Rufus Opus

Category: Blogspot Archive

Category: Blogspot Archive

  • Haniel: Archangel of Venus

    Last Friday, I performed a conjuration of Haniel.

    It went fairly well, and I went through the usual process; I asked if it liked the Spirit Box thing I made, and it said it did. I asked if there was anything I needed to be aware of within my own Sphere of Venus that needed to be addressed, and it pointed out a couple of things. I asked a few specific favors for myself and my friends, and it indicated it would be able to address them. As usual, I asked for any money that it could send my way through its sphere of influence, and it agreed to. I asked to be taken on a tour of the sphere of Venus in a vision, and it complied.

    When I asked if there was anything in my own Sphere of influence related to Venus that I needed to address, I saw in the crystal a bunch of little points of light appear. It was like watching a night sky; first you know there are stars there, and you can see the brightest, but then you become aware of even more stars that were there the whole time, and as I watched, they twinkled. I knew as they appeared that each point of light represented a friend of mine, and as I went to each point of light in the crystal, I asked for favors for friends. Healing of a wounded heart here and there, creativity and passion for their art there, and purity and cleansing in other places.

    When I asked for money, it was sort of an afterthought, towards the end of the session. The next day my spouse sold a wedding dress (we have managed to accumulate three altogether over the years) for $100. I thought that was pretty neat.

    When I asked for a tour of the Venusian realm, I was taken to a park in my imagination. The park is a local Christian gathering place. The lad that owned the farm left it to a bunch of caretakers with the stipulation that the grounds be used for Christian activities. There’s a little pond they keep stocked with fish, there’s a Christian private school on the premises, and in the summer they have a huge Christian day camp that meets there. Weather permitting, every Friday night they show family-friendly movies on a big screen they set up by the pond, and they have a huge pool. They also have acres of corn fields and these beautiful rolling hills. It’s a nice spot. Not what I’d think of as Venusian, of course.

    But Haniel appeared beside me, and showed me around. I usually see the archangels as androgynous faces in the crystal. This was different. She was definitely a she, and she showed me around the area. As she did, I saw life abundant. I saw nature in her beauty. Everything was charged and pulsating, flowing through the plants and animals and all the elements like green lightning. Everything was charged, crisp and clear. She smiled at me, and asked if I understood. In that moment, I did.

  • More on Kinetic Meditation

    In a previous post, I talked about how important it is to draw the seals of the spirits, and about how as I carved the seals of the different spirits, I would feel their presence in the room or within my sphere of influence.

    I’ve been reading Enochian Vision Magick by Lon Milo DuQuette. I hadn’t read it before writing that post, and he couldn’t have read my post and written about the same idea, but nevertheless, he talks about the same thing in the book regarding the Enochian Angels. He talks about how as you write out the Sigilum Dei Aemyth, you are building it into your sphere. He doesn’t put it that way, but the same idea is reflected throughout the book. He talks about how making the tools of Enochian magic programs the magician, and prepares them to perform the magic. It’s like an initiation into the system.(1)

    But today I’d like to talk about the Magic Circle, specifically the names found in the one from the Lemegeton’s Goetia.(2) It’s possibly the most thorough protective circle I’ve ever seen. Understanding that circle is key to being able to work with the spirits of the Goetia. It builds around the magician a miniature representation of all the forces of all the spheres between here and the throne of God. It places the magician right smack dab in the center of the manifest and unmanifest universe. It represents the path of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. It is key, in my opinion, to all the other forms of grimoire magic that are available.

    The circle shown to the right is from Crowley-Mathers’ The Goetia. I’ve made it as large as possible, but it’s still hard to make out the details. Plus it’s in Hebrew.

    The names and planetary symbols in the outermost circle are taken from Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten. Joe Peterson points this out in his notes on the Magic Circle. Prior to actually making a life-sized circle, I never bothered trying to read this information. I figured I had either read it before in Kraig’s Modern Magic, or it wasn’t that important. I assumed an LBRP would be fine for years. I had no idea what I was doing.

    When I finally made the circle, I began to understand why this thing is so important. As I painstakingly painted each name or office, I went further into a sort of trance-like state. Lon talks about how he gets into a trance state by tapping the letters of the Table of Practice in the Enochian book while chanting the names of the letters aloud. I understand; this is a powerful technique. I wasn’t even chanting the names or offices, I would simply say them aloud to myself while I was painting them so I wouldn’t forget them and have to go back to my notes. (They were all the way across the floor on the other side of the garage, after all.)

    By the time I was finished, I was in a zone unlike any other I had been in before. I ended up screwing up some of the names, and had to re-prime the circle and start over again, and I haven’t finished it yet, but that’s beside the point. The point is, it’s a form of kinetic meditation.

    So let’s go over the names in the circle. As noted by Joe, the names and offices of the circle are taken from Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten. The names included are:

    • The Ten Names of God
    • The Ten Names of the Sephiroth
    • The Ten Orders of the Blessed According to the Traditions of Men
    • The Ten Angels Ruling
    • The Ten Spheres of the World

    Only nine of each are listed; the Lemegeton specifies that they begin at Eheyeh and end at Lavanah.

    I don’t use the Tree of Life as my primary working model. I prefer the Ptolemaic geocentric model of concentric spheres centered on the earth. It doesn’t really matter though, because I still have ten spheres to work with that match up to the ten Sephiroth pretty well. When I wrote out my circle, I kept the ten names of God, but eliminated the names of the sephiroth. I wrote the Names of God in Celestial Script, my favorite version of the Hebrew Alephbet.

    The names of the Ten Orders of the Blessed (this refers to the Ranks of the angels in each sphere) that are used in the Crowley-Mathers Goetia are the Hebrew names. I used the names from Dionysius. (These names appear in the same row of the table on Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Ten.) Dionysius helped me understand a lot about the celestial spheres, and how to work with them as a Christian. I believe they are translations of the Hebrew names of angelic ranks or orders, but I don’t know for sure. If you look through the descriptions of the spirits of the Goetia though, you’ll find they are sometimes referred to as being of the order of Powers, or Thrones, for example. These are Dionysius’ terms, not the Hebrew terms. It sort of seems to be more appropriate to stick with the Dionysian terminology, at least to me.

    For the Ten Angels Ruling, I left Metatron and Iophiel as the angelic rulers of the spheres of the Primum Mobile and Fixed Stars, respectively. I haven’t worked with either before, and have mostly kept to thespheres of the planets in my Work. The rest of the angel names were fine, except for Michael and Raphael. I still use the Trithemian attributions, with Michael in the Sun, and Raphael in Mercury.

    Between each sphere, you place a cross, represented here with a + sign. When I was finished, I should have had:

    + AHYH Seraphim Metatron Sphere of the Primum Mobile + YHVH Cherubim Jophiel Sphere of the Fixed Stars + YHVH ALHYM Thrones Tzaphqiel [Planetary Symbol of Saturn] + AL Dominations Tzadqiel [Planetary Symbol of Jupiter] + ALHYM GYBR Powers Kammael [Planetary Symbol of Mars] + ALVH Virtues Michael [Planetary Symbol of the Sun] + YHVH TzBAVTh  Principalities Haniel [Planetary Symbol of Venus] + ALHYM TzBAVTh Archangels Raphael [Planetary Symbol of Mercury] + ShDY Angels Gabriel [Planetary Symbol of the Moon +

    I don’t remember exactly what I had messed up now. I think I had put the Principalities on twice and skipped the Virtues, or something like that. I had also run out of room, and my font size was rapidly shrinking. While it would have remained usable, I wanted it to look better than that, so I let it dry and then had the kids paint it white again.

    Now, based on this exercise and the resulting state of mind (even typing it now, I’ve entered into a different perspective than I normally operate from), I’ve come up with the following exercise. It’s fairly simple, and it results in a harmonizing effect within your sphere of influence.

    You’ll need a compass and a blank piece of paper to do this all yourself. I’ll throw together an image you can print too.

    You want to draw 11 concentric circles, each a half-inch wider than the previous.

    You’ll be writing out the names of God, the Orders of Angelic hosts, the Rulers of the Angelic hosts, and the symbol of the sphere in each circle, once from the center moving outward, and again moving downward.

    In addition, as you write out the names of the Angelic Rulers, for a little added umph, you can include the sigils of each angel of the Planetary Spheres.

    In the next image, I’ve got the names of God, the Orders of Angels, the sigils of the Planetary Angels where available from the Magical Calendar (reproduced in PowerPoint to avoid copyright issues), the Angels’ names, and the Planetary symbols for each sphere.

    In the center sphere, write out your name or Magical Motto. As you write it out, vibrate the name in a low chanting voice. In the circle above, write out the God Name for the Sphere of the Moon, vibrating the name as you write it and picturing the letters in your mind’s eye at the same time. Write out the Order of Angelic host next, and again, vibrate the name. It feels a little silly vibrating “Angels,” or at least it does to me. If you prefer the Hebrew names of the orders, they’re in Agrippa’s Second Book of Occult Philosophy, Chapter 13. Next draw the seal of the Angel of the Sphere and his (her, its) name, again vibrating the name as you do. Finally draw in the symbol of the planet, or Sphere of the Zodiac/Prime Mover while vibrating “The sphere of [insert appropriate planet/sphere here].”

    Do this going up from your name through each Sphere. When you get to the top, go back down, this time drawing a cross at the front of each list of the sphere’s attributes as you vibrate all the names again. When you get back to the center, you should be feeling something pretty groovy.

    There are a host of other ways to do this. This particular exercise harmonizes your sphere, and prepares you to work with the grimoires of the Lemegeton in general, and specifically the Goetia. I’m interested in how others experience this, if anyone tries it. Feel free to leave comments about your experiences below, or email them to me directly if you want them kept private.

    (1) I think we’re working within the same current on this kind of thing, he and I. I’m sure he’s much further along than I am, as well he should be after practicing as long as he has. While it’s neat to find the ideas I’m having and the foundation of my own magical practices reflected in his work, you know, like a confirmation that I’m doing something right, it’s also frustrating. Eventually I’d like to be a published occult author, but the way things are going, it’ll look like I’m parroting his work. I’m totally not. I swear I didn’t read about this before, it’s based on my experiences. So is his stuff. I guess that magicians that do similar work have similar results, reach similar conclusions about how the seals and circles work within the magician. Shocking, I know.

    (2) I’d like to take a minute to thank Joe Peterson for putting all these old manuscripts on his site. They have helped me incredibly over the past two years, and whatever blessing I have to give I give to him in thanks.

  • Failures and Successes

    Well, yesterday I learned that I can’t always do things perfectly the first time I try them. I know, I should know by now, but still, I tend to think everything I do should work the first time, just because I’m me. Fr. POS assures me that’s too much to ask.

    Specifically, I tried to make a Pentagonal Figure of Solomon. I carved a beautiful one out of beeswax, no easy task I assure you. I measured the angles of the star, had each at a nearly-perfect 72 degrees, had all the names in and the symbols, and the Tetragrammaton… It was nice, it was really really nice.

    I poured plaster over it to make a mold for the silver. That sort of worked, well enough, but there were some bubbles because I poured it too thick too fast, and just did it … wrong. But when the plaster had dried, I put it in the oven for a couple of hours upside down over a pie pan to catch the wax, which melted out. The mold was close enough to let me get a decent seal and then have a little clean up to do with the dremel tool.

    I melted the silver, and poured it into the mold. I don’t have a smelter, so I used a MAP gas torch to melt it. It wasn’t a good, even melt, and I ended up oxidizing a lot of the silver (it turns to powder). Then when I tried to pour it into the mold, it solidified on the way, so I got lumps of silver drops in the mold. It sucked royally.The places where the silver actually landed on the mold didn’t even get a decent impression of the symbols. It really sucked.

    Lessons learned: I need more heat, a crucible, and a centrifuge. I need to do the stupid lost-wax thing the right way. And I need to not think I can do everything perfect the first time.

    Today, things went much better. I made a talisman for Haniel out of copper. In the hour of Venus, on the Day of Venus, I cut a copper tube, opened it up, and hit it with the MAP torch until it had begun to melt. I like to melt it a bit so that it’s actually solidifying in the appropriate planetary hour, and freezing the “energies” of the moment into the metals.

    I put a patina on it using the MAP torch and a quenching process, and then sanded the back of it using a dremel tool flap-sander bit. that was so it would rest on the electrodes of my Conjure Box and make a solid circuit.

    I engraved it with the Venus seal from the Magical Calendar (I figure Haniel and Anael are different spellings from different sources, but the same general spirit). I also wrote “his” name in Celestial Script on the seal. I conjured him using the Box and had a good experience. I’ll post about that next.

  • Mediocribus Magis

    From the Arbatel of Magick, Third Septenary, Seventeenth Aphorism:

    Mediocribus Magis, mittunt de suis Spiritibus, qui in determinatis tantûm quibusdam negotiis illis obtemperent.

    “To the Mediocre Magicians, they send their spirits to obey them in carrying out specific tasks.” (My translation.)

    Mediocribus can mean ordinary, normal, or average. I like “Mediocre,” because it demonstrates something about magic that I tend to forget. For all the fun I have conjuring spirits and having them get me stuff and influence my world, that’s just normal. For Magicians. It’s to be expected.

  • Failures and Successes

    Well, yesterday I learned that I can’t always do things perfectly the first time I try them. I know, I should know by now, but still, I tend to think everything I do should work the first time, just because I’m me. Fr. POS assures me that’s too much to ask.

    Specifically, I tried to make a Pentagonal Figure of Solomon. I carved a beautiful one out of beeswax, no easy task I assure you. I measured the angles of the star, had each at a nearly-perfect 72 degrees, had all the names in and the symbols, and the Tetragrammaton… It was nice, it was really really nice.

    I poured plaster over it to make a mold for the silver. That sort of worked, well enough, but there were some bubbles because I poured it too thick too fast, and just did it … wrong. But when the plaster had dried, I put it in the oven for a couple of hours upside down over a pie pan to catch the wax, which melted out. The mold was close enough to let me get a decent seal and then have a little clean up to do with the dremel tool.

    I melted the silver, and poured it into the mold. I don’t have a smelter, so I used a MAP gas torch to melt it. It wasn’t a good, even melt, and I ended up oxidizing a lot of the silver (it turns to powder). Then when I tried to pour it into the mold, it solidified on the way, so I got lumps of silver drops in the mold. It sucked royally.The places where the silver actually landed on the mold didn’t even get a decent impression of the symbols. It really sucked.

    Lessons learned: I need more heat, a crucible, and a centrifuge. I need to do the stupid lost-wax thing the right way. And I need to not think I can do everything perfect the first time.

    Today, things went much better. I made a talisman for Haniel out of copper. In the hour of Venus, on the Day of Venus, I cut a copper tube, opened it up, and hit it with the MAP torch until it had begun to melt. I like to melt it a bit so that it’s actually solidifying in the appropriate planetary hour, and freezing the “energies” of the moment into the metals.

    I put a patina on it using the MAP torch and a quenching process, and then sanded the back of it using a dremel tool flap-sander bit. that was so it would rest on the electrodes of my Conjure Box and make a solid circuit.

    I engraved it with the Venus seal from the Magical Calendar (I figure Haniel and Anael are different spellings from different sources, but the same general spirit). I also wrote “his” name in Celestial Script on the seal. I conjured him using the Box and had a good experience. I’ll post about that next.

  • Arbatel Spirits

    In recent conversations with Fr. POS and Optimystic, the subject of where in the cosmology the Arbatel spirits belong has come up. They both place the spirits in the celestial or super-celestial realms. Personally, I think they’re more like the Spirits of the planetary tables, that is, terrestrial reflections of the celestial governors.

    Opti pointed out the Arbatel says: “They are called Olympick spirits, which do inhabit in the firmament, and in the stars of the firmament…” (from aphorism 15). He also pointed to Aphorism 16, which says:

    There are seven different governments of the Spirits of Olympus, by whom God hath appointed the whole frame and universe of this world to be governed: and their visible stars are ARATRON, BETHOR, PHALEG, OCH, HAGITH, OPHIEL, PHUL, after the Olympick speech. Every one of these hath under him a mighty Militia in the firmament.
       
    […]

    So that there are 186 [196]7 Olympick Provinces in the whole Universe. wherein the seven Governours do exercise their power: all which are elegantly set forth in Astronomy.

    (From Joe Peterson’s Twilit Grotto, The Arbatel.)

    So the question remaining to my mind is “What is the Firmament?” Aphorism fifteen identifies their inhabitation as being both in the firmament and in the stars of the firmament. Why do both have to be mentioned? Opti interprets it as the super-celestial heavens. He could be right. He provided a dictionary definition that seemed to say the heavens. In Old Astronomy, the term meant “The orb of the fixed stars; the most remote of the celestial spheres.”(1)  That would place these spirits clearly in the super celestial realm, thus ending the debate.

    I’m stubbon though. I looked up the meaning of the word in more detail, and found from Easton’s Bible dictionary this(2):

    from the Vulgate firmamentum, which is used as the translation of the Hebrew _raki’a_. This word means simply “expansion.” It denotes the space or expanse like an arch appearing immediately above us. They who rendered _raki’a_ by firmamentum regarded it as a solid body. The language of Scripture is not scientific but popular, and hence we read of the sun rising and setting, and also here the use of this particular word. It is plain that it was used to denote solidity as well as expansion. It formed a division between the waters above and the waters below (Gen. 1:7). The _raki’a_ supported the upper reservoir (Ps. 148:4). It was the support also of the heavenly bodies (Gen. 1:14), and is spoken of as having “windows” and “doors” (Gen. 7:11; Isa. 24:18; Mal. 3:10) through which the rain and snow might descend.

    Based on this, and the very Biblical tone of the Arbatel, I believed the Arbatel spirits are within the realm of matter primarily. The physical planets and sphere of the physical stars is certainly not what is referenced by the spiritual spheres of the neoplatonists. If we travel to Mars for colonization, the martian settlers won’t be considered to be in the sphere of the wandering stars, will they? All matter is within the sublunar realms, and the planets and stars serve as signifiers of their relative positionings in the divine or ideal realm. The actual spheres of the planets and fixed stars do not manifest physically.

    Knowing I could be wrong, I performed some divinations that indicated I was partially right and partially wrong. The Arbatel spirits have qualities that make them both Super-Celestial entities, and terrestrial entities. They seem to be, based on divination, a combination of the Spirits and the Intelligences from the Kameas of the Planets in Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy.

    So, based on the research, conversation, divination and meditation, I’ve decided I won’t be ordering the spirits of the Arbatel around like servants. Instead, I’ll keep my approach formal, as if  it were one Vice-President speaking to another within a corporation. By divine right, magicians are granted the abiltity to petition the spirits of the Arbatel, but there’s no real authority over them provided in the grimoire. Instead, the only authority they are answerable to is God himself.

    This rather helps explain why so much of the Arbatel focuses on your behavior. As a Christian saved by Grace, this behavioral thou-shaltism smacks of righteousness by works rather than by grace. That is, you do nice things and you get rewarded. I’m in Martin Luther’s camp, that salvation is by grace through faith alone. Works, good deeds, being nice to animals and not splashing panhandlers in the rain while cackling gleefully at their misfortune… that’s not going to get you anywhere with God, who says the righteousness of man is as menstrual rags before him. (mmmm, tasty.)

    But we aren’t talking about salvation, atonement or being in a right relationship with God. We’re talking about magic petitions to spirits for direct intervention. Maybe you do have to be all righteous and pure to get anything out of the Arbatel spirits, and they don’t see the Cross when they’re measuring up whether you deserve their blessings or not.

    hmmm. Well, it’s something to think about, anyway. But like I said, I’ll stick with the Goetic spirits for now. They recognize your position with God via the sacrifice of Christ readily enough.

    Notes:
    1. “firmament.” Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 29 Oct. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/firmament>.
    2. “firmament.” Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary. 29 Oct. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/firmament>.

  • A Correction

    In the Bune Radio post, I attributed the inspirational idea to Fr. POS. In reality, it wasn’t him at all, it was his Gal. I’ll go back and edit it, but I figured a public apology and correction was in order. She doesn’t get nearly enough credit for her Work.

  • A Correction

    In the Bune Radio post, I attributed the inspirational idea to Fr. POS. In reality, it wasn’t him at all, it was his Gal. I’ll go back and edit it, but I figured a public apology and correction was in order. She doesn’t get nearly enough credit for her Work.

  • 7 Planetary Spirits in a Week

    I’ve failed in this particular endeavor. I was attempting to work with one archangel of the planets (as listed in Trithemius and Heidrick’s resources) each day this week. I made it as far as Michael on Sunday. (Note: Michael is associated with the sun in Trithemius notes instead of Raphael. My own work with Raphael supports the Trithemius correspondences that put Michael in Tiphareth/Sun and Raphael in Hod/Mercury.)

    By Monday, I was exhausted. I was working with the archangels of the planets in the planetary hours of the planetary days. Due to my work schedule, I was waiting until 3:38 or 3:39 a.m. each night. The day time hours fell when I was at work, and the earlier night time hours coincided with the time I spent with my family.

    The results of my Saturday working with Tzaphkiel of Saturn were very pleasant. Previous expereinces with Saturn had been unpleasant, and depressing. For this operation, I started with the LBRP, went on through Liber Samekh to invoke my HGA, and then performed the evocation of Tzaphkiel. The results were immediate.

    Tzaphkiel appeared in the shewstone, and I stated my intention, to integrate the energies of saturn into my magickal sphere. Tzaphkiel agreed to help with this, and I felt the saturnine energies flowing into me, pooling in my fore-arms (of all places), like a weight was applied directly to my muscles and bones. Tzaphkiel explained the use of that energy as part of the operation.

    Sunday I worked with Michael, following the same pattern. I got a false spirit the first time who wouldn’t enter the consecrated shewstone. I banished and conjured Michael again, this time with the desired result. I asked for him to help integrate the energies of the sun into my sphere, and he agreed. The feeling was again physical as the solar essence entered my sphere. This time I felt it in the base of my lungs, and Michael explained that the key to accessing solar energies was in the breath. The four-fold breath excites solar energies (inhale for four seconds, press the breath down in your lungs for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, wait four seconds, and repeat) in your sphere.

    Monday I made a half-hearted attempt to contact Gabriel, but I fell asleep. Tuesday I was going to work with Gabriel and Kammael to “catch up,” but I figured it was a bad idea, and chose to stop the operation there for now.

    Working with each planet for as little as one day seems to give useful results, but not a lot of depth of understanding of each of the planetary powers. I started to understand the binding aspects of Saturn, and its application in assiah, but before I really integrated the energies, I was on to the Sun. In the future, I’ll pick up with Luna, but spend more time than just one day integrating lunar energies, and so forth throughout the planets.

  • The Myth of Guilt

    Long ago, and far away, there was a beautiful garden in a tropical paradise. God made man, and told him to go and enjoy the Garden, enjoy its fruits and everything, take care of the animals. Have a good time, man, and watch out for that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eat that, and you’ll die.

    Fast forward.

    Looking down from the heavens, the Logos saw what was going on below. “First Father, you sure about this? I mean, if you’re for serious, ok, but man… Look, alright, we’ll just get this over with.”

    Fast forward.

    Rufus Opus, aged 10, cutest kid in Christian Camp. Climbed up in a tree with a Bible because he wasn’t getting it. The other kids got it. They prayed, cried, and got baptised. He prayed, read the right parts (Romans Road much?), prayed some more, and finally did cry.

    In freaking frustration.

    Fast forward again to a couple years ago. Rufus Opus Gets Saved. This hammer fell down and knocked some sense into me, and I cried for real then. Not in shame or pain, but in awe. God was friggin’ huge! And He was KING God. Oh boy did I fall down and worship Him, for in all honestly, no sarcasm, I tell you the TRVTH: He is worthy to be praised.

    But he’s got praise  and worship already. He didn’t make Man in His Image so that he could have another psychophant. The original intent was to have a companion like himself.

    But then Man got enmeshed in the material realm. Fell in love with his own image. Entered material existence. And “Fell.”

    OR… he was made perfect in the material world, which was also perfect, and told to watch out for that nasty apple. Knowledge of Good and Evil. That shit will fuck you up, dog. God said so.

    But Man went for it anyway. Ate that apple, and wha-bam – INSTANT GUILT. They knew right and wrong all of a sudden, and the emotional offspring was guilt. They hid from God and put on clothes for why? For shame. For serious.

    And God said… “Well, shit.”

    And Logos said, “Yeah, I know, right?”

    Look at what we do out of “guilt.” We give to charities that make us feel guilty for having life so good. We apologize for stuff that we didn’t do on purpose. We support churches, pay ministers to drive fancy schmancy cars and wear tailored suits, we buy indulgences… We keep jobs we hate, we hang out with people we don’t like, and we don’t have fun. Because fun is wrong… for some reason.

    But wait, there’s the Logos. He came down as Jesus Christ, and performed a holy hell of a damned fine ritual for all mankind. He ATONED for the SIN of eating the apple. He made up for it. Now, lots of my readers don’t believe in original sin. They don’t believe in the Fall. I don’t care. Look around you. The world has a lot of shit that isn’t beautiful, isn’t right, and isn’t fun. It can be a beautiful perfect place, but it can also be a house of horrors. That hellacious horrifying mess is part of life, yes, but remember for centuries people believed THEY DESERVED IT.

    Karma? That’s really practical consequence, but in the West we pretend it’s punishment for “sins.” Bad decisions lead to bad stuff happening. Bad. As opposed to Good. As in, stuff we feel guilty for, or should, because it’s BAD. Knowledge of good and evil, the consequence of sin…

    But wait! Logos came down and made up for that. What does that mean? It means (and this is going to piss off a lot of Christians) there is no more guilt. Right and Wrong are illusions, Good and Evil are points of reference. They are necessary for everyone who doesn’t get that we aren’t servants to its law anymore, but for those who seek God, who seek to return to being the originally intended human being, there is no more sin. No more guilt. No more right or wrong.

    The crucifixion was totally God saying, “You think you can’t get to me because you know Good and Evil and feel guilty? You feel unclean unless you do all that shit? Well surprise, surprise, surprise! You’re all CLEAN now, and you’ve got no excuse to hang back at the edges of the dance hall while I’m whirling my bride around the floor. You’re the bride, and you’re clean, now let’s hang out and talk!”

    So let’s face it folks. Guilt is a myth. Whatever reason we have for feeling guilty is gone now. Can we do whatever we want? Yes! There will be consequences, of course, but the aren’t “Good,” they aren’t “Evil,” they are “consequences.” And it’s harder to live without God. We were designed to be his companion after all, but he gives us space if we insist. The thing is, there’s no more reason for us to feel guilty over shit we screw up. the point is to recognize that what you’ve done didn’t result in what you intended and try something else instead.

    I got a kick out of the picture above. I don’t know where I found it, but I thought it was hilarious, because that’s really what it was all about. The crucifixion was a drama play. It was played out to prove once and for all that there’s no excuse for you or anyone to stay away from God. No more sin. No more punishment from God. We aren’t pre- mid- or post-adolescent children anymore. Logos fixed that.

    Now go see god.