Just got word from the people cleaning my stuff, and the hand-made Cthulhu I got from Suzanne Illes LIVES! It was cleaned and cured from all the smoke damage. Woot!

Happy New Year!

[Insert warm sentiment and well wishes here.]

Well, it’s been a busy end-of-the-year, as you can imagine. I just got around to setting up the yahoo groups for the Hermetic Merkavah and Supernatural Assistant courses starting tomorrow. If you signed up, check your inbox. If you meant to sign up and haven’t yet, email me at frredactumopus@gmail.com to save your spot in the course. I’ll be shutting down enrollment next weekend.

I’m a little frazzled with the events of my life. It’s not fun losing everything to fire and smoke, and even though I know deeply that things will be alright eventually, and I’ll end up coming through this “smelling like a rose,” there will be days of nausea and angst to come. I’ve been doing a lot of contemplation of my Source and I’ve managed to maintain a pretty level outlook on things in general.

You know what, I don’t have a lot of time to post today, I’ve got a lot going on, but damn it, this is important. I tried writing a decent post about this a few times, and I can’t find the right words to make it a masterpiece, so I’m just going to put it out there the way I see it, it’s important, I think.

People have said I have a good outlook. One dude said I’m a “happy bastard” because I have a lot of spirits helping me. A few people have suspected I’m in shock, and they were probably right to a degree. But the truth is, I’ve seen fucking eternity stretching out for-fucking-ever, and while I deal with the bullshit and walk out my part in it to get to the best end-result possible, it’s a given that this crap will pass. As a result, I have a positive outlook on things.

Eventually, no matter how much bullshit you’ve got to deal with, it ends. You either die and go back to eternity, or you live and things get better. There are days of feces, and there are days of bliss. You put up with the feces to get to the bliss. That’s my core philosophy when it comes to dealing with crap. I’m a magician, and I’m not bragging or anything, but come on, this isn’t that bad, really. It’s a huge opportunity to start over, re-evaluate priorities, and set things right that weren’t before. I can design my entire lifestyle based on what I know works and what doesn’t now. I have a clean slate at my house, no bills, no mess, no piles of crap to take out of the furnace room before it catches on fire. It’s already too late, you know? I’ve written it off, and moved on to where I’m at.

One of the main reasons people get into magic is to make their lives better. It provides a means to deal with the crap that comes with life, a means to change the world and ourselves. I gives me a perspective on my life that brings peace. It gives me tools to engineer things better, and to react to things better. It doesn’t make life perfect, but it makes things better.

This is how I think magicians respond to things in their lives. Ideally, I’d have avoided the situation magically, but I can’t think of everything, and I have sorely neglected divination for years. There’s no means in my daily life for spirits to provide warning, and even if they did, I would have ignored it and gone on to getting more money a few weeks ago. Priorities were a little skewed, and I had no frame of reference to even notice it.

Things have changed. That’s what happens. Life goes on, and we get on with it as long as we can. I still can, so I do.

Anyway, happy new year, may your life be blessed with Peace and Prosperity. But especially Peace.

In Science class, I learned about open and closed systems when I learned about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Ok, maybe I learned about it from the link over there. Anyway, POS post reminded me of it. I liked his post, it was appealing. The last paragraph is what I wanted to draw your attention to:

It is important to know which tool to use for which type of magick. I saw little need to ask the universe to sacrifice to make this goal happen. Nor did I see a need for any other human to sacrifice anything financially for this. Frankly, it is only important to me. Sometimes practical magick can be purely internal.

I totally agree with the sentiment he expresses. Sometimes practical magic can be internal, and he’s got a great methodology to deal with paying off debt by doing magic to make him responsible in his money management. I need to do similar magic to get the power to overcome the ongoing temptation to splurge when I can’t afford it. Every character flaw we address using magic will have a huge reward in practical terms when we stop behaving in ways that sabotage our success. I couldn’t agree more about that, and that’s his main point, or at least the main point I took away from his post.

But in the paragraph, he uses the word “sacrifice” in a way that prompted me to write this post. I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the premise he’s working from is that the universe is a “closed system,” that is, the universe exists and all that is within it is all there is. Ergo, if you do a ritual for money, the money has to come from somewhere. Like the Universe has a bank account with limited funds, and taking a withdrawal for yourself results in there being less left over for anyone else to use. So the universe or someone else has to “sacrifice” some of its stuff to take care of your magical request.

In a closed system, entropy is always accumulating. Eventually, in a closed system, everything becomes a jumbled chaotic mess. There is a tendency for disorder to accumulate. It’s like if you pour salt into a bag, and then pour pepper on top of it. When both are in the bag, it starts out neat and ordered. The pepper is all together on top of the salt. If you start shaking the bag, the pepper and salt mingle, and the more you shake it, the more mixed it will get. No amount of shaking will result in the pepper gathering together and the salt gathering together, statistically speaking. It’s extremely improbable.

One of the arguments for Creationism is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. People say that if the Earth is a closed system, life wouldn’t have evolved on it because that’s order accumulating, and not disorder. (I think an argument could be made that life is actually a manifestation of disorder, but it becomes moot when you consider the obvious.) The Earth is not a closed system. The Sun is constantly adding its radiation to the mix, asteroids crash into it, and comets bring water and hydrocarbons from the bowels of space to power our vehicles. (You don’t REALLY think decaying carbon-based life forms turn into oil under pressure, do you? They don’t. That’s a theory from the 1700s. If that worked, we could produce oil. We can’t. It comes from comets.)

So if the Universe were a closed system, magic done for money for me would potentially be magic that takes money from you. However, if we really look at “money” (for example) and where it comes from, we find out that it’s completely created. The Federal Reserve just added a few billion dollars to the economy by simply printing it, inflation be damned. It’s poor economics, but it reveals that there is no limit to the amount of “money” that can be conjured. It doesn’t come from a closed system.

Now, before I go any further, I’d like to point out that the following parts are all theory, not fact. Belief, interpretation, conjecture, and opinion. I’m not saying I’m right, I’m just saying this is how I see it and it works for me. Your mileage may vary.

In my cosmology, the Universe is not a closed system. God created it, emanated it, extended it from his infinite self, and part of that infinite self is temporarily encased in denser parts of itself in the form of matter. I believe God is present and active in the universe. I speak with him and/or his agents on a regular basis. I think he’s still pumping stuff into being in this universe at a constant rate, and that the moment of Creation never ended.

I see the relationship between the Sun and the Earth as a reflection of the relationship between God and his Creation. The Sun transmits power that is absorbed by plants and turned into oxygen and other useful things. The Sun is a finite source, so it’s not a completely accurate analogy, but the snapshot of the Sun powering the Earth to offset entropy is a good representation of how I see God’s influence on the Universe at large.

When things are requested by magicians, I don’t think it comes from the “Universal Bank Account” that has a fixed sum. I think it just manifests out of thin air. It has to come down through the heavens following the chain of manifestation, of course, and by the time it reaches us, it looks like it came through from completely “natural” means, but it still started as an Idea in the Mind of God that manifested on our behalf when it was necessary.

The idea that it’s a sacrifice for the universe to provide for us seems to me to be off. It’s like we’re saying, “God, you did all this, made the heavens and Earth and stars and planets, but now you’re at Rest, and you don’t do anything anymore.” That’s a popular belief, and there are a lot of Deists or near-Deists that believe basically that. There are Christian doctrines that teach that God isn’t present and active anymore, except through his Holy Spirit as it operates through the human members of the Church. On the seventh day, God rested, and that’s where he’s been ever since (except for those thirty or so years in the flesh).

I disagree with them too.

I used to debate with a guy named Logan online in a lot of message boards. Those who had to suffer through our debates likely remember them with a shudder. We got evil with each other. It was fun, we managed to maintain mutual respect despite our sometimes vitriolic attacks on one anothers’ characters.

He and I had the closed- vs. open-system debate, and there are valid pros and cons to both approaches. I personally see the closed-system magical model as restrictive to magicians. If you think your magic to bring you prosperity is going to leave a family in Indonesia poverty-stricken and homeless, you won’t feel it’s ethical to do prosperity magic. You can’t really do healing rites for people either, because you’re taking the healing that would go to someone else and applying it to whomever you love. You can’t even pursue enlightenment, because that would be stealing someone else’s enlightenment too, right?

When I look at the magical models we have to work with, eventually I see in all of them the point where we reach something akin to the Pleroma, or in kabbalistic terms, the “Ain Soph Aur.” Light without limit. It is from this pool of limitless light that all things come and are manifest. If it were a pool of limited light, I could understand the assumption that there’s only “so much” that is available for everyone to share, and that the Universe would be sacrificing some of its stuffness on behalf of POS to pay for his car.

But it’s not. It’s limitless. Infinite. Eternal. The Light is constantly flowing down through the Tree and its spheres, constantly washing through each, taking on characteristics from each and then ultimately manifesting in the patterns and structures we experience in this realm. Yes, there are rules, and there are limits, and there are Natural Laws that all magic has to operate within, but it all starts from an infinite pool.

I’ve come to use the Emerald Tablet of Hermes as the standard operating procedure for magicians performing the Great Work. We rise to the heights, tap into the Power, and bring it to Earth. Thinking of the pool magicians tap into as a closed system, in my opinion, is opposed to the revelations we have of the nature of the universe within our magical traditions.  Having seen the unlimited Light of God, I am not comfortable at all thinking that we’re stuck with what we have on hand to work with.

And again, I’m not disagreeing with POS’s approach to paying off his car. I think it’s the most responsible use of magic I’ve seen in a long time, my own practice included. I just think it’s also important for us to remember where we come from, and what our potential truly is.

Ha! I totally got my computer. I have to fire it up (so to speak) and make sure the data’s still there, but it looks fine from the outside. I also found all my course material in the original word documents stored on a thumb drive, thank the spirits. Life is good.

Hey everyone, thanks so much for the outpouring of well-wishes. I really appreciate my friends. I mentioned to Joe that I have to drop “online” from “online friends,” because apparently the friendships we’ve established amongst our disparate community are stronger than I tend to think. You guys are friends in every sense of the word.

For those thinking about this in terms of attack or other occult influence, I honestly don’t know what’s going on. My tarot cards are in the house, covered in toxic smoke residue. I’ve talked to my HGA, and he assures me this is indeed all under control and not out of the Will of God. Whatever that means.

In terms of it being a magician attacking me, the only occultist that I’ve had any kind of trouble with lately was Lon DuQuette, but that was just me venting my spleen over his bad attitude about Christianity. He never responded to any of my comments, and I suspect he’s either totally unaware of my existence, or just not bothered by it at all. I strongly doubt this has anything to do with him. Maybe one of his fans got mad at some posts I made on the youtube page or something. I dunno. I doubt it. There are very few magicians online that I would credit the ability to do something like this, and of those few, I haven’t really pissed anyone off lately that I know of.

Regardless, the shields have been raised, so to speak.

What I strongly suspect is that my weekly rites to Bune for specific amounts are manifesting in a way that keeps everyone in my family and home safe from any harm, as specifically directed, but still provides a venue for a fresh start with a little left over.

My first reaction to the whole mess was “Oh shit!” but it quickly became apparent that this isn’t a bad situation at all. It’s uncomfortable, to be sure, annoying, and the stress is running high. But overall, in a year we’ll likely look back at this and see it as a blessing in disguise. Who knows what disaster was averted by this catastrophe? I mean, things could have been so much worse. We were home, smelled the smoke, tried to put the fire out, failed, and called 911 within minutes of the fire starting. Everyone is safe, and the house has little real damage done to it. The basement will need to be refinished, a couple of joyces will need to be replaced, and the floor above them will be replaced. 13 of the house’s 19 windows were broken out by the fire department.

I just saw Jow’s comment, about setting up a fund to help out with stuff between now and when the insurance gets in gear and starts paying for things. My first urge is to tell everyone I’m fine and I don’t need anything, but I’m going to sit on that for a while and think about it. We don’t really know much about what we need or will need in the immediate future. Getting through the next couple of weeks will be dicey.

Above all else, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m truly humbled by the outpouring of support. The offers of money, shelter, food, clothing, etc. have been amazing. Thanks, it means a lot.

We had a great Christmas, and many thanks to all the well-wishers who wished us well through the holidays. We opened presents, visited grandparents, saw a movie, and went to bed. A great Christmas day was had by all.

Then, this morning, the house caught on fire. We don’t know what started the fire, but it was probably the furnace or water heater, as that was the room with the flames and smoke. I ran in to put it out, and ran out coughing and yelling “call 911!!!”

Everyone got out ok, and we’re all healthy and happy to be alive in our pleasant hotel room. The fire was bad, but not so bad that the house needs to be condemned. The fire department broke out every window in the house but three to ventilate the smoke. It was bizarre. Totally surreal.

My hair is singed. Everything in the house is covered in a layer of toxic ash.

Disaster? Catastrophe? Huge heaping pile of shit?

Honestly, I don’t think so. This whole thing seems like it’s been ordained from above. I’ll talk more about it as things unfold. It’s just very … interesting.

May your holidays be filled with love and laughter, and lots of loot.

In case I don’t get back to the blog before the holiday is over…

(Yeah, it’s a blink tag. Cause blink is festive! :D)