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So I was telling someone about my courses, and I was talking about the Black Work phase, and they asked me if it was Black Magic. I was surprised, because I am so into my own way of seeing things, so immersed in my way of talking about the Great Work that I didn’t even see that there was a correlation between the name of my course and Black Magic.

I’m pretty sure my regular subscribers will know, but for any recent additions to the blog, here’s a little intro:

When performing the Great Work, alchemists began with raw materials and began refining them through a variety of different processes. The raw materials could be ore containing a precious metal, or chemicals that needed to be refined to be put to industrial use, or they might be plant or animal tissues. No matter what the original material or the processes used, the first stuff they started with, or Prime Materia, underwent a process of dissolving (solve) and then reforming into something else more refined (coagula). Lavanah has been doing a series of Spagyrical (plant alchemy) extraction of the essences of planetary herbs, which can be found at Practically Magic.

Alchemists used “wet” and “dry” methods. Some were immersing the material in strong acids that dissolved it, then reconstituting it through chemical processes. Others set the Prime Materia aside in a controlled environment and then observed it as it decomposed. Others used pure heat at varying temperatures for extended periods of time. As the Prime Materia changed, the Alchemists observed the metamorphosis and recorded their results. They compared notes, and found that four main stages could be identified and classified (generally) according to the color the Prime Materia changed during the process, regardless of the methods used.

The Prime Material would first turn black, as the impurities rose to the surface. Metal oxidized, plants decayed and grew black molds, and when you burn something, the first color it turns is black. This is the Black Work. It’s the beginning of the transformation process.

Then the Prime Materia turned white as the carbon turned to ash, or white mold began growing on decaying things. The impurities were refined, dissolved down to their core essence.

Next, the Prime Materia went through a quick succession of color changes, ranging from blue to green like a peacock’s tail feather. This is the Green Work. If you heat copper slowly to lower temperatures and then let it cool, you can see it go through the green phase. Higher temperatures yield a dark red. Pretty cool.

Finally, the Prime Materia would turn red, entering the Red Phase. This is the final product, the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone. This final material would then be ground up and used.

If you can find a medieval recipe for making red paint out of cinnabar (mercury sulfide), you’ll see that it goes through all the color stages of the Work. Some alchemists didn’t recognize the Green Work as a separate stage of the Work, and others didn’t end up with a red-colored Stone as their final product, but the phases stuck and they work as a classification tool for people performing the metaphorical, esoteric Great Work using themselves as the Prime Materia and Magic to perform the refinement process.

The Great Work of the Alchemists may look like a labratory and a scientist puttering away, but these guys weren’t just interested in the chemical process and refined Stone. They were performing these experiments in a spiritual context, looking to find in the natural processes the true manifest Laws of God, and by so doing become closer to him. At each stage of the Work, the Alchemist was observing the transformation of the Prime Materia. As they observed the processes in the controlled environment, and the changes that the materia underwent, they found that they too underwent a purification process by proxy. Just seeing the Prime Materia get refined caused changes in themselves, brought understanding that could be applied to all areas of their life, and made them wise in the workings of the manifest realm.

So there’s nothing “black magic” about the Black phase of the Work. It’s the beginning of the process, is all.

[Edit: I just read Jow’s most recent post on Natural Philosophy, and I think it helps explain what the Great Work is all about. The Great Work is a facet of the thing he’s talking about, and the steps we go through in our magical Hermetic approach, or interpretation, are going to result in the same kind of exploration and discovery. Jow’s post helps put the Alchemical Work in context.]

I’m rebuilding my occult supplies now that we’ve got most of the house put back together. Incense burners, tarot cards, a new crystal ball… I had to rebuild The Box, too. Most of my talismans are gone, and I get to rebuild everything, pretty much, from the ground up. It’s kind of weird, but at the same time, it’s exciting. 

Dionysian Atavism: Via an LJ Friend

Actually, I know several of these guys. And Girls. You’ve met a wasp or two, right?

You know, my recent leaving behind of the Lem’s Goetia spirits may have left people thinking my approach to the Spirits doesn’t have room for demons. Nothing could be further from the truth at all. The Hermetic System has plenty of room for Demons. They fit right into the cosmology. Recognizing they exist and are responsive to the conjuration techniques we use is essential for long-term success and the accomplishment of the Great Work. Ignoring their existence, not making room for them in your system doesn’t eliminate their influence from your life at all. Plugging your ears and going “no demons no demons no demons” isn’t going to result in acquiring the Philosopher’s stone any more than an ostrich poking its head in the sand keeps it from getting eaten.

You’ve got to have room in your system for demons, that’s the bottom line.

My personal opinion is that the room in the system should look something like this:

See? Plenty of room for demons!

Does that mean no Hermetic Magician should ever let them out to go to work for them? Heck no! If you need something done that you haven’t acquired the initiations or empowerments to accomplish without the use of Demons, then by all means, conjure up the demons if you’re that impatient. Jason advocates having a laser-specific goal in mind before turning to them, and that might help too.

But what I’ve seen is that the demons don’t deliver what you want or need in the long term. I’ve found that turning to them for anything is likely to look really appealing in the short term, but eventually circumstances will arise that negate whatever benefit you received from them. You end up extending the problem, postponing some of the effects you want to avoid in the short-term, while adding more problems to clean up later. Eventually, and it might take a couple of years, you’ll end up wishing you’d spent the weeks or months Working with nicer spirits with better intentions developing the resources and powers you need to accomplish the goal without infernal influence. Better to leave them in the vault.

I wonder sometimes though, whether my experiences with them has given me some level of protection from stupid magicians sending them against me. A couple were hanging out a month or two ago, and they went away when I noticed them and told them to be gone. They took some things that I needed, but they left.

The thing is, my HGA could have gotten rid of them too. So could my relationship with God. Or Michael. Or holy water. Or even the LBRP.

Nope, I really can’t think of anything really useful that came out of my Work with them. Maybe there’s something I can’t see right now, but if there is… I don’t see it.

Gordon’s post today talks about fish. Because fish are cool. Fish nerds are also cool, but they smell funny and I really don’t feel comfortable shaking their hands because I walk away and hours later catch a faint whiff of brine that makes me wonder if it was really fish they were handling. And then I have to scrub.

But Gordon’s post was about shoaling sigils. He also went off on magical diaries, making a lot of valid points about how they aren’t that necessary.

I want to talk about shoaling and schooling magicians.

Gordon says:

Shoaling.
Think of it like birds flocking but with a few key differences.
Firstly, the aerodynamic (in this case hydrodynamic) advantages aren’t as great.
That’s because fish ‘shoal’ when they aren’t heading somewhere, and ‘school’ when they are. Schooling gives a hydrodynamic advantage.
[snip]
Anyway, fish ‘shoal’ for some obvious reasons:

• To protect against predation.
• To indicate where there is food.
• To raise young.

The blogosphere we play in is a lot like a shoal of magicians. It protects against predation by creating a community of generally respected magicians, and people are hesitant to critique a member of the shoal because they are likely to get called out by another member of the shoal and get publicly ripped to shreds. It indicates where the food is by letting us all know what each other is into, and we “feed” on each other’s systems and experiences, enriching our own Work. It also provides a way to “raise the young,” that is, provide a single place for new and budding magicians to see a variety of approaches and receive a bunch of complimentary training from people whose primary system or approach might be too specialized for everyone.

Seems to me, this occult blogosphere provides the kind of stuff a lodge would provide, ideally, only without the dues structure and benefits of initiation and a cohesive regimen of structured progressive material, and that’s ok, shoaling doesn’t have to do that.

Schooling of magicians, on the other hand, is different. I recently got to participate in a small experiment with some other magicians, and the effects have been awesome. Working together on a team provided a very hydrodynamic advantage. It’s worth doing, and I’m looking forward to the next level, and future collaborations with people on projects. I like that it was research based, and not results based. I think that helped a lot. We weren’t working towards manifesting a pile of gold for each of us, or anything too restrictive, we were just doing the same things and recording our results, and then comparing them.

The courses I offered before provided a similar experience, but I think I had too many people at different levels of attainment to reap the same rewards. Generally, those who had done significant work before hand clumped together and succeeded, while those who didn’t have the same kind of experiences (from different backgrounds) had less impressive results. I’m going to be applying the results of the small experiment to the courses, and see if that helps streamline some of the benefits we all share.

And then he goes on a rant about mandatory use of magic diaries. His main argument is against the idea that writing in a little secret book is some kind of universal magical requirement. If that’s why you’re doing it, because you have to, I agree that there’s no point in doing it. I think anything done only because it is mandatory will be a lot less useful than something done because its value is known and appreciated.

However, the use of a magical diary in a flexible way is totally useful. Gordon implies the benefit of applying Project Management techniques to your magical efforts, and a magic diary is one of the tools that will help you accomplish that. It provides a record of your intended goal, the path you took, and where you ended up. Going back and reviewing that from time to time is essential. Otherwise you forget the original goal and think you’re right on target when you’ve completely turned around and went way over budget. It’s called “Scope Creep.”

I advocate the use of something like a Magic Lab Book. Record your hypothesis, your planned experiment to prove it, the actual results, and any adjustments to your hypothesis that must be made. In doing an extended working, keep track of your results after each operation, and record the things that happen relative to your project. It helped a lot with the recent Schooling project we did.

It doesn’t have to be that rigid, either. This is magic, we can do what we will. A Flip record of your Work, like the video log in Avatar would be pretty fun and useful. You can’t rely on your observational skills, but a record of what you thought you experienced is going to be a lot more useful than no record at all. The process of magic is sort of like going to the gym in that you do make progress towards a goal, and seeing where you were at, where you are, and where you hope to be compared to where you were before is damned useful. And who cares why the Victorians did it? If we use it for our own purposes, it can be redeemed and made valuable regardless of the errors of rich white pissing English men.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and even if that is inductive logic*, it holds true. A diary might not be a completely accurate and perfect record of what happened, but it’s better than having none at all.

Shit, I just realized that I’m a documentation specialist. Technical Writer. I record project history, progress, and report on it for a freaking living. Of course I’m an advocate for keeping a written record. He’s in MEDIA and MARKETING, for Christ’s sake. Heh.

Yeah, we may very well disagree on the importance of maintaining a comprehensive document trail. 😀

But like he said, it’s an “if you want” kind of thing. It helps, I use it, it might help you.

* I totally disagree that inductive logic is inherently an error. I’m a fatalist with Calvinist tendencies, so I’m not surprised. I’m also a Taurus, and I use Practicality as a philosophical knife when dealing with philosophical Gordian knots. Even though you can’t really determine that the sun will rise tomorrow based on the fact that it has always done so before, you aren’t going to divest your holdings in solar panel production companies, are you? Even if it’s an imperfect tool, it can be used effectively, with caveats.

Kathy, a long time friend and the original inspiration that got me doing the Work in the first place*, lo those many years ago, brought up a good point in the comments on my last post.

Kathy pointed out that abandoning all forms of terrestrial, or sub-lunar spirits would leave a gaping hole in my practice, leaving me all unbalanced and ready to topple over. Toppling sucks.

But for the record, I’m not abandoning sub-lunar spirit work, nor is my core philosophy changing all that much, really. I’m just achieving some goals I had aimed for and lost sight of, and getting rid of one set of tools in favor of others. I’m de-energising the Lemegeton’s Goetia, but there are a myriad of other spirits that are available without the bite.

At my core, I am above all else a practical magician. I know lately I may have seemed sort of flighty, but there’s a lot going on up above and down below. As it stabilizes, things will return to a more normal flow, and all these neat little tricks I’m seeing so easily now will likely fade, and I’ll have to work my ass off to reclaim this post-initiatic high I’m on. If it’s anything like what I’ve been through before.

But the point of all my magic and striving towards reclaiming my full potential, the point of becoming a Power if possible is not to ascend and be beyond all this pesky material reality, oh no, the point, the freaking essence of what I do is all about being fully me, to the most, for the highest purposes of all: to do what I want, when I want, and have the world be a better place as a result. To do as I see fit and have that be the Right Thing to do, and not just for me, but for everyone.

The goal of making the Philosopher’s Stone is to reach the phase of Projection, where you grind it up and use it and make lead into gold, sick into health, mortal into … well, still mortal, but with longevity, long life. And that’s still my goal.

I want to make the world a better place. Cheesey, eh? I don’t care, I just want to tend my garden, and to have all who pass through feel at peace and at rest.

And have some good conversations along the way.

* Kathy was a single mom who had gotten the shit end of the stick for many years. She had limited resources, but a strong calling to the Occult. She singlehandedly figured out the Ars Paulina, pretty much, with a little help from Chris Warnock and Aaron Letich and a couple others, and started making traditional magical equipment in her home. She lived 40 miles from civilization, if I remember right, and she still managed to overcome all kinds of hardships and achieve an amazing amount of success with her Natal Angel. Seeing how much one person could accomplish in this art of ours inspired me to get out of the arm chair and start doing real magic per the grimoires. Her inspiration of me also resulted in this blog you’re reading. I figured if it was possible for her, it was possible for me, and then I wanted more people to be encouraged by seeing my success, so I went public. You’re reading this because of her. It’s all her fault. Pretty much. 😀