Thursday, October 17, 2013

4th Pentacle of Jupiter Update

Heh, dug up an old pic of my first attempt at making a talisman of Bariel from back in the day! I can see some errors in it now, but all things considered, not bad!

As you may recall, with Jupiter being all up in Cancer, I'm selling the 4th Pentacles of Jupiter, made to spec per the Clavicles of ol Solomon himself. I took a bunch of pre-orders, and I was trying to find a way to make them using the lost-wax casting method.

After months of failure in getting a decent model to use, I decided that rather than keep people waiting, I'd just make the talismans manually and get them shipped out. They have been turning out pretty well, I must say. I'm able to make two to three per planetary day, and as of today I am all caught up on back orders. I've got a couple to ship out to Australia sitting next to me, and as soon as I finish this post, I'll be heading to the post office.

I'm smithing the talisman blanks, then engraving them, consecrating them, blessing them as Flamen Dialis, and shipping them out with a hardcopy of the Talisman Maintenance and Operations Manual. And I've been signing those too, for fun. I conjure Tzadkiel and Bariel, don my Gents for Jupiter ring, and work under the auspices of these spirits and powers while I create, engrave, and consecrate these things. I confess to feeling a little high when I'm done throwing a hammer around for an hour, and these talismans are humming with power by the time I'm done with them.

I'm raising the price to $215 on these going forward, due to the increased workmanship involved. I think they're still totally worth it. If you agree, jump on board and order one while you can. Jupiter won't be in Cancer forever.



Wednesday, October 16, 2013

RO's Astrology Page Published!

Ok, so you know I put a lot of emphasis on astrological influences, and especially on the thinned veil that is beneficial when you conjure a spirit in its planetary hour on its planetary day. It's been super-effective for me, and I have a whole system based on planetary hours that I used to, ahem, create the philosopher's stone, and accomplish the Great Work.

Yeah, ahem, that.

What you may not know is that I spent a few hundred bucks on a software program that has every bell and every whistle necessary to create the awesome talismans I sell over at my Products web page*. That program has already paid for itself, and I have no regrets.

I use it to generate Genius and Evil Daimon names, mostly, for various elections. When I want something to go really well, I'll generate a chart based on when it started and make offerings and otherwise empower the Genius of the moment to encourage the desired outcome.

Likewise, for things I want to fail, I'll do the same for the Evil Daimon. Because fuck the shit I want to fail. Fuck it right up the ass with no lube.

The software comes with all kinds of perks that I don't regularly use though. These include interpretation reports that are based on modern astrology methods, and cool looking charts. These reports and charts are not as useful or weighty as the kind of thing you'd get from a professional astrologer. My current favorite pros are Austin Coppock and Christopher Warnock. If you want a detailed analysis of your personal chart, go see those guys.

But if you just want a fun and quick look at the highlights of your chart, I've got this software that generates it automagically. So I'm offering you the output of the program, at $35 per chart. You can select the chart graphic you want from my page, and you'll get a 22-25 page interpretation of the election you give me. It's mostly for interesting/entertaining purposes, though I've found it pretty useful myself. I'd still totally recommend going with a professional human, but if you've got an extra $35 you can spare on a quick and easy automated interpretation of your life, it's worth it.

So if you're interested, CLICK THIS LINK and pick a chart graphic, and I'll send you the interpretation file this software package generates. Totally affordable, totally interesting. Totally worth it.

* Note, when the text is red, or when you hover over the text and it turns into a hand icon, you can CLICK THE LINK to see what cool stuff I'm pasting a link to. For your benefit, and my profit. That's how it works. Links on my site are RED until you visit them.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Faith, Hope, and Love

It's no wonder you're a cynic, after all.

Things start going badly early.

The first thing to go is Faith. Parents fuck it up by telling kids things will be a certain way, and then reneging on it. We'll have ice cream if you're good, I'll get it for your birthday, next time, sweety, yes I'll be there when you need me, no, I won't get mad, I'll be done in a minute...

Then it's society. In school, we get punished by the authorities for other people's mistakes from an early age. Sometimes it's Johnny who didn't bring in his slip, so the ice cream party is cancelled, other times Suzy puts the tack on the teacher's chair, and he blames you. We see the police beating the people they are supposed to protect, we see the military bombing civilians, and reports of governments abusing their people, and we realize that yes, that can happen to us, and we are unsafe in our own lands because our own protectors are thugs with guns and clubs itching to use them because they are animals at best, and more often, simply monsters in human form.

And with that often falls our faith in divinity. The priests and pastors who teach a loving, righteous, just god, who also tell you you're going to hell for having sex while they themselves are pederasts. They craft anti-gay legislation, appealing to their conservative base during the day, and hire underage male prostitutes for rough trade at night. They exhort you to give for the poor, and drive convertibles and wear $900 suits. And inevitably, they are revealed to be white-washed sepulchres, having the appearance of cleanliness on the outside, yet stinking of death and corruption within.

As the faith goes, you learn to lean instead on Hope. You can't trust anyone, but you can at least build something better for yourself. As soon as you can, you'll build your own life, within the confines of the hypocrites' societal bars, sure, but you'll find a way to make it right. You'll establish your own home, a base of operations, and from there you'll change the world! And you'll find others like yourself, others who have been betrayed, but are sick of the betrayal and will live honorably to correct the wrongs that were done to them...

But first you need a job, and you can't have the job you want because you don't have the experience. You have to earn your way up. And earning your way up the food chain means learning your place. And learning your place means you understand there is always someone better than you who you'll report to, and you'll see how hard it is to get what you want, and how quickly everyone is willing to turn on one another for a promotion, for cash, so they can maybe get a leg up on their retirement plan, because they know they can't be happy while they're young, and the last chance at a little joy in life before they die is if they manage to save enough to live out their days on before their bodies fall apart.

And the system you've got to work with, it's so fucking rigged. The elite at the top are in power because they were born to it, and you see it, and you know it. There's a sham system of equality and a social lie that anyone can become rich if they just work hard enough, long enough. Meanwhile it's the same oligarchy that's ruled the empire since Rome, small families that control the land, the resources, the finances, and the power, and they and their armed forces keep 90%, leaving the plebes to scramble and fight over the other 10%. And you see this, and you know that if you won, you'd still only be winning a meager slice of the pie, and you'd be as well off as the folks who don't even try, really, so fuck it.

And as hope dies, we are left with Love. Ah, Love! In our idea of Love are mingled the last residual dregs of Faith and Hope. We can't trust people to do what they say, and we can't hope that anything will change or get better, but maybe that's true of the majority of people, and the majority of the areas of our lives that generally suck, but somewhere out there is that one person who loves us, our soul mate, the person we can actually trust to put us above themselves, the person we can build toward our dreams with, the person who will also suffer the trials and tribulations of the world, but will be there to suffer through it with us, together, a united front!

And we fall in love, and we learn it again, that we cannot have Faith in anyone, because people lie to get what they want. We cannot hope for a better future, because even our lovers will leave us to fend for ourselves, after cheating on us, after convincing us to trust them. The people we yearn to be closest to abuse us, denigrate us, hate us, and we stay with them as long as we can stand it, changing and adapting ourselves to fit together with their damage until at last there is no faith, no hope, and no love, and we are alone in a world dominated by a system designed to keep itself alive by devouring you.

Yeah. No wonder you're a cynic.

But...

However...

And yet, still...

Here you are, reading a blog post about Faith, Hope and Love. A post written by a guy who honestly believes that in spite of all the shit outlined above, things can get better. Because it worked for him.

Why are you here?

Because once in a while you're awake at dawn, and you just happen to be in a place where you can see the sun rising in majestically over the land where you happen to be. Maybe it's a misty valley, or a sunrise over the ocean, or the dawn over the skyline of the city, and you smell the crisp air, and you feel the heat of the rays of the sun, knowing they're already 9 minutes old, scattering as they bounce off you, and the air, and the dirt under your feet, and the trees that are eating those rays after their 93 million mile journey to you, and you feel something stir, deep, deep down inside you.

And the truth is, you damned dreamer, you never lost any of it. Your Faith, your Hope, and your Love... they're still there inside you, and that bitterness, that anger, that angst that compels you to shit on people's happiness when it gets too bad, that's the echo of these three things still striving within you, trying to get out, looking for something to anchor to in this world that has crushed your dreams. 

And that's where it lies, the thing that you can trust, the thing you can hope to change your life for the better, the only person who can ever really love you, and the only person who deserves your love.

Deep inside you. Inside you. You. You. It's watching and processing events, it has no attachment to any of it. That all comes later. It sends signals out, and you build your life around these signals, feeding it the experiences that result from your attempts to find happiness.

Who is it? What is it? Why is it here? What does it want? Why does it Love? What does it Hope for? How can it still have Faith after all its seen?

Answer that, and you'll find the thing that fulfills every bit of Faith you have in it, manifests your every Hope, and returns your Love so fully you'll have more than enough left over to share with the weary world you find yourself in.

My answers, they came from Hermetics. That's the path I teach and preach. It works really well, for me, and for those like me. It cured my cynicism, healed my bitterness, and cast out all the pain and misanthropy I'd managed to accrue.

Well... most of the misanthropy. There are still far right conservatives that occasionally piss me right the fuck off. 

But these days it's because I happen to know for a fact that we can do better

Whosoever therefore shall know himself, shall know all things in himself; especially he shall know God, according to whose Image he was made; he shall know the world, the resemblance of which he beareth; he shall know all creatures, with which he Symbolizeth; and what comfort he can have and obtain, from Stones, Plants, Animals, Elements, Heavens, from Spirits, Angels, and every thing, and how all things may be fitted for all things, in their time, place, order, measure, proportion and Harmony, and can draw and bring to himself, even as a Loadstone Iron - Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book III, chapter 36

I've done better. I've seen others do better. It's not that hard.

It's a process. Love yourself, that's the first step, love yourself because you're amazing and the best you this planet's ever seen. From there you pick up a little hope, as you learn how awesome you really are. You're an image of God, you've got resources you never learned about, power you haven't tapped that people tied into the system can't imagine, let alone control. You can change things, and achieve the goals you hoped for. You're a representation of a divinity that can't fail the way others have failed you. You can have faith in your skills, faith that is proven in the results that come in as short a time period as two short weeks. It's not impossible.

It's quite simple, really.

Start here at this link with the Neo-Platonic Basics. If it makes sense to you, congrats, you're one of us, the elite, the folks who get to be magicians in the Hermetic Tradition.

And if it doesn't make sense, then by all frickin' means, find something else. Because you're beautiful, and you deserve better.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. - The Apostle Paul, I Corinthians 13: 12-13

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Web Site Updates!

I'm happy to announce that I've made some updates to the rufusopus.com web site. I'm getting things closer to being ready to roll out the ROpocalypse! Bwahahahaha!

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Crucible Convention 2013... Gonna be EPIC!

The final schedule has been posted for the 2013 Crucible Convention! I'll be speaking Saturday Night from 8:30-10:00 PM.

I'm really excited about this year's Crucible. One might even say I'm ecstatic about it. I've got things planned behind the scenes that will set about the full-scale launch of the ROpocalypse!

But that's not entirely your business. What IS your business is this:

Crucible is a freaking steal! It's only $35 to pre-register, or $40 at the door. That's incredible! I will never charge so little for tickets to see me speak in public, I guarantee.

And you aren't just seeing me. This year's lineup includes Jason Miller, Andrieh Vitimus, Maggi Seti, and a bunch of other folks. Jason and Maggi will be presenting different aspects of love and sex magic, Andrieh's going to be laying out the groundwork of Information Magic, and there's a whole world of awesome other stuff to pick from.

Jason Colwell, co-host of Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole will be moderating the Discussion Panels, which I will totally be participating in. One is about hexencraft, the other's about the things we do in our daily practice as awesome magicians. Jason C.'s got his own talk this year too, on Paranormal Investigation and Supernatural Self Defense, which should be pretty interesting with his years of experience in paranormal investigations.

Check out the full schedule at this link. Honestly, there's a huge buffet of experience to enjoy at Crucible. The Omnimancers put on an amazing conference, and they charge about 25% what it's worth, and make back almost what they put into it. This is totally a labor of love on Arthur's part.

The only difficulty with Crucible is picking who to go see. Fortunately you can order video of the presentations you miss. If we blow the doors off attendance, maybe next year we can talk Arthur into having two tracks over two days, eh? You'd pay $125 a ticket for that, wouldn't you? I would. I totally would.

So come on, folks, come and join me in Jersey. Witness the transformation of the frightened self-conscious geeky RO into the Magus of the ROpocalypse in person!

Er... well...

Something like that. I suspect there will still be some geekery remaining after the transformation.

Here's the blurb/outline of what I'm planning on talking about. If I get a vision from God, I promise it will all change, but this is the blurb/outline of my PowerPoint so far:

Nothing but AN EYE: The Mysteries of Ecstatic Hermetics

Taking the title from Aleister Crowley’s “Broomstick Babblings” in the Book of Lies as the theme, in this year’s R.O. Crucible experience the good Frater explores what EYE we secretly are, deep within, and the methods of opening that eye through the application of Ecstatic Hermetics.

Entertaining, practical, and hopefully life changing, RO’s presentation will cover the necessary framework, methods of passing within, and some of the things he’s picked up along the way. RO focuses on providing the practical techniques that most people can use to replicate the process and the experiences he’s been through, because it’s secretly the most fun he ever had in his life and the only thing he thinks is worth passing on to anyone else.

Included this year (unless everything changes):

  • Hermes and the ecstatic mysteries
  • Wielding the Wand: Mystery of the Caduceus
  • WTF is Drunken Magus Style?
  • The Funky Monkey
  • Skipping Witches and Hopping Toads

If all goes according to plan, we’ll wrap things up with an eye-opening conjuration, and hopefully, drinks at the bar.

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

PSA: Hate the Gov't Bullshit? Do Something About It

Curse the fuck out of 'em!


Also: VOTE.

I tend to vacillate between being "if you didn't vote, it's your fucking fault" and "if voting could change anything it would be illegal."

But... the only way you can choose whether to vote or not on election day is if you're registered. There are 1500 elections coming up, and the deadlines to register to vote in them are happening now. Here's a comprehensive list of VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINES BY STATE. Tick tick!

Also, if you need to register to vote... REGISTER TO VOTE. I'm registered in the Florida Pirate Party, of course.

The Importance of Personal Empowerment


One of the things I regularly forget to do that I really should not forget to do are my personal empowerment exercises. I'm not talking about affirmations here, I'm talking about the kinds of exercises that make me a more powerful magician.

The kind of magician who shoots fireballs out of his hands!*

But that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about much more practical magic. Like if someone has a loved one in a dangerous situation and needs help right now, it's not a good time to need to wait two weeks for a manifestation. I agree with Jason Miller's "Emergency magic is bad magic" point, but in real life, emergencies happen, and it's too late to start a year-long process of attaining Knowledge and Conversation with your Holy Guardian Angel when a kid needs help right frickin' now.

Hand-Engraved under
by the Flamen Dialis
I've noticed over the last year or so that I have managed to get some pretty amazing results on a pretty regular basis. I did a "Good luck on that" rite for a guy in Belgium, and the next day he won €2000 at the races. He turned around and put some of those funds right back into the Jupiter-Mercury Wealth talisman I'm offering. Wise choice, in my opinion. I think I'm under-charging for those.

Part of my increased success has been some initiatory stuff I went through when we did the Seven Spheres in Seven Days last year. That blew the doors off and prepared me to receive some major advancements. As soon as I finish the manuscript and get it over to Nephelim Press, I'll be selling a printed rewrite of the Gates Rites and having 6-week sessions that you can participate in, and you'll be able to see for yourself.

But mostly it's because now that I'm out of a bad relationship, I've got the attention to pay towards the thing that matters the most to me: my personal attainment, understanding, and empowerment. You know, the Great Work.

And it's a lot like working out. The more regularly I work out, the higher my metabolism gets. Even just 20 minutes of cardio a day and some weight training is enough to keep pushing my metabolism up, and making the pounds go down, and the body shape get closer to my ideal. I'm not killing myself here, I'm just doing some maintenance stuff that feels great to do, and it's awesome!

Also like working out, I target different muscle groups each time. I cycle through the planetary spheres regularly, especially while doing the Hermetic Diagnosis stuff for clients, but also just for myself. I look for weaknesses in each of the spheres, and spend time balancing thigns out so I'm a well-rounded magician, capable of noticing the forces at work in my life when they're spinning out of control. I noticed that as I've been working with Harper as the Seer** during our conjurations, I've slacked off in the Lunar sphere a bit when it comes to seeing the spirits for myself. Monday I spent some time going deeper into her Sphere, and got some key pieces of information and exercises to perform from the spirits themselves.

Note I'm not perfect at any of this stuff, and not as consistent as I'd like to be... which is another way this is like working out. I aim to work out daily, six days a week, but I only make it to the gym around four times a week most weeks. I try to cycle through each of the planetary spheres regularly, but I also get immersed in my writing, web site development, client work, and the stresses of daily life, just like everyone else, and miss the planetary hour, or am just wiped out by the time it rolls around again.

And I miss the rite, and then I suffer the consequences. Weird shit pops up in my sphere that I am not prepared to handle, and it takes a while to work through it materially, or to find a fast-acting spirit readily available, and then I'm stuck hiring out the local available mercenaries instead of using my custom selected crack team of commandos ... which can be great, if you know where to go, but still... not the ideal scenario.

So do the Work, Magi. Put together a regular routine of empowering rites. Conjure the spirits and intelligences, and go ahead, ask them to make you more powerful, more skillful, more adept at working with the forces they represent.

Those fireballs aren't going to shoot themselves.

* I can't do that yet, and I haven't met anyone who can. I've seen some videos of people who looked like they could do stuff like this, but you know... videos. Even if you want to believe it, you can't all the way. Even seeing it in person, I'd be skeptical. I've known too many magicians. Until I can do it myself at will, it will remain something I doubt can be done... But that doesn't mean I won't keep trying. Because fucking fireballs! Right?

** Harper's got a blog where she explores what it is to be a Seer. One of the main questions I get from students is "how do I hear/see the spirits?" Harper's experiences as a Seer are some of the most helpful lessons I've seen in learning to sense the influences of the spirits, and I encourage you to explore her posts for yourself.

Sunday, October 06, 2013

How to be a Christian AND a Magician

Well, first, you be a Christian... and then you also be a Magician.

I get asked all the time how I manage to reconcile my Christian faith with my practice of magic and Hermetics. I get asked by Christians who really want to do magic but have concerns about the whole "the Bible explicitly says not to do it" thing, and by pagans who can't stand the blatant Christianity in the grimoires. After announcing my affiliation with the OTO, I'm now being asked how I reconcile those two beliefs as well. I've been meaning to explain it in a blog post for a while, and I've finally got the time.

Basically, I'm able to reconcile Christianity and Hermetics because I took the time to learn what they both are. I studied Christian theology for a couple of years, Catholic and Protestant alike. I read Luther and Calvin. I actually know what the Bible says about things, and I understand the history of the formation of the Church. I read the Corpus Hermeticum, studied the formation of Hermetic beliefs, and explored the neo-platonic framework of the systems of magic we use.

People who have a problem reconciling Christianity and magic really just don't know what Christianity really is. They think it's an actual cohesive religious system with simple rules of behavior, clear-cut processes and methodologies for attaining spiritual rewards and avoiding spiritual punishments. They think the pastors or priests telling them what to do and how it works are all basing their statements on what the Bible says, or what the Church teaches. It would be great if Christianity were that simple.

But it's a big fucking mess. The "New Testament" isn't a book. It's four gospels telling the story of Jesus' time on Earth that mostly agree with one another. Then there's a book that talks about the early church in Jerusalem and what the founders of Christianity did, like a history book, sort of, that was recorded many years after the events that were being recorded, like a documentary about the civil rights movement put together entirely from interviews of people who had heard about it before. And then there are the apostolic epistles, supposedly letters from the founders of the church to the churches scattered across the Roman Empire in the first century, written by the people who had actually been with Jesus. And then there are the epistles of fucking Paul, who never met Jesus in the flesh, but had a conversion experience on the road to Damascus. And then there's the APOCALYPSE, a.k.a. Revelation.

There's a lot of "swirl" involved with that, as you can imagine. The early church fathers didn't know what they were doing any more than the modern Golden Dawn outer heads know what they're doing. They argued with each other all the time. Most of them were Jews who didn't even want to let non-Jews join the church. Peter was ok with it, because he really liked ham sandwiches with cheese. He even dreamed about it.

But mostly they let Paul deal with the Gentiles, and Paul dealt with them indeed, giving them rules, guidance, teachings, trainings. He put together the actual church doctrines and practices, and eventually had to bail out the Jerusalem church because they were all disorganized. They were ostracized by the Jewish Jews who didn't believe in the messiah, and they still ostracized themselves from the pagans in the Roman empire. They were broke and hungry, and meanwhile Paul's legions of Gentile Christians were thriving. Relatively.

And he fought with them a lot. Argued with them, called Peter a hypocrite to his face. They were vehement in their disagreements as they tried to figure out what Christianity should be.

So really, there is no hard and fast "Christianity." There are just interpretations of the core texts that enough people happen to agree on. That's why there are so many denominations, and why history is rife with heretics getting killed. It's a hot mess when you look at it.

But here's a secret for you: Christianity is entirely built on the emanationist neoplatonic framework. Read John 1:1, "In the beginning was the WORD (LOGOS), and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God." See that? Neoplatonist doctrine, pure and simple. The very best esoteric games in town in the 1st through 3rd centuries were neoplatonist games. The structure is sound enough and flexible enough to have plenty of room for interpretation. ONE SOURCE, one chief representative, a few subordinates... Monad, King-God, Assistant Gods... God, Jesus, Angels... It explained both pagan and monotheistic systems, and better than that, it explained what people ran into when they started doing magic. Or praying. Or being taken into the heavens, whether in body or in spirit, I know not.

And Hermetics is an interpretation of the same thing, LOGOS, Mankind, soteriology, the return to the heavens with other emanated spirits. Daimons, gods, angels, all the same things, with different interpretations.

But then there's all the conflicting instructions in the Bible... Don't do magic, but it's ok to speak in the tongues of angels and commune with them. Cast out demons of affliction, but don't practice pharmakos-sorcery. Call on the Holy Spirit to blind people working against you, but don't traffic in demons. All the gods of the pagans are demons...

Fortunately, we are given a rational mind to make sense of stuff like this. If you read the Bible, really study it in the context of the times it was written, compare it to the other belief systems that were going on, you will see that it is fairly typical of the kinds of stuff that were being passed around the remains of the Roman Empire at the time. Chances are really good that they would have gone the way of the Essenes and the Mithraic cults if it weren't for Constantine getting the vision that he would conquer in the sign of the Chi-Rho, which was a symbol of Christ. Since he did conquer, Christianity eclipsed the rest and they faded away.

And the Bible itself says the information in the New Testament is for spiritual babies. Paul writes at one point that there are greater mysteries than the ones he talks about, that he would LOVE to tell people about, but they're too ignorant to handle it. So he has to teach about love, salvation, sin, and baptism first so they can grow up and start doing the real stuff. Which he doesn't talk about.

Chrisitanity is a basic primer for spiritual living, and its internal inconsistencies only bother people who read it and try to do it, and a little study, a little reading, a lot of prayer and practice reveals that it's for noobs. What's meaningful and useful in Christianity, for people like me, is that Jesus died for sins, freeing us to embrace God. DO THAT, and God's like, hey, RO, check this out... Angels! Gods! Demons! HGAs!

See, mundane life with no magic or spirituality is lame. Living like a creator god is awesome. Humans can be thick. We have to have something to bridge the mundane to the creator god. The sin-death trip is a good and useful spiritual tool to get people there. Some people, anyway. The point is not how you get there though, it's getting there. Christ's death on the cross forgave all "sin" and removed every last excuse anyone has to stay away from God. That's an amazing and empowering belief, and those who embrace it and accept it have an in to the source of all that is.

And people who do that, who chase after God because they can, start living miraculous lives. I grew up in a family that was used to miracles happening around and through us. My parents live a lifestyle that lets them experience the miraculous divine regularly in their own ways. I have a different focus and set of tools, and they suit me a lot better, but they operate through the same core framework.

So basically, the thing that most people get hung up on when it comes to Christianity is the Bible. Understand it's not a single cohesive thing, that it's a conglomeration of indicators of a greater spiritual reality that's been put together to point people to God. It's not a single unified code of living, it's complicated and takes personal study and application to figure out what bits are gold and what bits are the personal shit of the person writing it down. Just like everything else in magic, really.

And the people who try to tell you that the Bible says not to do magic don't know what the bible says, don't know what magic is, and aren't fit to tell you jack shit. Only you can experience God.

Above all else though, I do magic because I'm a magician. That's what I emanated to do. I've learned from Christ and the angels. I've studied the theologies of my saintly brothers and sisters. I've used my mind to understand things, and I've risen through the spheres to see the universe as it really is.

And it's beautiful.

So ... to sum it up, the Bible isn't the boss, it's a pointer. People with no spiritual maturity can't tell you what it means because they want a rule book to judge others and control them, and feel better about themselves. Only you can understand it.

If you really want to be a Christian Magician, just be one. If you have too much cognitive dissonance over the words in the Bible, spend some time immersing yourself in it. Look up the words used for sorcery and magic, and look at how they are used in other Greek texts from the time. Look up what Jesus calls himself in the New Testament and the name of the Second Book of the Corpus Hermeticum. Read John 1:1-10. Read Hebrews, about the Order of Melchizadek. Read the letters of Paul as if they were written by the man he really was, inspired, fanatical, and zealous for the Lord. Understand he tried hard, but had his issues.

Above all, stop checking your brain at the door. Think about why you want to do magic. Let that be your guide, and see where you end up.