Man, I remember now why I “forget” to do regularly scheduled meditations. Last night I stayed up too late, and by the time I was ready for bed, I was exhausted. I kept losing focus and drifting towards sleep. I felt like Dexter in the boxing ring in Season 4, falling asleep during one of the most important things I do in life. I was wishing I had some smelling salts.

But Perdurabo, as they say. I made myself do it all the way through, up and back down. I had interesting visions, but how much of that was sleep and how much was magic, I couldn’t tell you. I’m not entirely thrilled about how things worked out last night.

I’m only posting this as a goad to myself. Making myself publicly accountable will make it a matter of pride, and while my pride can get in my way, I’ve learned to use it to my advantage.

POS has been talking about how great his life is since he started doing the regularly scheduled meditations Jason Miller advises in Sorcerer’s Secrets and in his year-long course. Nothing gets on my nerves more than seeing another magician doing magic and having good results when I’m not doing magic and suffering through it. I know, it’s not noble or anything, but there it is. Annoyance is one of the prime motivators in my life.

Now, long-time readers will remember when I started doing nightly meditative/contemplative astral rituals traveling up and back down through the Planetary Spheres. It’s been a while since I’ve done that regularly. seeing POS basking in his deserved results irked me enough that I started doing it again last night. Plus I knew I needed to be in good resonance before January 4th when the next Courses start. So I started the Merkavah process again.

Well, I tried to.

For those who don’t know about it, I basically get relaxed, conjure the Archangel of the Planet, go to their sphere, get a good sphere-cleansing, and move on to the next, all the way up through the spheres and all the way back down. I look for themes in the process. It takes about a half an hour to forty-five minutes to do the whole thing.

Last night, I started with Raphael because I had some issues yesterday communicating, and when Mercury goes retro, I tend to have more frustration in trying to communicate anyway.* I didn’t want to get any lying spirits, either, so I figured I’d get the communication sphere taken care of first. When Raphael appeared, I authenticated him and then began asking that he fix whatever was wrong in my sphere that was resulting in such poor communication skills. I felt a “zing” shoot down through the core of my astral body, like silver fire that was cold instead of hot. I felt it all the way down my legs to my knees. There was a moment of feeling like a soap bubble stretched too thin, and then a “Pop” as my sphere went back into the proper shape. It was like popping out a dent from the inside.

I felt him continue to do some work on me, but I got the feeling it would take a while, so I went back to the Moon and conjured Gabriel, and began actually going through the spheres. At each planet, the Archangels had something to do to me to get things cleaned up. Over the last few months, there’s been a steady accretion of disharmony and other kloogy things. The daily prayer and nightly conjurations of the Supernatural Assistant have been loosening up the garbage for a while, and heating it up, making it more and more apparent that I needed to make some drastic changes to my life. Going through each of the spheres and getting a “tune-up” to my sphere was exactly what I needed, even though I wasn’t aware of that until afterward.

What a workout, man. By the time I had gone through the seven classical planets, I was humming. I felt stretched out and released at the same time. It was like being pleasantly sore after working out all your major muscle groups when you haven’t in a while, and then taking a hot sauna.

I conjured the Archangels Iophiel and Metatron to take care of the super-celestial spheres, but I can’t really remember much of what happened after Saturn. It always gets hazy. I wasn’t asleep though, I was experiencing things and learning things, I just don’t have the symbols to express it in conscious thought.

The next thing I knew, I was aware of my body, feeling great, and ready to head back down through the spheres. I could still feel the spirits at work on different parts of my sphere, so I simply thanked them and let them do their work. I did some chakra cleansing, more out of habit than any particular knowledge of the chakra system that I trust.**

Due to the blizzard, I get to work from home today. I was sorely tempted to go right back to sleep since I didn’t have to drie in to work this morning. By sorely tempted, I mean I closed my eyes and started to go to sleep, half-awake thinking, “Meh, I’ll call when I wake up and see what I need to do.” All of a sudden, I felt this wave of responsibility wash over me, and a strong urge to get up and do what I needed to do. That might not seem like a big deal, and it probably shouldn’t be a big deal, but it was. I haven’t been exactly eager to do what needs to be done lately. I’ve been downright unmotivated to do anything. Everything I’ve had to do has seemed like a terrible chore.

But something changed last night after doing the Work. I got up, called in, got some work to do, and started doing it. Because I want to. It’s weird how fast the attitude shifted, and how little effort was involved. I forget, when I’m not doing internal magic regularly, how just hanging out with the spirits makes you a better person. I’m cleaning up my office as I work now, something I haven’t felt any compulsion to do in months. And yes, there are months worth of debris sitting here now that I have to sort through. Half-finished projects, notes, mail, incense sticks, tarot cards, wood glue, various tools, and lots of incense ash coating everything. My god, I actually want to dust!

Anyway, I’ve said it before, and I’ll likely forget and wind up saying it again, regularly scheduled meditation is key. If anyone else knew about it and forgot, today’s a good day to get started doing it again.

*Retro’s not as big of a deal as I used to think. Chris Warnock is setting me straight little by little about it, but it’s still an affliction that seems to hit me where I’m the most vulnerable.

**Everything I do with chakras is based on Leadbetter’s work. It serves my purposes, but I wouldn’t try to teach anyone what I do because they may think it’s actually grounded in the traditions that “own” chakras. It’s not traditional, I just don’t have anything else to call what I do besides “chakra work.”

I took down the On the Human Condition post due to it being more complicated and deeper than I’m equipped to handle well. I didn’t realize the depths stirred. Sorry if I offended, it wasn’t intended.

Hee hee!

Thanks Fin!

Last week’s rite worked out great for me. I don’t know if anyone’s found a job yet that got mentioned during the rite (there were 32 people altogether), but I asked that Bune would assign one of his legion to each of the names, and specifically tasked them with getting people jobs. If you sent in any names late, don’t worry, I’m mentioning them tonight.

This is the kind of thing I want everyone to be able to do. I don’t expect everyone to actually do it, but if half the people on the blog’s Followers list were to start doing something like this, it certainly would help out a lot of people.

Quite a few people share Anuksunamun’s sentiments about wanting to see the spreadsheet, the fruit of many months of research and study. So I’ve made it available, but I’m charging for it.

Some people think I shouldn’t charge for this, but I’m a capitalist. If you want it for free, go to Agrippa’s Book 3, chapter xxvi, and Google can fill in the blanks he doesn’t provide.

The quicker and easier way is here:

http://www.rufusopus.com/products_and_services.htm

You get a blank Lamen, everything you need to do the conjuration, and the conjuration ritual for the Genius. You also get detailed steps to come up with the Genius name, including an example. And the Tables with the corresponding signs, degrees and letters of both the Genius and the Evil Daimon that everyone wants the most.

Enjoy!

Man, what a grueling season. It’s a good thing Christmas only comes once a year. Something happened somewhere along the line that made Christmas less fun than it used to be. I think it’s called “adulthood.” My parents aren’t footing the bill, and the bill can get pretty big. With the recession and having been unemployed, it’s a toned-down Christmas this year, but we’re all having a lot of fun anyway. Books are cheaper than video games, and the kids are finally old enough to prefer books to the electronic devices. I’m thrilled about that.

Since I’ve been back to work, I’ve had more crises than I had the whole time I was unemployed. I actually look back on that period now and wonder why I didn’t enjoy myself more. Probably the desperate terror of being homeless with my family. I’m just guessing.

But we’ve faced and made it through the worst. The mortgage is all caught up and modified to save us a couple hundred a month, the utilities are paid, and I don’t have to send my kids to my in-laws to keep them warm when the power gets cut off, because the power won’t be cut off. I did a Bune rite to take care of these things, and he did, by the skin of our collective teeth, and I’d just like to say THANKS BUNE.

The way he manifested the money was annoying. I ended up with a loan, from an in-law, and a pissed off one at that. That’s not what I had in mind when I showed him the bill and asked that he provide enough money by the turn off date to keep the power on. Once again I get to learn how NOT to ask for money. Sigh.

One big thing I’ve learned is that you can’t think straight under pressure. You need to be as prepared as possible, with as many options available to you that you can turn to when the emergencies come. Not if, but when. That’s the big lesson I’m walking away with from this series of unfortunate decisions and results. Have a lot of backup. Be proactive. Think ahead. Plan for the worst.

I think I’ll work an all-points plan of attack into the Hermetic Merkavah course, something that weaves together the different spirits and their legions to avoid the traps I fell into.

The biggest thing of all to remember is that you can’t get lazy, like I did, when your magic starts working. You can’t just sit back and drop all the magic and expect to keep what you’ve built with it. Magic is a way of life, and it takes maintenance work to keep things going well.

Just like everything else in life. SHOCKING!!!

Anyway, I’d like to close by giving POS a bit of shit about his post that he probably shouldn’t have posted:

Fuck you, man! Posting that crap just to get a rise out of me! (Because it is, really, it is all about me.) 😉

I’m not playing that game anymore. I’ve stopped the wheel of karma on that front.

For now. Next month may have different results. Depends on what I’m working through.

When I have the time for it, I’ve decided on the next book I’ll write. It won’t be occult-focused. Instead, it’s going to be about Christianity, and written for the Christian audience. They’re always buying “How to be a good christian man” books for each other, but they’re all written by pastors towing the fundy line.

I’m going to write one for the rest of us Christians. You Don’t Have to be a Dick to be a Christian is the working title for now. I think it will make a difference.