Rufus Opus

Posts by frredactumopus

Author: frredactumopus

  • Back to Business… Part II

    My next Order of Business is Business itself.

    I cut way back on promoting my services since getting this new job. I simply didn’t have time to do magic for people. 
    But now that I’m filling in all my spare time with productive, profitable things, I’m going to pushing my Applied Hermetic Services again. Hermetic Diagnoses, Rites of Fortune, Prosperity, Hex Removal and never ever any love spells.
    I will also be offering the Business Booster rites again. Expect a blog post with testimonials soon.

    And of course, the Red Work series of courses. Those are always available.

    This comes as a result of yesterday’s awesome Mercury rites performed at dawn, and throughout the day. I had some good long talks, and an interesting time in trance visions.

    I saw this chaos of dots of light, each representing a manifestation point of one aspect of my life. I was able to touch them and understand what they represented. I started moving them around, and connecting the dots in my vision, and realized I was reshaping the flow of my life. I had this rush of information, and saw how the patterns needed to be arranged in different areas and different aspects of my life.

    I was also able to take a look at a lot of the emotional stress I’ve been under from an objective point of view, and understand what it is exactly that pisses me off about this whole situation, and why I feel so angry and out of control, and I honestly laughed at what I found. I’m angry because I wanted to be the one to leave.

    It was so silly. I was like, wait, me, really? You have what you’ve wanted … for years, and you’re able to do what you’ve wanted to do now for years, and you’re free way ahead of schedule, and the adjustments to the plan aren’t that hard, and you get to do magic, and really you’re quite happy with everything overall, but… you’re shitting on everything because someone else made it happen?

    And then I got this wave of relief, and gratitude. Not forgiveness, quite, but definitely gratitude. I think it was the nicest present my ex ever gave me.

  • Back to Business

    With things settling into place and a sense of normalcy returning to my sphere, I find I have a lot more time on my hands than I used to. I have found that idle hands are, indeed, the devil’s playground, and so I’ve put my hands to producing some positive manifestations rather than leaving them to find mischief.

    And yes, that happened after they had gotten themselves into mischief. Fun mischief, effective mischief, but ultimately just mischief that led nowhere I wanted to be.
    So Back to Business.
    First Order of Business: Hermetic Retreat

    When my ex and I separated, it was a pretty big shock to my system. While I had dreamed of getting a divorce for years, I never did because I believed I had a responsibility to be the husband and father of the family I brought into the world. And I did love my ex. I just couldn’t stand her. I’ve got issues, she’s got issues, and our issues are incompatible. They bring out the worst in both of us. We knew divorce was inevitable, but I thought we had a couple years left.

    But I had planned for it. It came ahead of schedule before I was ready to implement the plan, and now the plans have to be adapted for less-than-ideal circumstances. I have to do things now that I wasn’t going to start for another year, and I’m honestly not ready. I haven’t been doing a lot of magic lately, and the plan requires me to be at peak operating capacity. I’m out of shape.

    So the first thing I did was a Hermetic Retreat. For seven days I conjured the Archangels and Inteligences and Spirits of the Planets at dawn, meditated and contemplated the planetary symbols, and immersed myself in the powers of their spheres. It was like going on a planetary spa day.

    I started on a Sunday and finished last Saturday. By the end of that cycle, I was feeling a lot better, much more myself than I have felt in months. I focus a lot on the practical aspects of the magic I do on the blog, but I don’t really talk a lot about the mental and spiritual effects of regular practice. I figure there are plenty of blogs out there that do, and I think they encourage people to think about and feel about magic instead of doing magic.

    But the peace and power and mental stability that come from regular, balanced practice is the best and most practical magical effect you can ever ask for. The Hermetic Retreat went a long way to restoring me. I’m not where I need to be yet, but I’m able to get there as a result of the refreshing streams pouring through my sphere.

    I’ve continued to conjure the Archangels, Intelligences, and Spirits of the planets this week. Last week was a passive approach, relaxing, refreshing, cleansing, but this week I’m going into more active strength training exercises. It’s more of a Hermetic Workout than a Hermetic Retreat now. Opening chakras, directing the forces as they manifest through me into my sphere. There are still things I can’t do that I used to be able to do, no problem. It’s kind of frustrating.

    I thought about just doing a Reclaiming Rite, taking back the power and authority I had before. I’ve done them before and had really good results, but things were more … stable. I’m not consistently stable enough to handle it without it burning me yet. Major changes in a person’s life brings the Spiritus, the part of the soul responsible for survival to the foreground. It’s emotional and passionate, and mine is very angry.

    So I’m Working out the old fashioned way instead, rebuilding the muscles gradually. As I do so, the Spiritus is backing down to its more neutral state, and the Animus is much more engaged. My brain is also physiologically adapting to the change in my circumstances, and the chemicals flowing are becoming more regular and regulated. Returning to the familiar neuropathways that developed when I went through my initiations over the years has helped restore a sense of normalcy to my life. The urge to smash recedes.

    I don’t know how long this phase will last. I had planned on being well into the Eighth Sphere Work before having any of this shit go down, and I’m not ready yet to even start heading there to pick up the trail of Azoth consciousness. I feel like a lawn mower that’s getting started after spending the winter and most of early Spring in the garage.

  • Mr. Cecchetelli’s Latest

    A long, long time ago, I worked in an organic new age grocery store produce department. Having lived and worked on an organic farm/hippy cult commune for a year qualified me in their eyes for the job. I know a lot about vegetables now as a result.

    The employees tended to be into a lot of weird shit, and I fit right in. We’d be stocking the produce and talking about Eckankar and Soul Travel, or debating LSD vs. Ecstasy. There was an espresso and juice bar there too, so we’d do shots of wheatgrass and pound crowbars, and talk all kinds of weird shit, really quickly.
    I worked with a guy named Zeus. His parents named him that. On purpose. I thought that was pretty cool, and hard to beat as far as having a bad-ass name from birth. And then they hired Abraxas.
    Abraxas was an interesting fellow. His parents had named him after, he said, the God of Magic. My ears perked right up and I tried to have an occult discussion with him. I quickly learned that in spite of being named after the “God of Magic,” he knew nothing about magick. He didn’t know Peter Carrol, never heard of Robert Anton Wilson, Malaclypse the Younger, Anton LaVay, Donald Michael Kraig, Austin Spare, Israel Regardie, or Aleister Crowley.* 
    So I started researching Abraxas, the God of Magic on my own. I hopped on Altavista, which seemed to have a lot more occult information than the other search engines of the day, and went to town. 
    The first thing I thought I found was that it was misspelled. It was Abrasax. And while “God of Magic” is part of the story, it’s not the whole story at all. I found myself reading gnostic texts, learning about the Archons and the Demiurge, Sophia and the Pleroma, and the role of Abrasax in different Gnostic sects. It was my first exposure to non-Christian mystical texts written in the first through third centuries, and it was mind boggling. I couldn’t figure it out just by reading it, for the first time in my life. 
    Mr. Cecchetelli, author of Crossed Keys,  has managed to wade his way through the morass and meet the God himself. He’s been Working with him and writing up his next book, The Book of Abrasax. I can’t wait for that one. It’s going to be a really interesting read. My favorite parts of Crossed Keys were the personal anecdotes he provided. I love reading the experiences of other magicians doing magic, it confirms my own experiences, and I can pick up really neat little tips and tricks that other people have figured out. It helps refine my praxis.
    Mr. C is now offering talismans based on his successful experiments with Abrasax. The talisman he’s making provides both protection and prosperity. That’s a brief summary, they do a lot more than that and he explains it in detail on his blog post. 
    I happen to know the current of Jupiter Mr. C Works with regularly, and with that involved in the creation of any talisman that brings prosperity, I know these will be particularly powerful talismans, and I whole-heartedly encourage you to buy one for yourself. I rarely buy talismans, I prefer to make my own, but this is something I’m getting for myself as a treat. 
    * This was in my Chaos Magick daze, and these authors were about the extent of my exposure to occult materials; I believed that Aleister Crowley’s Book IV was the epitome of Western Magick, and that Peter Carroll had discovered the secret means to get around having to do all that Work to make your magick effective. It was the ’90s, and I did a lot of drugs.

  • Path of the Rose

    Sefriel, international occult man of mystery, is launching a course in some serious Angel Magic called the Path of the Rose. 
    Sef is the inspiring force that started the Gentlemen for Jupiter, and a magician I’ve been happy to work with for the past year plus. I know he’s well trained in Angel Magic, the real thing. He’s got an inside track. He’s also good with the technologies, so I know it will be uber-professional in addition to being a solid intro to some of the most powerful magical systems available.
    And it’s in Glastonbury. So I can’t go. But you European magi should totally sign up. It’s going to be very worth it.
    He’s also just put up a page for his occult business, Exodus Solutions. Sef’s one of those exorcists who really loves his job. I’m not sure what other services he’s going to be putting together, but I’m looking forward to seeing what comes up.

  • Daimon Brainstorming Sessions Part 2

    This is Part 2 of the Daimon-Brainstorming sessions that resulted from my recent experiences with getting sick from a Bune operation gone awry. For background see “The Weirdest Bune Thing Yet” and “Daimon Brainstorming Sessions Part 1.”

    Picking up where we left off, I had woken up feeling great after performing a really quick rite with my spirit pot that houses Bune. That doesn’t really convey how much better I was feeling than before, the difference was totally miraculous. But I also wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again by following up on the Hierophant information I had received through the tarot divination and the first brainstorming session with my Daimon.

    So that night, I sat down with my Daimon, and we talked. I can’t really convey the conversation because I don’t remember the actual dialog. I took notes, but it was the information we were discussing that I wrote down, and not the conversation.

    Basically, I asked it what I should be focusing on to enact the resolution shown in the tarot reading (Hierophant, six of Wands, King of Wands). It revealed I hadn’t been plugging into the Above spoken of in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. Most of my magical practices are pretty mundane-focused. I haven’t been doing a lot of Scrying of the Aethyrs, rising through the Spheres, or traveling through the heavens in a fiery chariot like Ezekiel did.

    And the Daimon reminded me that this is why the Hierophant is the Hierophant. The roles of the Hierophant are a reflection, a side effect of his relationship with God. The Hierophant gets his knowledge and experience and the ability to be a Hierophant on these spiritual journeys, and from contemplating the Divine Source.

    I hadn’t been doing these things much lately.

    So the next most obvious question was, “What should I actually be doing then?”

    We brainstormed for awhile, and what came out of that was a Merkavah–esque meditative ritual that includes visiting each Sphere of the Elements, the Seven Heavens (classical planetary realms), the “Heaven of the Stars” symbolized by Chokmah on the GD Tree of Life most are familiar with, and then the realm of the Prima Materia, the First Material that manifested in Kether. From there, my Daimon said, I needed to travel through the Pleroma and into the Divine Darkness in which the Creator dwells. After I was finished, I was to return going through each of the spheres in reverse order and then grounding out.

    This was all to be done in the Body of Light, making this a meditative and contemplative ritual. I don’t do many of those, and this one pretty much makes up for that fact.

    To begin, I lit a candle in my Lamp on my altar to represent the Light of God. Then I lit my incense charcoal and got some Abramelin Incense burning. It’s my favorite, and since I always start with a conjuration of my Daimon, it’s always appropriate.

    I then sat in my Comfy Chair (every magician should have one, as Patrick Dunn says; mine is IKEA’s Poang chair with the matching footstool). I had my notes. I entered my astral temple. I performed the rite. It took a while.

    First I conjured my Daimon. We have an agreement, I call, he comes. Next I quickly traveled up through the Elemental Spheres in my Body of Light. In the realm of Earth, I took on the form of a Bull, in Water the form of a Man, in Air the form of an Eagle, and in Fire the form of a Lion. When I got to the Lunar realm, I conjured Gabriel, the Archangel of the Moon using her Name, Seal from the Magical Calendar, and the name of God Shaddai El Chai. I then traveled through the Sphere of the Moon in my Body of Light with my Daimon until we got to the Gate leading to the Sphere of Mercury.

    At that Gate, I conjured Raphael, Archangel of Mercury. I follow the Trithemian school of placement for the archangels Raphael and Michael. This means that they are switched from what you see in the Magical Calendar link above. The seals stay with the planets, as they are the seals of the Intelligence of the planet. Only the names “Raphael” and “Michael” are switched from the Magical Calendar’s representation in the Trithemian school of correspondences.

    So at the Gate of Mercury, I conjured Raphael using his Seal and the God Name Elohim Tzabaoth. I traveled through Mercury to the Gate of Venus, and did the same with Haniel using the God Name Jehovah Tzabaoth. For each of the remaining spheres, it was the same, conhjure Archangel using the Sigil, name of the angel, and appropriate God Name, and then travel the sphere to the Gate to the next Sphere. After Venus, it went Sun-Michael-Seal-Eloah Va Da’at, Mars-Camael-Seal-Elohim Gibor, Jupiter-Sachiel-El, Saturn-Cassiel-Jehovah Elohim.

    When I got to the Gate to the Heaven of the Stars (roughly corresponding to Chokmah on the GD Tree of Life, I conjured Ratziel in the God Name Jah. I used the name Ratziel spelled out in the Celestial Script for the spirit’s Seal. After traveling through that sphere, I conjured the Archangel Metatron using the Name Eheieh to get access into Kether.

    The rest can’t really be described in words. I continued traveling through what is represented by the three negative veils. The first negative veil, the Ain Soph Aur was to me the Pleroma of the Gnostics. Multiple heavens, multiple entities that spoke in light instead of sound. Very interesting. I think that’s what you go through when you scry the Enochian Aethyrs, but I don’t know that to be true, just a suspicion. After that, I went through the Divine Darkness that Dionysius talks about. This is a must-read, in my opinion. Click that link later.

    Then I returned through the Spheres I had ascended through on the way up, conjuring each spirit at each gate until I reached the Elemental realm of fire. There I conjure Michael Angel of the the Element Fire and had him guide me through the Sphere to the Gate to the Realm of Air, where I conjured Raphael to lead me to the Gate of Water, then Gabriel who lead me to the Gate of Earth, and finally Uriel, who lead me back to my own Astral Temple. I thanked him, and my Daimon and then got up and did some grounding-out exercises.

    It took SIX HOURS. Strangely, three of those hours were spent in the Realm of the Moon on the way up. The rest took much less time. I had a lot of Lunar things to deal with. I may or may not blog about them. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of your own things to discover if you choose to do a rite like this, although the Moon realm might not take you as long.

    Dee does say something about needing to travel three times around the Earth in the Realm of the Moon before you can reach the next sphere in his Hieroglyphic Monad though, and I hadn’t known that before doing the rite. Maybe that’s part of it, I don’t know.

    Well, that’s Part 2. I wanted to get these out tonight before I forgot some of the details.

    Good Nigh, and Good Magick.

  • Shifting Gears on Goetia

    Ok, so after years and years (and years) of RO bashing Demon Magic, I’m shifting gears. It would be fairly typical for me to say, “I changed my mind, I was wrong” and dive right in, fuck the consequences, but that’s not where I’m at.

    See, the reason I stopped doing Demon magic is because it’s dangerous. It works really well, but there’s little room for error. For example, if I go to Raphael and ask him to bring me wealth in the amount of $4,000 by the end of the month, by any means necessary, as long as no one in my family got hurt, he immediately starts leading me in my mind through the means necessary to get what I need. He shows me what I have that is of value already, and demonstrates the means necessary to make the difference within the time constraints.

    Bune simply said, “yes, I will do that,” and a week or so later a faulty regulator caused a gas build up that flamed out and caught some stuff on fire that I’d left too close to the water heater. My first check from the insurance company was for almost exactly the amount I needed, a little more in fact.

    While everyone got out alive and unharmed, and technically no one in my family was hurt, the stress was terrible. My ex about had a break down. My kids were fine, except for when their mom and I fought as a result of the stress. It was one of many times in the relationship we nearly got divorced, but I did magic to save the relationship, and we made it through that storm.

    And I promised her I wouldn’t do any more demon magic. It works, very well, and I really wanted to go deeper into it. I wanted to figure out if he could make a house fire, what else could he do? I mean that kind of manifestation is pretty damned awesome, if it can be contained and channeled properly. But I felt it was too risky. I didn’t have room to fuck up, I had kids and a wife to protect and support.

    A couple weeks ago, my ex and I separated. In May I started a new job, making  a ton of money, but working 16-hour days. I dropped a lot of the Kingdom Maintenance magic I had been doing, including the stuff that was keeping my relationship afloat. I might write a post about that some time, but not now.

    As a result of these changes, I’m free to go back to the figuring out the demon magic I was practicing before.

    However, I’ve learned a whole lot in the two years since doing that kind of magic, and I have a better understanding of how magic works in general. Effective magic is done in a balanced way, Working with the spirits of the celestial, terrestrial, and chthonic in a coordinated effort. I’ve been working with spirits of the dead and genii loci, and various elementals who aren’t entirely demonic for the last couple of years, and I’m looking forward to including the demons in the mix again. I’m planning a series of rites to get back in the swing of things, conjuring the spirits to learn and get some minor assistance here and there, and then move onto more specific manifestation stuff.

    But first I’m planning a full Hermetic Retreat.

  • Modern Goetic Grimoire, Available Again

    Ok, so due to some recent experiences, I’m re-releasing the Modern Goetic Grimoire. It’s a record of my personal practice in the Lemegetton’s Goetia, my approach, my understanding, my experiences with the spirits, and the results.

    Long time followers of my blog know that when I did some bad magic* with Bune for some quick cash, he burned my house down, and I got a little bitter. The first insurance check was almost the exact amount I told Bune I needed. the magic worked. I just REALLY didn’t like how it worked. Because it threatened things I thought were important.
    I’ve realized recently that a lot of what I thought mattered didn’t, after all. Weird shit to go through, I tell you what. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
    But in light of recent experience, I’ve come to realize that there wasn’t really anything wrong with what happened. I just didn’t like it. It was “evil,” because it was “shit that sucked.” But shit sucks anyway, magic or no. 
    So if you buy it and use it, know that:
    A) It worked great for me, really, really great, except I didn’t like it.
    B) You get what you ask for. That’s not always a good thing.
    C) It’s not safe. The techniques I provide offer a buffer, but they don’t keep you from being stupid.
    I’m pasting the Buy Now buttons for Google and Paypal here below, but it can also be purchased on my eBooks page. The cost is US$12.95.

    Paypal:





    Google:









    * Bad magic in that it was desperate, and poorly phrased on my part.

  • Strength Training

    I was reading Gwynt-Siarad’s 8 Winds and Broken Vow, and the follow up post. He was going through some really practical Mage stuff, serving his community in the role of the shaman. One of the things he mentioned was how tired he felt after going on a Spirit Walk and encountering a spiritual-beastie.

    I totally know that feeling. When you go looking into people’s “spheres” to see what’s going on in their spiritual life, it can be really draining to you personally. Emotional strain is tiring. It takes a level of compassion and empathy to be able to get a clear reading on someone’s spiritual state that can leave you feeling exhausted afterwards.

    We’re used to dealing with our own stress levels, and we’ve got the reserves necessary to deal with that on a regular basis. When we start working with other people’s stressors, it’s an additional load to process, and it can leave you feeling weak, even if there are no entities encountered.

    I’ve seen empaths advise different methods of maintaining a safe distance from your clients, ways to filter out the stressors so they don’t impact the empath. It’s a matter of maintaining a clinical objectivity while still interacting with some emotionally charged issues. It takes a lot of practice to do it well, and even in the best of times it’s still a filtering technique. Filters have holes to let things through that you want, on purpose. Extreme situations (or entities in your clients’ sphere) can rip right through the filter.

    Like physical exercise, spiritual exercises improve endurance and spiritual muscles. Regular core maintenance rites, like cycling through the spheres, meditation and contemplation, regular observances to patrons and so forth are good core exercises that help build up your ability to deal with other people’s shit.

    But emphasizing one or two exercises isn’t enough. There are people who do the LBRP and Middle Pillar daily, and they’ve got some really big muscles developed as a result. But when they get put into practical situations, they’re like the body-builder who finds himself in a Mixed Martial Arts octagon getting their asses kicked by someone half their size.

    Vary your routine, make sure your core practices involve more than just a couple basic techniques. If you have a reasonable expectation that you’ll be meeting up with demonic forces or hostile spirits, you need to get used to dealing with them. One of the few things I’d recommend the Lemegeton’s Goetia for is training in dealing with spirits with malevolent natures. Don’t challenge them to a duel to the death or anything, you know, stupid. But they’re safe enough to conjure and interview, when the proper precautions are taken.*  They’ve got a wide spectrum of abilities and specialties, and getting to know them, how they operate, the forces they represent and wield can be a very useful thing when you encounter them, or similar spirits in your Work.

    Also, it never hurts to make sure they’ll never work against you, especially with all the folks turning to that particular grimoire first when they think to curse you. Rofocal-Focalor (or one of his lackeys or corresponding spirits) will be sent against you sooner or later if you ruffle feathers in the occult community, and feathers are easily ruffled ’round here. Having him show up and say, “Hey, so-and-so sent me to kill you, LOL,” is much better than performing an exorcism from a hospital bed, you know?

    Now that I’m all side tracked, I’m considering re-releasing the Modern Goetic Grimoire. I’ve had a change of heart about them recently. An insight into their nature, and their role in the life and sphere of a magician. That’s another post though.

    This post was about strength training.

    daily exercises, meditation, contemplation, opening portals to the aethyrs, travelling in astral form through the elemental kingdoms and planetary spheres, ascending to the highest spheres through the Gate opened by Iophial… These things are important for the magician.

    Magicians are like Americans moving back to the countries of their ancestors. I’m French. I have relatives in the Alsace Lorraine region, allegedly. To live there, in the home world of my true ancestors, I’d need to learn the language, figure out local customs and economics, and integrate myself into the system so I could benefit from it, and it could benefit from me. It would take time, practice, and repeated exercises to make a place for myself, and to thrive.

    But I’d do it. What else is there than to thrive?

    If we’re going to thrive as magicians, we need to take time for strength training. Proactive research, conjurations, and the building up of gnosis so that when we are faced with situations that require strength, we have it.

    * It’s only when you start asking them to influence your life that you start asking for trouble, in my opinion. Not saying it can’t be done, if done in the spirit of “teach me to excel” rather than “grant me the fruits of excellence without doing anything for it,” but it takes wisdom and patience and work ethic.

  • Greatness

    A person’s greatness is measured in their success, not their attempts.

    As a father of three, I see a lot of the “as long as you tried your best, you succeeded” bullshit propaganda pushed down kids’ throats to make them feel good about whatever they did, even if they sucked at it. I see it’s the mediocre kids’ parents that make sure this shit is served up daily. The ones who do nothing to encourage their kids’ academic success, or athletic prowess, who go through the suburban routine (rec center soccer/dance, summer camps, a membership at the Y) while never actually investing anything in the development of their child. Disney Channel kids, Disney Channel kids everywhere!

    I blame Rocky. The first Rocky, Rocky I. Rocky lost when it counted. He was a presented as a hero because he went the distance, not because he won. He was a loser.

    Or maybe Rocky was just a sign post, some two-bit actor paying the rent in California making porn, writing a script about a boxing movie in his spare time, all the while tuned into a cultural wavelength, wrapping a boxing story around it.

    Magicians have to deal with similar bullshit, because it pervades our culture too. We understand a spiritual TRVTH, that it’s not the Goal, it’s the Journey that matters. We appreciate and value the gathering, indexing, and distribution of organized information. We learn skills, we learn our lessons, and as a result we can do things that are far more meaningful through the scope of eternity, regardless of where we are socio-economically by our culture’s material standards within any given lifetime.

    While that’s a TRVTH across many belief systems in one form or another, and there is value and merit in understanding this TRVTH, it’s still your success that makes you a great magician, not your attempt.

    It might take you an Edison’s-light-bulb of number of attempts before you succeed. Every time you fail, you have to try again. Learn your lessons, yes, but then turn around and apply those lessons to getting it right this time.

    The Great Work is a process that has no single landmark of success or accomplishment. I aim to be a Power when I die. I think I’d already make a decent enough one, but not the kind I want to be. There’s a lot more to go, no matter how far I’ve gotten.

    But there are points of success in my Work that have built up over time, like steps on a ladder that I’ve successfully taken. Learning a cosmology, conjuring the entities, applying the results to my life. Receiving an initiation, integrating the forces, and being able as a result to reach the next level of initiation and continue the process. There are Gates in the process, check points. It took many attempts to achieve success, to pass through the Gate, but it is the success that makes the next thing possible.

    Don’t settle, my friends, for “as long as you tried your best, that’s all that matters.” It matters a lot to try your best, but you haven’t succeeded just because you tried.

    Maybe your goal was wrong. Maybe you were trying to achieve the wrong thing, maybe that’s the lesson you need to apply. Don’t think I’m saying you have to get neurotically caught in a loop of trying to accomplish an ignorant goal. Don’t throw yourself at a concrete wall until your atoms pass through the atoms of the wall. You’ll batter yourself senseless. Don’t do it metaphorically either. If the goal is to get on the other side of the wall, and you can’t phase through it, find a door, make one, or climb the wall. Maybe you just aren’t near the Gate.

    Find another way to succeed. Don’t settle.

  • Same as the old boss

    RO here, knowing that many in his audience won’t recognize the title, and still having faith in humanity.

    Bleak dark days, it’s terrible, the financial time of plenty is over, and it’s gonna be hard, harder than it was, woe woe woe…
    All true.
    Nevertheless, life was never easy. In the last 10-15 years, we had a boom time, and things aren’t going to be that easy after the great recession, which ain’t over, and we’re slipping back into.
    But I worked my ass off through the boom time and came out making less than my bills anyway. I had to shake my money maker to break even. I may have squandered away opportunities I missed at the time, in honest ignorance, missed the boat, missed the fad.
    But so the fuck what? 
    The same principles that made money in rich times make money in poor times. Apply what you’ve learned in the spiritual worlds to your physical life, and make some bank, if that’s what you need.
    Money isn’t shit to the magician. That ain’t why we’re here. Focus on the End Goal, and you’ll find money is just … I mean, it’s as common as dirt. You want money, you work for it. There are patterns that work, A+B=C and shit. Jason’s just written a Sorcerer’s guide to money, Financial Sorcery. I haven’t had friggin’ time to read it (because I decided to spend 18 lame-ass months making money to launch my international occult rock star career), but if it’s anything like Strategic Sorcery, or his Financial Magic talks I’ve seen at Crucible, dude, you can’t lose. He lays shit out practically, focused on the things that work, and he names names to call on for help.
    Money’s easy. Especially for magicians.
    It’s time that’s the motherfucker.