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.