Divination Post over at Gordon's Rune Soup

Ahoy me hearties!

Behold, the Spirit moveth upon the Waters, and yea do ripples move across the surface, hinting at currents stirred up beneath.

Today's Rune Soup is a good read. Remember this post about the decade-ish long recession cycle? Bear that in mind when you read about what he's talking about.

If I forget to mention it...

Happy Thanksgiving Day to everyone celebrating it tomorrow.

I am thankful for my blog readers, every beautiful one of you.

So, THANKS!

Now, back to the housecleaningcurtainhangingfurnituredustingbathroomscrubbingandsweepmoppery that must be done before we begin the piebakingcookiemakingsidedishpreparingcheeseandveggietraymakingcaserolebakinglastminutetripstothestoreforthingsIforgotstivities.

Last chance for discounted courses

Tonight's the night the course prices revert to normal. You've got until 11:59:59 EST tonight to get the 20% discount.

MANSPELL!!!

Do the awesome accomplishments of other magicians leave you feeling ... inferior?

MANSPELL can make that feeling go away! For only $199.95, you too can feel like a MAN.

The MANSPELL kit comes complete with two stone spheres that are oddly comforting to hold, a roll of duct tape, and absolutely no directions.

Cluster posting

Once upon a time, RO had a lot of time on his hands to post and set up posts on his blog in a way that brought a steady diet of ideas and interests he wanted to share to his audience. Then he got really busy, and these days writes a ton of posts in a morning and then nothing else for a week.

Uh, anyway, I can't set them up to post sequentially like I used to from work, and I want to get stuff posted before I run out of time or forget, so sorry about the post clustering. As I adapt to my latest circumstances, I'm sure things will get back to a more even keel.

The Elements

I think writing the Red Work Series of Courses has been the best thing I've ever done in my life. As I go back over the things I've learned so far and try to find a way to put it into meaningful words, I keep on finding all these cool things I picked up and forgot about over the years. It's so cool.

I'm writing the Elemental Hierarchy lesson for the Black Work course now, and it's amazing. Things I thought I understood years ago are making so much more sense now when I go back over them from my current perspective. Agrippa writes about things that are fascinating after you've been initiated into the Spheres and spent some time Working with the things he talks about, but until you have, it's boring, complicated, and confusing. So much of his writing is referential to the actual experiences of a magician that I have no doubt that he was a practitioner and not just an occult journalist. His detailed understanding of how things work in the occult arts can only be explained by direct experience.

The first time I read through his stuff on the Elements, in the First Book of Occult Philosophy, chapters ... uh, three through nine, I just didn't get it. I understood the words, and I thought I grasped the concepts. I could read a correspondence table and understand the implications and the logic behind the linkages between things, but I didn't have that gnosis, that knowledge that comes from experience to make it all really click.

After actually experiencing the three levels of the elemental spheres, the cardinal, fixed, and mutable aspects of each element, it makes perfect sense. Gates, Forces, and Manifestations. It took me years to understand what Agrippa says so plainly. It's like someone says, "Put slot A in tab B," it's simple instructions, but until you understand tabs and slots, you won't understand what he's saying. But now I get it. Neat stuff, really neat stuff.

Anyway, for those like me going through this Great Work thing on their own, read, apply, and then go back and re-read is my advice. Helps put things into perspective a lot. I keep finding myself saying, "Oh, THAT'S what he was talking about!" as I go back over the basics.

Hermetic Checkup

Someone asked if there was a lighter version of the Hermetic Diagnosis available for those who didn't want to do the full diagnostic, something more affordable and at a higher level.

Sure, why not? The point is to help people.

Hermetic Checkup - A quick divination and consultation with the Powers That Be on your behalf. Can be a general status update or specifically about a single aspect of your life. $25.

I'll have to update the web page later, but for now if you're interested, just select Hermetic Diagnosis and when I get in touch with you, I'll ask if you want the full diagnosis or the checkup.

The link to the services is over on the right at the top of the blog page, or you can click this link to get to the order page.

Hermetic Economic Forecast

Ok, take a look at THIS LINK showing the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1900 through 2010. Then click the little links towards the bottom of the page that shows the time period in 20-year increments. Look at what happens every single decade. Towards the beginning, a big dip, followed by a slow recovery, followed by a climb for the last half of the decade, and then another crash, correction, recession, depression, whatever. Then slow recovery, rapid growth, correction/crash, slow growth, rapid growth, correction/crash, slow growth and so on and so forth.

Pretty much.*

Ok? Every 10 years. This ain't rocket science. Our ancestors could figure out the astrological timing of the stars to set up neat tricks with the lighting and architecture of major massive monuments, right? You think economists could look at one simple graph and see that things are going along the same way they have as long as we've been keeping records?

Meh.

Anyway, folks, as summer follows spring, and winter follows autumn, so also will growth continue to be slow until around 2015-2016, at which point things will get better faster, especially for those who have prepared themselves to be in a position to invest when things start picking up. Invest heavily around 2015, start selling off the riskier stuff in 2017, pull out of the market by 2018, and then get back in when things are at the bottom. There's not better time to have a lot of money than when the economy is bad. You get such deals on everything. Minions that cost $125k a couple years ago are going for $70k and no benefits now. And they're working harder because they know they're LUCKY to even have a job.

Think of your financial lifecycle as a farm. You start out with a few seeds, plant them, harvest them, sell a lot of the produce, but keep as many of the seeds for the next year's crop as you can plant and take care of. Each year, plant, grow, harvest, and save. This is the time you build up your seed stores, and then when it's time to invest, you'll have plenty of seed money. Sock it away now in savings, only take sure bets, and work your tail off for meager profits that go right into savings for when it's time to invest heavily. The more you've got on hand to put into the market in five years, the better.

Cycles, harmony, passive observation and working with the currents to strategically get ahead. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Pause. IHVH. Get to work.

* "Pretty Much" means that yeah, there are exceptions, and it's not exact, but I mean, come one, it's close enough to be a good indicator, you know? Generally speaking.

The Witch Doctor

I get it. I know why they call them Witch Doctors and Root Doctors. You're giving the person a checkup, an evaluation based on years of specialized training that have required a great deal of education and various degrees of pain, and then, if there's anything wrong in the areas you've specialized in, you offer a diagnosis, a treatment, or a cure for what ails them.

It's just like going to the doctor.

Hippocrates was a contemporary of Plato, who called him an Asclepiad, which could mean a follower of Asclepius, god of healing, or it could have just meant he was a healer like Asclepis was a healer. The practices of Hippocrates were neat. They preferred to let the body heal itself, and they focused on the humors of the body, which were based on the four elements. He believed that the body had the ability to harmonize its own humors, and let the body do so. He taught passive treatment for most ailments, and developed the phases of disease still followed today. Crisis and relapse are based on his observations that diseases followed a pattern, and the crisis point happened a set number of days after the ailment began.

Neat stuff. Very in theme with Hermetic Magic and the application thereof. Modern magicians are fascinated by Science and the exploration of the Natural World, but perhaps we'd find more and better harmony in the medical field than in astronomy or physics. I mean, Physicists don't even take an Oath before beginning their practices. Medicine is obviously closer to a Mystery Tradition or secret lodge in that regard.

"Applied Hermetics" is what one person suggested, and that sounds about right as an adjective. I'd rather have a proper noun, a title that described what we do. Asclepiad, the healer was called. Hermesthetician, I thought was closest. Well, whatever. I don't know. Mage, diviner, shaman, therapist, conjurer, herbal treatment recommender, talisman smith, emissary to the divine and sub-divine realms, balancer of elemental disproportions, lifter of curses, exorcist, psalmist, hexencrafter, fixer, whatever you want to call me, that's what I do these days. All the things the spirits of the Goetia were supposed to grant one the powers to do. Odd, eh? But interesting.

It seems Hermetic Magic is the spiritual medicine of the West.

Dragon Art

My son drew this: 

I'm beamish.

Hey Writers

Ever wish you had a really simple old-school text interface tool that you could use to write a chunk of text without any distraction? Trying to recreate that late-eighties mood for your latest writing project, but you can't fine a copy of WordStar anywhere?

Check THIS out.

I love this stuff. Brought to me by Life Hacker, a link I'm sure most of you visit, and especially Jason and Gordon have probably shared it on more than one occasion. I know Jason was into using the term Life Hacking for what it is he does and teaches for a while. Thoughts on what to call magic had reminded me of that, and a google search later turned up pages of useful interesting tips and tricks. Love it.

hmmmm... what to call it, what to call it...

Hermetic ... counseling... no, therapy, ah, no... rehab?

scratch all that...

hermes... toth... ape chaser? heh. no, tothic engineering, tothtastic thotherapy, thothic analysis, thothity thoth thoth... sheesh. forget thoth.

hermes, hermetic counseling, hermetic doctor, hermengineering, hermeticology? hermeticologists! LOL. "We're here to audit your spheres and bring clearness... To yo bank account!"

Ok, no. c'mon focus here. Hermetic shamanism? nah. Hermesthetics? Hermestheticians? probably the best one, but who'd be able to pronounce it? aesthetics are what magic is all about. remind me to write that art-magic post some time in response to VVF.

crap! how the fuck do you come up with something like this. ahhh, forget it. It's just hermetics anyway. hermetic practice. The implementation of hermetic doctrine, the result of hermetic magic, the Great Work on the field of play. What do you call that? What do you call someone who does that, and applies the related disciplines to the lives of others?

Oh yeah... a magician.

204 Followers? This calls for a Celebration!

Hey everyone, I broke the 200 mark for followers through Google's blogger follower thing while I was all distracted from my beautiful blog. That's in addition to the 388 subscribers through the Feedburner thing. I think. Maybe there's some cross over though. I dunno.

But officially passing 200 followers for the blog is a big thing for me, so to celebrate I'm going to offer a 20% discount on the Red Work Series of Courses.

The discount will last between right now and next Tuesday. All orders must be received no later than 11:59:59 PM EST on Tuesday, 11/23/2010 to qualify for the discount.

Click THIS LINK to get the discounted price. I updated the buy now buttons for both Google Checkout (my preferred method of taking payments) and on PayPal (everyone else's preferred method of making payments). The prices shown on the Courses page include the discount. I'll be reverting to the regular page and regular prices after the 23rd.

There is a Crack in Everything...

That's how the Light gets in...

Ok, so you know how the final stage of the Great Work is Projection, right? After you've made the Philosopher's Stone, you're not finished with the Great Work until you've taken the stone, ground it up or distilled it down, and then started using it to provide longevity, cure ills, and generally increase the purity of the world. That's the true goal of the Great Work: To Make the World a Better Place.

Personally, I think the The Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist sums up where we end up as we progress in the Work pretty well.

"I am the headless daimon with sight in my feet; I am the mighty one who possesses the immortal fire; I am the truth who hates the fact that unjust deeds are done in the world; I am the one who makes the lightning flash and the thunder roll. I am the one whose sweat falls upon the earth so that it can inseminate it; I am the one whose mouth burns completely; I am the one who begets and destroys; I am the Favor of the Aion; my name is a heart encircled by a serpent; come forth and follow."

Now, many of you know I can't stand a lot of the parts of existence. I'm sure there are things you can't stand too. Some forms of hatred can be noble. The hatred of evil, like racism, torture, and tyranny. The hatred of ignorance. The hatred of the idiots we share the road with.

In the Stele, it's presented as hatred of the fact that unjust deeds are done in the world.

I just realized the path of the statement above traces a spiral on the Kircher Tree of Life. Starting at Immortal Fire in Tiphareth, the Sun, you then hit hatred of injustice in Geburah/Mars, thunder and lightning in Chesed/Jupiter, inseminating sweat in Netzach/Venus, the burning mouth of enflamed prayer and energetic communication in Hod/Mercury, the begetting and destroying or waxing and waning of Yesod/The Moon, and ending in the Favor (or Fortuna, Fate) of the Aion in Binah/Saturn. And then you've got the Heart encircled by a Serpent.

Interesting little things like that are neat. I don't know if it means anything, it's pure speculation and observation of possibly related things. Pretty cool though.

Anyway, everything's cracked. Look around, and there's a ton of shit to hate, plenty of opportunities to see things that could use improvement. Calvinsim, my favortie brand of Christianity, explains it all with the Total Corruption of the manifest world. I think that's pretty harsh, personally. I don't think all of existence fundamentally sucks. I've been high on a mountain in Colorado too many times to think existence itself is fundamentally flawed. It's just too beautiful to be basically broken.

But it needs to be managed better. Who among us hasn't thought, "If there is a God, he's fucked UP to create an existence like this!" I mean, all of us hit that point sooner or later. Those of us who do the Hermetic Work of getting through the spheres get a somewhat more useful understanding of the Fucked Up nature of existence. Shit's mostly fucked up because PEOPLE have forgotten Who they Are, Where they Came From, and Why They're Here. So no one is making sure things work out the way they're supposed to.

Humans are part of the hierarchy of entities who have a role to play in the manifestation of all that is. As we progress through the Spheres, receiving initiations and getting the powers of each integrated into our daily lives, we are able to see the process of manifestation and how things could work better. Being in the World, the realm of the Spiritus Mundi, we have an insight into the way things feel when they actually get here that the spirits of the higher planes don't necessarily have. We can finesse and finagle the final stages of the waxing and waning of manifestation here on Earth. We can do the Right Action at the Right Time to inseminate the world with our sweat, because we've seen the Visions of the Spheres, met the entities that manage manifestation, and can provide feedback from "in the field" to our co workers further "up" the chain of manifestation.

Our "Charge to the spirit" phase of conjuration is the part of the rites where we provide feedback from on the ground. A fully initiated, consciously aware human can be on the scene painting the target with the laser beam that guides the laser missle to the right target at the right time. We need finances, so we do a rite, but we tell the spirits not only what we want, in amounts, but how we want it to manifest because we can see it, we can feel it.

All those gifts we get in the spheres, the psychic powers to do remote viewing, or psychometry, all that stuff is there for a reason, and it's not entertainment. We're supposed to develop those things so we can participate in the creation of the world more fully. You scan an object to get more information in how to direct forces to fix the cracks where they appear. You use the favor of Kings to change political policies that are unjust. You use the health and longevity to accomplish long-term goals that take years to complete. Every gift or power received from your initiations into the spheres is given to you so that you can do your job. The results of the purification and transformation is a being, a human being who can coordinate the forces of the manifest and unmanifest realms to create a complete and better world.

That's what Projection is all about. You take the cracks, and project the Light into it and make it better, a cleaner, more just, more empowered, more harmonious version of what it was, closer to the Idea that spawned it.

Man's awareness of "shit that sucks" is a tool to be used, an indicator, the same way pain is an indicator that something's wrong with the bodies we live in while alive. Magicians end up with very acute senses of things that are right and wrong.

Which can suck terribly when you're not doing regular magic. I'm thinking now of Jow's recent post about sharpening the tools but not using them. He mentioned that irritation that builds up when you're always doing the maintenance, but you're not using the techs or forces you're conjuring up to do anything.  We get angsty and irritable, bored and annoyed.

When you get those feelings, do what Jow did, recognize it for what it is and figure out something you should be doing. If you can't think of anything, here are some suggestions:

• Figure out what your major obstacles in life are. What's blocking your ability to accomplish your goals? Once you've got a list, ritually destroy them with a little gunpowder rite. KABOOM is a magic word.
• Do some strategic Sorcery. Figure out what you want, and then break it down into phases, and then into specific steps. Do the magic for each step, cover your bases, and see how it works out.
• Politics always offers good targets for working out injustices. Somewhere near you, right now, there is a corrupt official waiting to be exposed.
• Social causes: racism, gender/sexual orientation discrimination, bullying in general, there are all kinds of things you could focus on in the daily news. 

For the more patient, compassionate, and wise among us (don't know how close I qualify on this, but... sigh, here it is anyway), there's also what I think of to myself as "Hermetic Counseling."

One of the things I've learned over the years of doing magic is that the insight I've gained through the Great Work makes other people's problems, and the solutions, pretty easy to figure out. I'm too emotionally attached to myself to regularly be able to solve my own issues, but when it comes to others, I'm spot on.

The Work provides us with not only the wisdom and insight to identify people's problems, but also access to the forces that manifest reality so we can change people's lives. Not everyone is called to be a magician, and those of us who are (who are also gifted with the ability to stand listening to other people's problems) are in a position where we can actually help people in more esoteric ways to have a better life.

This is not for everyone, and should come with lots of caveats, because really, most people aren't equipped to help others out until they've done some serious work on themselves. It takes years of Work and refinement to be able to help people, and to know when you can't, no matter what.

But we can conjure the Geniuses of the clients' natal charts and just ask them what's going on, we can bind the Evil Daimons who are bringing challenges to them, we can direct the ministries of the Spirits on behalf of those who need it. It's like the Sorcery for Hire stuff a lot of us already do, but it's more objective. We won't necessarily do only what the client asks, we'll also do what the spirits and our experiences and insights indicate needs to be done for them. We'll divine the true causes of their suffering, and take appropriate action on their behalf.

This particular effort comes with a lot of dangers, though. A lot of us (self included ) can be blind to our own ignorance, and with the best intentions in the world, completely fuck someone else up. If we lack the discipline to perform divinations regularly, to see past the dollar signs to the things that really need to be done, we're not ready to help others regularly. Offer sage advice, but include the warning that you could be wrong. Offer to do magic you think is right for the client, but don't just do it all willy-nilly. If you think something is good for someone, but also suspect they'd fail if they tried it out where they are right now, don't push them into it anyway with the assumption that the fires released that consume their lives will also refine them enough to take the next step on their own. Sometimes when people's lives are consumed in a refining fire, they just quit while their lives are still in ashes because they weren't ready to face the issues you've tried to deal with for them. You can seriously fuck some shit up.

But really, this is the kind of thing a magician is best equipped to do. Fill in the cracks. Make the world a better place. Help one another.

Jesus, it sounds so ... nice. And really, it is. For those who are more into magic to get rich, get ahead, or whatever, all I can say is that urge to acquire and advance is a really good thing, but I've personally found that the only way to consistently assuage that urge is to use your magic to make the world a better place. That includes getting rich and meeting your personal ambitions, because then you're in a better position to use your knowledge and skills effectively. Those who conjure spirits to get in good with local politicians and leaders will be in better positions to help communities struggling with poverty and crime. Those who conjure up their soul mate will have their emotional and sexual needs met, and have all that time they would otherwise spend pursuing gratification free to put to proper work.

And the Work we do is the most fulfilling thing we can do in life. It's pretty awesome.

Blog, beautiful blog...

How I've missed you! I haven't been able to blog regularly in weeks. It's killing me.

This too shall pass.

In the mean time, let's all pretend I'm writing really deep and insightful blog posts about really interesting things.

Piracy is bad. Bad Pirates.

Piracy is really bad and no one should be a freaking pirate. Zombie Pirates are even worse. Arr.

Teh Army of TEH DEAAAAD

Halloween came and went, and I didn't conjure up my spirit pot of deadites as planned. I got tired and went to sleep instead. I was rawther disappointed with myself, but I am a loving and forgiving self, and have absolved myself of all remorse. Some day I'll get around to it, on a smaller scale though. The plan is to subject the nepheshim to a series of alchemical processes, using the spirit remains as the Prima Materia, and seeing what I end up with after walking them through a series of consecrations and purifications in each of the Spheres.

I figure there are two possible outcomes:

1. An awesome and powerful spirit assistant with a well-rounded set of skills, and the human empathy to be able to accomplish some tasks with a little more focus on what I want instead of what I say.

2. The dissolution and reabsorption of the spirit's essence into the Prima Materia, cause it's mortal and should have returned to the dust it was formed from.

er...

Three! Three possible outcomes.

3. Something unanticipated entirely.

But for now, time is at a premium and I don't have much to spare. When I get some, I'm usually sleeping the sleep of the overworked and underpayed, and that's ok right now. So this project is back-burnered until further notice, though anyone interested in performing it themselves is welcome to, of course, and I'd love to correspond about the results as time permits. And I'm only telling you about it because a couple someones asked. Otherwise I'd merrily move along and forget I'd mentioned it until I got back to it.

Like those Shem angels I'd planned on Working through 4 years ago.

Can anyone remember recently reading or writing...

Someone in the blogosphere posted something about why we got into magic in the first place, and how magic turned out to be something different than what we expected, but what it really turned out to be was freaking awesome so we stuck with it anyway.

That might not be the exact words, but that's how I remember it. I can't find the freaking post though, and I'd love to link to it (and re-read the post because now I think I'm mis-remembering it altogether and I want to verify the context, and see how the author put it together and all that).


Does anyone remember reading something like that recently, or writing something along those lines? A link in the comments would be much appreciated.