Rufus Opus

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  • The Shem Project

    My next magickal project will be the Shem angels. When I first began Working with Spirits, I started with the Seven Archangels of the planets, intending to familiarize myself with them before moving on to more complex systems. Originally, I intended to move from the Planetary Intelligences to the Shem Angels, then on to the Ophanim, and then towards the Enochian system. At this point, I still intend to work the Ophanim system at some point in the future, but the Enochian system I’m wavering on. Time will tell.

    At this point, I’ve only begun formulating some ideas about the Shemhamephoresh angels. I’m definitely in the Initiation phase (for those with Project Management experience), where I begin to gather and analyze data regarding the project. I need to understand what the Angels are, how they fit into the cosmologies, and then identify means of conjuring them efficiently and repeatably. At that point, I can begin to record their attributes as they manifest in my life. That’s a ways down the road though.

    I got the “go-ahead” on the Shem angels from my HGA last week. I was reading in Agrippa that the Shemhamephoresh spirits were “better” than the angels of the planets and elements. I thought that was interesting, but there’s nothing about how to Work with these particular spirits. So, I did what we all do, I hit Google up for some leads.

    The two primary resources I found that had useful information in them were Aaron Leitch’s essay and Section V of Robert Ambelain’s Practical Kabbalah Part II. Both of these sources link the Shemhamephoresh angels to the zodiac.

    Personally, I’m not convinced. Not entirely, at any rate. The evidence for the angels to be astrologically linked is very strong. There are 72 names, one for ever five degrees of the zodiac. Aaron’s essay goes into a lot of the reasoning behind the attributions, and it’s very in-depth, and extends back centuries.

    However, the connections just don’t hold true enough to me at this point. I’m holding myself open to the idea they might be zodiacally related, but there’s more to placing spirits than the numbers they have in common with the zodiac.

    The names of the Shem angels are derived from three Hebrew verses of 72 letters each in Exodus 14:19-21. From Agrippa, we learn that the names of spirits are derived from the verses in the Bible that describe their qualities. The verses describe the Angel the Lord sent to protect, teach, and make a way for the Israelites as they escaped the Egyptians. The Angel’s presence was indicated by the column of smoke by day, and the pillar of fire by night that remained with the Israelites for over forty years. The Cloud remained with the Israelites at least as far as the edges of the Promised Land, but it’s hard to tell exactly when the Cloud and Fire returned to Heaven. We do know that the Cloud of the Lord’s presence returned to the Temple of Solomon, leaving all of Jerusalem weeping in awe.

    In tracking down the Angels’ history, I found they are aligned with the rays on the crowns of the twenty-four elders seated before the throne of God. Now, these elders are closer to the Throne of God than the seven candles representing the planets. They’re also closer to the Throne than the twelve angels that guard the gates of Jerusalem, placing hem above the zodiac as well.

    Based on this information, I’m planning on researching the spirits’ manifestations outside the requirements of astrological timing. I am currently of the opinion they operate outside the “rules” of the planetary governors. I could be wrong, but finding out is one goal of this particular project.

    Now, Ambelain’s section of Practical Kabbalah Part II includes seals for each of the spirits. These seals are copied and presented by Zalewski and Poke Runyon in other works, but Ambelain warns against their use, claiming a six-year operation using the seals resulted in cancer, obsessive thoughts of suicide, and other unpleasant results. Poke and Zalewski don’t mention it, and the general consensus of the magicians I’ve talked to about this is that Ambelain was full of crap. Either it was a false warning, or he was just wrong.

    Regardless, the seals come from a manuscript much later than Agrippa’s record of the angels. Agrippa knew the angels’ names, and knew they were used in magick, but did not offer any indication that they are related to the zodiac. If the seals were created under the auspices of the zodiac-link, they’ll be useless to me. Besides, I don’t like using symbols I don’t understand or that I’m just not comfortable with, and these definitely fall into that category.

    I’ll be working the spirits using the conjuration ceremonies of the 4th book of Occult Philosophy. The seals I’ll generate using some method from the time of Agrippa, or else something provided directly by my HGA. I haven’t figured that part out yet.

  • 2.3 – The Joys of Making Talismen

    Sorry about the hiatus. It’s been a long couple of weeks. Don’t conjure Jupiter spirits for wealth and prosperity if you don’t want to work your tail off.

    On with the Joys of Making Talismen!

    Note: A friend suggested that the plural of talisman is talisma. Dictionary.com says it’s Talismans. I prefer Talismen, because it makes me think of them as little “men,” entities in their own right. However, I make fun of people who would rather be wrong because they like it better, and hypocrisy has been rearing its ugly head in my sphere too much recently. I’ll leave the title for consistency’s sake, but going forward, it’s “Talismans.”

    2.3.1 – What’s a Talisman?

    A Talisman is a symbol or seal inscribed or drawn on an item in order to attract the forces represented by that symbol. In Solomonic work, you can draw a seal of a spirit on paper surrounded by the appropriate names of God or what have you, and that is a talisman. Solomon’s Ring is a talisman. My Spirit Pot is a talisman. Franz Bardon’s Fluid Condensers are talismans. Your consecrated elemental weapons can be considered talismans. A talisman is any physical representation of a spiritual force or being that draws the powers of that force or being into the manifest realm.

    My favorite talisman story is Joseph Smith’s (thanks, Scott!). He carried a tin Jupiter Talisman drawn from Agrippa’s planetary tables with him wherever he went. I think there’s a record of it on his person when he was arrested on the way to Utah with his Mormons, and he was wearing it when he died.

    2.3.2 – What is a Talisman good for?

    Talismans are used for a number of things. Agrippa has the planetary tables that can be inscribed on their appropriate metals, and these will bring healing, joy, love, martial prowess, or whatever planetary energy you’re interested in drawing down at the moment. The astrological weather is important to consider when inscribing these things though. A planetary talisman is a long-term snapshot of the qualities of the rays of that planet when it was created. I have a Mars talisman I created while Mars was in Sagittarius and nicely aspected by other planets.

    In the previous post, I talked a little about how we work with the planets using their Intelligences and Spirits. A key way to get these guys’ attention is by calling them by name while holding their planetary talisman in your hand. The Talisman is already drawing the forces conducive to the spirit’s manifestation, and when you conjure it by name or seal, it’s easier for that spirit to appear. That’s great for specific Workings, but there’s a more sublime purpose behind creating talismans in your pursuit of the Great Work.

    If you’ve read my book, A Modern Angelic Grimoire, you know about the Table of Practice. The Table of Practice I discuss in that book is based on the one from Trithemius’ Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals. A magician conjuring a spirit places their skrying media (a crystal ball or bowl of water, for example) in the center of the Table. The Table has the seven planets’ symbols and the names of the angels that rule them around the outside edge, the names of the four angelic elemental Kings, and a Triangle with symbols in the corners:

    From a friend in Australia, I learned of a more elaborate Table of Practice described in the Ars Paulina. She created a beautiful Table of Practice, painting the seals of each planet on wood, then coating it with a few coats of polyurethane. It’s incredible.

    I had been making various talismans for specific Workings, a couple of lead talismans to bind some wandering spirits for my mother-in-law, and a Michael talisman for some other exorcism rituals, and it “occurred” to me to create a talisman for each of the planets that could be easily transported, a portable Table of Practice and seven specific talismans of each planet for specialized planetary work. I did so, and as I completed each of the talismans, the beams of that sphere would be focused directly into my own sphere. When I had finished the seventh talisman, I had a complete microcosm of the planetary spheres. Shortly after this, I received an epiphany, which will be discussed in more detail when we get to Section 3.0. For now, know that putting the talismans together in their appropriate places on your altar space creates a harmonizing and stabilizing effect in your sphere, and serves as a long-term ritual that continues to adjust and attune your sphere as you go on about your business.

    The Table of Practice, by its very existence, eliminates the necessity of the pentagram and hexagram rituals of the Golden Dawn. It takes longer to make, but the investment of time and effort takes place early on, and the return on the investment is awesome. You end up with the permanent effects of the pentagram and hexagram rituals in your sacred space.

    2.3.3 – Making the Talismans

    When you make a talisman, you are interacting directly with the spirit that rules the forces you’re “trapping” in the object. The result is a change in your own sphere in relation to the forces you’re working with. You get a little wiser, a little more knowledgeable. At the same time, as you’re engraving the metals, or smelting the alloys, or sanding the nearly-finished product, you receive guidance, instruction, and are led to insights about the nature of the entity or forces you’re working with. It’s a very contemplative and meditative exercise that requires long periods of trance-state brain activity. Making a talisman results in taking a step in the Great Work.

    Making talismans is fun, too. I use a dremel tool, fiberglass resin, the metals of the planets (Lead, Tin, Iron, Gold, Copper, Mercury, and Silver), wood, and other appropriate materials. I’ve learned a bit about metallurgy, wood carving, embossing, and how not to use a propane torch in your kitchen. There are risks associated with heavy metals, like lead and mercury, and risks associated with natural things, like the toxicity of Yew, and proper precautions must be made. This should never keep you from making the talismans though.

    Taking the proper precautions is part of the experience, and teaches you aspects of the planets the metals represent as well. Saturn inappropriately concentrated in your sphere will have the spiritual equivalent of the effect of inappropriate amounts of lead in your body. Integrating the Moon into your sphere has a similar effect to drinking silver nitrate, and combining the lunar energies with solar energies inappropriately will block the ability to absorb and process the solar powers, the same way silver nitrate blocks the ability of the body to process sunlight into Vitamin D when you go into the sunlight after taking too much silver.

    The process I follow when I make a talisman consists of identifying an opportune time astrologically, when the planets associated with the talisman are well aspected. Then in the right hour, I’ll conjure the appropriate spirit, and then perform the Work required to make the talisman. While I’m working, the spirit communes with me, and that interaction is wonderful. Then when it is finished, I’ve got a physical representation of the powers I want to work with. Then I can use it at the right time.

    When I do a solar rite, I’ll use my solar talisman. Right now, for instance, I’ve got a stand with a picture on it over the top of an orgone generator that’s resting on my talisman of the Sun. The Talisman’s forces are being focused up through the orgone generator, enhanced by the properties of the generator, and then “beamed” into the picture. It’s an entire ritual performed without requiring the conjuration of any spirits, or the drawing of any circles, or the waving of any elemental weapons.

    That’s the beauty of talismans, but at the same time, you don’t want to make a talisman for every magickal act. There are occasions where you don’t need a permanent or even long-term representation of a spiritual force. It’s tempting to make a talisman for every spirit you want to work with, but ultimately you’ll end up with a few hundred talismans and nowhere to put them. As your ritual space becomes more and more cluttered, your life will get more and more cluttered. Use good judgment in determining what you really want the talisman for, and remember it’s a long-term investment.

    I’ve got this spirit pot with Bune in it, for instance, and I. will. for. the. rest. of. my. life.

    Unless I decommission it.

    2.3.4 – Decommissioning Talismans

    When you’re ready to move on to the next step, you can decommission the old talismans you’ve got hanging around. When creating them, you poured a lot of time and effort into identifying the seals and symbols required, gathering the elements, and putting them together. Some indications that it’s time to decommission the talisman are that it has accomplished its desired outcome, or you’ve discovered the properties of the forces you worked into the talisman aren’t in harmony with your intent. The spirit of the talisman might be directing you to decommission it, or you might be prompted by your HGA to eliminate this force from your sphere. When these things happen, you need to break the talisman down to its component parts and thank the spirit of the talisman for its work. For metal talismans you’ve engraved, melt the metals again to restore them to their “blank” state. Wood materials you can burn and scatter the ashes somewhere where they will be sent to the ends of the world, like a convenient river or a stiff breeze. Paper talismans should be burned as well.

    Note: Mercury and lead cannot be dumped in nature. You’ve got to extract Mercury and store it properly in glass or iron. Lead you can melt under a filtered ventilation system, and reuse later.

    Tin and copper and any other planetary metal can be pretty easily melted using a propane torch and some creative research on Google.

    If you can’t melt your talisman, like if it’s iron that you’ve engraved, you can file down the images, and then sand them down until the iron is blank. Drop the lump in some salt for a while too, or anoint it with Holy water. Try to keep the materials you’ve put into your talismans, if possible. You’ll have another use for them eventually.

  • A Call for Ethiopian Magicians

    I’ve recently started monitoring my blog stats, and there are hits coming in from all over the world, but not one from Africa. My favorite country in Africa is Ethiopia, and I’d damned well better start seeing some traffic from Addis. Ethiopians from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church would make ideal Neo-Platonic magicians, their history has perfectly attuned them for it. Plus they have a sense of humor that is sadly lacking in the modern Western Mystery Tradition.

    With that in mind, I’m writing this blog post as a magickal act. 🙂

    Agrippa places Ethiopia under the influence of Saturn. Therefore:

    Thou Spirits of I conjure thee, in the name of Jehovah Elohim, by the Powers of the Thrones, to send forth in overwhelming flame thy Angels, Intelligences, and Spirits to bring to this blog my brothers from Addis.

    Tzaphkiel, I conjure thee by Jehovah Elohim. My simple request is more Ethiopians, please.

    Thou Spirits of Saturn, by thy Table I conjure thee:

    By thy Seal I conjure thee:

    Thou Intelligence of Saturn Agiel, I conjure thee by thy Seal:

    that thou wouldst direct thy Legions and Guide the Forces of the Spirit Zazel to break down every barrier to the Magi of Ethiopia that would stand against their participation with me through this blog.

    Thou Spirit Zazel, I conjure thee by thy Seal:

    that thou wouldst destroy any plan, plot or action of any man or force of nature within this realm that would stop the Magi of Ethiopia from joining me through this Blog.

    Jehovah Elohim, by the powers of thy host, let this Work bear the fruit Thou intend.

    Amen.

  • 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.

  • Blog & Webpage Updates

    Going forward, I’ll only be making announcements about blog updates through a Google group I created for that purpose. The list of names was getting rather large, and I was getting pegged as spam by people who forgot they asked for updates. (They will suffer horribly for their sins.)

    So, if you want to know when new posts are made and you don’t want to just subscribe to the feed, join the Google Group:

    Rufus Opus Updates | Google Groups

    Note this isn’t a discussion group. It’s an announcements-only group. If you want to join a group to discuss the topics I go on about here, I’ve got a Google group for that too. 🙂

    Rufus Opus: The Great Work | Google Groups

    Google rocks, much better than Yahoo! I want to use it again, and again.

    SNL references aside, I really do like the Google groups interface better than Yahoo. It’s much more user-friendly.

  • Not crazy, no mad prophet here…

    For anyone disturbed by yesterday’s post and thinking I’m some kind of doom and gloom mad prophet, good news! I’m totally not.

    I was trying to express frustration with the role of suffering in existence. I’m not happy with it, and I wanted to know what the alternative was. Why the hell can’t we just not suffer? I asked God, and he said it’s just part of the whole thing, and you can’t exist without it.

    Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone not to exist than for the people who get hurt the most to have to suffer as badly as they do. I am he who hates that evil should be done on the face of the Earth, and all that.

    But the question I get stuck with

  • Free Modern Angelic Grimoire Offer has Ended

    The last of the free versions of the Modern Angelic Grimoire went out last night. Thanks for the many responses, and those who received the drafts, I ask that you send any feedback on errors, grammar, content, or usability after you've read it. Any questions about specific aspects, or requests for more detail will likely make it into future revisions.

    So far the best editorial critique I've received has come from Fr. Servitor Lucem, a wascawy wabbit who really DOES magick. (Shocking, I know!)

    Kathy McDonald (whose outstanding Work has been documented on the Solomonic and Ritual MAgic yahoo groups if you havent' read them) made some excellent comments as well, and that lead to correcting the spelling of the Tzadkiel lamen in the final version (It's a Qoph, not a Kaph).

    Their critiques made Version 0.3 the best of the lot. I can't thank them enough.

    I'm probably going to work with Moloch and his publishing outfit to get some hard copies available, eventually. For now though, if anyone wants an electronic draft, you can have a PDF emailed to you for a donation (minimum of $7.95, USD).

    By the way, I accept donations through paypal at my blog site now for anyone who wants to make me rich. It's that little button on the right up in the corner.

    Feel free to give me your tithe. I promise to make sure it goes to the Lord's work. 🙂

  • The Magick Book

    Aaron Leitch posted a neat link to an article at the Solomonic yahoo group today. He was excited about the book bindings that are illustrated, and rightly so. They are truly beautiful. Take a look here:

    http://www.maybelogic.org/maybequarterly/06/0609RoyalBookbinding.htm.

    What I found most interesting is in the interview with the creator of these beautiful works of art and magick. Specifically, the book binder is speaking about an earlier project called the Guardian Angel Grimoire, which he created for his partner Margaret:

    The Guardian Angel Grimoire came about as the result of the problems my life partner Margaret was facing. I made the Grimoire as a Xmas present for her, I drew upon the knowledge I had put away 20 years ago and it all seemed to come back as if it never went away. The interior of the book starts with the Enochian Tree of Life, followed by the Major Arcana of the Tarot, followed by the Pre-Raphalite paintings (Morgan LeFay, the seduction of Merlin etc) ending with 14th-19th century magical symbols, with an 8pp section inserted within each illustration to write whatever.

    The strange thing is, everything Margaret has written in the Grimoire has happened in one form or another. She has been offered many, many thousands of pounds for it, but now she will never part with it.

    How cool is that? How many times would you have used a Magick Book to manifest things if all you had to do was write out what you wanted to happen in the pages?

    I’m telling you, I’ve had this in mind for years. Ever since I read Crowley’s interpretation of the elemental weapons of a Magus in the Book of Toth as the implements of a writer. The quill knife, the ink well, the quill and the page. Beautiful representation of the Work of Materialization, in my opinion. In my chaos days, I attempted to create such an item, and failed MISERABLY. The results were pathetic, as usual.

    However, I think this guy Paul has hit upon the method here, and I’ve got a theory to explain it, based on my own experiences with my Altar and the Glyph I go on about from time to time.

    I’m able to manifest things in my sphere of sensation simply by placing a symbolic representation of what I want on my altar in the Table of Practice. The Table of Practice on my altar represents all the forces of creation and the managing intelligences and spirits that control the processes of manifestation. Articulating what I want symbolically is like planting the seed in the aethyrs and letting it grow.

    Paul has done the same thing in his creation of the Guardian Angel Grimoire above. He’s got the structure of existence and all the powers and principalities that manage it represented in the Tree of Life, the pathways of manifestation presented in the Tarot imagery, and specific images that tie his life partner to the grimoire. He’s also got the seals of various entities included with pages for writing at various stages through the work.

    It’s a beautiful piece of craftsmanship on many levels.

    As soon as his partner writes something in the pages, the spirits associated with their seals set to work to manifest whatever is written. Simple, direct, and aestheticlaly pleasing. There’s not much more that one could wish for.

    It reminds me of something Susanne Illes is working on with her Table of Practice. (Check out her blog for some really excellent art work: http://www.bone-singer.blogspot.com/)

    Well, anyway, it’s something to work on in our spare time. We aren’t all Master Book Binders, but finding journals of blank bound paper is a lot easier than it used to be. Get yourself one, and start putting together your own materializer. You’ll need some representation of the cosmos (like the Ptolemaic System: http://tinyurl.com/ys6ym2). You can draw it yourself or print it up and paste it in, coloring it appropriately.

    Then you’ll need the servants. There’s 72 Shem Angels, a few hundred Ophanim and Enochian angels, or Seven Planetary Intelligences and their legions of Spirits. Plenty of systems to put your servants together from. The Goetia springs to mind. Maybe have a page for each Spirit and a few pages afterwards dedicated to that spirit. If you’re going to do something like that, make sure to include all the other seals and such.

    While we can’t all emboss hand-tanned leather covers with gold gilt lettering for our works, we can all create wooden bindings out of shingles engraved or wood-burned with the appropriate symbols and seals.The key to success is creative ingenuity. I think I’ll put together my own Magick Book of Manifestation this weekend, a little materialization engine that I can just write things in and have them happen.

    I’ll need a lot of pages for whichever spirit I find that makes mountains of gold coins appear at will.

    Keep it simple!

    -R.O.

  • It’s this or nothing.

    As I was meditating one day, the Spirit descended upon me and took me up into the heavens, whether in body, or in a dream, I do not know.

    In the Workshop, I saw my Brother overseeing a manifestation of Plague. It was time for the new pandemic to be rolled out, under the supervision of the appropriate spirits of  Saturn and Venus.

    “It’s going to kill millions of people,” I said, and my Brother looked up at me.

    “Yes, it is.”

    “But why? Why like this? That’s going to hurt, and leave families without children, children without parents, and it’s going to hurt the poor worse than the rich. It’s not fair to any of them.”

    Gently, he sighed, and got that look he gets when he’s going to tell me something I won’t like, agree with, or understand.

    “They have to die.”

    He just looked at me. His face is always so compassionate. He knows what it means to be human, mostly cut off from our birth-right, yet still conscious enough to be aware of the disconnect. He knows I don’t see the beginning and the end the way he does.

    “Like this?” I asked.

    “Yes. Exactly like this. It has to happen.”

    “Why? You’re God, or close enough for it not to matter any more. You can let them live and find their deaths of old age. What could happen if you just had mercy and spared us from this stupid plague?”

    “This,” he said, and took me over to a corner of the workshop that seemed dustier than the rest. He sat me on a stool and sat across from me. “Close your eyes.”

    He’s totally done this before. It’s a vision trip, where he shows me shit that I can’t understand in words.So I know what to expect; he’s going to show me a future with too many people, or something to justify the horrors this disease will cause.

    Instead, all I see is nothing. Deep nothing. Nothing without even anything to compare it to, no way to know it is nothing. Nothing. No eyes to see, no me to look through eyes, even if they were there, nothing for my brain to process, no brain to process with. Nothing. Empty.

    “See?”

    “I didn’t see anything,” I said.

    “Right.” My blank stare spoke volumes.

    “Look,” he said. “Remember the sign on the Boot Hill Saloon?”

    (The Boot Hill Saloon is a bar in Daytona across the street from the old Boot Hill cemetery, where outlaws and the destitute were buried.)

    “You’re better off here than across the street?”

    “Yeah.”

    “That’s the big mystical secret? It’s this or nothing?” There was a brief pause, and I heard laughter in the distance. “Nothing’s a hell of a lot better than unleashing this disease and suffering!”

    He returned my gaze without flinching for a long moment, and when he had my full attention again, he simply said one word.

    “Really?”

  • New Web Page Launched!

    I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve got my web page up and running. There’s still room for improvement, but I think it’s a good start.

    www.rufusopus.com