Rufus Opus

Category: Blogspot Archive

Category: Blogspot Archive

  • Spirit Names, Spirit Names, Get Yer Spirit Names Here!

    Well, it’s been damned near a month since I posted here last. I feel rather badly about that. Still, life does go on. 🙂

    First of all, let me point you to an awesome compendium of over a thousand spirit names from a multitude of sources, quite possibly one of the most useful things I’ve found in a long, long time:

    http://www.pdxnet.net/resrev/Angels.html

    I don’t know the gnostic who is responsible for this, but god bless him or her.

    In other news, I HATE my angel book. I deeply apologize for ever having started the damned thing. If you’re waiting for it to be finished, if you’ve emailed me that you’re interested, I can only say I’m sorry, and I WILL finish it, eventually, but it’s taking longer than anticipated because it turned out to be real WORK. Not just some Saturday afternoon type fest.

    And in yet other news, I’ve recently created a spreadsheet that is useful for generating the names of the Good and Evil Genius of any electional chart using a part of Agrippa’s Book 3, Chapter 26. Specifically, the part that says:

    “There are also the Arabians, and many others, and some Hebrews, who finde out the name of a Genius by the places of the five Hylegians, and making projection alwayes from the beginning of Aries, and the letters being found out according to the order of Hylegians with the Astrologers, being reduced into a known order, and being joyned together, make the name of a good Genius: but they draw the name of an evil Genius from the opposite Hylegian places, projection being made from the last degree of Pisces against the order of signs. ” (from Joe Peterson’s Esoteric Archives)

    As a result of the wonders of modern technology, I can generate the names of Good and Evil Geniuses relatively quickly for times past, present, and future. Well, actually, only past or future. The present just slipped away yet again. 😉

    Due to the holiday budget crunch, I’m looking for a way to turn this into a revenue stream. If you’re interested in learning the names of the Good and Evil Genius of any given time, feel free to email me at FrRedactumOpus@gmail.com, and I’ll send them to you for $5.00 through paypal. As long as you have a credit card, I can invoice you through paypal, so no worries. No cash, check, or money orders at this time.

    Please include the time, date, and location for the the enterprise you’re referencing. Time zones would help too.

  • Spirit Names, Spirit Names, Get Yer Spirit Names Here!

    Well, it’s been damned near a month since I posted here last. I feel rather badly about that. Still, life does go on. 🙂

    First of all, let me point you to an awesome compendium of over a thousand spirit names from a multitude of sources, quite possibly one of the most useful things I’ve found in a long, long time:

    http://www.pdxnet.net/resrev/Angels.html

    I don’t know the gnostic who is responsible for this, but god bless him or her.

    In other news, I HATE my angel book. I deeply apologize for ever having started the damned thing. If you’re waiting for it to be finished, if you’ve emailed me that you’re interested, I can only say I’m sorry, and I WILL finish it, eventually, but it’s taking longer than anticipated because it turned out to be real WORK. Not just some Saturday afternoon type fest.

    And in yet other news, I’ve recently created a spreadsheet that is useful for generating the names of the Good and Evil Genius of any electional chart using a part of Agrippa’s Book 3, Chapter 26. Specifically, the part that says:

    “There are also the Arabians, and many others, and some Hebrews, who finde out the name of a Genius by the places of the five Hylegians, and making projection alwayes from the beginning of Aries, and the letters being found out according to the order of Hylegians with the Astrologers, being reduced into a known order, and being joyned together, make the name of a good Genius: but they draw the name of an evil Genius from the opposite Hylegian places, projection being made from the last degree of Pisces against the order of signs. ” (from Joe Peterson’s Esoteric Archives)

    As a result of the wonders of modern technology, I can generate the names of Good and Evil Geniuses relatively quickly for times past, present, and future. Well, actually, only past or future. The present just slipped away yet again. 😉

    Due to the holiday budget crunch, I’m looking for a way to turn this into a revenue stream. If you’re interested in learning the names of the Good and Evil Genius of any given time, feel free to email me at FrRedactumOpus@gmail.com, and I’ll send them to you for $5.00 through paypal. As long as you have a credit card, I can invoice you through paypal, so no worries. No cash, check, or money orders at this time.

    Please include the time, date, and location for the the enterprise you’re referencing. Time zones would help too.

  • Spirit Names, Spirit Names, Get Yer Spirit Names Here!

    Well, it’s been damned near a month since I posted here last. I feel rather badly about that. Still, life does go on. 🙂

    First of all, let me point you to an awesome compendium of over a thousand spirit names from a multitude of sources, quite possibly one of the most useful things I’ve found in a long, long time:

    http://www.pdxnet.net/resrev/Angels.html

    I don’t know the gnostic who is responsible for this, but god bless him or her.

    In other news, I HATE my angel book. I deeply apologize for ever having started the damned thing. If you’re waiting for it to be finished, if you’ve emailed me that you’re interested, I can only say I’m sorry, and I WILL finish it, eventually, but it’s taking longer than anticipated because it turned out to be real WORK. Not just some Saturday afternoon type fest.

    And in yet other news, I’ve recently created a spreadsheet that is useful for generating the names of the Good and Evil Genius of any electional chart using a part of Agrippa’s Book 3, Chapter 26. Specifically, the part that says:

    “There are also the Arabians, and many others, and some Hebrews, who finde out the name of a Genius by the places of the five Hylegians, and making projection alwayes from the beginning of Aries, and the letters being found out according to the order of Hylegians with the Astrologers, being reduced into a known order, and being joyned together, make the name of a good Genius: but they draw the name of an evil Genius from the opposite Hylegian places, projection being made from the last degree of Pisces against the order of signs. ” (from Joe Peterson’s Esoteric Archives)

    As a result of the wonders of modern technology, I can generate the names of Good and Evil Geniuses relatively quickly for times past, present, and future. Well, actually, only past or future. The present just slipped away yet again. 😉

    Due to the holiday budget crunch, I’m looking for a way to turn this into a revenue stream. If you’re interested in learning the names of the Good and Evil Genius of any given time, feel free to email me at FrRedactumOpus@gmail.com, and I’ll send them to you for $5.00 through paypal. As long as you have a credit card, I can invoice you through paypal, so no worries. No cash, check, or money orders at this time.

    Please include the time, date, and location for the the enterprise you’re referencing. Time zones would help too.

  • Spirit Names, Spirit Names, Get Yer Spirit Names Here!

    Well, it’s been damned near a month since I posted here last. I feel rather badly about that. Still, life does go on. 🙂

    First of all, let me point you to an awesome compendium of over a thousand spirit names from a multitude of sources, quite possibly one of the most useful things I’ve found in a long, long time:

    http://www.pdxnet.net/resrev/Angels.html

    I don’t know the gnostic who is responsible for this, but god bless him or her.

    In other news, I HATE my angel book. I deeply apologize for ever having started the damned thing. If you’re waiting for it to be finished, if you’ve emailed me that you’re interested, I can only say I’m sorry, and I WILL finish it, eventually, but it’s taking longer than anticipated because it turned out to be real WORK. Not just some Saturday afternoon type fest.

    And in yet other news, I’ve recently created a spreadsheet that is useful for generating the names of the Good and Evil Genius of any electional chart using a part of Agrippa’s Book 3, Chapter 26. Specifically, the part that says:

    “There are also the Arabians, and many others, and some Hebrews, who finde out the name of a Genius by the places of the five Hylegians, and making projection alwayes from the beginning of Aries, and the letters being found out according to the order of Hylegians with the Astrologers, being reduced into a known order, and being joyned together, make the name of a good Genius: but they draw the name of an evil Genius from the opposite Hylegian places, projection being made from the last degree of Pisces against the order of signs. ” (from Joe Peterson’s Esoteric Archives)

    As a result of the wonders of modern technology, I can generate the names of Good and Evil Geniuses relatively quickly for times past, present, and future. Well, actually, only past or future. The present just slipped away yet again. 😉

    Due to the holiday budget crunch, I’m looking for a way to turn this into a revenue stream. If you’re interested in learning the names of the Good and Evil Genius of any given time, feel free to email me at FrRedactumOpus@gmail.com, and I’ll send them to you for $5.00 through paypal. As long as you have a credit card, I can invoice you through paypal, so no worries. No cash, check, or money orders at this time.

    Please include the time, date, and location for the the enterprise you’re referencing. Time zones would help too.

  • A Modern Angelic Grimoire

    A guy in a group I belonged to asked me what angelic grimoire I used. The only ones I really know of are the Ars Almadel, the Ars Paulina, and, if you stretch the idea a bit, the Art of drawing spirits into Crystals. The Shemhamephoresh angels I really don’t understand, the Enochian system is a complete system, not really a grimoire per se, and the Ophanim system based on Jacob’s Wheel is way over my head.

    So I’m thinking, you know, most of these grimoires are considered hard to understand. They’re written in Middle English, at best, and have strange requirements, and somewhat confusing directions. You have to flip around to different resources to get the images you need. There’s no single resource available that you can just open and have a complete grimoire, a manual of contacting the angels in easy to read and follow steps.

    So, I’ve decided to write one. I’ll have to research the copyright issues, and talk to the webmasters of the sources I’d be using, but I think I’ll be able to throw together a decent Modern Angelic Grimoire. Writing user guides is what I do, after all.

    If you’re interested in a copy, let me know.

    frredactumopus@gmail.com

  • Tonight’s Work

    First, before I forget, the Geomantic Tumblers have been right on so far. They said my daughter would get a B, and she got a B+ on that math test.

    Ok, back to tonight’s Work. I just spent a long time making something really … primitive. But I likes it.

    In the hour of Mercury, on the day of Mercury, I conjured Raphael, Archangel of Mercury to help me with this work. I was trying to make a simple round talisman to the Archangel to use with my Box, but then I got an inspiration. I looked over and saw the huge plaster brick I’d made for the Pentagonal Seal of Solomon, the project that had failed miserably, and thought about how easy it would be to carve using a grinding bit on my dremel tool.

    So I carved out a rough figure of the symbol of Mercury, and melted up some pewter, some silver, and a dash of more tin. The mixture of metals, per Aaron Leitch, makes it a mercurial metal when it solidifies. The pewter came from my daughter, who had broken a cheaply soldered fairy’s wings right off. I tried to fix it, but I failed, and she said I could have it. I told her what I wanted to do with it, and she said “Cool.” That works for me. I just realized it was an Arial spirit that it had been molded into, and Mercury is associated with the element of Air. “Cool.”

    I melted the metals, and poured them into the rough mold, cleaned up the edges as best as I could, and engraved it with the name Raphael, RPAL in Celestial Script, the Archangel seal of Mercury from the Magical Calendar, and the Sigil of the Planet Mercury, also from the Magical Calendar. Some parts are prettier than others.

    Now, I’ve said before that “ugly works.” It’s a good thing. This isn’t fine art, by any means. It shows two things about me. One, I’m an amateur metallurgist. Two, I don’t let that stop me; my passion for communing with the spirits far outweighs any worries I have about how I look while doing so. It’s the communion that counts.

    Now I wanted to test it out on my Box, but it’s now the hour of the Moon. No time, no time. It took far longer than anticipated. The next Mercury hour isn’t until 4:08 AM my time, and man, that’s frickin’ early. Or late. I don’t think I’ll be using it this week, unless … Well, I’ll check Trithemius and see what he says.

  • A Modern Angelic Grimoire

    A guy in a group I belonged to asked me what angelic grimoire I used. The only ones I really know of are the Ars Almadel, the Ars Paulina, and, if you stretch the idea a bit, the Art of drawing spirits into Crystals. The Shemhamephoresh angels I really don’t understand, the Enochian system is a complete system, not really a grimoire per se, and the Ophanim system based on Jacob’s Wheel is way over my head.

    So I’m thinking, you know, most of these grimoires are considered hard to understand. They’re written in Middle English, at best, and have strange requirements, and somewhat confusing directions. You have to flip around to different resources to get the images you need. There’s no single resource available that you can just open and have a complete grimoire, a manual of contacting the angels in easy to read and follow steps.

    So, I’ve decided to write one. I’ll have to research the copyright issues, and talk to the webmasters of the sources I’d be using, but I think I’ll be able to throw together a decent Modern Angelic Grimoire. Writing user guides is what I do, after all.

    If you’re interested in a copy, let me know.

    frredactumopus@gmail.com

  • Advice to Aspiring Magicians

    When asked for advice from an aspiring artist, H. R. Giger’s agent wrote an excellent reply. It can be found under the last entry, scroll down towards the bottom.

    Aspirants to the Great Work would do well to interpret this and apply it to their own lives. Myself especially. 🙂

    http://www.hrgiger.com/faq.htm

  • Dealing with the Guf – Reclaiming Moments of Horror

    The Guf is the lowest form of soul in some kabbalistic cosmologies. It consists of the actual body we wrap ourselves in. The word “guf” is the source of the English word “goofy,” so you can get an idea of how this soul is viewed in the cosmology of things.

    I was talking to a friend today about the horrifyingly embarrassing moments that crop up in my mind as I’m falling asleep, eliciting an audible groan or whimper. I was relieved to know that I’m not the only one that experiences these things, but that doesn’t really help get rid of the horror that still comes when I remember these kinds of events.

    The best example I have is when I went down to the end of a shooting range to hang a paper target, and the drill sergeant guy yelled “CEASE FIRE!!!!” at the top of his considerable lungs to get everyone else (who were still shooting) to take a break so I didn’t get killed. Everyone looked over at me, and I’m standing there like an idiot where about thirty people were shooting. Not a happy moment.

    What gets me is that this happened almost a decade ago, and to this day, I groan out loud remembering it. I’ve tried to “reclaim” that part of my brain to get rid of this response. Kraig has a retroactive magick section (I think) in his Modern Magick book, and I tried that. I tried going back and reliving the moment in my mind, trying to replace it with a different memory. I’ve tried rationalizing that I’d never been to a shooting range before, I was at the far end of the shooting range, and everyone else was at the other side, where I had assumed they wouldn’t shoot me… but nothing’s worked. It’s always in that light hypnogoguic state between waking and sleeping that I remember standing there in the crisp autumn wind with a crowd made up of fathers and sons and war vets looking at me like I was Forrest, Forrest Gump.

    My friend suggested that we can’t forget this kind of thing for a reason, that it serves some purpose. I can see how it can aid survival to never forget how stupid it is to steal a dinosaur’s egg while you think the thing is sleeping, but this was just embarrassing. Socially embarrassing. Sure, we’re pack animals, and it’s required to not do something stupid in public to not get ostracized… but that’s stretching it a bit.

    So on a seemingly unrelated tangent, I was reading through Plotinus’ Fifth Ennead. Not too far in, it says:

    “A double discipline must be applied if human beings in this pass are to be reclaimed, and brought back to their origins, lifted once more towards the Supreme and One and First.”

    “Reclaimed” jumped out at me. I had literally just been talking about reclaiming, so looking for an answer to this question, I read on…

    “There is the method, which we amply exhibit elsewhere, declaring the dishonour of the objects which the Soul holds here in honour; the second teaches or recalls to the soul its race and worth; this latter is the leading truth, and, clearly brought out, is the evidence of the other.”

    So there are two disciplines required to accomplish the returning to the Source, God, which sums up Plotinus’ idea of what I think of as the Great Work. The discipline of stating the dishonour of things the Soul holds dear here, and the remembrance of the race and worth of the Soul.

    Respect of others is what my Guf-Soul holds dear, so dear that an embarrassing moment haunts me for years, permanently ingrained in my neural paths. Dishonouring the “need for respect from others,” (hmmm, pride, perhaps?) isn’t too difficult. I recognize that the opinions of those rednecks at that moment aren’t really that important.

    Teaching the Soul its race and worth though… How does this apply in the context of a mortifying memory? The Soul in the Guf at that moment was of God and was God. The value of that Soul is inestimable. How can teaching the Soul its race and value make the horror of that moment go away?

    I don’t have an answer, but I do know that I was particularly Guf-ey that day. I’ll be holding these two things together in my mind as I remember what happened, and see what comes of it. Educating the Guf as to its value and source may indeed be the key to getting rid of that disgusting horror.

  • Dealing with the Guf – Reclaiming Moments of Horror

    The Guf is the lowest form of soul in some kabbalistic cosmologies. It consists of the actual body we wrap ourselves in. The word “guf” is the source of the English word “goofy,” so you can get an idea of how this soul is viewed in the cosmology of things.

    I was talking to a friend today about the horrifyingly embarrassing moments that crop up in my mind as I’m falling asleep, eliciting an audible groan or whimper. I was relieved to know that I’m not the only one that experiences these things, but that doesn’t really help get rid of the horror that still comes when I remember these kinds of events.

    The best example I have is when I went down to the end of a shooting range to hang a paper target, and the drill sergeant guy yelled “CEASE FIRE!!!!” at the top of his considerable lungs to get everyone else (who were still shooting) to take a break so I didn’t get killed. Everyone looked over at me, and I’m standing there like an idiot where about thirty people were shooting. Not a happy moment.

    What gets me is that this happened almost a decade ago, and to this day, I groan out loud remembering it. I’ve tried to “reclaim” that part of my brain to get rid of this response. Kraig has a retroactive magick section (I think) in his Modern Magick book, and I tried that. I tried going back and reliving the moment in my mind, trying to replace it with a different memory. I’ve tried rationalizing that I’d never been to a shooting range before, I was at the far end of the shooting range, and everyone else was at the other side, where I had assumed they wouldn’t shoot me… but nothing’s worked. It’s always in that light hypnogoguic state between waking and sleeping that I remember standing there in the crisp autumn wind with a crowd made up of fathers and sons and war vets looking at me like I was Forrest, Forrest Gump.

    My friend suggested that we can’t forget this kind of thing for a reason, that it serves some purpose. I can see how it can aid survival to never forget how stupid it is to steal a dinosaur’s egg while you think the thing is sleeping, but this was just embarrassing. Socially embarrassing. Sure, we’re pack animals, and it’s required to not do something stupid in public to not get ostracized… but that’s stretching it a bit.

    So on a seemingly unrelated tangent, I was reading through Plotinus’ Fifth Ennead. Not too far in, it says:

    “A double discipline must be applied if human beings in this pass are to be reclaimed, and brought back to their origins, lifted once more towards the Supreme and One and First.”

    “Reclaimed” jumped out at me. I had literally just been talking about reclaiming, so looking for an answer to this question, I read on…

    “There is the method, which we amply exhibit elsewhere, declaring the dishonour of the objects which the Soul holds here in honour; the second teaches or recalls to the soul its race and worth; this latter is the leading truth, and, clearly brought out, is the evidence of the other.”

    So there are two disciplines required to accomplish the returning to the Source, God, which sums up Plotinus’ idea of what I think of as the Great Work. The discipline of stating the dishonour of things the Soul holds dear here, and the remembrance of the race and worth of the Soul.

    Respect of others is what my Guf-Soul holds dear, so dear that an embarrassing moment haunts me for years, permanently ingrained in my neural paths. Dishonouring the “need for respect from others,” (hmmm, pride, perhaps?) isn’t too difficult. I recognize that the opinions of those rednecks at that moment aren’t really that important.

    Teaching the Soul its race and worth though… How does this apply in the context of a mortifying memory? The Soul in the Guf at that moment was of God and was God. The value of that Soul is inestimable. How can teaching the Soul its race and value make the horror of that moment go away?

    I don’t have an answer, but I do know that I was particularly Guf-ey that day. I’ll be holding these two things together in my mind as I remember what happened, and see what comes of it. Educating the Guf as to its value and source may indeed be the key to getting rid of that disgusting horror.