Hey all, Rose wrote up a field report on the results of the Daimon Trap thing I make for people’s Evil Daimons. Basically, I make a talisman of the Evil Daimon in steel, binding it therewith the forces of Mars. Then I encase that in lead and bind it with Saturn. Then I put a Secret Seal of Solomon over the top of that. I’ve made a couple of these for people, and received private reports of their success in the lives of the recipients.

I didn’t ask Rose to publicly make the field report, she volunteered, and I’m very grateful. I didn’t know the back story at the time, I was just contacted about putting together the Daimon Trap, did a divination that indicated success, and went forward from there. It’s neat to see how the work manifested in her life. 

In the previous post, I talked about The Current and Miracle Juice. I mentioned the Current flows across all times and space, popping up in different cultures as different practices and interpretations.

No matter what node you go through, you find yourself in a strange spirit world, compared to the material world of the senses, and it’s filled with all kinds of entities. You find spirits of animals and objects, spirits of the land, spirits of Gods and spirits of the dead. This land has its own topology, its own natural laws. There are regions of similitude that visitors from the lands of forgetful flesh would find on the other side, with spirits in harmony with the powers represented there.

The visitors came back and made maps of the spirit realm, calling it the Underworld in regions where caves revealed vistas of beauty and color, and spewed gasses that made you see things, or calling it Heaven in regions where the sky goes on forever and the night’s stars are not obscured by humidity. In every culture we see the same kind of thing, a place populated by our dead, and various angels, or demons, or gods and their assistants.

In each culture, there are some living humans called to act as intermediaries to the denizens of this other world. Some of us have an affinity to that place while we’re alive, and we talk to and work with tribes of the entities of that place, and we learn to manipulate the stuff of that world and this as a consequence of our travels and study in that world. Shamans and Goets, Magi and Prophets walked with angels and geniuses and deities, fought those spirits who dwelt in dark places and fed on the pain of the living, and passed on messages from the dead.

For over ten thousand years, we’ve been doing the same things with this stuff, in whatever ways we learned from our cultures or remembered vaguely from previous incarnations. Today we’re still doing it the same way the shamans did it. Symbols and forms, chants, plants and trance, animal skins and viscera, minerals, aromas, and orations. We dream dreams and see visions, we sit in Silence and return to our Source, we speak the Word and create the World.

In a recent post, Jack spoke of a hidden tributary into the underworld, the river Mnemosyne, or Memory. Memory is important stuff. Through the lens of neoplatonics, we see that the point of what we call the Great Work is to remember who we are and where we come from. Reclaiming your divine Race and remembering your eternal Value. This is the route we take when we don’t want to fall prey to the effects of that other river of the Underworld, the river Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.

You ever have those brilliant epic dreams that run for weeks at a time, or throughout your entire life, but when you wake up all you can remember are vague visions of huge dogs in battle armor, and that still makes sense somehow? And you know how we have to go into a trance to “recover” our past life memories, and even then there’s a strong chance most of the memory is made up anyway? There’s a veil of forgetfulness that we have to get through, or past, or over in some way to be able to remember what we experienced when we return to the realm of the senses.

I think the River Lethe is the spiritual representation of this forgetfulness. It speaks to the existence of some layer between the spirit realm and the sensate realm that makes us forget who we are and where we come from when we incarnate. You have to cross that barrier carefully to retain what you’ve recalled. Rituals and trance states are techniques we use to dampen its effects.

But there’s another aspect of it that affects us in our Great Work. While we’re in the flesh and moving up through the heavens, kickin’ ass and takin’ names, we go further into the realm, sometimes even to its Source. It’s a long journey, and we spend more and more time there, and it gets more of our attention and becomes more real to us in many ways than the physical realm we live in. I think that’s ok, to a degree, because the eternal realm is our true home.

But we can forget about the physical realm and all that’s going on here if we aren’t careful. That river Lethe works both ways. Part of the whole Kingdom thing I’ve been on about since April has been focusing on taking what we learn Above and applying it here Below. Using the Current to shape our world. The point isn’t wealth, that’s a consequence. The point isn’t control, that’s an understanding, a perspective. The point is being wholly whole, at home in both realms, aware on multiple levels of our reason for being here.

In fact, the point isn’t even about two levels at all, it’s about understanding there’s one level, and parts of it seem one way while you’re in them, and parts seem another way when you’re in them, but it’s still all on big thing flowing and twisting and turning and churning. Being whole, letting your actions here below be an expression of your actions up above.

I think in the process of learning, we spend a lot of time in the spiritual realms, studying, achieving, receiving, remembering. And it’s probably a good thing too, because it takes a while to learn stuff. But eventually youremember where you’re also at, in the physical world, and you take what you know about the nature of the world and use it to shape the things you experience. You join the physical and the spiritual to the chariot and get them to pull you to your destination, whatever that might be.

Ok, so Jake Stratton-Kent has done some phenomenal work in tracing back Goety through the mists of time in Geosophia and True Grimoire, excellent work I highly recommend you purchase and study these books, referencing them regularly. I think in historic context, it ranks right up there with Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, and gives an insight into Agrippa that you just can’t understand without integrating the worldview Jake reveals.

As I’ve been reading through them, I keep on getting this warm glow, and the hairs on my arms stand up. He tracks our history of magic back to the animistic beginnings that resemble Shamanism more than any other system, and pieces it all together from surviving historic documents. He then builds a story around the pieces of historic remnants that reveals a mystery about the current we Work with as magicians of every type.

The following graphic is my interpretation of this current we’re working with, and how it’s manifested in societies and cultures across time. I could throw on a bunch more nodes, but I think this is a good representation of what I’m talking about. It’s one current that pops up again and again, putting on the faces and facets of the culture and time it’s manifesting in.

I think of the current as Miracle Juice. It’s what fuels all the miracles in all the religions, what condenses as self-aware Angels and Demons, Gods and Spirits with powers and realms and specialized spheres of influence. It’s what provides the Heat in our internal spiritual Alchemical Process of the Great Work. It’s the ecstatic state we feel, the force that shapes the Quintessence of existence. It is the Nous and the Logos and all the celestial, terrestrial, and chthonic spirits, all at once, including us. When we plug into it and direct it with our minds and bodies through symbol, word, and rite, it’s that ecstatic thrill of being and moving in tune with the creation of the Universe, it’s the power that flows through us and turns into what we experience, revealing the Nature of God, and the God of Nature.

In our various practices and approaches, we dip into the current at different points, through different interfaces. We go through whatever filters harmonize with our own preferences and experiences, but we tap into the same current. Jason used to accuse me of speaking about magic as if the way I did it was the only one true way, and in the exuberance of my successes, I may indeed have done so on occasion, inadvertently. I always understood at the core that what I was talking about was my interface with this current, and when I criticized other people’s approaches, I was talking about how their interfaces are limited in some ways from accessing some aspects of the current. I’m sure equal criticisms can be offered about my own approach. They’d be wrong and naive, of course, but they could still be made.

But fundamentally, it’s the same current. Each interface provides access to specific aspects of the current, and they can be mingled and adapted harmoniously in different ways to get more of the current. Even this is an interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt.

The current itself has no culture of its own, it touches on many cultures and manifests however it needs to in each. Root doctors, Goets*, Charismatic Christians, Sufi mystics and Victorian Ceremonial Magicians are accessing the same current to accomplish their miracles and synchronicities, they just access it through different nodes.

The nodes they use are like lenses, filtering out some aspects of the current, and focusing specifically on other aspects. Our practices, our approaches distill the Miracle Juice into the stuff we want it to be, and like any distillation process, the final taste is influenced by every step of the process along the way.

The current has no ethics. It is neither good nor evil, it simply is. Parts of it are light compared to other parts, which in turn seem dark. But this dualistic perception of the current is false. It’s a lens we put on it to see different parts, but angels aren’t always good, and demons are nice to little old ladies who live alone on the edge of town.

In the Astral Warrior’s Handbook, I mention that in an astral combat, the magician stuck in dualism will be limited in what they can bring to a fight. What I meant by that is if you’re an Angelic Hermeticist who only works with Archangels and their legions of spirits, or a Demonic conjurer who only uses the True Grimoire, or even a balanced Solomonic magician who’s at home with Angels and Demons alike, you’re still limited to Angels and Demons, supposedly “Light” or “Dark” spirits with whatever kinds of effects they’re capable or comfortable manifesting.

If you’ve seen through the illusion of Light and Dark, recognizing that both are looking at the Current through different parts of a single lens, you’re not limited to the constraints of the lens.

And ultimately, we all create our own lenses, our own nodes. Mine is mostly Hermetic, Neoplatonist, with a balanced relationship with the “terrestrial” and “celestial” spirits alike, while leaving the “infernal” spirits alone unless necessity demands. But it’s hoodoo-ish too, and Catholic, and Charismatic Christian. There are necromantic aspects, Orphic aspects, and bits and pieces of Crowley and Thelema in there too. And there’s even stuff that’s been personally revealed to me by extra-galactic entities with more tentacles than Cthulhu. Shh.

We aren’t limited by anyone else’s lenses. Jack wrote about some of the objections people have made to his path over the years. In reading it, I was shocked to think people were really that naive and spiritually unaware, but then in the comments he explained a lot of those objections came from his youth, presumably from other youths. I hope. Because he’s living in the land of stupids if they’re still saying shit like that.

You can’t judge other people’s lenses. It’s stupid. You can critique them, help those who are interested build better nodes that get them access to different concentrations of the Miracle Juice than they’ve got now, but only if they’re interested. Otherwise, it’s really none of your business.

And cultural appropriation issues… “This is my lens, you can’t look through it because you’re white/black/green/unholy/uninitiated/circumcised/uncircumcised…”

Some of that shit’s valid, some of it’s not. The current has no culture. As long as it’s harmonious and gives me a better view of the current, I’ll look through whatever lens I want to, because I love the Miracle Juice. I won’t pretend I’m something I’m not, and I won’t hack, slash, and burn for profit the holy traditions of people who give a shit about that kind of thing, but in my personal practice, it’s all fair game.

 * That’s the Goets who are the goetic magicians. Read Jake’s books for enlightenment on the proper usage of the terms. A Goet is a name for a type of believer who works with spirits of the underworld, which didn’t used to just mean chthonic or dark, the Underworld contained the Celestial Heavens and all their denizens. I’m simplifying a lot. Jake tells it better.

A couple of weeks ago, I offered the Astral Warrior Vortex Talismans for sale that I talked about in the Astral Warrior’s Handbook. Four people leaped on the chance to purchase them at $45 each, which turned out to be a real bargain. Come to find out, the price of Herkimer Diamonds has gone way, way up since the last time I bought them. Nevertheless, a deal’s a deal. That’ll teach me to check costs BEFORE setting prices in the future.

Lesson learned, prices updated.

Here’s the first batch sitting in the consecrated bowl:

You can’t really tell because the water is clear, but there’s a layer of water over them. The water is Moon Water, purified water that was consecrated to the Moon on a Full Moon by the Intelligence and Spirit of the Moon. I made up a batch on the Super Moon night, but my wife dumped it out. I still get a little angry when I think about it, so I try not to.

This Moon water was from the last Full Moon. I made it on a Monday night, technically the day before the Full Moon, but she was bright and beautiful, and it was a Moon day, and a Moon hour, so I took advantage of the situation.

The bowl is silver plated, and I engraved the seal of the Inteligency of the Intelligence of the Moon in the bottom, the Seal of the Moon from the Table of the Moon on the inside top, and the seal of the Spirit of the Moon, much smaller on the bottom. I engraved the name of the Intelligency of the Intelligence of the Moon in Celestial Script on the bottom of the bowl as well. It’s now a pretty potent Lunar Talisman in and of itself. You can see the engraving a little clearer here in this picture:

I’m not quite as good at engraving things nicely as Frater Ashen is, but I think it turned out pretty well. It hums with power, and that makes me happy. It’s shiny bright on the Astral.

So I consecrated the talismans to open a vortex to the Astral whenever anyone holds it in their left hand and says the name of the Intelligency of the Intelligence of the Moon. It’s a mouthful. “Malcha betharsism hed beruah schehalim.” Try saying that five times fast. Or even one time slowly. Mal-ka-beth-ar-shism hed Bare-uach Shech-hah-leem is the best I can do at trying to spell it phonetically. I have to say it slowly, and have it written down in front of my to even do that to this day.

Having a complicated activation phrase is a safeguard to keep it from activating accidentally. I have kids who like shiny things, so I’m careful like that. Plus using the Intelligence name seems to be a useful thing in and of itself anyway.

After consecrating them, I set them out where they can absorb the powers of the Moon for a full cycle. At each quarter, I take them down and perform a consecration rite over them. Yesterday was the New Moon consecration, so I took the time to take some pictures for this post, and to let those who ordered them know they are indeed being worked on, they just aren’t ready yet. Next Wednesday is the third Quarter, and the following Thursday is the Full Moon, and they should be shipped out the Saturday after that, so probably November 12, unless by some miracle I can get to the post office on Friday. It could happen.

But going forward, the talismans will be $75 plus shipping instead of the $45 plus shipping I originally charged for them. I’ve updated the blog post with the Buy Now buttons on it, so it will charge the updated price when you click on it from now on. I’ve also pasted the buttons below for easy access.

If you’d like to get in on the next cycle, you have until Wednesday, November 9th to place your order. That batch won’t be ready until December 10th, which is the night of a Full Lunar Eclipse. Hmmm. Those might be a little dark. I hadn’t thought about that. They’ll still work, but they may be better suited to those on the Chthonic end of the current we Work.

As always, the method is provided here free. You can make your own for the cost of materials, and all the stuff you need to know to conjure the spirits is available at www.esotericarchives.com in chapter 22 of Book 2 of Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy and the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals attributed to Trithemius.* Or you can use the seals from Agrippa’s Tables of the Planets with the Modern Angelic Grimoire, and that works too. If you’re more comfortable with the Archangels instead of the Intelligences and Spirits of the Tables of the Planets, Gabriel works just fine too. I would much rather people made these things themselves, honestly, but I understand not everyone has the time, materials, or confidence in their initiatory authority to do so. And I like to make teh monies doing something I love to do instead of things I hate to do.

The silver bowl is from Goodwill. I had my spouse pick up a couple of silver bowls last time she was dropping off outgrown clothes, and I’ll be offering the other one engraved and consecrated for $150 (plus shipping) soon after the next Full Moon. If you want it, email me, and I’ll update this post when it’s no longer available.

I’m also updating my blog links so people can order these things from the blog site whenever they want.

Happy travels, Astral Warriors!

Blogger and Google+ are syncing up. Yes.

We are teh Borgs!

From “Obama: All US Troops Will Leave Iraq by Year’s End. The War is Over“

Ok, so just in time for thousands of currently-peaceful OWS protesters to be hitting the streets of America in non-violent expression of their disgust with corporate America’s involvement in government, the “war” in Iraq ends and 50,000 US troops will be coming home.

50,000 combat veterans with specialized training and direct combat experience in urban guerrilla warfare.

How convenient is that?

Expect the “National Guard” to be deployed. Hopefully it’s just paranoia, and that will never happen, and it won’t get any worse for us than it did for the hippies. Hope for that.

But prepare for the worst.

The way I see it, the 1% has a couple of factions. The Warren Buffet/Starbucks faction that supports higher taxes (because they STILL make more in profit in a year than the 99% make their whole lives) and job creation because it’s a nice way to spend their money and it shows the 1% are Americans too. The Others are the old school Hawks, who believe they earned their money, worked hard for it, and by God, they aren’t going to give up a penny just because the lazy unwashed rabble are protesting that life is hard.

The problem is, the Hawks have the law on their side. They wrote most of it, buying or renting senators and congressmen (on both sides of the aisle) to vote it into law. The Government is legally required to defend them from rioting mobs.

So in your magical preparations, take these things into account.

And be careful with your magic. There are things called “unintended consequences” that you have to manage and mitigate.

In fact, if you’re new to this whole political magic thing, please don’t go running in binding everything the social media funny posters say are evil. One guy I know mentioned “binding congress.” I don’t know what he meant by that, but imo, congress is already bound, bound to corporations, self interest, greed, and ideology. I’d rather see them freed from that, freed to govern, empowered in righteousness (the real kind), graced with wisdom, inspired to brilliance. Wouldn’t it be awesome if for once in history, the day was saved by about 535 Americans governing for the common good?

Be careful. Don’t make things worse. Just because someone made an image and posted it to FaceBook doesn’t mean it’s right, true, or even applicable in your personal politics. Do some research, find out what the reality is, so you can target your focused changes at things that will make it better for everyone.

Not only am I missing awesome live theater in Prague, the green love of Amsterdam, all of Ireland, and the birthplace of The Doctor, I’m also apparently missing out on a pretty cool Dia de los Muertes celebration next Saturday in Glastonbury.

If you’re a European looking for something to do, check it out. Scarlet Imprint and Hadean Press will be represented at booths, and Jake Stratton-Kent will be speaking, among others.

I gotta see if there’s something going on in Baltimore I can participate in.

You ever have one of those things that you really meant to do all week, but then forgot because other shit came up, and then it was late and you hadn’t done what you really meant to do on time?

Well, for my readers in the Prague vicinity, I meant to tell you about a play you should really go check out. One of our Gentlemen for Jupiter is involved in the production, and from what I’ve seen of his work it’s going to be brilliant. He’s done stage adaptations of Lovecraft’s work in the past, so … you can imagine.

Here’s the plug that I meant to publish all fucking week long. The last show is Saturday night, I think. So hopefully you get this before you make plans for tonight, you Eastern European readers, and make every effort to attend.

Blood, Love and Rhetoric present “The Caretaker” – Pinter’s dark and poignant drama about life on the lunatic fringes of a collapsing society – an evening of menace, suspense, violence, terror and torture.

Re-imagined by Blood, Love and Rhetoric, “The Caretaker” is transported to a 2012 post-holocaust London. Thursday sold out but tickets still available for Friday (21st) at 7pm and 9pm or Saturday (22nd) at 5pm and 8pm. email blrtheatre@gmail.com for more information. Looking forward to seeing you at the show.

Michael Cecchettelli, author of Crossed Keys, has recently released Mardukite Magick, an ebook covering a technique for Working the 50 Names of Marduk in harmony with the Jupiter current. It’s available at his blog, another thing you should check out.

This book is quick and to the point, and I enjoyed it immensely. It’s everything a book about magic should be, in my opinion. It provides the basics of what you need to know, and then it jumps right into the magical rites. It forms the framework, and then it fleshes it out to the point where you can start filling in the details on your own.

This is not as much a book about Marduk as it is a book that puts you in contact with Marduk so you can find out about him first hand. That’s awesome. It reminds me a lot of my own Modern Angelic Grimoire, in that it provides a quick and easy reference guide to everything you need to get started, tells a little about personal experiences, but is mostly focused on getting you in touch with the entities so you can get on with doing the Work yourself.

And I really love the tone Michael has in his writings. He’s got this formal informality about his writing that is both authoritative and yet approachable at the same time. In this book, he focuses on the traditional Sumerian sources for his information, and the ritual format and style flows readily and easily. This approach doesn’t take a lot of specialized tools, and the rites themselves are fun. Just reading through them, I felt the Jupiter Current Michael is tapping begin to flow.

My favorite part is the table at the end with the traditional 50 names of Marduk and the description of each. It’s chock full of goodness and insight into the many facets of this Jovian deity. I found things in there that I will be incorporating into my own Work that I hadn’t thought of, like how there’s a facet of the Jupiter current that sustains all things all the time, an ongoing maintenance that I hadn’t thought about before.

All in all, this book provides the information you need to establish a Working relationship with the Jupiter Current through the God Marduk, and the details you need to develop that relationship over time. I can easily see a magician immersing themselves in this system for years, and still only just scratching the surface of its potential.