My friends in Fresno, Gimel, POS, and Von Faustus, have been blogging about the Shadow lately. POS went to Pantheacon and had a pantastic time, but also participated in a rite with Sam Webster’s OSOGD group that has had him aware of his “shadow” in repressed sexuality. Gimel mentions dealing with 20-year-old suppressed anger as being part of a shadow-issue. Von Faustus lists some culty madness as being shadowy weirdness that is “strange or just plain scary.”

I might be seeing a common thread among the posts because I lump them together (loosely) into my “Fresno Friends” group in my mind. They may or may not consciously or unconsciously be referring to these things as part of “The Shadow.” I don’t know.

I asked POS what he meant by the Shadow. His response was “everything we reject that maybe we shouldn’t.” (I got permission to quote him.) At first I was happy, because this is closer to what I think when I think of the Shadow, but as we talked, I realized that to him it’s those things that are repressed, like sexuality, or things that are feared, like being afraid of showing your true self. The Shadow is, to him, the realm where good things get shoved because of fear or repression (social or religious programming that something is bad and shouldn’t be talked about, expressed, or pursued). I’m paraphrasing and presenting my own interpretation of what he said, and I hope he corrects me if I’m wrong.


So basically, my Fresno Friends see the Shadow as something “bad.” Things that “shouldn’t be” are “shadowy.” It’s bad, it’s bad, it’s bad. 


I don’t get it.


The Shadow, to me, is a beautiful thing. It is dark, mysterious, powerful. It is the potential, the void from which all things spring. It is the absence of light which hides the greatest mysteries. It’s not a realm of repression or rejection or fear, it’s a realm of possibilities. 

That’s magic. The “Occult” is, in a way, a manifestation of the Shadow. It is the realm of hidden knowledge. We have to put together the clues to get the whole picture. Whether East or West, we get introductory pieces, advanced pieces, supernatural pieces, and it all falls together in a moment of Eureka! that leaves us empowered and awestruck, endorphins pumping, satiated for the moment in a way that can’t be described. It’s beautiful.

And impossible without the Shadow.


What is a magician’s Shadow? Is it the equivalent of the “Qlippoth” of the Kabbalistic world view? The dwelling place of all the negative, evil, bad, “shouldn’t be” side of our mysterious “selves?” I don’t think so. Like I said before, it’s powerful, and beautiful. It is unknown, unexplored, but not merely the shit bag of “subconscious” psychological issues, or the twisted, manipulative, evil manifestation of an idea or concept.



The Shadow self is your self enthroned and benevolently dictating your universe. It is you pursuing the things that make you happy, whole, complete. It is you acknowledging and fulfilling the desires for things without being ruled by them. It is you dominating the people around you for their own good because they aren’t doing it themselves. It is you taking responsibility for your universe. It is you free from condemnation or misinterpretation, or anyone’s judgment. It is you above the law and beyond consequence.


The Shadow can be a terrifying thing. It is ultimate power, and shining a light on it doesn’t make it go away, it simply hides it for a bit. Take away the light, and there it is, everywhere. Sort of like the Monad. Take away the matter of the universe, and all that’s left is that invisible substrate that forms, connects, and manifests everything. Exploring the Shadow, we find the secret things that are hidden by God. Proverbs 25:2, the Proverbs of Solomon, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” The King is the Shadow. The Magician is the Occult King of the Earth, ruling his universe from the invisible world.


Don’t be afraid of the Shadow. The power, the responsibility, the weight that comes from being directly responsible for everything that befalls you… that’s nothing to call “evil.”

For the record, if you get riches from Bune, you don’t have to send me the 10% (thanks anyway though, Scott). The deal is that he brings you the riches, and he brings me the ten percent. He gets face time with the public, a little free advertising, and you guys get riches. That’s the “pact” if there is one. It’s nothing formal, just sort of a way to have fun with magic.

You know what, fuck that last post. I’m not sorry. Just because I fucked up doesn’t mean shit. The first thing I did when I realized it was Work some magic. Because that’s what I am. In two weeks, I’ll be sitting pretty or doing something else.

A while ago, I wrote a rant called What the Hell is Going On?

Since then, I’ve taken a second job. The way things work out, I’m working a lot more hours a week, but getting paid double what I was making before.

I also now have to drive to work every day. I have to go to an office with people in it. I sit in a cube again. I go to conference rooms filled with middle-level managers trying to understand how their teams integrate to produce a product. They aren’t very good communicators. Smart folks, but … stupid communicators. They don’t know what other people need to be able to do their jobs. And I after long frustrating days filled with managing delays and ignorance, I get in a car and spend an hour with my foot on the brake the whole way home on the interstate.

It’s stressful. It’s distracting. I haven’t done nearly as much magic as I used to. I used to be able to sit and research all day and practice all night, pretty much, and still have time for my family. Now, I spend ten hours a day doing really stupid shit, and then I’m exhausted when I get home and sleep for an hour or so, and then I’m still ruminating about the day’s stupidity throughout the night. It sucks.

So, to all of you that I said, “Why is it that magicians don’t do magic!?” in disgust, I apologize. It’s because you’re busy doing stupid shit. I understand now.

But the fact remains that it isn’t necessary. Magic can get us out of this shit. We just have to figure out the means to accomplish it. So far my magic has gotten me better and better paying jobs. I’m making six figures now. The trouble is, I’m working too much to enjoy my life. That’s not what I wanted. The lotto would be ideal, but there’s a lot of stuff to take into account.

I conjured the Genius of the time/place of the MegaMillions drawing last Friday, and I couldn’t make out the numbers he was telling me. Or maybe it’s rigged, and they draw a bunch of numbers and only show the one that doesn’t win so the jackpot gets bigger.

I did manage to hit one of the numbers drawn, which won me exactly nothing. I would have settled for five and “only” won $250,000. But when I was trying to get the numbers, the spirit faded in and out, and I couldn’t still my mind enough to focus on what it was saying. The numbers I ended up with, apparently, came out of my own brain and wishful thinking, not from the spirit. Or maybe the spirit couldn’t tell me because it doesn’t work that way. I don’t know.

Anyway, I’ll be trying again tomorrow. I don’t need a lot, just enough. What I really need is better spirit vision, which I used to have. Back when I spent every day conjuring spirits and working with them more than with people in stupid flesh suits. Feh. Now I’m all grumpy, just thinking about next week. I’m going to meditate.

In Software Project Management, we develop software applications or database schemas based on requirements. Requirements are identified by business needs. Say Management needs to be able to see how well one product has sold for the past twenty-five years to decide whether to continue pushing it during the recession. They describe the report they want to see to the person that manages the data. When you begin to plan the development project, you start with your business case, establishing why it’s necessary to have whatever you’re developing. You detail the scope (it’ll go back 25 years, not 50, or it will include only these products, not those), and you use your scope and your business case to build out your “requirements.” Requirements become Design Specifications, and the Design Specifications become the software code that extracts specific data from the database and sends it to the report tool that shows the Management guys what they need to see. The quality assurance team develops Test Plans from the Requirements, to make sure the finished product does what it is supposed to and fulfills the business need.

So Requirements are important things to identify. You can’t develop something efficiently without knowing what it’s supposed to do.

But there’s another piece that must be included: ASSUMPTIONS. Assumptions list the things that the developers and project managers don’t know, but have to be true for the Requirements to be valid, and the code to do what it’s supposed to. Like, in the example above, we would assume the Management knows how to read the report, or that the report tool is already there and that we know how to load the data into the report tool already and we won’t get to the load stage and run into a brick wall because by the way, management wants you to use Crystal Reports to generate an Adobe PDF to present the data, not an Excel spreadsheet. Didn’t we mention that? Documenting the assumptions provides a means to say, look, this is what we’re assuming is true before we begin, so if it ain’t right, you’d better tell us now in the early stages of the project before we hit that wall.

The Grimoires don’t have an assumption list. They have the requirements listed fairly well (on the ninth hour of the night, you can conjure spirit X using sigil Y and God Name Z). They have the Specs detailed (9 foot circle, gold talismans for solar work, silver for moon, etc). They have the scope (this spirit gets you that result, not the other).

But they don’t have the assumptions listed. They don’t tell you that, oh, for instance, that you’d better have received a baptism of the Spirit before you try to step foot in a circle and try to tell a Goet what to do.

I posted a picture a while back of a dude parachuting into a pool in a jungle surrounded by crocodiles and labeled it a magician without K&CHGA working Goetia. It was somewhat tongue in cheek. However, there is a spiritual transformation that has to take place in a person before they are ready to be playing with the spirits of the Goetia and getting the kinds of results I and many others receive. You need something like K&CHGA. You need the empowerment of the ten angels of the spheres listed in the Circle of the Goetia. You need all that, but you need a rebirth.

You were born into a world of blood and sweat and tears. You excrete and exfoliate. You drip and drop bits of your flesh wherever you go. That body you walk around in is literally falling apart. And you think that’s you. When my kids are bickering, one will touch the other to annoy them, and they’ll say, “Quit touching me!” They don’t know that their bodies aren’t them. They don’t get that they’re eternal spirits in a temnporary flesh suit. Bill Cosby says they’re brain damaged, but I think it’s something more than that.

We identify from birth with our body. Keeps us alive. That’s a good thing. But it doesn’t get us ready to conjure spirits. What that takes is a vision of the Universe that reveals Who we are and What we are, and what our place in everything is.

Plotinus calls it reclaiming our Race and Value. He recommends contemplation of our Source to remember that we are eternal. It takes an understanding of what you need to contemplate of course, your source being prety far removed from your flesh. I suggest reading Iamblichus to understand how bodies and spirits and gods and daimons all interact together. I think meditating on what a Hero is in Iamblichus is awesome for people to get towards the spiritual rebirth.

But there’s more to it. You need to get the shit knocked out of you. You need to see it, see eternity laid out in front and behind you, see the hierarchies of spirits in all their glory, each working on their assigned tasks. The HGA can do that for you. Baptism in the Holy Spirit can do that for you. The empowerments of the tantrickas seem to have done it well for Jason.

If you haven’t, then leave the Goetia alone. You’re going to run into a wall. You won’t get the results you’re looking for, you’ll think magic is bunk, or worse, you’ll end up stirring up crap and starting a new chain of stupid horror stories about the Goets that aren’t true for anyone with the balls to look for the unlisted assumptions.

Stick to the Angels, they’ll get you where you need to be, and they can do most of what the Goetia spirits can do, eventually. Remember, the Emerald Tablet has you rise first, and then return to the Earth in Power. Too many people want to just have power on Earth without rising through the spheres. It doesn’t work that way.

Yesterday was a special occasion for me. I got to meet Jason in person, after a couple years of correspondence. I had a stressful week and needed to get away for a bit, so I figured I’d drive on up to his secluded den in the pine barrens, hang out, talk shop, have lunch…

Jason said to me before I left, you sure you want to drive that far, it’s a long trip… I’m all, It’s not that bad! My wife sez, It’s going to take you longer than you think, you sure you want to go that far? I’m all, Yes I’m sure, it’s just a couple hours, no biggie!

I can navigate a grimoire. I can piece together bits and pieces of Agrippa. I can trace Hermetic teachings from the GD back to Hermes Trismagistus.

I got so lost on those highways. Towards the end, he was calling me every few minutes to make sure I was getting to the right streets. To go what mapquest said was 2 hours and 45 minutes took me four hours. I drove up and down this one stretch of highway four (motherfucking) times. The planned late-lunch became dinner.

But let me tell you, it was SO worth the drive. We talked shop, he showed me his altar(s) setup, he taught me so much in the couple of hours we were together, and we had a blast. There was a feeling of camaraderie that I had sensed before at Thelesis, but was much more in tune with in person with Jason. One-on-one magical conversations can get a lot deeper than social settings. It was truly awesome. When I left, the stresses of the past week had been put back into perspective, and I was able to look at it all with fresh eyes, just by hanging out with a cool friend.

Fraternity is awesome. I understand now why things like the GD and monasteries and retreats and mentorships form. They help. A lot.

Oh, and Jason gave me this awesome cross with the ascended Christ on it, pcked full of Christian Occult significance. Dude has CLASS!

You can feel it in the air. I heard recently that Goetia is evil because a magician has to make a pact with the spirit to serve the spirit for a number of years after they die.

Must … control … fist … of … death …

I hear this shit and I want to kill some stupid motherfuckers. I think more highly of people than they apparently deserve. There’s no mention of pacts in the Goetia. Pacts aren’t even about service after death when they come up when you’re working with the spirits; they’re about making offerings. Covenants, like the one between Abraham and Jehovah, that’s the kind of thing you get with spirits. You agree to do something and they agree to do something. Usually it’s an offering of some kind, like a candle lit on their behalf, or their seal engraved on metal and left somewhere. And most of the Goetic spirits, specifically the ones from the Goetia of the Lemegeton don’t require offerings or anything. Most of them LIKE to work with you because it brings meaning to their existence.