Yea did we awake, and rubbing the sleep from our eyes, turned our gaze to the world in which we found ourselves. As far as the eye could see, as far as the East is from the West, all lands, all tribes, all nations of men and women upon the Earth were in Chaos. Brutish men with large guns and small penises enforced a dull child’s game of money and value that was ludicrous and imaginary. And mean-spirited.


And yea, we were taken aback for a moment, cringing at the sheer stupidity of all we surveyed.


And then we laughed.


For Her Prophets had been upon the Earth, and they did spread her Wisdom far and wide. All humans with an internet connection had access to Her TRVTH:


Nothing is real, all is permitted!


Aye, the world is fucked, but it is perfectly fucked, and it is fucked in ways that are only fucked if you play the game. Find ye the Cracks in the Pavement, the Methods to the Madness; look ye for the Loophole, and ye shall find it!


Lo, there is a crack in everything.


(That’s how the light gets in.)


So upon this most auspicious day, read the ancient mystic code and rejoice! For though it be fucked and chaos spread from horizon to horizon, it was given in whole, not in part, unto The Prettiest One, that Thou mayest make of it what ye Will!


23! 23/23 Kallixti!


I’ve mentioned my Erisian roots on the olde blogge before, but I’ve gotten a few more readers lately, so I figured I should give y’all fair warning:

It gets a little crazy sometimes in these parts.

Eris is the Greek goddess of Chaos. She wasn’t invited to a party with the other gods because she had a reputation for starting trouble. This is the doctrine of the Original Snub.

Of course she showed up anyway, and she brought a single golden apple. The kind that all the gods are always after, the really good ones that are like god-catnip, the kind everyone has to have for themselves. (Some suggest it was Acapulco gold rather than metallic gold, but I wasn’t there.) She engraved upon the apple the word “Kallixti” which is Greek for “To the Prettiest!”

All the goddesses argued over it, saying it was obviously for her, since she was the prettiest. It came down to Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena, if I remember right. They asked Zeus to judge who the prettiest was, and he was like, “Fuck that shit. Let’s get Paris to do it,” and they tapped that poor schmuck to judge the fairest goddess.

They explained the situation, and gave him some time to think about it. While he thought about it, the goddesses all sought him out and tried to bribe him. Hera offered to make him a great King, Athena offered to make him a mighty Warrior, and Aphrodite offered him the love of the prettiest woman in the world, one Helen of Troy. Paris picked Aphrodite, of course, and Aphrodite brought he and Helen together.

Which pissed off her husband Menelaus, and then… well… the Trojan War.

She was the archetype of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, and then in more modern times Eris has shown up in various cartoons and other Disney films, I believe. Between Maleficent and these modern appearances though, she was … uh, “worshipped” in by Kerry Thornley, Greg Hill, and Robert Anton Wilson. They recorded the Principia Discordia, a text all good magi must read, for verily does it contain more truth than that fucking Kybalion. These gents, and Robert Shea, created a corpus of works that explored her essence, personality, and the forces she represents in the modern age.

(You must read the Illuminatus! trilogy by Roberts Anton Wilson and Shea to truly understand a lot of weird shit that makes sense of most of the things.

Most of ’em.)

I was an Erisian, not a Discordian. The Discordians were a silly lot. Erisian Mystics like myself were after Her essence, not Her form, and the few of us I have met all incorporated the gnosis of the pure malleablility of chaos underlying all reality in ways few other magicians understand.

The numeric phrase 23: 23/23 Kallisti holds a great mystery for those who are willing to pass through the nuclear gate of their own stars and journey “outside the ordered universe[to] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.”

In it we find that yes, the world is chaotic, yes, it is broken, ill, diseased in places and times… yet still, it is One thing, perfect and pure and infinitely malleable. It skips and hops for the pleasure of the Eye of the Prettiest One. It is a gift, fragrant, crisp and resistant against the teeth at first, but then yielding with a snap and filling your mouth with a burst of sweet pleasure unlike any other. It is made for you, by you, so that you have something to do.

And whatever that may be is entirely up to you.

Kallisti!

A friend of mine posted a pic of his altar setup the other day on FB, and I gotta admit, I got a little wood. Mahogany. You know. Teak. 

Someone mentioned I haven’t blogged for a while. So here’s an excerpt from a day in the life of R.O. …

0) When I entered into the cave, I received the tablet zaradi, which was inscribed, from between the hands of Hermes, in which I discovered these words:
1) True, without falsehood, certain, most certain.
2) What is above is like what is below, and what is below is like that which is above. To make the miracle of the one thing.
3) And as all things were made from contemplation of one, so all things were born from one adaptation.
4) Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon.
5) The wind carried it in its womb, the earth breast fed it.
6) It is the father of all ‘works of wonder’ (Telesmi) in the world.
6a) Its power is complete (integra).
7) If cast to (turned towards- versa fuerit) earth,
7a) it will separate earth from fire, the subtile from the gross.
8) With great capacity it ascends from earth to heaven. Again it descends to earth, and takes back the power of the above and the below.
9) Thus you will receive the glory of the distinctiveness of the world. All obscurity will flee from you.
10) This is the whole most strong strength of all strength, for it overcomes all subtle things, and penetrates all solid things.
11a) Thus was the world created.
12) From this comes marvelous adaptions of which this is the proceedure.
13) Therefore I am called Hermes, because I have three parts of the wisdom of the whole world.
14) And complete is what I had to say about the work of the Sun, from the book of Galieni Alfachimi.

Today I woke up thinking about talismans. Emerald tablet talismans. I thought it would be cool to come up with something that was lunar and solar and represented the great work.

So we made silver talismans tonight on a solar day in a lunar hour. We had a lump of silver from a one-ounce coin we had melted before. We melted some into lumps, then heat them and beat them with hammers until they were disc shaped. Then we engraved them with a dremel tool.

We put the image of the sun in the topmost triangle and the image of the moon in the lower one. We placed the elemental signs in the remaining four triangles and a Hebrew Samekh in the center. We consecrated them and placed them on our altar.

I think the symbolism is pretty apparent. It’s not a traditional talisman, and it’s not particularly astrological. It’s simply something that reflects the thing we do. Ascend, descend, generate.

I’m going to wear mine, I think. It’s not high art, or lost wax casting. It’s primitive, and raw, and it is all mine. I like it because it is totally about what we do, and why we do it. It is simply magical, for its own sake.

Friends! Have I got something for you. If you’re like me, and I know you are, you are in a world that is not entirely fun, aren’t you? That’s because life on Earth, in the flesh like this, well… it sucks sometimes. Usually when we’re not paying attention to things we were supposed to be tending, but at other times too. It’s like there’s something inherent in incarnation that requires that sometimes things just aren’t friggin’ awesome.

Try New and Improved Red Stone!

It’s a magical wonder, a panacea that brings healing, peace, and wholeness to us… wherever we may be. It extends life, it restores youth, it calms passions and cleanses apathy! 

I made a study of the Alchemical phases, and examined what exactly happened in these experiments. I looked at what happens in the Hermetic path to reclaiming divinity, and saw that it could easily be mapped to the alchemical phases.

I got to work testing my theory with the easiest model of the spheres and the process of ascending through the heavens and descending in power I could find. I started with the Primum Materia, that is, me, and I set that shit on fire, let the smoke rise up as an offering of prayers, to be a sweet smell in the heavens as I watched the things inside me burn.

And you learn to get rid of sadness. You learn that the people who let you down are just … well, they’re just like you. You get compassion. Not forgiveness, necessarily, because just like you, they could have learned to treat you better, but at least you understand, and you’re released from taking it personally. As well as protected from letting it happen again. You’ve learned that the things that eliminating situations that make you sad make room for happiness, and that makes the times when you do see the sad stuff ever so much bearable.  And even revelatory regarding the nature of sorrow and joy.

The true treasure though, the real reason we do it isn’t listed at all in the sales pitch. The real reason we do it is something even better, something beyond words. It’s pointed to in the word JOY, it’s indicated… but there’s something higher found in the frictive sweaty work of manifestation. Something higher and hotter and more amazing, a gnosis that feels like the release of the floodgates that you only feel consciously in rare sphincter-relaxing moments in life.

Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!

* This, O Son, is the concealed stone of many colours, which is born and brought forth in one colour; know this and conceal it. By this, the Almighty favouring, the greatest diseases are escaped, and every sorrow, distress, and evil and hurtful thing is made to depart; for it leads from darkness into light, from this desert wilderness to a secure habitation, and from poverty and straits to a free and ample fortune. – The Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus

In his Archonology post, Gordon recently presented the following sidebar:

Sidebar: it does, however, fascinate me that contemporary western occultism can display such a sad, trainspotty obsession with the lineage of grimoiric demons and stress over the most precise ways in which we ‘should’ contact ‘them’… but little thought is actually given to what these things do when they’re not appearing in your living room. Beings that apparently command vast ghost armies and give nightmares to kings are just… what? Sitting patiently in the metaphoric drive-thru window just waiting to help you get that 5% payrise? Or are they skinriding the brutal oligarchs bringing destruction and penury upon the world just for the lulz? Are you sure you’re even interesting enough to warrant a demon prince’s attention?

Hee hee! I love Gordon.

He’s right, of course, there’s not enough understanding of the framework of the spirits of the “demonic” grimoires among the traditionalist and fundamentalist movements in the practical occult. I classify all the grimoires of the Renaissance as being, pretty much, Hermetic in fundamental nature. They are founded on the principles of the Hermetic cosmology.

Hermetics has a rich landscape of spirits. There are the Celestial spirits of the heavens, the Terrestrial spirits of Nature, Elemental spirits, and Infernal spirits from the underworld. We are related to all of them, via our parents, First Father and the Spiritus Mundi. We are kith and kin to them all.

In the grimoires, the spirits that get classified as “demons” most often (i.e. when I think about them) are the spirits of the Lemegeton’s Goetia, maybe the Theurgia Goetia, the spirits of the True Grimoire, the spirits of the Testament of Solomon, and some of the spirits you run into in the Clavicles, maybe. Oh, and the demons of the Abramelin rite, which was entirely about conjuring demons for money and happiness and not at all interested in happy illumination or enlightenment. Money. Power. Influence. Happiness. That’s what the Abramelin rite is about, and it’s demons that get it for you.

Now Jake Stratton-Kent has gone over it in awesomely better detail in Geosophia and True Grimoire, so I’ll refer you there for more information about these next bits if you have questions. I’m summarizing and possibly paraphrasing, and probably changing some stuff to make it fit. But the gist of it is that the Demons are Elemental Spirits, for the most part. The four demonic kings are the kings of the elemental Kingdoms, and everyone else is a servant of them.

That’s it, folks. Most of the “demons” you hear so much about are Elementals. Bet you didn’t know every time you did an Elemental Kingdom rite you were conjuring demons, eh? Well you were! You’re a Goetic Magician now, man, it’s all over for you. You might as well be calling up the spirits of the dead, you damned necromancers!

So anyway, not a big deal, really. Demons are elemental spirits. That’s the Terrestrial realm, mostly. So why the evil reputations? Let’s not blame the Christians entirely, though they can carry a great deal of the blame. If you look at elemental spirits in many cultures, it’s not long before you see that they are often up to no good. Faeries and sprites, leprechauns and dragons, the interactions between the two rarely end well. They have a reputation for mischief, the painful kind, disease-spreading, and strife-causing.

Now nature spirits are worker bees, just like the planetary governors of the allegedly celestial spheres. They are the Intelligences of the forces that oversee. They create reality, like blue-collar workers. They can be crass, opinionated, and bitter. They can also be the intelligences of disease, overseeing the manifestation of the common cold, or cancer. They are the spirits responsible for creating the things that come from nature that we don’t like as much as the things that we do like.

So when they aren’t in the circle or triangle, they are off overseeing the things over which they rule. They have legions of helpers because think about how many forces are interacting at once to maintain this universe. Legions and legions. And we can tap their forces if we want, but it’s not guaranteed to be any entity who likes you, and you can’t expect not to be impacted by what they are also lords over. Like if you conjure a apirit known to be a liar, don’t be surprised if you, even though you’ve bound the spirit to tell the truth, become a liar yourself for a bit after working with him. They rub off on us.

It’s no big deal, they aren’t “bad.” They just manifest things we don’t like. You have to be really careful to understand the nature of the spirit you’re working with when you do material magic so you can understand how it will manifest your results.

But on the other hand, these spirits are wicked smart when it comes to learning how to manifest things ourselves. They can teach us the nature of things, the correspondences of different elements, and how to combine them in neat ways to create specific results in our magical activities. We can get serious skills in mastering the manifestation game from them, if we ask for learning, teaching, education, information, skill, and talent in the spheres they rule. They can teach us how to “phrase” things when we speak them into existence.

And when they’re done with us, they go back to their business, manifesting whatever needs manifesting wherever it’s necessary. They aren’t planning anything evil (except the one who are supposed to, and still… “evil”), they aren’t riding politicos (except the ones who do) or running multi-generational experiments on human genetics (except … well… it’s a secret…).

So no need to worry about those demons and whatever they might be up to when they aren’t around.

Everything’s just fine.

I’ve been invited to speak on Talk Gnosis tomorrow night. We’ll be talking about the heavens, the entities therein, and the practical attainment of Gnosis that the adherents of various beliefs go through from different traditions. 

Last night we did a rite to Hermes in his hour on his day, and we didn’t really ask for much of anything, besides deeper understanding and integration of the forces of his sphere in our lives. The seer saw a single image, nothing moving or pulsing, just a steady image that was full of power. There were no apparitions of angels or gods, there were no words of teaching, warning, admonition or praise.

There was simply the presence of the Intelligence and Deity of the Sphere of Mercury, radiating out into the room, into our spheres.

Today I am Mercurially recharged, focused on accomplishing tasks I’ve let fall to the back burner due to lack of time, energy, or interest. And boy, did I need it after that last retrograde. Words, logic, rhetoric, they flow again where before was a dry stream. It feels wonderful.

We don’t always have to ask for things or events or effects or results from our invisible friends to receive exactly the things we need the most. Sometimes just hanging out with the gods is enough.

The rite is simple, the declaration of sacred space, the establishment of the light of the First Father, the consecration of the scrying medium, the conjuration of the planetary Intelligence, and the recitation of the planetary Orphic Hymn, and then simple rest and observation.

I can’t recommend it enough.

Jason and I have talked offline about some of the concerns he has with me telling people that they are gods, and are in control of the manifestation of their realities. I didn’t really appreciate some of his concerns until yesterday.

I had posted a “Don’t Rape, Don’t let Others Rape” post on FB for St. Paddy’s day, and a friend posted about how teachings like The Secret end up convincing people that everything that happens to them is their own fault. “You got raped? Oh, that was because part of you consented, that is, you wanted to be raped. You were asking for it, and so therefore, your rape is your fault.”

I nearly shat myself. All of a sudden, I understood part of what Jason’s concern was when he said people do not literally create their own existence all the time, that they are not gods. We magnify everyfucking thing when we blame ourselves.

So let’s get something straight about the core of Hermetic Doctrine:

1. We are all gods with the power to create and maintain our worlds. 
2. We all have the power to influence (if not fully control) every aspect of our existence through applied hermetic magic.
3. Through little fault of our own, we have forgotten this fact. In our amnesiac state, we view the world as an ongoing series of stimuli to which we react. In reality, it should be more like 50/50, where we are creating our world and leaving it room to throw us some curve balls so we can keep enjoying the game.
4. Hermetic Magic is how we remember:
1. Who we are
2. Why we’re here
3. How to be gods
5. SHIT HAPPENS. And it’s not your fault. Most of your life you responded and reacted. You still do. I still do. Do Hermetic magic like I do, and you’ll create maybe 10% of the time and react the other 90% of the time. But if you create 10% of the time, the other 90% will be mostly positive. Mostly. But shit still happens that is not your fault. You’re a creator god among 7 billion creator gods. The only thing that makes you even a little bit special is that you’re interested in creating your world. You’re still reacting to other people’s stuff most of the time that is beyond your current sphere of control.

OK? You understand that, right? There’s no blame in this creator-god stuff. There’s only opportunity. Whatever happened, why-ever it happened, who cares, it doesn’t really matter, honestly. What you’ve got to do today is a simple matter of who you are, what you want, and the resources you’ve got at your fingertips. That’s it.

When you’re happy, if you’re interested, you can go back over the shit that makes you sad. You will have plenty of time, and the experience and perspective to understand it in the context of a joyful existence, after you get one. All the bad shit makes sense when you’re happy. Get happy, and then worry about stuff. It’ll be there to think about later if it’s a big deal, and when you’re slightly tipsy and just had a brilliant orgasm, your bad relationship choices in your 20s (and 30s) don’t really seem to be that big of a deal.

Because they aren’t. Shit happens. That’s not your fault.

How you react to the shit, that’s up to you, largely. What you do with what you have to work with. That is your kingdom. Manage that, take responsibility for that, and you’ll soon see the things you control growing, and the things you don’t just fading away. Seek first the kingdom. Seek first.

And again: It’s not your fault that you fucked up when you didn’t know any better. Try again and see how you do this time. If it’s not perfect, try again. There’s no blame in this shit. There’s no fault. There’s only FATE, and that is always what you do. Which is your choice, from what we can tell.