Rufus Opus

Blog

  • No One Understands Me…

    Ok, well, I shouldn’t say “no one” understands me. The fact is that most folks seem content, at least, with the things I do, and seem to grasp that these posts I make here and on message boards are the records, thoughts, observations, and witticisms that come from my personal efforts to accomplish the Great Work.

    There are some folks who don’t get it though, and I’m not so enlightened that I can just accept that some people won’t get it. I’ve got this overwhelming urge to explain myself to my detractors in the naive hope that they will understand what’s going on at Rufus Opus.

    Why do I focus on Wealth and Prosperity primarily in my posts? Mainly because that’s something everyone I know can use help with, or could have used some help with at one point in their lives. I try to demonstrate that it’s not hard to make a talisman for great wealth and riches. I try to get people to do magick that serves them personally. I’m laying out bait, as it were, to get people doing magick.

    When you do any ritual that involves conjuring the angels or archangels of the higher realms, they have an effect on the magician. Each interaction with a higher power results in that higher power rubbing off on the magician a little bit, getting them closer to accomplishing the Great Work. Every conjuration of a spirit transmutes the magician’s primal material just a little bit, refining it, making them a better person, making them more magickally aware, more accomplished, and better-balanced.

    I could focus on all the philosophical implications of magick, and tell people how to do theurgical rites alone, but most folks will read it, think it’s a good idea, and then do nothing else. I know, I was there for years. But when I started doing the real stuff, I started growing spiritually as a side effect. The truths of the platonists and neoplatonists revealed themselves to me. I gained insight into the workings of the universe. I conquered character flaws, became more generous, and all the things that a spiritual person ought to experience.

    So that’s why I teach people the basics of material-manipulation on this blog. That’s why I sell the Angel Conjuration Kits that appeal to the basic needs and desires of humanity. If someone buys the Love Angel conjuration Kit and does the Work to get themselves their soul mate, then they will be hobnobbing with the Archangel of Venus, who will naturally attune their spheres, cleansing out their own problems and burn off the things that hinder them in the process.

    I didn’t think I needed to tell the more advanced adepts that this is why I do things, but a couple of people who should know better seem to think I’m in this for the money and that I think magick is all a scam, a way to pull a fast one.

    It is, in a way, a shortcut to everything you could possibly desire. But at the same time, you will undergo the four stages of the Alchemical Great Work. You can’t have mastery of the universe without the transmutation of the soul. It’s nice how that works.

    So for all of you who have thought that my magickal techniques were just for money, you’re wrong. I just don’t talk much about the spiritual aspects of the Work because really, you’ll need to experience them and interpret them within the context of your own life. The techniques I provide are a catalyst for the Great Work.

    That should sum it up. If anyone still thinks I’m in it for the money… well, let’s just say I’m not getting rich off anything I do online. I cover my expenses for the web site, and make a little more on the side, about enough for a dinner at Bob Evans once or twice a month for me and my family.

  • Sleep Paralysys, Night Hags, and the Work

    A friend asked me if I thought Sleep Paralysis or the Night Hag experience was greater or worse for people doing the Great Work.

    Starting with the basic cosmology, I believe the world as we know it is filled with spirits that we can’t see. Angels, fallen angels, elementals, and all the spirits of the dead that stick around this side of heaven, you know the drill.

    When we have strong emotions, we put off a certain kind of “energy” that can be sensed in a room or even a house. Some of the spirits we wade through every day can absorb nutrition from these strong emotions, the kind usually triggered by the amygdala.

    In order for the hags to be ble to feed off someone, they’ve got to be going through some kind of emotional duress or stress that has their amygdala working over time. Whatever the clonazepam does in the brain seems to patch this leak up in most people.

    The wandering hag spirit gets the scent of the leak and goes in for a free meal. Like a lamprey, the spirit attaches itself to the leak, and I believe it has something like the anesthetic saliva of a mosquito. this triggers that “I can’t move” effect in the brain, and if we wake up during the attack, we can’t do anything about it.

    As a magician pursues the Work, they’re patching up the holes, and learning new ways to deal with life that slowly eliminate the creation of any new leaks. So there’s less to feed on. We aren’t putting out a banquet every night for every wandering spirit.

    However, in the early stages, and especially during a Tiphareth Initiation, there’s usually a lot of pain involved. The “Gethsemane” experience, I like to call it. Crowley talks about the pain of a Tiphareth initiation in Liber XCV, “The Wake World.”

    “This Sixth House is called the Treasure House of Gold; it’s a most mysterious place as ever you were in. First there’s a tiny, tiny, tiny doorway, you must crawl through on your hands and knees; and even then I scraped ever such a lot of skin off my back; then you have to be nailed on a red board with four arms, with a great gold circle in the middle, and that hurts you dreadfully. Then they make you swear the most solemn things you ever heard of, how you would be faithful to the Fairy Prince, and live for nothing but to know him better and better. So the nails stopped hurting, because, of course, I saw that I was really being married, and this was part of it, and I was as glad as glad;”

    So until you get to the married part, if you haven’t done the Work in the previous spheres, you may have more hag experiences as the skin is scraped on your back.

    Also, as you progress in the Work, you begin to interact with the spirits more, and you get a few that hang around you. They tend to scare away the more aggressive spirits, wake you up before anything can happen, or just beat the shit out of the hungry ghosts that dare to infiltrate your sphere. Depends on the familiars you attract and work with.

  • Sleep Paralysys, Night Hags, and the Work

    A friend asked me if I thought Sleep Paralysis or the Night Hag experience was greater or worse for people doing the Great Work.

    Starting with the basic cosmology, I believe the world as we know it is filled with spirits that we can’t see. Angels, fallen angels, elementals, and all the spirits of the dead that stick around this side of heaven, you know the drill.

    When we have strong emotions, we put off a certain kind of “energy” that can be sensed in a room or even a house. Some of the spirits we wade through every day can absorb nutrition from these strong emotions, the kind usually triggered by the amygdala.

    In order for the hags to be ble to feed off someone, they’ve got to be going through some kind of emotional duress or stress that has their amygdala working over time. Whatever the clonazepam does in the brain seems to patch this leak up in most people.

    The wandering hag spirit gets the scent of the leak and goes in for a free meal. Like a lamprey, the spirit attaches itself to the leak, and I believe it has something like the anesthetic saliva of a mosquito. this triggers that “I can’t move” effect in the brain, and if we wake up during the attack, we can’t do anything about it.

    As a magician pursues the Work, they’re patching up the holes, and learning new ways to deal with life that slowly eliminate the creation of any new leaks. So there’s less to feed on. We aren’t putting out a banquet every night for every wandering spirit.

    However, in the early stages, and especially during a Tiphareth Initiation, there’s usually a lot of pain involved. The “Gethsemane” experience, I like to call it. Crowley talks about the pain of a Tiphareth initiation in Liber XCV, “The Wake World.”

    “This Sixth House is called the Treasure House of Gold; it’s a most mysterious place as ever you were in. First there’s a tiny, tiny, tiny doorway, you must crawl through on your hands and knees; and even then I scraped ever such a lot of skin off my back; then you have to be nailed on a red board with four arms, with a great gold circle in the middle, and that hurts you dreadfully. Then they make you swear the most solemn things you ever heard of, how you would be faithful to the Fairy Prince, and live for nothing but to know him better and better. So the nails stopped hurting, because, of course, I saw that I was really being married, and this was part of it, and I was as glad as glad;”

    So until you get to the married part, if you haven’t done the Work in the previous spheres, you may have more hag experiences as the skin is scraped on your back.

    Also, as you progress in the Work, you begin to interact with the spirits more, and you get a few that hang around you. They tend to scare away the more aggressive spirits, wake you up before anything can happen, or just beat the shit out of the hungry ghosts that dare to infiltrate your sphere. Depends on the familiars you attract and work with.

  • Shem 2

    :sigh:

    Remember I thought I didn’t have to say the Shem angels were Zodiacal in nature?

    Reference this link:

    http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/agripp3b.htm#chap25

    For this quote:

    "seventy two trissyllable names of angels, whereof every one carries the great name of God, as it is written: My Angel shall go before thee; observe him, for my name is in him. And these are those that are set over the seventy two Celestial quinaries"

    There it is. I seem to have missed that little bit at the end the first time I read through. I didn’t realize Agrippa had placed them in the zodiac too. I thought he had no Zodiacal relationship, so I could skip that part of the rituals. Perhaps I’ll have to revisit Ambelain’s and Leitch’s methodologies after all. Rather disappointing, I must say. I hate astrology.

  • Oh, so that’s what the HELL is going on…

    We interrupt the regularly scheduled nothing new or magically oriented topics brought to you by Head for the Red for the following important News Item:

  • 4th Pentacle o’ Jupiter

    Ok, so now I’ve scanned the 4th Pentacle of Jupiter I made:


    I also have a digital image I made in “PowerPoint” of all the stupid things. It’s a rough approximation based on colors I have on my pc, fonts I have on my pc, and images I copy-pasted from Joe Peterson’s web site.

    The outermost circle has Muriel and its seal, then the next circle inwards has Jupiter, Tzadqiel, the characters of Jupiter, and the seal of the Archangel. The circle within has the gloria… psalm, and the innermost circle has the symbol from the Key of Solomon. The coloring below is allegedly based on the Picatrix, according to this site.

  • 4th Pentacle o’ Jupiter

    Ok, so now I’ve scanned the 4th Pentacle of Jupiter I made:


    I also have a digital image I made in “PowerPoint” of all the stupid things. It’s a rough approximation based on colors I have on my pc, fonts I have on my pc, and images I copy-pasted from Joe Peterson’s web site.

    The outermost circle has Muriel and its seal, then the next circle inwards has Jupiter, Tzadqiel, the characters of Jupiter, and the seal of the Archangel. The circle within has the gloria… psalm, and the innermost circle has the symbol from the Key of Solomon. The coloring below is allegedly based on the Picatrix, according to this site.

  • 4th Pentacle o’ Jupiter

    Ok, so now I’ve scanned the 4th Pentacle of Jupiter I made:


    I also have a digital image I made in “PowerPoint” of all the stupid things. It’s a rough approximation based on colors I have on my pc, fonts I have on my pc, and images I copy-pasted from Joe Peterson’s web site.

    The outermost circle has Muriel and its seal, then the next circle inwards has Jupiter, Tzadqiel, the characters of Jupiter, and the seal of the Archangel. The circle within has the gloria… psalm, and the innermost circle has the symbol from the Key of Solomon. The coloring below is allegedly based on the Picatrix, according to this site.

  • 4th Pentacle o’ Jupiter

    Ok, so now I’ve scanned the 4th Pentacle of Jupiter I made:


    I also have a digital image I made in “PowerPoint” of all the stupid things. It’s a rough approximation based on colors I have on my pc, fonts I have on my pc, and images I copy-pasted from Joe Peterson’s web site.

    The outermost circle has Muriel and its seal, then the next circle inwards has Jupiter, Tzadqiel, the characters of Jupiter, and the seal of the Archangel. The circle within has the gloria… psalm, and the innermost circle has the symbol from the Key of Solomon. The coloring below is allegedly based on the Picatrix, according to this site.

  • Remembering a Mother-in-law

    My mother-in-law passed away last Monday. It’s been a long week, funeral arrangements to make, two days of viewing the body, and today’s funeral. I had the honor of writing and presenting a eulogy for her at the service today. It went really well. The service was outstanding, and the funeral chapel did a wonderful job with everything. She was a good woman, and I realized at the viewings that she touched so many lives with her goodness.

    At the service, a great Catholic affair, I couldn’t discuss the things about her that meant the most to me personally. She was not an occultist, but she was a believer. One of the ladies that payed her respects was her tarot card reader, who also couldn’t talk about what role she played in my mother-in-law’s life. They had been expecting this for a while.

    My mother-in-law knew of my occult activities. She asked for help with my sister-in-law, and in addressing her needs, I learned a great deal about Bune, the Goetic spirit in my spirit pot, and Michael and Raphael. She saw angels and spirits, and was very aware of the spiritual realm in which we live and move and have our being. We had long talks about the spirit realm, and she always was interested in the things we talked about. It wasn’t like she was just asking to be nice, she really wanted to know what I thought about things. Her respect for me as a magician is something that meant a great deal to me.

    I’ll never forget the things she did for us as a family, and I’ll never forget that she treated me with dignity and respect, even in the realm of . We had our differences, but before she died we were at peace. The last thing she told me was that she was proud of me, and thanked God for my presence in her daughter’s life.

    The neat thing is, I know she’s still with us. When she was younger, she had a vision of an angel wearing a robe with two patches, one over her gall bladder, and one over her liver. For years she wondered what the patches represented. She passed away during a liver transplant surgery from an obscure liver disorder. They discovered it while removing her gall bladder. We’ve figured out the “angel” she saw that day was her own spirit, ministering peace to herself. she drew a picture of that angel the day she saw it, and everyone has commented on the “family resemblance,” some thinking it was her mother, others her father. No one had thought it might have been her.

    We’re looking forward to keeping in touch with her until we have a chance to join her.