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I never cease to be amazed at how many people will bull-headedly argue that their interpretation of some aspect of magick is “right”, quoting from Abramelin, Agrippa, and Robert Fludd as if that made them correct. I’m leaning towards the belief that there’s pretty much no factoid about ceremonial magick that should ever be debated in terms of “Right” and “Wrong”.

Raphael’s location on the Tree of Life is a perfect example.

I got really interested in where Raphael belonged by way of the LBRP. I was reading through a Thelema-based book, and saw that Crowley had once stated that the LBRP puts the mage at the crossroads of Samekh and Pe on the Tree. I thought, great! So I looked at the Tree to see just where exactly that was, since I haven’t memorized the paths at all.

Samekh lies between Yesod and Tiphareth, and Pe lies between Netzach and Hod. To understand it better, I wanted to see which Archangels were in the sephiroth. Raphael was attributed to Tiphareth, so you’re facing Tiphareth when you do the LBRP. Gabriel is in Yesod, so Yesod lies behind you. No problem. Michael is in Hod, and he’s in the south, so that’s over on the right. I got a little confused until I figured out you’re standing head-inwards into the Kircher diagram of the Tree of Life. It was still (sorta) making sense.

Then I get to Netzach. That’s all that’s left, but there’s nothing about Uriel being the Archangel of Netzach. Ok, sez I, Uriel isn’t the Archangel of Netzach, it seems to be some guy named Haniel, or Anael in some people’s texts. What gives? Why don’t we call Haniel instead of Uriel, if Crowley’s right?

My first response was that Crowley must be wrong, no biggy. But if the LBRP isn’t based on the tree of Life, where does it come from? So I researched it until I found that it comes from the Bedtime Sh’ma, a little prayer that Jewish people said before they went to bed at night. The archangels are the four archangels that surround the Throne of God. That’s why it’s Uriel, has nothing to do with the Sephiroth at all.

I was a little disappointed to find out that this banishing ritual I’d been using for years, that had worked wonders at clearing out sacred space, foiling clumsy magickal attacks from the people I pissed off in my bi-polar approach to existence, and banishing a myriad of entities was nothing more than “Now I lay me down to sleep” with some pentagrams thrown in.

But I’d stumbled across something ELSE in my efforts. I ended up going over the attributions of angels to sephiroth going from 777, Bill Heidrick’s Magical Correspondences, on back to Agrippa’s 3 Books of Occult Philosophy and the writings of Robert Fludd, a contemporary of Agrippa. Bill Heidrick pointed out that the attribution of Raphael and Michael flip according to the source, and I figured if I went back far enough, I’d find a definitive answer.

But no one had an authoritative basis for their claim. It was all hearsay. Agrippa recorded in one set of books what was available to ceremonialists of his time, but it was based on hearsay more than practice, and he says at some point, if you find I’m wrong, by all means, go with what you find.

Eventually, I figured I’d just evoke Raphael and ask him. I started with the LBRP, then “drew” his name in Hebrew letters the way you “draw” the pentagrams in the LBRP, and waited for him to show up.

When I told someone how I was doing the ritual, they said I was tainting my results by doing the LBRP first, and I should just do a straight evocation, with no prejudice. For three or four nights I did this, and got really wonderful visions from Raphael explaining where he belongs.

(Hod, by the way. He directs the flow of the energies of Mercury into Malkuth through Yesod.)

So what I learned from all this, besides where Raphael belongs, is that it doesn’t matter who said what, or what logical paths people have put together to get to the conclusion that Entity X “IS” in Sephiroth Y. You can’t trust anything in print to be the bottom line truth, and anything you find out on your own is subject to being only as much of the truth as you really need to know at the moment.

I explained how I look at my role as a magician to someone the other day, and they said they had never seen a magician with the same perspective I have on time. I thought I was on the same page as every other magician.

Where does our authority as magicians come from? Have you ever wondered?

I’ve been saying for years that I am a manifestation of the LOGOS, and as such, have a place of authority over the spirits of the physical and spiritual planes. I was wrong.

In the Corpus Hermeticum, in the Divine Pymander chapter, Man is not the Logos. Man is created by the First Father, the Prime Mover, completely like itself. Man meets and is loved by all the seven planetary governors, and breaks through into the manifest realm to see what’s going on there. He sees his own reflection, and falls in love with it. He enters a form shaped by Nature out of love for Man, and is therefore of two natures, immortal and mortal for the sake of Love.

So Man isn’t the Logos. He’s just the image and companion of the First Father. Interesting! Man still has the love and authority of the seven governors, and the Logos, but it’s because we are the image of the First Father that we have any authority over the spirits.

It doesn’t change anything functionally, but it does open new doors for exploration.

So my authority over spirits as a magician comes directly from my original creation and the relationship formed between myself and the Seven Governors, the Logos, and all their minions at the dawn of time. I was created to be a companion to God, to be his reflection, and I’m only here in this realm of Nature out of love, because I see my Father in his Works.

Where does yours come from? I know not everyone operates on the Christian Neo-platonic scale, but isn’t your basis for being able to perform magic grounded in eternity? Is my time line so different than everyone else’s?

I’m going to be asking my postmodernist friends about their perspectives on this, to see if it helps me understand something I’m missing.

If I see one more email thread mentioning how wonderful George Carlin was, I’m gonna be sick. He was a self-righteous, lazy pompous arrogant windbag, and guess what? He personally hated you and everyone else that sends out all these “the world is a worse place without you, George” emails, as if he isn’t like, “Fuck you, I got out and you’re stuck in, and I made it without offing myself, by the skin of my teeth some nights when it was me and Jack Daniels in a seedy motel near the local gig that barely covered the motel and the gas, but I made it, and if I didn’t mention it, fuck you.”

I want to grab everyone who loves George Carlin and take a fucking minute to remind you:

EVERYTHING HE POINTED OUT THAT WAS WRONG WITH THE WORLD, HE BLAMED YOU PERSONALLY FOR BECAUSE HE SAID YOU WERE A STUPID FUCKTARD WHO DOESN’T DO SHIT TO MAKE THINGS BETTER.

And I agree. Why not? It’s a lot easier to sit around and declare the world a shitty place and blame everyone that’s just trying to get by until they die than it is to actually DO SOMETHING to make it a better place.

George Carlin made a business out of saying things that every twenty-something has said at Perkins, Denny’s, or whatever 24 hour cafe that serves cheap coffee have said for years. He wasn’t original, or even particularly unique. He was a bitter asshole. And he’s dead. That’s the epitaph he deserves.

Get over it.