Rufus Opus

Category: Blogspot Archive

Category: Blogspot Archive

  • Helping Others in the Great Work

    I hope this blog has helped others in their pursuit of the Great Work. I’ve sold a couple books here and there, done some attunements on people, and have provided a lot of the information that has helped me. I hope reading it was as fun as learning about it.

    But this post isn’t about helping people like that. This post is about helping people along in their Work because you can’t stand how they behave.

    Surely you know the types. You love them, they’re sweet, but there’s just something about them that you can’t stand, and it keeps you from being able to enjoy the fullness of your relationship. You see their character flaws clearly, and so does everyone else, but there’s no way that they ever acknowledge that you’re right in your assessment of their behavior.

    Fortunately, you’ve done the ritual Work required to attain Adepthood, and you’ve been through the wringer yourself so many times with dealing with similar issues that you know exactly which spheres trigger the results you want to see in the other person’s sphere.

    I don’t know how ethical this is, by the way. It’s magick for the Great Work, and it might just backfire on you (or me) when you (or I) try to do it. Time will tell, though, time will tell.

    Say someone is, oh, I don’t know, hardhearted, jealous, and prideful, and because of this, they can’t seem to see you for who you really are. What do you do?

    Well, the Sun is the Sphere of revelation, and enlightenment, and that always leads to compassion. When you can’t seem to get someone to see your point, a solar working makes sense.

    Michael the Archangel of the Sun is who I’m planning on conjuring. This Archangel is good for almost everything, from wealth to exorcisms to initiations. It’s hard to beat Michael in terms of being there for you when you need him.

    Ok, so you’ve got the Spirit, go to the Magical Calendar and get the seal for Michael. (I believe the Magical Calendar places Michael in Mercury and Raphael in the Sun, but that’s not "right" for me. You still use the seal of Michael, and disregard the placement in the Magical Calendar.) Next you create a little shrine to Michael. A statue of Michael slaying the Dragon would be great for this, but I’m buying a house, and can’t afford to purchase statuary at the moment, so I’m going to make a lamen with his name and seal in it. Around the outside, I’ll write the Name of God that corresponds to the Sun (Eloah va-Da’at) and the symbol of the Sun (circle with a dot in the middle). I’ll include the names of the angels associated with the Sun (Melakim) and the name of the Sphere in the KBL (Tiphareth) Then I’ll include the Planetary Sigil from the Magical Calendar.

    In the center of the circle of the names and symbols, I’ll draw a Star of David, and in the center of that the Name Michael in English with his Seal below that. Above the Star of David I’ll write out his name (MKAL) in Celestial script, and around the Star of David I’ll draw four pentagrams, with the names of the Four Elemental Kings inside (Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel Clockwise, beginning in the East). I’ll draw all this out in gold ink from an 18 carrot gold leaf pen on a Sunday in the Hour of the Sun. I’ll mount the lamen on an ease-type thing I make out of dowel rods or something, so that the Lamen is mostly vertical. I could put it on a mantle or create a shelf on the wall for it too. Then I’ll place a picture of the people I’m wnating to change in front of the lamen, with the changes I want to see written on the picture in gold ink, like "compassion, enlightenment, caring." Then I’ll conjure Michael in his appropriate hour, and ask for him to do what I desire. Assuming he complies, I’ll then light gold or white candles in front of the shrine, and burn Frankincense sticks until the change is complete.

    I’m pretty sure there’s no harm in this kind of magick, but you never know what kind of gross stuff comes out of a person when they begin to integrate the energies of the Sun into their sphere, eh?

  • What Happened to Evil?

    In  recent conversation at Spiritus Mundi, during a conversation about Mercury going retrograde June 15th, the subject of good and evil in modern context came up. Chris Warnock pointed out that Mercury Retrograde has become a major catastrophe in modern astrology, and its influence, while still being negative, has been blown way out of proportion. He believes this is because modern astrologers have set about removing anything evil or negative from astrology in general, and have basically sugar-coated every malefic force in astrological readings, turning everything fluffy and light. Mercury retro is hard to make look pretty, so it’s sort of picked up all the negative baggage of everything malefic, making it look much worse than it really is.

    This series of posts got me thinking about evil in general in the modern age. Everywhere I can think of, the things that were seen to be evil in the past has been presented and turned into opportunities for growth in the present. Demons aren’t demons serving Satan, they’re gods from pagan pantheons that got a bad rap under Christianity. Gods of the underworld aren’t evil, they’re benevolent. Death isn’t evil, it’s an opportunity for change and metamorphosis. Every negative manifestation in our lives that would have been understood as an evil influence in the dark ages has been turned into an opportunity for growth. Everybody’s looking on the bright side of things, no matter how calamitous.

    I may or may not have ranted on the existence of evil here on my blog before, I don’t remember. It really gets on my nerves when people refuse to acknowledge evil.

    But I’ve been thinking. How bad is it that people don’t see evil as evil anymore? How wrong is it to approach evil things as challenges instead of something to avoid at all costs? The result of our approach to evil changing is that we deal with it, seek solutions to problems instead of just saying "That’s just evil," and walking away. We face the sources of evil more often now. We aren’t afraid of evil the way we used to be, and that’s a good thing. The Super Heroes of old would protect the helpless from the villains. Today we’re all Heroes on the sacred quest, thanks to Joe Campbell and George Lucas.

    I still think relativistic ethical stances, moral ambiguity, and saying "There’s no such thing as evil!" is stupid and dangerous. Evil does definitely exist.

    But I’m glad we’re working on getting rid of the pesky thing now.

  • Sorcery’s a Dangerous Game

    You know, here in the United States where society officially treats sorcery as a harmless delusion (usually), we’ve got it pretty good. As frustrating as it is not to be able to talk to people at the office Christmas party about what you spend most of your personal time doing, it’s better than sorcerors have it in parts of the world where people actually believe in magic.

    I’ve been monitoring Google’s news stories lately for occult stories. The news occultists make globally is bad news for the sorceror. 45 people accused of using sorcery to spread cholera were lynched by mobs in Haiti. A guy was expelled from a country because the government suspected he was doing sorcery to aid his friend in an election. And he probably was, honestly, but getting him expelled from the country won’t likely lessen his meddling.

    Kinda sucks to be a sorceror, in most places, especially when shit goes wrong.

    Of course, that’s true in our private lives too, isn’t it? Even among pagans and magicians, if you’re going through troubles, don’t your friends or family assume it’s your fault, that you’ve done some magic that is having some kind of unexpected consequence? And it really doesn’t help that they’re right sometimes either.

    Still, at least I don’t get lynched and shit.

  • 2.6 – Them Pesky Demons are at it Again…

    In the Neo-Platonic tradition, in the grimoires that comprise it, in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus that frame it, and in the writings of Agrippa that provide the most comprehensive resource of the modern occult, there are mentions of demons, maleficent spirits that cause trouble. I would personally rather believe that all spirits are basically neutral, and they don’t have any ill will in and of themselves towards humanity. Unfortunately, the Neo-Platonic writings (and my experience) fail to support this belief.

    Going back thousands of years, mankind has known that there are spirits that are out to make life miserable for humans. It’s in the Bible, the Hesiod, and in the African Traditional Religions. From the steppes of Siberia to the Amazon rain forest, shamans deal with evil spirits every day. Modern cultures have lots of rational ways to explain away the existence of demons, from anti-Christian rhetoric that says the Church is to blame for misrepresenting gods of other cultures (which is true, to a degree), to psychological models that say they’re all in our heads (which is also true, from the perspective implied by the notariqon ARARITA). Regardless of the veracity of these explanations, the pragmatic truth is that if you are doing magick regularly, you will run into spirits that will behave as if they are Demons.

    2.6.1 The Role of Demons

    Fortunately, we have the benefit of thousands of years of occult research on our side. We know from sources like the Bible and the Divine Pymander that the evil spirits are under the authority of God. If you’re into paganism, you’ll find in the story of Pandora’s box that evil spirits contained in a divine spirit pot were sent to plague mankind by Zeus after Prometheus gave us fire. They’re serving god. In the Divine Pymander, Pymander tells Hermes that the Evil Daimon is sent to the impious to drive man further away from the Logos by filling the senses with desire for more sensations than can ever be appeased. In the Bible, evil spirits are sent to set up kings to fall, to reveal the glory of God.

    They are sent by God into the world to wreak havoc in the lives of those who are ignorant of God. Their primary victims are those who have grown ignorant of their Race and Value in God and instead of seeking their Source, people who seek satisfaction in the things of the material world. Demons serve as tempters, bringers of illness, and they serve to create situations that result in spiritual advancement. They perform evil acts, but they do them to draw people closer to God.

    2.6.2 How Demonic Influence Manifests

    In your life, you’re going through all kinds stress that I can’t begin to know about. Job insecurity, financial woes, emotional problems, and sickness plague us all. Most of the people reading this blog have it pretty good compared to poorest of the poor on the planet, but that doesn’t make the problems we face any easier to bear in the moment.

    I don’t believe every bad thing that happens is the result of a demon, but they do happen to be present every time bad things happen. I’m sure it’s a coincidence, really. They could just be attracted to bad things… sure… that could be it…

    Alright, I really do think all bad things that happen are the result of demonic activity. I’m a Christian, for Christ’s sake. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, principalities, and wickedness in high places.” It’s the simple truth.

    They set the stage for pain and suffering, they sit at the edges of our sphere whispering thoughts that sound a lot like our own, speaking fear and doubt and anger and anguish and despair into our minds. They entice our senses with lights and shining things. They use the people at work like pawns to challenge us, to bring us to the brink of catastrophe. They influence kings, presidents, princes, senators, congressmen and women, people in power across the lands of the earth to create a realm that will drive those with an understanding of their race and value closer and closer to the Logos within.

    Pretty nasty, really. And as annoying as hell.

    2.6.3 How to Deal with the Bastards

    Demons are under God’s authority. God’s within. We deal with spirits in every ritual. We have the names of the demonic princes from Agrippa’s Book 2, chapter 7. We know how to make talismans and spirit pots. They can only do what they’re allowed to, and God sets the boundaries.

    The fastest way to lessen the effects of the evil spirits is to put the Demonic Kings in spirit pots and bind them with melted lead sealed with the Names of the four Elemental Kings. I’ve got a makeshift version of this on my altar at the moment. It hasn’t completely eliminated bad things from happening, but it sure has cut down on the extremes of my emotional reactions to bad things when they come. That in itself robs the demons of their powers over us and our lives.

  • Daimon Brainstorming Sessions Part 1

    So in the post “The Weirdest Bune Thing Yet” covered my most recent joy-ride in the occult. I’d like to talk a bit about how my Daimon and I brainstormed a way to make sure it didn’t happen again.

    For starters, the first thing I did when I got the explanation of what was going on was to verify it with my Daimon. I simply cocked my head to where he usually resides, behind me and a little on the right, and asked him if this was legit. I got a nod from him, and I confirmed the next step was to do my own divination.

    So I shuffled my mini-Rider-Waite deck while specifically asking out loud “What is the source of my illness?” I use the 15-card layout that is suggested in the little book that comes with Crowley’s Thoth deck. It’s always worked well for me.

    Current circumstances indicated that the oracle was right. I had the Five of Wands in the center significator spot. Cards surrounding it indicated I was fighting the results of a smug person stealing knowledge, and a confirmation from my Daimon that the coin oracle had described what happened accurately. I then had two options to deal with the problem. Magickal counter-attack aimed at the person who had done it in the first place, or rising above it and putting the forces that were at work in my sphere into their proper place as the second option. I had been considering the first option, mainly, because I was pissed. however, the cards indicated I’d run into more fighting and eventual sorrow or regret at taking that path.

    The second option showed me how I could permanently conquer this kind of strife by putting things right that were wrong in the moment, and by behaving in a different way in my personal practices. These cards were the King of Wands on the right, the Hierophant in the center, and the six of wands on the left. The six of wands indicated peace and victory after putting down the current strife in the five of wands. From the King of Wands, I got the image of no longer having to fight because I had established the hierarchy in the realm of Wands one must in order to be the King.

    The Hierophant was the primary image of this grouping. It coalesced the other two cards, representing the path that I needed to take to achieve present victory (6 of wands) and lasting Lordship over this kind of strife (King of Wands). I have a long history of the Hierophant popping up representing me, in readings I perform for myself and readings performed by others. That and the much better results made it clear which option I should take.

    The next step was to plan out the actual ritual Work I would need to do in order to clear up the current mess and make sure it wouldn’t happen again. The coin oracle indicated that “my” Bune (the spirit in the Bune Spirit Pot I made) would be able to fix the current mess, so I confirmed that with my Daimon. He indicated that was the way to go.

    It’s in keeping with the role of the Hierophant to be the go-between with the spirits on behalf of people who have messed things up. The priest or shaman is called to perform the exorcism, the man or woman with the divine connections is there for the people. I think this is why the Rider-Waite Hierophant is pointing up with his projecting (right) hand and the receptive (left) hand is projecting over the monks in front of him, holding the symbol that represents (in my opinion) the Caduceus, or his ability to travel through the higher spheres, the heavens, or sephiroth, however you want to perceive it.

    So I went to my spirit pot and asked Bune to put any spirits that were causing me illness back into their proper place. This is one of his talents he revealed to me (it’s in the description in the Goetia, but I didn’t understand it). Bune agreed, and I lit five tea light candles in front of his Pot in thanks for his actions.

    I woke up healed the next morning, as stated in the earlier post. I still had to figure out how to overcome things like this happening again though, so I planned another Daimon brainstorming session for the next night. That will be Part 2.

  • Really Interesting Blog

    For those who are interested in some really neat magickal stuff that is straight from the heart of Agrippa’s teacher Trithemius, or at least looks like it, check out this blog:

    http://blog.abrahadabramelin.org/?p=86

    Dude did an incredible job. I understand little of what I’m seeing so far, but I have a good feeling about this one.

    -R.O.

  • Really Interesting Blog

    For those who are interested in some really neat magickal stuff that is straight from the heart of Agrippa’s teacher Trithemius, or at least looks like it, check out this blog:

    http://blog.abrahadabramelin.org/?p=86

    Dude did an incredible job. I understand little of what I’m seeing so far, but I have a good feeling about this one.

    -R.O.

  • 2.5 – Spirit Pots

    I hope you enjoyed the update on the Bune spirit pot earlier. That particular vessel is an example of the brass vessel described in the Goetia within the Lemegetton. The Lemeggeton is a Solomonic grimoire, and like all the grimoires I’ve seen, it is fundamentally rooted in the Neo-Platonic system we’ve been discussing. Persona

  • Really Interesting Blog

    For those who are interested in some really neat magickal stuff that is straight from the heart of Agrippa’s teacher Trithemius, or at least looks like it, check out this blog:

    http://blog.abrahadabramelin.org/?p=86

    Dude did an incredible job. I understand little of what I’m seeing so far, but I have a good feeling about this one.

    -R.O.

  • From the Sun to Saturn, and Back to the Sun

    I have a nemesis. Maybe that’s stretching it a bit, but there’s this guy on a couple of message boards that I belong to, and we tend to disagree. He’s an Aries, I’m a Taurus, and we fight. Many of the readers here who also read through the Yahoo occult groups will be familiar with this guy. His name is Logan.

    Anyone who has endured the misfortune of witnessing a “debate” between myself and Logan on any of the message boards we share deserves an apology. We can get boring, sarcastic, and we tend to use each other to demonstrate what we consider our own wit and brilliance. It usually lasts about as long as it takes for me to get disgusted and start calling him foul names. Every few months or so, I’ll forget why I can’t stand him, and enter into a conversation that rapidly becomes a debate, and then turns into a name-calling match. I’ve been better lately, but he still gets on my nerves.

    What bothers me most is that the smug self-righteous British bastard has helped me out a lot in my pursuit of the Grail, the Great Work. He helped me appreciate Plato, and destroyed my confidence in the GD Tree of Life by demonstrating its shaky foundations. This lead me to fully embrace the Neo-Platonic realm of Agrippa, and to understand something Patrick Dunn is always going on about regarding the arbitrariness of semiotic webs.

    So anyway, Logan told me months ago that I needed to read Eliphas Levi. He had quoted something about how Levi said “Magick is not a vocation” in response to my selling Conversation with the HGA through the conjuration of the Genius (See the Products and Services link at www.rufusopus.com). I have never read Levi, and with Logan as his sponsor in my current magical environment, I was set against it. Until earlier today.

    First off, Levi may have said Magick is not a vocation, but if he did (I haven’t gotten that far yet), he said it after saying the Magician is a Priest and King. Both Priests and Kings collect Tithes and Taxes, so the whole argument against taking money for magickal services is undermined right there, wha-bam!

    Ok, that said, Levi is really good reading. The guy presents magick with no holds barred. He tells it like it is, presents the Great Work more impressively than anything I’ve seen in a long time (outside my own writing, of course). It’s WORK. It’s hard. It’s even “dangerous” in that if you give up after starting, you’ll be worse off than if you’d never started at all. Not that you can quit once you’ve begun anyway, but at least he tells you you’ll end up a Monarch or a Madman at the start. Good stuff.

    What inspired this particular blog post though was the following:

    “there is no point in infinite extension which may not be regarded as the centre of a circle having an expanding circumference receding indefinitely into space”
    (Page 6 at http://www.hermetic.com/browe-archive/pdf/DogmaEtRituel%20Part%201.pdf)

    Think about that for a moment. We are such points, beginning in our Work at the center of a circle with a somewhat fixed circumference. As we progress, we expand the circumference, becoming aware of all the things within the circumference of that circle, learning to integrate the “energies” of the things we find into our own spheres as the limits of our spheres expand. The limits of the spheres expand as the Light from the center of the sphere increases its radiation, exposing more of what can be found within the darkness at the edges of our sphere of awareness.

    In Crowley’s popular magickal system, we find the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) in Tiphareth, the Sephira that corresponds to the Sphere of the Sun. When the magician establishes Knowledge and Conversation with their HGA, they undergo a Solar Initiation. The hidden corners of their personal sphere are exposed to the light, and the magician is forced to confront and deal with those parts of themselves they hide in the darkness. Each character flaw, each untamed passion, every sin or self-destructive tendency comes to the fore and must be corrected, tamed, repented from, or channeled into proactive directions with the help of your HGA. The Point gets enflamed with the Light of the Sun, and as the Sun reveals more, the boundaries of the sphere of the magician are expanded.

    Boundaries… yes, the realm of Saturn, the furthest planet observable by the naked eye. The first sphere of Form in the Kircher Tree of Life (Binah). The layer of emanation where ideas take form, where the limits are set, where the Lord tells the Sea, you may come this far and no further. These are the properties of Saturn.

    Knowing this, you can see that the act of spiritual advancement is the interplay of the Sun and Saturn. As the Light of the Sun increases, the limits set by Saturn are made mutable, and they move further out. As we explore our new boundaries, integrating the things that were hidden in shadow before, learning to function within the newly expanded sphere, we grow, gain insights, authority, and responsibility. With each new attribute of ourselves that we integrate, the understanding of the things we learned in our previous stages of advancement are enhanced. The responsibilities we had earlier change form, and we end up traveling back towards the Sun at the center of our sphere to reintegrate all the things we knew with the things we’ve learned. When we return to the sun at the center of our microcosm, we hit the next level, and the Light increases, and our boundaries expand, and we begin to explore the furthest reaches of the Light yet again.

    From the Sun to Saturn and Back again. The path of the Labyrinth. (Which is not to be confused with a maze; a Labyrinth has one entrance and one exit side by side, travels only to the center and back to the beginning. A Magician travels to the center and returns to the beginning, carrying with him the treasure held within and sharing that with the realm outside.)

    All this theory and stuff is great and fun and all, but I’m still a Taurus. It’s meaningless without application, in my humble opinion.

    Where are you at? Have you plateaued in your Work? Are you stuck at a level of attainment, and you need to expand your boundaries? The answer is Working the Sun and Saturn. Conjure up the Archangels Tzaphqiel and Michael. Are you feeling like you’re stumbling around in the dark? Work with Michael of the Sun to bring the hidden things to light. Have you worked through everything you can think of, and still feel stuck in a rut? Conjure Tzaphqiel and Work with him to move the boundaries of your sphere. Head between the Sun and Saturn, make that your path, and you won’t get stuck.

    Sorrow turns to Joy in the light of the Sun, and unfocused rays become lasers when their boundaries are properly aligned.

    Grace and Peace!