On Getting Roasted on the Inter-tubes

This morning I awoke to a concerned message from a long-time friend and mentor about the ongoing roast of me and everything I do or say on the internet on a tumblr site. I was like, no, no worries, it's fine, and went on with my day.

Then I got another concerned message from another friend, and then another from someone who was expecting old school RO thunderous cursings and retribution involving demons and public disgrace and so forth and so on. 

So with the third time being the proverbial charm, I'll go ahead and address it:

Julio has spent a lot of time making fun of me on the internet lately.

GASP! 

But ... 

So what? 

I've seen his posts, and they're funny. I get where he's coming from. That shit I said about the Kybalion would have set me off in 2006:

Rufus Opus: “The Kybalion is a, you know 19th century, early 20th century distillation of, you know, 12000 years of emanationist evolution of thought, you know, belief systems.  It's come down to us from, you know, the Chaldeans, you have, eh, uuh, the Persians. It’s a very ancient system”

See this Link for original.

I would have posted blog posts about it, with cussing and swearing and mockery galore. I hated the Kybalion with a passion for a ton of reasons that were totally valid to me at the time. 

Then I went through the Seven Spheres, reclaimed my race and value per Pymander, accomplished the Great Work, created the Philosopher's Stone (and he makes fun of me for saying that too, and that's also ok), and now I regularly provide the Panacea to the sick, the old, and I bring healing to the world.

Like in the deal.

And my opinion has changed, and it's informed by some other stuff these days. And maybe I'll get around to explaining that when I have time, if I feel like it.

So I get where he's coming from. I'd have made fun of me too, back in the day, and you know what? 

It worked. 99% of my readers reading this are only reading it because I challenged and mocked almost all the well-known icons of the occult community at the time, and carved out a niche, and made a name for myself, and then in that niche I was able to offer courses, and conferences, and ebooks, and talismans, and I got published.

The "Challenge established authorities to get attention" schtick is exactly what I did to establish the very "Rufus Opus Brand" that I'm so pleased with today (and irritates people to acknowledge that's what we do with this stuff). 

So how can I legit give him shit about this? 

And besides, he's not wrong to challenge me on this shit. The things he's mocking should probably be mocked. I've said some silly things over the years, and recently, and no one gets a pass on things just because they have a reputation or some silly brand they've worked towards establishing. 

Mostly his mockery is expressing a dogmatic traditionalist grimoire practitioner's view towards the kind of living Hermetic tradition I practice, and it's not new, folks. Traditionalist grimoire practitioners were telling me I'm wrong years before Julio could sign into Disney.com without his mom's permission, and they had better arguments than snide gifs. 

But they weren't nearly as amusing about it as Julio is.

It's honestly ok to come to different conclusions about how magic is done. The important thing to me is that the magic is done. If Julio has already, or ever does start creating a magical corpus to promote the practice of magic as he understands it and uses it to change the world, then honestly any aggrandizement he gets from roasting me is worth it. 

We get a world that is being created by magicians on purpose, and that's all I ever wanted.

So yes, thanks folks, I am fully aware that Julio can't go a week without talking about me on the internet, and honestly I'm flattered that he thinks my opinions on things are so important to the community that focussing his attentions on me will serve to advance his own brand, and I sincerely wish him all the blessings in his Work.