Which doctor? Witchdoctor Joe.
Around the borders of the Tartarean abode flows a river, the waters of which completely erase memories. Lethe, this river is called, and here the wounds and ills of lifetimes are washed from the battered and bruised souls who seek its embrace.
I would give the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone* for a culture-sized dose that I could administer to the entire Western occult audience. That’s you, I’m talking about. I want to steal your memories, erase them, take them away entirely, unlearn ye wee bastards of anything and everything you’ve ever heard about enlightenment and being a guru, whether it’s of Western or Eastern origin, focused on the Great Work, or Meditation, or Rajayoga, or Tantra, or whatever the motherfuck.
Because it’s all bullshit. Total and complete bullshit.
Jason wrote a neat piece on States and Stages the other day, and as he says in his response to the Formspring question about my mental stability, we talk on the phone about shit fairly frequently. We had already had the State and Stage conversation, a couple times.
What bothers people about hearing “we are gods” or “I have accomplished the Great Work”?
You read through it, and it’s all about the idea that someone is at an enlightened state, happy all the time, and life doesn’t suck for them ever anymore.
It’s that. That bothers people.
Because that can’t be. That just can’t be true. We know because we see it every day, right?
And 10,000 years of written history backs it up. The super advanced mystics of every culture on the planet have written what it’s all about, and how to tell if someone’s really got it, that is, GOT IT! And they talk about humility and knowing how much more there is to know, and never claiming any achievement, and never bragging about it.
I will tell you the truth, having crossed the alleged abyss**, having created the Stone***, having attained K&CHGA****, I can tell you the absolute truth, the TRVTH even:
Nobody is a guru! There are no enlightened masters. There is no Philosopher’s Stone*****. Everything you ever learned about Hierophants is bullshit. Nobody knows shit. Nobody ever has. Plato, Aristotle, Hermes Thrice Great, Jesus Christ, Siddartha, they didn’t know shit. They would be happy to tell you so in person, I swear to everything that pretends to be God!
Their protestations get drowned out, especially after they die. Living people get to say whatever the hell they want to about the teachings of the Masters when they’re dead, when there’s the temple/church/sanctuary fund to fill! And you believe it. Because it would be really awesome if someone were really perfect, wouldn’t it!? If someone actually got it and made it out, enlightened, and fucking happy!? That would be awesome!
Just sayin’. Don’t hate me. It’s just time to cut the shit.
In real life, the Stone will not make you live an extra 312 years. Most recipes for the Stone will fucking kill you, like they did Regardie. He’s a smart fella who is recent enough to check the facts and have a decent understanding.
Most of the Golden Dawn folks who founded the traditions we are so fond of today died of cancer. Because of the Abramelin rites on their bookshelves? Maaaaaayyyyybbbbbbeeeeeeee… Or maybe because they all smoked like fucking chimneys. The world may never know.
Actually, we do know. We know better. Because we have access to facts. Blavatsky was insane. Gurdjieff? Nuts. Rudolph Steiner? Batshit. Aleister Crowley? Ok, dude had his fucking moments, eh? I mean honestly. He rocked. Brilliant. Fucking honest as shit. Saw eternity. Put it into words. Made fun of you for not getting it. I love Aleister.
The rest of ’em, whether it’s Hermes, Peter, Paul, Mahmoud or St. John of Patmos, or Hizzonah 007 John Dee himself.. They can all suck my metaphoric dick******! Especially that also-brilliant French bastard Levi. Call those the paths of the Tarot*******!? Shah, right!
In real life, no one is happy all the time. There are spiritual masters that walk the Earth with us who are super advanced, who radiate a force of god-ness that they have developed by eliminating the things that block them from being that in their daily lives. You stand in their presence, and you feel something cool.
They have bad days too, and they don’t talk about how advanced they are because they know how far they have to go.
Rest comfy in that warm and fuzzy reality, boys and girls! Enlightened masters have lives that suck sometimes! Awesome!
Right?
Fuck all that. Here’s some uncomfortable truth:
I have the power and experience to create a life that never sucks. And I will not do it.
Neither will my sweet lover, the brilliant and accomplished Harper. Or the incredible Jason Miller, though he can. Neither will Harold Roth, or Jack Flash. Or Deborah Castellano. Or her main man Jow, or her non-main-man Gordon. Andy won’t do it, and neither will 4ndy, or Polyphanes, though he’s cool as shit. The people I love the most won’t do it, no matter how much they think they want to, because deep down, way deep down…
None of us are really ready to give it up. The passion, the drama, the awesomeness of existence with unknown consequence. Nobody wants to live a perfect life. Fucking boring as shit, that. We play for fun.
[Author’s note: That above part is wrong somehow. Suffering is an indicator that you need to fix something. Suffering is not fun.We don’t do it on purpose, even if we can appreciate its role in our lives. In my opinion, that would be a sickness that needs healing. Having an aesthetic appreciation for a thing is not the same as desiring its manifestation in your life. This part needs more thought. Proactive creation of a not-shitty life is, after all, sort of the whole fucking goal, so we can enjoy life.]
Sadness creates a more tender heart, not a tougher heart. Ask any romantic. We learn joy from sadness, and joy… that’s what it’s all about. We appreciate a job that lets us be ourselves after we’ve had jobs that did not. We appreciate lovers who love us for who we are instead of who they wish we were. We appreciate pain because it becomes the salt that makes the cookies sweeter. It makes our subjective standards about existence meaningful. It makes life fun.
I would take from you everything you know about the Guru Trip, if I could. Because it’s bullshit. It gives us false expectations, all of us, whether we see ourselves as gurus or students. States and stages, it’s all bullshit.When Mr. Grim comes calling, we’re all honored, and ready for what comes next, deep down. And that… that’s beautiful.
And, for the record, you’re a living god, enjoying the shit you wade through. If you’re not happy, change that shit… if you want to. It’s totally your life, and you can hit the reset button any time, at the beginning or the end. The “chain of manifestation,” that’s just a gimmick, a method, a map, a tool that works. Use it or don’t.
But have fun, no matter whether it seems like something a guru should enjoy or not. Because the guru trip… it’s just a trip that gurus take, and non-gurus take.
If they want to.
Totally not necessary for life, and the enjoyment thereof********.
* It’s not that big of a secret. There are a fuckton of free recipes for it at Adam Mclean’s Alchemy Web Site. Get gold from ore. Make vermilion paint out of mercury sulfate (cinnabar). Extract the sulfur, mercury, and salt from a plant with grain alcohol, mix ’em together and have yourself a tincture. ffs.
** It’s a myth, it’s just thinking you know anything, skip that and you’re fine. ffs.
*** And ground it into powder and made a tincture that I drink before doing heavy magical lifting that makes me a huge fucking magical Beast when I consume it. ffs.
**** K&C doesn’t make you an enlightened master, it’s the beginning of a relationship with the only MASTER you will EVAR NEED. You just don’t get the punchline til the joke is over. ffs.
***** There totally IS a Stone. I’m just making a point. Metaphorically. ffs.
****** Not Jesus though, because of the beard. Facial hair: total turnoff. ffs.
******* Honestly, not bad, not bad. I got nothing better, fer sure.
******** For fuck’s sake. (FFS)
A long time ago, I wrote a post about the 4th Pentacle of Jupiter from the Key of Solomon.
The fourth pentacle of Jupiter.– It serveth to acquire riches and honor, and to possess much wealth. Its angel is Bariel. It should be engraved upon silver in the day and hour of Jupiter when he is in the sign Cancer.
Observant commenter Bill asked me yesterday if I’d be creating this talisman this year, as Jupiter enters Cancer at the end of June.
Yes! Yes I will. And I encourage you to do so as well, brothers and sisters. It’s fairly straightforward. You inscribe the seal in silver on a Jupiter day (Thursday) in a Jupiter hour (use Lunarium to calculate that for you, don’t forget to EDIT your location) while Jupiter is in Cancer.
There are no other stipulations to creating this talisman. You have 55 Thursdays between June 25th of 2013 and July 14 of 2014 when he leaves Cancer. You have four Jupiter hours per day. That’s 220 opportunities to take some silver and inscribe it with the pentacle.
Here’s the pentacle:
I will put together a pamphlet on how to make and consecrate this yourself. It will be mostly copy-pasted from the Talisman Maintenance and Operations Manual, so if you already have that, you can most likely use it to make the talisman from this post. The pamphlet will be inexpensive, and will be available some time this week.
Remember, it’s Silver, engraved during the Jupiter Hour of the Jupiter Day between June 25th 2013 and July 14th 2014. Plenty of chances to make this yourself.
If you want me to make one for you, I will start taking pre-orders now. The ones I make will be roughly half an ounce of silver, as I will be melting down one-ounce silver coins and pouring them into disks, which I will then proceed to beat into something inscribable. This is not an exact science, so there’s no telling what they’ll be shaped like or how much they will weigh when I’m finished. The design is pretty detailed, so I will be making them as large as possible. They will be melted, formed, and engraved in the appropriate planetary hours, and then each will be consecrated through the auspices of Bariel, and blessed with every bit of Jupiter current I have accessed, tapped, integrated, and channeled.
Pre-Ordered, these will be $195 each. After June 25th, I’ll increase the price to $250. I’ll be making extra, and after July 10th, 2014, the price will skyrocket.
I don’t know how many I will be able to actually make in a month, so I am going to limit the initial pre-order total sales to 36 talismans. I can make three in one day, based on my previous experiences with making silver planetary talismans, but until the first month rolls around and I see how many I can ACTUALLY make in a month, I’ll limit the number to make sure I can deliver.
Remember though, you can make these yourself! I strongly encourage everyone to do so! You’ve got over 5 months to prepare! It’s simple, it’s easy.
To order, use this PayPal link:
Ok, so there have been rumors that I have done gone batshit crazy. Well, questions about it have been whispered on the intertubules, and I can understand why. It might appear, from the outside, that I have flipped my lid, or let my “P.R. go to my head,” as boring old timers who write too many words might put it.
Why? Because I’ve been happy (ecstatic, blissful, overusing the word awesome) and talking about how this universe, this place we live in, is the direct manifestation of our Wills with the sole intent being the joyful experience of our creation. That state of bliss came after I did some serious focused planetary magic, devotedly, passionately, Seven Spheres in Seven Days.
And look at this: Today I see one of my favorite fellow magicians post his schedule of practice here. Tonight he posts this quote from the archangel.
It’s not just me. It’s spreading.
Hey-O! It’s Pimp my Friends Monday! This won’t be a regular thing, it just happens to be Monday, and I happen to have friends, and they’re doing cool shit, and you should be aware and take advantage!
Next on Pimp my Friends Monday, we turn to Jason Miller’s Strategic Sorcery Cycle 12. He’s putting together something special for Imbolc in this cycle, which is cool, but he’s also partnering with Occult of Personality to provide 3 months free membership and access to a ton of occult materials as part of this cycle’s lessons. He explains the details in the link above.
I’ve taken and thoroughly enjoyed the Strategic Sorcery course. I can’t tell you how many of my favorite and most skillful students have taken both my courses and Jason’s. They’re my favorite students because they actually do the magic that we talk about. They put it directly into practice. They conjure, they sommune, they direct, they initiate, they integrate, and they shape their worlds according to their wills. There’s something special about the Strategic Sorcery course that really brings it home that magic is what magicians do.
So this is yet ANOTHER thing I can’t recommend enough. Take advantage of the course offer while you can, the next cycle of courses starts February 1st!
Hey-O! It’s Pimp my Friends Monday! This won’t be a regular thing, it just happens to be Monday, and I happen to have friends, and they’re doing cool shit, and you should be aware and take advantage!
Next on Pimp My Friends Monday, we head to Glastonbury in the UK to see Sef putting together something seemingly rare in the modern occult community: a group of Thelemites actually practicing magick!
I shouldn’t joke, I know, but for many years the main complaint I’ve heard from my Thelemite friends in the OTO is that for all the talk and discussion and engineering and conversation that goes into the Theory of magick among Thelemites, no one ever does any magic! People can talk for hours about Crowley’s arrangement of the paths on the Kircher Tree, and lots of people have lots of opinions about the operations Crowley performed, but when you start asking them what kind of magickal operations they’re currently working on, you get responses ranging from uncomfortable silence to cold hard stares and the psychic knowledge that their magickal operations will shortly be the preparation of your Greater Feast, thanks for asking.
Sef isn’t a sit on your hands and bitch about people kind of magician. He’s more into fixing things. To that end, he’s been training magicians and witches in the UK to actually perform magic. (With and without a k.) He’s already held successful angel magic workshops, and is now putting together something designed specifically for Thelemites who want to learn to actually DO MAGICK instead of sitting around talking about it all the time. He won’t be tossing a bunch of noobs into heavy conjurations without the prerequisite establishment of a firm foundation in Theory, of course, but he will be sneakily getting more people focused on the PRACTICE part of Magick in ways that will knock your proverbial socks off.
So once again, I highly recommend this course. I’ve known Sef for entirely too fucking long, and I guarantee there will be benefits and boons from taking lessons from him personally that you simply will not receive from anyone else. Ever.
Hey-O! It’s Pimp my Friends Monday! This won’t be a regular thing, it just happens to be Monday, and I happen to have friends, and they’re doing cool shit, and you should be aware and take advantage!
First, Michael Cecchetelli’s Abrasax book! That thing is awesome. I took it with me to Florida and read through it with my love, and man, it’s amazing. I do NOT recommend reading it aloud to one another, the Voces Magicae become tongue twisters quickly! Also, the air tends to get a little thick, which I don’t think is a bad thing at all, but some people might not be up for that kind of vibe.
It is a fine balance of being well-researched and extremely practical. Like all his works, Michael continues to provide the pleasant mix of elaborate techniques and processes that appeal to the more cerebral types AND the down and dirty quick-action rites that appeal to folks who are looking for quick means to quick results. I prefer my rites short on words and formula and heavy on spirit-conjure and experience, and I found plenty of rites that I could perform on the go with little preparation. At the same time, I’m looking forward to more experiments performing the longer rites with friends.
He includes an interesting mudra, the Coronastrum. I have enjoyed experimenting with it since learning about it, and I’m looking forward to more use. It projects the currents I’m learning to control from the Eight Sphere Work I’m doing really nicely.
One thing he doesn’t mention in the text about it near the graphic that would have been useful for me to know is that the picture he shows is how it looks when facing OUT. That is, if you’re looking down at your hands trying to make them look like the Coronastrum, you’re uh, you’re going to have a bad time. You may not have that problem, I might be an idiot, I don’t know. But yeah… palms OUT.
One more comment on the quality of this book: Both versions are very nice, extremely fucking nice, in fact, a biliophile’s wet dream come true. I love Nephilim Press, the quality of their work is great.
But honestly, there’s a quality of this book they can’t tell you about. I’ll let you in on a little secret, Michael is a fellow member of an exclusive cult of Jupiter that I’ve mentioned a time or two. As a result, his prosperity rites have a tendency to have a certain added extra … “oomph,” shall we say? I recommend buying the more expensive version of the book if they have any left because it won’t matter a bit. Perform one of the prosperity rites, and odds are pretty fucking incredibly high that you will more than make back what you spend on this book. Unless you personally fuck up the manifestation process. And even that would be difficult.
So yes, I heartily recommend this book.
Wow! I just finished my first run-through of Austin Coppock’s 2013 Astrological Almanac, subtitled Ship of Fools. It’s incredible. The material is entertaining as well as interesting and useful. And scary accurate.
To accomplish the Great Work and reclaim your divine status for free without purchasing any of my materials:
Note that Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Trithemius’ Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals, and the Magical Calendar are available online for free at Esoteric Archives.