I’m reading through the Archdruid Report today, and I get to the part where he talks about the three theological based political perspectives of the 18th century, conservative, liberal, and eschaton immanentizers. The liberals taught at the time that society was getting closer to God’s Kingdom.

I’m thinking of how the conservative right is basically 18th century conservatism at this point, in several pockets around the United States. I went to a Charismatic Puritan church for a while in my fundy days.

Society is ripe for 18th century values. What we need are 18th century liberal values to be taught from the pulpits of the churches, doctrine that the transformation of society towards an image of the Kingdom of God is the thing Christians ought to be doing. There’s plenty of scripture to support it. Christians love to be challenged to do godly things, challenge a church to donate time and materials for a women’s shelter, and they try to outdo one another in sacrificing whatever they can, if you put it to them in the right way.

Someone needs to balance the rhetoric that’s hitting the ears of the evangelical world, give them an option to hear the Word of God taught from a nicer perspective. Mix in some Ecstatic Eastern Mysticism couched in language from the New Testament and belly dancing in the name of the Lord (call it Jesus-oom ba or whatever), and you’ll make a mint, too.

Something like Archangel Foster’s Church of the New Revelation would be great.

[Edit: Jason writes that there are indeed liberal pastors! Halleluiah!]

Well, that was a huge success. I cut the deal off 24 hours to the minute after posting it. The money I needed to get the car was raised in the first five minutes, and then the orders kept pouring in. I’m totally overwhelmed now, but I get a much nicer range of cars to select from.

I’m setting up a separate yahoo group to distribute all the course materials for this class, and once that’s finished you’ll all be getting invitation emails to join the group. Emails will be sent to the email address provided with the purchase. If you want a different email associated with the course material, join the group using the email you prefer. The invitation has a link to the web page, and you can choose to join using whatever email address or yahoo account you wish.

When you join, you’ll get the ebooks. There are a lot. Work through them by color, Black, then White, then Green. Don’t skip ahead, and don’t read them all at once, there’s a lot of material and you’ll get swamped. Try to pace it one lesson per week.

Hope you’ve been reading Gordon’s Whisky Rant series, because if you haven’t, your life is shit. You probably knew it was shit, and now you know why. You’re welcome. Catch up, and then hit this.

In Part 7, Gordon discusses his theories on what happened that led to us gaining a soul, and his theory is well explained in the post. I’m not repeating it here, read it yourself.

But I’d like to add a Hermetic aspect to the mix. The spirit-entity neighbors exist in a world that we all of a sudden started interacting with, claiming heritage from, and expected to return to when our bodies burned out. Gordon’s looking at this from the bottom up, what happened that brought human beings to the level of consciousness to be able to interact with a world we can’t see without assistance from spirits of various flora and fungi.

But let’s look at what the Corpus Hermeticum says happened when humans gained a soul:

13. … And after that he had well-learned their essence and had become a sharer in their nature, he had a mind to break right through the Boundary of their spheres, and to subdue the might of that which pressed upon the Fire.


14. So he who hath the whole authority o’er [all] the mortals in the cosmos and o’er its lives irrational, bent his face downwards through the Harmony, breaking right through its strength, and showed to downward Nature God’s fair Form.


And when she saw that Form of beauty which can never satiate, and him who [now] possessed within himself each single energy of [all seven] Rulers as well as God’s [own] Form, she smiled with love; for ’twas as though she’d seen the image of Man’s fairest form upon her Water, his shadow on her Earth.


He in his turn beholding the form like to himself, existing in her, in her Water, loved it and willed to live in it; and with the will came act, and [so] he vivified the form devoid of reason.


And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself completely round him, and they were intermingled, for they were lovers.


15. And this is why beyond all creatures on the earth man is twofold; mortal because of body, but because of the essential Man immortal.


Though deathless and possessed of sway o’er all, yet doth he suffer as a mortal doth, subject to Fate.


Thus though above the Harmony, within the Harmony he hath become a slave. Though male-female, as from a Father male-female, and though he’s sleepless from a sleepless [Sire], yet is he overcome [by sleep].

We had finished our training in the Seven Spheres, mastered the portions of the spheres allotted to us as fellow children of God, self aware emanations of the Source, and we stepped down all empowered and took a look at the creation below. And Nature made a form for us, and we loved it so much we leaped into it and became one with it.

In the Bible, it’s the same thing, pretty much. God makes the form,
and breathes life into it. The Hermetic creation notes the separation
between  the Form Maker, and places the act of becoming ensouled
entirely in the hands of the Spiritual species of Man.

All of a sudden in the material world, as Gordon so clearly lays it out, humans become self aware entities painting pictures of the internal landscape of the human spiritual condition, burying people, and interacting with invisible spirits that, presumably, had been there all along.

Either way you look at it, something formed a shell that we liked, and when it was ready, we stepped through and started flying around creation in matter suits that were suitable for our purposes.

When you were reading the Whisky rant, did you notice the crazy sidebar? Here, let me refresh your memory:

(Crazy sidebar: Is this our ancestors encoding their email address into their terraforming spaceships? Is this how we check back in?)*

He’s talking about entheogens and the built-in receptors that let us trip and see the spirit world consciously. Personally, I think this ability is there as a safeguard, a reminder in case we forget who we are, where we come from, and where we return when we leave the flesh. We knew going in that once you get tied into the flesh, it’s easy to forget what we can’t see. Like any prudent coder, or subsequent hacker, we made sure there was a back door safety hatch to keep in touch with our world and our family that are still over there. The entheogens are a satellite phone to the spirit world we came from.

So the neighbors that we met turn out to be the same terraforming ancestors. They were us the whole time. Our cousins and brothers and sisters from our home town. Death is a door to return there, and all this spiritual stuff about initiations and getting across the abyss, and the Book of the Dead that tells you what to do to get home are the ways back when we’re done with whatever it was we came here to do. The Bhodisattva vow is taking the oath to keep working with folks who need help to get back home until we all get back in one piece, maybe.

I don’t know for sure, but it’s interesting to think about. It doesn’t provide much in the way of “why” we’re here, though. I think the hallucinogens are a good indication. We eat hallucinogens and drink and get high to experience life in different states. To the denizens of the spirit realms beyond the material, getting physical might like taking a little trip, a few years in dense matter to experience the process of manifestation, retaining the ability to influence the process, but keeping the focus primarily on experiencing the process as it unfolds. Getting into the flesh is us getting high, or rather, low. We’re on a drug, and we’re hallucinating.

A lot of people go around the world feeling like … well, I don’t know, small. Insignificant. Afraid. Worthless. Unwanted, superfluous, an extra in the play of life that no one notices until they trip and screw up the lead’s blocking.

It strikes all of us at some point, but knowing that everyone else feels small and insignifcant and afraid sometimes doesn’t really make it any easier to live with when it’s happening to you personally. In fact, I’m pretty sure it makes it worse.

Magicians throughout time and space have had to suffer this feeling, and at some point, one of them did something about it. Or maybe everyone eventually does something about it when they realize they can. I don’t know. Whatever happened, we have the Favor of Kings, and it’s pretty fucking sweet.

I first ran across it in my Demon Magic time. There, nestled in the attributes of Eligor, Orobas, Orias and Belial, I found spirits who brought the Love of Lords and Great People, and who brought the favour of friends and foes. Favor. Love. It means, quite simply, that these spirits can make the people in power, the people in your life like you, really like you. When people like you, they make ways for you to succeed. They help, they give money, they give time, they set up interviews with their bosses for you. And when the King likes you, everyone else has to at least pretend to like you, so it’s a win-win, pretty much.

I’ve seen it in other places since then. I’ve found methods of accomplishing this result in my Work in all the spheres, with all the angels. Saturn makes you wise, and can put you in positions of influence with powerful people. Jupiter makes you Kingly yourself, and people like hanging out with Kingly types who are quick to laugh healthy, hearty laughs. Mars establishes you as a key person on any team with targeted goals. The Sun just fucking crowns you the Golden Child, makes you shining and brilliant, and people flock to you. Venus makes you inspirational. Mercury makes you eloquent. The Moon teaches you the ways of the Glamour.

And I tell you brothers and sisters, it feels good to be liked. It helps you get ahead in life when powerful people like you.

I’ve been busy at work lately. My contract was cancelled, and they benched me. That means they pay you from the overhead pile of cash until they find other work for you to do that’s billable. If they can’t find anything for you quickly, they fire you. So I’ve been relying on the Favor of Kings a lot lately. I got punted to a couple writing projects that were desperate, and I blew everyone away with my mad skills. I think my boss has kept my skills her little secret. Today during a boring meeting with a project manager in Atlanta, it slipped that I’m famous in DC, Atlanta, and my own Baltimore office among the management. There’s nothing they’ve thrown at me that I haven’t been able to handle like a boss. And I don’t think I’ve done anything all that spectacular.

So find a way to tap into that. Conjure the archangel of your favorite planet, the one that rules your Sun sign is a good start if you can’t think of any that you’d like to work with, and ask them to bless you with the Favor of Kings. Make yourself a talisman in the right hour, and ask them to bless it, and carry it around with you. You’ll quickly find that people like you, for no apparent reason.

It’s exactly like that feeling you get when you feel insignificant for no particular reason, but completely opposite. And totally worth the time it takes.

I love me some HGA talk!

Acher’s recent publication of his initial research on the origins of the HGA has sparked more discussion on one of my favorite topics. You’d better not go Gordon and be all, ““meh, I’ll catch it next time around. Might have something new to say then.”

This is important to you personally because you’ve been fed a line of total bullshit about the HGA all your occult life, and if you’re going to understand it and be able to work with it the way god intended, you’d damned well better be reprogramming yourself by reading these discussions when they come up.

I’ll try to keep it entertaining, and interesting though, I know how you are.*

So Rose wrote a post today about the HGA and her take on it. She expressed concern about potential blogosphere backlash for expressing her belief that the published rites and rituals aren’t required to gain K&CHGA, and I feel her pain.**

Rose is right on when she says the HGA is there from birth, it says
so clearly in the Abramelin manuscripts. Check Mathers and Dehn, if you
don’t believe me. See Chapter thirteen of the Mathers version,
it’s online and handy so I can look it up. Look at what happens on the
7th day, what he tells you about your life with him that you’ve never
known. Couldn’t happen unless Rose is spot on accurate about the spirit
being there all the time from birth.

It’s there working with you and for you whether you know
it or not. All the rite provides is conscious interaction with it, and
the ability to see it.

Rose expresses her thoughts on the relationship between trauma and spiritual experiences, gifts, and insights, and how sometimes they can serve to kick off the ability to see, hear, and interact with spirits. I think that’s not only accurate, but a key insight into understanding what actually goes on in these HGA rites anyway.

The rites and rituals that are designed to put you into contact with the HGA in modern times are functionally designed to induce a traumatic event so intense that you are able to see, hear, and interact with your HGA. You spend your six months or eighteen months ritually creating the circumstances necessary to instigate a psychic breakdown, to create a reframing experience that allows your whole perception to be altered. You use special oils and perfumes to put your brain into a particular state, and there’s some speculation that you get high to help. Aaron Leitch very carefully doesn’t mention that he uses Marijuana as a psychoreagent in his Work with the Holy Guardian Angel. He also carefully doesn’t show it in a picture on his blog.

In my experience with gaining K&CHGA, I started doing Liber Samekh, minus the GD line dancing, and two weeks later I had the experience that indicates contact has been made. Two weeks! That’s not 6 months, or 18 months. It’s not even close!

But it happened after 2 fucking years of spiritual hell. I’d been pure fundy, pouring my heart out to god, literally in tears in his presence on a daily basis looking for answers, help, peace, succor. I was on an ecstatic mystic’s journey to the heart of the Sun for years before hearing a still small voice telling me to go back to the occult and looking at it through the eyes of a born again new creation in Christ. The framework was laid, the pump was primed, I’d spent years enflamed in prayer, systematically destroying my psyche through the well-intended but spiritually bereft advice books of the modern Charismatic-Puritan movement in the Church. I mean, I was basically living like a Plymouth Brother, Crowley’s home religion. It makes perfect sense that his rite would work for me, when you think about it.

But the trauma is the key. You’ve got to get yourself all hyped up, all psyched out, and maintain it for a while to hit that moment of breakthrough when you smell that smell and say, blessed is the day of the Lord! It’s not a once-and-done kind of thing. It’s a full on rebirth experience that drives you a little bit crazy to make you a little bit more sane.

It’s just exactly like the Shamanic Death Trip, at least as far as I understand it. The shamans were ritually buried and hopped up on psychoactive drugs to get through to the spirit world, receive a vision and an ally or two, and return able to cross the bridge between the realms to fight spiritual battles for their community. I’m sure that’s not exactly historically accurate, but that’s basically the understanding I have. The Masons recreate the Death Trip as part of their initiations too. You go through something traumatic.

But here’s the thing. These rites and rituals create specifically designed traumatic experiences. Think about it. How did they figure out they needed to artificially create trauma to establish conscious communion with the spirit realm? From real life trauma.

They saw that when someone got hit in the head and started seeing spirits and speaking in tongues. Yeah, maybe it was brain damage sometimes, but other times the weird shit they said came true. Putting a leaf in a fire under the right stars and mumbling gibberish made the hunts more successful, and when that guy died, they had to figure out how to replace him. Physical trauma didn’t always work, but drugs and ritual death seemed to, and next thing you know, a few thousand years later, we have Abramelin and Liber Samekh.

They’re artificial recreations of real life trauma events, modified, toned down, but geared towards the same result. And anyone who’s been through attaining K&CHGA will tell you, it comes after pain. Solar initiations are represented by the Cross for a reason in Rosicrucian symbolism. Death and resurrection, man. Death hurts, even when it’s temporary.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, the things that caused trauma didn’t go away. As technology improved and populations grew and spread, new forms of psychic-vision-producing trauma evolved. Severe emotional and physical trauma ranks pretty high up there in the list of things that bring visions of angels to this very day. In a lot of ways, they’re actually the more natural method of obtaining K&CHGA. Less predictable, less reliable, but still effective in creating re-framing experiences that allow you to see things that no one else can see.

So I’m with Rose. I think the rites and ceremonies are a much more preferable way to induce the trauma that results in the Vision and the Voice, but they aren’t the only way at all.

* Tiny little attention span, pressed for time, and hungry for something fun and useful at the same time. Like me.

** I don’t write up a whole lot of stuff that goes on in my practice
and life because the results of the Traditional Grimoire and
Aggrippinian Neo-Platonic Hermetic Magical Practice(TM) looks a
WHOOOOOLE lot like the kind of stuff I’ve made fun of when it happens to
New Agers and Paranormal Investigators. And we’re supposed to be a
dignified bunch, who are above that kind of poppycock. No pre-17th
century documentation? It’s bullshit!

That’s the law.

I
realized I had boxed myself into a prison of my own creation recently
when I found myself jealous of Ian for being a neopagan who can just
make shit up and get away with it, as long as it works. I make shit up
all the time, and it works great, but I don’t write it up or talk about
it or sell it from the blog because it’s damned hokey, and I’ve got an
image to maintain or some shit.

Yeah, fuck all that shit.

When someone tries to figure out the history of the Holy Guardian Angel in the Western Occult traditions, it’s a lot like trying to excavate the Valley of Kings with a spoon. I tried it a few times over the years, but I never felt confident going back any further than Plato’s Timaeus dialogue. I really felt completely out of my depth going back any further.

Fr. Acher started looking into it after some comments we exchanged about the HGA and Evil Daimon on this post back a few months ago. After much research, he’s begun to publish his results. If you’re an HGA aficionado, it’s a very good read so far. I’m looking forward to future installments.

I had a little trouble figuring out that you click the morphing image to get to the articles at first, so here’s some short cut links for technofeebs like myself:

• Preface/Overview
• Introduction
• Part 1: Among the Chaldeans

A couple commenters on the Family Harmonics post asked some specific questions that I thought deserved their own post.

Mike Sententia writes:

Hi RO, love seeing case studies like this. Could you comment on the results of this magick? Also, I’m curious, how much does your family know of your magick, of this work in particular, and did they participate?

The results have been consistent with the kinds of results I’ve seen over the years when I conjured a spirit directly to help with an issue. The issue gets resolved, and the stress goes away. For example, my son was having issues with stress from his school work load, and a general request for assistance to all the spirits represented brought that right down to manageable levels.

The results aren’t necessarily any different than any other method of involving the Spirits of the spheres in your life, it’s just easier to light a candle and say a quick prayer in a stressful time. There’s a passive aid that’s being applied by the spirits as well, all the time, but how do you quantify that? There’s more cheer, less jeer. Clearer communications, more self-control under pressure. People are nicer and happier, it seems. But it’s not a make it all perfect all the time rite. It just makes things better, and it’s more convenient to tap into the influence of the spirits represented.

My family is aware that I do magic, I don’t hide it from them, but I raise my kids Catholic and explain it’s something I do in addition to the core faith that is not necessary for everyone else to do. I don’t include them in the rites, they’re kids. Their brains aren’t finished growing yet. I prefer to lay a foundation in the core tenets of the Faith, and then provide advanced lessons as they get older and start showing signs of interest, or a calling. I’m not going to force my weird on them. They’ll have to get their own weird.

Anonymous writes:

Great post! Are the consecrations general or do they differ according to the seal? Can you post an example? It would be appreciated.

The consecrations I used were based on the type of rite that I always do, modeled on the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals. I conjured each of the archangels of the planets in the appropriate hour of the appropriate day, and asked them to bring their influence and guidance of the powers they represent to benefit the individual members of the family in their daily lives, and the unit as a whole as we make our way from cradle to grave, and beyond.

The rites recorded in the Gates series of ebooks would be appropriate.

Running a household is a complicated thing. I have to manage the budget, child development and education, extracurricular activities, transportation, communications, facilities maintenance, interior decorations, landscaping, sanitation, supply logistics, laundering, entertainment, and weekly menus. My spouse “manages” most of that stuff. I make sure the money’s there to pay for it all, and do the husband-father things as necessary.

But it’s an intricate and complex thing with many moving parts on complicated schedules, and keeping it all running smoothly and harmoniously is a real chore, and by the time it’s warm enough, we’re ready to hit the beach and unwind, work out frustrations wrestling with the sea, and recharge the brain’s supply of negative ions produced by the pounding waves of the never-ending tide upon the land.

As Priest-King/God-Emperor of the Opus Estates, I consider it my job to make sure the spiritual forces that are manifesting in all these aspects of my life are working together in harmony. I use magic to help keep things running smoothly, and to deal with interruptions in the flow of processes before they can propagate across all the systems, bringing production and operations to a complete stand-still.

My first attempts at family support magic focused on Working specifically with Anael of Venus. Venus gathers together people around a common cause or idea. Family is an idea, a concept that unifies the Opus household every bit as much as the genetic ties. It’s crucial that all the members of a family have a shared idea of what being a member of the family means. Everyone will have their own take and interpretation on that core idea, but they should all be harmonious.

So I started by drawing the seal of Anael on the back of a picture of our family, and performing a conjuration and consecration of the photo as a talisman to bring harmony. And it worked out really well. Ongoing conflicts and resentments were resolved, and the whole system began to run more smoothly. The family was more expressive of compassion in the form of service to one another, for love’s sake. It sounds a lot cooler when I write it out like that. No one seemed to be conscious of the effects, not even me for a while. The kids quit the constant bickering, my spouse and I got along better for a while, and everyone helped each other out more with a lot less complaining. I realized one day that things had gotten better, and I was happy with the results.

But then over time, I realized that it’s not just our family that affects us. Outside forces have a lot of influence. Social groups, school politics, the global economy, traffic patterns, and communications issues impacted us all the time. We dealt with it better than some people, more harmoniously as a group, but we still had to deal with external disruptions to our plans and processes.

So I expanded the talisman. The issues that come up in everyone’s life run the spectrum of planetary forces. Every sphere on the Chain of Manifestation, from Saturn to the elemental kingdoms has a role in all the processes of our daily lives.

To get all these forces harmonized, I drew an image based on my altar glyph on the back of a family photo, and took the time to consecrate it in each sphere, the same way I performed the Gates Rites in each sphere to aid in Kingdom Management. I wish I could say that we’ve never had any problems again, but that’s just not how life works. It doesn’t make everything perfect all the time, but it does make it a lot easier to get the spirits working together and in harmony to resolve the issues when they arise. I go to the framed photo with the seals on the back and burn the appropriate incense, light a consecrated candle, and ask the appropriate spirits to aid in the resolution of whatever situation has come up.

I added the names and seals of the planetary archangels to the outer sphere, didn’t mention the elements, and eliminated the names of the demonic kings offensive in the elements in the center circle when I sketched it out on the back of the photo, but here’s the basic layout of the Altar Glyph:

I started putting seals of the archangels on the backs of photos of people to help my sister in law deal with a nephesh she had acquired. It worked so well I used it on a client’s family in dealing with some spirits that were plaguing their children. The key is not the seal drawn on the back of the photo as much as it is the consecration rite that draws the forces of the planets down into the sphere of the people pictured. The seal helps a great deal in creating the physical link between the spirit and the subject of the rite, but the seal alone won’t do much.

Below is an image of the names of the spirits and their seals:

Over on the Spiritus Mundi yahoo group, the topic of the dangers of magic has reared its fearsome head. It started with an Algol talisman, which Chris Warnock discusses in this post. To summarize, someone used a rootworker’s technique with a traditional astrological talisman, and it backfired. They made an Algol talisman to ward off any magic worked against them, and then buried it where they ran into their main enemy the most. After this, they experienced a run of bad luck, and it was determined that the spirit of the talisman was upset because the magician had used the talisman wrong. (You’re supposed to wear the talisman, not bury it.)

The analysis of the problem seems legit to me. It passes the book-check (sources support that the use was altered) and it passes the common sense check. (Medusa can be a touchy spirit to work with. She’s got snakes for hair, you know.) And screwing around mixing up traditions and approaches can be dangerous. You get unwanted effects. You suffer maladies. You get ill, you lose your job, your relationship hits the rocks, your car breaks down, and your kids talk back, with intent.

This experience prompted a Palero on the list to point out that MAGIC IS NO JOKE! and that is why you follow the instructions. Magic is real. It does stuff. It’s not all pretend make believe that doesn’t really change anything but your feel-feels. Magic works. That’s important to remember.

John Michael Greer then wrote a post full of wisdom and common sense, exhorting people to follow the instructions we are given in traditional resources. He made an analogy between electronics and magic. You would follow the warnings and recommended techniques of an electrician when wiring a circuit, wouldn’t you? It’s your best bet to avoid electrocuting yourself or burning your house down. (I’m paraphrasing, except that last bit, that’s a direct quote.)

I agree with him. Speaking as someone who burned their house down using demon magic that went wrong, I have an informed opinion on this subject. You really can burn your house down using magic. My house fire was the result of a really poorly phrased statement of intent, though, not a poor technique. The technique worked great, honestly.

The statement was fucked. “Get me the money by any means necessary, just as long as no one in my family gets hurt.” That’s a TERRIBLE way to do magic. It (probably) wouldn’t matter if I’d said that to demons or angels, but the fact that the spirit I was Working with at the time happened to be from the lower spheres certainly didn’t help. Angels seem to have a higher perspective based on living at a bit more distance from the hands-on material world than Bune does, but that doesn’t mean they won’t burn your house down to get you an insurance check, and prove a particular point about your use of magic at the same time.

But whenever people start talking about how dangerous magic is, I feel compelled to say, yeah, it’s dangerous… but do it anyway! Burnt fingers are our primary teachers as we explore the books and figure out how it all works. There is no real life Hogwartz to attend. Some lodges may offer a curriculum that trains you in magical practice, but most are based on post-1899 magical theory. The only Order I know of that taught medieval alchemy and traditional Hermetics is pretty much defunct, and even they were open and honest about how they were experimenting and figuring out what the grimoires were all about on their own. They passed on the information that worked, and warnings about mistakes they made, but they were still front-line soldiers, pioneers exploring the wilderness with faulty maps and compasses that didn’t always point North.

Modern magicians interested in learning how to do the magic recorded in the Picatrix and Agrippa’s Three Books are going to, by necessity, have to explore and cover ground that hasn’t been covered in recent history. Even the most comprehensive and detailed grimoires have gaps. The context of some of the manuscripts we’ve received is lost to history, and we’re left to argue over whether all the spirits of a manuscript are called into Triangles of Art, or only the ones that specifically mention the Triangle.

Personally, I’ve never done anything with magic that messed up my life so badly that it couldn’t be fixed with magic. It’s dangerous, yes, but that’s what makes it an adventure. Have courage, be bold!

Just be rational about it. Heed the warnings of those who have been there and done that, follow the instructions.

But don’t be afraid to have fun.