In my rant against the Occupation, I bemoaned the fact that the Occupiers have no view of History, no idea of where they’re at in the decline of civilization, and they ought to be doing (basically) the Great Work to really change the world.

But the truth is, I am the one who lost perspective on where we’re at socially as a global community, and that’s something Magicians, Kings, Sages, Sorcerers, and other forms of entrepreneurs really, really can’t afford to do. Not if they’re serious about the fundamental axiom “As above, so below.”

Basically, and I’m being brief because it’s important to get this up and then I gotta get back to work, there are currents manifesting across the world, and it’s manifesting all over. Tea Party, Occupation, Arab Spring, London Riots, Drug Cartel wars… There’s revolution in the air. And it’s all related, somehow. Here’s a neat pic for you to chew on, M.C. and BtF:

It’s a bit simplified, but it’s interesting, nonetheless.

And the main thing to remember, imo, is that these are profitable times for magicians, my brothers and sisters. Times of unrest send people flocking to us for help and answers in droves.

[EDIT: And you’d damned well better be able to offer them something useful if you’re going to offer anything at all.]

I’ve reconsidered my stance on the whole Occupation thing. I still think most of the people are idiots, but I think it needs to be done, and it’s got my full support.

I was wrong in attacking the whole thing. And I was a dick about that. Sorry.

The last post was a bit controversial. I got a hair across my ass when I was watching the videos of the protesters that are being posted on YouTube. I was interested because I, like everyone else in the middle class, support the brutal financial rape of Bank of America as vengeance for their ongoing raping of their clients. And the same for every other major corporation that abuses its consumers. I want to see some white collar criminals go to jail for their crimes and evilness that have fucked over the country. I think the greedy patricians and oligarchs ought to pay for abusing me with their stupid ways.

And I was all set to go Occupy Baltimore, too, to express my disgust with the corporate hierarchs.

And then I saw a video of a guy holding up a cardboard sign that said “We are the 99%.” And I got this vision of the whole entire world, and I remembered the Global Rich List calculator, and that I’m something like the 50,000,000th richest person on the planet, out of 7 billion. That puts me at about the top 7% of the planet, and the 99% bottom of the US at the same time.

And then I started seeing all the plastic bottles of water these guys were carrying around. And I saw they were organizing in Starbucks. And they were wearing all their obscure t-shirts they ordered online, wearing their designer hipster glasses, sporting carefully crafted couture. And I watched the folks who “know what’s going on” saying that no one person stands for the movement, there is no one voice, what unites them is their disgust at the current situation. And then I saw someone saying to those considering joining the occupation to take the time to figure out what you believe, ten or fifteen minutes so that if you get interviewed, you don’t look like an idiot on Fox News.

And it dawned on me that most of those folks showing up were idiots. They don’t have any historical perspective, and they think any changes that they manage to get will be more than cosmetic. Hell, they don’t even watch what is happening in Egypt right now, today. Hello new boss, same as the old boss. 1% controls the most, everyone else makes due with as much as they can scramble up and horde. It’s the way of the world, and it always has been when more than a couple hundred or so humans are living in the same place.

A long time friend said I had the most cynical stoic perspective she’d ever seen in response to one of the comments along those lines I made on FaceBook. It’s not, I don’t think, because that’s just how it is, was, and regardless of optimistic idealists’ hopes and dreams, that’s how it’s going to remain forever.

Ok, maybe she’s right.

But why does it have to be that way?


Because the way people do things in groups is fucked up.

When the revolutionaries, peaceful or bloodied have won, they divvy up the spoils of war along the lines that they all agree are right and fair for everyone, right? Ever? No. Even in a completely democratic process, there will be factions who walk away feeling dissatisfied. Look at Washington. People don’t agree on things.

The idea that forming a group to do group activities to change the world will make it better is infantile, and stands bald faced against the solid evidence of history, and the evidence of the eyeballs in our heads right now. Right now goddamnit. Search Google News for what’s going on with the Arab Spring. Today.

My Idea of a Solution

But there is an answer that will fix everything. If every one of those protesters out there in the street stopped making their event an occupation, and started making their lives a protest, things would change fundamentally.

If they unhooked their reliance on the system, and plugged it into themselves, and then started doing the real work of picking the right institutions to invest in, living ecologically sound lifestyles, destroying their reliance on the public energy grid, starting their own businesses, creating jobs themselves as they grew and profited, and voted sane, center-political candidates into office that would work together to get corporations taxed and regulated, small businesses subsidized, and the distribution of taxation fair, they would change the whole world.

When I start seeing them saying, “I got ripped off by corporate America because I trusted them and signed the contracts without reading the fine print or understanding the risks I was getting into, and I’m not going to do that ever again,” then I’ll have respect for this movement.

If they just tended their gardens, the problems they have would go away.

A group of enraged Bank of America people all went to BoA to close their accounts at once in a big protest, and they got arrested. Some people were like, “whoa, it’s a crime to close your bank account, see how fucked up it is!” I see your point, you’re right, but really what did you expect? An angry mob goes to the bank, the cops will be called.

If people would just calmly, quietly walk into their large banking institutions and close them down like sane adults, there wouldn’t have been any uproar, the cops wouldn’t have been called in, and the banks would be feeling a deep, cold dread that would spread to every corner of corporate business.

Put your money where your beliefs are. Find small local institutions, and put your money in them. Credit unions. Don’t put it all in one place. Have some land somewhere, have something that produces something useful available.

If you must work with big corporations, read the fine print, shop around, and get screwed the least. It’s complicated, it sucks, and that’s life. It can’t be simpler because there are too many of us involved now. That’s the world you live in, and it’s not going to change at the core, it will be complicated, and the rich will control the most and the poor will control the least. It doesn’t matter if the outer form is capitalist, communist, or religious, democratic or tyrranical. Oligarchical patricians will still rule the world, and stack the deck in their favor. Gerrymandering, it’s like that.

But this social outcry could do something positive, and I’d rather see people rioting in the streets than eating cheeseburgers while they watch Jersey Shore. I guess.

But really, they’re doing it for the same reasons.

Occupy Wall Street! Meet at Starbucks to Organize!

Check out the latest post from the Bone Singer. 

In the Astral Warrior’s Handbook, I talk about making a talisman that you can use to open a portal to the Astral Realm simply by sitting comfortably in your chair and holding it in your hand while you mutter arcane Hebrew words that speak of the Intelligency of the Intelligencies of the Moon.

It functions as a portable vortex that you can open and close whenever you want to. It’s convenient for people who want to do a lot of astral magic, but don’t necessarily want to open a full time permanent vortex to the astral planes in their bedrooms.

These talismans are relatively simple to make. I used a herkimer diamond, and worked with the Intelligence of the Moon. I used the Modern Angelic Grimoire technique to conjure the Intelligence, and then set up the talisman so it would be triggered by speaking the name of the Intelligence. It’s a pretty simple ritual, and everything you need to make your own is online for free.

However, if you don’t have the time, or maybe Hermetic conjure magic isn’t your forte, or you simply would rather have one made by a professional who’s done it before successfully, I’m offering these talismans for $45 $75*. They will come with instructions on consecration (over the period of a full cycle of the Moon), as well as the Talisman Maintenance and Operations Manual.

A long, long time ago, I started writing up a book I called The Astral Warrior for fun. In it I was planning on throwing out all those concerns about accomplishing the Great Work, all that fuddy duddy old dusty musty grimoire bullshit, and just having fun talking about the joys of Astral Magic, romping about the astral plane fighting demons and saving the world.

And it is joyful. I love it. It’s like being a super hero in your own comic book. All those Neil Gaiman Sandman comics that talk about the land of Dream? Yeah, it’s like that. All the time. Beautiful stuff up there.

But as I was writing it up, I realized that I use astral magic every day. It’s an intricate part of the Great Work. I talk a lot more about strategy and approach these days, and when I talk tech I talk about conjuring and seals and such, but I’ve overlooked the fundamental basic stuff that makes it all stick together, the Astral Magic part of it.

Every time I conjure a spirit into a crystal, I’m gazing into the ball, but my third eye is wide open on the astral plane, where I can see and sense the spirits better, more clearly. When I’m doing a tarot card reading, the story line comes clear in the Astral, where I see the events indicated on the cards unfolding in the client’s world. When I’m doing cleansing and purification, initiations, or lifting curses for my clients over the internet, it’s the Astral realm that provides me with the ability to direct the magical effects around the world, bringing blessings, success, and victory to those with the balls to claim it on their behalf.

And every day at work, I’m keeping an eye on the Astral plane to get a feel for the currents in the air, to keep track of politics, to catch warning signs of imminent danger, or discord before it can manifest as something unpleasant for me personally. When I’m stuck in traffic, I’ll lift my awareness and see what’s blocking the flow, and see what I can do to make it better so things move more quickly (usually applied Mercury, in some form). When I’m trying to keep a low profile, I weave a glamour in the astral and cloak myself in it. When I want to influence someone my way, I slip into the astral and give them a nudge toward agreeing with me.

Astral magic is a part of all my magical acts. It’s everywhere!

So I wrote up the Astral Warrior’s Handbook. I think it’s entertaining, but it contains a whole lot of really useful information, and a technique for creating an on-demand portal to the astral realm whenever you need to using a bit of Aggripinian magic that might be a bit baroque, but is damned useful.

A lot of the things I touch on in this book are things that you can do much better if you’re also doing the magic I’ve been doing for years. The Gates Rites prepare you for this, as do the initiatory conjurations of the Archangels from the Modern Angelic Grimoire. Students of the Red Work Courses will be in a good position to utilize the techniques in this book, as will folks of other traditions.

The Table of Contents is provided below as an overview of what you can expect in this handy guide:

1 Astral Warriors ……………………………………. 3
2 The Astral Realm……………………………………. 4
2.1 Developing the Astral Faculty of the Mind …………… 5
2.2 Vortex Creation ………………………………….. 6
2.2.1 Opening the Vortex ……………………………… 7
3 Taking Form ……………………………………….. 9
4 Types of Astral Magic ……………………………… 11
4.1 Sniffing Out Magical Attacks ……………………… 12
4.2 Snooping and Spying ……………………………… 14
4.3 Reading People’s Hearts and Minds …………………. 16
4.4 Cleansing and Healing ……………………………. 17
4.5 Combat …………………………………………. 19
4.6 Manipulation ……………………………………. 22
5 Astral Magic in the Great Work ……………………… 23

The book is going for $11.95, my new favorite price to charge for eBooks. It’s 29 pages of stuff to do in the Astral Realms to get ahead and have some fun.

And for the Google Checkout users:

And please let me know if the buy now buttons don’t work. Sometimes I have issues.

I’m selling more magickal stuff on my Products and Services page at my web site. This time I’m hoping to make some money off “Angel Conjuration Kits.” Everything you need for Love, Wealth, Health, Career Advancement, or Psychic development. That’s all I’ve got so far.

I’m debating putting up something to do with magickal protection from attack, an Angelic equivalent to an Uncrossing rite, but I haven’t decided what would be safest for the most people in my audience. I’d use Saturn and Mars personally, but I don’t know where you all are at with Mars or Saturn, and I wouldn’t want to set off a series of unfortunate events in your life.

Oh, and for the record, the Wealth rite is based on my Fourth Pentacle of Jupiter from the Key of Solomon rites. They’ve gone really well so far. Two days into it, and we’ve already got an increase of income to show for it.

Right now, we’re in the Jewish mystical week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the High Holidays. I’m not Jewish, but I’m human, and the High Holidays are meaningful in a human context that applies to me even though I’m a Hermetic Christian.

On Rosh Hashanah, I took the time to remember where I was a year ago, and where I fucked up, and who I fucked over this year. This week I’m repenting and atoning where necessary, and planning the year to come. On Yom Kippur I’m doing a Saturn rite to seal the plan in place, and then I’ll be traveling to the spirit realm throughout the year to get help and support in implementing the plan.

In figuring out my plan, I went back to basics. Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? What do I want? What has to happen to get me what I want? What spiritual aid will be most appropriate?

I am a human being, made in the Image of God. I am a magician, called to move between the spiritual and material realms to gain power and insight, to take my place as a manifestation of the Divine and resume my proper role of Creator and Maintainer of my world. I am directly responsible for most of what I experience. I am responsible for my reactions to the things I experience that are not direct manifestations of my decisions, thoughts, and actions. The things I experience this year will be the results of the things that I have done and will do, mostly.

I am the nexus point of the spiritual and material realms. Through me the world I experience is created. In the material realm, the Realm of Elements, the Ideas in the Mind of God take shape and form, the spiritual powers that contributed to the fleshing out of the Idea are reflected in matter. In the spirit realm, I am in all the heavens at the same time, in communion with my spiritual brothers and sisters. I am in a world in motion, where the powers and forces I deal with in the spiritual realm are at play. I am in the realm of the Effect, experiencing my spiritual and material realities from a constantly moving reference point of consciousness that travels across space and time under the guise of “now.”

And most of what I experience already happened a few milliseconds before I became aware of it enough to react.

I am here to create and maintain my world. I gain the wisdom and power to do so through my spiritual practices. I get clues about the future through divination and direct revelation. I get clues about what I need to be focusing on from my desires, and my interests. I get clues about where my next projects will lie from my inspiration, my Muse, my Genius.

As for my plans, and what spiritual aid is necessary to accomplish them, well, you’ll just have to wait and see. Let’s just say this coming year is going to be a lot of fun.

Heh, Jason forever cracks me up. At Crucible, he had a tinge of jealousy because he and Andrieh were all over the place describing their paths, and I was able to sum it up by saying I kept to Agrippa.

But as I recently mentioned, I do chakra work too. And a lot of my spiritual understanding is heavily influenced by Crowley. And Taoism. And I did Eckankar and Soul Travel too. When he mentioned that I was all, Sugmad! Good times! And I’ve done GD stuff, and Modern Magic, and ADF druidry, and Celtic Wicca. I’ve been an Erisian Mystic, ever so much more advanced and understanding than those stupid Discordians. Chaos Magic? Well, yeah. Rootwork? Maybe sometimes, something similar. I use the oils made by root workers. I’m really fond of the charms of Pow Wow. I’m into charismatic Christian Kerygma magic, and I make use of various Catholic stuff in most of my rites these days.

My main goal is to accomplish the Rainbow Body of Dzogchen and become a Powerful Dead, like the Egyptians did.

But at Crucible, I was presenting an overview of using Hermetic Magic, based on Agrippa, to rule your world. So I kept it to that. It summed me up for the purposes of that particular space and time.

We’re all more than a label can cover. I like “Magician” because it fits well enough, but I firmly believe all labels are lies, and no word can accurately and fully communicate the Idea it represents fully. Words are shit, but they’re the best thing we have to communicate with.