Weight Loss

Long ago and far away, I had a pact with Jason to lose weight this year. We had aimed to lose around 60 pounds. I started at 238, a weight I was proud of being at, since it was less than the 270 I had managed to accumulate after my last child was born.

Over the summer I managed to lose about 15 pounds by doing a lot of walking and exercises. I hit the 225 mark and stalled, but I finally broke through that plateau and made it down to about 220, before Halloween hit.

Optimystic asked me to do a write up on the element of Fire over on the Lemegeton list, and this is one of the elements I had planned on working with (at the beginning of the year) to get the weight off. I was hoping to simply increase my metabolism with some gentle work with Oriens, Prince of the East. I was thinking of doing a conjuration of Oriens for the article, and then while I was at it, asking him to up my metabolism.

Due to the experiences of a certain blogger who shall remain nameless related to magic and weight loss, I have been hesitant to use magic to lose weight. A hasty ritual that doesn't take into account basic physiology can be hazardous to one's health. I think that simply increasing my metabolism under the tutelage of Oriens will work. But at the same time, the biggest driver for actual weight loss is always exercise for me. If I build up some meaty major muscle groups, my body burns more calories throughout the day. Long walks and hours spent on the old exerbike seem to work wonders for me. I don't want to inflame my metabolism, and then give it no outlet to burn.

So I'm taking a holistic approach, and resisting the urge to conjure up Oriens and get him to do the driving for me. I'll probably end up Working with each of the elemetnal Kings, and doing some kind of Work on the Guf itself. the Moon's waning, so I'm thinking it's a good time for it.

Even though I've only got a couple of months to lose the rest of the weight. Sigh. I don't think I'll make it to the full 60 pounds this year, but I do aim to at least break 200 by January.

Neo-Platonics Basics

I've compiled the Neo-Platonics Basics series into yet another eBook available over on the right. The original blog posts are still available in the history, and on www.rufusopus.com, but for those who like eBooks to print out and have, it saves you some editing.

For those who have signed up for the course, DON'T BUY IT. You'll get a copy as part of the course.

Attention Supernatural Assistant Course Members

If you've signed up for the course, you've been invited to join the yahoo group. 3 of the course members haven't joined yet, so check the email you used to set up the google checkout account, and look for an invite to the yahoo group. If you have another email address you want to use, let me know, and I'll send the invite there.

Clouds of Incense

In the book of Revelations, there's a section that talks about how the incense that the angels offer up to God in his throne room are the prayers of the saints. I think it's a neat analogy.

Jason Miller presents an offering technique in his books Sorcerer's Secrets and Protection and Reversal Magic that consists of visualizing clouds of "energy" expanding out on behalf of the spirits. He advises you to mentally multiply whatever offering you're making, visualizing it being a ton more stuff than it actually is. It's a cool concept.

As part of the development of the course for the Supernatural Assistant, I've been praying. A lot. I had sort of stopped praying sometime around February, which contributed to the overall troubles I faced this past summer. I've been making up for lost time, as it were, inflaming myself in prayer the way I intend to have the class participants do it, and man... I can't believe I stopped.

The power of prayer is incredible. Think of every moment you spend immersed in prayer as a moment of offering up some smoking incense to the source of your being, clouds of incense filling the Holy of Holies with the pure essence of worship, love, and the sanctifying power of Grace. As I finish the session, I've been magnifying the incense in my mind's eye, filling the Throne Room of God with huge thick thunderheads of clouds of incense, the way Jason advises. I even picture lightning flashing within the clouds.

I've also been incorporating the breathing techniques he provides in Sorcerer's Secrets. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Jason's book is a welcome addition to any magician's library. The techniques he provides are very cool to play with in practice. I've had my prayer sessions enriched and reinvigorated. It's definitely a highly recommended resource.

But the prayer has been like ... I want to say its like recharging the old batteries, but it's more than that. I haven't had the amount of "energy" I have now ... ever. Maybe the two months spent in fear of no-income, and the three months of not-praying and over-stressing are coloring my perception, but I really feel like the batteries were taken out, the whole system was redesigned to handle more power, and a whole new power pack was installed. And it doesn't seem to drain. My new job is totally stressful, I'm busy most of the day, and the deadlines are hilarious, if they're happening to someone else, but I have a steady reserve of mental alertness that other people on the project don't have. They get burned out quickly, it seems, while I'm feeling as fresh as I did in the morning after my first cup of coffee all day long.

I have noticed I'm sleeping a lot deeper than I used to. I've attributed that to not having the same level of stress I was living under for so long, but now I'm not sure. There's probably more to it than that. I'm on from the time I wake up until about 11:30 at night, and then I'm off, like someone flipped a switch.

I've resumed my regular daily regimen of Hermetic Merkavah before going to bed. I've been going through a spiritual metamorphosis that seems to pick up where I left off in my dreams. I wouldn't say I was lucidly dreaming, but there's definitely something going on.

I'm still digging out of the financial hole I made for myself over the last couple of months, but I keep thinking of new ways out, through, and I'm not freaking out over stuff that I can't control. I've taken steps to exert as much influence as I have access to over the things that are most pressing, and I have peace over those issues: they're in stronger hands than mine, and I have a sense of acceptance that it will be taken care of by those best suited to address the issues, leaving me free to pursue God in prayer and ritual.

I've been spending a lot more time with my HGA/Supernatural Assistant too, in preparation for the class. I'm going over the strategy I have planned with him, and we're cleaning up the things that I had penciled in. He's got some great ideas (as you can imagine) about making things easier for the students as a whole. I'm excited to see how things turn out.

I think the trick is to pursue God first, take whatever problems that interfere with your pursuit of Him (however you see him or her or it or whatever) to the appropriate celestial/terrestrial entity, and then get back to pursuing Him. Everything else just seems to take care of itself.

Goetic Blessings

I recently saw a comment on one of the message boards mentioning that someone added themselves to my "followers" list on the right over there, and that they soon received an unexpected windfall. I'm assuming I also managed to get my 10%.

It's got me wondering about online magic in general. I'm by no means a "cyber magician" or anything like that, but, apparently, blessings online can be passed along with triggers using Goetic Magic, at least. Innn-terrresting.