I now have conclusive proof that all things are predestinated, at least through July of 2038.

As we know, the present is what it is. Whatever happened before definitely did happen, and it caused what we are currently experiencing. If anything was different in the past, now wouldn’t be what it is. Therefore everything that has happened must have happened for this to be what it is.

If Free Will were more than an illusion bred from ignorance and fear of the future, then the future could not exist until all things that we are still in the process of choosing had already been chosen. If anything came to us from the future, that would be conclusive proof that the future did indeed exist, and therefore the present potentials have already been reached.

I have in my inbox proof that there is a future. I have received emails from July of 2038. Apparently, some time in the next thirty years, they will not only master sending messages through time, but they will also cure erectile dysfunction and perfect genetic manipulation of male genitalia, leaving them with a surplus of viagra, cialis, and herbal supplements to enlarge a specific part of the male anatomy. They are selling them to us in their past to still be able to turn a profit.

Happy Holy Days, whether they are special to you because the stars have aligned just right or because they are days, and that’s beautiful.

As a Christian Magician, you may expect a reminder that the holiday we celebrate on the 25th has been Officially Taken Over by the Church to celebrate the moment that the Logos stepped down through the spheres and into a mortal coil so that once and for all, creation could celebrate without shame or excuse that we are made in the image of God, by God and for God.

But that would be redundant at this point.

So Merry Christmas to all my brothers and sisters, and Happy Yule, Solstice, Chanukkah, Kwanzaa, and for those lighting Dipa for Dupali… What the hell is Dupali?

Happy holidays from Frater R.O., and may you meet some cool Christians.

From http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/project-management/?p=277&tag=nl.e101:

‘Twas the night before Christmas (or “holiday break”)
But I was still working — I kicked off a rake.
Secure shells were placed on my desktop with care,
So no one could sniff what I typed away there.
My clients’ hot issues were all put to bed,
But what those had preempted still caused me to dread.
So I in my bathrobe (’twas cold in that room)
Had just settled down for a long game of Doom.
When out on the WAN there arose such a mess
I thought that it must be a DDoS!
Away to the firewall I flew like Jet Li
Denied all incoming, even SMTP.
But as I more closely inspected each packet,
I realized with awe what was causing the racket:
A download! What format? I couldn’t have known it
But I found it included a textual component:
“Now JavaScript! Perl! Now Python and Ruby!
On Haskell! on Clojure! on Scala and Groovy!
To the Web-facing site, to the edge firewall,
Now bash away, bash away, bash away all!”
The download completed, though I tried to abort,
And a little man popped out a USB port!
His glasses — how thick! His gut — a real softy!
And his beard was all stained with cold pizza and coffee.
He was nerdy and plump, a right jolly old geek,
Though he smelled like he hadn’t had a bath in a week.
He spoke not a word, but went right ahead
He wiped off all Windows, installed *nix instead
The software I’d need, he downloaded it all
(Still using less space than a fresh Win install).
In the USB port he inserted his thumb
And vanished right into it the way he had come
But I heard him exclaim, ere I even had missed ‘im
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good system!

From http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/project-management/?p=277&tag=nl.e101:

‘Twas the night before Christmas (or “holiday break”)
But I was still working — I kicked off a rake.
Secure shells were placed on my desktop with care,
So no one could sniff what I typed away there.
My clients’ hot issues were all put to bed,
But what those had preempted still caused me to dread.
So I in my bathrobe (’twas cold in that room)
Had just settled down for a long game of Doom.
When out on the WAN there arose such a mess
I thought that it must be a DDoS!
Away to the firewall I flew like Jet Li
Denied all incoming, even SMTP.
But as I more closely inspected each packet,
I realized with awe what was causing the racket:
A download! What format? I couldn’t have known it
But I found it included a textual component:
“Now JavaScript! Perl! Now Python and Ruby!
On Haskell! on Clojure! on Scala and Groovy!
To the Web-facing site, to the edge firewall,
Now bash away, bash away, bash away all!”
The download completed, though I tried to abort,
And a little man popped out a USB port!
His glasses — how thick! His gut — a real softy!
And his beard was all stained with cold pizza and coffee.
He was nerdy and plump, a right jolly old geek,
Though he smelled like he hadn’t had a bath in a week.
He spoke not a word, but went right ahead
He wiped off all Windows, installed *nix instead
The software I’d need, he downloaded it all
(Still using less space than a fresh Win install).
In the USB port he inserted his thumb
And vanished right into it the way he had come
But I heard him exclaim, ere I even had missed ‘im
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good system!

From http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/project-management/?p=277&tag=nl.e101:

‘Twas the night before Christmas (or “holiday break”)
But I was still working — I kicked off a rake.
Secure shells were placed on my desktop with care,
So no one could sniff what I typed away there.
My clients’ hot issues were all put to bed,
But what those had preempted still caused me to dread.
So I in my bathrobe (’twas cold in that room)
Had just settled down for a long game of Doom.
When out on the WAN there arose such a mess
I thought that it must be a DDoS!
Away to the firewall I flew like Jet Li
Denied all incoming, even SMTP.
But as I more closely inspected each packet,
I realized with awe what was causing the racket:
A download! What format? I couldn’t have known it
But I found it included a textual component:
“Now JavaScript! Perl! Now Python and Ruby!
On Haskell! on Clojure! on Scala and Groovy!
To the Web-facing site, to the edge firewall,
Now bash away, bash away, bash away all!”
The download completed, though I tried to abort,
And a little man popped out a USB port!
His glasses — how thick! His gut — a real softy!
And his beard was all stained with cold pizza and coffee.
He was nerdy and plump, a right jolly old geek,
Though he smelled like he hadn’t had a bath in a week.
He spoke not a word, but went right ahead
He wiped off all Windows, installed *nix instead
The software I’d need, he downloaded it all
(Still using less space than a fresh Win install).
In the USB port he inserted his thumb
And vanished right into it the way he had come
But I heard him exclaim, ere I even had missed ‘im
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good system!

I found a neat part of the Divine Pymander I’d either forgotten about or just took for granted. It tells you which parts of the self you are to overcome, or surrender, in each sphere to attain the next highest level.

As you ascend through the spheres, whether you’re using the method I outlined in the kinetic meditation post, or via some other means, I think the following information is useful.

The first stage is the dissolution of the body. Whether that means death or not, I don’t claim to know. Personally, I interpret it as being able to leave the body to perform spiritual Work in the different spheres.

I had wanted to detail each stage, but I just don’t have the time anymore to devote to lengthy blog posts. Until I get more time, the posts will likely be shorter; I can hear you weeping now. But seriously, meditate on the following excerpt (copy-pasted from http://www.hermetic.com/ under their Classical texts section, if I remember right). Starting at the Moon, begin to give up the desires listed as you Work your way up. It’s what I’m focussing on at the moment in my meditation time.

And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafter upwards through the Harmony.

To the first zone he gives the Energy of Growth and Waning; unto the second [zone], Device of Evils [now] de-energized; unto the third, the Guile of the Desires de-energized; unto the fourth, his Domineering Arrogance, [also] de-energized; unto the fifth, unholy Daring and the Rashness of Audacity, de-energized; unto the sixth, Striving for Wealth by evil means, deprived of its aggrandizement; and to the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized.

I had this image from somewhere on the ‘net, and I’ve been meaning to post about it, but didn’t have the context. Thanks to brother Inominandum’s Star Wars-themed post at Strategic Sorcery, I have an excuse!

The piece is based on the OBEY art project’s nationally famous Obama poster. It’s pretty unrelated to magic, unless you understand the Gra’al quest is epitomized in Episodes 4-6, AND you equate that to the Great Work, AND you think that we are performing our own Gra’al Quest as we ritually conjure the experiences in life that result in the esoteric manifestations of the Alchemical Processes that create the Stone…

Hey, it’s on topic after all, with very little stretching of the imagination. Thanks to Susanne and Stalking Hyena for the comments on the Animal Stone mentioned in the Ode to a Weasle post yesterday. That’s why I was back at the Alchemy Web Site and could fit it into today’s post.

I found a neat part of the Divine Pymander I’d either forgotten about or just took for granted. It tells you which parts of the self you are to overcome, or surrender, in each sphere to attain the next highest level.

As you ascend through the spheres, whether you’re using the method I outlined in the kinetic meditation post, or via some other means, I think the following information is useful.

The first stage is the dissolution of the body. Whether that means death or not, I don’t claim to know. Personally, I interpret it as being able to leave the body to perform spiritual Work in the different spheres.

I had wanted to detail each stage, but I just don’t have the time anymore to devote to lengthy blog posts. Until I get more time, the posts will likely be shorter; I can hear you weeping now. But seriously, meditate on the following excerpt (copy-pasted from http://www.hermetic.com/ under their Classical texts section, if I remember right). Starting at the Moon, begin to give up the desires listed as you Work your way up. It’s what I’m focussing on at the moment in my meditation time.

And thus it is that man doth speed his way thereafter upwards through the Harmony.

To the first zone he gives the Energy of Growth and Waning; unto the second [zone], Device of Evils [now] de-energized; unto the third, the Guile of the Desires de-energized; unto the fourth, his Domineering Arrogance, [also] de-energized; unto the fifth, unholy Daring and the Rashness of Audacity, de-energized; unto the sixth, Striving for Wealth by evil means, deprived of its aggrandizement; and to the seventh zone, Ensnaring Falsehood, de-energized.

Today I received an email advertising Pushing Ulltimates, by “Lew Paz.” I don’t know why they sent me this email, but I wasn’t thrilled.

However, to give it a fair shake, I went to the web site and looked at the publishing house’s credentials. They have only Lew’s book to their credit. Lew designed the publishing house’s trademark. I think they might be rather friendly with old Lew, personally. You know. Friendly.

So I went through the excerpts they had on their site. The book purports to be a modern philosopher’s foray into the mind and self awareness. I think. It was confusing. The excerpts show that most of this book is made up of quotes that illustrate the author’s point. He uses really big words too.

Here’s a sample from the Excerpts page:

From the works of numerous scholars of varied fields, it is clear that a vast proportion of the population is alienated from authentic self-awareness. This alienation has been described as a psychological/spiritual stultification of the evolution of consciousness, brought about by mass subservience toward external socially oriented goals, which disregard knowledge of human spiritual essence. As the great Hindu sage Sri Aurobindo maintained, authentic knowledge begins when we probe beyond appearances, beyond ossified traditional belief systems and sterile scientism. The quality of knowledge this book is concerned with is, as the scholar Henri Corbin wrote, “knowledge that changes and transforms the knowing subject.”

For serious.

Ok, now as a writer, I know how much effort went into this book. I know he thinks it’s important. He spent all that time writing, editing, and then promoting his book. Designing the web site probably took an hour or two in itself. And registering the domain must be costing him at least $15. So it’s not only time and effort, it’s real capital he’s invested into this work.

And it might actually help someone. Somewhere. With a large vocabulary. Who is easily impressed by proof-text quotes from alleged spiritual masters they’ve never heard of.

Me, I wasn’t too impressed. But since they took the time to send me an email, I decided to take the time and give it a review based on what they have publicly available.

I think it sucks. I would rather see people go out and do magic than waste a dime or an iota of time reading this kind of self-serving new age crap. Magic is free, the knowledge you need is free, and this dude’s insights… Well, let’s just say that it’s easy to find other people to quote who agree with the author becuase these aren’t exactly original.

It’s repackaged, sure, and seriously, the guy spent a long time writing it, and that’s worthy of respect, but there’s a lot of dreck that takes a long time to write available. So hats off for finishing a manuscript, Lew Paz, but next time make it more approachable, drop the quotes, and tell us what you really experienced and think about it.

“Rosco P. Coltrane” was the name to you we gave,
soon to be written in childe’s scrawl above your garden grave.
“Pets die more oft’ than people do,” I told her as she cried,
it didn’t help because to her more than a weasle died.
A friend, a toy, a pet, a joy, the girl had lost too much.
I held her as she sobbed and shook, and blubbered on, and such.

I do not understand, I’m sure, the pleasure she had found
in that smelly, creepy-looking thing that recently had drown’d.
So my silence I shall keep on this, I will not bitch or moan
or mention that we have a chance to make the Animal Stone.
For now, Rosco, I bid adieu, and hope the childe can bear it,
this grief your passing brought to us, so long you smelly ferret.

(C) 2008, Rufus Opus