make you a better person. Reading this after reading the Bible will be good for you. This is the only RAW book I would read, if I were you. Everything else he wrote is just this stuff repeated over and over again. If you don't read this one, the Illuminatus! trilogy should be explored, but that's too many books for this list. RAW is a lot like Crowley. Everything he wrote was a joke, a prank, and it just happened to be true

3. Plato's Republic. So much of Hermetics began here. Seeing the influence of Plato, who wrote while the Bible was being written a few hundred miles away is important, and plus it's the only way to really understand soul mates, and the goals of the Hermeticists that came later. Magic isn't only about transforming the self, it is also about the State, culture, and the humanities. It puts things into perspective.

4. Plato's Timaeus - You can't be a priest-king of Atlantis (or queen) until you've read the original account of it sinking into the waves in context. Also, the Creation Myth is important to understand, it explains Crowley. Crowley read this shit, and if you haven't, you're missing all the best punchlines in his published works.

5. Iamblichus, On the Mysteries. Oh shit. Or maybe Plotinus' Enneads. One or the other, but probably Iamblichus even though he's not exactly accurate in my understanding. He was writing as the Hellenized Egyptian Priest-Magician on the practices that were based on Hermetics while the stuff later attributed to Hermes Trismagistus were being written. So important to read and understand.

6. The Divine Pymander, attributed to Hermes Trismagistus. Without this, you will never be a Hermetic Magician, no matter how much you paid for your GD initiations.

7. Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Gordon got to post Liber ABA as one book, so this counts too because Tyson's version is in one book volume, right? After reading the Bible and the Republic, Timaeus, the Enneads/On the Mysteries, and the Divine Pymander, you'll have the raw data that is necessary to grok the praxis of Agrippa.

8. The Arbatel. Perhaps the perfect Grimoire.

9. Postmodern Magic: Holds the keys to unlocking the Arbatel, really. And everything else. It was a toss up between this and Magic, Power, Language, Symbol: A Magician's Exploration of Linguistics.

10. Sorcerer's Secrets: Perhaps the best presentation of applied magic I've ever read. It's the book I would have written given the chance.

Although these books lay the foundation of information that have helped me a great deal, by themselves they are not sufficient to accomplish the stated goal. There needs to be a system of practice that allows the magician to conjure the spirits listed in the tables of Agrippa, for example, like the one provided in the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, or the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals.

Using this system, the magician needs to be conjuring the spirits and learning from them, receiving empowerments, intitiations, and direct instruction. That's the most important thing of all.

At the same time, they need to be in contact with other magicians who have gone through this before. I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am without the input and friendship of Patrick Dunn, Frater Servitor Lucem, Jason Miller, the Deputy Lodge Master of the local OTO camp, those I have attempted to teach (Chris and Victor and the Sianys, and all the members of the SA Course), and the people like Dee, Susanne, Theo, Suzanne, Gordon, Logan, the good Witchdoctor Joe, Lavanah, Kathy MacDonald, Aaron Leitch, Jake Stratton-Kent, Chris Warnock, and god, the list goes on. All my blogging friends who I agree with and disagree with, Kenaz, Jhonn and Jow and Jack, Miss Sugar and VVF and Spiderella and Justin and ... shit. Fr. AIT, Balthazar and Barabas, uh... and anyone else I haven't mentioned who has helped me that deserves a mention but I can't recall. And all the members of the yahoo groups who have helped me and argued with me over the years, they all contributed so much.

They've provided insight, or feedback, or mentorship, or simply a different point of view that made me think about things differently. Having friends and cohorts in different systems shows me more of the overall ... thing ... that we're doing and the methods we use, the shared goals and the different approaches. I've seen that we're all a part of a Cosmic Hierarchy, a Celestial Hierarchy that extends to the spirits, but is also embodied in the flesh. God speaks through my friends and fellow bloggers in ways that balance and ground the input from the spirits I cavort with.

Books are good, and necessary inputs to the foundations of what we do and what we are, but they are a third of the picture. Spirits and Other Magicians are equally important aspects that must be included if your'e going to get anywhere worth getting.

Abramelin: Hermetic Rite or Hermetic Wrong?

I may have taken a wrong turn a few years ago in my pursuit of the Great Work.

I had attained Knowledge and Conversation with my Holy Guardian Angel, and based on the Dehn and Mathers translations of that awesome manuscript of Abramelin's legacy for his son, I figured the next most important thing to do after attaining K et C was to conjure up the demons of Hell and get them to serve me.

I figured the Lemegeton's Goetia was as good of a list of Hell's Minions as any other, so with conjuring all 72 in mind, I set out to master spirit conjure magic. Being a bit nervous about the whole "conjuring demons" thing, I started with the Archangels of the Planetary Spheres, and worked on getting the confidence and experience in spirit conjuration that I felt was necessary before diving into the fires of Hell. I think I took a good path for getting to Goety, all things considered.

But over the last month I've been working with some other magicians on an experiment involving planetary governors/intelligences/deities and the Mansions of the Moon. The things I've learned, though rudimentary at this stage, have completely and totally blown away all the things I've accomplished using the spirits of the Lem's Goetia. I've seen potentials in the last 28 days that indicate the whole "sub-lunar spirits" thing was a red herring, a needless exercise that has been interesting, useful for some situations, but ultimately not the best method available to accomplish the goals of Hermetic Magic.

How did this happen? I mean, honestly, in all humility, I'm a pretty bright guy. Especially at this magic thing. I've got a calling on me, a geas if you will. I'm downright doomed (see definition 1). I read through the Emerald Tablet, the Abramelin Rite, and the Lemegeton's Goetia, and I mixed them all together to come up with a system that let the magician accomplish everything on the Emerald Tablet in three easy steps:

1. Attain the Supernatural Assistant
2. Get initiated into the Seven Planetary Spheres
3. Start conjuring the demons and putting them to work creating the universe as you see fit

See? You rise to the heavens, you return to Earth in Power, and thus is the world created. I figured it had to be right, because the first thing you do in the Abramelin Rite after attaining Knowledge and Conversation is to conjure up the Four Kings of Hell and their minions. Makes sense, right?

Except for one little problem. See, Abraham the Jew gave his son Lamech the Abramelin ritual because he couldn't give him the KBL.

That's pretty obvious to anyone who reads the manuscript, but I never stopped to think about what it means. It means the "Sacred Magic" of Abramelin was the second best method of using the mysteries of the universe and God's revelation/emanation to get ahead in life. The Sacred Magic of Abramelin is like a hammer and saw and a pile of nails. You gather the wood you need, and you can throw up a tree house or a deck, or whatever you might need that you can pound out in a couple of afternoons.

The more you do it, the better the results will be, and over time you'll be a first-rate carpenter. And there's nothing wrong with that. There are awesome things that carpenters can build. One of my favorite guys in all of history was raised by a carpenter, in fact. Carpentry is pretty frickin' awesome, when you think about it. It's relatively easy, relatively inexpensive, and the better you get, the more super-sweet things you can do with it. It's always been a dream of mine to have a wood-working shop with everything I need to make inlaid exotic wood crafts that are functional and beautiful.

Working with the Lem's Goetia spirits appealed to my Taurean pragmatism. It was relatively simple, and super effective. Sure, you never seem to end up with exactly what you want, but you always get exactly what you ask for. Is there a better magic for a pragmatist with a core philosophy of "The end justifies the means?"

But the Great Work of the Emerald Tablet and the Corpus Hermeticum isn't carpentry. It's architecture. You aren't building a treehouse, or a garage, or a set of fine cabinets, you're building the Ideal City.

It's not a back-yard gazebo.

In the Divine Pymander, the process of accomplishing the Great Work is laid out pretty clearly. You ascend through the Heavens on your way to reclaiming your divine race and eternal value. Along the way, you gain initiations, integrate powers, learn to fit in with the Divine Plan, and you leave behind the attitudes and habits of the material realm that keep you from fully being that which you secretly, occult-ly already are.

Then, apparently, you get to the good stuff. You start learning things from the spirits that are beyond the things of this world. You know how with the Angels and Spirits of the Planets, you learn the herbs and stones and animal parts and plant parts to include in what amount to mojo bags? And how you learn to make talismans according to the astrological timing and all that? It's awesome, truly cool to be able to make magical things. It's an essential part of the Work, imo. It gives you a complete tool set to do stuff with stuff to make stuff happen.

But when you get to the Eighth Sphere, my God, it's a whole new ball game! The Hymns of Silence are exactly that. In the rituals and rites of the Seven Planetary spheres and the lower realms, you speak and commune and direct, you mix and mingle and create talismans and tools and things. But in the Eighth, you intend and things happen. I've learned there are forces released when you make a physical movement with a specific intent empowered by teachings from certain spirits at certain times, and the world just bends a little bit.

And you're always singing, but without words, without melody, without harmony, but you're in perfect harmony at the same time. You're doing it right now, in fact. It's what is meant by Willing a thing to Be.

There are no limits to the extent of what can be accomplished, I believe. All the super mystical powers of the adepts that seem so cool are right there, just waiting to be tapped. It's an awareness shift, sort of, but at the same time it's an initiation, and also a ritual, in a way.

But it takes a fuckload of practice, training, and more practice, and attunement, and more practice, and did I mention practice? But it's not practice like conjuring spirits is practice. I had a dream, learned a technique, and applied it consistently from the morning I woke to this very day. It didn't take long, but it's a lot like learning to wiggle your ears or arch one eyebrow when you don't have the genetic predisposition for such things. To unlock the rest, I need time, and peace, and patience. I need both feet on the ground.

And the thing is, it's all right there in the Divine Pymander. The Goety doesn't get mentioned. The Hermetic path has room for Goety, and frankly it's a damned useful set of tools to have in a pinch. But I don't think we're in the pinches we think we're in as often as we think we are.We don't need Goety.

I think the Supernatural Assistant or Holy Guardian Angel is still a vital part of a Hermetic Magician's arsenal. It makes a way through to spirits that are essential to your attainment. It's the Silver Key, the Gate, and the Lock that keeps the eldritch nasties we run into in the Work at bay. In that sense, the Abramelin rite is not a wrong at all. There is nothing whatsoever useless in attaining knowledge and conversation, I still firmly believe it's a necessary step.

But the demons of hell... they're a useful set of tools, and as Solomon demonstrated, they can be worked with to accomplish Holy Goals and Ambitions. But there are other methods that don't have the bite that comes with the demons of hell. I'm torn now, frankly because Goety is addictive. It's almost instantly gratifying, and is totally fun to do. But I've also learned you never get exactly what you want or need, even when you get exactly what you ask for. It's really powerful for affecting manifest reality in majorly awesome ways... but it hurts.

There's a story of this guy who picked up a kid hitchiking home from the local fishing hole. The kid had a ton of fish, huge bass and trout. He looked kind of tired and pale, so the guy offered him a ride. He asked the kid his secret for catching all those fish, and the kid said the trick was some special fat worms he found. They bit, he said, but he'd found a nest of them and kept going back to get more after he started landing the big fish. They were little and had a funny tail. The fish couldn't get enough of them.

It turned out the kid had been using baby rattlesnakes to catch fish. Every time he grabbed one, he got bit, and the poison slowly accumulated in his body. In the story, the kid dies in the pickup with the biggest haul of fish he'd ever caught.

I don't think Abraham would have left his son something as bad as a pit of baby rattlers, but I no longer think the Lemegeton's spirits are the best option for Hermetic Magicians, no matter how big the fish you catch might be. Maybe if I'd stuck with the Demon Kings that were depicted in the Dehn translation, things would have gone better. I don't know.

But the spirits of the Lem's Goetia are still very useful, and maybe someone might figure out the trick to handling them without getting bit. I thought I had it, and I know my HGA kept the worst of the potential evils at bay, and my initiations into the spheres helped shield me a lot, but in spite of the hundreds of thousands of dollars I received, in spite of the exorcism skills I picked up, there was always something wrong in the manifestation that sucked away the results before I could put them to proper use.

And it could just be my poor money management skills, and laziness in general. I haven't counted that out. And there's never been an Ideal City built that didn't need carpenters at some point in the process. So I'm not exactly sure whether Goety is a red herring after all. There's too much benefit I've received to say the whole thing is a waste of time.

But I can tell you this: there is a better way.

On Piracy

Piracy may, as Gordon says, be a driving force of goodness and innovation. In general. And that's fine. But it sucks to be kidnapped, murdered, robbed, and pillaged, and it always has. That's why piracy is illegal.

Copyright laws are structured so that you can't steal a work for roughly the amount of time that it takes for a piece of information to become stale. That's fair.

All my works are covered under a thick and noxious cloud of curses aimed at any would-be pirateers. Anyone pirating my shit is cursed and will remain so until they click the restitution button over on the right.

Think of it as the merchant vessel bearing arms for its defense.

Note: the curses are specifically triggered by anyone uploading my work to a torrent. If you don't do that, you're fine. That means gifting them around to a few select friends is acceptable, within reason. I'd rather you didn't give them to your coven or lodge without, you know, asking me. I have given my permission for that kind of thing in the past. I'll even make myself available to answer questions about the stuff. Low low rates.

But steal my shit, and you're in for it.

Still focused on moving....

My primary focus is still on moving, sorry for the continued hiatus. It's amazing how many things can take so much longer than anticipated with this shit. Still, I've been extraordinarily lucky throughout the process, and I can't thank God and his emanated spirits enough.

I got a report of the kinds of shit my HGA and other spirits I've been working with over the last few years have deflected over the last week, and it's incredible.Some day I'm going to write a book on the most powerful "blood magic" available to Christian magicians that will explain the empowerment of the ultimate defensive sphere that requires no upkeep and runs on pure Love of God. It will go over like a lead balloon among certain circles, I'm sure, but it is what it is, and it is wonder-full.

Back to work for me! Continue the work in my absence, I'm telling you, no matter what physical or spiritual forces we fight against consciously or unconsciously, every conjuration you do today will continue to pay you back in the years to come! Spirits you think of as a knock-off, one time conjuration for info only will be there to protect your ass when you don't even know what they're up to when you need them the most. Every ritual you do is valuable, useful, and has life-long influence that ripples outward through time and space to be exactly what you need, exactly when you need it. Eventually.