I was reading Gwynt-Siarad's 8 Winds and Broken Vow, and the follow up post. He was going through some really practical Mage stuff, serving his community in the role of the shaman. One of the things he mentioned was how tired he felt after going on a Spirit Walk and encountering a spiritual-beastie.
I totally know that feeling. When you go looking into people's "spheres" to see what's going on in their spiritual life, it can be really draining to you personally. Emotional strain is tiring. It takes a level of compassion and empathy to be able to get a clear reading on someone's spiritual state that can leave you feeling exhausted afterwards.
We're used to dealing with our own stress levels, and we've got the reserves necessary to deal with that on a regular basis. When we start working with other people's stressors, it's an additional load to process, and it can leave you feeling weak, even if there are no entities encountered.
I've seen empaths advise different methods of maintaining a safe distance from your clients, ways to filter out the stressors so they don't impact the empath. It's a matter of maintaining a clinical objectivity while still interacting with some emotionally charged issues. It takes a lot of practice to do it well, and even in the best of times it's still a filtering technique. Filters have holes to let things through that you want, on purpose. Extreme situations (or entities in your clients' sphere) can rip right through the filter.
Like physical exercise, spiritual exercises improve endurance and spiritual muscles. Regular core maintenance rites, like cycling through the spheres, meditation and contemplation, regular observances to patrons and so forth are good core exercises that help build up your ability to deal with other people's shit.
But emphasizing one or two exercises isn't enough. There are people who do the LBRP and Middle Pillar daily, and they've got some really big muscles developed as a result. But when they get put into practical situations, they're like the body-builder who finds himself in a Mixed Martial Arts octagon getting their asses kicked by someone half their size.
Vary your routine, make sure your core practices involve more than just a couple basic techniques. If you have a reasonable expectation that you'll be meeting up with demonic forces or hostile spirits, you need to get used to dealing with them. One of the few things I'd recommend the Lemegeton's Goetia for is training in dealing with spirits with malevolent natures. Don't challenge them to a duel to the death or anything, you know, stupid. But they're safe enough to conjure and interview, when the proper precautions are taken.* They've got a wide spectrum of abilities and specialties, and getting to know them, how they operate, the forces they represent and wield can be a very useful thing when you encounter them, or similar spirits in your Work.
Also, it never hurts to make sure they'll never work against you, especially with all the folks turning to that particular grimoire first when they think to curse you. Rofocal-Focalor (or one of his lackeys or corresponding spirits) will be sent against you sooner or later if you ruffle feathers in the occult community, and feathers are easily ruffled 'round here. Having him show up and say, "Hey, so-and-so sent me to kill you, LOL," is much better than performing an exorcism from a hospital bed, you know?
Now that I'm all side tracked, I'm considering re-releasing the Modern Goetic Grimoire. I've had a change of heart about them recently. An insight into their nature, and their role in the life and sphere of a magician. That's another post though.
This post was about strength training.
daily exercises, meditation, contemplation, opening portals to the aethyrs, travelling in astral form through the elemental kingdoms and planetary spheres, ascending to the highest spheres through the Gate opened by Iophial... These things are important for the magician.
Magicians are like Americans moving back to the countries of their ancestors. I'm French. I have relatives in the Alsace Lorraine region, allegedly. To live there, in the home world of my true ancestors, I'd need to learn the language, figure out local customs and economics, and integrate myself into the system so I could benefit from it, and it could benefit from me. It would take time, practice, and repeated exercises to make a place for myself, and to thrive.
But I'd do it. What else is there than to thrive?
If we're going to thrive as magicians, we need to take time for strength training. Proactive research, conjurations, and the building up of gnosis so that when we are faced with situations that require strength, we have it.
* It's only when you start asking them to influence your life that you start asking for trouble, in my opinion. Not saying it can't be done, if done in the spirit of "teach me to excel" rather than "grant me the fruits of excellence without doing anything for it," but it takes wisdom and patience and work ethic.
Head for the Red: The ongoing adventures and insights of a magician's attempts to accomplish the Great Work.
Showing posts with label Teachings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teachings. Show all posts
Sunday, August 05, 2012
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Cool Stuff about the Supernatural Assistant
Hey everyone!
Man, I just wrote a bunch of posts to the Supernatural Assistant Course yahoo group about the things you can get using the Supernatural Assistant. I forget how cool it is sometimes. Here are some quick reminders for anyone else who forgot, or who might need a reason or two to Acquire a Supernatural Assistant.
From the PGM:
As you likely know, I'm especially interested in the part that happens after death. I suspect it's a transformation akin to the Rainbow Body. I could be wrong, of course. It may just be a spiritual transformation the Ruach goes through that empowers it to become a member of the Angelic Choir of "Powers." If so, that would be pretty cool too. After I die, feel free to petition me for aid in your own endeavors, and if I'm a Power, I'll do whatever I can to help you.
Another cool thing about the list is how it reminds the magician that the SA is invisible to others. See my post from the other day on physical manifestations.
It ties into the urge new members of the group of people with this "mighty assistant" feel to tell everyone everything about everything that Crowley warns about too. Even magicians from the first centuries AD had to struggle with acting like what they experience is true and valid for all mankind. Their mentors back then made sure their students weren't acting like fruitcakes in public. "But you speak to the one who questions you as if from yourself" indeed.
Man, I just wrote a bunch of posts to the Supernatural Assistant Course yahoo group about the things you can get using the Supernatural Assistant. I forget how cool it is sometimes. Here are some quick reminders for anyone else who forgot, or who might need a reason or two to Acquire a Supernatural Assistant.
From the PGM:
- When you go abroad, he will go abroad with you; when you are destitute, he will give you money.
- He will tell you what things will happen both when and at what time of the night or day.
- If anyone asks you "What do I have in mind?" or "What has happened to me?" or even "What is going to happen?," question the angel, and he will tell you in silence. But you speak to the one who questions you as if from yourself.
- When you are dead, he will wrap [up] your body as befits a god, but he will take your spirit and carry it into the air with him. For no aerial spirit which is joined with a mighty assistant will go into Hades, for to him all things are subject.
- Whenever you wish to do something, speak his name alone into the air and say, "Come!" and you will see him actually standing near you. And say to him, "Perform this task," and he does it at once, and after doing it he will say to you, "What else do you want? For I am eager for heaven." If you do not have immediate orders, say to him, "Go, lord," and he will depart. In this fashion, then, the god will be seen by you alone, nor will anyone ever hear the sound of his speaking, just you yourself alone.
- And he will tell you about the illness of a man, whether he will live or die, even on what day and at what hour of night.
- And he will also give [you both] wild herbs and the power to cure, and you will be [worshipped] as a god since you have a god as a friend.
These things the mighty assistant will perform competently.Pretty handy, eh?
As you likely know, I'm especially interested in the part that happens after death. I suspect it's a transformation akin to the Rainbow Body. I could be wrong, of course. It may just be a spiritual transformation the Ruach goes through that empowers it to become a member of the Angelic Choir of "Powers." If so, that would be pretty cool too. After I die, feel free to petition me for aid in your own endeavors, and if I'm a Power, I'll do whatever I can to help you.
Another cool thing about the list is how it reminds the magician that the SA is invisible to others. See my post from the other day on physical manifestations.
It ties into the urge new members of the group of people with this "mighty assistant" feel to tell everyone everything about everything that Crowley warns about too. Even magicians from the first centuries AD had to struggle with acting like what they experience is true and valid for all mankind. Their mentors back then made sure their students weren't acting like fruitcakes in public. "But you speak to the one who questions you as if from yourself" indeed.
Warnings
Members of the first Red Work Course 1: Acquiring a Supernatural Assistant are seeing success in their efforts, and I recently posted some of Crowley's notes on Liber Samekh to the yahoo group that helped me integrate the experience while I was going through it.
I haven't read Crowley's notes on Samekh in years. Great stuff. I especially like this part:
So I disagree with Crowley, whimper and sob when you feel your HGA, there's nothing "unmanly" about expressing the pleasure and pain of being with Purity. And don't be afraid to go on about "ineffable love" and "inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness." It's important to remind people that this is what it feels like when they forget, or inspire them to feel it for themselves if they haven't yet.
But do be careful to remember that it's not necessarily as valid and vital for all as it happens to be for yourself.
I try, really I do. But if I can do this and get the results I do, so can you! Just try it, it's freaking brilliant. Gushing chakras, revelations of knowledge, and worlds of practical techniques await you! It's all right there.
I haven't read Crowley's notes on Samekh in years. Great stuff. I especially like this part:
In the same way the Adept almost always begins by torrential lyrics painting outIt's funny, I go through this with every deeper level of initiation I experience. I think I've mellowed out some with this whole thing, I rarely post "The Key to All Power in the Universe!1!!1!" posts over my revelations these days, but once in a while it still bubbles up and over. I can't help it, and honestly, I think it serves a purpose. Reading through other people's Revelations of the Key to Everything has helped me a great deal, so maybe it will help others as well. My Keys to Everything may be different than yours, but seeing the doors mine open may make you see a door you missed, and urge you to find your own Key to open it. I know that happens to me a lot. Like POS doing Jason's daily exercises reminded me to do my own. It helps.
mystical extravagances about "ineffable love", "unimaginable bliss",
"inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness". He usually loses his
sense of proportion, of humour, of reality, and of sound judgment. His ego is
often inflated to the bursting point, till he would be abjectly ridiculous if he
were not so pitifully dangerous to himself and others. He also tends to take his
new-found "truths of illumination" for the entire body of truth, and insists
that they must be as valid and vital for all men as they happen to be for
himself.
It is wise to keep silence about those things "unlawful to utter" which one may
have heard "in the seventh heaven". This may not apply to the sixth.
So I disagree with Crowley, whimper and sob when you feel your HGA, there's nothing "unmanly" about expressing the pleasure and pain of being with Purity. And don't be afraid to go on about "ineffable love" and "inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness." It's important to remind people that this is what it feels like when they forget, or inspire them to feel it for themselves if they haven't yet.
But do be careful to remember that it's not necessarily as valid and vital for all as it happens to be for yourself.
I try, really I do. But if I can do this and get the results I do, so can you! Just try it, it's freaking brilliant. Gushing chakras, revelations of knowledge, and worlds of practical techniques await you! It's all right there.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
On Physical Manifestation
A potential course member wrote to me asking if the magic I teach in the course results in visible manifestations. He had read Lisiewski and others who claim physical manifestations are not only possible, but also necessary for the magic to be successful.
I've heard the siren call of that level of fundamentalism. I tend to think of the new Hermetic Fundamentalists as Grimoire Thumpers, with all the zeal and common sense you find in extremists of any belief system.
Look, when the spirits are present, yeah, you sense them. You might see something in your "astral" vision. You might smell them, hear them, or feel them press against you as they perform an initiation on you, tracing out seals on your forehead or whatever. you might even see them physically open the door, sit down next to you and spark up a bowl of fine imported tobacco. That doesn't mean that anyone else sitting next to you in the room will experience the same thing, nor does it mean that your ritual will be any more or less successful.
I've seen spirits. I look over and see darker or lighter "orbs" floating above the altar. Bune sits on the floor where my baseboard heater runs along the wall, with his long skinny knees up. I see angel faces appear in my crystal ball. I don't pretend any of this is something anyone else would physically see if they were present.
That said, my spouse sees stuff when I do magic. But it's not always what I see.
I've had magician friends tell me they followed the steps of the grimoires exactly, Lion Skin Belt and all, and they tell me they saw the spirits visibly. Great, but what about the results? No different than my own.
Personally, I suspect they had a stronger psychic image of the spirits as a result of the increased initiatory vibration attained through the creation of the Belt. I don't think a mundane person who hadn't been through the process of creating the talismans would see it. That's just my opinion. I don't think something that can't be photographed can be seen by the naked eye.
As far as I know, the historic accounts of magicians conjuring a spirits using the techniques of Reanaissance grimoires don't mention physical or visual manifestations, unless they used a skryer to see the spirits as Dee and Kelley did. Dee didn't see the visions Kelley saw. Benvenuto Cellini, a 16th century goldsmith and magician performed the magic of the grimoires of his time to conjure up spirits in the Colosseum. No one but the skryer saw anything. The other witnesses literally and figuratively shat themselves in fear when they felt the spirits arrive, but no one but the skryer saw anything.
So, since my own results don't indicate physical manifestation is possible, or more importantly even necessary, and historic accounts of magicians of the time of the grimoires I use don't mention physical manifestation, my stance is that sure, you may see something, but don't expect anyone else to. And don't worry if you don't see anything; results are the only proof that matters.
I've heard the siren call of that level of fundamentalism. I tend to think of the new Hermetic Fundamentalists as Grimoire Thumpers, with all the zeal and common sense you find in extremists of any belief system.
Look, when the spirits are present, yeah, you sense them. You might see something in your "astral" vision. You might smell them, hear them, or feel them press against you as they perform an initiation on you, tracing out seals on your forehead or whatever. you might even see them physically open the door, sit down next to you and spark up a bowl of fine imported tobacco. That doesn't mean that anyone else sitting next to you in the room will experience the same thing, nor does it mean that your ritual will be any more or less successful.
I've seen spirits. I look over and see darker or lighter "orbs" floating above the altar. Bune sits on the floor where my baseboard heater runs along the wall, with his long skinny knees up. I see angel faces appear in my crystal ball. I don't pretend any of this is something anyone else would physically see if they were present.
That said, my spouse sees stuff when I do magic. But it's not always what I see.
I've had magician friends tell me they followed the steps of the grimoires exactly, Lion Skin Belt and all, and they tell me they saw the spirits visibly. Great, but what about the results? No different than my own.
Personally, I suspect they had a stronger psychic image of the spirits as a result of the increased initiatory vibration attained through the creation of the Belt. I don't think a mundane person who hadn't been through the process of creating the talismans would see it. That's just my opinion. I don't think something that can't be photographed can be seen by the naked eye.
As far as I know, the historic accounts of magicians conjuring a spirits using the techniques of Reanaissance grimoires don't mention physical or visual manifestations, unless they used a skryer to see the spirits as Dee and Kelley did. Dee didn't see the visions Kelley saw. Benvenuto Cellini, a 16th century goldsmith and magician performed the magic of the grimoires of his time to conjure up spirits in the Colosseum. No one but the skryer saw anything. The other witnesses literally and figuratively shat themselves in fear when they felt the spirits arrive, but no one but the skryer saw anything.
So, since my own results don't indicate physical manifestation is possible, or more importantly even necessary, and historic accounts of magicians of the time of the grimoires I use don't mention physical manifestation, my stance is that sure, you may see something, but don't expect anyone else to. And don't worry if you don't see anything; results are the only proof that matters.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Palin's Power
Have I mentioned my fundy background? I just learned on a pagan site that I'm part of the "3rd Wave of the Holy Spirit", loosely. See, I attained K&CHGA after being born again while immersed in the outpouring of the Spirit that was popping up here and there around the country in 2003.
So Jason mentions Palin today on FB, and I ended up at the Wild Hunt blog through Joe's blog, and there's another article on Palin, this one pointing out her affiliation with a group of Christians who used "imprecatory prayer" to allegedly give a witch cancer and drive her out of Alaska.
Now, on the one hand, I personally write Palin off out of hand. She's a gimmick, and she's distracting America from the next real Republican candidate. And that shit about her receiving the mantle of the presidency that's been prophesied over her... who really believes any of that shit? Like Christians have any access to divination, or the power to set destiny through concentrated prayer...
Right. Which brings us back to the Wiccan who went bline in her left eye, was diagnosed with cancer, and fled Alaske while this coven of Christian busybodies "prayed against the spirit of witchcraft in Alaska."
Am I the only person who has seen the power of Charismatic Christian Magic? Come on! There's more healing going on in the name of Christ than you can shake a stick at. Prayed for rye grew taller than not-prayed for rye. Prayer affects bacteria. Whatever model of magic you adhere to, the results are the proof.
I know these people. I know what they're capable of, and what their ambitions are. In many ways I agree with the Ideal they strive for. I don't trust them an inch to be able to accomplish their goals when faced with the temptations that come with power.
Palin's Power base is an effective team of experienced "prayer warriors" who are not above praying down fire and brimstone, locusts and plague, and cancer and blindness. There are even teams of these people working on killing Obama. It's easy to sit in liberal educated armchairs and laugh at the imaginary threat of the ignorant Christian True Believers, writing them off as "nut-jobs" and staying hidden, safe, watching Oprah alone in your little apartment when Palin's at the local Barnes and Noble signing her book.
But don't get so wrapped up in your comfy blanket of smug dismissal that you can't get unglued long enough to trace out a circle and mutter a few eldritch phrases from musty old tomes you've tracked down on the Internet. Rest assured there are ladies on arthritic knees sequestered amongst their pleather shoes in their closets, calling on God to empower Palin and anoint her in the mantle of the Presidency. Whether it's God or whatever spirits they've got at their beck and call, bet your ass that something is doing everything in its power to make sure Palin gets elected.
What are you going to do about it?
Here's a clue for would be spiritual warriors: expect a lot of the spirits around her to be Nepheshim, the hungry ghosts of the dead. These and similar spirits are the most abundant resources that respond to prolonged prayer. Check the Greater Key for sample Solomonic rites that require nine days of careful prayer to gather the spirits local. These are the kinds of spirits you'll be facing.
Bring a brass pot, or the equivalent. No point in letting the little buggers go to waste.
(Picturing a Hermetic Exorcism of Palin at a book signing; dude in robes reciting the Headless rite over her. As amusing as it may be, he'd have an interesting discussion waiting for him with the Secret service after pulling that stunt. The Black and Tans wear shiny black shoes.)
So Jason mentions Palin today on FB, and I ended up at the Wild Hunt blog through Joe's blog, and there's another article on Palin, this one pointing out her affiliation with a group of Christians who used "imprecatory prayer" to allegedly give a witch cancer and drive her out of Alaska.
Now, on the one hand, I personally write Palin off out of hand. She's a gimmick, and she's distracting America from the next real Republican candidate. And that shit about her receiving the mantle of the presidency that's been prophesied over her... who really believes any of that shit? Like Christians have any access to divination, or the power to set destiny through concentrated prayer...
Right. Which brings us back to the Wiccan who went bline in her left eye, was diagnosed with cancer, and fled Alaske while this coven of Christian busybodies "prayed against the spirit of witchcraft in Alaska."
Am I the only person who has seen the power of Charismatic Christian Magic? Come on! There's more healing going on in the name of Christ than you can shake a stick at. Prayed for rye grew taller than not-prayed for rye. Prayer affects bacteria. Whatever model of magic you adhere to, the results are the proof.
I know these people. I know what they're capable of, and what their ambitions are. In many ways I agree with the Ideal they strive for. I don't trust them an inch to be able to accomplish their goals when faced with the temptations that come with power.
Palin's Power base is an effective team of experienced "prayer warriors" who are not above praying down fire and brimstone, locusts and plague, and cancer and blindness. There are even teams of these people working on killing Obama. It's easy to sit in liberal educated armchairs and laugh at the imaginary threat of the ignorant Christian True Believers, writing them off as "nut-jobs" and staying hidden, safe, watching Oprah alone in your little apartment when Palin's at the local Barnes and Noble signing her book.
But don't get so wrapped up in your comfy blanket of smug dismissal that you can't get unglued long enough to trace out a circle and mutter a few eldritch phrases from musty old tomes you've tracked down on the Internet. Rest assured there are ladies on arthritic knees sequestered amongst their pleather shoes in their closets, calling on God to empower Palin and anoint her in the mantle of the Presidency. Whether it's God or whatever spirits they've got at their beck and call, bet your ass that something is doing everything in its power to make sure Palin gets elected.
What are you going to do about it?
Here's a clue for would be spiritual warriors: expect a lot of the spirits around her to be Nepheshim, the hungry ghosts of the dead. These and similar spirits are the most abundant resources that respond to prolonged prayer. Check the Greater Key for sample Solomonic rites that require nine days of careful prayer to gather the spirits local. These are the kinds of spirits you'll be facing.
Bring a brass pot, or the equivalent. No point in letting the little buggers go to waste.
(Picturing a Hermetic Exorcism of Palin at a book signing; dude in robes reciting the Headless rite over her. As amusing as it may be, he'd have an interesting discussion waiting for him with the Secret service after pulling that stunt. The Black and Tans wear shiny black shoes.)
Monday, November 23, 2009
Tis the Season
So here's a little "get rid of the ick" technique that works really well for me.
Close your eyes, and listen to your heart beat. Visualize it pumping blood all over the body. Follow its paths in your mind's eye, seeing the blood flowing to the different regions of your physical shell. Now turn your awareness to areas of illness or pain. Look at it with your mind's eye, seeing the elemental building blocks that make up the frame. Earth and Fire, Water and Air, blended together in a myriad of proportions at the elemental (like atomic) level. Now see the ones that represent the illness turning black. To me they look like little cubes spinning in space in close proximity. The ones that are the illness turn black, and the one that aren't turn red and white.
Picture the black ones leaving your body. Move them along with the power of your Will. Keep them moving until they're all out, fading away into the background of existence, returning to their raw forms. A little heat applied to the stubborn ones, carefully so you don't hurt the good stuff, seems to work well in loosening up sinus infections.
And take vitamin C.
Some of you may recognize the technique as the result of my Work with EHNB a while ago. I was suffering in silence through a sinus infection last week when Frater POS (His motto is not "Piece of Shit," in case you were wondering) said it's too bad I don't know any magicians who could heal me. (He was home from work because his back was out again, and I magnanimously let that slide. The sinners mocked Jesus with "Healer, Heal thyself" too, after all.)
At the time I said I didn't do magic for sickness because a full ritual takes 2 weeks to manifest, and it doesn't seem worth it to deal with a three day cold. Mostly because I was embarrassed that I hadn't thought of it myself. Then he reminded me that we get to do some things instantly as magicians, and graciously changed the subject.
Of course later on I was thinking about it, and I remembered the Enochian technique that had worked so well last year. I fished it out of the memory banks and put it to use. The next morning I was significantly better.
So, since I had to have a reminder to jog the old memory banks that magicians can heal themselves (after all, I'm not Jesus*), I figured I'd pass it on. Healers, heal yourselves.
* Really. Neither Lon, nor Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Enochians
Fr. AIT over at Heavens Within Earth recently posted the question, Is Enochian Theurgic? I'm interested in whatever follow-up he may have to post about it.
In the Corpus Hermeticum, when Man came to Earth, seven Governors were made in the image of the seven celestial Intelligences. Eventually they became the Urges in later gnostic interpreatations, but originally they weren't considered evil by any means.
Sometimes I think the seven Terrestrial Governors and their legions are the Spirits of the Lemegeton's Goetia. Other times, I think they're the Seven Winds that make an appearance in the Picatrix.
Right now, I suspect they're the seven "Angels" on the SDA. I think it would explain the elemental attributes of the Enochian spirits, as well as the whole "I'm the savior of the WORLD" trip that the Enochians seem to pull on people, or at least, that people seem to pull on themselves after Working the EE's for a while.
I was just talking about this to a friend and student from the course earlier this week, and lo and behold Fr. AIT posts his corroborative hunches. I'm sure it's all a coincidence.
In my limited experiences with them, I felt like they were terrestrial spirits, akin to the Goetia spirits I've worked with previously. I think it's odd that they express the kind of jealousy over the Goetia that they showed Kelley. It reminds me of stories of the Ghede and the Loa and other packs of spirits.
In the Corpus Hermeticum, when Man came to Earth, seven Governors were made in the image of the seven celestial Intelligences. Eventually they became the Urges in later gnostic interpreatations, but originally they weren't considered evil by any means.
Sometimes I think the seven Terrestrial Governors and their legions are the Spirits of the Lemegeton's Goetia. Other times, I think they're the Seven Winds that make an appearance in the Picatrix.
Right now, I suspect they're the seven "Angels" on the SDA. I think it would explain the elemental attributes of the Enochian spirits, as well as the whole "I'm the savior of the WORLD" trip that the Enochians seem to pull on people, or at least, that people seem to pull on themselves after Working the EE's for a while.
I was just talking about this to a friend and student from the course earlier this week, and lo and behold Fr. AIT posts his corroborative hunches. I'm sure it's all a coincidence.
In my limited experiences with them, I felt like they were terrestrial spirits, akin to the Goetia spirits I've worked with previously. I think it's odd that they express the kind of jealousy over the Goetia that they showed Kelley. It reminds me of stories of the Ghede and the Loa and other packs of spirits.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Making Goals
There are certain steps that must be done in any process. I pay attention to things going on around me, and I try to take action when I have an opportunity to advance my own secret goals.
Some days I get to take steps forward, other days I get to make new goals because I learned I'd been thinking too friggin' small. Today I got to make another goal. This one will take some doing. I need a little help, but I think I know who to ask.
Some days I get to take steps forward, other days I get to make new goals because I learned I'd been thinking too friggin' small. Today I got to make another goal. This one will take some doing. I need a little help, but I think I know who to ask.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Cthulhu Comments
"Mlaroeognhchth!"
"Yeah," I said, "I get that all the time."
"Granachlethtulku?"
"Nah, I'll just write a blog post."
"Ng yalthkaz ruek."
"Heh, yeah, I know, right? But I'll just put it in English my way. It's not so messy."
This is one of the reasons I started writing the blog and eventually got around to starting the Supernatural Assistant course. The fact is, the path isn't what a lot of people think it is. The HGA isn't instant enlightenment. It isn't a path to becoming compassionate and wise and everything you think a spiritual guru or enlightened Master is supposed to be. It's nothing like the point of Eastern Mysticism at all.
The HGA is primarily a spiritual assistant. It's got the powers of a lot of the entities from the Lemegeton, entities largely considered "demonic." It also has the power to bring you entities often considered Demonic. It's also a straight and direct line of communion with your Source. It's also a powerful motivator and Teacher, a Guide that can direct you to spiritual wisdom and the whole guru thing. It can help you attain compassion and service to others, if that's your purpose in life.
But it's not a given. Just because you can talk to your HGA doesn't mean you will. Just because you can have it make troops appear to frighten off your King's enemies doesn't mean you'll ever be in a position to need that.
The primary goal of the HGA is to help you do more magic. More magic causes spiritual transformations that may lead to compassion, or it may lead to wisdom, or it may lead to wealth, or something like that. But there's no guarantee, and above all, it's not a process that happens over night.
I started out an asshole who literally hated people. Misanthropist barely describes the hate I felt for "other people." After years of doing magic with my HGA, I have changed. I generally get mildly annoyed by people now, and even then I recognize that whatever's annoying me is only temporary, and does not mean I need to write off that person entirely because one area of their life is annoying to me. I've learned that I don't need to curse people, because their lives are usually pretty shitty, and that's why they're acting so annoying. I've learned I don't have to be a dick, all the time.
I'm not a perfectly compassionate, lay-down-my-life-for-a-friend kind of guy. I still want to do things for me, regardless of the impact it has on others. I have a hard time getting out of bed and doing a load of dishes or laundry when my wife's sick. I'd rather play video games than mow the lawn. I'd rather have a ton of money than have to earn it. I still see people do stupid things and think, "God! How flippin' STUPID!" and feel better about myself because I'm so not-STUPID.
I'm petty and mean, sometimes. There are days when I regret ever writing this blog, ever trying to help people, ever starting the path of the Great Work. There are days that I hate the responsibility that comes with it, and frankly, there are days when I ignore the responsibility that comes with it.
But I've progressed a great deal, in my own estimation, from where I used to be. I hear it from others as well, that I've shown growth in understanding aspects of the path I'm on that they thought I'd never achieve.
The bottom line is that the HGA doesn't make you perfect, it makes it easier to approach perfection. But that's not it's primary function at all. It's primarily there to aid you in performing magic, magic that is intended to create the world. There are things that need to be created on the planet that aren't going to be fun for everyone that participate, things that will hurt, maim, and kill. Conjure a daimon to help your brother in a battle in Afghanistan, and you're helping to kill Taliban-believing humans. For what? To protect your brother? What makes your brother special compared to the Taliban?
But that's what the spirits are there for. We're supposed to be concerned about this level of "petty" human interaction. Why would God create a spirit that causes pustules and death if there weren't a time that pustules and death were necessary?
We don't take on a flesh suit and manifest as human beings so that we can transcend being human, or so that we can attain an understanding that makes us more than human. We do it to be fully human. We aren't supposed to be perfect. If we were supposed to be perfectly good and do only the "right" thing all the time, we wouldn't have bothered being human in the first place.
Yeah, I found out I like helping people. The interesting part to me was that I enjoy it. I mean, I'm really fulfilled by doing it. I've helped people before, but in general I usually resent having to help people. I would rather help myself. I've never felt so happy about it, I've just sort of felt it was a necessary burden, an obligation to pass things on that I didn't have a lot of choice in. I've always looked at the Hierophant thing as a burden, not a joy. I've said before, "I do it because I gots to, Mister!" It's true, too, I do have to.
What's surprising to me is that I'm enjoying it too. I'm actually having fun.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The R.O. "Spirit Model"
Recent posts on Strategic Sorcery and Augoeides have had me thinking about my "Spirit Model." This post pretty much lays out how everything works, based on my experiences in performing the Great Work so far. Without further ado, I present:
Magicians are here to perform magic. The process of training and initiation that goes on across the lifecycle of the magician is a system that progressively reveals aspects of their relationship with the world(s) around us. Early in our path we have little understanding of what we really are and how we fit into the grand scheme of things, but as we progress, we achieve levels of mastery of skills designed to enable us to perform our function within an ovearching hierarchy of manifestation.
Manifestation is a process of condensation. From the Mind of God comes forth an Idea, and the Idea is Spoken, given symbolic life by the Logos. The thought-become-word then begins a journey down towards the material realm that will add layers of form to it that harmonize with similar thoughts-become-words. It descends through the Realm of Silence, through the Sphere of the Zodiack, down through the Seven heavens and into the elemental spheres, gathering to itself those aspects of each that are harmonious to its essence, the original Idea. It becomes more specialized until it is the part or parts within our physical lives that are essential to the particulars of our existence.
Just as God is conscious, so too are all the levels of manifestation . As thoughts become matter by specializing, so too did the spheres of the heavens and elements coalesce into vast numbers of individully aware spirits of the realms, arranged in hierarchy from the closest to the original Idea to the furthest, separated by layers of density. Each of these spirits were mirrored in the material realm below.
Man is an After-Thought. That is, after the Mind of God created the realms by speaking them into being through the Logos, He created a separate being called "Man." (Mankind, Humanity, Human... Hu-persons? Tell me if I'm getting politically warmer or colder here...)
Man was different than the rest of creation (manifest thoughts of the Mind of God). Man was made "in the image" of God, the original Mind. We knew God intimately, and we were friends and companions of our Father. We learned of all the layers of manifestation, and were friends with the intelligences and beings of those realms. They loved us because we were the image of God. We entered the Microcosm, what with one thing or another, on purpose and out of Love. In this realm, we can continue our friendships with God the Father, the Logos, and the Spirits of God, but the things of this world are distracting. We are always happier, satiated when we are fulfilling our purpose.
Man gets distracted by the things of this world and forgets its role in things. The Great Work is the process of reclaiming our knowledge of who we are and why we're here, and consciously doing what we're here to do. It isn't the Great Easy.
Fortunately, we have help. The Spirits that loved us Above stil love us Below, and they are eager and willing to help us in performing our duties. They teach, they initiate, they empower, and they work in harmony with Man. Ritual is the process of communing with these spirits. Implementation of their teaching in the making of talismans and other manifestations of the results of your empowerment are rituals of a sort, but tend to be more kinetic than ritual conversations, training, and empowerments from the spirits. Implementation tends to take place on the physical realm, while the training and initiation take place in the heavens. Ritual and implementation are both "magic." One is not more magical or in any way "better" than the other. They are like Ob and Od, the two serpents on Mercury's Caduceus, of equal dignity, and combined together to symbolise Mastery of Hermetic Arts.
All magical acts involve interacting in some way with another manifestation of a Thought from the Mind of God. It may have more or less layers of manifestation around it, but it is one part of a chain of manifestation that includes intelligences that operate consciously at some level of the Heavens. Everything has a spirit that can be contacted and Worked with as a magician. Working with the spiritual intelligence of a manifestation creates a harmony betwen you and it, which empowers you to manifest similar things in your sphere of influence. Being made in the image of God, you and I can manifest our thoughts by speaking them into being, creating layers of form around the idea until it becomes a material thing. Reaching the full potential in the areas we are most drawn to requires initiation and training by the spirit(s) of the manifestation.
Of the available systems of magic, the system that best utilizes the above outlined structure of the universe is the "Spriit Model." The tools and techniques that maximize your potential as a magician are found in the grimoires.
The trap of the grimoire is stagnation. Each focuses on a class of spirit, or a set of spirits. The gift of the grimoire is infinite potential relationships. If a magician sees the entities of one grimoire and believes that list to be all the spirits that are, they are limiting themselves and the grimoire becomes a trap. If they use the spirits listed to learn about other spirits, the grimoire becomes a gift, sort of a gateway to the denizens of the heavens and earth. As you Work with daimons, for instance, you will learn their role in the hierarchy of spirits, and can meet entities of higher and lower planes. These may be heroes, angels, or gods. ("Gods" for the sake of sticking to the terms of Iamblichus. To me, the "gods" are manifestations of the monad God, Divine Intelligences that are tasked with representing one aspect of a Thought of God.)
The grimoire I've found to produce the greatest results has been Trithemius' Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals. It's a fairly generic method of contacting any spirit, it works within the Hermetic cosmology laid out above, and it's fairly easy to put together a working facsimile with limited funds or time.
The sources that best provide infomation on the cosmology laid out above tend to be written prior to 1700 A.D. After that, people got screwy. Or their screwiness started manifesting in weird ways. The Aeon of the Crowned Child resulted in a lot of immature people getting treated like Kings and gurus, and the modern occulture is littered with systems that misuse symbol sets, misappropriate vocabularies from other systems, and are consequently much less powerful or useful to the magician in achieving their reason for being.
And true fulfillment can only come when you are achieving that reason for being.
The Rufus Opus Spirit Model
Magicians are here to perform magic. The process of training and initiation that goes on across the lifecycle of the magician is a system that progressively reveals aspects of their relationship with the world(s) around us. Early in our path we have little understanding of what we really are and how we fit into the grand scheme of things, but as we progress, we achieve levels of mastery of skills designed to enable us to perform our function within an ovearching hierarchy of manifestation.
Manifestation is a process of condensation. From
Just as God is conscious, so too are all the levels of manifestation . As thoughts become matter by specializing, so too did the spheres of the heavens and elements coalesce into vast numbers of individully aware spirits of the realms, arranged in hierarchy from the closest to the original Idea to the furthest, separated by layers of density. Each of these spirits were mirrored in the material realm below.
Man is an After-Thought. That is, after the Mind of God created the realms by speaking them into being through the Logos, He created a separate being called "Man." (Mankind, Humanity, Human... Hu-persons? Tell me if I'm getting politically warmer or colder here...)
Man was different than the rest of creation (manifest thoughts of the Mind of God). Man was made "in the image" of God, the original Mind. We knew God intimately, and we were friends and companions of our Father. We learned of all the layers of manifestation, and were friends with the intelligences and beings of those realms. They loved us because we were the image of God. We entered the Microcosm, what with one thing or another, on purpose and out of Love. In this realm, we can continue our friendships with God the Father, the Logos, and the Spirits of God, but the things of this world are distracting. We are always happier, satiated when we are fulfilling our purpose.
Man gets distracted by the things of this world and forgets its role in things. The Great Work is the process of reclaiming our knowledge of who we are and why we're here, and consciously doing what we're here to do. It isn't the Great Easy.
Fortunately, we have help. The Spirits that loved us Above stil love us Below, and they are eager and willing to help us in performing our duties. They teach, they initiate, they empower, and they work in harmony with Man. Ritual is the process of communing with these spirits. Implementation of their teaching in the making of talismans and other manifestations of the results of your empowerment are rituals of a sort, but tend to be more kinetic than ritual conversations, training, and empowerments from the spirits. Implementation tends to take place on the physical realm, while the training and initiation take place in the heavens. Ritual and implementation are both "magic." One is not more magical or in any way "better" than the other. They are like Ob and Od, the two serpents on Mercury's Caduceus, of equal dignity, and combined together to symbolise Mastery of Hermetic Arts.
All magical acts involve interacting in some way with another manifestation of a Thought from the Mind of God. It may have more or less layers of manifestation around it, but it is one part of a chain of manifestation that includes intelligences that operate consciously at some level of the Heavens. Everything has a spirit that can be contacted and Worked with as a magician. Working with the spiritual intelligence of a manifestation creates a harmony betwen you and it, which empowers you to manifest similar things in your sphere of influence. Being made in the image of God, you and I can manifest our thoughts by speaking them into being, creating layers of form around the idea until it becomes a material thing. Reaching the full potential in the areas we are most drawn to requires initiation and training by the spirit(s) of the manifestation.
Of the available systems of magic, the system that best utilizes the above outlined structure of the universe is the "Spriit Model." The tools and techniques that maximize your potential as a magician are found in the grimoires.
The trap of the grimoire is stagnation. Each focuses on a class of spirit, or a set of spirits. The gift of the grimoire is infinite potential relationships. If a magician sees the entities of one grimoire and believes that list to be all the spirits that are, they are limiting themselves and the grimoire becomes a trap. If they use the spirits listed to learn about other spirits, the grimoire becomes a gift, sort of a gateway to the denizens of the heavens and earth. As you Work with daimons, for instance, you will learn their role in the hierarchy of spirits, and can meet entities of higher and lower planes. These may be heroes, angels, or gods. ("Gods" for the sake of sticking to the terms of Iamblichus. To me, the "gods" are manifestations of the monad God, Divine Intelligences that are tasked with representing one aspect of a Thought of God.)
The grimoire I've found to produce the greatest results has been Trithemius' Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals. It's a fairly generic method of contacting any spirit, it works within the Hermetic cosmology laid out above, and it's fairly easy to put together a working facsimile with limited funds or time.
The sources that best provide infomation on the cosmology laid out above tend to be written prior to 1700 A.D. After that, people got screwy. Or their screwiness started manifesting in weird ways. The Aeon of the Crowned Child resulted in a lot of immature people getting treated like Kings and gurus, and the modern occulture is littered with systems that misuse symbol sets, misappropriate vocabularies from other systems, and are consequently much less powerful or useful to the magician in achieving their reason for being.
And true fulfillment can only come when you are achieving that reason for being.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Magical Projects
"A project is a finite endeavor (having specific start and completion dates) undertaken to create a unique product or service which brings about beneficial change or added value." - from Wikipedia's Project Management entry.
As you may know, I'm a priest in the cult of Project Management (PM). It's supposed to be a business methodology for accomplishing projects successfully and efficiently. Wikipedia says it's a discipline, but in real life, the disciples of PM are the true believers, the Project Management Office in major corporations are the Priests of their true God, and the rest of the team are heathens claiming to be converts to keep their jobs. The QA team is the Holy Inquisition, audits are their inquests, and ...
Ok, I can see I'll slip off into some weirdness if I keep comparing my job to a religion. So to the point!
Each project has a "life cycle" that can be broken down into basic phases. Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Control, and Closeout. It's all pretty much common sense, but having it codified makes things a lot easier to figure out how to make things work. It provides a template for developing your projects efficiently.
In my Great Work activities, I find that using the simple approach of PM helps immensely. It's not something I have to do nearly as strictly, but it provides a framework within which I can work and excel.
Usually when you decide to do a ritual, it's in response to a need that has become apparent to you in your life. Obvious, eh? I know, but writing it down helps the rest of the post.
When you've identified that something needs to be addressed Magically, you can enter the "Initiation" stage. In this stage, you identify what you want to happen, the result, or "deliverable" of the project. You identify when you want to start the project, and when you want it to finish. You loosely identify the scope, that is, the area of impact of your ritual, and put into writing exactly why you need or want to use magic to accomplish this result. You also figure out whether you can actually do the magic, whether you have the resources of time, skill, and information available to accomplish your desired result.
Many ideas for projects get tossed in the trash can after this phase in business. The place I work added a pre-initiation phase to their projects called "Discovery" to eliminate the number of projects that got started and shit-canned along the way. It saved them a lot of money because one person can do the discovery phase in a major corporation, while to do the Initiation phase properly, you end up using a lot of people and wasting everyone's time and cash.
Magicians don't have to worry about that. The primary value of going through the steps of an Initiation Phase in magical projects is that you have a time set aside to really think about the ritual and put some things in writing so you don't lose focus along the way. When you're finished with you Initiation Phase, you should have everything you need to begin the Planning phase. You should have on one piece of paper:
When you are finished with this phase, you will have a list of all the things related to your ritual that you will be using to perform the ritual. Writing these things down in bulleted lists grouped by subject area is an exercise that makes the following phase much easier.
The next phase is the Design phase. In this phase, you actually write up the ritual. On Mars day in Mars hour, you burn Mars herbs and call upon Martial Intelligence, Martial Spirit, and the Elemental King of Fire in the Martial Names of God while wearing the Martial Lamen and tracing the Seals of the spirits you will be working with. You'll write out your oration notes, and develop your basic Playbook. This is a document that details each step of the process you will be doing during the next phase, Execution. Personally my "playbook" will be written on 3x5" cards. The Orations are usually just noted with the specific names of the beings, and I have place holders for when I'm supposed to ring a bell or light incense or trace particular seals using particular elemental weapons. When this phase is complete, you should have the following:
The next two stages are the ones most magicians don't bother with. In Monitoring and Control, you are supposed to be watching how the ritual you did is unfolding in your life. You're supposed to be checking to see that things are working as designed. Unfortunately, Crowley with his warnings about "lust for results" and the Chaos Magic meme's insistence on banishing with laughter and forgetting that you even did the rite have made a lot of magicians stupid. Between the time you perform the ritual and the time you expect it to manifest, you should be keeping tabs on the results without "lusting" after them. You do this by checking with the spirits to see where they're at in their processes, and by paying attention to the subject areas of your life related to the ritual. If something comes up that is obviously going to fuck up the result, you take steps to implement your controls, processes you design into the ritual to mitigate unforeseen risks to the successful completion of the project.
The final phase of a project is the Closeout stage. In business, this means you've delivered the deliverable, you've made sure it's working, and you pass on responsibility of ongoing maintenance to the appropriate business area "owner." In magic, you enter this phase when the result has been accomplished. You clean up any offerings that were left out for the spirits, you send your spiritual thank you notes to the spirits that attended, and you write up the results of the ritual in your Magical PM log. This write up should include any lessons you've learned that will make future projects go more smoothly.
Chances are you already use a process similar to this in your own Work. the steps are common sense, after all, but maybe you don't bother writing anything up along the way. By taking the time to formulate your statement of intent and the requirements and the playbook and the documentation of the manifestation and lessons learned, you'll have more repeatable, traceable, and consistent results. The planning that goes into each phase will help you identify any potential gaps that could become "showstoppers," the things that will totally derail your intended manifestation.
As you may know, I'm a priest in the cult of Project Management (PM). It's supposed to be a business methodology for accomplishing projects successfully and efficiently. Wikipedia says it's a discipline, but in real life, the disciples of PM are the true believers, the Project Management Office in major corporations are the Priests of their true God, and the rest of the team are heathens claiming to be converts to keep their jobs. The QA team is the Holy Inquisition, audits are their inquests, and ...
Ok, I can see I'll slip off into some weirdness if I keep comparing my job to a religion. So to the point!
Each project has a "life cycle" that can be broken down into basic phases. Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Control, and Closeout. It's all pretty much common sense, but having it codified makes things a lot easier to figure out how to make things work. It provides a template for developing your projects efficiently.
In my Great Work activities, I find that using the simple approach of PM helps immensely. It's not something I have to do nearly as strictly, but it provides a framework within which I can work and excel.
Usually when you decide to do a ritual, it's in response to a need that has become apparent to you in your life. Obvious, eh? I know, but writing it down helps the rest of the post.
When you've identified that something needs to be addressed Magically, you can enter the "Initiation" stage. In this stage, you identify what you want to happen, the result, or "deliverable" of the project. You identify when you want to start the project, and when you want it to finish. You loosely identify the scope, that is, the area of impact of your ritual, and put into writing exactly why you need or want to use magic to accomplish this result. You also figure out whether you can actually do the magic, whether you have the resources of time, skill, and information available to accomplish your desired result.
Many ideas for projects get tossed in the trash can after this phase in business. The place I work added a pre-initiation phase to their projects called "Discovery" to eliminate the number of projects that got started and shit-canned along the way. It saved them a lot of money because one person can do the discovery phase in a major corporation, while to do the Initiation phase properly, you end up using a lot of people and wasting everyone's time and cash.
Magicians don't have to worry about that. The primary value of going through the steps of an Initiation Phase in magical projects is that you have a time set aside to really think about the ritual and put some things in writing so you don't lose focus along the way. When you're finished with you Initiation Phase, you should have everything you need to begin the Planning phase. You should have on one piece of paper:
- A start and finish date
- A Statement of Intent
- A paragraph or two explaining what it is you expect from the ritual, and how you want it to manifest.
When you are finished with this phase, you will have a list of all the things related to your ritual that you will be using to perform the ritual. Writing these things down in bulleted lists grouped by subject area is an exercise that makes the following phase much easier.
The next phase is the Design phase. In this phase, you actually write up the ritual. On Mars day in Mars hour, you burn Mars herbs and call upon Martial Intelligence, Martial Spirit, and the Elemental King of Fire in the Martial Names of God while wearing the Martial Lamen and tracing the Seals of the spirits you will be working with. You'll write out your oration notes, and develop your basic Playbook. This is a document that details each step of the process you will be doing during the next phase, Execution. Personally my "playbook" will be written on 3x5" cards. The Orations are usually just noted with the specific names of the beings, and I have place holders for when I'm supposed to ring a bell or light incense or trace particular seals using particular elemental weapons. When this phase is complete, you should have the following:
- A playbook that has detailed instructions and sequential process steps noted and arranged in the appropriate order
- A checklist of things that need to be in place before you take the first step in the playbook.
The next two stages are the ones most magicians don't bother with. In Monitoring and Control, you are supposed to be watching how the ritual you did is unfolding in your life. You're supposed to be checking to see that things are working as designed. Unfortunately, Crowley with his warnings about "lust for results" and the Chaos Magic meme's insistence on banishing with laughter and forgetting that you even did the rite have made a lot of magicians stupid. Between the time you perform the ritual and the time you expect it to manifest, you should be keeping tabs on the results without "lusting" after them. You do this by checking with the spirits to see where they're at in their processes, and by paying attention to the subject areas of your life related to the ritual. If something comes up that is obviously going to fuck up the result, you take steps to implement your controls, processes you design into the ritual to mitigate unforeseen risks to the successful completion of the project.
The final phase of a project is the Closeout stage. In business, this means you've delivered the deliverable, you've made sure it's working, and you pass on responsibility of ongoing maintenance to the appropriate business area "owner." In magic, you enter this phase when the result has been accomplished. You clean up any offerings that were left out for the spirits, you send your spiritual thank you notes to the spirits that attended, and you write up the results of the ritual in your Magical PM log. This write up should include any lessons you've learned that will make future projects go more smoothly.
Chances are you already use a process similar to this in your own Work. the steps are common sense, after all, but maybe you don't bother writing anything up along the way. By taking the time to formulate your statement of intent and the requirements and the playbook and the documentation of the manifestation and lessons learned, you'll have more repeatable, traceable, and consistent results. The planning that goes into each phase will help you identify any potential gaps that could become "showstoppers," the things that will totally derail your intended manifestation.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Conduct Unbecoming a Magician
HERMES, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests; and the power who presides over the true science concerning the Gods is one and the same in the whole of things. - Iamblichus, On the Mysteries
I'm guilty of a terrible crime. If I belonged to an Order, a militaristic organization of magicians with a hierarchy of supervising rank and file to whom I would be accountable, I'm sure I'd frequently be demoted for Conduct Unbecoming a Magician.
Fortunately, I belong to no such Order. There's no person who has been through more initiations in charge of me. There is no committee of flesh and blood to which someone can report me. There is no chain of command that I must obey.
There is no code of conduct.
People have these rather stupid ideas of what someone who is "into magic" should look like. They have these ignorant expectations of how Adepts, Masters, and Illuminated Saints ought to behave. They think we should all be like Jesus, turning the other cheek, striving to be gentle and kind, never cursing, never harsh, never subject to raw emotion. As a result of the refinement of the process of the great Work, we're supposed to be Heroes, with the powers of the Gods and the approachability of mortals.
I've met some really powerful magicians, folks who are incredibly illuminated. You can feel the power of their spheres radiating outward from them into the universe around them. Talking to them leaves the weak-willed fawning and gibbering like tweens at a Jonas Brothers concert.
They get angry, depressed, and violent like anyone else. When they do, the world has suddenly collapsed for these dweebs, and they're left looking like the little girl dressed up like Princess Padme-Amidalla in the Natalie Portman interview video I posted a while back.
Now don't be all thinking I'm bitching about people that I think I'm better than. I'm not. I have these stupid pedestals in my heart and mind that I put people on too. I'm no better. I've learned to take it in stride when my heroes turn out to be human, though. I've lowered my expectations. I try to remember some basic things when I meet people I think are really cool:
These three little precious jewels serve to remind me not to set unrealistic expectations on people that they can't live up to.
WTF does any of this have to do with Iamblichus?
It has a lot to do with the opening he made in his refutation to Porphyry: HERMES, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests.
Hermes, the god who presides over language. Patrick Dunn has provided a better explanation than I can about the role of language and symbol in magic in Magic, Power, Language, Symbol: A Magicians Exploration of Linguistics. If you haven't read it, you should. We who are Hermetic Magicians are priests of the god of Language. As a Christian, a believer in the Word of God made flesh, I am even more aware of my role as priest to this god in my magical practice.*
Language is symbolic of something else. There's a difference between the words we use and the things we refer to, the meanings of the words. Different people have different meanings for the same words.
It's important that we understand that words and our interpretations of them are not the things they represent. Hierophants, for example, are simply "interpretors of the Mysteries." They aren't perfect ascended masters, wizened and ready to do everything perfectly in every interaction with every person. There is no job description for Hierophant that includes "having reached my idea of what a Hierophant should be." Anyone who can interpret the mysteries in a way that provides initiation into the mystery to those seeking his or her advice is qualified. If you expect your Hierophant to be perfect, you're in for a shock.
The same is true for any spiritual mentor. If the person you're learning from is in the flesh, they are capable of being wrong about things. Don't deceive yourself, or you'll be running head first, full speed towards disappointment. Keep your definitons real, your expectations managed, and at the same time strive for the ideal, knowing that the words, symbols, and entities we interact with are representative of the ideal, not the ideal itself.
* No, I don't have Hermes as a god before God. That's against the Law.
I'm guilty of a terrible crime. If I belonged to an Order, a militaristic organization of magicians with a hierarchy of supervising rank and file to whom I would be accountable, I'm sure I'd frequently be demoted for Conduct Unbecoming a Magician.
Fortunately, I belong to no such Order. There's no person who has been through more initiations in charge of me. There is no committee of flesh and blood to which someone can report me. There is no chain of command that I must obey.
There is no code of conduct.
People have these rather stupid ideas of what someone who is "into magic" should look like. They have these ignorant expectations of how Adepts, Masters, and Illuminated Saints ought to behave. They think we should all be like Jesus, turning the other cheek, striving to be gentle and kind, never cursing, never harsh, never subject to raw emotion. As a result of the refinement of the process of the great Work, we're supposed to be Heroes, with the powers of the Gods and the approachability of mortals.
I've met some really powerful magicians, folks who are incredibly illuminated. You can feel the power of their spheres radiating outward from them into the universe around them. Talking to them leaves the weak-willed fawning and gibbering like tweens at a Jonas Brothers concert.
They get angry, depressed, and violent like anyone else. When they do, the world has suddenly collapsed for these dweebs, and they're left looking like the little girl dressed up like Princess Padme-Amidalla in the Natalie Portman interview video I posted a while back.
Now don't be all thinking I'm bitching about people that I think I'm better than. I'm not. I have these stupid pedestals in my heart and mind that I put people on too. I'm no better. I've learned to take it in stride when my heroes turn out to be human, though. I've lowered my expectations. I try to remember some basic things when I meet people I think are really cool:
- Jesus took a shit. Daily. Even his digestive system was perfect.
- Siddartha farted in his hand and sniffed it.
- Penor Rinpoche declared Steven Seagal a tulku.
These three little precious jewels serve to remind me not to set unrealistic expectations on people that they can't live up to.
WTF does any of this have to do with Iamblichus?
It has a lot to do with the opening he made in his refutation to Porphyry: HERMES, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests.
Hermes, the god who presides over language. Patrick Dunn has provided a better explanation than I can about the role of language and symbol in magic in Magic, Power, Language, Symbol: A Magicians Exploration of Linguistics. If you haven't read it, you should. We who are Hermetic Magicians are priests of the god of Language. As a Christian, a believer in the Word of God made flesh, I am even more aware of my role as priest to this god in my magical practice.*
Language is symbolic of something else. There's a difference between the words we use and the things we refer to, the meanings of the words. Different people have different meanings for the same words.
It's important that we understand that words and our interpretations of them are not the things they represent. Hierophants, for example, are simply "interpretors of the Mysteries." They aren't perfect ascended masters, wizened and ready to do everything perfectly in every interaction with every person. There is no job description for Hierophant that includes "having reached my idea of what a Hierophant should be." Anyone who can interpret the mysteries in a way that provides initiation into the mystery to those seeking his or her advice is qualified. If you expect your Hierophant to be perfect, you're in for a shock.
The same is true for any spiritual mentor. If the person you're learning from is in the flesh, they are capable of being wrong about things. Don't deceive yourself, or you'll be running head first, full speed towards disappointment. Keep your definitons real, your expectations managed, and at the same time strive for the ideal, knowing that the words, symbols, and entities we interact with are representative of the ideal, not the ideal itself.
* No, I don't have Hermes as a god before God. That's against the Law.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Update on Ye Cursin'
All better now.
Psalm 100 is totally in order: Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.
Thanks, Aly, Adoy, Sabaoth, amara.
Gratias ago: Lagumen Iava, firin, Iavagellayn Lavaquiri, Lavagola, Lavatosorin, Layfialafin, Lyafaran: Thanks, and Thanks again.
Psalm 100 is totally in order: Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.
Thanks, Aly, Adoy, Sabaoth, amara.
Gratias ago: Lagumen Iava, firin, Iavagellayn Lavaquiri, Lavagola, Lavatosorin, Layfialafin, Lyafaran: Thanks, and Thanks again.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Fun Stuff
So, I think I'm cursed. Every time anything bad happens to me, I think I'm cursed. Thanks to Jason Miller's Protection and Reversal Magick, I can honestly say that there's a grain of truth to the thought. Being cursed and living under "crossed conditions" are the same thing, pretty much. It doesn't take a magician to curse you, you might have pissed off a spirit of a place, or you may just have some astrological bullshit going on, or maybe you're suffering from rejection by your peers or something. No matter the source of the curse, it manifests in your life as a string of bad luck, illness, or something like that. Magic is effective against this kind of thing regardless of the source.
I (and I'm sure you'll be shocked) tend to annoy other magicians from time to time. I have this open honesty about me that I can't help but project onto the world. On occasion, I'll say something true about someone in a way that doesn't bring them spiritual edification (you're the cum-slick whore of the occult community, a waste of human flesh, and your next incarnation as the sphincter of a Spanish goat guarded by lonely, but well-endowed shepherds is more than you deserve), and then when the bad luck starts a week or so later, I tend to assume they've cursed me.
Most of the time I shrug it off. Every divination I've done to determine whether I've been cursed or not comes back positive. Every time I suspect it's someone in particular, sure enough the cards or tumblers tell me I'm right. When I ask the spirits, the voices in my head confirm that yes, Frater (or Soror) XYZ is personally responsible for my current affliction.
Naturally, I figure I'm full of shit in these circumstances. Any time I get a confirmation of my paranoid prejudices, I tend to question it. I've come to accept that I'm too in love with me, too subjective to do an unbiased divination on myself to get accurate results in this kind of thing (although horary looks interesting). So, I'll usually settle for your basic uncrossing ritual, and then recite Genesis 12:3 ("I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee; and in thee shall all nations of the Earth be blessed") a few times until I'm back to normal (whatever the fuck that passes for these days). No big deal.
A couple of weeks ago, I started getting the feeling I was cursed. Allergies and asthma like never before are plaguing me. According to some loving people, I need to accept that it's middle age creeping up on me and the only curse I'm suffering is hay fever because it's Spring. (Yay, Spring. Yay. Fucking spring and pollen and mold and rain and flowers and bees and yay. Fuck Maryland Spring. I'm moving to the desert. Give me shin daggers, give me Joshua trees, give me mesquite and vinegaroons and prickly pear jam. Deserts get Spring too, and it's beautiful, and you don't have asthma attacks brought on by high pollen counts. One day, Lord, let it be.) It might be middle age creeping up on me, and it might just be Spring on the East Coast that's suffocating me and leaving me unable to form a thought.
I had coincidentally told someone what I thought of them right before the symptoms began manifesting. Maybe if I would just keep my mouth shut and recognize that every human being is a manifestation of God worthy of compassion and charity, maybe if I would truly do unto others as I would have them do unto me, maybe if I really loved the stupid fucks of the world I wouldn't be thinking I was cursed every time I went through a change of life. I'll work on that. Soon.
No, really. I mean it this time. FOR REAL.
Eventually.
Well, regardless, I cracked open 777. The dude's a GD-trained Ceremonialist, for one thing, and they totally love 777; it's like ingrained in their brain. Even if he wasn't personally responsible, I've got it in an Excel spreadsheet and it's easy to do a global search. I could barely breathe at the time, I wasn't up to thumbing through Skinner's Complete Book of Magical Tables looking for the traditional stuff. 777 isn't perfect, but it's good enough in a pinch.
I looked up Respiratory functions and the Lungs. These correspond to Aleph and Zain. What Spirits do I know that start with A and Z, offensive in the elements? Azazel springs to mind, and Azael. Air and Water, respectively. I can't breathe, Air, and I feel like I'm drowning, Water. That's enough for me.
Next stop, the Esoteric Archives. Ok, I was already there anyway, looking at the Scale of the Number Four. It's not like I remember all the demons and their elemental attributes that I've ever seen in my studies. That's why we have the Internet after all. Running a search on "Azazel" turned up a few pages on Joe's site. Most were from Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, one indicated he pops up in the Grimorum Verum (which I have around here, somewhere), and one was from the 6th and 7th Books of Moses.
On that link above, if you do a Find on "Azazel" (hold your control key down and press the "F" key), it takes you right to the pertinent parts. There's a handy dandy Name of God there that's suitable for lifting any afflictions from the Princes of Devils Offensive in the Elements. Incorporating that into a nice ritual didn't take too long, and the effect was immediate.
I also took some medicine. I believe that even if a disease is spiritually caused, the body's going to need to heal anyway. Taking away the source of the affliction helps, fer sure, but you've got to do something about the symptoms.
So I took some B-Complex vitamins for my brain, God knows it needs it regardless of any crossed conditions. I also took some vitamin C to boost my immune system, some Claritin for the allergies, and huffed on some Albuterol for the asthma. Oh yeah, some generic Mucinex (which is Guaifenesin, look for it in cheaper stuff by name) for the congestion. I'll be combining that particular alchemy with some Enochian conjurations of EHNB later to put those particular chemical blocks where they can do the most good. The Christian axiom "In the World, but not of the World" comes to mind.
I (and I'm sure you'll be shocked) tend to annoy other magicians from time to time. I have this open honesty about me that I can't help but project onto the world. On occasion, I'll say something true about someone in a way that doesn't bring them spiritual edification (you're the cum-slick whore of the occult community, a waste of human flesh, and your next incarnation as the sphincter of a Spanish goat guarded by lonely, but well-endowed shepherds is more than you deserve), and then when the bad luck starts a week or so later, I tend to assume they've cursed me.
Most of the time I shrug it off. Every divination I've done to determine whether I've been cursed or not comes back positive. Every time I suspect it's someone in particular, sure enough the cards or tumblers tell me I'm right. When I ask the spirits, the voices in my head confirm that yes, Frater (or Soror) XYZ is personally responsible for my current affliction.
Naturally, I figure I'm full of shit in these circumstances. Any time I get a confirmation of my paranoid prejudices, I tend to question it. I've come to accept that I'm too in love with me, too subjective to do an unbiased divination on myself to get accurate results in this kind of thing (although horary looks interesting). So, I'll usually settle for your basic uncrossing ritual, and then recite Genesis 12:3 ("I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee; and in thee shall all nations of the Earth be blessed") a few times until I'm back to normal (whatever the fuck that passes for these days). No big deal.
A couple of weeks ago, I started getting the feeling I was cursed. Allergies and asthma like never before are plaguing me. According to some loving people, I need to accept that it's middle age creeping up on me and the only curse I'm suffering is hay fever because it's Spring. (Yay, Spring. Yay. Fucking spring and pollen and mold and rain and flowers and bees and yay. Fuck Maryland Spring. I'm moving to the desert. Give me shin daggers, give me Joshua trees, give me mesquite and vinegaroons and prickly pear jam. Deserts get Spring too, and it's beautiful, and you don't have asthma attacks brought on by high pollen counts. One day, Lord, let it be.) It might be middle age creeping up on me, and it might just be Spring on the East Coast that's suffocating me and leaving me unable to form a thought.
I had coincidentally told someone what I thought of them right before the symptoms began manifesting. Maybe if I would just keep my mouth shut and recognize that every human being is a manifestation of God worthy of compassion and charity, maybe if I would truly do unto others as I would have them do unto me, maybe if I really loved the stupid fucks of the world I wouldn't be thinking I was cursed every time I went through a change of life. I'll work on that. Soon.
No, really. I mean it this time. FOR REAL.
Eventually.
Well, regardless, I cracked open 777. The dude's a GD-trained Ceremonialist, for one thing, and they totally love 777; it's like ingrained in their brain. Even if he wasn't personally responsible, I've got it in an Excel spreadsheet and it's easy to do a global search. I could barely breathe at the time, I wasn't up to thumbing through Skinner's Complete Book of Magical Tables looking for the traditional stuff. 777 isn't perfect, but it's good enough in a pinch.
I looked up Respiratory functions and the Lungs. These correspond to Aleph and Zain. What Spirits do I know that start with A and Z, offensive in the elements? Azazel springs to mind, and Azael. Air and Water, respectively. I can't breathe, Air, and I feel like I'm drowning, Water. That's enough for me.
Next stop, the Esoteric Archives. Ok, I was already there anyway, looking at the Scale of the Number Four. It's not like I remember all the demons and their elemental attributes that I've ever seen in my studies. That's why we have the Internet after all. Running a search on "Azazel" turned up a few pages on Joe's site. Most were from Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, one indicated he pops up in the Grimorum Verum (which I have around here, somewhere), and one was from the 6th and 7th Books of Moses.
On that link above, if you do a Find on "Azazel" (hold your control key down and press the "F" key), it takes you right to the pertinent parts. There's a handy dandy Name of God there that's suitable for lifting any afflictions from the Princes of Devils Offensive in the Elements. Incorporating that into a nice ritual didn't take too long, and the effect was immediate.
I also took some medicine. I believe that even if a disease is spiritually caused, the body's going to need to heal anyway. Taking away the source of the affliction helps, fer sure, but you've got to do something about the symptoms.
So I took some B-Complex vitamins for my brain, God knows it needs it regardless of any crossed conditions. I also took some vitamin C to boost my immune system, some Claritin for the allergies, and huffed on some Albuterol for the asthma. Oh yeah, some generic Mucinex (which is Guaifenesin, look for it in cheaper stuff by name) for the congestion. I'll be combining that particular alchemy with some Enochian conjurations of EHNB later to put those particular chemical blocks where they can do the most good. The Christian axiom "In the World, but not of the World" comes to mind.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Anger Management
I've gotten some interesting comments on the Anger Magitude post, and I'm thankful to everyone for their comments. They are constructive and helpful.
I'm going to continue to Work with Mars on eliminating my anger issues. I've had similar issues in the past, and Martial work eliminated the symptoms, and I was fine for a while. When the triggers manifest again though, the path of least resistance is rage.
The point for me is to Work with Mars until everything that is anger-related is so pure that there is no room for unrighteous wrath.
The thing is though, "unrighteous" implies that there is a "righteous" wrath. In the Bible, Paul writes, "in your anger, sin not," saying that anger itself isn't a sin, it's the things you do when you're angry that can be sinful.
In the modern Western world, the same general approach is taken. Scientists and Psychologists are quick to point out that Anger is a Survival Mechanism(tm), and that the released hormones help us in the fight or flight response. Her's a sample definition of Anger from angermgmt.com:
Because we accept Anger as a natural force, a natural reaction in our modern culture, the types of techniques for managing anger treat the symptoms. From a Christian Counseling page:
But anyway, the basic point of each is summed up in this statement:
Meanwhile in the Buddhist Orient, there's another interpretation. The very definition of Anger in Buddhist is completely different and presupposes a universal view that is so radically different from the modern West's view of the Mind that there is no easy reconciliation:
Anyway, still, neat stuff.
It gets worse:
They understand what we're trying to grasp in the Great Work, that it's MIND that forms reality, and everything else is symbolic. Cool stuff. I highly recommend reading every page on that Buddhist site. It's much more in alignment with the teaching of the Corpus Hermeticum, and the teachings of Christ (not Paul). It doesn't advcocate doing nothing or not taking pragmatic steps to get out of bad situations either, it's not stupid.
So making it a bit more personal, the reason I'm hooked on anger is because I made room for it. I use it as a way to filter out things that I would need to Work on, that is, I use it so I don't have to patiently accept what I have to deal with in samsara, the manifest world.The Buddhist perspective offers a way out of the cycle. The Western methods offer bandaid solutions, treatments of symptoms. The Buddhist solution is much more in keeping with Hermetic values. The modern Western methods are not.To me, it seems like a simple choice.
I'm going to continue to Work with Mars on eliminating my anger issues. I've had similar issues in the past, and Martial work eliminated the symptoms, and I was fine for a while. When the triggers manifest again though, the path of least resistance is rage.
The point for me is to Work with Mars until everything that is anger-related is so pure that there is no room for unrighteous wrath.
The thing is though, "unrighteous" implies that there is a "righteous" wrath. In the Bible, Paul writes, "in your anger, sin not," saying that anger itself isn't a sin, it's the things you do when you're angry that can be sinful.
In the modern Western world, the same general approach is taken. Scientists and Psychologists are quick to point out that Anger is a Survival Mechanism(tm), and that the released hormones help us in the fight or flight response. Her's a sample definition of Anger from angermgmt.com:
Anger is a natural human emotion and is nature's way of empowering us to "ward off" our perception of an attack or threat to our well being.Check the people they show on the web site. Five people, black woman, white guy, black guy, oriental guy, and a white woman, all smiling, relaxed, and dressed business professional. Obviously EVERY successful person, regardless of race or gender, knows the secrets on this page, right?
Because we accept Anger as a natural force, a natural reaction in our modern culture, the types of techniques for managing anger treat the symptoms. From a Christian Counseling page:
- Consciously determine to be calm. Don't react, think! Remember your goals and respond appropriately. Choose to remain calm!
- Communicate. When someone upsets you, tell them. Calmly talk to them about how you feel about their words or actions. Learn to express yourself better -- clear and composed. Choose to!
- Remove yourself from the scene until you can respond without anger.Your success will not happen overnight. Take it one step at a time, one day at a time. Remember to relax. Relaxation exercises or music can be helpful. Keep in mind you can reach out to someone you trust for help. Choose to!
- Frequently take time for yourself. Do something you enjoy like walking in the park, swimming, reading the Bible, or seeing a feel-good movie. Do something nice for someone you admire. It's okay to feel good about yourself. Choose to!
- Look for the positives. Don't dwell on the negatives. "Don't sweat the small stuff." Learn to be forgiving. This is difficult, but we need to start by learning to forgive ourselves!
- http://www.angermanagementgroups.com/Skills.html
- http://www.angermgmt.com/techniques.asp
- http://www.apa.org/topics/controlanger.html#strategies
But anyway, the basic point of each is summed up in this statement:
The goal of anger management is to reduce both your emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes. You can't get rid of, or avoid, the things or the people that enrage you, nor can you change them, but you can learn to control your reactions.
Meanwhile in the Buddhist Orient, there's another interpretation. The very definition of Anger in Buddhist is completely different and presupposes a universal view that is so radically different from the modern West's view of the Mind that there is no easy reconciliation:
Anger is a deluded mind that focuses on an animate or inanimate object, feels it to be unattractive, exaggerates its bad qualities, and wishes to harm it.That's from the "Anger Management Techniques.org" web site. As you can see, the fundamental approach is different. A deluded mind. Here they teach that the source of anger is something else too:
Anger is a response to feelings of unhappiness, which in turn arise whenever we meet with unpleasant circumstances. Whenever we are prevented from fulfilling our wishes, or forced into a situation we dislike – in short, whenever we have to put up with something we would rather avoid – our uncontrolled mind reacts by immediately feeling unhappy.Ok, honestly, the West has understood that part pretty well too. They're like, it's pride, dude, self-centered, narcissistic pride that leads to anger. How could something like THIS happen to ME!!!?
Anyway, still, neat stuff.
The other main reason we become unhappy and angry is because we are faced with a situation we do not want or like. Every day we encounter hundreds of situations we do not like, from stubbing our toe or having a disagreement with our partner, to discovering that our house has burnt down or that we have cancer; and our normal reaction to all of these occurrences is to become unhappy and angry. However, try as we might, we cannot prevent unpleasant things happening to us. We cannot promise that for the rest of the day nothing bad will happen to us; we cannot even promise that we shall be alive to see the end of the day. In samsara we are not in control of what happens to us. (Emphasis added by RO.)So how does the Buddhist deal with anger? What are their anger management techniques? Let me tell you, they are a lot different than the ones listed above from Western sources. Lots of my free-will believing readers are going to puke at the thought of what's about to come, but to this neo-Calvinist, it was pure honey:
Since it is impossible to fulfil all our desires or to stop unwanted things happening to us, we need to find a different way of relating to frustrated desires and unwanted occurrences. We need to learn patient acceptance.(From here.)WHOAH! How many people read that and were like, "Fuck that!"? PAtient Acceptance of shit that pisses ME off?
It gets worse:
In reality most of our emotional problems are nothing more than a failure to accept things as they are – in which case it is patient acceptance, rather than attempting to change externals, that is the solution.Yep. You see, they aren't justifying anger as a natural response, instead they are placing the entire responsibility for your reaction to events you don't like squarely on YOU. Because you're a big baby who can't take reality without throwing a temper tantrum.
They understand what we're trying to grasp in the Great Work, that it's MIND that forms reality, and everything else is symbolic. Cool stuff. I highly recommend reading every page on that Buddhist site. It's much more in alignment with the teaching of the Corpus Hermeticum, and the teachings of Christ (not Paul). It doesn't advcocate doing nothing or not taking pragmatic steps to get out of bad situations either, it's not stupid.
So making it a bit more personal, the reason I'm hooked on anger is because I made room for it. I use it as a way to filter out things that I would need to Work on, that is, I use it so I don't have to patiently accept what I have to deal with in samsara, the manifest world.The Buddhist perspective offers a way out of the cycle. The Western methods offer bandaid solutions, treatments of symptoms. The Buddhist solution is much more in keeping with Hermetic values. The modern Western methods are not.To me, it seems like a simple choice.
Friday, April 17, 2009
More Magitude
So, following up on Monday's success, Tuesday night I conjured Kammael of Mars in a similar way to that performed with Gabriel Monday night. I spoke with him more, as I've been having anger management issues lately.
He explained what was going on, and again I "saw" an entity wrapped around me, a black evilness that had become attached. This time it wasn't as squid-like. It was more scorpionish, or insectoid. It didn't just let me go, either. Instead its appendages were burried in my symbolic flesh, and they were barbed. The weird thing was that they weren't like piercing me and causing harm as much as they were embedded in the flesh. My symbolic flesh in the vision had welcomed the evil spirit of self-righteous indignation, made room for it, and grown around the barbs in a way that they couldn't just be removed without causing damage.
Obviously I'm attached to my anger. I like it. Or at least I perceive that I like it. That's the trouble with this kind of Work, differentiating between the subjective reality and the subjective interpretation of the subjective reality.
This time it wasn't nearly as easy to release the evil thing. It is still with me, and I can sort of sense it at any given moment. It feels a lot like an addiction, like that ever-present anxiety you feel when you consider quitting something you're addicted to. Nicotine addicts will likely understand me better than most, but I'm sure a few pot heads who've had to face down their jones will grok what I'm talking about too.
IT's kind of a weird way to Work with this kind of thing. Usually, when I need help with an issue, the spirit just appears and then the issue is gone, as if by MAGIC. This is taking a bit more effort on my part. I'm thinking it's only taking more effort because I like the rush I get from anger. It's not the kind of thing I'm happy liking though, so it shouldn't be too hard to get over. A change of heart is in order, and that's a relatively simple thing to arrange with the powers that be.
But again, I found a lightening of my attitude as soon as I performed the rite. I found myself laughing and carrying on in ways I hadn't in a while.
He explained what was going on, and again I "saw" an entity wrapped around me, a black evilness that had become attached. This time it wasn't as squid-like. It was more scorpionish, or insectoid. It didn't just let me go, either. Instead its appendages were burried in my symbolic flesh, and they were barbed. The weird thing was that they weren't like piercing me and causing harm as much as they were embedded in the flesh. My symbolic flesh in the vision had welcomed the evil spirit of self-righteous indignation, made room for it, and grown around the barbs in a way that they couldn't just be removed without causing damage.
Obviously I'm attached to my anger. I like it. Or at least I perceive that I like it. That's the trouble with this kind of Work, differentiating between the subjective reality and the subjective interpretation of the subjective reality.
This time it wasn't nearly as easy to release the evil thing. It is still with me, and I can sort of sense it at any given moment. It feels a lot like an addiction, like that ever-present anxiety you feel when you consider quitting something you're addicted to. Nicotine addicts will likely understand me better than most, but I'm sure a few pot heads who've had to face down their jones will grok what I'm talking about too.
IT's kind of a weird way to Work with this kind of thing. Usually, when I need help with an issue, the spirit just appears and then the issue is gone, as if by MAGIC. This is taking a bit more effort on my part. I'm thinking it's only taking more effort because I like the rush I get from anger. It's not the kind of thing I'm happy liking though, so it shouldn't be too hard to get over. A change of heart is in order, and that's a relatively simple thing to arrange with the powers that be.
But again, I found a lightening of my attitude as soon as I performed the rite. I found myself laughing and carrying on in ways I hadn't in a while.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Magitude
I had an attitude adjustment Monday night. Don't know what happened, exactly, but I can speculate.
I was falling asleep, and I remembered I was feeling glum about not doing enough magic lately. I got this overwhelming "It's time" feeling/thought that sort of pushed down on my body as I laid there. Looking back, I recognize it as the same feeling I get at Church during the worship service (pentecostal) or during the Transubstantiation (Catholic). It's this warm bath-of-Spirit.
At the time, my reaction was, "Sigh, oh what the hell." I remembered it was still technically Monday, and I believe it happened to be in the hour of the Moon. I decided to conjure Gabriel, and do a little Lunar Work. I went "up" through the elemental spheres into the Lunar realm, met Gabriel, showed him the Silver Key (his seal) and asked for admittance and further initiation into the Sphere of the Moon in the Name of Shaddai El Chai.
Some stuff happened. Fishy-depths visuals, your basic transformation revelations, lots of scenes from The Big Blue, coral, jellyfish, clownfish, and yeah, it was like a scene from Nemo, but darker. Not as sunny-bright.
Next day at work, I noticed how people had REALLY shitty attitudes, and how my own had sort of conformed to theirs. In contemplation, I analyzed where it came from in my thoughts and expectations, took a look at where my desires weren't meshing with the manifestation of God's Will, and took soime minor, mostly symbolic corrective action. The results were immediate. I found myself leading a meeting, which isn't the kind of thing you'd expect to be doing after a Water ritual. At least, not me.
But I was thrust into a leadership role the next day, and inuited my way through it, finding common ground, avoiding bitter cynicism, and generally not being a bitter bastard. People walked away from a rough meeting (rough because all the deliverables are late and getting later, and there's nothing we can do now about it) feeling like they were part of a team, knowing what they had to focus on that day and the rest of the week, and who to reach to get the info they needed. It was a pleasant change from the usual diaspora that follows our meetings.
Later on, I kicked some upper-crust executives out of their "Executive Steering Committee" meeting, which is generally a poor career move. The suits all tend to look the same after a while, and I mistook the air of executive authority the bald suit was exuding as your basic prickness, so I sort of pricknessed him back and got my snotty admin attitude a bit. I'm not perfect.
But in general, I've noticed a much more positive flow to my expectations since the recent Lunar Work. One of the things I remember was the feeling of some black evil shit dissolving from around me in the depths of the sea. slippery slimy tendrils releasing me, like escaping from a black shadow-squid. Or being let go, rather. It definitely wasn't an escape. More like, "ok, you can let go now," and it was all, "ok, talk to you later." There was a familiarity with it, like it was an old friend and partner in my life. As I think about it, yeah, I have some evil phases on occasion, I can be a bit of a bitter bastard once in a while. It makes sense that I'd have a familiarity, a working relationship with being a pessimist.
I was falling asleep, and I remembered I was feeling glum about not doing enough magic lately. I got this overwhelming "It's time" feeling/thought that sort of pushed down on my body as I laid there. Looking back, I recognize it as the same feeling I get at Church during the worship service (pentecostal) or during the Transubstantiation (Catholic). It's this warm bath-of-Spirit.
At the time, my reaction was, "Sigh, oh what the hell." I remembered it was still technically Monday, and I believe it happened to be in the hour of the Moon. I decided to conjure Gabriel, and do a little Lunar Work. I went "up" through the elemental spheres into the Lunar realm, met Gabriel, showed him the Silver Key (his seal) and asked for admittance and further initiation into the Sphere of the Moon in the Name of Shaddai El Chai.
Some stuff happened. Fishy-depths visuals, your basic transformation revelations, lots of scenes from The Big Blue, coral, jellyfish, clownfish, and yeah, it was like a scene from Nemo, but darker. Not as sunny-bright.
Next day at work, I noticed how people had REALLY shitty attitudes, and how my own had sort of conformed to theirs. In contemplation, I analyzed where it came from in my thoughts and expectations, took a look at where my desires weren't meshing with the manifestation of God's Will, and took soime minor, mostly symbolic corrective action. The results were immediate. I found myself leading a meeting, which isn't the kind of thing you'd expect to be doing after a Water ritual. At least, not me.
But I was thrust into a leadership role the next day, and inuited my way through it, finding common ground, avoiding bitter cynicism, and generally not being a bitter bastard. People walked away from a rough meeting (rough because all the deliverables are late and getting later, and there's nothing we can do now about it) feeling like they were part of a team, knowing what they had to focus on that day and the rest of the week, and who to reach to get the info they needed. It was a pleasant change from the usual diaspora that follows our meetings.
Later on, I kicked some upper-crust executives out of their "Executive Steering Committee" meeting, which is generally a poor career move. The suits all tend to look the same after a while, and I mistook the air of executive authority the bald suit was exuding as your basic prickness, so I sort of pricknessed him back and got my snotty admin attitude a bit. I'm not perfect.
But in general, I've noticed a much more positive flow to my expectations since the recent Lunar Work. One of the things I remember was the feeling of some black evil shit dissolving from around me in the depths of the sea. slippery slimy tendrils releasing me, like escaping from a black shadow-squid. Or being let go, rather. It definitely wasn't an escape. More like, "ok, you can let go now," and it was all, "ok, talk to you later." There was a familiarity with it, like it was an old friend and partner in my life. As I think about it, yeah, I have some evil phases on occasion, I can be a bit of a bitter bastard once in a while. It makes sense that I'd have a familiarity, a working relationship with being a pessimist.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Real A:.A:.
It's us. And the secret is it's what we do. And the initiation is that we're doing it. And if you haven't started doing it, then do.
The pictures beyond have nothing to do with the rest of this post. It's just here to say Happy Easter.
Happy Good Friday too, cause I missed it.
Happy Easter.
The pictures beyond have nothing to do with the rest of this post. It's just here to say Happy Easter.
Happy Good Friday too, cause I missed it.
Happy Easter.Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Bummers, Baby Bits, and Bigger Hammers
Well, Sunday's post turned out to be rather disappointing. I thought I'd seen through the illusion, and it turned out I had just gotten off on a tangent. While getting ready for church, that is, getting ready to wash my hair as I'd woken up too late for a full shower, I got the song Volare stuck in my head (doesn't everyone in that situation?), and in High School Latin, I always sang the "Do" conjugations to that tune. In a loud lounge singer voice.
I'd been thinking about becoming a Power, and the Powers of the Sphinx popped into my mind. In a flash of BRILLIANCE, I figured out that the Latin word "Do," root of such English words as "donate" might have been the same root for the Dare part in the French manuscript written by Eliphas Levi. Before I could forget, I ran to the computer and posted my insight about giving up being the "secret" meaning behind the Dare, and how it combined with the Silent thing, because like Jason said, it's part of the transition from the 8th to the 9th spheres, one of the final steps before becoming a Power.
See, in each of the Seven planetary spheres, you have something to leave behind in order to be purified in that sphere's powers. They're listed in the Divine Pymander:
So imagine my disappointment when I found out that the French word wasn't related to the Latin "do." It kind of took the whole foundation of my new and true interpretation all the way away.
In a lot of ways, I'm tempted to return to my loathing of Levi. I mean, 19th century esotericist, willy-nilly Tarot attributions, and the audacity to say that "Magic is not a vocation." What the fuck could he possibly know?
But that's just pride. Fuck pride. Or to put in less Marcellus Wallace terms, "Domineering Arrogance can burn in the magnified rays of the Sun."
So, filtering out the baby bits from the bath water, I'm going to shelve the "Powers of the Sphinx" yet again. I enjoyed Jason's exposition of the Inner, Outer, and Secret interpretations of the Powers. I agree with what he said about jumping to assumptions being a trap. Until I can wrap my brain around it in a better way, I'm not going to try to force anything into the system that's evolving in my Work.
At least until I can find a bigger hammer.*
In the mean time, I'm going to return my focus to the Rainbow Body reference, the PGM, and looking deeper into some of the mysteries that I've been able to wrap my brain around so far.
*Note: this link is for the dude's signature line. Perhaps the finest wisdom I've seen, in an Inner, Outer, and Secret kind of way.
I'd been thinking about becoming a Power, and the Powers of the Sphinx popped into my mind. In a flash of BRILLIANCE, I figured out that the Latin word "Do," root of such English words as "donate" might have been the same root for the Dare part in the French manuscript written by Eliphas Levi. Before I could forget, I ran to the computer and posted my insight about giving up being the "secret" meaning behind the Dare, and how it combined with the Silent thing, because like Jason said, it's part of the transition from the 8th to the 9th spheres, one of the final steps before becoming a Power.
See, in each of the Seven planetary spheres, you have something to leave behind in order to be purified in that sphere's powers. They're listed in the Divine Pymander:
If the Four Powers of the Sphinx were talking about the way to attain the goals of the Emerald Tablet and the Divine Pymander and the Discourse on the 8th and 9th, why, I'd finally be able to put the writings of Eliphas Levi (that esoteric bridge between the Renaissance magicians and the Industrial Age Golden Dawn factory-line initiate system) into context and have one contiguous, if still not continuous means of interpreting the various historic, modern, and post-modern Hermetic traditions. I would finally be able to let go of my disdain for the GD and its spawn and start finding things of personal use in that system. I'd be able to TALK to Ceremonialists within those systems without pissing them off! How cool is that?
25. And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafter upwards through the Harmony.
To the first zone he gives the Energy of Growth and Waning; unto the second [zone], Device of Evils [now] de-energized; unto the third, the Guile of the Desires de-energized; unto the fourth, his Domineering Arrogance, [also] de-energized; unto the fifth, unholy Daring and the Rashness of Audacity, de-energized; unto the sixth, Striving for Wealth by evil means, deprived of its aggrandizement; and to the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized.
So imagine my disappointment when I found out that the French word wasn't related to the Latin "do." It kind of took the whole foundation of my new and true interpretation all the way away.
In a lot of ways, I'm tempted to return to my loathing of Levi. I mean, 19th century esotericist, willy-nilly Tarot attributions, and the audacity to say that "Magic is not a vocation." What the fuck could he possibly know?
But that's just pride. Fuck pride. Or to put in less Marcellus Wallace terms, "Domineering Arrogance can burn in the magnified rays of the Sun."
So, filtering out the baby bits from the bath water, I'm going to shelve the "Powers of the Sphinx" yet again. I enjoyed Jason's exposition of the Inner, Outer, and Secret interpretations of the Powers. I agree with what he said about jumping to assumptions being a trap. Until I can wrap my brain around it in a better way, I'm not going to try to force anything into the system that's evolving in my Work.
At least until I can find a bigger hammer.*
In the mean time, I'm going to return my focus to the Rainbow Body reference, the PGM, and looking deeper into some of the mysteries that I've been able to wrap my brain around so far.
*Note: this link is for the dude's signature line. Perhaps the finest wisdom I've seen, in an Inner, Outer, and Secret kind of way.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Four Powers of the Sphinx Redeux
SAVOIR OSER VOULOIR SE TAIRE
Dogme et rituel de la haute magie Par Éliphas Lévi
Ok, so EVERYTHING you know on the Powers of the Sphinx wasn't entirely wrong. "To Dare" didn't turn out to be related at all to the Latin word "Do, Dare, Didi, Datum." (The first two conjugations are traditionally sung to the tune of The Love Boat, or Volare. By me. Traditionally.) OSER comes from Auser, which is like Autem or something. Can't remember. But definitely not Do, Dare, Didi, Datum.
So... There were no blinds or secrets, and I was wrong. But I do have this cool new interpretation. I might even say it is inspired.
Dogme et rituel de la haute magie Par Éliphas Lévi
Ok, so EVERYTHING you know on the Powers of the Sphinx wasn't entirely wrong. "To Dare" didn't turn out to be related at all to the Latin word "Do, Dare, Didi, Datum." (The first two conjugations are traditionally sung to the tune of The Love Boat, or Volare. By me. Traditionally.) OSER comes from Auser, which is like Autem or something. Can't remember. But definitely not Do, Dare, Didi, Datum.
So... There were no blinds or secrets, and I was wrong. But I do have this cool new interpretation. I might even say it is inspired.
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