Highlight: The Key: Sethian Gnosticism in the Postmodern world

I am exceedingly busy and will be for the next few weeks before the blog continues.

The problem with equinoxes solstices and other things.

However The Key: Sethian Gnosticism in the postmodern world has now finally been released on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Key-Sethian-Gnosticism-postmodern-world/dp/8299824370/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1316603746&sr=8-2

I read the original when it was still a Norwegian word document and was meant to assist in translating it. There might be 1 or 2 pages in there that I translated as well.

I am extremely happy to see this on Amazon after loving it when I read it 2 years ago. That it is available to the English speaking world is a huge asset!

The book gives an introduction to Sethian Gnosticism in a way that it becomes relevant to people today. It is actually Book 1 of 3 planned ones where the other 2 will focus more on practical matters and also contain some of the hidden and revealed texts.

The book is the result of the work of a practitioner from their Albedo phase through the citrinitas.

I strongly recommend it for anyone who has an interest in gnosticism, would like an overview and thinks in these paths.

I have to highlight that this is not a historic treatise nor is it a book filled with informatio about how you can be a Gnostic, what it does do is that it takes concepts and ideas from Gnosticism that many use yet few understand, and makes it as clear as possible for todays readers.

I hope you enjoy it!

the x-files

It is said that during the final bits of the Elysian mysteries certain words were said and a basket was shown to the participants, and that made them realise the Mystery of Elysius.

Some say, that the 3rd degree of Masonry used to be enough to propel people into the beginnings of enlightenment. If we believe the research of Bishop Hoeller, the Valentinians used the sacraments as initiations.

There seems to be a lot of things that in times passed meant a lot to people, that were words containing the deepest mysteries. Texts kept away from the profane, because they contained the secrets to ___insert something__ itself!

Most of these things are limited to time. I doubt that it would be useful for anyone to undergo the Elysian mysteries today because we are not in the same mental space. Eating meat fish drinking wine and having sex is also not a massive taboo for most of us and is not going to cause any shocks to the system. Being shown a gurus rose-smelling piss might be a life altering event for a lifelong groupie, but the western reporter is probably just going to think that it is gross.

The question whether there are traditions that still have secrets and whether or not there are papers that are not published is actually not relevant.

Of course there are papers that exist that haven't made their way into the internet.

Are the papers worth anything? NO. Not out of context. That is the whole point. Can you give me the texts for all the rites in the Swedish rite of freemasonry started by Duke Carl in March 1735? No, I doubt you can. Would it make any difference if some random got hold of them?

Nope.

A guy actually emailed me and said "If you have these ancient secret papers, why don't you share them or shut up about them?"

Thats kind of missing the point.

Allow me to demonstrate. Instead of sharing the papers I will play a game.

Let's play the game of "Giving the game away" and see how without the oral traditions, the correct context and being a part of a living tradition the following statements are meaningless, yet are still considered the highest secrets in some regards:

-The Tomb is empty

-Christ is slain Christ is Risen Christ will come again

-Osiris is a black God

-There is no part of me that is not of the Gods

-The dove confirms you are ready

-I am Truth!

-Chew and Swallow

-The god you worship is actually the Devil!

-Iao is short for Ialdabaoth

-There was a fifth nail for Jesus, but a Gypsy stole it.

-Only Loco gives the Asson

The thing is, the papers that haven't been released and are not findable are not what is going to solve an age old mystery. This is not an intellectual academic pursuit of putting a puzzle together. Having "Horus is the mystery" whispered into your ear, or being taken to a church at midnight to have your hair cut and wrist slit into a cup only makes sense, is only revelatory if you have been schooled in the right context.

The western mystery traditions have never, EVER, been about working out something intellectually as they relate to something so specific.

Putting corpse bits into a pot doesn't make you a Tata and until you get circumcised and accepted by a jewish rabbi as his student of Qabalah you are not -really- a kabbalist.

Did you know it is nigh impossible to create a 5 pointed star using a par of compasses and a straightedge unless you know exactly what you are doing? (hint, the wikipedia way is not the way) I will look up the reference when I have time

And if there are schools with mysteries? Mate, if Palo and Santeria has survived after being created in Cuba based on African religious practices, what makes you think there isn't a living tradition of other things?

Maybe some of these things rely on more then paperwork. Maybe the reason you cannot call yourself a Houngan just because you read some books on voudu and worship the Lwa isn't just some odd Exoteric rule, maybe there is a point to it. Maybe some of the grimoires are actually just bullshit made up of people who wanted a fast buck and maybe the corpus hermeticum is as esoteric as the bible, without certain specific empowerments or just a way of working that is meant to be un-locatable no matter how much one searches. the secret words are not qabalistic ennummerations, they are the colour codes of my little ponies.

Certain things will never make it to the public domain, and the moment they do they cannot be used for their intended purpose again.

This is the origin of the Old Alchemists saying:

"It is when we talk the most plainly nobody understands and when we talk in riddles that the people hang on our words".

I would want nothing more for there to be an essay or a book or ANYTHING I could just give out and know that if you just follow that instruction you will get to the end of what the traditions hint at. But it doesn't work like that. Because the moment that would happen the way to Gold would immediately transform into the way of Silver.

living proof: The Book of the Law. From one point of view every word in it is True. But Are you enlightened ujst because you read it? Really? (please please dont say yes, its a trap)

If you answered "No" why do you think that is?

Sometimes you need to be touched on the head by someone or be taken to a specific location or have become a vegan ascetic before being forced to eat a corpse of your own gender you have to copulate with whilst your mentor says chew and swallow...

Ce la vie, eh?

Knowledge

There are 3 sorts of people out there.

Those who don't care

Those who believe in something

Those who have Gnosis.

Now, someone asked me the following question:

"What is the difference between a Gnostic and a Christian, because it really seems that they both do the same thing, following myths and stuff".

Someone else asked me:

"What is the difference between a magician who claims to be enlightened who can work with spirits and do miracles and a magician who has actually found the stone of the wise, seeing as they both seem to do the same thing, you know, majicka."

I thought about charging sex, money and power for a made up answer, then I realised I'm not a douchebag and can do so for free with the real answer.

Gnosticism

It is all about the attitude. You see, all those holy texts out there, from the bible to the Bhagavad Gita to Liber Al were made up by someone who themselves may or may not have had gnosis. It might be they had gnosis, it might be they mistook a vision for a moment of gnosis or it might be they were complete and utter dicks and just wanted a way to control people.

The attitude needed is to choose to work with a religious myth. Not because you believe in it, not because you were raised in it, but because it happens to resonate with the cultural scheme in yourself and you can make the tools work.

Whilst you do this you are 99% the same as any Psychic, someone who truly believes. Thats the point. But when you start to have mystical experiences that show the bringing on of what in alchemy is often referred to as the albedo phase, you will not ground them in the tradition, running back to a textual or authoritative source, you will work to understand them based on your lived experience thusfar.

Then, when you are truly ready the grace can in some few cases bestow upon you gnosis (See the Life story of Boehme) or you may be lucky enough to be guided by someone else who has gnosis and they can impart this upon you. When this truly happens you will know it.

Because until a Gnostic has Gnosis s/he is merely a psychic who is intellectually drawn towards that which s/he perceives as gnosis, whereas a psychic doesn't even ask the questions intellectually and simply accepts.

But from the view of the one with Gnosis, they are both psychics because they both live either in the world they choose to believe in, or the world they have been made to believe in, not the world that is truly there.

Magic

The same rule applies to a magician as does a gnostic, here however, the mythologem that is referred to is called the Stone of the Wise, that is not a stone.

The books are made up in the same way as above, sometimes by people who know how to make others make use of existing symbolic systems to interface with the mind of the Godworld, some who have no ideas and just wanted to make a buck. Same goes for modern books on magick used for "enlightenment" versus magic made for practical results. Some are shit and others are really good. Compare with the old Alchemical texts where some actually could guide you to Gold others were outright dangerous and some were extremely good chemistry handbooks.

In the same way as it is impossible to get Gnosis by following concrete rules, it is not possible to attain unto the stone within the context of the lower work within magical traditions.

It certainly is possible to become a very effective magician, to have practical results, even to experience magically altered states of consciousness. But tell you what. You are not doing anything different then millions of people in oriental Asia are doing daily. The rituals, the conversation with spirits all that, they do from birth. The pujas, the offerings, the communing with spirits and their ancestors, casting powders on the people next door... this is being done by many more then you could count.

"There are more people practicing magick today then ever before". I'm truly sorry but that is utter bullshit in the context it was said. There are just as many people practicing magick today as there has always been, except in secularised countries like USA and Europe and heavily dogmatised religio-political places where even having a bad non-religious conformist thought will get your face melted with acid. And even so the enormous amount of people born in China and India and the region makes up for our slackness.

Aside from that? No, people still do magick. The same way as people in the desert do and did. The same way as egyptians woke up and fed their housegoods, as Romans bowed slightly before the fire in their house etc. My grandmother refuses to pour out hot water to this day as she doesn't want to hurt the housetomte. A lunar consciousness exists in many places as a matter of fact and has done so as attested by countless academically accepted historical sources such as papyri, lead-tablets and ethnologic research conducted the past 50 or so years attests to. Doing magic and having a living relationship with spirits and being good at magic is not something true and unique for a select few that we have managed to bring back from utter destruction.

It is not magic itself that will raise you to find the stone of the wise, it is a very specific application of mystical and magical techniques that might if you are lucky, bring about the change.

Argent's inane metaphor of the week:

Following recipes will make you a good cook, and if you have any talent whatsoever you may even learn to cook without a recipe. Thats good. Welcome to the club of being a magician. But until you can turn that fucking turnip into a carrot, you do not have the Stone of the Wise.

It is here that it is all brought together. For Gnosis is not non-dual awareness, it is not unio-mystica. the Stone of the Wise is not an initiation, or to wank around with God.

Gnosis and The Stone are the same thing and both can only be bestowed by divine Grace in very exceptional circumstances (Life of Boehme, St.Martin, Jung) but most often it is achieved by the littlest amount of helping push, the yeast given by someone who has some already. The light of the Gnosis within someone, a particle of the Stone.

Until that is in place the magician is a magician without Gnosis. Without the Stone of the Wise.

Is this a bad thing?

Nope. Everyone should do magick. Everyone should learn how to speak to spirits. Everyone should be a psychic and have some form of relationship with the divine.

But should we claim that what in alchemical terms is barely an albedo phase is the end-result?

No.

This tendency started with Crowley and the world around the WW1 when modernism shattered the Western world and brought about the end of the enlightenment era and plummeted us down into a meaningless pit.

We overcompensate. It is not enough to learn how to cook, we want to change parsnips into oranges. And we will use the cookbooks for this end for surely they will have the keys?

It is not enough we recover from the curse of modernism and seek to be in communion with the divine. No, we will use a portion of a religious system, say the bible, and seek complete enlightenment through that, ignoring that within that framework the only people who have all needed to reach the highest possible level whilst alive are really the bishops.

People want the fast way forward without knowing what it is. They don't want to serve the Lwa they want to become a houngan. It is not enough to learn self-defense and get in good shape, no you want to open your own dojo.

I am not saying that it should take 50 years to get Gnosis. I am saying that you can spend 50 years and never get it.

Alchemy has broken down the mystical-magical language to as pure a symbolic system as possible.

Doing religion and doing magick all fit into the earliest forms of having developed a lunar consciousness (think, a mirror) and working with the preparing for Nigredo.

Without having passed through Nigredo there will be no albedo, hence no citrinitas and thus no rubedo.

St. Mother Theresa was seeking for Albedo for over 30 years. Why? because she used the wrong tool for the wrong job.

If you want to be a good magician, if you want to have a relationship with the divine then do it. But don't enter into a process that you don't know how to get out of.

To have the Stone of the Wise or have Gnosis you need to pass into the alchemical Albedo phase and then transmute that into rubedo.

Do you have to be perfect to summon Raphael for a chat? Hell, no. Do you need to fast for 7 days just to jinx someone? Doubt it.

But if you have worked through your nigredo phase and the white-gray mass starts to brighten, then you will not be a bag. You will no longer be tied to outer forms. You will truly have been turned inside out and cleansed. Remember that bad thing you did? Gone.

Only then will you truly be able to say: I am utterly and perfectly happy with myself in every single way all the time. And you will also have performed the traveling into the deepest reaches of the world/beyond the astral/the subconscious (yourself) and there found the centre and that centerpiece will be you.

You will not care about things. You will not be angry or happy. You might experience these things but they will not move you from your center.

This is Albedo, this is where todays living orthodox saints, he none-phoney sadhus and Daoist masters reside in. and you know what? Just as there are little old women who can make a meal to beat any michelin star chef, can hex you to death with a glance no matter how much magick you have done, so there are people who have through very hard work gotten to this point.

If you truly can look into your own eyes in the mirror, away from your friends, away from the internet, away from even the eyes of god and say that this is the case, in everysingle moment, then you have achieved the albedo.

Not only will you have by necessity passed through the Dark Night of the Soul and met your guardian, but if you'd have done so, religion and magick, as performed by others will not be a part of you anymore. You will live and breathe divine contact as the RightHandMan of God, (written for westerners as I'm sure you get it by now).

it is here and only here that What is really meant by the Knowledge and conversation of the HGA can be achieved. That the work to create the alchemical body takes its start because it is the center-sun that is the prima-materia for this work. Not the lead you are now.

Then, and ONLY then can the Rubedo phase start and that work can utterly ruin everything and blemish the white with impurities forever. Any and all ideas you have about the Rubedo are false. Even the projections upon the albedo are as incorrect as a 7 year olds musings about old age are.

And just to pull my dick out: The blog exists partly to help define lines, not to offer theories, none of this is theory.

There, that should have answered the 24 emails I received asking questions.

It must be an angel

There is a fad among postmodern internet occult celebrities and their students to claim having achieved the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.

This operation, which according to a published grimoire takes 6-18 months depending on the specific version of the published versions you read, they accomplish in much less time.

Of course they do. You see, Crowley himself said that the achievement of the HGA is the first step, then we are talking.

And uncle Al is always right, isn't he? Except when he mixes up about 4-5 different concepts, refers to them as one thing and then, keeps changing his mind.

Crowley is, in his published writings unnable to distinguish between his understanding of the mystery of being, the revelation of his (lesser) solar mystery, the beginnings of his Citrinitas phase, his initial contacts with what is a Holy Guardian Angel and Solar consciousness.

This is why he has several completely different methods for attaining unto it (whatever it is at that point he is referring to with the same word :S)

Now, as we know after having read previous posts on this blog, there is more to the western tradition then the Netultists* think.

You see, I happen to have access to a few** manuscripts that are a few hundred years old belonging to various Traditions*** that aim to perform similar things.

It is not impossible to find one of the bastardised versions of the Arcana Arcanorum online. I leaked one myself about 6 years ago that I got from a friend, because the person I know who is one of the people in charge of the masonic currents that hold the keys to the A.A. and thus knows his thing claimed: that A.A. document is about as effective as mixing coke, cola nuts and fizzy water and calling it coca cola. I happen to agree, knowing what I know so I thought it wouldn't hurt.

Anyway, point being even with the bastardised version floating around online you will quickly realise that whoever was meant to receive that document probably worked through the system that it belongs to.

Now, last I checked the A.A. belongs to the Memphis Misraim Rite that only starts to hand out the real deal from the degrees above 50. (not counting some of the cool angelology in the lower scottish rite degrees). So, whoever is receiving the papers should by this point be a Master Mason, with other degrees, manifest those in real life and have quite a few years under his or her belt in the system, living with it day in and day out. THEN you undertake the operation underlined in the A.A. after receiving the initiations**** for it.

Aside from the fact that the books out there do not come with keys and are thus impossible to decypher, these things take time because the process takes time.

I can get you a contact with your angel in 3 hours. You can experience solar consciousness after 3 days of fasting or sleep-deprivation. Hell get some illegal substances and get it in a few minutes. You can experience non-dual awareness by accident. But these things are not the same thing as what happens when you have built yourself a vessel.

A bad example but one worth mentioning anyway is: That when Mathers and co shaped, modernised and innovated and made workable a lot of the raw data out there, because they had the keys to do so, they choose to place the Abramelin work in the 5=6 grade. Now, why would they do that?

It is remarkably easy to have a subpersona masquerade as an entity. To have a random being pretending to be your Holy Guardian Angel. To spend years and years devoting yourself to something you think will free you from the world or make you into something keeeewl.

Truth is, its not gonna work, its fake.

I don't doubt that cool effects come out of this, heck I don't doubt that some of the Netultist stuff has effect. But, it's not the same thing as what is really meant by achieving the Knowledge and conversation with your holy guardian angel.

To get back to the GD version, as that will be the one most people are actually familiar with. This is Crowley's lifetime version:

You spend X time going through from neophyte to juniorus adeptus minor. This would have taken, about 5-6 years, or so. Possibly 3-4 if you push it. So then you undergo certain operations in the Adeptus minor grades to work through certain things.

Then, you'd be ready to perform the Abramelin operation*****, which actually ONLY makes sense in the context of what you have undergone. Hmm. Odd.

* I am making up a new word. Netcultist. it stands for any wannabe magician who has learned their stuff online, from books online, from books only and is too busy reinventing the wheel.

This goes from people reading a few books on Hoodoo calling themselves conjurers, readers of grimoires who think they represent some long dead tradition that needs reviving as if it died, puffers who know about as much about alchemy as I know about airline traffic management followers of 'traditions' that are about 10 years old, any witches who think there has been a surviving cult of anything they have been initiated into (sami-shamans on my mothers side of the family are exceptions) but you know who you are and other wankers who are the magician equivalent of protestant christians but instead of fucking with the Bible are discarding minimum 3000 years of oral teachings and think they can do it better.

In short, New + net + occultists+ cultists

**when I say few, I mean many

***Those things with history that have survived because their bullshit works, not because its popular

**** Initiations are those cool things that actually work by making you a living link in a Tradition that is alive. They also prepare you in various ways and make it possible for you to do certain things that it would be completely impossible to do without the initiation. For the netultists out there, this is the traditional version of getting an internet subscription.

***** You didn't really think that The Abramelin Operation is written by Mr Worms who just accidentally published a holy ancient ritual for the fun of it? You DO know that the Abramelin operation is merely a look-alike-rip of some more secret papers out there?

Ooops. I did it again, didn't I?

Evocation is not (pt 2)

Evocation has gotten a lot of slack from people.

Evoking the entities seems to almost be considered silly, a waste of time, or dickwaving. Why, oh why would anyone want to evoke an entity when you can just contact it using a means of divination or even astral hearing?

This is probably due to the fact that as a chunk of western magick was broken of it and then watered down into an unrecognizable weak mess, (kinda like budweiser compared to real beer) a ton of juveniles, or people who never got beyond that stage, wanted to evoke things as a proof.

Originally, the reason you evoked something was to make sure you actually got what you wanted to be there.

Some of my readers will be familiar with Afro-traditions. You will be aware that in Haitian Voudu the congregation dances together with the priests and thus anyone can become possessed, BUT because anyone could be possessed people are worried that someone might be faking it. Thus the Lwa, when they come down, not only say secret things and give signs, they also do things the person coulnd't do on their own. Sit on machetes, rub peppers on their genitals etc.

Now, from the point of view of the still living tradition that works with these entities, why would you want to evoke them?

Well, lets start by the fact that they are frickin' Demons. They are high up (or down) the specific chain. From the point of view of the tradition, you don't know for sure that you got that specific demon unless that demon shows itself. before that it can be a shade, an elemental or a lesser demon or anything else for that matter.

Just to put things into perspective: To simply communicate with a demon using a pendulum is to the Tradition the same insult as if you would have started to call upon Orisha during your LBRPs and about as effective for the original purpose. Or, lets say visualising yourself astrally as a Lwa and assuming their godforms instead of a full on possession.

Best of all? It can and often is, you.

Also, if I put it mildly, the purpose of evoking a demon somewhere is not to ask to get laid or for some luck gambling. If you get the demon to be somewhere for a reason you better know what to do with it.

Hint: some demons in Lemegeton are hoping to become angels again after a set time. ever wondered why?

Now, when we evoke something (unto visible appearance) one of the requirements is that others should be able to see it and the entity needs to be physically present for example to lift things. The thing is, even this can be explained away using mass-hysteria telepathy telekinesis...

Before you actually know WHY you ought to evoke demons, it might be useful being able to do it. The skill to cause mass-hysteria or the level of divine influx needed, or whatever you want to explain it as, is an indication to whether or not you can do what you need to do when Belsebub comes knocking on your door because some of his best generals suddenly grew wings again.

Evocation is not...

I find it interesting to see how many ways people manage to use items in ways they were not meant to be used.

Steak-knives as screwdrivers, ice-picks as murder-weapons, and high-heel shoes as hammers, you name it.

If you know what you are doing then it is all good and well. You know that a hammer is better them pumps to get those nails in. You know a rapier works better then an ice-pick. You are well aware that a screwdriver won't mess up your screws the way unscrewing them with a knife does.

There are a lot of people who have experimented using the seals of entities from various grimoires as means of empowering magick.

Now, from many perspectives this is extremely smart magick. Not good, per se, but smart.

The tradition the grimoires come from believes that symbols, seals and names and that which they represent or name is the same thing.

Thus

Bear the word

this photo

and a real bear, they are really all the same thing.

So if we are going to be careful to not perform cultural rape let us not forget that there is a western tradition that even 90% of those who claim to follow it aren't even initiated into.

From the point of view of the tradition that the grimoires belong to this is what happens with the example of the bear.

If you use the symbol to just communicate with the bear you are basically standing at the entrance of its cave shouting things and probably smelling it or seeing its eyes or shadow, but the bear remains in the cave.

If you use the seal to empower magick, say as a chaosmagician you use the seal, or maybe you want to use the seal so you burn it and add it to a bag of talismans. What are you actually doing from the point of view of the Tradition?

Well, let's say your goal is t get the bear to go to a clearing and scare away some pesky dogs hat are disturbing your picnic. (And you forget watching Yogi Bear and don't consider he will steal your pic-a-nic basket)

So, you can sit down with the sigil and communicate

::You shout roughly towards the cave:::

you evoke the bear

::You go to the cave, show it your Bear-paw authority card instruct it in what to do and walk back with it and then see it chase away the dogs, but maybe steal your basket as well::

you do what chaoists, hoodooists and members of the Tradition Grimoires belong to do with a seal

::You sneak into the cave, collect some of the bears hair and shit, maybe grab its paw and then you take all this into the clearing and use it to scare the dogs away with::

Ok, I realise my metaphor is a bit strained. Point is though, using the seals without involving the entity is smart.

1 you don't have to deal with the entity directly, unless it wakes up

2 often you simply just believe more in your own magick and the seal doesn't do squat

3 you get all the benefits from accessing the entity but,hopefully none of the downsides

Why its not really Good magick?

1

well, firstly, the "Bear" might wake up. He won't like that you shaved him to use his hair. Also, he might actually be friends with the dogs you chased away, and if he would have been woken up and asked nicely he would not have agreed. Guess what happens next time you try and sneak into his cave?

2

Maybe he really likes what you did and wants you to do more of what you did. Shaving is hard Guess what happens next time you sneak into the cave? Will there always be dogs waiting?

3

The tradition the grimoires come from has much better, efficient and powerful images that can be used instead of the demonic seals.

The images of the decans, the 28 mansions just to give an example

4

People often don't know how to properly use the symbols. Guys, in the same way as most of you would not feel comfortable walking into a Voudu peristyle in rural Haiti and then dumping a frozen chicken unto a veve in the middle of a fete, stealing some of the corn for use in rituals and then escaping (doubt you would live through this, but lets pretend, eh?) it might be smart knowing that certain signatures would never, ever have been used on their own.

So if you want to print the seal of varcas on a candle you are burning, if you are creating a talismanic bag with items in it relating to a force and you really think that dumping the sigil of a demonic entity in there is what is needed to enhance the spell, by all means do it.

But be aware that it might be considered rude by the entity.

Oh, and never, ever use the heptameron seals without their angelic supervisors. It is not a safety measure, the entity works in symbiosis. You will not get the result you want because you are trying to use a half of a whole.

I know you can get results but trust me, its better with the whole.

Or you could just print and eat every single one of the 72 goetic seals from lemegeton.

Oh, charge them with a mix of sperm and your blood first then eat them.

Yum.

Religion?

A being that finds enlightenment will try and share that enlightenment with others.

Depending on the mental makeup of that being, the mystery received through enlightenment can come through in 3 ways.

1 In the purest form. This is referred to as someone who has beheld the mystery and becomes a living link to the mystery.

A being who beholds and becomes a living link to the mystery is free from all cultural notions and can bring others to the realization of the mystery by whatever means that person needs it.

Christian Rozenkreutz and Martinez Pasqually for example both suggested that one should take up the dominant religion of the country wherein one resides. This is so that one may understand enough for the cultural symbols present in the mind of the locals so one may use those symbols and crutches in the guidance of these souls. It is measured work.

2 Strongly coloured by the social cultural, religious and psychological makeup of the individual. These people behold the mystery but are unable to see it in its entirety and interpret it from a point of view they are familiar with. This is naturally a degradation of the mystery as the nature of the mystery is that it is beyond cultural social and religious forms.

These beings sometimes become living links to the mystery and manage to fully understand it in time. Often they spend their life having created a new religion or a new form of an old one since that was the context through which they understood it and trying to help people to behold the mystery but only from the point of view from which they themselves saw it.

Ever wonder why Jesuits who have performed the spiritual exercises of Loyolla are so devoutly certain Catholicism is the way to go?

3 Beings that behold the mystery but have no bloody clue what they experienced. Sometimes they don't even have a cultural context to place it into.

People performing rituals or mystical practices without guidance, who do drugs and experience spiritual peak experiences all fall into this category.

They have seen the outer mystery, or one of the manifestations of the mystery.

These people often become enamoured by the technique or thing that got them there first.

A true spiritual master is a being from the 1th category who is guiding people there.

the 2nd category is most of your prophets and spiritual leaders

the 3rd category is your random practitioners, groupies, druggies and culties.

A fun way to talk about religion is to state that there is someone from the 1th group who sets out trying to teach someone else but for whatever reason the other person is a thick bastard, or the being dies.

So the person being taught thinks that just because the master was using jewish or hindu symbols to try and explain something, or a parable that the metaphor IS the message.

This way you have a traditional school formed where the true message is lost, where a religion, the set of rules, are followed but there is no enlivening spark.

Often the enlivening spark can be reinserted but unless done with enough fervor, the mystery will only come back slightly veiled and the people who behold it will interpret it through the symbols.

More dangerous is it when a being from the 2nd category who are already enmeshed in some socioploitic set of rules (religion) and then experience part of the mystery, don't quite get it and then assign universal validity to their specific interpretation of it.

Christians who through certain exercises become so convinced that Christ is god, not from a universal yeheshua, redeeming force point of view but a personal saviour evangelical point of view that they are happy to say, quote the pope who sent Crusaders against some cities and villages in europe "kill them all, god will know his own."

Crowley did the same when he received liber al. Congrats uncle Al, secret western orders have known for roughly 500 years, that we have historical evidence of, what you think is news in 1904, because you don't listen to one of the most important GD lessons> take everything gods, godesses and other astral crap say to you with a pinch of salt.

If Crowley wasn't in egypt and other astral forces were present and his mind would have been filled with different symbols, he would not haved received liber al the way he did. He would have channeled a tantric text, or a Christano Gnostic one, or maybe even an alchemical treatise, or if he was less full of himself he would have realised that he has a heavily veiled format of the mystery and that he should understand it in its pure form. But hey, not everyone can ttruly be enlightened. Karma and whatnot.

Example: Gnosticism is not Christianity. Gnosticism can be explained using the terms dreamed up around Constantins time. Yet in the middle ages we have neo gnosticism in the form of the Cathars.

When you experience something it needs to be a Universal experience. Your cultural interpretation is irrelevant.

This is why the true sages of old and now can talk to eachother and agree whereas the rabble are fighting over what type of pasta with which sauce the the prophet(ess) actually ordered the monks to eat and whether or not consumption of onions is Krishnaic or not

The house metaphor

Imagine being in a house.

You are surrounded by servants, parents, family and a massive garden.

This is the world. Your parents the butler and everyone here are symbols for various forces.

If you break a vase you might get told off.

When your parents are away maybe the Butler is allowed to punish you by confining you to your room.

The servants the Butler, your parents and the rules you have are simply there to protect you as a child. If you never grow up you will need to follow these rules.

When various steps in your spiritual journey arise you might have various ways of dealing with your situation.

1 You could run away from home. Escape. If you succeed good luck, but if you go back you will be punished. (reincarnation.... )

2 If you fail and you are found out you will be put under closer scrutiny

3 You can make yourself invisible to the staff. This is in a way the mystery of mysticism. You don't bring attention to yourself and can mostly get away with things as long as you don't overstep your boundaries.

4 You could enter various savoury and unsavoury contracts with different members of the staff or possibly bring in staff from the outside that are on your side

4 you can simply, grow up.

as a grown up, you'll realise that the nasty Butler who had the power to punish you will politely nod and bring you tea and cakes when you snap your fingers and the house will be a home you rule as its rightful heir instead of a prison.

I'm sure you can translate the metaphor into spiritual practices for yourself.

(yes, still scheduled posts so comment moderation might be slow)

Of Gods and Men

Religion and mysticism do not go hand in hand. There is no such thing.

It is not possible to be religious in any sense of the word at all that most people understand by that term and claim that one is following an esoteric mystic tradition.

If you find yourself following a religion you are not allowing the mystery of mysticism to fully unfold.

If you find yourself being "chosen by a deity" which is so popular within neopaganism, then you are not transcending certain forces.

The most important lesson with mysticism is that the religious symbols are there to point you in the true direction of spiritual truths. Not because the outer forms should be the ones worshipped.(1)

(1)This doesn't mean that there are no spiritual entities.

(Posts still pre-scheduled due to busy times.)

If the soup nazi was a gnostic

It seems there is a confusion between what the difference is between the esoteric and the exoteric strands of Christianity.

If I got a coin everytime someone complains to me that Gnosticism is dualistic or that the myths are difficult to swallow, or the fact that its confusing there are so many different myths, I would probably have enough money to build my own church.

I think I can safely try and not have verbal diarrhea in writing this time around and simply state the obvious.

If you swallow the myth, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, or any other religion for that matter, then you are following the religion. To believe, accept and follow you need faith.

If you would swallow one of the gnostic myths, as so many, many do, then you are not actually a Gnostic. Following the Christian doctrine and believing in it fully, you are not a Theosopher.

The myths serve a purpose, in the same way as certain Tools or magical processes do. They give you an approximation a way to make sense of the inner processes.

If you believe in any specific gnostic myth in the same way as a fundie believes in the second coming of christ, if you think that any revealed text to be truthful, then you are doing a very very good job. Of being a Psychic, but Gnostic you are not.

(Posts still pre-scheduled due to busy times.)

Tools for the common man

To avoid having to write the same email over and over again:

Most people do not actually want to learn magick. Most people do not actually want to get knee-deep into western esotericism. What you think you know about the esoteric tradition, what you have read in books, on blogs, that is still exotericism. Even I am not talking openly about many things here as I am not an idiot.

The truth is, most just want to mess about with parts of the system.

I have met many who should just shut up, and fit into society.

I have met many who spend years of their life doing theurgy and hating every moment of it because what they actually WANT is religion. But they have been indoctrinated by the "books claiming to the esoteric" that religion is bad as it is exoteric. That the smart people, the people who understand postmodernism, and "spirituality" who want to get somehewhere in life and with the "work" do not follow exoteric religions.

The exact same goes for people doing mystical work.

Same thing with people using the wrong tools for the job. People who deep down are Christian trying to become Buddhist because they get a mental stiffy out of its projected orientalism and doctrine that makes mental sense. (even though they would pray to god the moment i shove a revolver into their mouths...)

People who try to use practical magick to accomplish spiritual ends, people who think praying to Sophia will make them better people. Psychological issues we try to fix with magick even though there are more effective means.... the list is endless and 9 out of 10 seekers are dead wrong in where they are heading.

If you want to have tools to become a better person, if you want to develop a deeper relationship with the source, if you want the bortherhood. If you want to start the path, by linking yourself one way or another to what is one of the few representatives of the existing western transmission outside Europe, become a Mason.

1 You believe in a higher power and you will develop your relationship to it

2 it will show you what a functioning lodge is

3 you will be forced to work with so many other people with different backgrounds that your bubble will open up

4 the Egregore of the order will have a good influence on you

you will NOT learn magic from them. You will not learn alchemy. No. You will simply become part of a massive brotherhood and you will start to work on yourself and you will receive tools to work with.

For most this will be enough. Magick or mysticism for spiritual purposes is not for everyone and you should never ever feel like you HAVE TO do it. Become a Master Mason. Manifest it fully in your life.

Gnostics usually say that Psychics are doing an excellent job. Keep up the good work :P

Even if you want to learn goety, thaumaturgy or theurgy this will give you a good grounding, and certain things you might be able to find in books and certain things there are groups for.

Read EVERYTHING you can get a hold of from Evola. Enjoy.

If you seek a more spiritual approach: Go to a monastery of your faith for a while. Preferably 2 weeks. Pray. If you do not believe in God because you think she is a silly notion then how the hell do you propose to become a mystic?

If you truly honestly feel that you want to spend your time and energy developing a further relationship with the divine?

Read Theosophia : Wisdoms Children and start to have a practice.

Find out if there is a local Martinist group you may be able to join, seek initiation from one of them accepted by the others, use the tools and be aware that there is no further goal then Universal Reintegration.

If none of this is what you want, if you just want those sixpacks and get laid, then do what the rest of the world does;

Stop bitching about spirits, stop sitting for hours meditating without moving, stop doing rituals for some odd end. Get a haircut. Start to work out. Get an education for the job you want and live and enjoy life fully. With as many pretty pentagrams or crosses for decoration as you may or may not want. The Esoteric tradition is not self help.

For goodness sake.

(Posts are scheduled due to busy times. Comments might take longer to moderate and publish or reply to then usual.)

What do you want?

Many find magick and the esoteric fascinating.

Some are attracted by the idea of visible effects. Some want to break the code and have more power. Some are loosers who have shit lives and want to escape into a world where they mean something and can do a career out of being initiated into something.

All reasons are equally valid. You can find a nice religion masquerading as something deeply esoteric. Some need that. Others just want to be normalised.

Write down the answers to the following questions:

"What do I believe about the world, its creation its purpose and my place in it."

(Make it into an essay. It is worth it.)

What is my relationship to :

God

Myself

Nature

Other people

(again, essay)

What is it that I am looking for?

(To learn to do 99,9% success love spells? To learn how to dominate people? To have a better relationship with god, myself, others, the world?)

What completely mundane things can I do to accomplish this?

Get a social life, a career, actually swallow my stupid projections about the outer rules of the faith, stop praying to God dressup (cough most neopagans cough) or in Drag (cough goddess centered wicca cough) and actually just go to church?

Once you have written down the above, you have a plan. You might realise this is all very fun and interesting but nothing more then an interest. Thats fine. It is OK to be interested in things and not make it into your life. I like Top Gear and nice cars. I'm not a mechanic. I am interested in natural sciences and read a lot about animal behaviour and I even know a lot of fun trivia about animal life, yet I do not aspire to be the next Sir David Attenborough.

If you just want to be a Darren Brown, thats OK. If you realise you are a social misfit and you were just looking for an alternate reality to share with your friends, that also fine because now you are aware of it. If you realise you want to experience mystical states you finally will start to pray instead of doing magick, and if you want to evoke demons you will know that now you can stop meditating for hours a day and feel bad when you miss your meditation because evocation and meditation are two skillsets with as much in common as I have with a puppy.

(Posts are scheduled due to busy times. Comments might take longer to moderate and publish or reply to then usual.)

With feeling?

I have a theory :it could be demons....?

I have a theory :it could be bunnies.

There are 2 sides to ceremonial magick, theurgy and thaumaturgy. If you focus too much on theurgy you become stuck in using magick only to progress on a spiritual path towards enlightenment and refuse to use magick to find a job for example, but you get a cool alchemical process. This also leads to constantly being unsure where the subjective/objective line goes. It might even make you look down upon people who do practical magick, believing that they are deluding themselves. This also leads to the dark side of the force.... Err I mean the psychological model of magick.

If you only do thaumaturgy you become a devout believer in a specific set of rules like Lisewski, Greer or Warnock, very good at manipulating the coincidence, or however practical magick works, but then one is still stuck on this side of the fates and one misstakes the rules and thinks the symbol is the signified not the signifyer. This also leads to the dark side of the force.

Demons, angels, signified or signifiers? Tools for our internal life or separate entities? When we work theurgy do we contact the same spirit as when we do thaumaturgy? The truth of the matter might surprise you.

Its not angels. Its not demons.

Its

Bunnies?

Bunnies!

Do both. Theurgy plus Thaumaturgy= fun. Simple scientifically proven equation.

This way you can work out why they need carrots.

(Posts are scheduled due to busy times. Comments might take longer to moderate and publish or reply to then usual.)

The brain

I was recently honored to be invited to a reading group where practical spirituality was discussed. The head of the group is a resident fellow, 80 or more years of age. We also had 2 psychologists, a professor of philosophy and a science doctor join us.

The fellow in charge of the group thought we would enjoy discussing the recent headways made in the field of Neuroscience linked with meditative practices.

I will not bore you with the details of the 4 hour talk.

The short version of the story is:

The researchers have found two types of "meditation."

1 Active

2 Passive

Active meditation is characterised by what in academia is referred to as magickal practices. Possession by spirits, exorcism performed by Bon Buddhists, Tantrics removing curses and evangelicals speaking in toungues.

Passive meditation is when the meditator is fully focused inward, whether sat still, performing a tea ceremony or performing the orthodox Jesus prayer.

The scientists found a few interesting things.

In cases of active meditation, the meditators felt themselves to be vessels or conduits of something beyond themselves, their brain halves started to mirror eachother more and the back side of the brain is enlarged and hyper active. The practitioners are very "situated" in where they are and feelings of power are reported though it is power harnessed not owned.

In cases of passive meditation, the area of the brain we usually call the third eye is the only active part, it also grows and the rest of the brain is strangely, FULLY shut down. This removes all aspects of language and we are unable to experience anything but unity as the parts that understand ideas of Space are not in use. Practitioners experience what is referred to as Unio Mystica, divine union with all.

Why is this interesting?

Firstly, practices have a clear physiological effect.

Secondly, no matter how bad you are at one, practice DOES make perfect.

Thirdly, it shows that a varied practice, contemplation and performance will develop your faculties.

Last, it shows that some of us are more drawn biologically to one way of working over another and it does explain why you might feel difficulties with certain inner or outer practices.

Persevere. The brain is elastic, like molten plastic.

(Posts are scheduled due to busy times. Comments might take longer to moderate and publish or reply to then usual.)

My own research interests when it comes to the western esoteric tradition are very clear and concise.

I do not think we need to worry about reinventing the wheel when it comes to the Royal Art. The Western esoteric tradition is still alive and kicking and there are real living traditions in

-Gnosticism. That can truly give you Gnosis and free you so you may return to the pleroma

-Evocation. Living traditions closely allied with arabic magick that have real effects and is designed to elevate the practitioner and the world.

-Theosophy/Rosicrucianism. How to be a living prophet and parttake of heaven.

-Theurgy/Alchemy. The creation of the stone and the attainment of that which hermetic and alchemical texts speak of.

-Mystical work. Self explanatory really.

-Folk Magick. Hidden in central europe and in the still highly Christianised parts, but it does exist as a living tradition.

But what are we missing? The Western Esoteric Tradition, as the umbrella term, is not that hot with what Agrippa refers to as natural magick. This little tidbit of the Western corpus is all but lost. A lot of it made its way into the USA during the great migrations. A lot mixed with what later became Hoodoo with its southern feel and 90% africna origins (Obeah anyone?).

We have lost most of the Roman work with the local spirits. Angels and Demons is one thing, but what about the actual missunderstood nature spirits? The Exu of Kiumbanda? the Lwa like beings of Haitian Voudu?

Chaosmagick tried and failed in kickstarting the practical aspects of the Western esoteric Tradition as it misstook Theurgy for Goety.

The church is of course to blame for this, the massive dualism created in the 11th century and perpetuated since then by western "science" (Science Deified and Science Defined is an excellent book to start at for those who do not know just how messed up western science is).

We can, however rekindle the flame and link the river of our tradition to some still fresh wells without cultural appropriation.

Examples include:

If you work in a tradition where you work with Godforms, get to know them in a more shamanic way. Get a frickin' statue and set up a shrine for the deity. Learn to write its name in Hieroglyps (veve anyone?) and then offer it some food. heck give it blood if you want what do I care. But read less books and go with what it says sometimes.

Look into hoodoo. Don't try and become a Rootdoctor whilst living in France. But read up on it, understand how and why they use herbs and objects the way they do, then look at the greek magical papyri, look into The Magickal Practices of Roman West. Go to some museums and look at the artefacts. Study Ficino and his books on medicine- See? and already the correspondences will make more sense.

I believe that it is possible to rejuvenate all aspects of the tradition without falling into the trap of cultural appropriation, the need to join all sorts of traditions we are culturally not prepared for or reinventing the wheel badly. (post 60s evocation gives me the creeps).

Approaches to magick

You can follow the rules of the world.

This is what in the Western tradition is referred to as natural, or magick belonging to the elemental world.

I like to call this magick Goetia, :)

It is the level of work where Hoodoo tricks work. It is spells that work no matter what you believe. It is practical magick where you interact with the forces of this world. The Dead the never living. That stuff. Here is where the real power to affect the world lies. Here is where miracles happen, where you burn a candle and a job will come to you without you lifting a finger. Where an evil eye will make you vomit and shit brown water for days even if you didn't even see the eye.

There is religion in this level, there is magick as well.

(I would also like to point out that outer alchemy fits in rather nicely here too.)

The second level is Thaumaturgy(Theurgy)

This is what is usually called Sublunar magick.

the key here is that Theurgy and Thaumaturgy are the same thing. Thaumaturgy means "Miraclework". The difference is what you use your ceremonial magick for.

Do you ask the gods and spirits of the sky to make it rain? To smite your enemy, or do you ask them to liberate you from the cycle of rebirth?

The more philosophical aspects of this type of magick are often labeled Theurgy and the more effect focused aspects are called Thaumaturgy. They are however sides of the same coin and a true Magician who works with one should work with the other. I would like to add a third part, "using the coin to pay with" ...

It might be worth pointing out that Thaumaturgy, when used from an alchemical/liberatory context takes on a slightly different approach. Then, one should always be aware of the process being undertaken. In this case inner, real effects are taking place that are helped onwards by outer forces whether intelligent or blind. Thus the inner process is linked with outer reality, allowing the microcosm to mirror the idealized version of a restored macrocosm. It is, however important to separate the alchemical process from the outer reality lets one fall into the its all in your head trap. A chinese alchemist performing inner alchemy will reach stage X in their journey and be confronted by a specific golden child. The western inner alchemist, who happens to use theurgy also comes to stage x but s/he will instead experience Mikael... Evola is very clear on this and experience along wth comparative studies show this as well.

Thus Theurgy and Thaumaturgy use the same form, yet have different points of focus, however they work with the same forces and should be mastered on both levels. Like TaiChi or Qi Kung. Both meditation and inner alchemy and a martial art.

These two together is often called "ceremonial magick". Not the stuff you're thinking of, no. I mean magick where religion and pure magickal technology is intertwined. Often today, what people call ceremonial magick is Goety in drag.

The greek magickal papyri, the rituals of the ancient Egypt, Roman and Greek magick, most tantra, Dao shih etc. are clearer images of this style of work.

Thaumaturgy/Theurgy works one step removed from the world. This is godwork. Its main tenet is that you influence divine beings that will then do something for you.

The rules here are not as important as with Goetia as you are working on the level lower then the material. The closer you get to alchemical theurgy the less do the rules count as the symbols become only relevant within context When using the same energies for thaumaturgy, suddenly the rules matter more. However the specifics of this argument will be the subject for a later post.

Goetia is linux. You need to know what you are doing.

Theurgy and Thaumaturgy is like windows or mac. You are working with symbolic representations of the forces, a direct link to the realm of platonic ideals.

Problem is, you are working with the same platonic ideals that want you to stay in their realm...

Goetia and Theurgia are not lower or higher. It is different ways of interacting with ALMOST the same forces.

See it as two highly intersecting circles that only differ in 2% of their overlap.

With a lot of work with Goetia, you start on the path of learning the rules to bend them and make them do what you want. If you do this enough you will still get in harmony as seeing the code all the time will make you more in tune with it.

Goety is the Bottom up approach and Theurgy is the top down approach.

When you work with Alchemical-Theurgy you might still get good at thaumaturgy, but chances are you will not be as good as someone who works with pure Goety when it comes to specific requests, in the same way as a Goet might not be able to do all your cool stuff or that somene who focuses on thaumaturgy might miss out the inner alchemical work that could follow if thye focused on the inner alchemical aspect and did some theurgy.

If you want the company to change the fonts in their letterhead, who is best to ask: walk down to the cafeteria as a cublicle slave to the guy who gives you free coffee in the cafeteria (Goety) or as head of communications tell the CEO that the font is incorrect and then make a press-release that from the 1tyh of next month the font used is helvetica. (Thaumaturgy).

Thaumaturgy will make sure the company is generally more fair, or doesn't move offices or give cheap bikes to its employees, Goety will always get free coffee from the guy in the cafeteria, never have to remember the doorpass as you know the maintenance code the mailman uses and you will get that one ergonomic chair when Sue goes on sick-leave because she will personally find you and let her use her chair for the next 9 months.

Thaumaturgy still has its rules, but the rules of the higher realms.

Magia

Magia is the elusive sum that that is beyond the sum of its parts.

it is Goetia, Thaumaturgy and Theurgia united and made into a unity.

It is where will alone changes the world.

Not setting fire to a car using a molotov cocktail (Erisian magic)

Not by using goetic magick (I'm looking forward to Balthazar's Your car on fire jinx writeup)

Not by offering a nice bloody liver soaked in gasoilne then set fire upon the seal of a fallen seraph commanding it to destroy that car utterly.

No, you simply want it and it happens.

Like Jesus.

Who may or may not have existed.

Lodges and Groups

My oh my.

This post started out as a single sentence in my head.

"People who believe that lodges are not needed are exactly what has caused the creation of useless orders and people working alone are the biggest fools around infecting others with their crazy ass ideas."

Phew. That needs a lot of unpacking. Even though it really sums up this post.

"People who don't think orders are needed are what has caused the creation of useless orders."

What is the biggest problem in the western esoteric tradition today? It is that the idea "we are all entitled to our opinion" has spread to the most idiotic level. As someone who studies highschool Newtonian physics actually doesn't understand physics as practiced today by real physicists, the same is true for most people studying Western traditions.

Yet highschool students are not allowed to publish academic papers on Physics.

This same rule doesn't apply to Joe "ceremonial magician" who writes books (75% of which has been published a million times).

(the section called the painful truth)

People who "do their own thing" are most often deluding themselves and living in some mass- hallucination they share with their fellow semi-followers of that tradition.

This is what happens when you visit some random smelly member of say, The O.T.O. who thinks he has recreated the true A.A. system as outlined in LIBER ABA and has been working with Enochiania for the past 10 years. you walk into the room and it looks very magicky. Its dark and draped in velvet. But the room doesn't feel like anything. He then picks out a wand and asks you to feeeeeel the power in it.

Do you comply? Well if you think you are the latest incarnation of magick self-creation then you will because you want him to reinforce your own delusion.

The same is true of a "Martial Artist" teaching Chi punches yet can't do it to the interviewer who is trying to find out if its fake or not.

I have had my black belt for 10 years now. I have competed on an international level. I'm friends with an aikido master who is retirenment age and one of the best Europeans at this gig. A few years ago I wanted to try out his Chi talk. I went at him when he touched me I was touched on the inside, like a switch had been pushed. He managed to evade me, several times.

I have also met people who claim all sorts of fun titles in other martial arts, but when asking them for a friendly bout of MMA they get their asses handed to them, bleeding. Why?

Because what they do is not actually working, it is play acting. (University aikido anyone?)

Do I think that a man who has spent his life in Haiti and has been a Houngan for 30 years is in touch with the same spirits that random Chaosmagician woman in London is whose calling herself a Bokor? Of course not. Because if Houngan send his dead after you or asks his Legba to mess you over, trust me you will be living on the streets in no time. If Ms Bokor in London does the same, maybe you'll catch a cold. (oh, noes, echinacea is so expensive).

When singular practitioners, lost in the astral mists try and teach, they give rise to followers. They have created a system that leads no where as it has been something they have been doing instead of working with the actual Western Tradition (the royal art).

Crowley created the A.A. and what a successful system it is (cough cough)

Regardie, that oathbreaking liar, broke his oaths and published the GD system. What did that lead to? Aside from creating a bunch of Orders and Groups whose only claim to the system was that they read from the books and understood even less of the system he did.

I could take the texts from the Swedish System of freemasonry and start to initiate people in my living room. Would that truly make them freemasons?

Chaoites who are chaosmagicians yet were nowhere near the IOT in its heyday.

So what is dangerous about doing your own thing? Why am I so up in arms about it?

To be honest, as long as you have the Gift and you are only doing material or sublunar work then it is fine, no harm done. You have your intuition and as long as you can accomplish objective stuff you should be fine. The spirits will teach you. This is how its done in many, many living traditions today.

If you are great streetfighter and can take down anyone, you might want to codify what you are doing, see if you can teach it (often you can't) and then go with it, or not as the case may be.

What is dangerous is when a Highschool student working from a Newtonian physics point of view is trying to teach quantum theory to University students.

When I was about 10 or so, one of my friends mother was dying from lungcancer. She was such a lovely lady. She learned aromatherapy and was very much into "healing". One day she asked me if I believed in God. "Do you?" was my reply.

She said she didn't have to believe she knew, "I'll show you something"

She then took my hand. I felt like I was spinning. Then she smiled and the spinning sensation changed directions. she did this a few times.

I was not pretending, I was not expecting anything.

That is evidence. Proof. If they can prove their theories then go ahead, start your own school. However when claiming to follow something and then not doing so is simply lying.

Not cool.

To jump back into a metaphor

Inside this Matrix world there are rules, both on the visible level and the coding level.

You can mess around with that either using a system you have been taught or by the inborn gift of being the one (say there are many the ones)

But to undertake work whose sole intention is to unplug you from the matrix so you can be free and then unplug you from your physical body as well so you can exist both inside the matrix and outside it as pure consciousness needs to be done by someone who has done that themselves.

Otherwise you just end up in zion, eat crap and realise that Trinity isn't as hot outside the Matrix as she is inside it. Maybe the world outside the Matrix is also another matrix?

So, everytime someone complains about the evil nasty big orders and lodges what are they actually complaining about?

Is it an organisation started by someone who thought the same thing they did? "I don't need teachers, I can do my own thing?"

Ohyes. or because they are afraid of the truth and realizing that pretending to do magick isn't the same as doing magick.

Right tools for the job

LBRP - part 3

I have been thinking whether I should post this or not.

On one hand, I think that if you do your work properly you will have realized this yourself. Then, on the other hand, looking at all the utter bollocks published I think "maybe not".

I want to clarify that this is not an opinion or theory based on reading varioys books. This is 14 years of work with the ritual.

Part 1

Dispelling the illusions:

The Lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram is not a ritual of exorcism. It will not cleanse and purify any space whatsoever.

The LBRP, is as Crowley himself writes, the stone of the wise.

When Crowley wrote the star ruby, it was not simply a thelemic way of banishing.

If there really is something haunting you or your house, th LBRP will not get rid of it. Sorry.

If you are cursed by someone who knows what they are doing an LBRP will not get rid of that.

The LBRP is not a magical circle whose purpose is to create an impenetrable circle of protection.

If an asshole 16 year old finds a nice hoodoo charm to f&ck you over with, you can LBRP as much as you want, that curse will work and you are screwed.

Part 2

Wannabee or actual initiate.

The Golden Dawn system is a system of initiations. It is a mystery school. Few will agree with me on this. (As if I care). If you are not an initiate in the Golden Dawn, you will at most get 20% out of the potential of the system. You can read as much Regardie or Cicero crap as you want. You will not be able to work the system fully. You can get as many of your superb actor friends as you want to do a neophyte initiation for you, you will NOT be an initiate and therefor e you will miss out most of the finer points of the system.

Part x (addendum)

The comparison:

You can read as much about Voudu or Santeria as you want. without initiation you are NOT a Vouduisant or a Santero. Why do you have the audacity to think you are free to use something just because its western?

Part 3

A hint

The LBRP is designed to be used in conjunction with the other hexagram and pentagram rituals and the other rituals of the RR et AC and G.D. system. Within that context it is a cog in the clock, a necessary step for what you are using it for.

Part 4

Everything is True Nothing is True

You can use anything for anything and everything for everything. Re-read all chaosmagickal texts you can find.

'This true,, but not. Chaos is true in isolation not in context.

Alright wise-ass. So The LBRP is what then?

The LBRP has one single purpose:

"To create a sphere of no elemental influence, it creates a microcosmic world for you to perform your theurgic operations and experiments in."

That is all it doesn. Nothing else and nothing more. This is one of the Secrets veiled yet clearly stated about the Stone.

How does the LBRP do this? Clearly not by any specific Objective magick that makes it work no matter what or how.

It works by the symbolism of the Kabbalistic cross where you state and stand yourself between the Mystery and the created world. You then push away all elemental influence towards the four corners of the room.

Imagine having 4 different colored papers shredded on your livingroom floor. The pentagram you draw and project is the broom you use to shove them out. The circle you draw is the eternal circle symbolizing eternity and the angels you call on to keep the erected circle in place for you to carry on with your further work.

The LBRP does not "follow you around". You know the feeling you get when properly doing it? that is because you are in a place where nothing is affecting you. It is an Alchemical laboratory, a vessel that you just cleaned and sealed.

If you are still thinking about stuff from your day, you have not done the banishing properly. If you are worried its not working, you haven't done the banishing properly.

Your microcosm is where you can perform the operations of Theurgy (a later post) and theurgy is a way for you to interact with the things beyond the platonic forms of being using symbols that you have decided upon.

Now why doesn't this get rid of the Djab I send after your ass, the jinx your sisters boyfriend who is 16 threw on you or the dead grandma who got raped and killed in your livingroom?

Because you are just in a panic-room. THEY are still out there waiting.

If its simple elememtal beings, Gnomes, small liquids, larvae or general elemental wibes, then yeh, sure they will dissappear by a simple pentagram (that you know means what?) and your intention to keep them out. Anything more complex? May I suggest you have a think to WHY there is a purifying and cleaning with water and fire in the neophyte ritual and why priests sprinkle holy water and why burning sage gets rid of shit your silly LBRP can't?

The LBRP is the gateway to working alchemical Theurgy as practiced by the RR et AC. NOT a tool that keeps away stuff from you.

Purrleaze.

Energy ;)

I just love when missguided individuals who believe they understand hermetic magick and the western secret tradition go on and on about things.

Actually, no, I don't.

It is impossible to re-create the hermetic tradition reading the Corpus and Grimoires without being in possession of the key to unlock it. They are not training manuals or complete cosmological maps with google-mapped road descriptions.

You cannot just pick up a grimoire, decide the spirits are not demons but helpful entities and go with it. If you don't get demonic entities when you call them, then you're doing something very wrong and if you're lucky you might have gotten a different class of spirits helping you who are just willing to be called by the names...

I will rant away then.

Hermeticism, in its pure form hasn't existed for thousands of years. The tradition did instead meld with many things, alchemy being one.

We don't have to look to the East regarding the idea of any prana, shakti, or chi. We do not have to blame anyone the last 100-200 years for the idea of 'energy' in the Western tradition. It is not stolen from somewhere else. It has always existed.

Since the arrival of alchemy it has been and is called the secret fire. The alchemists have written about it and used it and depicted it for hundreds of years prior to electricity being found and harnessed. The alchemical flames within and without exist, can be bellowed and do give rise to many interesting objectively noticeable phenomena, such as increased heartrate, very high temperatures and odd flashes visible to the naked, uninitiated eye.

The secret fire, once found is worked upon. Breathing, visualisation, postures, elixirs.

There would not be much point in me catering to a random group of people who happen to read this blog about what exactly the alchemical fire is, as you have either experienced it and been taught how to use it from someone else who knows how to do it, or you haven't. You have either experienced it as a result of certain secret practices, or you haven't.

If you have you will know that the feeling is unmistakable, physical and can be painful, especially as the fire burns away at emotional, spiritual and physical blockages.

I could say that there are four fires who are all summed up in the Green Lion, that the one is the wrath-fire transmited into the love fire and the other one is often the fire from above, through grace, but I might as well say that it is the vitriol that burns away all impurities and solves the gold.

It would therefore not be much help.

Instead: Have you ever started shaking uncontrollably? Had intense emotions resulting in poltergeist fenomena? Has prayer made you sweat? Has your heart beaten so hard you though you were going to die, just because you were concentrating on an energy centre in the body?

Then you might have experienced the lowest manifestations of the lowest fire.

The fires are what is the driving force of the western esoteric tradition. Separately, as the four, rolled into one as the lion or from above as the dove.

I don't get why it can be so hard for intelligent people to realise that maybe, we don't need to borrow, maybe its not syncretism. Maybe (as is the case) there are only a few secret techniques that have focused on one type of work or not and then co-evolved independently from eachother?

There is a reason why Chinese T/Daoism, certain Shinto techniques, western internal alchemy and its outer manifestations such as theurgy all have the same techniques.

Kundalini is not the secret fire. It is a semi-useless sideeffect of it that needs harnessing.

Its there in the blood, so if you suck just bleed on your talisman ;)

(I really would advize against using the other fluid unless you understand WHY it works. Not HOW)

Just look at her face...

There is a reason Crowley expressed it as enflame thyself in prayer, as it is that blissful fire experience that is so umistakeable.

Yet, the techniques that end up kicking you into altered states of consciousness, into sexual bliss are not themselves the fire. They happen because of the fire.

In its purest form, the Fire is of course "life".

So lets call a burning fire a fire. Heat and that very odd thing that differentiates living and non-living. Lets agree that we do have this neat thing that requires to be worked on, not received via random spirits, not borrowed from the East, not created 120 years ago, but something that exists as a timeless technology that different culturally linked, divinely inspired Royal Artists have harnessed preserved and taught, simultaneously in many places.

Remember. Breathe in, breathe out. Like the Elohim whose breath moves upn the face of the water, like the yogi hiding the burning coal in his stomach and like the young alchemist fanning the tiny spark of a flame under the equipment.

The light in the darkness

To further elaborate on the previous post using Western terms.

99,9% of all western esoteric traditions postulate the supreme being.

Did the supreme being create the world as the best of worlds?

Then how do you account for SIDS, horribly painful diseases and bad accidents?

If the almighty is responsible for the world, why is there evil?

Is there a Satan figure needed? Are we too ignorant to understand the grand plan?

Do you feel like you belong in this world?

or do you think that the nature of the world is different from the nature of the created world?

Maybe god doesn't intervene because he is not of this world? Do you feel that a god who allows these bad things to happen is a bit of a messed up concept?

Do you feel like this is not the best of worlds? Should the world be different?

The light that shines in the darkness. is the light and the dark coexistent, or is the light shining in the darkness from somewhere else?

Belief isn't a choice

It is all nice and good that some claim you can pretend until something works. That certain times it might be important to use something akin to suspension of disbelief. The first time you are draining that turtledove of blood, the first time you are standing waiting to be empowered, the first time you are doing something, it might be good to get over the voice in your head that doubts. It might be useful to ignore western brainwashing that claims the world is based on the ten, or so, pillars of science (which by the way, are not immutable. reading the Royal Society of physics chemistry and biology journals would probably freak out some materialists-atheists).

The problem starts when you think you can choose to believe in something fundamentally different from your true beliefs. The power and weakness of chaosmagick was the notion you could change your beliefs at will. Changing paradigms it was called. Grown up in a strict Catholic family? Experiment with pantheistic beliefs. Do you have a problem with Jesus Christ and the church and you've spent your young adult life dressed in black? Do some hardcore christian magick, start going to masses.

Snort illegal substances on saturday and perform a satanic mass, ripping a bibble apart, then on sunday morning go to a Mass and allow the priest to work on you. Theurgy and Atavism in one, baby.

This, however is not actually a changing of paradigms, or your real worldview. Nothing is true, they say.

The only thing accomplished by doing this is suspension of disbelief and removing mental obstacles you may have to certain sets of symbols and spiritual frameworks. It allows you to have a broader rather then a very narrow reality tunnel.

A narrow tunnel being: all this is psychological. a broad one being that all this works on many levels, one of which is the psychological and physiological changes in the brain.

It doesn't change your actual beliefs. Chaosmagick is a Monistic worldview. All is in reality Chaos, Nothing, Kia or whatever you wish to call its archetypical manifestation. It is this that is permuted changed and interacted with.

The belief that odd mental and physical actions bring about changes in the world and yourself are also constant.

Why is this relevant to this blog or me, at all?

Because I've been asked, whether one can't have several worldviews? Whether one cannot sit on the fence and be a bit of this and a bit of that.

The short answer is: yes, you can if you never want to get anywhere.

Concisely I mean: Hell, no.

The long answer is that age old saying Know Thyself. This saying doesn't mean you need to spend years getting to know yourself in a purely psychological way. You only need to know some of the basics aspects about yourself, and the way to get there is truth.

Truth.

The truth hurts. The truth means we have to face reality. The truth means we have to accept ourselves and others for what they are, not for what we fear, or wish them, to be. You could spend your life dreaming of becoming an actor and yet never get over your fear of speaking in public. How does that work? Do you really want to be an actor or is it something you wanted to be to get back with at the kids who thought you were a nerd in Highschool?

Is dreaming about what should have happened what keeps you from pursuing your current course and never act because you can fall back on the should've would've could've? Then you need to stop lying to yourself.

The same is true for your worldview. Anyone with a serious interest in the esoteric and a serious understanding of its practical and spiritual aspects will at some point come to a very simple crossroads. Dualism versus Monism.

The basic dividing line, the first dividing line, without which spiritual progress doesn't happen. For some, this comes naturally, as they are in tune with their beliefs.

Others spend years never getting over this basic hurdle and thus never quite making it past the first stepping stone. This is, because the choice is already made.

It is at this point we have to be aware that the Tunnel and the underlying paradigm are not the same thing.

To use a Streetmagick(tm) standard bad analogy:

You either have two eyes, or one (paradigm) and then you have many gel-colored lenses glasses and mirrorshades to look upon the world with (reality tunnels).

You can change eyewear as much as you want, however the number of your eyes remains constant.

-Sneaks away from this bad metaphor now-

So. How the heck can I claim that you already have your worldview?

Because there was a point when you had that first hunch. That first spiritual bone in your body twitched. Biologicaly it could only twitch one of two ways.

It could have overstimulated your frontal lobe and completely shut down your spatial awareness centres or done the opposite. This in turn was brought about based on the development of your brain, which we can say is the physical manifestation and hardware that stores things about your beliefs and capabilities.

The first hunch will be there no matter what you later read and what you manage to talk yourself into using logical or emotional arguments. You could claim that there are tantras that seem monistic and there are tantras that seem dualistic, there MUST therefore not really be a difference (ouch monistic belief there) or the case might be that there is a place where you SURPASS both Monism and Dualism, or somehow combine them. I guess that would be some form of halfism or naughtism?

First of all: it doesn't matter what your inner leaning is, whether it is towards a dualistic or monistic view, to anyone else but yourself. For you this is your point in the universe that allows you to move the entire world with a long enough rod.

Once you have found this little gem you will start to be more comfortable with your own cultural symbolset. You will have an easier time expanding your reality tunnels because they will be built upon a solid foundation rather then on shaky ground. It will allows you to understand everything from the point of view of your personal key.

The next step is to incorporate things into your beliefs and enrich them. I have discussed in previous posts why it isn't really the smartest thing for a Cuban man to try and learn tibetan tantra or for a russian housewife to try and become a mambo, so I will not reiterate that discussion.

An example:

Charlie believes that "angels" are a good metaphor for psychological states. (Charlie should spend his money in real therapy if he thinks magick is psychology, but never mind.)

He then starts to experience mystical states and (thank goodness) abandons the purely psychological model and starts to see the angels as agents of God.

Later Charlie has a messed up experience with his grandmothers ghost. A belief in the afterlife sets in, etc.

You should now begin to realise that your innermost belief might not be that sexy.

Ask yourself what is it that I believe? What is my gut feeling when I see children dying of cancer? What is my feeling about what happens after death?

Can you accept cancer, aids, pain and suffering as a necessary part of life, or not?

Don't think about whether you accept any religious dogm. Just think about basic things and go from there.

Is everything one in the Being of God and all is a manifestation of him? Is god and the world forever separate?

I can't give advice how to do this on a blog, but you have the basics now.

Have fun, and don't be surprised if you have the same basic belief that everyone has in the end.