Well, first, you be a Christian… and then you also be a Magician.

I get asked all the time how I manage to reconcile my Christian faith with my practice of magic and Hermetics. I get asked by Christians who really want to do magic but have concerns about the whole “the Bible explicitly says not to do it” thing, and by pagans who can’t stand the blatant Christianity in the grimoires. After announcing my affiliation with the OTO, I’m now being asked how I reconcile those two beliefs as well. I’ve been meaning to explain it in a blog post for a while, and I’ve finally got the time.

Basically, I’m able to reconcile Christianity and Hermetics because I took the time to learn what they both are. I studied Christian theology for a couple of years, Catholic and Protestant alike. I read Luther and Calvin. I actually know what the Bible says about things, and I understand the history of the formation of the Church. I read the Corpus Hermeticum, studied the formation of Hermetic beliefs, and explored the neo-platonic framework of the systems of magic we use.

People who have a problem reconciling Christianity and magic really just don’t know what Christianity really is. They think it’s an actual cohesive religious system with simple rules of behavior, clear-cut processes and methodologies for attaining spiritual rewards and avoiding spiritual punishments. They think the pastors or priests telling them what to do and how it works are all basing their statements on what the Bible says, or what the Church teaches. It would be great if Christianity were that simple.

But it’s a big fucking mess. The “New Testament” isn’t a book. It’s four gospels telling the story of Jesus’ time on Earth that mostly agree with one another. Then there’s a book that talks about the early church in Jerusalem and what the founders of Christianity did, like a history book, sort of, that was recorded many years after the events that were being recorded, like a documentary about the civil rights movement put together entirely from interviews of people who had heard about it before. And then there are the apostolic epistles, supposedly letters from the founders of the church to the churches scattered across the Roman Empire in the first century, written by the people who had actually been with Jesus. And then there are the epistles of fucking Paul, who never met Jesus in the flesh, but had a conversion experience on the road to Damascus. And then there’s the APOCALYPSE, a.k.a. Revelation.

There’s a lot of “swirl” involved with that, as you can imagine. The early church fathers didn’t know what they were doing any more than the modern Golden Dawn outer heads know what they’re doing. They argued with each other all the time. Most of them were Jews who didn’t even want to let non-Jews join the church. Peter was ok with it, because he really liked ham sandwiches with cheese. He even dreamed about it.

But mostly they let Paul deal with the Gentiles, and Paul dealt with them indeed, giving them rules, guidance, teachings, trainings. He put together the actual church doctrines and practices, and eventually had to bail out the Jerusalem church because they were all disorganized. They were ostracized by the Jewish Jews who didn’t believe in the messiah, and they still ostracized themselves from the pagans in the Roman empire. They were broke and hungry, and meanwhile Paul’s legions of Gentile Christians were thriving. Relatively.

And he fought with them a lot. Argued with them, called Peter a hypocrite to his face. They were vehement in their disagreements as they tried to figure out what Christianity should be.

So really, there is no hard and fast “Christianity.” There are just interpretations of the core texts that enough people happen to agree on. That’s why there are so many denominations, and why history is rife with heretics getting killed. It’s a hot mess when you look at it.

But here’s a secret for you: Christianity is entirely built on the emanationist neoplatonic framework. Read John 1:1, “In the beginning was the WORD (LOGOS), and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God.” See that? Neoplatonist doctrine, pure and simple. The very best esoteric games in town in the 1st through 3rd centuries were neoplatonist games. The structure is sound enough and flexible enough to have plenty of room for interpretation. ONE SOURCE, one chief representative, a few subordinates… Monad, King-God, Assistant Gods… God, Jesus, Angels… It explained both pagan and monotheistic systems, and better than that, it explained what people ran into when they started doing magic. Or praying. Or being taken into the heavens, whether in body or in spirit, I know not.

And Hermetics is an interpretation of the same thing, LOGOS, Mankind, soteriology, the return to the heavens with other emanated spirits. Daimons, gods, angels, all the same things, with different interpretations.

But then there’s all the conflicting instructions in the Bible… Don’t do magic, but it’s ok to speak in the tongues of angels and commune with them. Cast out demons of affliction, but don’t practice pharmakos-sorcery. Call on the Holy Spirit to blind people working against you, but don’t traffic in demons. All the gods of the pagans are demons…

Fortunately, we are given a rational mind to make sense of stuff like this. If you read the Bible, really study it in the context of the times it was written, compare it to the other belief systems that were going on, you will see that it is fairly typical of the kinds of stuff that were being passed around the remains of the Roman Empire at the time. Chances are really good that they would have gone the way of the Essenes and the Mithraic cults if it weren’t for Constantine getting the vision that he would conquer in the sign of the Chi-Rho, which was a symbol of Christ. Since he did conquer, Christianity eclipsed the rest and they faded away.

And the Bible itself says the information in the New Testament is for spiritual babies. Paul writes at one point that there are greater mysteries than the ones he talks about, that he would LOVE to tell people about, but they’re too ignorant to handle it. So he has to teach about love, salvation, sin, and baptism first so they can grow up and start doing the real stuff. Which he doesn’t talk about.

Chrisitanity is a basic primer for spiritual living, and its internal inconsistencies only bother people who read it and try to do it, and a little study, a little reading, a lot of prayer and practice reveals that it’s for noobs. What’s meaningful and useful in Christianity, for people like me, is that Jesus died for sins, freeing us to embrace God. DO THAT, and God’s like, hey, RO, check this out… Angels! Gods! Demons! HGAs!

See, mundane life with no magic or spirituality is lame. Living like a creator god is awesome. Humans can be thick. We have to have something to bridge the mundane to the creator god. The sin-death trip is a good and useful spiritual tool to get people there. Some people, anyway. The point is not how you get there though, it’s getting there. Christ’s death on the cross forgave all “sin” and removed every last excuse anyone has to stay away from God. That’s an amazing and empowering belief, and those who embrace it and accept it have an in to the source of all that is.

And people who do that, who chase after God because they can, start living miraculous lives. I grew up in a family that was used to miracles happening around and through us. My parents live a lifestyle that lets them experience the miraculous divine regularly in their own ways. I have a different focus and set of tools, and they suit me a lot better, but they operate through the same core framework.

So basically, the thing that most people get hung up on when it comes to Christianity is the Bible. Understand it’s not a single cohesive thing, that it’s a conglomeration of indicators of a greater spiritual reality that’s been put together to point people to God. It’s not a single unified code of living, it’s complicated and takes personal study and application to figure out what bits are gold and what bits are the personal shit of the person writing it down. Just like everything else in magic, really.

And the people who try to tell you that the Bible says not to do magic don’t know what the bible says, don’t know what magic is, and aren’t fit to tell you jack shit. Only you can experience God.

Above all else though, I do magic because I’m a magician. That’s what I emanated to do. I’ve learned from Christ and the angels. I’ve studied the theologies of my saintly brothers and sisters. I’ve used my mind to understand things, and I’ve risen through the spheres to see the universe as it really is.

And it’s beautiful.

So … to sum it up, the Bible isn’t the boss, it’s a pointer. People with no spiritual maturity can’t tell you what it means because they want a rule book to judge others and control them, and feel better about themselves. Only you can understand it.

If you really want to be a Christian Magician, just be one. If you have too much cognitive dissonance over the words in the Bible, spend some time immersing yourself in it. Look up the words used for sorcery and magic, and look at how they are used in other Greek texts from the time. Look up what Jesus calls himself in the New Testament and the name of the Second Book of the Corpus Hermeticum. Read John 1:1-10. Read Hebrews, about the Order of Melchizadek. Read the letters of Paul as if they were written by the man he really was, inspired, fanatical, and zealous for the Lord. Understand he tried hard, but had his issues.

Above all, stop checking your brain at the door. Think about why you want to do magic. Let that be your guide, and see where you end up.

For those who don’t know, I am officially a member of the OTO, and have been since January 2013. Some folks seem to be surprised, others not so much.

I thought I’d made it clear for years that I accepted the Book of the Law, I just had disagreements with the lodge structure because of all the stupidity I saw coming out of the various Golden Dawn Orders. I blamed the Kircher Tree.

Then back in August of 2012, I had a profound experience with the deity indwelling the priestess at a Gnostic Mass at William Blake Lodge in Baltimore, MD. (Oh my god, she’s full of stars…)

Almost immediately afterward, I met the lovely Harper Feist, who happened to be a member. Some interesting things developed between the two of us (and continue to do so), and she was able to demonstrate to me that the OTO was not at all like the Golden Dawn orders I’d seen.

Since then, I’ve traveled to lodges in Sacramento, Florida, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and attended NOTOCON IX. I have met Bishops and Minervals, Hermits, Lovers, and Men of Earth, and some guy with a harmonica who puts up with a lot of shit. I’ve become good friends with Thelemites in the UK, and New Zealand, and I’ve gotten to experience what Jason Miller inferred at last year’s Crucible conference.

Anyway, I was initiated into the OTO last January, and I have recently been accepted into the A:.A:.. Someone expressed some surprise on the Gents for Jupiter group when they found out. A lot of you already knew. As Gordon put it, “There was writing, and there was a wall.” But for those who didn’t know, I figured I should just go ahead and make a general announcement to everyone.

Hey-O!

As you may know, I recently had my second divorce finalized, and I’ve never been happier. I spent years in a really shitty relationship, trying to make it work when there was zero trust, layers of abuse, addiction, and all kinds of mental illness to deal with. I took on a shitload of my ex’s issues, shouldering responsibility for things that I had absolutely no control over, and then dealing with the inevitable despair that came when no matter what I did, nothing improved.

Ugh.

I’m going over it all quickly because I hate that I was like that, but I also understand we all do that. We get attached to people who drag us down, and we try to make the other person happy by changing ourselves. It’s human to take the blame for other people’s damage, especially when you really want the happiness you hope to gain from being with them.

You’ll probably notice that I’m pretty darned happy now. It’s not just that I left a poisonous toxic relationship, or even that I met a responsible, beautiful, loving, sane woman to be with. Those things are both great, don’t get me wrong, but they aren’t why I’m happy.

If you’ve ever been in an abusive relationship, you know that getting away isn’t enough to heal you. You still carry around atachments to the fucktard, and guilt that you somehow failed them, when they were the asshats doing the abusing. It’s sick, but it’s also normal. Don’t feel bad if you’re still stuck in it, it’s a tar baby of the worst kind.

I got out of it though, and I can tell you how:

The MOTHERFUCKING SUN.

Hell yeah, all golden and shining and shit. All happy and dancing with cups and shit. All green hill thrusting up through a golden ring and shit.

Also, and here’s the most important part: it’s hotter than fuck.

Go to the Sun to burn away all that pain, all that shit, all those black sticky feelings, all the guilt, remorse, everything bad that got stuck on top of you. Go to the Sun, and be reforged. Let its heat melt you completely, melting away all the form and shape that you adapted and adopted to fit with the retarded fuckwad you wasted so much time with. Let the Sun be the forge in which you are remade, reborn. Go through that Solar Gate and embrace the heat, the light, the life it brings.

If you have the Modern Angelic Grimoire, do that rite to conjure Michael, and just pour your heart out to him. Michael loves us so much, there’s a mystery behind it that is worth asking him about. It has to do with his name. Michael understands us in ways no one else will, and he’s willing to help.

I have clients that need help with this kind of thing. Lots of clients. So many people who come to me are coming with baggage related to their past relationships that they really need to have consumed in the Universal Recycling Bin. It’s an epidemic.

I’m offering an ongoing Solar-Venus rite on behalf of my clients. This rite will be focused on consuming the pain, attachment, and suffering people carry around with them from past relationships. If you want to be one of the people who participate, I’ll need the following:

• $75 – (Paypal link below)
• An electronic version of your photo – Something recent, or of you as an infant that you don’t mind me printing and using in the rite
• Your birth name

When you buy the rite, I’ll be in touch to get your information via email.

Lo, the time approaches wherein RO shall release upon the ready and waiting world the fullness of the ROpocalypse! Whence shall ye see the fullness of the things he hath planned for thee and thine…

and stuff.

But it’s not ready yet. I have lots left to do.

I have, however, managed to update my site!

It’s still a work in process, but the framework is up and running. I’ve made a few more talismans available, and put together some additional services. There’s a lot more on the way.

It’s still in need of photos and other things… but I just couldn’t wait any more. I had to get it out of 1990. anymore. I have a lot more tweaking to do before it’s where I want it to end up, but at least you can start to see the outlines of what’s going to be rolled out.

Soon.

But that time is not yet. So many friggin’ things left to do!

Getting back to it now, in fact, but I wanted to start driving traffic to the site so I can check my analytics scripts and make sure it’s working right. So go check it out!

Jason’s having a Fall sale on the Strategic Sorcery Course through September 22. Take advantage while you’ve got a chance!

I fully recommend Jason’s course because I can see the effects it has on our shared students. A lot of my students are also his, and I can always tell which ones have also been through his course. They get the practical applications of things a little better, and they’re better prepared to take what I provide and turn it into an effective approach to living.

If you look over at the blog list on the right of my actual blog page, there are several that belong to people who have been through both of our courses. It’s no coincidence that these are also the ones who are providing useful content, interesting explorations of the arts, and finding amazing ways to apply traditional magical techniques in modern ways.

I found this today, and it’s a great analogue of what I think happens when we do the conjurations of the Great Work.

In this example, what we think of as our “selves” are represented by the table under the oscillators. They are the foundation of our experience in this spiritual, mental, and material existence we call life.

Our lives when we get started on the Work look like the oscillaors when they first get going, out of harmony, kind of chaotic, a lot of din.

If the board under them were static, that is, fixed and unmoving, unpliable, they would remain that way. But because they are on a moveable surface, watch what happens:

Similarly, as we perform the Work, I think we are made more pliable, and move with the motion. We harmonize, and slowly one part begins to get together, and then it spreads to the rest of our areas of our life until everything is working together. Of course, there’s always that one pink one over on the right that seems to be completely out of sync for a bit, but eventually even that gets its shit together.

You’ll note there are no hands interfering and manually making the things harmonize. Any kind of interference wouldn’t really help, it would just make it take longer to harmonize. By working on the substrate, making that pliable and able to transfer the oscillating energies, the stuff built on the base just sort of automagically comes into harmony.

“Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things are added unto you,” is how Jesus put it. go after God, your source, go after cleansing the stuff that keeps you rigid and inflexible and non-adaptive, get rid of the things that hinder the flow from the Source through the Spheres, into the World, through our Senses, and back up to the Source through us as experience, and everything just sort of comes into balance and harmony.

And then when the motors wind down, you can start again.

If you want.

Back in January, I did a post about my friends who had cool stuff to promote. At the time my fellow Gent for Jupiter and long time friend and counselor Monsignor S.R. sent me a manuscript to pimp for everyone’s benefit, and I friggin’ totally forgot about it until he reminded me today.

Sheesh.

Angels at your Doorstep is a little eBook on the conjuration of elemental angels, and a quick and insightful overview on working with each. It doesn’t cost a lot, it’s straight to the point, simple, and easy. The methodology is incredibly tight and direct, and it would make a good companion piece to the Modern Angelic Grimoire in terms of its direct tone and style and ease of implementation. This is exactly the kind of magic I like. Quick and easy, no heavy lifting to get what you need gathered together to get immediate responses to your conjurations.

I didn’t recognize the sub-angels, so I took some time to conjure them and interview them personally this afternoon. I was very impressed with each. They responded quickly to their names and seals, and filled the conjure space with a sense of their presence. They resonated well with my expeirence in the elemental realms, and seemed extremely competent in introducing people to the material realms. My HGA confirmed their potency and authenticity.

I asked each their function, and they each indicated they ruled the elemental properties of the material realm. I tested them a little further, and even did a little Work with one of them on some issues I’m having in my own sphere at the moment. I’m quite pleased with the experience, and will be making some more permanent seals to Work with them again in the future. I’ve been meaning to get some handy elemental angels in my portflio of useful spirits, and here this was the whole time.

I’m also going to be recommending one of my clients work with these spirits right away. This is just what you need to get some assistance in learning how to bridge the spiritual to material gap.

So a very talented artist, who has done some amazing custom work for my upcoming site redesign, has submitted a T-Shirt design to “Designs by Humans.” They have this policy that you have to receive an undisclosed number of votes to have them even consider printing the shirt. Getting a ton of votes doesn’t even result in a guarantee of getting your design printed.

But it’s the first step.

So I really want this shirt, and I’m not above using my status as Flamen Dialis to get what I want. I think it’s that cool.

So I posted a deal on FaceBook that I’ll make here too:

CLICK THIS LINK AND VOTE for the design, and I will intercede on your behalf with Jupiter tomorrow morning at dawn during the morning rites.

Note that you have to register with the site to vote, it’s not just a click-click-done thing. That’s what earns you the honorable mention. You help my friends, my friends help you. Like the mafia. Or Hermetics. 😀

Anyway, I’m doing the rites tomorrow morning, so hurry up.

[Edit 9/12/13: Wow! He went from 29 to 95 votes in one day! Thanks much! After reading the names of 40 people during the rite this morning, I asked for the spirits to continue to bless anyone who votes for this design. I won’t be reading that many names again any time soon though, so don’t worry about sending me the screenshots of your votes. Just know that you’ll get the blessing if you place the vote. And seriously people, thank you so much! This rocks so hard! WOOOOOOOOOOT!!!]

[Author’s Note: I’m writing my ass off. I’ve got to finish the clean-up of the manuscript I’m going to have published through Nephilim Press so I can move on to the web site redesign and then the ROPOCALYPSE. I’m on the part of the book where I’ve summarized the method of accomplishing the Great Work that I practice, and honestly, I need a break from the manuscript. Writer’s Angst is much worse than Writer’s Block. And a brief interlude is good for me, and this is stuff I felt like putting in the book that maybe shouldn’t be there, maybe it should, I dunno. But here it is.]