Gordon’s post on publishing better than Crowley is pretty wicked stuff.

I’d like to add a trick for would-be occult authors. If you haven’t noticed yet, a blog is a book nursery. Ideas are spawned, developed, organized and published, in nice chapter-length sequences. They give you a place to hone your craft, and help people at the same time. Writing a post at a time is less daunting than a whole entire book, and after a year or so of steady blogging about whatever you’re magically dealing with, you’ll have a manuscript’s worth of material ready to go on a cohesive topic or three.

All it takes is editing at that point, sewing it all together into a pretty little poppet, and you’re good to go.

Jhonn, and then Jack posted about this guy they know who both agree has some kind of spiritual parasite on him. Both expressed a mingled compassion and disgust, and I can fully understand that. I didn’t watch the videos because I’m trying not to pollute my brain with any more bull shit.

But running into people with parasites is pretty common in the occult world. Working with spirits tends to give you spirit sight, the ability to see when people are being influenced by spirits. Once you’ve started seeing them in your Work, you’ll see them everywhere if you pay attention.

While doing my Goety Work, I ran into a lot of Nepheshim, the parts of the human soul that are supposed to die with the body, but often find ways to linger through offerings made to ancestors, finding geomagnetic or geoelectrical sources of food, or by attaching themselves to the living and triggering the amygdala (panic attacks, depression, and multiple forms of anxiety disorders) to release the emotive food they live on. These spirits are the most common entities I’ve seen, and while they are individually rather weak as a rule (with some exceptions), gathering up a legion or so isn’t that difficult, and they’re the original “Will Work For Food” spirits. With enough of these guys aimed and working for you in creative ways, there’s potentially no limit to what you could get to happen.*

But for most who end up running into schools of them on the astral, you become host to a spiritual parasite. Regular banishings and visualizations of golden or white light helps, even the stuff you read in Fortune’s Psychic Self Defense or whatever it was are effective against these guys.

But sometimes, as in the case Jack and Jhonn’s acquaintance, people can pick up things that are … bigger, stronger, worser. Some are like beefier versions of a Nephesh, something that’s been around a while and has learned not only to feed and survive, but to thrive on people. Other times people can pick up a spirit of place with ill intent. Not all the Genius Loci are friendly. Heracles had to fight several Genii Loci in his Tasks, for example.

And of course, there are demons who will demonize humans given a chance.

I like the term “Larvae” to refer to these entities. Gordon posted a neat ritual from ancient Rome that was performed yearly and involved scattering black beans around the house while performing an oration. I suspect the beans absorbed the spirits, and were then planted. This returned any spirits that were haunting people to the cycle of reincarnation that Plato and Hermeticists loosely followed. They believed that those who did not attain their potential in the form of a man were demoted to the form of a woman**, and then to an animal, and then to a vegetable, and finally to a mineral state of being.

Jason’s first book on Protection and Reversal Magic offered a lot of useful techniques for getting rid of these kinds of things, but when they’re attached to one’s self personally, it can be difficult to accept you’ve got one. Or a Legion in some people’s cases. They can be pretty convincing that they’re innocuous, and even helpful entities. They can offer techniques that really work, and they can appear as many things.

How can you tell if you’re being possessed, obsessed, or demonized? How do you know if an entity, or paradigm shift is really what it appears to be, and not the product of something looking for a free lunch, or up to some plot that requires you doing a certain thing at a certain time?

You can drive yourself crazy worrying about it, and even if you didn’t have an infestation of spiritual Larvae eating your essence, the anxiety generated by worrying about whether your HGA is secretly SATAN can attract a pool of ’em in no time.

If you’re worried about it, the first thing to recognize is that you have a problem. Either there is a Larva, and that’s the problem, or you just think there’s a Larva, and that’s the problem. Either one can cause mischief in your life. Fortunately, the solution for both is the same: Exorcise. If you do have an infestation, a good Exorcism will clean you right out. If you don’t, it won’t hurt. Incorporating some form of Exorcise in your regularly scheduled Work is useful.

The Stele of Jeu, that is, the Headless Rite makes for a formidable Exorcism. I generally stick to the Betz version, with a few modifications based on my experiences. I substitute the name of my HGA where appropriate, and “Agathosdaimon” for “Good Messenger of God.” I also change “deliver him, NN, from the daimon that restrains him” to “deliver me, [my name/Hermetic Title] from any daimon that restrains me”. It takes very few minutes, and can be worked in at any time. I prefer Sunday nights or Wednesdays, or both as necessary.

One of the more important things to realize as a magician, however, is that you always have a spiritual ally fighting off these things on your behalf. It comes with being born, and wears the names Agathosdaimon, Genius, and Holy Guardian Angel. Its name is hidden in your Natal Chart, and regardless of the level of conscious communion with this entity you have attained, it is still working on your behalf all the time. It’s not proof against stupidity. We can conjure up a dark passenger through ignorance or just corrupt intentions, and that can limit the effectiveness of our Spiritual Ally in protecting us.

Learning to trust this spirit is essential, and if after performing an exorcism with its assistance you find yourself losing a spirit or source of peace and power in your magical Work, don’t panic. Learn to accept it, don’t conjure it back into your life, no matter how beneficial it may appear. The HGA will explain why it removed entities if you ask it. It will show you in vivid detail the tendrils of disgusting ooze the thing had immersed in your sphere.

Performing regular exorcism and trusting the results will build up your relationship with the HGA, and will  open more avenues to reclaiming your divine race and value than it will close. Trusting your HGA also provides a level of peace in your approach that itself becomes a natural barrier to attracting Larva.

* Of course, that’s necromancy, and tends to leave the magician who works with these fellows infested if they slip and forget to cleanse their spheres well after working with them. If you get into necromancy, and then find yourself all nihilistic, depressed, or anxious, you’ve got a problem you need to address. You’ve picked up a Larva. My Work with Bune granted me a degree of native exorcist, and directing them away with a statement carried enough weight to keep me clean, mostly, but regular Exorcism involving something like the powers of the Agathosdaimon or Michael the Archangel is a best practice mages do well to adopt.

** I disagree with the idea that being a woman is less than being a man, for the record. I think that’s a cultural oppression thing that reflects the politics of the time rather than the spiritual truth. It’s actually a step up from older beliefs, though. Before Plato’s Republic talked about Soul Mates, theologists and spiritual cosmologists doubted women had souls at all.

Dude, are you nuckin’ futs? There are things that are no one’s god damned business, things that are not going to be discussed.

But there is no bottom to the rabbit hole you’re going down. Tunnels of Set indeed.

It’s annoying to have to use it, and I prefer the Google buttons, but for those who use PayPal, I’ve set up some buttons for my eBooks on the right.

Ahhh, things are shaping up nicely at the hearth. I only have half my stuff in boxes, and I’m down to only two rooms left needing to be furnished. Of course, one of those rooms is the new office-study, which means I’m still limited to writing in my son’s room, which has the only desk in the house and is currently decorated in “How to train your dragon” stuff (Toothless is not a good inspiration for writing occult materials), or on a laptop. Feh, and feh, respectively.

But nevertheless, I see things coming together and giving me both the time and space to do some serious revisions to the NeoPlatonic Basics, Modern Angelic Grimoire, and Modern Goetic Grimoire in the next few weeks. I also will be able to revise and refocus on the Red Work Courses, which should be starting again in a month. I’ll be posting a link to register for the series of courses as soon as next week to give folks time to determine whether they think this is the right path for them.

The revised courses will still include some Goety stuff for two reasons. One, I already have a shitload of experience and material based on that subject. Two, the material is practically useful. I’ve been down on Goety lately, but the fact remains that it is a powerful system that provides tangible results quickly. It’s like speeding while driving, it’s not the smart or legal or proper thing to do, and it comes with risk to life, limb, and legal fines and potential jail time, but there are times that you do it anyway. And until you’ve mastered some of the more useful results of learning to Hymn in Silence with the Powers of the Eighth Sphere, it provides an avenue of manifestation that has little competition in the occult realm. Expect lots of caveats to come along with that section of the material.

I’ll be beefing up the “Hermetic Merkavah” material, because I’m learning that the things I did in these seven spheres over the last few years really laid some major groundwork for the experiences I’m having now in the Eighth Sphere. I knew the Work in the planetary spheres was important for Goety and for Theurgy, but I didn’t realize how much of a base framework was being put together while I was going through it. I’m seeing now that the last few years of Planetary Magic Work, rising through the spheres, gaining attunements and initiations was like putting together a spiritual circuit board that’s a lot like a motherboard* in a  PC. I’ve got connections for various devices, a versatile processor socket, multiple connections to various storage devices and operating systems, and plenty of RAM and lots of bandwidth on the bus. For my non-geek friends, you can click the link, or see the footnote for a more condensed understanding.

Doing the Planetary Work feels more like the job part of the Great Work while I’m doing it. It’s like a Review-Revise-Repeat process, or the maintenance stuff that doesn’t seem that important until you haven’t done it for a week. It’s not boring, but there’s so much of it that it gets to be routine. You start seeing Raphael every week of the month, and you end up getting to know him like an office co-worker you see in a weekly staff meeting.

But that steady practice is what keeps the process flowing smoothly, it’s the regularly scheduled tasks that end up making a quality end product. Very important stuff. Once you’ve got the results of this work firmly in place, or have the product promoted to the Production Environment so to speak, you get to start using it, and it’s pertty incredible what you can do with it. I suspected before, but now I know. Or Gno.

In a comment, someone asked me to write up a post on the new techniques I’m picking up. The Eighth Sphere stuff is still too new to me to start teaching, but as I gain experience and understanding, I’ll be adding it to the Red Work series of courses. It will explain how to go through that particular Gate, or pierce that particular veil, as well as some of the techniques I’ve been picking up that make the process easier. I’d start posting about it in detail now, but it’s still way too raw.

And besides, I don’t know what might happen to you if I start giving out the secrets I’ve worked so hard for without providing the framework to turn the current into work. With a fully developed motherboard, hard drive, input/output devices, a processor and stable operating system, plus the necessary RAM to run the programs and the devices to enjoy the full experience, you don’t have everything you need to make a computer. You wouldn’t expect to access the internet by sticking your fingers into a power socket directly, right? It doesn’t work. You need a human interface device between you and the power source for it to work, and that’s what the Planetary Work provides.

But this is all still to come over the next few weeks and months. My current goals are to start offering the Supernatural Assistant and Hermetic Merkavah courses again next month. I’ll start taking registrations next week, or maybe as soon as the weekend if I can get a writing desk and chair. Future courses will include the Eighth Sphere: Hymns of Silence.

I’m also going to rewrite my Modern Goetic Grimoire and turn it into a Goety Mini-Course. I’ll probably pull it from the blog’s available titles, and only make it available to those who have completed the Supernatural Assistant, and maybe the Planetary Magic courses.

Tentatively it will look something like:

Red Work Course Series
The Black Work

Acquiring the Supernatural Assistant

Topics covered include:

• Neo-Platonic Basics
• Trithemian Conjuration Technique
• Solar Attunement & Genius/Evil Daimon Names
• Attaining the Supernatural Assistant
• Working with the Assistant

Goety Mini-Course Part 1 (Optional)

Topics covered include:

• Elemental Magic
• Genii Loci
• Necromancy
• Demonology

Planetary Magic 

Topics covered include:

• Intelligences, Initiation, and Integration
• Spirits, Legions, and Manifestation 
• The Things We Leave Behind

The Red Work

Topics covered include:

• Entering the Eighth Sphere
• Hearing the Hymns of Silence
• Becoming a Hermetic Power
• Eighth Sphere Magic Techniques

At least, that’s what I’m thinking today. Expect it to get more developed over time.

* The motherboard’s main job is to hold the computer’s microprocessor chip and let everything else connect to it. Everything that runs the computer or enhances its performance is either part of the motherboard or plugs into it via a slot or port.

I have 6 frickin’ unfinished blog posts that I’ve started over the last week that were inspired by some deep insight, fellow bloggers, or magical Work. Every time I started one, something’s come up, so I’m just publishing this fucking post to get something published that I started this week before it’s over.

Oh, and I did some magic before going to sleep last night that was awesome. Jack’s Self Love and Desire post has more than the usual bits of Hermetic/Great Work Gold sprinkled throughout. The Work I did last night was 8th sphere stuff, mildly, mostly to keep my toes in a current that started flowing a month ago. Under the section he titled “Traps,” specifically the “I Can’t Do That” bullet, he mentions shooting fireballs and walking through walls. While the fireballs out of the fingertips may be beyond the grasp of those that Hymneth in Silence to the Father, I do know that guru thing that I’ve seen on video of the old guru or yogi who can channel prana or chi or whatever through his fingertips, touch someone, and throw them against the wall as a result… You know what I’m talking about? That thing. Anyway, I know that’s possible.

There’s this thing you do with this muscle in your wrist, I think, and this power just flows, but you have to be in just the right frame of mind, objectively observing while having a mild intent that also is without expectation. And you have to smile.

You know all those hokey hand gestures you see magicians doing in fiction? Turns out there’s something to all that. As I learn more, I will pass on what I can, but it’s like Hermetic Mudras. The power is activated using minute muscle control and mental awareness. And an attunement from one of the spirits, I think, or at least direct training.

I haven’t tossed anyone across the room yet, but I can feel it flowing and pooling in my palm when I get the mind and body properly harmonized and aimed right.

I think fireballs may not be beyond the realm of possibility, eventually, and walking through walls? That’s actually Ancient Christian Tech. Heven’t figured it out yet, but it’s on my list.

It’s fun. I may have gotten over a lot of my money-fixation, but still. This is a worthy presentation of at least one aspect of my being.

Ok, everyone else is doing it…

But I just can’t stand it. The rules are too stringent.  I get about halfway through and realize there’s no way it can really work on 10 books alone. Ten web sites would work better for me, I think, Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Alchemy Website, Hermetic.com and Peterson’s Esoteric Archives are the very bestest resources for mages seeking power and Hermetic success.

But I’ll take a stab at it. All the cool bloggers are doing it.

If the goal were to create a traditional Hermetic magician empowered to fully attain the heights described in the Corpus Hermeticum and to consciously realize and implement the process defined in the Emerald Tablet, I think the following books would be useful.

1. The Bible. I think to understand the things that subtly, culturally have impacted the magical traditions in the West over the last 5000 years, you’ve got to read this. And you have to read it from cover to cover, and without anyone telling you what it means. If someone tries to tell you what the Bible means (that’s called Hermeneutics, which is a fun word to say), one of two things is guaranteed to be true: they are wrong, or you won’t get it because you haven’t figured it out on your own yet. Note: If you read Chronicles, you can skip the Kings, or vice versa, but really reading Leviticus is the only way to grok Paul’s epistles for serious.

2. Prometheus Rising. I hate RAW. He fucked me in my brain for years. He’ll fuck you too. With his dead dick. And it will help make you a better person. Reading this after reading the Bible will be good for you. This is the only RAW book I would read, if I were you. Everything else he wrote is just this stuff repeated over and over again. If you don’t read this one, the Illuminatus! trilogy should be explored, but that’s too many books for this list. RAW is a lot like Crowley. Everything he wrote was a joke, a prank, and it just happened to be true

3. Plato’s Republic. So much of Hermetics began here. Seeing the influence of Plato, who wrote while the Bible was being written a few hundred miles away is important, and plus it’s the only way to really understand soul mates, and the goals of the Hermeticists that came later. Magic isn’t only about transforming the self, it is also about the State, culture, and the humanities. It puts things into perspective.

4. Plato’s Timaeus – You can’t be a priest-king of Atlantis (or queen) until you’ve read the original account of it sinking into the waves in context. Also, the Creation Myth is important to understand, it explains Crowley. Crowley read this shit, and if you haven’t, you’re missing all the best punchlines in his published works.

5. Iamblichus, On the Mysteries. Oh shit. Or maybe Plotinus’ Enneads. One or the other, but probably Iamblichus even though he’s not exactly accurate in my understanding. He was writing as the Hellenized Egyptian Priest-Magician on the practices that were based on Hermetics while the stuff later attributed to Hermes Trismagistus were being written. So important to read and understand.

6. The Divine Pymander, attributed to Hermes Trismagistus. Without this, you will never be a Hermetic Magician, no matter how much you paid for your GD initiations.

7. Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Gordon got to post Liber ABA as one book, so this counts too because Tyson’s version is in one book volume, right? After reading the Bible and the Republic, Timaeus, the Enneads/On the Mysteries, and the Divine Pymander, you’ll have the raw data that is necessary to grok the praxis of Agrippa.

8. The Arbatel. Perhaps the perfect Grimoire.

9. Postmodern Magic: Holds the keys to unlocking the Arbatel, really. And everything else. It was a toss up between this and Magic, Power, Language, Symbol: A Magician’s Exploration of Linguistics.

10. Sorcerer’s Secrets: Perhaps the best presentation of applied magic I’ve ever read. It’s the book I would have written given the chance.

Although these books lay the foundation of information that have helped me a great deal, by themselves they are not sufficient to accomplish the stated goal. There needs to be a system of practice that allows the magician to conjure the spirits listed in the tables of Agrippa, for example, like the one provided in the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, or the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals.

Using this system, the magician needs to be conjuring the spirits and learning from them, receiving empowerments, intitiations, and direct instruction. That’s the most important thing of all.

At the same time, they need to be in contact with other magicians who have gone through this before. I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am without the input and friendship of Patrick Dunn, Frater Servitor Lucem, Jason Miller, the Deputy Lodge Master of the local OTO camp, those I have attempted to teach (Chris and Victor and the Sianys, and all the members of the SA Course), and the people like Dee, Susanne, Theo, Suzanne, Gordon, Logan, the good Witchdoctor Joe, Lavanah, Kathy MacDonald, Aaron Leitch, Jake Stratton-Kent, Chris Warnock, and god, the list goes on. All my blogging friends who I agree with and disagree with, Kenaz, Jhonn and Jow and Jack, Miss Sugar and VVF and Spiderella and Justin and … shit. Fr. AIT, Balthazar and Barabas, uh… and anyone else I haven’t mentioned who has helped me that deserves a mention but I can’t recall. And all the members of the yahoo groups who have helped me and argued with me over the years, they all contributed so much.

They’ve provided insight, or feedback, or mentorship, or simply a different point of view that made me think about things differently. Having friends and cohorts in different systems shows me more of the overall … thing … that we’re doing and the methods we use, the shared goals and the different approaches. I’ve seen that we’re all a part of a Cosmic Hierarchy, a Celestial Hierarchy that extends to the spirits, but is also embodied in the flesh. God speaks through my friends and fellow bloggers in ways that balance and ground the input from the spirits I cavort with.

Books are good, and necessary inputs to the foundations of what we do and what we are, but they are a third of the picture. Spirits and Other Magicians are equally important aspects that must be included if your’e going to get anywhere worth getting.

I may have taken a wrong turn a few years ago in my pursuit of the Great Work.

I had attained Knowledge and Conversation with my Holy Guardian Angel, and based on the Dehn and Mathers translations of that awesome manuscript of Abramelin’s legacy for his son, I figured the next most important thing to do after attaining K et C was to conjure up the demons of Hell and get them to serve me.

I figured the Lemegeton’s Goetia was as good of a list of Hell’s Minions as any other, so with conjuring all 72 in mind, I set out to master spirit conjure magic. Being a bit nervous about the whole “conjuring demons” thing, I started with the Archangels of the Planetary Spheres, and worked on getting the confidence and experience in spirit conjuration that I felt was necessary before diving into the fires of Hell. I think I took a good path for getting to Goety, all things considered.

But over the last month I’ve been working with some other magicians on an experiment involving planetary governors/intelligences/deities and the Mansions of the Moon. The things I’ve learned, though rudimentary at this stage, have completely and totally blown away all the things I’ve accomplished using the spirits of the Lem’s Goetia. I’ve seen potentials in the last 28 days that indicate the whole “sub-lunar spirits” thing was a red herring, a needless exercise that has been interesting, useful for some situations, but ultimately not the best method available to accomplish the goals of Hermetic Magic.

How did this happen? I mean, honestly, in all humility, I’m a pretty bright guy. Especially at this magic thing. I’ve got a calling on me, a geas if you will. I’m downright doomed (see definition 1). I read through the Emerald Tablet, the Abramelin Rite, and the Lemegeton’s Goetia, and I mixed them all together to come up with a system that let the magician accomplish everything on the Emerald Tablet in three easy steps:

1. Attain the Supernatural Assistant
2. Get initiated into the Seven Planetary Spheres
3. Start conjuring the demons and putting them to work creating the universe as you see fit

See? You rise to the heavens, you return to Earth in Power, and thus is the world created. I figured it had to be right, because the first thing you do in the Abramelin Rite after attaining Knowledge and Conversation is to conjure up the Four Kings of Hell and their minions. Makes sense, right?

Except for one little problem. See, Abraham the Jew gave his son Lamech the Abramelin ritual because he couldn’t give him the KBL.

That’s pretty obvious to anyone who reads the manuscript, but I never stopped to think about what it means. It means the “Sacred Magic” of Abramelin was the second best method of using the mysteries of the universe and God’s revelation/emanation to get ahead in life. The Sacred Magic of Abramelin is like a hammer and saw and a pile of nails. You gather the wood you need, and you can throw up a tree house or a deck, or whatever you might need that you can pound out in a couple of afternoons.

The more you do it, the better the results will be, and over time you’ll be a first-rate carpenter. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There are awesome things that carpenters can build. One of my favorite guys in all of history was raised by a carpenter, in fact. Carpentry is pretty frickin’ awesome, when you think about it. It’s relatively easy, relatively inexpensive, and the better you get, the more super-sweet things you can do with it. It’s always been a dream of mine to have a wood-working shop with everything I need to make inlaid exotic wood crafts that are functional and beautiful.

Working with the Lem’s Goetia spirits appealed to my Taurean pragmatism. It was relatively simple, and super effective. Sure, you never seem to end up with exactly what you want, but you always get exactly what you ask for. Is there a better magic for a pragmatist with a core philosophy of “The end justifies the means?”

But the Great Work of the Emerald Tablet and the Corpus Hermeticum isn’t carpentry. It’s architecture. You aren’t building a treehouse, or a garage, or a set of fine cabinets, you’re building the Ideal City.

It’s not a back-yard gazebo.

In the Divine Pymander, the process of accomplishing the Great Work is laid out pretty clearly. You ascend through the Heavens on your way to reclaiming your divine race and eternal value. Along the way, you gain initiations, integrate powers, learn to fit in with the Divine Plan, and you leave behind the attitudes and habits of the material realm that keep you from fully being that which you secretly, occult-ly already are.

Then, apparently, you get to the good stuff. You start learning things from the spirits that are beyond the things of this world. You know how with the Angels and Spirits of the Planets, you learn the herbs and stones and animal parts and plant parts to include in what amount to mojo bags? And how you learn to make talismans according to the astrological timing and all that? It’s awesome, truly cool to be able to make magical things. It’s an essential part of the Work, imo. It gives you a complete tool set to do stuff with stuff to make stuff happen.

But when you get to the Eighth Sphere, my God, it’s a whole new ball game! The Hymns of Silence are exactly that. In the rituals and rites of the Seven Planetary spheres and the lower realms, you speak and commune and direct, you mix and mingle and create talismans and tools and things. But in the Eighth, you intend and things happen. I’ve learned there are forces released when you make a physical movement with a specific intent empowered by teachings from certain spirits at certain times, and the world just bends a little bit.

And you’re always singing, but without words, without melody, without harmony, but you’re in perfect harmony at the same time. You’re doing it right now, in fact. It’s what is meant by Willing a thing to Be.

There are no limits to the extent of what can be accomplished, I believe. All the super mystical powers of the adepts that seem so cool are right there, just waiting to be tapped. It’s an awareness shift, sort of, but at the same time it’s an initiation, and also a ritual, in a way.

But it takes a fuckload of practice, training, and more practice, and attunement, and more practice, and did I mention practice? But it’s not practice like conjuring spirits is practice. I had a dream, learned a technique, and applied it consistently from the morning I woke to this very day. It didn’t take long, but it’s a lot like learning to wiggle your ears or arch one eyebrow when you don’t have the genetic predisposition for such things. To unlock the rest, I need time, and peace, and patience. I need both feet on the ground.

And the thing is, it’s all right there in the Divine Pymander. The Goety doesn’t get mentioned. The Hermetic path has room for Goety, and frankly it’s a damned useful set of tools to have in a pinch. But I don’t think we’re in the pinches we think we’re in as often as we think we are.We don’t need Goety.

I think the Supernatural Assistant or Holy Guardian Angel is still a vital part of a Hermetic Magician’s arsenal. It makes a way through to spirits that are essential to your attainment. It’s the Silver Key, the Gate, and the Lock that keeps the eldritch nasties we run into in the Work at bay. In that sense, the Abramelin rite is not a wrong at all. There is nothing whatsoever useless in attaining knowledge and conversation, I still firmly believe it’s a necessary step.

But the demons of hell… they’re a useful set of tools, and as Solomon demonstrated, they can be worked with to accomplish Holy Goals and Ambitions. But there are other methods that don’t have the bite that comes with the demons of hell. I’m torn now, frankly because Goety is addictive. It’s almost instantly gratifying, and is totally fun to do. But I’ve also learned you never get exactly what you want or need, even when you get exactly what you ask for. It’s really powerful for affecting manifest reality in majorly awesome ways… but it hurts.

There’s a story of this guy who picked up a kid hitchiking home from the local fishing hole. The kid had a ton of fish, huge bass and trout. He looked kind of tired and pale, so the guy offered him a ride. He asked the kid his secret for catching all those fish, and the kid said the trick was some special fat worms he found. They bit, he said, but he’d found a nest of them and kept going back to get more after he started landing the big fish. They were little and had a funny tail. The fish couldn’t get enough of them.

It turned out the kid had been using baby rattlesnakes to catch fish. Every time he grabbed one, he got bit, and the poison slowly accumulated in his body. In the story, the kid dies in the pickup with the biggest haul of fish he’d ever caught.

I don’t think Abraham would have left his son something as bad as a pit of baby rattlers, but I no longer think the Lemegeton’s spirits are the best option for Hermetic Magicians, no matter how big the fish you catch might be. Maybe if I’d stuck with the Demon Kings that were depicted in the Dehn translation, things would have gone better. I don’t know.

But the spirits of the Lem’s Goetia are still very useful, and maybe someone might figure out the trick to handling them without getting bit. I thought I had it, and I know my HGA kept the worst of the potential evils at bay, and my initiations into the spheres helped shield me a lot, but in spite of the hundreds of thousands of dollars I received, in spite of the exorcism skills I picked up, there was always something wrong in the manifestation that sucked away the results before I could put them to proper use.

And it could just be my poor money management skills, and laziness in general. I haven’t counted that out. And there’s never been an Ideal City built that didn’t need carpenters at some point in the process. So I’m not exactly sure whether Goety is a red herring after all. There’s too much benefit I’ve received to say the whole thing is a waste of time.

But I can tell you this: there is a better way.

My primary focus is still on moving, sorry for the continued hiatus. It’s amazing how many things can take so much longer than anticipated with this shit. Still, I’ve been extraordinarily lucky throughout the process, and I can’t thank God and his emanated spirits enough.

I got a report of the kinds of shit my HGA and other spirits I’ve been working with over the last few years have deflected over the last week, and it’s incredible.Some day I’m going to write a book on the most powerful “blood magic” available to Christian magicians that will explain the empowerment of the ultimate defensive sphere that requires no upkeep and runs on pure Love of God. It will go over like a lead balloon among certain circles, I’m sure, but it is what it is, and it is wonder-full.

Back to work for me! Continue the work in my absence, I’m telling you, no matter what physical or spiritual forces we fight against consciously or unconsciously, every conjuration you do today will continue to pay you back in the years to come! Spirits you think of as a knock-off, one time conjuration for info only will be there to protect your ass when you don’t even know what they’re up to when you need them the most. Every ritual you do is valuable, useful, and has life-long influence that ripples outward through time and space to be exactly what you need, exactly when you need it. Eventually.