Sunday, August 31, 2008

Prompt Succor for New Orleans


Well it looks like another doozy is gonna hit my favorite city in America. I am sure that there are many paryers and rituals aimed at averting the storm. Remember, that even Katrina took a quick right at the last minute and missed NOLA proper, the flooding was largely a different issue.

Anyway, I am once again lighting a candle to Our Lady of Prompt Succor. She is the patroness of New Orleans who is credited with protecting the city of New Orleans during the Great Fire of 1812 . On the Eve of the Battle of New Orleans (Jan 7, 1815) the Ursuline Sisters and the people of New Orleans gathered to again ask the intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor for victory.

I have visited the Ursuline Academy. The picture above is of Prompt Succor, who some think is the oldest statue of the Virgin in America.

Excremeditation

I usually do my morning rituals before eating breakfast but this morning I needed something in my stomach badly, so I said a brief Guru Yoga before getting out of bed and than made breakfast: three eggs over easy and cinnamon toast.

I than came up stairs, donned my alb and set about praying and doing ritual. After I finished my personalized version of the Bornless rite I needed to shit really badly. So I said a brief pausing prayer, took off the alb and sought out that "other" throne. Thing is that all the juice that flows down from above doesnt stop just cuz you are answering natures call. A very strange sensation having the light of divinity pour into me from above, and the physical waste of my body pushed out at the same time. If you have ever drank a glass of water while peeing, than its a bit like that.

Following the tantric vow not to separate the perception of pure from the impure I sat and meditated on it.

Excremeditation if you will.

Its actually very much like the Vajrasattva ritual where a Buddha-field pours light from the Dharmakaya into Vajrasattva who transforms it Sambogakaya Nectar as waste and pours it into the crown of your head. You than transform it into Nirmanakayta waste and it drips downward from you into the mouth of Yama and all the demons, which they find nourishing. The waste of eash higher realm is food for the realm below it.

Anyway, I eventually left my excremeditation, donned the alb and got back to my Sunday work proper.

Dominus Vobiscum Y'all.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

DAATH



Its Saturday the day of Saturn and I just finished the first of what will be some extended meditations this weekend (some people play around when thier wife is away, I set up elaborate temples and meditate for hours). Anyway, I am waxing abyssal today and thought I might share a secret about the nature of Daath.

Daath of course means knowlege, and is the "non-sephira" that exists in the abyss separating the celestial triad from the lower triads on the tree. It is also the line where Atziloot, the highest of the four worlds, is separated from the lower three. On this diagram, we can see Daath as the black sphere.

Now, even when I was a teen I was bothered somewhat by the lack of symetry between the higher and lower halves of the tree. This was before I learned that we are looking at the tree after the fall of man. What caused the fall? Knowlege or Daath. Now, whether you think that this is fall is a good thing or a bad thing is a point that separates mainstream Christians and Jews from Gnostics, but we can put that aside for now.

Imagine that Hod and Netzach, the lowest spheres on the side pillars were like hinges, and that malkuth and the paths in blue could swing upwards on the axis of the path between them which I marked in red. It lands directly in Daath.

So, if you are contemplating Daath consider this: Daath is the empty space left by Malkth when it fell. Understanding this is key to understanding Daath.

As you can see below, this move also makes the tree perfectly symetric top and bottom. Its all there in the diagram itself screaming out at you.


Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Stellarium


Ok. I just downloaded a program that anyone who uses astrological magick must have. Stellarium literally turn your comupter into a Planetarium.

And its FREE

Monday, August 25, 2008

Aqua Aura


So just yesterday I had mentioned that I though some Aqua Aura would be nice for a sort of techno-magick side project of mine. I used to work with it back in Philly and its an amazing Crystal. This is coming from someone who doesnt like crystals. You can take someone who just has no feeling of energy or belief in magick and place a crystal in eah of thier hands and they Will feel the connection run through thier body.

Anyway, I havent really thought about it in years, but I mentioned it yesterday and today I got a call out of the blue offering me several pieces because they remembered that I used to like to work with it. More examples of the spirits eavesdropping and acting on thier own.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Twin Peaks and the Twisted Language of Spirits

Short and packed weekend. Had Sodality on Friday, which was awsome. We worked path 20 between Tiphareth and Geburah. Talk of us writing up our experiences and methods in a book. We have been at this ritual project for 6 years now.

Today I went to the DVPN Summer social and gave an abbreviated talk on Wealth Magick. It was so good to hang out with old friends, and some newer ones, that I dont get to see anymore. Charles H gave an awsome lecture on Thelema - he dove back into the biblical use of the term, but missed the Hypnerotomachia, which for me has become key to understanding the whole thing...

Anyway, its to late and I am to tired to post anything significant tonight, but just to keep the ball rolling here is an old article I wrote for Behutet a couple years back. I was asked about it today by Xanthias...




Twin Peaks, and the Twisted Language of Spirits

I have had many initiations both formal and informal. One of the strangest and one that hit me completely from left field involved nothing more than watching Twin Peaks, every episode back to back followed by the movie, without stopping over the course of one weekend. When I refer to doing this as a magickal initiation, I think some people assume I am just using magickal terminology to talk about how much I loved the show. Friends who saw me at the Sunday Thelesis meeting just after finishing the series could see in my eyes and in my manner that it was something more. Let me be clear: I am referring to it as a magickal training technique[i]. I recommend it to any student of mine that wants to get into the business of dealing with spirits.



I had my first exposure to the spirit world when I was 5 years old. Certain things that happened I understood directly, some I understood intuitively but couldn’t explain, and some I just didn’t understand. I have been dealing with the spirits ever since. Some, especially ones that I seek out deliberately from grimoires and such, speak very plainly. Others, often the ones that I encounter in haunted places or attached to obsessed people, speak in visions, metaphors, and strange coincidences that I sometimes don’t fully understand until months later if ever. This is just the way work in the astral light.

Susanna Clarke in her Novel “Jonathan Strange and M. Norell” noted that Humans and Fairies have an inverse relationship regarding Reason and Magick. Humans having great capacity for the former and less for the latter, whereas fey have enormous magickal power but comparatively little capacity for reason. For this reason the Shaman and the Sorcerer who is not content to deal only with those incorporeal beings that are listed in the Occult Grammaries (who are themselves sometimes far from pleasant characters), must learn to communicate with the spirits in the spirits own round about fashion.

The Yaminahua Shamen of Peru, who are famous for working with Ayahuasca induced trance call this type of Spirit language “Tsai Yoshtoyoshto” which literally translates as "language-twisting-twisting.". The Anthropolohist, Graham Townsley translates this expression as “Twisted Language”. One Shaman he interviews states "With my koshuiti I want to see - singing, I carefully examine things - twisted language brings me close but not too close - with normal words I would crash into things - with twisted ones I circle around them - I can see them clearly. "

Direct and concrete language frightens the spirits and therefore according to Townsley must be "deliberately constructed in an elliptical and multi-referential fashion so as to mirror the refractory nature of the beings who are their objects." He concludes: "Yoshi are real beings who are both 'like and not like' the things they animate. They have no stable or unitary nature and thus, paradoxically, the 'seeing as' of 'twisted language' is the only way of adequately describing them. Metaphor here is not improper naming but the only proper naming possible."

Jason Louv in a footnote to his essay “Spooky Tricks”[ii] compares the Twisted Language of spirit with David Bourland, Jr.’s idea of E-Prime, an approach to English that banishes all forms of the verb “to-be”. While writing and speaking in e-prime can be an excellent exercise for re-training the brain to think in different ways, and even to help understand occult and psychic messages, don’t expect the spirits to adhere to any kind of fixed rule about verbs and nouns, or any kind of fixed rule at all! Which brings me back to Twin Peaks.

In Twin Peaks Dale Cooper is charged with solving the Murder of Laura Palmer, a murder which was physically commited by someone close to her (watch the show to find out) but was directed by the discarnate spirit BOB. In the course his investigation in Twin Peaks, his first real clue is given in a dream in which he appears as himself 25 years later in a room walled off by red curtains containing someone that looks like Laura Palmer, and a dancing midget in a red suit who tells him things like "That gum you like is going to come back in style", and "She's filled with secrets. Where we're from, the birds sing a pretty song, and there's always music in the air." The girl that looks like Laura tells him "I feel like I know her but sometimes my arms bend back…"

Later, after being shot, he encounters another spirit that manifests as a Giant who tells him: "The owl's are not what they seem.", "There's a man in a smiling bag.", and "Without chemicals he points." These all turn out to be valuable clues as to what is going on, and have very concrete meanings. Other mysteries in Twin Peaks are not so clear cut. The Log Lady for instance utters some zingers like: "Shut your eyes and you'll burst into flames.", and "Fire is the devil hiding like a coward in the smoke." There is also the spirits of a little boy and his grandmother who appear in the series as one thing, and in the movie as another, and are trying to get their messages across using creamed corn! And of course most famously, Mike, the one armed man (who points without chemicals BTW) utters the famous incantation:

“Through the Darkness of future past the Magician longs to see. One chance out between two worlds, Fire Walk with Me.”

Of course perhaps he was really saying “One chants out between two worlds” or perhaps be means both. That’s the twisted language for you.

Dale and crew discovers a portal to the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks that was opened up by Evil Tibetan sorcerers called Dugpas[iii], but in the end its not clear if the Midget and the Giant and the one armed man are agents of the Black Lodge, White Lodge, or perhaps in an attached waiting room with doors into both. You can’t figure the answers out with reason so don’t try. You must learn the twisted language.

After my 30+ hours of Twin Peaks I was literally in a trance state. So many things from prior working suddenly found their context. I went back through old journals and understood messages that had been given to me by the spirits that were lingering in my mind like timebombs which David Lynch and Mike Frost had set off with their creation.

So I wanted to write this article to suggest to people that don’t know: Twin Peaks IS an occult training video in modes of spirit communication. When you figure out who is in the Log Lady’s Log, what Creamed corn represents and if the Little Man from Another Place is the Giants, Black Lodge opposite, or the discarded Arm of the one armed man, than you will have graduated from the course.

I don’t like to make to publish much of my own channeled messages, but it seems appropriate to close with at least one example from my own life. After getting back together with an old girlfriend whom I was concerned I did not have enough in common with, a spirit appeared to me one night and told me that my new relationship was something like Baked Alaska. Having never had Baked Alaska, I didn’t understand this nugget of wisdom until I looked it up: it’s Flaming Ice Cream. Get it?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[i] It should be noted that I watched them in 1996 just after establishing K&C of the HGA. It should also be noted the tapes were given to me by my Chthonic Auranian Initiator Cliff Pollick.

[ii] Essay appears in Generation Hex, Disinformation 2005

[iii] Lynch or Frost got this from H.P.Blavatski who viewed any of the Red-Hat (non-Gelukpa) schools of Tibet with derision and saw the Dugpas as being the epitome of Evil. In reality the Dugpas are a sect of the Kgyu school based in Bhutan, and are quite a bunch of peace loving fellows whose relationship with the Yellow Hats is no where near the strife that Blavatski and Theosophical influenced translators tried to pass off. Interestingly enough, though Blavatski was most definitely not aware of them, there is a secret DugMA cult near the Tsangpo Gorge region of Tibet. These Dugmas are women who poison travelers and tourists with laced offerings of Chang. The poison takes nine days to work so they definitely do not benefit materially by robbing their victims, but rather believe that the merit and blessings of their victim will transfer to them after the kill.

Dogbert on God

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Your wish is my command!

I just read a great post on Head For Red called bored magi, but which is really about the magicians ability to speak things into being, even accidentally.

Part of it is that we are close to the source, and used to manifesting our ideas directly into being. I agree completely. I will take it even one step further and note that if you work with a lot of spirit familiars, they can sometimes overhear even casual requests and have them come to pass. Even when the requests arent made by the magician, just by someone close to him. Say, his wife.

A few years back when we first moved back to NJ from Philadelphia, my wife used to tool around in my mother-in-laws volvo. It was old and somewhat unsafe. My wife turns to me and says:

"Cant you get your 'friends' to make my mom buy a new car".

30 minutes later, after wife drops me off, the car breaks down for good. Mother-in-law had a brand spanking new car by the end of the week.

A couple year or so after that, after a dinner at my mother-in-laws house, which was going to pots a bit and in a neighborhood that was getting a little sketchy, my wife says:

"Couldnt you get your 'friends' to get my mom to finally buy a house? This one is falling down and I hate to see her waste money renting it..."

Three months later Mother-in-law gets a letter in the mail saying the house will be taken by immenant domain and that even though she is a renter, they are going to give her money (a shitload of money in fact) to move. She buys a house, where she lives to this day.

There are more examples of this, but as a magician you need to watch what you do and say. Even placing things casually on an altar can have consecquences. There was a time when i still lived with Brownlee in philly that I left a piece of paper from an art project with the word "psychedelic" on it. The next day a friend was kind enough to drop off a bunch of other, smaller, bits of paper that had been soaked in... lets say a magickal oil called Love Saves the Day...

Anyway, be careful of what you wish for, or even joke about wishing for.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Psionic Key of Solomon Ray Gun

I just watched an Uncle Chucky Video on how to make your very own Psionic Key of Solomon Ray Gun.

I am Totally doing this. Attach a few colored lenses and you may get a modern tepaphone! Probably wont be as effective as my Hoodoo-Soap Super Soaker was, but I'll try anything once.

If I get any success with it at all, I may have to blend a more benign seal into a replica of the Doctors Sonic Screwdriver.

Left Hand Path / Right Hand Path: A false choice

I think I surprised some people a while ago when at a lecture I said that if, and only if, I had to start all over again and was looking to join a magickal order I would probably choose the Temple of Set.

Similarly there are some people I know who lean LHP and cannot understand my interest in Christianity and Buddhism. How could I value Sorcery and Individuality and still associate with these Right Hand Paths?

Well, I can do this because the difference between RHP and LHP is a false one. It’s a game that people buy into to feel different than the other guy. The LHP initiate gets to bitch about RHP people trying to annihilate themselves into the “all” or kill their ego in union with god. The RHP initiate gets to vilify the “black lodges” that they imagine must be murdering dogs and blighting crops, than dancing around in perfidious celebration at the black mass. Of course neither scenario is true.

Before I go on, let me explain that I am talking about the left and right hand paths in a western context only. The eastern concept is different. In the west we are talking about differing goals: deification of the ego vs. annihilation of the ego. In the east however the goal is the same, it is method that separates the Right and Left hand paths. The right hand paths seek enlightenment through renunciation and purity, treating the passions of the mind like a poisonous plant that must be avoided and antidoted by virtuous actions. The left hand path seeks the same enlightenment through skilled indulgence in the passions, treating them like a poisonous plant that you have to alchemically transform into medicine and nectar. Monks and Tantrikas have wildly different paths, but the end result is the same.

Getting back to the western ideas, let’s take a look at them according to how they are represented by the opposite side. According to those on the left, the right hand path is about annihilation of the self into godhood or some nebulous “all”. According to those on the right, the left hand path is about glorifation of the ego – the persona that you have in this life. There are some quarters of the Right and Left hand path that pretty much fit these descriptions nicely actually. Hinayana Buddhists seeking nirvanic quiescence and some LaVey style Satanists (how often are they mentioned in the same sentence together…?) both fit more or less a description of these extremes. What neither side want to admit about the other though, is that these two extremes are hardly the only options.

The key word that breaks down the barrier is Transcendance. Transcending the Ego is not the same as destroying the Ego. Christ had an ego. Buddha had an ego. Padmasambhava had an ego. In fact, they had HUGE COSMIC WORLD SHAKING EGOS! There wouldn’t be such interesting stories about them if they had no egos. The difference is that their awareness had transcended their Egos.

I actually came up with my very own parable about this a couple years ago. It goes like this. Imagine that you are trapped inside a cage on a deserted island. Your first duty would be to escape the cage right? So with some effort you are able to pick the lock on the cage with your fingernails and free yourself from the cage. The cage doesn’t disappear; you just aren’t trapped inside it. As night falls, you realize that the cage is actually the best shelter on the island, so you climb back in. The next day you fortify it with materials that you can bring into the cage from the island and make it better as a shelter. It changes from a prison, to the best tool you have. That’s the deal with transcending the ego.

Now, on the left hand side of things, people that get really into it, like members of the Order of the Trapezoid and such, acknowledge that the deification of the self must involve escaping the mechanistic nature of the ego. They insist that they are remaining as isolate intelligences, but so do most of the right hand paths. While Mahayana Buddhism doesn’t acknowledge the ultimate and indivisible self, or atman, its still your stream of consciousness and kleshas that becomes a Buddha. Higher tantras and dzogchen go one step further acknowledging that “Samsara and Nirvana are the same”. In Christianity as well we have the concept of Theosis, or becoming divine. Not significantly different than the LHP concept in goal, just the methods are different. When the Christian places his own mind aside and submits to the will of god, they are really asking for their own “Thelema” which is inseparable from Gods will to be made known.

So, when someone asks whether you are Left Hand Path or Right Hand Path you can give the same answers the Newari do when asked if they are Buddhist or Hindu and just say “yes”.

Monday, August 18, 2008

APOXIAS AWAKENING

Strange. Since the P&R Magick was printed two years ago almost no one has mentioned Apoxias to me. Earlier in the week Perspephony mentioned him this this post. Yesterday someone from the UK contacted me about the proper construction of his bottle. Today, someone asked me if he was a constructed servitor or a real spirit. (The answer is real BTW. He is one of several revealed to me by Hekate)

I wonder what all the hubub is about? I will have to ask.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Genesis Of Thelesis


I got a visit from an old friend this weekend that I havent seen in over two years. He is one of the founders of Thelesis Camp, which is now Thelesis Lodge.

Since I am WAY to hung over after last nights Absinthe and seafood binge to post anything original, I thought I might celebrate his visit by posting my history of the Genesis of Thelesis.

I am no longer in the OTO, but feel the same way about the Philadelphia Chapter that once operated out of my living room now, as I did when I wrote this two years ago.


The Genesis of Thelesis Camp

Thelesis was chartered to operate in the city of Philadelphia by the Ordo Templi Orientis on the vernal equinox 1996. That makes 10 years since we were made official by the Order and another year before that of gathering independently to plan and plot. I am one of the founders of Thelesis, but I have never been its Master. Whether this makes me a better or worse candidate for telling the story of its origin I do not know. It has been commented by some Past Masters that although I was not its Arthur, I was its Merlin, and took charge of much of the early magickal activities. It has been further observed by some brethren that I was the Thelesis Den-Mother, a fair observation as it was run from my apartment for the first couple years and I was often the one left to manage issues between official meetings.

There is an official history in the making for publication in Behutet: a compilation of exact dates and quotes, who held what office when and that sort of thing. This article isn’t going to be like that. This is my telling, and mine alone, of formation of Thelesis, which in the early days made up my closest friends and family. Others that were there may find fault with it, and I welcome their stories to be considered along with my own.

Before I begin I should mention that I will be referring to many things which officially had nothing to do with Thelesis as an OTO body. Some events were official Thelesis functions; some happened around its periphery, some were just outside events that happened to involve several of our members. Thelesis at that time consisted not only of dedicated OTO’ers, but others who just took Minerval or first degree so that they could participate in the Camp fully, and still others that never joined the order at large in any acapcity, yet will be forever remembered as Thelesis members, at least by me.

I want to make something very clear: all mention of drug use, petty larceny, trading in secret documents, kinky sex, and other assorted naughtiness were NOT in any way sanctioned by Thelesis, nor did they happen during official functions. We were always pretty clear about presenting the OTO in a good light and following the rules of the Order during functions. Individual members of the camp at that time however were known to, shall we say, dabble…

GATHERING THE TRIBE

In the early 1995 Frater Xanthias, Frater Koza and I were all members of Tahuti Lodge in NYC and met at the Vernal Equinox Ceremony that year. We met once or twice at my house in Trenton NJ later that spring to discuss our paths and progress. For reasons that are unimportant now, we all felt a bit out of place at Tahuti and were looking for something else in the way of a magickal group to work with. In June that year, due to some trouble involving home-made explosives with my roommates in Trenton, I fled New Jersey and moved to Philadelphia, falling completely out of contact with the OTO, including Xanthias and Koza, in the process.

I and my new roommate, Matt Brownlee whom I had known since high school, began making contacts with the occult community in Philadelphia, even putting together a very short lived group called “Za Cabal” which consisted of myself, Matt, and two other local magicians: A. and K., that we met at Headhouse Square and whose attention we had gotten by invoking some Undines and forcing rain when the forecast hadn’t called for any. They were impressed with our Thaumaturgy and we began meeting regularly for ritual.

It was also around this time that we befriended Gendler, a scholarly minded Occultist who seemed to know everyone in the Philly magick scene, and just as importantly had an occult library bigger than anybody else we knew. He produced a zine called “Phurba” and was hosting weekly “open library nights” where all sorts of characters would show up for drink, smoke and conversation. Urban Sufis, Spirit Possession Kung Fu practitioners, Neo-Tantrikas, Golden Dawn initiates, and Thelemites of all leanings would all congregate at Gendler’s open nights. Though these gatherings were fun and interesting, I was looking for something a bit more focused. I was not alone.

In September of 1995 Xanthias tracked me down in Philly and after a few quick pleasantries came straight out and asked me if I would be into helping him and Koza form an OTO camp in Philly. Though it wasn’t named yet, that was the moment that Thelesis was born. I knew that Matt would be in, as would A and K. Gendler had some negative experiences with Xanadu the former camp in Philly, which had since re-located to Reading PA, but was willing to help us network and participate in the local group, even if he never joined the OTO. He did eventually take Minerval a couple years later.

Gendler helped us get in touch with the other OTO initiates in the city. First was B.F. who was deeply involved in strange techno-magick involving quartz-sand filled magickal batteries, ley-lines, 11th degree style sex magick, and magickal machines that he claimed could do things like emanate banishing shields or pierce his muladhara chakra with life-giving force. Next was Denise and her ex-husband Dave, both of whom were old time OTO and were initiated by Grady himself at Philadelphia’s first OTO encampment Hadit in the early 80’s.

We were also introduced to some other free-lance occultists that would eventually be brought into Thelesis’s fold: Omen, a dedicated Typhonian mage, and C a spiritualist of impressive powers, were the Priest and Priestess of the Maj-Kia Temple which wove its smagardine sorceries out in Germantown. J., Gendlers girlfriend at the time, was a priestess of Babalon and an expert in the construction of bone talismans. T was an art student and Wiccan. Sherman, who would eventually become one of the longest standing camp officers, practiced a rare form of Vietnamese Kung-fu Spirit Possession and had done some very in-depth chemignostic workings.

My rollcall would be remiss if I left out two very special yet unofficial members of our club: Cliff and Misha Pollick. They were a bit older than most of us, and Cliff had been one of the founders of Hadit camp in the 80’s. They were excited supporters of our activities and attempted to share their wisdom and materials as much as they could, even donating their entire collection of Old OTO Newsletters and Magickal links from the early 80’s to the camp. A great source on both Order history and magickal procedure they would have made wonderful camp members, but there was one catch: Misha had resigned from the order, and Cliff had been formally expelled! Around 1985, at the height of the lawsuits and in-fighting between Thelemic groups, Cliff and a handful of others felt that spirit of the 93 current was being lost. Thus he allowed a 9th degree paper called Emblems and Modes of Use, which he was given by Grady, to be published in a clandestine edition of Mezla with commentary by Bill Seibert, a Typhonian OTO initiate. Eventually the two of them would join with Sam Webster and form the Chthonic Auranian OTO, which Matt and I eventually were initiated into, and into which I have since initiated others. Though they could not come to initiations or closed events, we welcomed them at open events, and had them lecture to the camp from time to time.

THE SET UP

B.F had initially wanted to be the Master of the camp, but both Xanthias and I felt that his peculiar yet insistently authoritative take on just about everything would leave most people cold. It was decided that though I lived in the city and would be hosting the meetings at my and Matt’s apartment, Xanthias should be the Master of the camp because he was the highest degree in the order: an impressive 3rd going on 4th, and this would help us get our charter sooner rather than later.

On January 12th the core group of Xanthias, Koza, Brownlee and I gathered together to lay down the basics of what we wanted to happen. We did some divinations and though there was no official list or anything like that we more or less agreed on the below:
We would operate as much like a small family as possible and insulate ourselves from much of the Order politics that we didn’t like in other bodies. Though we would work hard at becoming a means for people in Philadelphia to access the OTO and its initiations, the focus would be on the camp, not the Order.
We would as much as possible focus on actually doing magick rather than discussing it overly much.
We would focus on the amazing and varied work of the people in the camp as opposed to just regurgitating Crowley rituals over and over by rote. Crowley had his place, but it wouldn’t be as much of a focus as he seemed to be in other OTO groups.
We would show the ladies some respect. Though we didn’t have many women involved in the camp at the beginning, we saw this was a prevalent OTO problem that we didn’t want to persist at Thelesis. It seemed that the best way to attract women was not to go out of our way to do it specifically at all, but rather just to make sure that those that did show up were treated with respect and not slobbered over by goons who were only interested in getting them naked for the mass or in teaching them their own brand of sex magick.
We would take steps to insure that Thelesis remained stapled to the city of Philadelphia, even if we moved on to other places.

At the end of this meeting I went out into the snow covered cross street at 6th and Pine outside the HQ and in drew the Veve of Papa Legba in the snow. Because of the blizzard there were no cars on the road to it was easy to make the symbol extended a quarter block in each direction. I offered a cocoanut and a candle and asked him to bless this venture, pulling together a powerful magickal group.

A week or so later we had our first official meeting with all the people mentioned above, (and probably a few that I am forgetting) in attendance. Xanthias and I, both nervous about hosting our first meeting, got pissed drunk on something called “Bone Crushers” before the meeting but still managed to deliver a spirited and coherent, albeit somewhat slurred presentation, whist lying on my living room floor.

After some deliberation about the name, Legba Camp and Drakonis Camp were both possibilities, Xanthias offered up the name Thelesis, which means “Will” in Greek. Since the word Thelema in Modern Greek has the connotation of “want” rather than “will”, this seemed an ideal name for a group Thelemites that saw themselves as breaking away from the mold.

In the weeks ahead we began ferrying people up to Tahuti Lodge in NYC and down to William Blake Oasis in MD to take Minervals and First Degree initiations. It was in NYC that we met Alfred and his wife B. Alfred was the editor of Rant magazine and part of a writers group known as the Unbearables. They hit it off with us immediately and mentioned that they planned visit Philly sooner or later and would look us up when they did.

Apparently the powers that were at work behind the scenes had decided that Alfred and B. belonged in Philly with Thelesis sooner rather than later. In early March 1996, just one month after meeting them in NYC, they showed up at my Thelesis HQ and explained that they had a serious and violent falling out with family that they were staying with, and had to get out of NY quick. They spent every penny they had on securing an apartment, but didn’t have any food or furniture. Matt and I fed them, gave them some pillows and blankets, and welcomed them to Thelesis Camp.

Though there were many active members in Thelesis, I think it would be fair to say that Xanthias and I were the main decision makers and leaders in the camp at the beginning. Alfred was to turn that partnership into a triad. With the arrival of B. and Alf, the first cast of the Thelesis was complete.

HORUS COMES TO TOWN

The day that Thelesis was chartered officially by the OTO was also the day that we pulled off our first big public magickal working. On March 22nd 1996 we rented space at the first Unitarian Church on 20th and Chestnut. We original four: Xanthias, Koza, Brownlee, and I, had all been working diligently to put together a Thelemic ritual that would cement Thelesis as a group and permanently staple the 93 current to the city of Philadelphia. We invited everyone we could think of. Anyone that had the slightest inkling of interest in the occult or even just counter-culture got invited. Tattoo artists, Anarchists, Piercers, Fetishists, Strippers, Drug Dealers, Art Students, and all sorts of varied and sundry characters descended upon the Unitarian church to receive the mark of Horus.

After setting up a multi-tiered alter that was cobbled together from my kitchen table, three milk crates, and some boxes with red fabric draped over them, Koza, dressed in full Samurai gear, banished the room with a Star Ruby and let the crowd of about 35-40 people in to the temple. Xanthias welcomed the crowd and explained what would be going on. He than got the atmosphere charged up with the 93 current by doing Reguli, while I meditated in front of the altar. After his Reguli, I broke meditation and unknowingly broke one of the orders by-laws by performing the Mass of the Phoenix in public. I am somewhat amused that first ritual act I did as a Thelesis Camp officer was break one of the Order laws, and can’t help but feel it set the tone for my own path in the Order. Though some of the fetishists in the crowd were kind of disappointed that I didn’t draw more blood than I did, it was enough to ruin Kevin’s linen robe that I borrowed for the event.

After Phoenix, with the crowd all chanting the name HOOR-EE I launched into a supped up version of the Great Invocation that I had re-written and added a bunch of Egyptian text to. Horus took hold of me and after the invocation, and while Brownlee began reciting Liber Tzaddi I went around the crowd anointing everyone with the sign of the triangle and occasionally whispering messages that would pop into my head.

After the rite we handed out our schedule and contact info and networked. An old man that worked as a night janitor for the Church freaked out when he saw altar that we set up, and told us that he dreamed about the eye in the triangle we had hanging above it the night before. Many people reported having apocalyptic dreams that night, and I myself had a very detailed vision of a nuclear bomb exploding in the city. While we never saw most of that crowd at a Thelesis meeting ever again, those that did stick around were jazzed that there was a group doing something with some focus. There was a lot of momentum to get things rolling.


LOVE UNDER WILL, PHILLY STYLE

Thelesis would perform many group rituals after that first one, both public and private. There was the Sun, Serpent, and Savior ritual (still my favorite Thelesis rite) complied by Xanthias, during which police car 93 was parked outside the apartment. There was the Invocation of Azrael, led by Gendler and myself, also at the Unitarian Church. There was a dumb supper on Halloween that went very well, (as opposed to the one a couple years later that didn’t). A crank-fueled dawn invocation of Pan at Penn-Treaty park led by Brownlee where we managed to get people from rival shops Hand of Ares and Harry’s Occult to attend the same ritual together in the freezing cold, and than all get breakfast together afterwards. There was time travel sigil work; Enochian scrying sessions, Tunnel of Set explorations, Vodou supplications, chaos magick servitors, and a series of Planetary Intelligences invocations that spanned 7 months.

I could go on listing all rituals, talks and training sessions that we had, but I think it’s important to stress how much of what Thelesis was about had nothing to do with official meetings at all. We were brothers and sisters 24-7 and or lives began to overlap as such. My apartment quickly became a clubhouse with its doors open to members between meetings. Actually our door was literally open for about 3 months because Brownlee kicked it in and we didn’t have money to get it fixed. Even after we did get it fixed, we left it unlocked most of the time. It was not uncommon for Thelesis members to not go home for a couple days after a meeting or to find members hanging out in the living room when we got home from work.

As we become more and more like a family we endeavored as best as possible to help and to take care of one another. I remember when Sister J was being manipulated by a local Gypsy into giving money and goods in exchange for her removing a “curse”. She felt so magickally coerced by the Gypsy that she even went so far as to give one of Gendlers socks for the Gypsy to use as a link to remove the curse. She called us during a meeting from her job at Tower Records and asked for help because the woman and her friends were there shaking her down for free CD’s. We stopped the meeting and the whole camp went down to Tower to confront them like a rival gang.

There was the time that we did a group healing for A’s son, who soon recovered miraculously from calcified adrenal glands. Another when an unstable and dangerous person was threatening members of the camp and had to be ritually banished from the area, winding up in Ohio never to be heard from again. Yet another time when a search party of Thelesis people spread through some of the seedier parts of the city looking for one of our sisters that had gone missing, who as it later turned out was actually on the from the law. Another meeting was once ended early when the entire camp went to tend to a couple members whose house had caught fire. Sure, perhaps the house burnt down because she forgot to follow through on burning some sigils from a camp ritual held at her apartment, but the point is that we were still all there for one another.

Amidst all this flurry of activity, Brother Alfred took charge of the camps media and secretarial duties. He established a clandestine network of office temps who would abuse photocopiers and pilfer from supply closets to support the camps needs. First he organized a decent looking schedule and distributed it to the local occult stores. Later he pulled together Behutet, Thelesis’s print journal which soon enjoyed international distribution. Finally he constructed a website that would eventually serve as a point of contact for a whole other cast of miscreants that would join our ranks.

Alfred was organized and dedicated. So much so in fact that his early submission of quarterly paperwork confused the heck out of the disorganized slackers doing the filing on the national level and eventually got our charter pulled because they lost it and thought we blew it off. They didn’t even bother to tell us about it. It was only because we were inquiring about Cliff’s status with the order (which turned out to be “eternal and ineffable bad report”) that Bill Heidrick happened to mention it in passing! It was a good that that I was NOT camp master because I was so pissed off that they pulled it without explanation or notice that I voted to break Thelesis off as an independent group and tell the Order to piss off. Cooler heads prevailed and we were reinstated.

Pockets of camp members began to form informal sub groups that specialized in one thing or another. There were several people involved with the Seven Mountains Spirit Fist Kung Fu which practiced Taoist and Buddhist spirit possession, who would get together to practice. Xanthias and I attracted several other camp members into Tibetan Buddhism and started doing pujas and such on the side. A group of meditators most of whom were camp members met every Sunday moring at the Dragon Temple in the art museum. Politically minded members of the camp got involved with people at Wooden Shoe and the West Philly Anarchist collectives. There were also unofficial Thelesis trip-circles like the “Psychedelic Supper” where a small number of us partook of pasta with a very special mushroom-marinara sauce or the various acid excursions to Pens Landing.

We also took trips together. Some were to the local occult curiosities like the Freemasonic Lodges Egyptian style temple, the Rosicrucian Cave of Kelpius, and the most mysterious Swedenborgian Cathedral; a design right out of a Lovecraft story if ever there was one. The trip that sticks out the most for me though was the trip to the Summerhawk festival in 1996. This Thelema-specific festival was focused on Nema’s Maat Magick that year and gave us a chance to hobnob with her and many other Bate Cabal members like Louis Martine, Mishlen Linden, Linda Falorio, and Fred Fowler as well as OTO higher-ups like Bob Stein.

Things were wonderfully surreal by the end of the festival: we got to see Nema in a sequined robe read Liber Penne Penumbra under a disco ball backed up by Cliff Pollick on synth guitar. There was a Gnostic Mass where a now-former OTO’er by the name of “Tiger” dove head first into the priestesses Yoni and delivered a rousing speech to her crotch as she giggled. I myself solidified my conversion to Tibetan Buddhism that weekend during conversation with Mishlen Linden followed up with some Mushrooms, LSD, and Datura Flying Ointment all in the same night. At some point during the weekend Koza, had purchased a Russian assault rifle from the hardware store in town (somehow with no waiting period or papers). I was scared to death that we would get pulled over on the way home and the combination of drugs, occult material, and a Russian assault rifle wouldn’t fly well with the cops. Thankfully the gods take pity on fools and we all made it home safe, secure, and free – but all quite a bit different than a few days before the festival.

It was not to long after Summerhawk that things would changes would begin to happen.

EVOLUTION

It has been noted that the only real constant in life is change itself, and so it was a guarantee that eventually Thelesis would evolve. Thanks to the support of Paul Hume and others at William Blake Oasis, members of the camp that were into following the OTO structure started taking higher degrees at regular intervals and became more invested in the Order at large. As the internet grew more and more popular, this line of progress was supported by people who started finding the camp through the web and looking for quintessentially Thelemic things like the Gnostic Mass. Thelesis folks who were integral to the formation of Thelesis, yet from the start had little interest in the OTO at large: Omen, C., Gendler, A, etc started feeling pushed to the outside.

Tension and competition started boiling up between the core leadership. I was accused on more than one occasion of being overbearing and arrogant (both true). Alfred was accused of being nit-picky and intolerant of people that were not as organized as he was, eventually demanding that the growing camp archives be moved from my house to his (which admittedly was probably for the best). Xanthias was accused of not coming around at all for long lengths of time, than showing up and declaring martial law (ala the infamous red-sheet), than disappearing again. Xanthias’s absence got so bad that Alf and I were able to create a fake camp member named George Dorn who we would all talk about and who would post to the list via a puppet e-mail, yet who only Xanthias hadn’t had the good fortune to meet.

Though we remained friends through all of this, there was growing tension. Realizing his own fading interest in running the camp, Xanthias announced to Alfred and I that he would be stepping down as master and one of us would run it. Alf and I bickered a bit about who would make the best master: me feeling entitled to it because I was there first, and him feeling that he would be a better administrator of a group connected with an Order that I had expressed unwillingness to progress further in anyway. Though Xanthias did eventually offer the job to me because I was a founder, I realized that Alf was right, and since I had already declared my intention not to take 3rd degree, it would be silly for me to lead the camp. There was a meeting between the three of us in Rittenhouse square. After being accosted and cussed out by a homeless women in need of a nicotine fix that we couldn’t provide, Xanthias officially passed the reigns to Alfred. I would support Alf as assistant master for another year or so, but would eventually pull back and devote more time to my Tibetan studies. Meetings had at this stage already began to be held at Alf and B’s apartment more than my own, and so the transition was pretty easy.

Alfred’s reign as camp master would boast its own successes, and it was during this period that we attracted many of the key figures in Thelesis today. Mary-Lynn would follow Alfred as Mistress (thank you may I have another…). Alfred would take up the reigns of Master again for a short time before passing it to Howard who has been a capable master ever since.

TO WHAT END?

As I said before, I will leave the exact catalogue of what happened when to the former Masters, Mistress and secretaries who have better notes than I do. The presentation above is horribly out of sequence and I it could be that at least one or two of the events above happened after Alfred took over the mastership of the camp, my stop point for this history. Oh well. It was all early Thelesis to me, and since there has been an official history in the works for at least a year and a half now, I feel justified in presenting my addled memories. I may also be remembering things a bit more dramatically than they actually were; Koza insists he had proper papers for that assault Rifle after all, though transporting it over state lines is another story… If any of the above doesn’t ring true to the people that were there, I apologize.

But what was all this for? What was accomplished?

We were successful in meeting some of the goals at our original planning session: We created a group that would be a vehicle for the 93 current in Philadelphia on a long term basis. None of the founding officers are officers today or even all that involved in the camp, yet Thelesis remains active and growing. In the interest of balance, we set out to make a Thelemic group that would be friendly to women. At times Thelesis achieved a 50/50 female/male split. Women remain an active and driving force in the camp today, and there is even a Thelesis Women’s group. We made OTO initiations available in Philadelphia, at first through visiting initiators, and now under Howard’s direction, through Thelesis directly.

We also succeeded in creating a magickal group that was more than just an OTO body. We were more concerned with helping put people in touch with their own True Will than we were with people taking OTO degrees. Some found that their will was to stay in the OTO and rise in its ranks; some found that their will took them elsewhere. It didn’t really matter, Gnosis was the main thing, not secret handshakes and badges made of sticky felt. Mary-Lynn had once observed that early Thelesis was a bit of a magickal halfway house: an Oasis in the true sense of the word, where tired and confused pilgrims would stop in and receive sustenance, companionship, rest, and perhaps some much needed directions. If some people were brought a little further along the royal road towards Heliopolis, than we achieved our largest goal.

My thanks to all the original members of Thelesis Camp for sparking the flame of Gnosis.

My thanks to the current members of Thelesis Oasis for continuing to carry the torch.

May you all stand upright; your heads above the highest heavens, your feet below the lowest hells.

Jason Miller,
July 2006

Friday, August 15, 2008

As long as I am ranting

Since my last post was a bit of a rant, I thought I would take the opportunity to rant about another silly platitude:

"Its better if you make you magickal tools/curios yourself. No matter how shabby they seem they will have more power because you made it..."

BOLLOCKS!

Yes, its wonderful to make something yourself and have it come out well. It gives a good bit of satisfaction to make something with your own two hands. But that doesnt necessarily translate into magickal power. A lot of these Occult/Pagan platitudes started in the 50's and 60's when the average occultist stopped being a fairly well-off, perhaps even trust-funded, person and started being hippies. Anti-commercialism counter culture just sort of started becoming the norm in occult circles around that time, but it wasnt always thus.

As yourself the following question: Does it inspire faith and a sense of power?

Personally I would rather consecrate a wand or dagger that is made by a master craftsman than to make one myself. I do make my wands, but only because I enjoy it. I dont think that they are better because I made them. Some of the most potent magickal tools that I have in my possession were either made by friends, or purchased than consecrated.

If your crappy looking, half-assed dagger that you chiseled out of a lawn mower blade really does it for you, than I leave you to it. If not, than spend some dough and buy something.

When it comes to spell components like incense, powders, oils and such I feel the same way. If you like mixing them, than go for it. But if you are like me, you barely have enough time to do the magick work itself, much less mix every ingredient by hand. Find a masterful and reliable supplier than use thier stuff. Really, its ok.

There are certain exceptions to the rule, such as when the building of a tool is part of an initiatory journey like in GD, as well as some Druidic, and Craft work, but those are the exceptions to the rule.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Just Do It

"I only use spells as a last resort"

"I use magick only when mundane methods aren’t working"

"Magick if only for desperate times when you have exhausted all other options"

"I don’t use practical magick very much because of the possibility of karmic retribution"

"Spells can backfire if they aren’t done exactly right, so I only use them in emergencies"


Have you ever heard any of the above quotes? I know I have. Since I am about to give a talk at a Pagan festival where I am sure to hear at least one variant of the above quotes, I thought I might take a moment here to dispatch some of these old platitudes.

As you might have guessed, I have very liitle patience for the attitude expressed above. All four statements above smack of laziness and fear - two demons that must be exorcised by all would be Sorcerers.

Practice really does make perfect. While it is true that people sometimes get amazing results with their first couple spells because of the sheer energy generated by the forbidden mysteriousness of doing magick for the first time, if you want to actually become a Master Sorcerer, Witch, Magician, or whatever, you will need to practice your craft.

No matter how innately talented a musician is, they practice their art. Magicians need to do the same. Seems obvious enough, yet to many this is a shocking idea. Mostly because it entails actually doing something rather than just talking about how things would be done if we could actually fit it in between planning the newsletter, filing order paperwork, and watching the DVD boxed set of Charmed.

If you only use magick in an emergency, how well do you think it’s going to work? If you never have driven a car, how well do you think you will be able to drive when you are bleeding out your ass and need to drive to the hospital? Seems obvious, yet I have gotten god knows how many letters from people that expected a miracle out of their first candle magick spell or lame visualized protective light because it was an emergency and they “really needed it to work”. As if the gravity of the situation was somehow going to make it easier. Sometimes dire consequences can actually give you the boost you need, but not often. If you don’t want to practice magick as part of your “witchcraft” that’s fine. But don’t expect to be able to perform a craft that you have never practiced in an emergency.

So much for the “emergency magick” crowd, now onto the karmaphobes and backlashers.

Karma is cause and effect. It’s a natural law, not a tit for tat game overseen by a god or goddess keeping track of your every move the cosmic ethical abacus. Simple rule: Magick is natural. So if you would use other natural means to influence a person or event, than why not magick? If you would dress in your finest-finest and lie on the resume to get someone to hire you, than is it really an ethical stretch to use magick? Worried about the ethics of “dominating their will”? Don’t worry about. When you can fascinate supermodels into giving you blow jobs and make your boss at work take a dive from the 30th floor at your command, THAN you can worry about it. Until you can do that you are just another factor amongst millions of factors weighing on the decision.

Worried that the money spell is going to kill your aunt? Do a divination before hand, but it probably isn’t. In fact I have never met anyone that has actually had this happen. I have met people that have allegedly met people that have had it happen, but never met anyone myself. Yet I recently read an article on witchvox that insisted that most money spells worked this way, and thus are evil. Money spells can be evil, but the danger isn’t in killing someone. The danger is in enchanting yourself into the status quo. Instead of letting your life crumble so you can re-build from the ground up, the mediocre mage will conjure just enough money to pay the rent on the crappy apartment and just enough influence to keep the shitty job that he hates. That’s the danger.

Am I promising you that you won’t get your money from an Aunt that dies? No. But she was probably old anyway. Can’t make an omlet without breaking a few eggs can you? Which brings me to backlash.

Facing the wrong direction, breaking concentration for a moment or mispronouncing an incantation is not going to make the temple room burst into flames! Nobody really knows how ancient Greek and Hebrew were exactly pronounced anyway. Make a good effort at study, and than take a stab at it. Enochian for instance has a pronunciation that Dee and Kelley used and a very different pronunciation that came from the GD. They both seem to work. Why? Because as the late Chris Hyatt once said, the angels are just surprised you are speaking the language at all. Its like a mouse asking you for cheese in English. No matter how bad the pronunciation the mouse has, you are going to take notice.

As a side note: I know TRUE pronunciation that the Enochian angels use. If you don’t have twelve vocal chords, than don’t worry about it.

To the people that say the types of things that I quote above, I say "Stop being Lazy. Stop being a Pussy. Put on your fucking Nikes and JUST DO IT".

Another side note: Do It=93 Just Do It-418

You do have to be smart. Don’t just react to emergencies, actually develop a strategy to accomplish your will. Seek guidance from elders and from divine beings. Divine things as best you can. Accept responsibility for your work whether it goes as planned or not.

Be smart, but do get your hands dirty. In fact, get your hands burnt a little. Its life, not fantasy.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Strategic Sorcery Syndicated

For those that are on LJ, perruche_verte has set up an RSS feed to Strategic Sorcery on LJ

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/strategicsorcry/

Those that dont know, I have been keeping a less focused and more sporadically updated blog at LJ for about 7 years or so. I will still be making non-magick related posts there about all kinds of crap that you probably dont care about.

In time, when i am slow with updates, I will be pulling some old posts about magick from that journal and re-posting them here,

When it doesnt all come together

I was all set to write a post about how awsome St Expedite is. I was gonna post his picture here and gush about his speedy success. I was gonna go by a pound cake and lay it in front of his statue for him to soak up the buttery cakey goodness.

But I can't.

I was doing a spell for someone important to me. I would have liked to influence a person to get it done, but had no access to this key person at all. I find that Saints and spirits are good to rely on in cases like this. In this case, the job had to be done quickly and involved elements of prosperity and charity. Right up the alley of St Expedite. He has in fact worked wonders for me in exactly this kind of spell in the past.

I started to get a bit alarmed on Thursday, the day after the spell began. I had all the signs of a prosperity spell being cast on myself, which could mean one of two things:

1. Just from working with that kind of mojo, I picked up some good juju.

or, more likely...

2. The Saint could not accomplish his task so all the energy was just zinging around like a stream of water hitting a wall.

Today, at the very moment that the last candle burned out, the phone call arrived confirming that the spell did not work. It happens sometimes. I wanted to write about it because I think that too many writers on practical magick do not aknowlege thier failures, and that gives the impression that their magick always works. It doesnt. Not for anyone. If they claim that it does, than they are either lying or they arent pushing themselves to accomplish anything that wouldnt be accomplished without magick anyway. Failure sucks, but dealing with it and learning from it, is a big part of being a magician.

So Saint Expedite. No picture up on my blog. No gushing post about your effectiveness and fast action. No buttery poundcakey goodness. Not saying I wont use you again, you have come through too often for that, but I am saying that failure generates a reputation as well...

Sunday, August 10, 2008

HAIL!!

Its hailing. Actually this is probably the longest sustained hail spurt I have ever seen. The yard and street are covered in little white pellets of ice.

Why does this rate being posted in a Blog on magick you ask?

Two words.

WAR WATER!

Oh yeah. Rain water is ok. Snow is ok. But I think Hail would make a friggin sweet base for War Water. I even know an antique store in town that has a surplus of iron nails I can use. Throw in some spanish moss, hot peppers, and wasp-corpses into the mix and let sit.

Aw yeah.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Visualizing and Seeing

In his blog Doing Magick , that everyone who reads me should be following, Frater POS very kindly recommends Strategic Sorcery at the end of an excellent post of his on How to See. So I feel like it might be a good time for me to write a bit on sight here.

I would actually not be an occultist if it were not for the ability to see, starting with a very intense mystical experience at age five. As I have mentioned in my old blog on LJ: some people get involved in magick so that they can see and hear spirits. Others of us get involved so that we can stop. Or at least take the reins of the experience.

Even though I had a lot of experiences with “second site” as a child, these experiences stopped by age 7 and with a few notable exceptions, I didn’t start seeing again regularly until I started working my way through Don Kraig’s Modern Magick at the age of 15. Many of the same rituals that Frater POS mentions in his post: LBRP, Middle Pillar, and others in the GD/Crowley vein, were part of my daily life until my angel had me take up Tibetan Magick in 1996, at the age of 24. So, although these practices wouldn’t necessarily be at the top of my list of recommendations, I can’t knock them either. They did right by me for 9 years and serve others well today.

Before I get into training the psychic vision, I want to mention the difference between visualization and seeing. Visualization in magick is a creative act, seeing is an act of perception. When a magician is training in doing an LBRP he is visualizing pentagrams, the act of forcing the mind to see them is actually a method of directing the will and energy to create the pentagram. He may be able to see the pentagram after it is visualized, but it is not the same thing, and the difference is important.

In Tibetan magick, this difference is even more crucial. Most of the Kye Rim practices (generation stage) entail very intense visualization of mandalas to train the mind to replace ordinary vision with a karnically pure vision. These get quite complex. The first mandala that I was initiated into was Vajrakilaya which has 50 dieties in it, all of who are different colors and carry different implements in their hands. Even the palace they are in is detailed, having walls made of three layers of skulls (fresh, rotting, and bone) and entrails as tapestries, and so on. This in turn is all built upon a mountain of four elemental platforms and surrounded by eight charnel grounds. Etc Etc.

This intense visualization is contrived by the mind at the beginning of the ritual. At a later point in the ritual the powers of the mandala are invoked to inhabit the visualization, at which point, with practice you might be able see the mandala rather than visualize it. This then would signal the ability to move into Dzog Rim or completion stage work.

In Dzogchen the difference is quite crucial as the final stage Thogyal, entails resting in the natural state of mind (rigpa) and using light and darkness to see reality break down into its composite elements. All the instructions for Thogyal are very clear that visualization must be avoided at all costs, and that seeing is what is needed.

LBRP and other rituals that rely upon visualization can eventually lead to seeing in the same way that the visualized mandala eventually gives way to the sight of the actual mandala. There are however, ways of training yourself in the sight specifically. One of my favorites is a vision exercise that I call reality folding.

In this exercise you should face a wide vista without to many moving elements in it. If you are outside the sun should be at your back, and there shouldn’t be too many people your view. If you are inside, pick a place where the walls are a good distance away from you. Sit or stand with your back straight so that the winds enter the central channel. Start off by taking in a 180* gaze, not focusing on anything in particular. Many occultists have noted that this technique is enough to get many people seeing astral and etheric events at the periphery of their vision. If this happens do not pay attention to them, and definitely do not shift your gaze to them. While there are other exercises that focus on peripheral psychic sight, this is not one of them.

Once you are comfortable in the 180* gaze, imagine that everything you see is actually on a two dimensional surface in front of you, like a painting or a film screen. Spend some time on this, and really let your brain start to re-interpret the images as 2-D. Next reach out with your mind and consider what is on the other side of the screen. At this point, many of my students have reported a feeling of being watched or a feeling of spirits in the spaces around them outside of the field of vision.

Lastly, mentally will the screen to fold. Start with the corned of it. Just will the edge to fold down upon itself. This is a hard concept to grasp for some people, but others take to it right away.

You may see something. You may see nothing. Either is fine because this is not a gaze that you would actually use in active operations with spirits. At least, that’s not its primary purpose. It is an exercise to train the brain to allow an extra dimension to be perceived. By regular practice of collapsing the 3-D world into 2-D you leave a vacant space for your mind to fill. This practice is greatly aided by gestures like the splitting of space or rending of the veil. Certain yogic positions, such the aforementioned Thogyal positions, will also greatly aid seeing. Some of these positions are secret, but some can be found in Heart Drops of the Dharmakaya by Lopon Tenzin Namdak.


CLASS AT DVPN SUMMER SOCIAL

I will be speaking at the

10TH ANNUAL DELAWARE VALLEY PAGAN NETWORK SUMMER SOCIAL

Sunday 08/24/08

ABUNDANCE IN A "GREEN" WORLD

LORIMER PARK
183 Moredon Road
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006

10:00am TO 3:30pm

Not sure yet when my specific class is, but its on wealth Sorcery.

Wealth Sorcery

Given the state of the current economy it has never been more important to have ones finances under control. Well beyond simple "money drawing magick" this class will cover both techniques of manifesting sums of money for specific circumstances, and strategies for building wealth over the long term by incorporating sorcery into a long term financial plan.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

The Sorcerers Secrets COVER



This is the final draft of the cover art for the new book. I am VERY happy with it.

As a bonus, they are re-issuing Protection and Reversal Magick with a new and better cover, so they will look like companion volumes.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Next Public Class

August 12th.

Mystical Tymes
New Hope, PA

DREAM SORCERY

Throughout the world dreams play a vital role in psychic and magickal
development. This class combines the Tibetan Dream Yoga techniques,
with western techniques like the Hellenic Dream Lamps and Onieric
Evocation. Not a class on interpreting dreams or remembering
dreams, this class teached how to wake up inside the dream exploit the subtle nature of the dream state as a platform for sorcery, and to the great work.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Magick that cant be written.


I had a lengthy phone conversation with Persephone the other day which started by coordinating our efforts to help a mutual friend. The discussion led to a more general discussion of techniques that covered everything from seduction magick to invocation of apocalyptic Goddesses. Since Persephone is a natural witch, who is only relatively recently engaging in more formal training, she shared her frustration at not having words to describe everything she does. The problem is, I don’t have words to describe everything I do either.

No matter how much I write about magick I will never be able to share all my techniques because some simply cannot be written down. I don’t mean because of secret oaths or something like that. I mean for technical reasons. For instance, in the conversation Persephone talked about “grafting” qualities gained from an old spell onto a new one that she is weaving. I knew exactly what she was talking about and call it copying and pasting. How do I do it you ask?. Ctrl C and Ctrl V? We also talked about “jacking in” to the streams between people, a type of magick that I leaned when experimenting with Misheln Lindens Typhonian Teratomas. I can’t really describe either of these easily because the description depends upon being able to observe the energetic signature of a spell of ritual and deal with that directly. If you can’t see it, than it all sounds a bit Harry Potter. If you can see it, I don’t need to tell you how to do it. I can show you.

Another example would be a friend I was mentoring for a while, JM. I took JM down to Lake Lefferts and taught him a gesture that had energetic elements as well as physical elements that I used to summon a being that lived in the lake. He could see the work of the gesture and the spirit that arrived, but if I wrote about it, it becomes more difficult.

There is fairly new and unique tradition of magick being taught here in NJ called Omnimancy that relies heavily on magick that has to be shown. Though I am not an Omnimancer, they were kind enough to give me an introduction to their tech a year or so ago, and from what I saw, most of it was not something you could write about in a book. The whole system is built directly upon the ability to observe magick directly advance from there. If I talked to them about copying and pasting, they would know exactly what I mean as well because they do it too.

Of course not everyone that sees magick, sees it the same. Some don’t even see it, but feel it. Whatever your capacity though, if you can observe it directly, you can work with it directly. I can do a rather simple candle spell and see the way that the divine elements called in by prayer get translated into energy/astral patterns which in turn infuse themselves into the candle, the oil, and any other physical matter I am working with. I can explain the basic spell to people easily enough, but if I decide to play with the energetic and astral patterns directly by force of will and my own energy, it’s a bit harder to explain.

That’s part of what is frustrating about laying out the current book. There is a lot I want to write about, that I just can’t explain to a reader. I will have to keep this stuff for personal students that I can show. Thankfully, there are ways to help people to see. I will include exercises in the book that should help people to develop whatever gifts they have to observe the layers of reality necessary for this work. There are also different ways of directly touching people to help them.

In Tibetan magick, there are wangs or empowerments that introduce you directly to the mandalas that you will be working with. The first time I ever took an empowerment I came home that night and when I sounded the seed syllable, the whole mandala of Vajrakilaya was clearly visible in all its glory.

Shaktipats give this kind of kick, as does the reciving of Apostolic Ordination. OTO initiations can do this to a much lesser extent if they are conducted by talented people. The aforementioned Omnimancers have energetic “amps” that they give out to their students to help in their direct learning. I myself use a technique that was called “Catalyzing” by one of the founders of Thelesis Camp that observed me doing it during a lecture I was giving. I can’t really even show people how to do that, however. I just do it.

Than there are things that only the spirits can teach. I would love to write about the tesseract ritual that Metatron taught me in a vision, but I just cant quite figure out how it works myself.

Oh well. Back to writing the book.

The Templars want all thier shit back.


From the Register

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/04/knights_templar_pope/

The Knights Templar are demanding that the Vatican give them back their good name and, possibly, billions in assets into the bargain, 700 years after the order was brutally suppressed by a joint venture between the Pope and the King of France.

If the Holy See doesn’t comply, the warrior knights, renowned for liberating the Holy Land, will deploy that most fearsome of weapons: a laborious court case through the creaking Spanish legal system.

The Daily Telegraph reports that The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ has launched a court case in Spain, demanding Pope Benedict “recognise” the seizure of assets worth €100bn. The Spanish-based group of Templars apparently says in a statement: "We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our Order." This might come as a surprise to those who believe that the order of warrior monks – also credited with possessing the Holy Grail and laying the foundation of the European banking system - was smashed in 1307 by Pope Clement V and Philip IV of France.

At the time, the order was accused of a multitude of crimes, including two medieval biggies - sodomy and heresy.

However, recently discovered Vatican papers showed that the order had never been declared heretics, burnings at the stake for the leadership not withstanding.

Rather, it appeared that the order’s suppression was more a piece of realpolitik on the pope’s part to pacify Philip, who was somewhat irked by the prospect of the powerful order increasing its continental activities after Jerusalem fell to the Turks.

Despite the order’s brutal apparent suppression, its legacy has been claimed by numerous successor organisations, and besmirched by popular authors ad nauseum.

One of the successors, Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani, is apparently recognised by Unesco.

We contacted the UK branch, otherwise known as the The Grand Priory of Knights Templar in England and Wales, to see if they could throw any light on the matter but they have yet to get back to us.

The Grand Priory’s website says the modern organisation is about humanitarian and charity work. There is no mention of the Holy Grail, though it does support the maintenance of the Holy Places.

And if you’re looking for esoteric rites or secret higher knowledge, you’re likely to be disappointed. The website says: “Please don’t expect to be enlightened with some supposed ‘secret’ knowledge, because nothing exists.”

Of course, any conspiracy theorist will tell you that’s exactly what you’d expect them to say.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

ALL 22 Paths are Important


I was talking with a friend about the work we do in the Sangreal Sodality that I work with. Rather than focus on the Rite of Lite like many Sodalites, with the exception of the equinoxes and solstices, our Sodality focuses on the Office of the Holy Tree of Life. My friend has a background in Don Kraig/Crowley derived magick and seemed completely confused about our method and reasoning in working the tree. Specifically he was confused about the route we take..

Since ancient times there has been the idea of a ladder of lights existing between our very dense world of form and a very subtle world of spirit. Most commonly the various rungs on this ladder, or to use another analogy, the spheres that must be passed through, have been prepresented by the planets.

While today we tend to think of the planets as active energies to draw upon or gates to pass through, they represented barriers that had to be overcome or broken through to the ancient mystic. One of the beliefs in Anthroposophy is that Christ actually physically changes them from barriers to gates, as part of his mission on earth.

Either way though, the concept of these ever more subtle spheres exists all over the western mystery tradition, so it is sort of a no brainer to view the khabbalistic tree of life in the same light. God manifests the spheres downward, and we climb upwards. Simple. There is a lightning bolt path that created the tree that flows through all the 10 sephira. There is another path back up the tree called the path of the serpent, basically reversing the lightning bolt zig-zag pattern.

The problem is that the Tree of Life isnt set up as a straight line, or as series of concentric spheres like the old planetary systems. Its not like that for a reason. The 10 sephira are not connected by 10 paths, they are connected by 22 paths. If you just zig zag up the tree from sephira to sephira you wont hit them all. The sephira are important, but the 22 paths are equally important. This is what my friend couldnt quite grasp. To him it was all about those 10 sephira. To us, its much more about the paths than the sephira.

Its perhaps understandable to view the sephira as consecutive steps, given that they are attributed to the planets. But its important to remember that different Rabbi's have assigned different planets to the sephira at different times, and the correlation is not as simple as all that, so we shouldnt apply the planet hopping view to the tree.

The sephira are important nodes of power and influence that carry very specific energies that are reflected in the higher realms, the world we live in, and the inner realm of the mind. When we do the Office ritual we typically invoke two sephira and than the path between it. Our meditations focus in the path and the way it balances the energies of those sephira. We do stop along the way and have nights dedicated to one sephira as we go, but its really to get a firm foundation so that we can work the paths that stem from it effectivly. Like circuits in a board.

You will note of course that in reality the "path of the serpent" is not at all the zig zag up the sephira that my friend seems to think it is. Old images showing a serpent wrapped around the tree are careful to show it touching all 22 paths, and none of the sephira, yet many people seem to forsake these paths, treating the Tree of Life like a ladder of consecutive sephira, rather than the map that it is.

Honey Jars

Because of my book, I am very often contacted by clients looking for protection or even counter magick curses. Some of these I do, some of them I don't, depending on circumstance.

Even in love, I seem get asked to break up other people, so that a husband can return, rather than asked to just build attraction between two people. I have been asked four times in the last year. When this happens, unless there is physical abuse going on, I normally refuse. Especially if there is child custody involved. I will advise people how to do the work themselves, throwing a bit of business to a local shop that carries Black Marriage Candles in the process, but I dont do it myself.

So, it was nice this week to have someone that I once refused to do a break up spell for, come back and ask for a straight up love spell just to sweeten the relationship between her and her man. I am always up for that. Sowing the seeds of love is awsome and doing it always rubs off a bit and sweetens the relations around me as well. For the last few days the wife has been more attentive, and come to think of it, I have been more attentive to her.

Even now, as the dust from todays evocation of Michael settles (which went well enough), the candle on the honey jar I made for the client is burning on the altar and giving off a great vibe. Almost like a 60's style "up with love" song playing in the aethyr.

If you want to get this vibe going yourself, pick a target that you want to sweeten up with (doesnt have to be love, it works with friends and bosses and anyone else) and place a link from you and them together in a jar. If you want, you can tie them together with properly colored string. Fill the jar with Honey, Mollasses, and Sugar along with any herbs or roots that you want to add. I have used Coon Dongs n honey jars for sex to good effect. Trillium for family or marriage closeness. Gravel Root for bosses and co-workers. You get the idea. When its filled, light an appropriately colored candle on top of the jar and enflame thyself with prayer and desire for better relations.

Repeat the last step as necessary.