I’ve noticed a trend lately that isn’t new at all. It’s the persecution complex. I noticed it first with my mother when she visited for a week. She’s a fundy Christian, very Religious Right, very frightening to most right-thinking pagans. She’s the rubber meeting the road in every “a fundy tried to cast out my demons at the mall because I was wearing a pentagram” horror story you’ve ever heard. She wears a T-shirt that says, “May I pray for you?” on the front and “Jesus is Lord” on the back when she goes out. And people come up to her and ask her for prayer. And she prays for them. Weird.

Can you imagine a Hermetic T-shirt like that? “Can I conjure your Genius for you?” on the front, and just “LOGOS” on the back…

Anyway, she went on and on a couple nights about the persecution against her church. A biker stopped at the church and told her pastor he wanted to buy their building for his biker friends’ club. When they said it wasn’t for sale, the biker got pissed and made an ominous statement about coming back, and that they would sell it to the bikers. She told me about the witches up in the mountains (of Colorado) that are casting spells against Christianity. She told me about how Obama’s health care robs her of her coverage. (She also believes that private healthcare is screwing her too; she just worked for the government for twenty years, and knows how badly they can fuck shit up.)

I grew up with that. My parents didn’t save up any college funds because they were sure Jesus would be back by then. They read Mother Earth News to find survival tips, and had a huge garden in their back yard to provide food in case of the Tribulation.

So, I’m used to the whole persecution complex coming from the Christian Church. They never got over the whole feeding them to lions and crucifying them thing.

It’s all over the pagan community too. Burning times much? Granted, pagans do get discriminated against (ostracized and killed in some places) by most communities, especially anyone accused of witchcraft that’s blighting the crops, cattle, or kids. Here in the States, Pagans lose their jobs when zealous Christians find reasons to fire them after they wear their pentagrams to work.

Jews have earned a right their paranoia. ‘Nuff said. My immigrant friends suffer persecution at the hands of whites, blacks, and even people from their own countries who are already US Citizens. They’ve also earned a right to their paranoia. So I’m not saying all instances of fear of persecution are wrong.

But it’s way too prevalent. Democrats are afraid of and angry at the persecution they receive from Republicans, real or imagined, and the same is true of the Republicans. Both parties use hyperbole and pathos to frighten their constituents, to get them all wound up in a frenzy of illogical emotion. Both sides are blind to their illogic, blinded by ideological programming that they are constantly at risk, constantly under attack.

The truth is, we aren’t under attack nearly as much as people like to believe. Fear of the “others” is a tool used to keep groups separated from one another. It’s almost like there’s this genetic need to feel lie the rest of the world is out to get us.

But are you out to get any particular group of people? Are you actively or passively executing a plan to destroy everything your opposing political rivals stand for? Guess what… Most of the other people in the world aren’t that interested in destroying you personally either. Some are, sure, but find out the facts. Keep your fear levels at the right levels, based on the truth.

Tonight I watched a special on the end of the world on the Science channel. It showed the top ten ways the Earth could be destroyed at any given time. “Yellow Stone Park is a CALDERA!!! Asteroids!!! Nukes, everywhere, NUKES!!!” Bullshit.

You know what they had in common, whether they were theologians or scientists? They all seemed like just under the surface they were totally pissed that the Earth hadn’t ended yet. I recognized it from the pastors that taught Revelations with zeal when I was a kid. They get this passion in their voices when they talk about the extremes we’ll face if this blows up or that hits us, or if “they” launch a nuclear weapon at us.  It looks like concern, or fear at first, but then you hear them describing these horrific scenarios with this glazed look on their face, and you notice the drool, and you realize hey, they really want to see this shit, and yeah, they’re pissed that it hasn’t happened yet! They’ve been predicting the end of the world for years, and it still hasn’t come.

Anyway, it would be stupid to say that there’s nothing dangerous on earth or that no one is ever out to get us. There’s nasty shit in the world, and crazy people. But as magicians, we’ve got to remember that the forces of creation itself are on our side. They protect, empower, and provide for us. We converse with the spirits of all that manifests, we commune with Nature in ways that would make Darwin weep. We know where we stand in the cosmos, and there is nothing to fear. Know the dangers, but fear them not.

I’ve been working on my own sphere in this regard. I’ve noticed the persecution complex pops up when ever I jump to conclusions without having all the facts. I’m not that political, and there isn’t really any organized religious group that I can call my own, so it usually manifests in my relationships and finances. The trick to getting out of the fear loop seems to be asking simple questions.

• What am I afraid of?
• Is the source of the fear a fact?
• If so, what is the actual fact, not the hyperbolic spin on the fact that is affecting my emotions?
• If it happens, what would I do?

Applying these questions to my fears has helped me to understand a great deal about myself and the things that trigger my own persecution complex. The two biggest things that cause me fear are my family and my freedom. If something appears to threaten either, in any way, I get emotional fast. The adrenaline helps my muscles and reflexes, it prepares me to defend against anything physically attacking what I hold dear. It also shuts down my rational mind and leaves me acting on genetically programmed instinct that doesn’t necessarily apply to the situation at hand.

It’s important to point out that I’m not overcoming my fear, or rising above my emotions. I’m not turning off anything, I’m simply putting it into its proper place. Emotions and fear are important aspects of our existence, and the goal is to bring them into harmony. They should fuel the rational mind, not consume it.

I’ve been in an odd situation lately. I spent a long time focusing on getting money, getting a good paying job, and earning enough to support a luxurious life style. I used magic (thanks Bune, Expedite, Muriel, Michael, Och, and all the Solar Angels of the Heptameron) to great success. I found out that last year I made over 6 figures for the first time in my life, and I enjoyed most of it very much.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been unemployed. I saw it coming, and reacted too late magically to ensure a seamless transition from job to job. In fact, I may even have caused the snafu. See, I performed a wealth ritual that focused a LOT on obtaining interest bearing assets and the idea of wealth that Fr. S.L. and I hashed out. I spent a lot of time going over the details related to the fact that I didn’t want to have to work for the money. I wanted to be free from wage slavery, and performed the rite accordingly. I’m free from wage slavery now, yay, and I’ve had all my bills paid, so far, pretty much… the essential ones anyway.

But I haven’t had any income for almost a month. It’s weird. I’m not comfortable at all. I have periods of extreme fear come across me, and I have to consciously reach out to the Stars and their Intelligences to obtain peace of mind in the maelstrom. It’s amazing how much of my security as a human being I place in the idea of “having a job.”

But I’m getting better. I found a small opportunity today to make some cash, not by working, just by being in the right place at the right time. I had a tight two-hour window to pick up some food from a local co-op, and it happened to be at a church where they happened to have a flea market that happened to be monitored by an elderly widow who was getting rid of her husband’s wood working tools. I have everything I need to set up a woodworking shop in my garage now, and it cost me a whopping $15.

Last night I was talking to my spouse about building stuff and selling it out of the garage. Purely a coincidence, I’m sure.

So I’m wondering if this is what the life of a full time magician is like, someone who lives on magic instead of on their job. I wonder if I’ll just stumble upon lucky hidden treasure here and there, and cash in on it and have enough of a small profit to live on for a couple of months at a time. I can imagine the results getting bigger with subsequent rituals.

I could certainly handle that.

The weirdness is I keep finding amazing ways that I’m able to save money. Gas and lunches out were costing me about $400 a month. I haven’t had to go to the dry cleaner in weeks. I’m saving another $400 a month by buying food from co-ops and local farmer’s markets. I’m looking back at the last few months and realizing I could have been saving $800 a month, reducing my monthly budget to something manageable. I’m eating better quality food, and wearing more comfortable clothes. I haven’t put on a tie in a week, and the last one was just for an interview for a position they said I was overqualified for.

Funny old world we live in, I tell you. Funny old world.

The point is, of course, that I’m understanding wealth in a new way. I could actually survive without getting another job, if I dared to. It wouldn’t be easy, necessarily, but it would be simple. It is so tempting. I’m going to be amazed if it turns out that the lifestyle I’ve sought magically for the last 5 years would have been available at any time if I’d only had the courage to quit working so obsessively for it.

Anyone interested in joining a loose fraternity of Hermetic Magicians? The following are the requirements, except #5, which is optional but highly recommended:

1. You do not talk about the Invisible College.

2. You DO NOT  talk about the Invisible College.

3. You must be willing to take the following statement to heart (like an oath, but one that doesn’t need to be taken because it is simply true):

I am a Hermetic Magician. I am the Image of God on Earth, and it is my responsibility to perform God’s Will within my sphere of influence by Working with His Ministers in the forms of Angels, Daimons,Genii Loci, and Elemental Spirits as I see fit.

4. You must take complete personal responsibility for all aspects of your life, recognizing that even factors beyond your control are never beyond your influence.

5. You must accept that I am your spiritual leader and do everything I say all the time, especially about sending me money.

6. You must be dedicated to the regular practice of magic, and not just the study or pursuit of occult knowledge. The Invisible College is about using the Power of Creation to shape the Universe according to our understanding of the Will of God.

7. You must be willing to work within the Hermetic Doctrine as revealed in the Corpus Hermeticum and the Emerald Tablet.

Ok, 1 and 2 are really from Fight Club, and are in jest. I plan on keeping a pretty low profile, but I may be at least affiliating with Congregational Illuminism.

If you’re interested, send an email to me at rufusopusatrufusopusdotcom. Please include a simple resume of your occult experiences, your occult Curriculum Vitae. It doesn’t have to be extensive, but I’d like to know what your background is. Don’t be shy, there’s nothing you can have done in the past that will exclude you, not even chaos magic.

I’m going to experiment with using Blogger as a kind of a message board/discussion group type thing, because I’m sick of email groups, and the comment feature seems to work well enough. Depending on your experience in the Work, you will be granted the ability to author posts.

This is a organization of practicing magicians. You don’t have to be a practicing neoplatonic hermetic magician at the moment, but you need to be willing to become one, or at least learn the vocabulary to translate your own experiences into the common vocabulary of the Hermeticists.

It’s a place to learn from people who have done this for a while, like myself and a few regular readers I’m thinking of who have displayed their experience with spirit magic to me in a way that I can’t explain. It’s not only for those who have achieved KCHGA (or the equivalent), but it is only for those who expect to do so within the next year, not just within their lifetime at some point.

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of wealth magic. I’ve always focused on money, dollars, cash, and I’ve found a couple of techniques that seem to work rather well at getting windfalls. It’s reliable, but it comes in weird ways, and it’s nothing I feel secure about. I mean, I can trust that I will get money if I do a money rite, but it’s never in the grand “$7.42 Million US Dollars” that I aim for. It’s usually windfalls or jobs that pay well. That’s all well and good, but it’s not what I mean when I do a ritual for wealth.

To get to the bottom of why I fail miserably at attaining wealth, I asked the spirits. Not long afterward, I was in a conversation with Fr. S.L. about wealth*, and he explained to me what wealth really is: to live a life where your actions are determined by your will and not by your bills. Wealthy people can go play folk music on the corner if they feel like it, and they don’t have to worry that they’ll be evicted, to paraphrase his example. Or they can go for a walk at 3:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday without losing their job. There’s always going to be some management of your resources required, and that is technically work, but getting it down to a minimum is the goal. If you only have to manage your money once a month, chances are pretty good that at some point in the month you’re going to WANT to manage that wealth.

The conversation got me thinking about wealth. Too often, I think of wealth in terms of money and materials. What I’ve realized though is that true wealth has less to do with money than it does with your ability to pursue your desires. We tend to think money is the key to reaching the point where you can pursue your desires because the biggest thing that stops us from doing so is our job. We have to go to work 8 hours a day, or we lose our house, car, and ability to feed ourselves and our family. 


But if you have your home (rent or mortgage), transportation (car, insurance, and fuel), and food paid for each month, you’re free to do whatever you want with the rest of your time. Achieving that level of security is the goal of most wealth and prosperity spells, but I think we fuck it up by aiming for the dollar value that would bring that situation. It’s not the money I want, it’s what the money can buy. 


This shift from focusing on the dollar amount to the actual thing I want has led me to reevaluate wealth in general, and sources of wealth in particular. The lottery would be a good windfall, right? It would set me up for life. I’d have the cash necessary to invest in wealth-generating ventures, investments, and assets. But again, I’m looking at the means and not at the true goal.

The trick, I think, to true wealth magic is aiming it not at dollar amounts, but at the things that wealthy people get that pays their bills. Most of that, as S.L. pointed out in our conversation, is simple Luck. The biggest lucky break you can get, he said, is being born into wealth. If that didn’t happen for you (it didn’t happen for me), then the next biggest break you can get is having friends or family that are wealthy. George W. Bush borrowed $200,000 to invest in the Houston Astros baseball team, and a few years later sold his stake in the team for $6 million. If I remember right, he never repaid the investor in cash. Having a guy like George W. as a friend certainly has its benefits though.

My mom’s visiting this week (which is why there haven’t been many posts lately), and she was tellling me how my grandparents earned their fortune. My grandfather got born again Christian religion and latched onto this eccentric lady from Florida as a mentor. She hated her husband, but being a dutiful Christian, she stuck with him until he died. She wanted nothing to do with his estate, and let my grandfather be the legal heir. The man had 5-gallon buckets of rare coins sitting in his garage, and investments in GE, GM, AT&T, and Ford when they were all worth a lot more than they are today. My grandparents sold everything and put it all in interest bearing accounts, where it has pretty much remained ever since, minus the house they bought for their retirement, and a slush fund to pay for the expensive things that pop up on occassion when you own a house.

Fr. S.L. pointed out Bill Gates as an example too, another wealthy man who got where he is because he knew the right people and had the right idea at the right time. As you can see, wealth is very much a factor of luck.

I’ve been reading the histories of famous Renaissance magicians. They mostly had wealthy benefactors that paid their way. Agrippa was a doctor and a Captain in the Army, he lectured on things wherever he went, and usually ended up getting into trouble when he gained too much notoriety; Emperor Maximilian assigned his support to various nobles across the Empire. Dee had the support of the Queen, Kelley had the support of Rudolph. Ficino and Bruno were in good with the Medicis, if I remember right. Even Plato was supported by his students, i.e. the wealthy parents who sent their children to him to learn philosophy.


What I’m getting at is that true wealth comes from your friends, your family, and your benefactors. To truly get to the point of wealth, you need to focus your efforts on cultivating luck. You need to be ready to see and sieze opportunities as they arise. You need to have the right idea at the right time, and have the ability to follow through on making it happen. 


So, I’m into pursuing those things now. I have a Jupiter Talisman I made the last time He was well-dignified, and I’m using that to create a sphere of luck around me. I’m also working with spirits to gain the “favor of princes,” and to develop more opportunities to attain true wealth. I’m not obsessing as much over the dollar, and I’m learning to put my attention where it can do more good. I’ll keep you posted.



* Not to be all smarmy or anything, but Fr. S.L. is one of the Wise who have served as a mentor to me. His advice is solid and his understanding is deep. Thanks, S.L.

Tools, tools, tools. Simple props or powerful talismans? Initiatory gateways to higher power, or a crutch for the weak? Empowerment or a trap?

To me it’s obvious. Magical tools have power. If they didn’t, then no one could buy a talisman from a magician and have the kinds of effects they get from a Astrological Renaissance Talisman made to grimoiric specifications or a mojo bag from the local root doctor. We learn in Agrippa of the planetary and elemental traits of things in nature and things refined by mankind. Stuff is symbolic of other stuff, and when combined with similar symbolic stuff in the right proportions, the stuff becomes something more than just the sum of the parts. I’ve seen it, and at the very least you’ve heard about it.

At the same time, the magician making the tools is going through a transformation. The making, acquiring, and consecration of the tool are all reflective of an invisible process that is going on in the magician’s sphere, in the macrocosm above that they represent. Joe got a Boline, Scott is making his Elemental Weapons, and Jason carries his Phurba. All of these items are symbolic of a change in the magician in question, and indicate a process they have gone through, or are going through.

I call the time you are making or consecrating a tool an initiation. I think once the tool has been made, the transformation in the magician is going to be with them regardless of whether they happen to have the symbol of that change with them or not. At the same time, a ritual done with the tool will be more powerful than one done with a substitute, or one performed relying only on the attunement of the magician’s sphere.

Practically speaking, it could be the Magician that has the power, or it could be the tool that has the power, but I suspect it’s the tool empowering the Magician who also empowers the tool. Synergy. Regardless, it seems that rituals performed with tools have stronger results.

I believe that when it comes to making rapid changes to the physical realm by influencing the spiritual substrate, it is best to be able to do a ritual with the appropriate tools. It is second best to be able to do the ritual with symbolic substitutes. Least preferred is to have to do the ritual without tools, relying only on the power of the Mind and the resonance of the Magician’s tuned sphere.

(Yet Liber Samekh is performed entirely in the body of light. Just something to think about.)

The bottom line is that, while it’s fun and educational to debate the function and even necessity of tools in a magician’s repertoire, in practice I’ve found that sometimes I use the tools, and sometimes I don’t.

* Whichever finger holds the power of the universe, goddamned straight it’s a finger. Even if you don’t need a physical tool to do your magic, your body is still an extension of the Mind, which is yet another tool in a box.

Don’t you just hate it when you go to a lot of time and effort trying to set up a ritual, and then it turns out to be sort of … lame? You’ve lit the incense, you’ve made the seals, you’ve drawn out the Circles with care, and you even said all the barbarous names using perfect Hellenic Greek inflections, and the spirits still don’t show up and your results just plain suck.

I personally never ever ever have this happen. (Ok, maybe once or twice.) But why does this happen?

I think the only reason people’s magic fails to provide the desired results is ignorance. The biggest source of ignorance is Astrological timing, because let’s face it, it’s really hard to learn everything you need to know about astrology in order to do the rituals the right way. It takes less than a day to be able to conjure an Angel of Venus, but it can take YEARS to find out how to chart the best time to do so.

And Astrology affects all your magic, in spite of what you might think. I know folks who claim that they don’t believe in Astrological limitations to their magical effects, and they can claim up and down that their magic isn’t affected by astrological malefic (or beneficial) influences. They’re simply wrong. Every magician I know who went back and checked the astrological interpretations of their failed rituals (keeping a journal helps) has found something in the stars that explains their fucked up results. The real reason people claim immunity from Astrological influences is because Astrology is just really hard to learn.

Recently, Chris Warnock expanded and upgraded his already excellent Astrological Magic Course. Part of the upgrade included the release of the Planetary Magic Program, a really convenient program designed to find good astrological times to make planetary talismans.

Now, long-time readers of my blog know I’m really into Planetary Magic. When you get into the Hermetic foundational philosophy, when you dig into the historic roots of all that we practice today as MAGIC, you will find that to get the real power, the full impact of actual Magic, you have to incorporate the powers of the planetary spheres. The richest realm of imagery, talismans, and raw power of manifestation is found in Planetary Magic.

And it’s a lot easier than people suspect. Our days of the week are still planetarily based, and today we have computers to do the astrological computations that unlock the best times to contact the spirits, intelligences, and angels of the planets. Demons too, if you’re into that.

The Planetary Magic Program makes it even easier to perform the kinds of magic that I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. I’ve been waiting and hoping for something like this to hit the market. I mean, there’s SolarFire out there if you A) have $350, B) have a computer science degree, and C) understand Astrology well enough to trudge your way through all the options and settings. SolarFire’s an awesome program for the professional Astrologer, but not all magicians are interested in becoming full-time astrologers who can generate charts and talismans to sell to their clients to pay for the initial investment of $350.

So for the rest of us, the Planetary Magic Program provides a convenient, simple, and cost-effective tool for finding astrological elections. Its interface is easy to use and understand, it lets you write to a text file or print your list of elections, and you can narrow or expand your results by clicking on or off options. Chris recommends double-checking your results using some form of professional software, like www.astro.com, which I think runs on SolarFire software anyway. For creating talismans, he has a point, but for the kind of use we spirit conjurors will put it to, I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. Chris has given us the most useful program for finding good times to plan initiations, schedule conjurations, and of course to create talismans.

Chris is offering the program as a stand alone purchase for only $39.95, or you can get it for free as part of his course in Astrological Magic. I wish so much that I had this program a couple of years ago. If you remember, I used to recommend Timaeus, and then SolarFire, but I used them primarily to find out when a good time to conjure spirits might be. This program provides all the functionality I need to do the computations. It’s definitely worth the price, and then some. The first Solar ritual you do with the Moon unafflicted on the right day and hour will result in making at least what you paid for it back, after all.

Now remember, this is an electional tool. It spits out dates and times for your location. You have to know two very important things to get the most out of this program. You have to now where you live. That’s important. I think you’ve got that covered. If not, maybe magic isn’t really what you should be focusing on at the moment. Second, you have to know what planet your magic is related to. Armed with these two pieces of arcane lore, you’re ready to use the program.

Simply put in your location (it has a really cool little piece that lets you set that up quick and easy), click the radial button that says “When is the next time to make a talisman” and select the planet from the drop-down list that pops up. Click “compute” and in no time the program tells you all the best times for each planet. In the Advanced Options, you can change the degree of orbs, change the time frame searched (from 1 year up to 20), and a couple of other things.

Its main purpose is to get you in the right zone for getting in touch with the planetary powers. Chris intended it to be used in talisman making, but I intend to use it extensively in performing spirit conjurations. It’s adept at finding good times to conjure spirits that I would have missed.

Here’s the thing about conjuring during the right astrological time: it totally amplifies your results. People who have had lame experiences with spirits from the grimoires can attest that sometimes your magical results are just sort of flaccid. You don’t feel a change in the room, feel the spirit’s presence, or get any clear communications.

With this handy program, you’re increasing your chances of getting things just right, when the stars are aligned, and getting through to the spirit you’re looking for with a quickness. I personally believe you can conjure any spirit any time, but the planetary position relative to your position on the earth are good gauges as to how well you will experience the spirit’s presence and how well the communication of your intent will go. When the planets are aligned right, the spiritual atmosphere is conducive to clear communications, and this program is fabulous at finding good elections fast.

Whenever I get around to finishing up my online courses, I’m either going to require this program be purchased, or at the very least strongly urge my students to purchase this program when they get to the planetary spheres and begin receiving their initiations. I highly recommend this valuable tool to all my friends, students, and clients.

I started Working in Luna, spurred on by some research I was doing into astral warfare. I was mostly playing, but I needed to verify some of the things I wanted to include in a fun book on astral warfare I’m working on. I conjured up Gabriel by name and seal, and went for a few jaunts through the lower reaches of the sphere of the Moon. Good times… good times.

But it wasn’t long before I felt drawn to a particular Gate. Around the Gate were symbold of the Moon from Agrippa and the Magical Calendar, and symbols I haven’t seen before and hesitate to reproduce. Much of the realm I was in at the time was projected and created by myself, and I don’t want to pretend to have knowledge from the spirit world that I secretly just made up, you know? But they were cool.

Walking towards the gate, I felt a gentle condensation of the the spiritual fabric of the realm I was in, and Gabriel was soon walking with me. We didn’t talk, which was rather odd for me. Usually I call on the spirits and we talk a lot. We were simply moving, and I just sort of understood that I was being taken to the next stage of my progression in the Work. We went through the Gate, Gabriel opening it for me, and the realm I was in was completely unlike the landscaped scene I had left. There was no Gate. I saw colors there are no words for, silvery-purple being a grave disservice to the hues I saw. Each color was meaningful, like they are when the synesthesia kicks in on LSD. There was no sense of tripping though, no intense urge to accomplish whatever happened next, no distant slimey nausea hovering in the astral equivalent of my gut. It was tranquil, serene, and infinitely patient.

I felt an image of the disk of the Moon. She was full, and as crystal sharp as if I were looking at her through a telescope. I felt every crag of every crater in sharp relief. I’m using visual language, but remember all I saw was the alien-colored light. I became aware of the chain of manifestation leading up from the physical planet, like a ray of light extending infinitely through the meta-cosmos of the spheres directly to the Mind of God. It was pure Luna, but it had its own heavens to ascend through. The Tree of Life images that show a tree of life within each sphere, implying there is a Binah of Tiphareth, a Chokmah of Tiphareth, and so on is too simple of a construct to represent what I sensed. It’s like that, as if there are hevens of the Moon, or … Mansions… shit. I wonder now if that’s what I was going through? Now I’ll have to research that.

Anyway, within each heaven of the Sphere of the Moon were beings of progressively more-diffuse intelligence and purpose. As I ascended, my own form changed. I was simply an awareness at first, a sphere of sensation that I prefer to travel through the spheres in. It’s much easier to move around.As I rose though, I felt layers being removed, like an onion being peeled. As each layer fell away, I became more aware of how I too was a diffuse Intelligence of the Moon as well. The entities I sensed around me were my kin, distant relatives and friends from ages past.

At each stage I learned something about myself. I’m not talking about some psychological insight into why I do thigs, either. I mean, it could probably be used for that, but I’m talking about learning something about my self. Like learning I had feet, or how to use my hand to pick up a coffee mug. Only it wasn’t my body, it was my essence. Divination, for instance, made sense. I just understood divination. It isn’t time or space, or probability, it’s revelation. Revelation is peeling away the layers so you can see what lies within that works to manifest what happens next. It’s like seeing the cause, and deducing the result, only less mechanical.

There were other insights, like understanding how to communicate with spirits using symbols to get the essence across. It was like learning the vocabulary of their language, or the alphabet of their words. I understand why Spare called it an Alphabet of Desire, even though I understood the concept before. I know about it, first hand now. I undestand why the grimoires have specific symbols in each seal. The seals of the Goetic spirits make perfect sense, they are pictographic longhand, a formal style that has become familiar, casual over time.

As I ascended further, through many more than the seven spheres I’m accustomed to traveling, I apprached the veil where the thoguht of God originates within the infinite Mind. Of course, words fail, but there was still a hint of the Sphere of the Moon, like an aftertaste that lingered. My Mind and the Mind of God communed without symbols, in pure exchange of impulse. I’m sure it’s apparent that words cannot convey that which lies behind words themselves.

Rising further, I left behind all vestiges of the Moon and pierced through the Infinite Light into the Divine Darkness. Awareness faded, and time, which had lost all meaning a few heavens before, simply ceased. Everything ceased. Everything simply was the Prime Mover. Looking back, it was sort of like the Benben stone within the ocean upon which the Atum stood in the Egyptian myth cycle. Except that even the ocean was the Benben stone, in extension.

Wrapping words around the experience is annoying. It must be understood that these matters cannot accurately be put into words. They must be experienced.

As I went through the following days, I didn’t notice much of a change in my manifest realm. I’d like to say there was a spiritual change that made everything bearable and gave me a great attitude that made everything perfect, but the fact is I was still an asshole surrounded by assholes at work and a mountain of work to do around the house. But I was aware of it differently.

Since then, I’ve been experiencing more synchronicities and “psychic” flashes. Nothing debilitating, but I get images of what’s going on behind closed doors from snippets of conversations at work, or I take a different route to work and end up avoiding traffic. If I were one to give readings, I’ve got a feeling they’d be scary accurate right now. I have a greater awareness and control over the Lunar aspects of my life.

Esoteric magic has been my focus lately, as opposed to the more materialistic pursuits I’ve been on for the past couple of years. I’d like to start a series on some of the experiences I’ve had in each of the planetary realms.

I think I’ve explained technique as far as I can for now. From time to time I might do a piece on planetary magical tech, but over the last three years I’ve detailed my actual practices in sufficient detail for anyone to adapt my techniques into theirs. It’s all talismans and circles, baby!

A little backstory leading up to the esoteric Work of late:

I went through a pretty stressful period at work. It sucked me in, and I got wrapped up in the drama of trying to deliver something useful, meaningful, and according to specs. Due to the extreme stubborn ignorance of management, the project continues to fail miserably. The end is near, halleluiah!

My home life has been fairly decent, but I still haven’t gotten back into the swing of things since going on vacation. Little things have piled up and become major obstacles, things like property and vehicle maintenance. Petty annoyances, easily fixed, but all piled up together.

So I’ve been tired and stressed. Money hasn’t been an issue. There’s always a cash source somewhere in my life, some way of making enough to get whatever I need or want. It would be easier if I had more, but the real stress financially comes from not knowing where the money will come from. It always comes from somewhere unexpected, but it always comes. Still, I worry and it adds to the general miasma of stress.

So lately I’ve been seeking solace in the spheres. “In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me,” Psalm 86:7, and solace I’ve found.

Within each sphere, I’ve been through a very gentle period of transformation. It’s been quite unlike the dramatic experiences I was having years ago. The visions are more nuanced, less is spoken, and more is shared. It’s sort of like the post Dohmail recently made about knowing.* He talks about divination specifically, but think of his point applying to scrying the aethyrs, traveling the spheres, Merkavah.

I’m performing these rituals “astrally,” for the most part. On occasion, I’ll  use The Box and call the angel specifically by name, then just sort of meditate and carry on the communication on a higher plane as I sit or lie in the glow of the talisman-charged light radiating through the large crystal ball into my physical sphere. The room takes on the resonance of the spirit I’m conjuring to open the gate to the planetary sphere, and it takes less time to “get there.”

* I just got back from his site, getting the link, and I got wrapped up in the comments. Good stuff going on there, highly recommended by RO.

So recently, on a Grimorium Verum discussion group, someone starts talking about “the Herd.”

You know, the Sheeple, the Muggles, the Mundanes. How much Ayn Rand bullshit do we have to put up with? Come on, get over it already. You received a calling to be a magician, big fucking deal. Can you paint like Van Gogh, or write like Robert Frost, or design like Frank Lloyd Wright? Fuck no, you can’t. You read some grimoires and some philosophy.

You’re out of the mainstream realm of popular interest. That doesn’t make the rest of humanity a bunch of drooling animals to be fleeced, shorn, denigrated, or profited from. They aren’t less human than you are because you’re a magician. You are one of them, and they are one of you. We’re all people. Every human being on the planet can do what you do, if they were called to it. You aren’t special because you read a book or three.

Now folks who read regularly may point out the number of times I’ve said something along the lines of “Everyone on the planet is a fucking moron except for a couple magicians here and there.” And I may have, on occassion, mentioned that people who don’t do magic are about as smart as bags of hair. And I may even have referred to humanity in general as the Herd.

But when I do it, it’s different. I make sweeping derogatory generalizations with class.