Don’t you just hate it when you go to a lot of time and effort trying to set up a ritual, and then it turns out to be sort of … lame? You’ve lit the incense, you’ve made the seals, you’ve drawn out the Circles with care, and you even said all the barbarous names using perfect Hellenic Greek inflections, and the spirits still don’t show up and your results just plain suck.

I personally never ever ever have this happen. (Ok, maybe once or twice.) But why does this happen?

I think the only reason people’s magic fails to provide the desired results is ignorance. The biggest source of ignorance is Astrological timing, because let’s face it, it’s really hard to learn everything you need to know about astrology in order to do the rituals the right way. It takes less than a day to be able to conjure an Angel of Venus, but it can take YEARS to find out how to chart the best time to do so.

And Astrology affects all your magic, in spite of what you might think. I know folks who claim that they don’t believe in Astrological limitations to their magical effects, and they can claim up and down that their magic isn’t affected by astrological malefic (or beneficial) influences. They’re simply wrong. Every magician I know who went back and checked the astrological interpretations of their failed rituals (keeping a journal helps) has found something in the stars that explains their fucked up results. The real reason people claim immunity from Astrological influences is because Astrology is just really hard to learn.

Recently, Chris Warnock expanded and upgraded his already excellent Astrological Magic Course. Part of the upgrade included the release of the Planetary Magic Program, a really convenient program designed to find good astrological times to make planetary talismans.

Now, long-time readers of my blog know I’m really into Planetary Magic. When you get into the Hermetic foundational philosophy, when you dig into the historic roots of all that we practice today as MAGIC, you will find that to get the real power, the full impact of actual Magic, you have to incorporate the powers of the planetary spheres. The richest realm of imagery, talismans, and raw power of manifestation is found in Planetary Magic.

And it’s a lot easier than people suspect. Our days of the week are still planetarily based, and today we have computers to do the astrological computations that unlock the best times to contact the spirits, intelligences, and angels of the planets. Demons too, if you’re into that.

The Planetary Magic Program makes it even easier to perform the kinds of magic that I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. I’ve been waiting and hoping for something like this to hit the market. I mean, there’s SolarFire out there if you A) have $350, B) have a computer science degree, and C) understand Astrology well enough to trudge your way through all the options and settings. SolarFire’s an awesome program for the professional Astrologer, but not all magicians are interested in becoming full-time astrologers who can generate charts and talismans to sell to their clients to pay for the initial investment of $350.

So for the rest of us, the Planetary Magic Program provides a convenient, simple, and cost-effective tool for finding astrological elections. Its interface is easy to use and understand, it lets you write to a text file or print your list of elections, and you can narrow or expand your results by clicking on or off options. Chris recommends double-checking your results using some form of professional software, like www.astro.com, which I think runs on SolarFire software anyway. For creating talismans, he has a point, but for the kind of use we spirit conjurors will put it to, I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. Chris has given us the most useful program for finding good times to plan initiations, schedule conjurations, and of course to create talismans.

Chris is offering the program as a stand alone purchase for only $39.95, or you can get it for free as part of his course in Astrological Magic. I wish so much that I had this program a couple of years ago. If you remember, I used to recommend Timaeus, and then SolarFire, but I used them primarily to find out when a good time to conjure spirits might be. This program provides all the functionality I need to do the computations. It’s definitely worth the price, and then some. The first Solar ritual you do with the Moon unafflicted on the right day and hour will result in making at least what you paid for it back, after all.

Now remember, this is an electional tool. It spits out dates and times for your location. You have to know two very important things to get the most out of this program. You have to now where you live. That’s important. I think you’ve got that covered. If not, maybe magic isn’t really what you should be focusing on at the moment. Second, you have to know what planet your magic is related to. Armed with these two pieces of arcane lore, you’re ready to use the program.

Simply put in your location (it has a really cool little piece that lets you set that up quick and easy), click the radial button that says “When is the next time to make a talisman” and select the planet from the drop-down list that pops up. Click “compute” and in no time the program tells you all the best times for each planet. In the Advanced Options, you can change the degree of orbs, change the time frame searched (from 1 year up to 20), and a couple of other things.

Its main purpose is to get you in the right zone for getting in touch with the planetary powers. Chris intended it to be used in talisman making, but I intend to use it extensively in performing spirit conjurations. It’s adept at finding good times to conjure spirits that I would have missed.

Here’s the thing about conjuring during the right astrological time: it totally amplifies your results. People who have had lame experiences with spirits from the grimoires can attest that sometimes your magical results are just sort of flaccid. You don’t feel a change in the room, feel the spirit’s presence, or get any clear communications.

With this handy program, you’re increasing your chances of getting things just right, when the stars are aligned, and getting through to the spirit you’re looking for with a quickness. I personally believe you can conjure any spirit any time, but the planetary position relative to your position on the earth are good gauges as to how well you will experience the spirit’s presence and how well the communication of your intent will go. When the planets are aligned right, the spiritual atmosphere is conducive to clear communications, and this program is fabulous at finding good elections fast.

Whenever I get around to finishing up my online courses, I’m either going to require this program be purchased, or at the very least strongly urge my students to purchase this program when they get to the planetary spheres and begin receiving their initiations. I highly recommend this valuable tool to all my friends, students, and clients.

I started Working in Luna, spurred on by some research I was doing into astral warfare. I was mostly playing, but I needed to verify some of the things I wanted to include in a fun book on astral warfare I’m working on. I conjured up Gabriel by name and seal, and went for a few jaunts through the lower reaches of the sphere of the Moon. Good times… good times.

But it wasn’t long before I felt drawn to a particular Gate. Around the Gate were symbold of the Moon from Agrippa and the Magical Calendar, and symbols I haven’t seen before and hesitate to reproduce. Much of the realm I was in at the time was projected and created by myself, and I don’t want to pretend to have knowledge from the spirit world that I secretly just made up, you know? But they were cool.

Walking towards the gate, I felt a gentle condensation of the the spiritual fabric of the realm I was in, and Gabriel was soon walking with me. We didn’t talk, which was rather odd for me. Usually I call on the spirits and we talk a lot. We were simply moving, and I just sort of understood that I was being taken to the next stage of my progression in the Work. We went through the Gate, Gabriel opening it for me, and the realm I was in was completely unlike the landscaped scene I had left. There was no Gate. I saw colors there are no words for, silvery-purple being a grave disservice to the hues I saw. Each color was meaningful, like they are when the synesthesia kicks in on LSD. There was no sense of tripping though, no intense urge to accomplish whatever happened next, no distant slimey nausea hovering in the astral equivalent of my gut. It was tranquil, serene, and infinitely patient.

I felt an image of the disk of the Moon. She was full, and as crystal sharp as if I were looking at her through a telescope. I felt every crag of every crater in sharp relief. I’m using visual language, but remember all I saw was the alien-colored light. I became aware of the chain of manifestation leading up from the physical planet, like a ray of light extending infinitely through the meta-cosmos of the spheres directly to the Mind of God. It was pure Luna, but it had its own heavens to ascend through. The Tree of Life images that show a tree of life within each sphere, implying there is a Binah of Tiphareth, a Chokmah of Tiphareth, and so on is too simple of a construct to represent what I sensed. It’s like that, as if there are hevens of the Moon, or … Mansions… shit. I wonder now if that’s what I was going through? Now I’ll have to research that.

Anyway, within each heaven of the Sphere of the Moon were beings of progressively more-diffuse intelligence and purpose. As I ascended, my own form changed. I was simply an awareness at first, a sphere of sensation that I prefer to travel through the spheres in. It’s much easier to move around.As I rose though, I felt layers being removed, like an onion being peeled. As each layer fell away, I became more aware of how I too was a diffuse Intelligence of the Moon as well. The entities I sensed around me were my kin, distant relatives and friends from ages past.

At each stage I learned something about myself. I’m not talking about some psychological insight into why I do thigs, either. I mean, it could probably be used for that, but I’m talking about learning something about my self. Like learning I had feet, or how to use my hand to pick up a coffee mug. Only it wasn’t my body, it was my essence. Divination, for instance, made sense. I just understood divination. It isn’t time or space, or probability, it’s revelation. Revelation is peeling away the layers so you can see what lies within that works to manifest what happens next. It’s like seeing the cause, and deducing the result, only less mechanical.

There were other insights, like understanding how to communicate with spirits using symbols to get the essence across. It was like learning the vocabulary of their language, or the alphabet of their words. I understand why Spare called it an Alphabet of Desire, even though I understood the concept before. I know about it, first hand now. I undestand why the grimoires have specific symbols in each seal. The seals of the Goetic spirits make perfect sense, they are pictographic longhand, a formal style that has become familiar, casual over time.

As I ascended further, through many more than the seven spheres I’m accustomed to traveling, I apprached the veil where the thoguht of God originates within the infinite Mind. Of course, words fail, but there was still a hint of the Sphere of the Moon, like an aftertaste that lingered. My Mind and the Mind of God communed without symbols, in pure exchange of impulse. I’m sure it’s apparent that words cannot convey that which lies behind words themselves.

Rising further, I left behind all vestiges of the Moon and pierced through the Infinite Light into the Divine Darkness. Awareness faded, and time, which had lost all meaning a few heavens before, simply ceased. Everything ceased. Everything simply was the Prime Mover. Looking back, it was sort of like the Benben stone within the ocean upon which the Atum stood in the Egyptian myth cycle. Except that even the ocean was the Benben stone, in extension.

Wrapping words around the experience is annoying. It must be understood that these matters cannot accurately be put into words. They must be experienced.

As I went through the following days, I didn’t notice much of a change in my manifest realm. I’d like to say there was a spiritual change that made everything bearable and gave me a great attitude that made everything perfect, but the fact is I was still an asshole surrounded by assholes at work and a mountain of work to do around the house. But I was aware of it differently.

Since then, I’ve been experiencing more synchronicities and “psychic” flashes. Nothing debilitating, but I get images of what’s going on behind closed doors from snippets of conversations at work, or I take a different route to work and end up avoiding traffic. If I were one to give readings, I’ve got a feeling they’d be scary accurate right now. I have a greater awareness and control over the Lunar aspects of my life.

Esoteric magic has been my focus lately, as opposed to the more materialistic pursuits I’ve been on for the past couple of years. I’d like to start a series on some of the experiences I’ve had in each of the planetary realms.

I think I’ve explained technique as far as I can for now. From time to time I might do a piece on planetary magical tech, but over the last three years I’ve detailed my actual practices in sufficient detail for anyone to adapt my techniques into theirs. It’s all talismans and circles, baby!

A little backstory leading up to the esoteric Work of late:

I went through a pretty stressful period at work. It sucked me in, and I got wrapped up in the drama of trying to deliver something useful, meaningful, and according to specs. Due to the extreme stubborn ignorance of management, the project continues to fail miserably. The end is near, halleluiah!

My home life has been fairly decent, but I still haven’t gotten back into the swing of things since going on vacation. Little things have piled up and become major obstacles, things like property and vehicle maintenance. Petty annoyances, easily fixed, but all piled up together.

So I’ve been tired and stressed. Money hasn’t been an issue. There’s always a cash source somewhere in my life, some way of making enough to get whatever I need or want. It would be easier if I had more, but the real stress financially comes from not knowing where the money will come from. It always comes from somewhere unexpected, but it always comes. Still, I worry and it adds to the general miasma of stress.

So lately I’ve been seeking solace in the spheres. “In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me,” Psalm 86:7, and solace I’ve found.

Within each sphere, I’ve been through a very gentle period of transformation. It’s been quite unlike the dramatic experiences I was having years ago. The visions are more nuanced, less is spoken, and more is shared. It’s sort of like the post Dohmail recently made about knowing.* He talks about divination specifically, but think of his point applying to scrying the aethyrs, traveling the spheres, Merkavah.

I’m performing these rituals “astrally,” for the most part. On occasion, I’ll  use The Box and call the angel specifically by name, then just sort of meditate and carry on the communication on a higher plane as I sit or lie in the glow of the talisman-charged light radiating through the large crystal ball into my physical sphere. The room takes on the resonance of the spirit I’m conjuring to open the gate to the planetary sphere, and it takes less time to “get there.”

* I just got back from his site, getting the link, and I got wrapped up in the comments. Good stuff going on there, highly recommended by RO.

So recently, on a Grimorium Verum discussion group, someone starts talking about “the Herd.”

You know, the Sheeple, the Muggles, the Mundanes. How much Ayn Rand bullshit do we have to put up with? Come on, get over it already. You received a calling to be a magician, big fucking deal. Can you paint like Van Gogh, or write like Robert Frost, or design like Frank Lloyd Wright? Fuck no, you can’t. You read some grimoires and some philosophy.

You’re out of the mainstream realm of popular interest. That doesn’t make the rest of humanity a bunch of drooling animals to be fleeced, shorn, denigrated, or profited from. They aren’t less human than you are because you’re a magician. You are one of them, and they are one of you. We’re all people. Every human being on the planet can do what you do, if they were called to it. You aren’t special because you read a book or three.

Now folks who read regularly may point out the number of times I’ve said something along the lines of “Everyone on the planet is a fucking moron except for a couple magicians here and there.” And I may have, on occassion, mentioned that people who don’t do magic are about as smart as bags of hair. And I may even have referred to humanity in general as the Herd.

But when I do it, it’s different. I make sweeping derogatory generalizations with class.

It came as I droned aloud the ninth verse of that primal lay, and I knew amidst my shudders what it meant. For he who passes the gateways always wins a shadow, and never again can he be alone. I had evoked- and the book was indeed all I had suspected. – H. P. Lovecraft, The Book

Image: Sleeping Prophet, by Jenny Sargeant

Lo, there it is.

This excerpt is beautiful. It’s dark and twisted, but I realized from it today that Lovecraft really did understand the core tenets of the Great Work. He just expressed them darkly. Whether he knew the occult mysteries from his studies, as I suspect, or if it was a revelation from the spirit realm that passed into his dreams, I don’t know, but regardless, the occult mysteries are there.

Take the above quote, for example. Clearly, he’s talking about getting a familiar spirit as a result of accomplishing a ritual. Those who have been through the Knowledge and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel rituals will feel a resonance, I think, with this passage. From the moment you pass through the Gate, you are never alone.

Which Gate? I think the Gate the guy in the story passed through was the Gate of Saturn. He undergoes a spiritual transformation that leaves him with a wider lens through which to see time. He saw more of the immediate past and the immediate future in each passing moment:

Nor could I ever after see the world as I had known it. Mixed with the present scene was always a little of the past and a little of the future, and every once-familiar object loomed alien in the new perspective brought by my widened sight.

And of course, it was a horror story, so it had to focus on the spooky possibilities. We can extrapolate and see it through the lens of the seven heavens, and clearly the shift in his perception of Time would indicate a Saturnine initiation. I myself have experienced this altered sense of time after working in Saturn. It’s as if the past and future are overlapping everything we see.

Regardless, he passed through a Gate and received a spiritual companion as a result of his efforts.

In a way, I can see the spirits that represent the spheres I have been initiated into, hovering around me as I type. They are present and real, but muted, as if they were waiting for me to call on them. I feel their radiant power in my temple space, and I wonder if they come with me to work, and I’m just unaware because I’m distracted by the “Office” reality I get immersed in five days a week. Oh no, I’m not bitter about that.

(Side note: I went on a beautiful vacation for the Fourth of July. Three days of oceanic bliss, and then I went back to work. That’s got to be the most terrible ending to any story, “and then he went back to work.” Unless it was something he liked doing. Which clearly does not apply to me. Magic has been done. Results should be in by Wednesday.)

I think they are always with me, and they seem to be agreeing that they are. It is part of the License to Depart, after all, that they come again when called. It’s as if they have left a spirit from their legions on call to bring them when needed. And to work with me as necessary on tasks within their abilities.

For new readers, comments work like this:

1. You post it.
2. I review it.
3. If I like it, I publish it. If I don’t, I reject it. It’s totally biased and arbitrary.
4. Then it shows up on my page.

So if you post a comment and you don’t see it, you don’t have to post it again. I’ve been getting a few comments that are like 4-5 repeats of the same message. Mostly from a French Brother who steals other people’s work.

Save yourself any stress and annoyance, just be patient. I usually post comments throughout the day.

Sucae Sounds posted a neat commentary on the Primitiveness of Techno that got me contemplating the Music of the Spheres. Agrippa talks about it, and a musician friend of mine, Andy Keys, tried a couple of times to get a conversation going on Agirippa’s chapters on musicology in the Three Books of Occult Philosophy a couple of years ago. I couldn’t keep up. The extent of my musical ability is Smoke on the Water on a penny whistle, and Ghost Riders in the Sky on an acoustic guitar.

But I’ve been hearing things, and getting more in tune with the harmonies of the universe since then. I still can’t keep up a decent conversation on musicology, but I’ve been experiencing the universe through the metaphor of music, vibration, and resonance.

I think Music is the perfect metaphor for magic.One person does something over here with a specialized tool, and all the way across the room, another person’s mood is altered, their mind taken on a journey, and the first guy didn’t even touch the second. All he did was emit a vibration, and the consequences unfolded around him.

That’s what magic is, to me. We get the tools, we play the notes, we end up gaining skill and talent and become master musicians, only reality itself is our instrument. Each of the planetary intelligences is a master craftsman and musician combined, and tehy mentor us in our efforts to become the next Maestro. Sometimes I feel like the musician, other times like the conductor, and others like the conductor and the whole symphony and the music itself.

Good times. Good times.

This post title is referential to Jason’s new blog, but only tangentially, because he picked an awesome approach to his new blog and it’s in my mind now, festering, and memetically challenging me.

And it’s a good thing, that blog title. It’s neat. I like the idea a lot. Take back your mind, that’s the goal of the magician. Yeah, it’s given away and it’s your own fault, but also, yeah it’s stolen and the bastards have no right to it.

A major push of mine in magicalness is to get people to reclaim their divine Race and recognize their Value. It’s a Plotinus thing. It hit me at a sensitive point in my life, that is, I came across the reclaiming Race and Value piece of Plotinus’ Enneads at a time in my life where I was understanding new concepts, fleshing out the symbolic map from fundy Christian to Esoteric Ipsissismis of the UNIVERSE. You know, standard practice. I came across the phrase, the concept filled in some gaps, and I still use that push in my magical work, “Reclaim your Race and your Value, and you will receive the Key to the Kingdom.”

Pretty catchy, eh?

That state of mind that I was in is a lot like when I was in college. My mind was open to new ideas, I was figuring things out, receiving wisdom and symbols. It was a fun time. I was smoking a lot of pot, tripping on LSD, and my whole universe went through a reframing expeience.

Something else was going on at the same time. It was 1992, Autumn, and we were alll poor college kids. Different fast food services were offering special discounts. By far the cheapest and tastiest food we could easily munch down on was from the 59, 79, and 99 cent menu at Taco Bell.

The people I was with, the drug experiences I had, and the general sense of freedom and liberation of being 18 and away from my parents, it all must have some how gotten mingled together and framed Taco Bell as part of the goodness from that time in my life.

I must have associated Taco Bell with good times, because to this day, every few months or so, Taco Bell begins to appeal to me. I get hungry and get these impulses for what would feel good to eat, what would be fast, cheap, and open late. Mmmm, flashing through my mind, Taco Bell…

And I know it must be some kind of thing that I imprinted or something, I know it’s got to be something that I need to take my mind back from, because honestly folks, Taco Bell food full on fucking sucks. It is the ass rumblings of the fast food industry. Their food all tastes the same, like generic, vaguely Southwestern gloop squeezed out of a tube. With Lettuce. Iceberg lettuce!!!

Fuck Taco Bell. They don’t get that piece of my mind anymore. It’s mine.

Taco Bell, I’m talking to you: Your food sucks. It tastes bad! The texture combinations are nauseating. The beef is so obviously not beef it quit being funny in 2002. You guys have either A) RUINED your recipes with cheaper ingredients that have no flavor, or B) YOU ALWAYS SUCKED.

I’m beginning to suspect you always sucked. Fuck Taco Bell!

Jow’s comment on yesterday’s post got me thinking about the difference between a magician and a magician-to-be. There is no doubt that we go through a transition between being a socially awkward misfit who doesn’t understand the point of “society” (or maybe understands it too well) to a grimoire-following, spirit conjuring participant in the manifestation of reality.

Then again, as we learn the language and symbols of magic, we gain a context that explains many of our experiences in our youth. One of the first things the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) does is take you on a review of your life, demonstrating its influence at every twist and turn, showing you all the times it protected and empowered you, leading you to the point where you established communion with him (or her, but not “it”). The magician truly is born as such into the world, as the Arbatel teaches.

But there’s a transition between ignorant participant and mostly aware magician. Looking at my own experience and that which my friends have shared, I think we tend to go through a period of gaining knowledge, gaining expeience, and gaining training to understand the revelation that comes when we experience something like Knowledge and Conversation with the HGA (KCHGA). We’re drawn into the occult by a fascination, an irresistible calling in our youth. We spend a lot of time reading, pursuing, testing, and moving on through different occult systems of varying popularity. As we do, astrological forces and initiatory ordeals manifest in our lives, preparing us, guiding us towards a vision of transcendence, a moment where the universe is stripped away and we can see all the pieces and parts of Truth scattered and hidden throughout the systems we’ve studied snap together to give us a glimpse of how everything works.

I’ve tried to shorten this period, because it seems like what a lot of us are doing is reverse engineering the basic underlying neo-platonic cosmology. We start with GD interpretations, and work our way back through the source materials until we’re immersed in the third century AD, and there discover the foundational bedrock of the Hermetic system. I wrote the Neo-Platonics Basics series as a shortcut to the truth, as I understood it. At the same time, to facilitate the applied heat that transmutes the knowledge into wisdom, I had people start Working with their HGA, Genius, or Solar Intelligence.

I don’t think I have succeeded. I think, ultimately, no one can hasten the intiation of another. The best we can hope for is that the pieces of truth we present have missing pieces that will contribute to their revelation of their place in the universal hierarchy, when the time comes. Still, I hope to provide as much philosophical gold as I can. I should probably adjust the signal to noise ratio of my blog.

I’ve argued before that the Spirit Model is the One True Model(TM), and put together that post that details my current understanding of what that means. I have tried GD-style magic, Crowleyan stuff, Chaos Magic, and a whole slew of Eastern and Near-Eastern practices I picked up on from my dad’s career as a Reflexologist. I’ve done chakra meditations and activations, I’ve used “psychic warfare” techniques to build shields and make daggers out of mental “energy.” I’ve done Celtic, Druidic, and American-Neo-Pagan too. I fully embraced Chaos Magick, with a “k” and everything for a couple of years.

I got better.

But everything I did in my life leading up to my conversion experience and subsequent KCHGA is completely annihilated by the simple power, or force I see manifesting things in my life. No other approach even begins to touch the raw power I find in the Intelligences and Spirits of the Planets and their terrestrial counterparts. They’re immense! They’re powerful. They’re pleased to work with mankind.

The transition to becoming a magician is definitely there, and I don’t think we qualify as full-on Heroes as magicians until we’ve at least hit that moment of transcendental understanding of the Mechanics of the Universe. I always hated that description, it makes it sound like an engine or motor. It’s mechanical, yeah, but in the same way a symphony is. The beings that are the “Mechanics” are more like musicians and master instrument crafsmen.

When you reach that point, you get a glimpse of your own relatonship to the whole. You see your divine nature, you understand that you are literally a “Child of God,” that Christ (LOGOS) is your Brother, and that your extended family includes every Name of God he’s ever used to get a point across to his kids. When you see that you are of the divine race, you see the source of your power as a magician. You understand it. Then you begin learning how to do Magic, and you learn the value of what you do. You see the results of your Work in the universe from an eternal perspective, and you know the impact you have on other people, and the world around you.

At that point, when you’ve reclaimed your divine race and reached an understanding of the value you add to the world by being what you are, you begin the Great Work. Everything else is just preparation for the Work. When you hit this point, you finally begin achieving your potential, by taking your wisdom, experience, and knowledge and creating the universe according to the principles you’ve discovered.

Magicians are a rare breed. I personally think they’re the equivalent of Iamblichus’ “Hero” classification of entities. That makes us like Hercules, half immortal and half mortal.

I base this on the Corpus Hermeticum’s Divine Pymander, where it talks about the reason Man became flesh, and the nature of Man. Iamblichus would have been familiar, I suspect, of this basic Hermetic belief, writing as he did in Egypt in the neoplatonic period. Man is the Image of the First Father, and is an immortal on par with the Logos in the original hierarchy. Man wanders down through the spheres, pokes his head into Nature, sees a reflection of himself and falls in love. Next thing you know, Nature’s created an image of the reflection, because She’s in Love with Man’s image too. Both can be excused for their infatuation when it is understood that Man was the Image of the First Father. Man cohabits the image made by Nature, and voila, Humankind is created, immortal by being of divine race, mortal in form, and all for the sake of love.

Isn’t it romantic?

So we’re Heroes. Now obviously, we aren’t going around with the strength of the Gods, going on fateful quests, and creating a new cycle of myths for the next generation to evaluate and draw insight from, are we?

Well, honestly, we are. Magicians have the strength of the Gods. We are the image of God, and are aware of “their” divine race. We accomplish creation in an ongoing process that follows God’s path of manifestation, through Word and spirits, to accomplish the manifestation of our thoughts.

We go on fateful quests. We work with certain spirits, and the next thing you know you’re surrounded by opportunities to implement the experience you’ve gained. The fates align our reality to accomplish specific goals.

And the new cycle of myths? How many people have poured over Crowley’s life, gaining insight and inspiration? Dione Fortune, Mathers, Westcott, Regardie, and the more obscure members of the GD left diaries and records of their Works that have provided our generation of magicians with wisdom and clues to finding our own paths of gnosis. We are currently Working in a time that will become poured over by the next generation of magicians. This Traditional Magic revival we’re going through is going to be a page in occult history that feeds the next big movement in thirty years.

Not everyone who happens to be human is a magician. I’ve had people ask me whether talent or skill is more important, and I’ve answered both ways and neither in the past. Right now I think everyone can develop the talent, but not everyone is destined to do so. Skill comes with experience, experience comes from being called to the occult, which means you have to have the talent to hear and respond, so it’s all pretty incestuous. I think I can get away with saying usually the talent is present before the skills are developed, but both talent and skill increase with practice. They are interdependent on one another.

The Power of a Magician comes from their relationship with the First Father. Being made in his image, we can do “magic” the same way he can. Our thoughts become reality. We can create. We converse with the Angels and Daimons and other Heroes, and we work together to make things happen. It is from our divine nature that the power to be a magician flows.