It has come to my attention that some people are surprised to discover that when I get upset with people on the internet, I frequently and regularly curse the fuck out of them, over seemingly trivial things.

How to Curse the HECK out of People on the Internet

• Get upset about something someone says on the internet.
• Hover over their name and look at their profile pic.
• Say the magick words:
• “Fuck that piece of shit.“
• Continue as if nothing had happened.

In a Mars hour of a Mars day (Tuesday at dawn) make a pentacle to Mars with the following symbols, one on each side:

“Source of all that manifests through symbolic Word into this loving World, hear me and grant that the mighty spirits Madimiel, Gheuriel, Ithiel, and Barchethiel administer through this pentacle the distribution of the forces of Mars that being armed therewith, if I am attacked by any one, I will neither be injured nor wounded when I fight with them, and their own weapons shall turn against them, as it has been written:

Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bow shall be broken. 

Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bow shall be broken. 

Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bow shall be broken. 

Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bow shall be broken. 

Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bow shall be broken. 

“Thou spirits Madimiel, Gheuriel, Ithiel, and Barchethiel, hear me and turn all weapons and attacks sent against me back upon those who would see evil done upon me. Let every spell and scourge of God sent against me be returned to their source. May all evils aimed at me be returned upon them. Accept this offering of fire, and of smoke, and go forth to do these things for me in power.”

The other day, I was talking to a friend about our magical experiences, and she mentioned that she often has dreams of leading the dead to doors so they can pass over/through whatever.

Having this kind of experience all her life made her think she was crazy, dreaming of the dead all the time, and she spent a lot of her life dealing with everything we all deal with, plus weird visions of walking the dead on through to the next thing, like a psychopomp.

Now, it should be noted, I’m no expert on any of this stuff, and we’re going to be talking about “finding your calling” in this occult world. It’s a pretty big topic, so don’t pretend I know everything about this one, it’s bigger than I am.

A lot of my students over the years, and a ton of my friends into Thelema are often carrying on about the “True Will” or finding their “Genius” so they can find out what they want to do. I’m going to call this thing “your calling,” the thing that you called yourself to do in this incarnation, the thing that you’ve been called on to do, by the fates, the gods, the stars, your higher self, whatever. The basic theory is that there’s a thing you were born to do that fills you with an inner peace and contentment, a satiated sensation of being fulfilled when you’re in the moment doing the thing. It can be yard maintenance, your patio, some flowers in the house, a curated bonsai garden, your heirloom tomatoes. It can be fixing all things mechanical, being born with hands that naturally know when a bolt is tight enough, or that the plug’s fouled, or that the carb isn’t getting enough oxygen.

It can be an inclination that you’re called to all your life. Service to society, to our religious groups, to our gods and ancestors. It can be political, or academic. It can be the military life, or even excel spreadsheets that bring you to contentment. I once knew a completely at-peace-with-life office manager whose greatest pleasure was seeing someone go get a pen, and there being a pen in the office supply drawer because she made sure there was.

Your true calling can be anything. In the Hermetic approach I use, I went through the seven spheres, ascended through initiations and Work, and return in power, and determined that my purpose is to create the world as I see fit, a fully empowered creator-god. But then … what do I create? Job house car? Wealth health prosperity? True Love?

Joy?

Then I started talking about this stuff, and then I started teaching about it, and I found that I am happiest in life when I am standing in front of a crowd talking about esoteric subjects. My true calling, it turns out, is to share what I know and encourage others to do the Great Work. Let dem magicians know they’re magicians.

So back to my friend with the visions, see, we get massive hints and clues about who we are and what we want and what we’re going to be happiest doing. She gets visions of walking the dead through doors. I’m betting that’s a good indication that she’s called to be a psychopomp, a Hekate-type, a Hermes Chthonios-type. Heck, Bune would work well with his link to the spirits. She’s called to escort the dead, I think, so she’d likely do well in a profession that deals with the transitions between life and death. Morgue work, funeral planning, coffin design, crematorium consultant. Or grief counselor, someone who walks the still living through the letting go. Because I worked with Bune on necromancy, I kind of had a moment of “recognition” of that kind of psychopompery for the spirits of the humans.

We don’t all get that kind of vision to hint at what we’re supposed to be doing though, right? I mean, wouldn’t it be great if I knew my whole life I’d be happiest teaching esoterica? I could have studied and practiced and gotten good at it, right? I personally think not, I was horrified to speak in public until I started teaching the occult stuff. It wasn’t until I could fulfill my calling I figured it out.

But we might be getting these hints and clues the whole time, and just don’t see them. She dreamed her whole life about escorting the dead, but never met anyone who recognized that as a psychopomp indicator.

So look for the things that you’re actually interested in doing. The things that made you happier, if not happy. Look for recurring themes that travel through your life. Listen for the voice that’s guided you, not where you wanted to go necessarily, but to where you are in your life now. It’s telling you what you want to do, through your actions. It’s telling you why you’re here through your passions, your interests, your desires, the things you do that make you think deep thoughts, or feel great emotions, or pop endorphins at the gym until you can’t see straight.

The things that you try to do and suck at? That’s not your profession, or your genius. That’s just you being stubborn.

Which could be your true calling.

Ultimately, your “true calling” is going to be “to create something.” Something that is tangible or not, something that changes the world, or is just for you and you never show anyone. Situations, lifestyles, all that stuff. You’ll find it when you least expect it, and you’ll find it’s something you are really comfortable doing, and you’ll have the encouragement, approval, and acceptance of all those you help by making yourself happy.

Actual Photo of Bleeding Edge 19th Century Occultists, Circa 1902, Colorized

There’s a reason Aleister Crowley and the Theosophical peers of his day looked around at the world in which we live and breathe, and dreamed of a council of wise adepts looking down on the lot of us as a species, with a plan in mind, and some tools in hand, and Words that might change the outcome, for the better.

It’s because they were hanging out with the cutting edge occultists of their time.

And saw, that point in fact, the cutting edge occultists of their times were stupid. Stupid stupid heads, with little grace, ingenuity, inspiration, charisma, or talent. Leadbetter and his pedophilia, Blavatsky and her letters from Koot Hoomie that materialized in her closet, in her own handwriting, Gurdjieff and his blatant frauderies, Mathers running off to Paris to live off his wife’s prostitution (nothing wrong with prostitution, but the guy could have tried to get a job), Westcott’s buffoonery, Bennett’s hippie communism (which was also ok), Waite’s incredibly boring ways to talk about things he didn’t understand …

And while Crowley had plenty of faults he didn’t care to see, he also knew how stupid he was, referring to himself as “the Imp Crowley.”

These were cutting edge magicians, the bleeding edge of their day.

Greedy self-important folk, mostly, renowned for being frauds, liars, thieves, and scoundrels. And yet, Rosicrucianism was supposed to be a spiritual path that perfected the soul, brought wisdom, and healed the world through the alchemical marriage.

Well, OBVIOUSLY NOT THESE GUYS…

So there had to be someone up higher on the foodchain, who had done the magick, and succeeded, and attained the wisdom, and so forth and so on, right?

Thus … the Secret Chiefs, who hang out in the City of Pyramids being dust and watching over the rest of us little monkeys and imps. They must exist, otherwise … what?

Me, I’m not sold on their existence. I did some magick a few years ago to get into that space, and it was a lot like visiting Atlantis in a guided meditation when I was 16 after reading too much Cayce and Dion Fortune, and Crowley’s Moon Child. Interesting imagery, completely catered to my expectations, and producing no verifiable information that would make me think it was anything more than confirmation bias. I didn’t leave knowing anything I didn’t know going in.

Harper and I have been doing a lot of conjurations the last few weeks that have been compeltely different. I have 14 years of actual magical experience with spirits that provide info I couldn’t know, that effect change practically and pragmatically in the material world, that have an existence outside of my imagination.

So I’m done with them.

I’m a flawed person, doing my own best to make the world a better place, for magicians first, because then we can pass that on for others. I say things other people won’t say, because to them Silence is safer, and to keep from hurting others. I get that, I spent most of my early days hiding behind my pseudonym because I didn’t want to bear the repercussions that come from being honest.

I got over it.

I talk about what I consider unrighteous action, fundamental juvenility that goes on behind closed doors, and the blatant misrepresentation of fact within the OTO leadership. What are they going to do, kick me out? Yes, that’s what they did. Woooooo. I talk about the abuse of Peter Gray’s writings, and his unwillingness to address that publicly, because I think that needs to be done. What’s going to happen? People who worship him as the savior of British Occultism aren’t going to like me? Woooooo.

Everyone in the OTO knows that I care about the Order, how it behaves, and my Oaths. Lots of ’em think I do it all wrong, and even more think I should keep it quiet. But for every dozen hateful despisers of my techniques, there is at least one person who has come to me privately, thanking me, asking what they should do, who to contact within the Order to talk about things, tapping into the courage to stand up and say, no, this is wrong. I send them to the ombudsman, their fellow victims, the women fighting for them within the Order who have been through this for years and are striving to make a change.

For all few thousand Scarlet Imprint fans on the planet, maybe half a dozen people have contacted me to say something to the effect of “finally, someone said it.” Hopefully more people will say it, that yea, the BDSM kink thing is powerful, but it’s not for everyone, and it can be easily manipulated to remove authority by bad people with ill intentions, and becoming an adolescent fantasy of a sex slave is not the only path to power. Witches weren’t powerful because they went to the dungeons. They were incarcerated, tortured, and punished for having power that existed long before they were torn apart and put back together by sexually repressed men who can’t see women as people.

I’ve fallen into the trap of my own imagination when it comes to what I say publicly. I think everyone knows me, knows my heart, has read my thoughtful explorations of things over the last few years, and knows that I’m not just a drunken idiot with a keyboard and a bottle of bourbon, and too much time on my hands.

So I’m toning down the bombastic rhetoric.

I’ll take the time to explain what I’m concerned about, in small words, in reasonable ways. Because too many people see the vitriol and toss it out, without thinking about why I am saying these things.

So back to the Secret Chiefs. They had to exist, because people were obviously flawed, and yet they were also magicians. And yet, they don’t.

We’re in charge of ourselves, our actions, and the consequences. Our evolution. Our responses, our love, and our passion, and our anger. It’s us. We are the Chiefs.

Go be a Chief, and I’ll keep doing it too. Judge, jury, and the occasional bombast, with or without “all the facts” or the “full understanding” of the situation, with or without “both sides of the story.” You hurt my brothers or sisters, you bring harm, I’m going to do something about it, because for some reason I have that impact on people.

And a stable full of spirits.

Lights on the sepulchres, in the City of Pyramids.

Harper Feist and Soror Mimm at the Magickal Women Conference in London, 2019

Soror Mimm’s got my support, and her services can be found at the following link:

http://store.yeoldemagicshoppe.com/index.php/product-category/services/

While I gotta say, this woman is one of the brattiest princesses I’ve ever met, she’s an amazing magician, a hilarious dinner conversationalist, and not too shabby when it comes to the magick side of things. I got to hang out with her in London at the Magickal Women Conference, where she presented Women of the Golden Dawn, Past, Present, and Future.

We met, and I was like, dude, do I even know you? And then she started to walk away, and I was all, WAIT! YOU’RE SOROR MIMM! She’s still mad at me about that one. Sigh.

She’s been giving me shit for years, one of the ear marks of someone who’s got courage, wit, and charm. It was such a pleasure to meet her in the flesh. Lovely, charming, and carrying a deadly wit she’s not afraid to use.

Turns out she’s an accomplished magician in spite of her affiliation with the Golden Dawn, and is offering magical products and services, including readings, herbal consultations, coaching in ceremonial magick and witchcraft, and various other implements and wyrdings.

She’s one of the few people I’d trust with providing goods and services, and honestly the only GD member I’d take seriously in this kind of endeavor.

For more information, her semi-official bio reads something like:

Soror Mimm is an initiate in the Golden Dawn tradition in the Temple of Thoth Amen-Ra, an independent Golden DawnTemple located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains of Denver, Colorado. She is also the Praemonstator of her Temple and is a Chief of her order. She is the owner and operator of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe where she teaches a variety of classes and workshops on magical herbalism, witchcraft, and ceremonial magic and is the owner of Peacock Publishing, an independent publisher of esoteric and occult subjects.

Alison and I met and hit it off in the old days, when Crucible was still a thing. Feels like we talked all night the first time we met, about everything from ascension through the spheres to Betz and the GMP.

She’s continued to grow in her practice and I’d even dare say power as she’s accomplished results that appear downright miraculous in her personal work. 

She’s put together a service that includes Key of Solomon Talismans, Philacteries, and I understand she’s going to be releasing several other traditional grimoiric tools, and items from the Greek Magical Papyri. She is one of the best friends, supports, and allies to have, if you’re lucky enough to get to know her. I’d keep her to myself if I wasn’t actually trying to help you people have a better world to live in.

Her work can be found at Practical Occult Jewelry on Facebook.

Below are some more samples of her works and wares. I can’t encourage you enough to reach out and get her working for you, either on a service level, or through the materials she hand cuts, engraves, and consecrates. the stories I’ve heard from her clients about how she’s changed their lives are amazing.

“Grow a pair” is a common euphemism in my culture for “get some balls,*” which in turn is yet another euphemism for “stand up for yourself, have courage, be confident, and know that if you get beat down and bloodied, fired, left for someone else, or otherwise harmed verbally, emotionally, or physically, it will have been because you stood for something you think matters.”

And hey, worst thing they can do is hurt you mercilessly until they kill you. It’ll suck, and then it will be over. Big deal, don’t be a crybaby. Everyone gets out in the end.

Grow a pair.

But … how does one do that?

Most of my favorite magicians are scared of people, attention, and fame.

The rest are ballsy, drive the attention they get on purpose, and are actually famous, and they’re ok with that. They figured out the secret.**

It’s a combination of risk-taking, and trust-in-outcome, specifically a positive one.

Taking risks is hard for a lot of people. Usually they have been abused, molested, bullied, and cow-towed into believing that if they raise their hand it will be chopped off, if they stand up, they will be shot down, in conversation, in social circles, in their careers, so they take the safer path and attempt to manipulate their personal outcomes as much as possible without rocking the boat. I’d say they were great at Martial discipline, because they find the boundaries early, and never, ever cross them, working within the systems and processes to accomplish their aims, or get as close to them as possible.

If that makes you happy enough, good for you. You don’t need a pair.

But sooner or later, I always got sick of that shit. I mean, I tried for a long time to fit in, and then I had enough, and did the Big Quit at a job, and found out that not only was my Manager a passive aggressive conformist, but also that he had zero impact on the rest of my life. Didn’t need him as a reference, there were plenty of other people there who liked me and thought I did good, because I did good. Fuck him. I never thought about him again, after months of abuse and degrading comments, I never thought about him again for the rest of my life.

The rest of my life.

See, that’s the thing, the rest of your life.

When we get scared to say something, it’s because we’re afraid in the place we’re at to say something because we might lose that part of our lives. But that’s bullshit. To keep silent (tacere), we have to forget momentarily that telling this friend of many years that they are being a dickhead is no big deal, simply because we have and will continue to have more friends, who will be better. We have to make ourselves forget that we can get another job. We have to actively repress the fact that we will have love, appreciation, and sex again should this relationship fail. Life isn’t limited to the thing you’re stressing about.

“Your life, your experience of existence is never tied to the Now.”

Step 1: Remember Life is Bigger. It’s bigger than this right-now-thing you’re dealing with, and your jobs, your friends, your relationship, even your children and parents will go the fuck away and you’ll somehow end up with others in their place that are better. Your life, your experience of existence is never tied to the Now.

So when you realize this, you aren’t so scared of pissing off the person in front of you. The person in “power” at a company or organization. Your lover, boss, friend, body master, Bishop, co-worker, spouse, kid that you brought into this world who you need to love and protect, you aren’t scared of pissing them off anymore.

Not when you have something worth saying, about what’s right.

Once you’re past that point, where you realize that principles matter, you matter, and what you intend to do matters, and the world can take it or leave it without robbing you of joy and wealth and peace and happiness forever, you’re free from your obligation to them. You’re free to choose whether or not you want to do a thing regardless of the consequences, because you’ll just handle them. That’s what we do, we handle it. Move on, build more, continue. We don’t die til we’re dead, so we can make choices that might seem risky to the safeness of conformity.

“Take these risks, and then watch what happens.”

Step 2: Take Risks. When you’re starting out, take some small risks. Talk back to your employer, post your actual opinion about a stupid post on the internet by a friend, tell the truth, mention names and dates and events that people who are respected in your community actually did shitty things. Take these risks, and then watch what happens. Turns out, there’s nothing worse than what you put up with while keeping your head down.

In this process, you’ll find that sometimes, rarely, but sometimes you are wrong. Growing a pair also means that you recognize when you’re wrong, own it, and apologize. And then move on. No one has to forgive you, but to stand up for what is right, you must be willing to acknowledge when you’re wrong, so that you can change, and become right. Be strong in your pursuit of righteousness. Be willing to change.

After a couple of smaller risks, you’ll begin to notice that it’s not that bad. Not nearly as bad as you thought it might be. Standing up for yourself, you’ll begin to notice that you have both positive and negative impacts on your life, the circles of your family, your society, and your career that you move through and within. As with any skill, you’ll find yourself getting better at it, the more you do it. In no time at all, you’ll begin to feel a thing inside you, growing, and affirming itself with your every choice.

“you’re going to start understanding how this whole thing works, this life we lead.”

Step 3: Embrace the Confidence. As you do the things that change your life, watch how it changes, and learn how to change it better, you’re going to start understanding how this whole thing works, this life we lead. You’ll know when you’re right, and you’ll know when you can advance your aims and objectives with a simple couple of words, a conversation in the hall, and you’ll begin to find that you know what you’re doing, pretty much, especially compared to everyone else. Embrace that feeling of righteousness when it pops up, accept that hey, actually, you’re really good at living your life the way you see fit.

And again, be willing to be wrong and correct yourself. Shit happens, and life goes on. Saying you’re sorry only makes you look strong, and willing to do better.

I won’t pretend there’s three simple steps to becoming a ballsy person, regardless of gender. This shit is hard, for sure, but these things taught me that I am a thing, a force of nature, a person whose words change lives, especially my own. These are the Hermetic teachings that I think mattered more to me in my progress than anything else.

We are not invisible. We are not “don’t matter” individuals. We breathe, we eat, we think, we progress. We change the world daily.

We matter.

* For the purposes of this post, we are ignoring the blatant sexism underlying these euphemisms, and focusing on the intent which applies to everyone across the gender spectrum. When “balls” become a cultural icon that is disconnected from the men born with them, the patriarchy will be universally eviscerated as all people claim “balls” and that intent of being courageous behind the word. Cajones. Virility, the insertion of life upon the earth. Women, men, girls, boys, we can all “have balls” in the cultural sense, do what we think is right, stand for ourselves, own it, mean it, and take the consequences with our heads held high.

** I think the best magicians are the latch-key kids, who were abandoned, ignored by their dads and moms, who figured out mostly in a vacuum how the world works and how to feed ourselves, and ended up doing magick because we found out unseen forces react to words and intent, and that regardless of whether we are seen, we have power.

     Just an opinion.