Rufus Opus

Category: Blogspot Archive

Category: Blogspot Archive

  • Neo-Platonic Basics

    I’m in a bit of a quandary. I’ve been Working with this syncretic Judeo-Christian/Neo-Platonic system for a while now, based almost entirely on the the Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Agrippa. I’ve been reading Plato’s Timaeus, Plotinus’ Enneads, and Hermes Trismegistus’ s The Divine Pymander, and it’s all been percolating into a pretty strong brew within my sphere. When I hit the epiphany the other day, I was convinced it was a Universal Truth. I still think it is, but the general responses I’m getting are telling me that it’s not making the kind of impact it had on me. In general, I’ve gotten a “yeah, ok” response, when this is the Key to Everything! Well, at least I think it is. For me, definitely, and I don’t see anything that would indicate it wouldn’t be the Key to Life, the Universe and Everything in a much more more meaningful way than “42.”

    So, with that in mind, I’m going to be posting a series of NP basics so the foundation of the system I’m working with is documented somewhere. I see another book in my future. Distant future. 🙂

    So here’s the planned outline:

    1.0 – Overview Sections:

    • 1.1 – NP Cosmology: How it all started
    • 1.2 – The Harmony of the Sphere

  • A Week-Long Walk

    Ahh, the waxing moon. Maybe I’m just superstitious, I don’t know, but I certainly do feel better in general. With Mercury going Direct in the same week, I feel pretty good about things in general.

    This week, I plan to work with each of the archangels of the planets in their appropriate hour on their appropriate day. The goal is to achieve better balance and integration of the energies of the spheres. I’ve spent the last month or so obsessing with Jupiter and its denizens in the different worlds, and I got to a point where everything I saw was related to money. I’m pretty sure my pupils had become dollar signs.

    Many thanks to the people who have pointed this annoying trait out to me. The point of my work is to head towards the Red Work after all. So to get myself back on track, I’ve embarked on this particular course of action. I began Friday with a discussion with my HGA, and then last night worked with Tzaphkiel to integrate the energies of Saturn into my sphere. Later today I’ll be working with Michael to integrate the energies of the Sun.

    This week, expect to see posts of the results of my Works.

  • A Week-Long Walk

    Ahh, the waxing moon. Maybe I’m just superstitious, I don’t know, but I certainly do feel better in general. With Mercury going Direct in the same week, I feel pretty good about things in general.

    This week, I plan to work with each of the archangels of the planets in their appropriate hour on their appropriate day. The goal is to achieve better balance and integration of the energies of the spheres. I’ve spent the last month or so obsessing with Jupiter and its denizens in the different worlds, and I got to a point where everything I saw was related to money. I’m pretty sure my pupils had become dollar signs.

    Many thanks to the people who have pointed this annoying trait out to me. The point of my work is to head towards the Red Work after all. So to get myself back on track, I’ve embarked on this particular course of action. I began Friday with a discussion with my HGA, and then last night worked with Tzaphkiel to integrate the energies of Saturn into my sphere. Later today I’ll be working with Michael to integrate the energies of the Sun.

    This week, expect to see posts of the results of my Works.

  • The Occult Ties to the Ancient Astronauts

    I’ve recently joined a new yahoo group called EllenLlloyd. This group is dedicated to the Ancient Astronaut Theory, that the earth has been visited and continues to be visited by beings of an (or many) advanced civilizations who have either influenced or are directly responsible for the advancement of human civilization.

    I generally try to stay away from our Alien-conscious, UFOlogist cousines. I believe I have a better understanding of the phenomenon they report interacting with than they do. I’m sure they believe the same about occultists in general. However, I am not willing to reject their theories altogether. There are some amazing overlaps of our particular fields.

    For instance, today Ellen posted an article she recently wrote about the Everlasting Lights found in ancient tombs and reported above the temples of the ancients. Her article is good, and I recommend reading it if you have a few minutes to spare.

    A few months ago I was researching the Portae Lucis, the Portal of Light ritual. The goal of this ritual is to raise the tincture of the sphere of your soul by making contact with Binah-Saturn. It’s very similar in effect to the Abramelin Ritual for making contact with your Holy Guardian Angel, and also similar in effect to Crowley’s Liber Samekh. The goal of the ritual is to establish and empower a higher connection to the Divine source, sort of. I had first read about this ritual in an interview with Jean Dubuis by Mark Stavish at the Alchemy Website.

    In seeking more alchemical lore on the building of Houses of Light and Portals of Light, I found a treatise called The Everburning Lights of Trithemius. As most people who know me are aware, I am extremely fond of Johannes Trithemius. He was an abbot of a monastery who taught Agrippa, wrote some of the foundational texts on communicating with spirits, and wrote the original tale that became known as Faustus. Having read parts of the Steganographia and having practiced from the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals, I thought this treatise would be about the angels or spirits, and that it would be an allegorical reference to these entities as the “Everburning Lights.” Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a recipe for creating physical lights that one of his students had recorded.

    So today, when I read Ellen’s article, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the overlap between our fields of study. I personally believe that the “Ancient Astronauts” and the “Angels” or “Spirits” of the occultists are the same entities. For proof we have Crowley’s Alamantrah working that resulted in LAM making his appearance, and the subsequent UFO phenomenon that occurred after Crowley established contact with that dimension’s beings.

    By the way, that’s one of the many reasons I don’t combine alcohol, hashish, cocaine, ether and ritual magick. You just don’t know what you’re going to end up doing. But Crowley was a pawn his whole life, god bless him.

    Jack Parsons, father of the Space Age, did what he could to create a “Moon Child” or a Nephilim in his Babalon working. Plato was the first to say that every man and every woman is a star. Well, every man anyway, and that if you’re not a rational man, you get reborn as a woman… That’s not my fault. Read Timaeus sometime. Good stuff.

    Additional evidence is found in this Everburning Lights phenomenon. Where did Trithemius learn how to create these lights? We know from the other writings he is famous for that he was experienced in contacting the entities that travel between planes that we do not normally physically experience. His methods (or at least methods attributed to him) for contacting the angelic spirits work. I’ve spoken with Michael, Tzadkiel, and Haniel using the practices discussed in the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals (by the way, you need to include the sigils from the Magical Calendar and the method of creating Talismen from Agrippa’s Book 4 of Occult Philosophy). The spirits of the Goetia and the Arbatel are useful for a lot of mundane things, but I find it extremely interesting that their primary functions are not to provide physical results, but to provide information.

    I believe Trithemius learned to make the lights from the Spirits. Those who believe in the Ancient Astronaut Theory believe the Everburning Lights are evidence that aliens have visited the planet and given us extra-terrestrial knowledge. What better term exists for the information we receive as magicians from interviewing the spirits than “extra-terrestrial?”

    This doesn’t mean I believe the spirits “really are” aliens, or that there are no interstellar or inter-dimensional civilizations that influence humanity. Looking at the occult cosmologies of the ancient pagans, gnostics, and occultists around the world, I find it hard to believe that any magician would discard the theories of the Ancient Astronaut crowd completely. Our cosmologies are remarkably similar. Invisible entities bringing knowledge to mankind for our betterment, or for their own purposes. Think about it, what’s the difference between the theories of Niburu and the Annunaki compared to the deliverance of the Qabalah to Abraham by Ratziel?

    The chief difference is that we as magicians continue to interact with these entities, while those of the Ancient Astronaut crowd seem to think that the aliens will be returning in some distant future. Then again, I’m not that familiar with the Sitchin followers and whether they believe the Ancient Astronauts are still working with particular individuals.

  • Holistic Wholene

    Good news, everyone, I got it! I mean, I got it. I really got it.

    I had an epiphany last night and early this morning. I’ll try not to
    wax all mystical and ecstatic on it, but it was beautiful. It made
    sense of everything. Literally, everything. Birth, life,m death, struggles, woe, time, death, eternity, bliss, joy, it all wrapped up together around 4:30 a.m. in the following. The glyph is the key, ultimately.

    I’m not getting into the boring details at the moment, I’m just going to summarize. I posted this to Ritual Magick, so if you’ve been there, you’ll be wasting your time unless you want to hear me talk more about it. You should be working on this shit. I’ll be coming down with a minor messiah complex for a few days, but I DID do some conjuring in the name of Messiah at daybreak, so hey, what can you expect?

    Anyway, the result of my moment is the following layout for the altar:

    In the center, you place four sealed vessels that have the spirits
    of the Four Kings of the elements bound within, each in their
    appropriate quadrant:

    • South – Mahazael, sealed with the name Uriel
    • North – Azael, sealed with the name Gabriel
    • West – Azazel, sealed with the name Raphael
    • East – Samael, sealed with the name Michael

    Make sure you seal these demons in using something that you can let
    them out if you need them later in your existence, but you want them
    sealed unless they are actively performing something you’ve told them
    to do.

    Around these four sealed vessels, you place the following talismen
    in their appropriate quadrant:

    • South – Uriel~Ariel Talisman
    • North – Gabriel~Tharsis Talisman
    • West – Raphael~Cherub Talisman
    • East – Michael~Seraph Talisman

    These talismen should NOT use the seals of the angels as attributed
    in other grimoires. These are the four elemental Kings, not the
    Archangels of the planetary spheres that share the same names. To
    get the appropriate seal, conjure each of the Elemental Kings
    separately.

    Beside each of the Elemental Kings’ talismen, place the appropriate
    elemental weapon. The wand in the East, the Cup in the North, the
    Knife in the West, and in the South your own personal seal.

    You now have two circles on your altar, the infernal circle in the
    center, and the elemental circle around that. These two spheres
    *are* the material realm, and at the exact same time they *are* your
    personal Sphere as a magician.

    Starting in the South, place 7 planetary Talisman in the following
    order clockwise, 51.429 degrees apart (give or take a hundredth of a
    degree):

    • Moon
    • Venus
    • Jupiter
    • Mercury
    • Saturn
    • Sun
    • Mars

    These are the seven spheres that surround the magician’s sphere.
    These create the table of practice.

    That’s the physical manifestation of the Key. The Lamp should be
    placed outside this circle to the east. The Divine Darkness that
    Dionysius the Areopogate is outside the light.

    The altar is now complete.

    This is what mine looks like:

    As you can see, I’m using the four elemental kings of the Tarot as temporary placeholders for Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel.

  • In case you’re wonderng…

    If you’re wondering why the posts have died down for the last couple weeks, it’s because of the waning moon. During this phase, there’s not much point in doing magick. Some people use it as a time for curses or bindings, but I’m not into all that. I mean, sometimes I am, but not this time.

    I like the way it’s all set up. Two weeks of sending energies out, two weeks for drawing energies in. Sometimes I get annoyed that I have to wait for the moon phase to turn, but usually I find that whatever I was anxious to get done wasn’t that important anyway.

  • The Power Within

    Once upon a time, deep within the sea, The Flying Dutchman, ghost extraordinaire, believed he had lost his ability to scare people. He grew extremely clinically depressed, and was finally brought around by a friendly sea-sponge, who showed him this inspirational video:

    That’s the inspiration for this post. For those of you “too enlightened” for Spongebob, I pity you. But bear in mind, I have kids, and we spend a lot of time talking about things with Spongebob on in the background. And I personally love the show, except when his voice is done by that annoying fellow.

    The Power Within. In the video, there’s not much more than that phrase repeated. Oddly enough, I’ve seen inspirational videos that are just like that. It doesn’t really say anything, but somehow manages to inspire you. Like Poke Runyon’s conjuration of Vassago that’s on YouTube somewhere. I’d never do that kind of hodge-podge ritual, but seeing him do it made me want to do other things.

    So, following up on the Invisible College post, this is about finding your own Power Within. You can’t very well be the master of your sphere of influence without having some form of Power source.

    The trick to finding it is not about growing it, or implanting it. I have an acquaintence who reads the blog steadily. He’ll know I’m talking about him. He and a friend designed a ritual that was, from my understanding, designed to turn he and his friend into Moon Children. Like the one Aleister Crowley wrote about, and the one Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard tried to make (Babalon). He was planning on conjuring the Enochian Entities on one side, and the Goetic entities on the other side, and he and his friend would be in the center, receiving the forces radiated by both camps, hoping to somehow create within themselves a new being comprised of the powers of the Angels and the Demons.

    Ok, now lets not get hasty. We all know, have met, or once were people like him. When it was me, I was doing a chaos magick rite that was based on the Malkavian Clan of Vampires from the White Wolf role playing game “Vampire: The Masquerade.” It involved a hand mirror, a camp fire somewhere between Colorado and Texas, and a dedication to infectious madness for the purpose of enlightenment.

    It didn’t work. I stayed sane, couldn’t lose control the way I wanted to. Shrooms, LSD, and massive amounts of pot wouldn’t do it either. The closest I came was a brief addiction to cocaine. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered to my horror that alcohol was the only thing that could really get me to lose all rational control and operate solely from the Insane Nephesh. But that really wasn’t the goal. I was looking to operate from the hyper-sane Neschemah, even though I had no idea what either the Nephesh or the Neschemah were at the time.

    I wanted to touch and channel the Divine Madness.

    I think that’s what the mage mentioned above is going for in his magical work at the moment. I don’t think he performed said rite with Enochian and Goetic entities, fortunately enough. He’s already obsessed with numbers, like in the movie The Number 23. I can’t remember what his numbers are, at least they aren’t (obviously) 23. I’m sure it could be turned into 23 with a little imagination.

    Anyway, if you’re not there yet, you probably will be some day, at least for a while. People do some crazy shit to get the Power Within.

    Crowley called it the “True Will.” At least he had the wisdom to know that it’s not something that needs to be implanted. He taught that it had to be discovered, and proposed the method to be a system of initiations that removed veils until you get to the point where you see and understand that your True Will was there all along. He had you develop prana energy flows as you went along too.

    I follow a similar regimen. For me, the “Power Within” is a part of every man, woman, and child. It’s part of being “Human.” We were made in God’s image, and were made to be the tenders of the Garden, co-creators with God. We were his reflection, in a way. Our race is divine. We are manifestations of God-ness.

    But we forgot, and get distracted by the bright and shiny things of this world. It happens. The point of the Great Work is to return to our status as co-creators with God. (Note: not to unify with God; we weren’t created to be part of God, we were emmanated to be a companion to him. Important difference.)

    To function effectively, we have to begin by understanding what it is about ourselves that gives us the Power Within. I found that by studying the Neo-Platonic philosophies. I think you can get it that way too, if you haven’t gotten it yet by some other means. Start with the Timaeus dialogue by Plato. Go on to the Corpus Hermeticum, look for Divine Pymander. That gives you the cosmology to understand that you already have the Power Within. Then you can start developing it.

    To develop it, you have to remove the things that block its flow from the Divine realm we are from to the material realm we live in. Do this in two ways. First get in touch with your HGA. It’s not as hard as people make it out to be in the modern occult realm. I think it needed that much heaviness and emphasis to get it through people’s thick skulls that it’s important and that you can’t really do much without it, but some folks think that’s all there is to magic(k). Truth is, that’s just the first step, and it doesn’t ahve to take long.

    At the same time, or soon after, you start cleansing your own sphere. You do this by conjuring the Intelligences of the planetary spheres. Just being in their presence creates a harmonious vibe in your own sphere, and as that happens, your sphere gets more pure. You, just like the earth you live on, are the center of planetary spheres. To get the divine Power Within through you have to get rid of the corrosion on the shells of your spheres.

    It’s like in electronics. Before you solder two wires together, you have to make sure the copper at the end of the wires is nice and clean. You can either use steel wool to rub it clean, or a sulfuric acid. either way, you get the corrosion off the tips so the electrons flow smoothly. On the Box I made, I have to use sand paper on occasion to clean the electrodes or the backs of the seals so that the light will come on.

    Working with the Archangels or Intelligences of the planets has a similar effect on your spheres. Their presence cleanses your sphere and brings peace where there is conflict in your manifestation of “planetary” forces. Like if you have anger management issues, Working with Kammael, archangel of the sphere of Mars can help. It can also push you over the edge if you’re trying to hold on to the anger.

    The only way to be sure that you won’t get pushed over the edge is to work with or through your HGA. The trouble is, when you get in contact with your HGA it can be a bit of an uncomfortable experience. It makes you better, but you have to face some aspects of yourself that you might think are just fine, but are secretly totally fucked up.

    As you work with your HGA and the Planetary Archangels, you’ll have visions and wonders and miracles begin. After a while, they sort of fade away into the background of your life. This is normal. At this stage, you’re supposed to start doing stuff on your own. Your HGA will let you know when it’s time, and what to do if things seem to be stagnating.

    But remember, the Power Within… the Power Within… The Power Within!!!

  • Solve et Coagula

    The other day, I was reading Ouspensky’s “The Symbolism of the Tarot” over at the Sacred Texts web site (www.sacred-texts.com). In the section “What is the Tarot”, he used the word “problem” in a sentence that shed new light on an old question of mine.

    Regarding the study of IHVH, he said “The study of this Name (or the four-lettered word, tetragrammaton, in Greek) and the finding of it in everything constitutes the main problem of Kabalistic philosophy.”

    He wrote in 1913, and his use of the language is different from my own. When I say I have a problem, I don’t usually think about it as a good thing, or as a subject of research. I think of “Problem” as something that’s bad, negative, something that is impeding my ability to enjoy life. In Ouspensky’s mind though, a problem is the central core of a philosophy.

    It got me thinking about how philosophy is a solution to a problem. When you have a problem, you try to solve it, and that got me thinking about the old alchemical axiom, Solve et Coagula.

    I’ve tended to think about the process of Solve et Coagula as the process of breaking apart a conglomeration into its individual parts, refining it, and bringing the parts back together as a new and better whole. That’s how the Great Work has manifested for me. But to the Solve stage, you must first recognize on some level that there is a problem that needs to be solved. What’s my problem? What is it that I’m trying to solve?

    The goal of “reuniting with God” is the solution to being separated from God. I’ve understood for a long time that the separation is only one level of existence, and that ultimately no one is separated from God. Through the Logos, the way back to Union and communion with the Divine was paved. So my problem isn’t that I’m not united with God.

    I perform the Great Work because I want to be a better person. I want a stronger character, I want to pass on a legacy of doing the right thing for my fellow incarnate beings to my children and grand children. I want to help people, and not be a selfish, lazy, ungrateful man. My problem is that I do the wrong thing instead of the right thing.

    At any given moment, I have a pool of energy I can draw on to do something. I can go for a walk, give money to the poor, or insult some moron who cut me off in traffic. The potential for whatever I do is always there.

    How that energy manifests is determined by what I decide to do. My decisions are influenced by my impulses towards selfishness, and how I’m going to make myself happy in the next moments. I’m a conglomeration of parts, some parts of me want to do the right thing, others jsut want to do the lazy thing. The way I make my decisions is heavily influenced by these component parts. The parts of myself that have control over my energy resources, my potential determine what I’m going to decide to do with my potential in any given moment, in any situation.

    The solve process is where the component parts are melted down, and the imputities are taken away. The Great Work is to get rid of the negative components, and allow the positive components to dominate the decisions, to control the manifestation of the potential I carry.

    So what is the Great Work? At this point, it’s a series of little problems that need to be Solved and Coagulated. Each of my “High Magic” rituals need to be focused on resolving the problems in my character that I’m made aware of through the Conversations with my HGA. There are areas of ignorance about the roles of the archangels I need to Solve. There are problems of the heart, mind, and spirit, each of which will need to be addressed, and in the process, perhaps the greater Work will be accomplished.

  • Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism

    I recently received an interesting link from someone in a comment to my post concerning the Guf.

    For those readers who are interested in more traditional interpretations of the QBL than you’ll ever see here, you might find his blog interesting. Especially those members of Alchemical College that are talking about Adam Kadmon at the moment.

  • Spirit Pot Manual

    I’ve begun the somewhat painstaking process of writing out the events that lead to the creation of my spirit pot, the details of making it, and the results. Maybe it’ll turn into an actual published manuscript. Time will tell.