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I changed the layout of my blog to make things easier to read and to provide a heads-up warning to anyone reading my blog before they start getting too into the details. See the “About Me” part over on the right for more information.

The “SAME THING”

Ok, first off, the floor washing and ablution techniques of the houngans and mambos are not “the same thing” as using sage and holy water. Peace was made with St. B, and it was my own fault for putting things the way I did. Suffice it to say, I never meant it the way he took it, even though technically I said exactly what he read.

My personal meaning of “It’s the same thing” is different than the rest of the planet’s, apparently, except for a tightly knit group of family and friends. We have a long running family joke about how the cheap Canadian French home-made knockoffs of name brand and professionally created items are “the same thing” as the real thing.

Sort of like the Welfare Burger, only our parents would be telling us “it’s the SAME THING as the McDonald’s Burger!” Even though it’s not. In our house it wasn’t hamgurgers, it was whatever my dad happened to want to build at the time. The bunk bed my friends had and the “loft” my dad built me were not the same things. The Koi Pond he envisioned and the half-buried children’s wading pool with tiny goldfish and a pile of rocks and a water pump with a couple of dying plants were not “the same thing.” The 18ct gold ring on my wife’s finger is not “the same thing” as the diamond-encrusted channel set band she wants, even though both symbolize the “same thing.”

I thought putting the “pretty much” on the end of that particular sentence would be enough to show that yeah, it’s enough to get started, but it’s not really the same thing at all, but “pretty much” failed to communicate that it wasn’t really the same at all.

The LBRP Pentagrams

With all due respect to the training, research, and experience of the people telling me that I got the pentagram thing “wrong” in my discussion of the LBRP the other day, if you had the initiatory qualifications to discuss the starting point of the Banishing Ritual of the Earth being in Netzach at the left hip, you wouldn’t be able to comment on a public blog due to your oaths. If you were qualified, and still commented on it in public, you’d be an oath-breaker who couldn’t be trusted anyway.

It’s one of those irritating things about the LBRP that contributes to my hatred of it. I can legitimately make up whatever bullshit about the LBRP that I want to, and you can’t argue with me. A quick scan of occult groups demonstrates this point better than I can here. There is more bullshit interpretation of this ritual taking up space on servers across the internet than anyone can justify.

For the record, I’m not “wrong” about the LBRP, and I didn’t just make it up. I know what they teach the Outer Order, and I understand why you think I’m “wrong,” but I’m not. There are more layers of meaning behind the symbols than the ones you can read about in the books that get published for mass distribution. If you want to argue with me, go ahead, but if you stick with the GD process, one day you’ll see that I’m right, be amazed and pissed that I would even say it publicly, and then be all frustrated that you can’t call me out on it because I never took the Oath you’ll have to have taken to figure out I’m “right.” Unless you’ve really earned the Grade and have transcended frustration with non-initiates like myself.

It’s all a part of the magickal metamorphosis the GD does to you. It’s like turning on genes that are dormant and releasing the proteins that return you to a more primal state, only it’s spiritual instead of physical, and the state it puts you in isn’t more primal. The LBRP is a ritual that prepares you from day one for a specific purpose. The designers knew that your chances of getting to the end point are slim, but for the few who make it, being marinated in the seasoning and alchemical baths for the amount of time it takes to be properly prepared is a lot like preparing a flank steak to become the perfect fajita.

Not that you’ll be literally eaten by Cthulhu if you ever really reached Ipsissimus. I’m sure it’s just a metaphor.

But still, when the “Secret Chiefs” ask you to bring guacamole to your final initiation, remember I tried to tell you.

Jason’s Comment

Yesterday, Jason posted a comment that critiqued my approach to disseminating my opinions and experiences. At the time I didn’t have the time to address what he was saying, but I think it’s important to clarify where I stand. At least you’ll know where I’m coming from on this blog and you’ll be able to make an informed decision about whether you want to keep reading it or not.

Why is it so important for you to demand that you can do everything anyone else can do, and better?

I’m not demanding anything. I’m stating what it is that I can do as a solitary Hermetic Magician with no Order, no initiation into an established tradition, and no local support group. It’s great that Jason and POS found mentors they trusted to provide instruction and initiation, it’s great that St. Balthazar found his calling in Hoodoo and Goety and graduated from the Lucky Mojo correspondence course, that Joe has found meaning and value in Wicca, and that Scott found his calling in Gnostic Priesthood, but those aren’t the paths that everyone gets called to.

Some of us don’t trust people because we’ve seen how depraved we can be ourselves, and knowing our potential for evil, and having witnessed how easily it slips out and ruins our own lives, we don’t trust people to initiate us. We know that there are legitimate gaps and blatant lies in the mythological histories and lineages that the Church, occult Orders, and other traditions claim for themselves. We have a justified cynicism when it comes to organized spiritual or religious training. It may be fine for you, but it’s not my bag, baby.

On behalf of the cynics, misfits, and those who would rather figure it out on their own with the spirits, I’m providing a record of how it’s not only possible, but really pretty simple to get the kind of results I seek out of Hermetic Magic. Along the way, I may compare my results to those of other systems as a reference point, but it should always be understood that I’m saying “the results I’m talking about are similar to, but not exactly the same as the results in this tradition, based on my current understanding of that system, which may be wrong because I’m not actually an initiate of that system, so your mileage may vary.” I’ll put that somewhere on the blog as a universal disclaimer, and I’ll point to it when I don’t feel like explaining myself in this much detail again.

Think about it. You are basically saying “your years of training and initiation from your silly HUMAN teachers based on your hundreds of years of living tradition, can be easily duplicated by just having a chat with an Archangel”

Yes, yes I am. Only without denigrating the years of training and initiation. I don’t understand why it comes across that way. I’ve expressed on many occasions that initiatory systems seem to work fabulously for a lot of people, and that’s awesome for them.

Personally, I’ve dealt with the fallout of initiations performed by international Orders who weren’t qualified to be giving them. A friend (can’t remember if he’s publicly owned this yet or not, so I’ll leave him anonymous) was still dealing with the psychic trauma of being initiated by someone with serious issues years and years after he left the group that initiated him, and he’s not alone. One organization I’m familiar with actually developed a specific cleansing ritual to undo the “initiations” performed by a particular Golden Dawn Order because they had come to believe the GD Order in question was a “poisoned well,” and that anyone who drank from it at any point needed to be healed before it fucked up their magical path for a lifetime.

Years of researching cult activities, deprogramming techniques, and having actually joined a couple of groups that turned out to be cults in my teens has left me a little cautious when it comes to putting much faith in HUMAN teachers with allegedly hundreds or even thousands of years of living tradition. People are fucked up.

But the spirits… they’re not. I’m talking from a Hermetic Magician’s point of view; I’ve adopted the Hermetic Cosmology from the Corpus Hermeticum, and I find the creation myth expressed in the Divine Pymander and Plato’s Timaeus to be more useful in terms of understanding how magic works within a Hermetic tradition than anything else.

In this emanationist theory, every religious and spiritual organization on Earth, past or present, began as an Idea in the Mind of God. In order for this Idea to manifest here on Earth, it had to be shepherded through each of the spheres between the realm of the Mind of God and the material realm by the Intelligences and Spirits that best resonate with the Idea. Every “Revelation” (note: the English meaning of the word “Kabbalah” is “Revelation,” just like “Apocalypse”) was packaged and delivered to mankind by spirits. They happen to be in a better position to be able to provide “initiations” than any human who has received corrupted instructions from other human beings.

By corrupted instructions, I’m referring specifically to the spiritual truth that the Most Important Thing cannot be put into Words. The Second Most Important Thing can be expressed in Words, but cannot be understood based on the Words themselves. The Third Most Important Thing is what you get from teachings, doctrines, and mysteries that get passed on in language, symbols that point towards the Most Important Thing without actually being the Most Important Thing.

Everything I can say here on the blog is fundamentally corrupted by putting it into words, but it’s the best means of communication we have available. The trouble caused by my use of “the same thing. Pretty much.” is a good example of that in action. What I think I mean when I say a word isn’t necessarily what you understand when you hear or read it. You can only experience what I’m talking about, and the words you choose to express them are going to be your own, based on a myriad of things that I haven’t experienced. Hell, you may even experience something completely different, but the words you choose to describe them are so similar that you think we’re experiencing the same things when we’re not. It’s the nature of the game we play in the flesh.

You want to tell me that over thousands of years of oral and even written communication of the core tenets of organized religions or spiritual practices, no one at any point ever miscommunicated something that turned into doctrine? It happens in Christianity all the time, on blogs, in conversations held at water coolers, it happens every time people interact. And you want me to put my faith and trust in that, when I can conjure the spirits that were responsible for shepherding the original revelation from the Mind of God to the Realm of Man myself?

No thanks.

Before you say I’m slamming everyone who belongs to an initiatory group, remember that I’m telling you why I do what I do, why I think what I think, and I am speaking from the understanding that other people will have completely different and equally valid spiritual experiences within the context of organized religion or spiritual traditions.

Great for them, woohoo, they’re valid, authentic, useful, meaningful. Freaking AWESOME.

But that ain’t me, so I speak from my own experiences, from my own context about things the way I see them. If you want to read this blog and distill truths that may apply to your own path, know that you will have to filter out my bullshit, just like I have to filter out everyone else’s. This is not a bullshit free zone, this is the RO bullshit zone. Bullshit comes with the territory, and I’m a Taurus, for Christ’s sake. There will be bullshit.

And sometimes it will even be on purpose (Cthulhu isn’t really going to eat you after you make Ipsissimus in the GD, for example, unless this statement is a blind; them’s the Breaks*), though most of the time it’s not. I don’t believe any one person can be all things to all people. I will never be able to express the Ultimate Universal Truth in a way that is meaningful for everyone. See the bit above about the First, Second, and Third Most Important Things.

As for your statement “Where does he think this instruction came from? The wise wisdom of weally wise human beings?”

YES. Human beings can come up with things that are equal to and superior to what the spirits can. In Christian mythology remember who god makes bow to who.

Ok, I was being snide. It happens sometimes, and I was feeling less than “collegiate” at the time. I fundamentally disagree that humans can “come up with” anything that would be equal or superior to what the spirits reveal, because the Spirits are expressions of the Source who are closer to It than we are. They experience It in ways we aren’t designed for.

Besides, they don’t “come up with” anything in my understanding.

The words we use for “Spirits” are almost all based on either the words for “messenger” or “breath.” They are the messengers of the Divine, they are the breath of God. They are the Breath that forms the Words, which are the symbols that represent the Idea that comes from the Mind of God.

That doesn’t mean all spirits are trustworthy and great and wonderful. I’m not an extremist Spiritist Fanatic Zealot who believes there is no God but the Source and all the Spirits are his Prophets to be trusted carte blanc, no questions asked. You’ve got to test the spirits because plenty will lie to you or tell you what you want to hear for their own benefit.

That’s also part of the approach we have to deal with, but spirits who pass the tests are more trustworthy to me than humans who can and do lie for profit. There’s risk involved with any system, and we all try to mitigate the risk to the best of our abilities. The bottom line is that I trust the spirits who haven’t been in human form a lot more than I do the ones who are or ever were.

That’s the framework, the context of the Head for the Red Blog. Understand that, and you’ll be better able to sift through my bullshit and get to the bits that were sent through me for you.

* “Breaks” is a subtitle for the most lucid exposition of the Great Work to come from the 19th and 20th centuries’ European Traditions, better by far than the Kabalion.

I was recently lumped in with a group of “modern Solomonic magicians” who piss on the beliefs and practices of African Traditional Religions (ATRs). It rankled. Long-time readers of my blog know I am a staunch supporter of the techniques of the ATRs. The Spirit Pot I made for Bune is totally based on ATR tech. The things I learn from the spirits in terms of practical technique look a lot like the kinds of things ATR folk do. I’m not even opposed to occasional animal sacrifice or blood work for magic. I may never do it myself, but I’ll go down in flames defending someone else’s right to do so.

But the idea that I’m a “modern Solomonic magician” irritates me as much as the slanderous accusation that I would piss on the ATRs that validated so much of my early Work. I’m not a modern Solomonic magician at all! I’m a traditional conjure magician who happens to include some “Solomonic” stuff in my practice. My Work is based on Plato and the Persians. I’m continuing the traditions of the Picatrix, for Christ’s sake.

I see “Solomonic” grimoires as repositories of information gathered and codified according to the standards of the day, primarily recorded by Renaissance Magicians. They’re a branch of the Goetic Tree that has its roots deep in the Chthonic revelations of God to man that go back further than shamanism, or any other “ism” we have names for. Yes, I draw from them in my Work, but I also draw from the writings of Plato and Plotinus, the Greek Magical Papyri, the Corpus Hermeticum, and the records of Agrippa, who you’d be hard pressed to describe as a “Solomonic Magician.”

Saying I’m a Solomonic Magician because I use “Solomonic” techniques is like saying I’m a Zoroastrian Flame Worshipper because I have Fire represented on my altar.

It would help if there were a word or phrase to describe what I am. “Hermetic Conjure Magician” is closer to being accurate, but it just sounds so lame. I really am a Goet, but Goetia’s got too many connotations that focus on the physical aspects of that Work to be an accurate term for what I do. I’m a Priest of the Order of Melchizadek, but that’s too esoteric for most people to understand, and with the term “priest” comes the idea of physical ordination and professional training that I have never received.

Don’t you hate it when people you know and like and respect say something bad about you, or something you’ve done? God knows I do.

This morning, I woke up to the most recent post by St. Balthazar. Two things in the post got my blood pumping a little faster. First, he said something I wrote was stupid. Then he closed with “Remind me never to ask for your help to drive out evil spirits…”

Gawd, I just want to throttle him! At the same time, I understand what it is that irked him about my post, I can see why he would think the way he does, thanks to all that empathetic-compassionate bullshit that I’ve had to deal with ever since I started taking the refinement of my self part of the Great Work seriously. Life was easier when I didn’t give a shit about anyone else*.

First of all, I said Sage and Holy Water were all you needed to get started conjuring. I did not say or imply that the rest of the spiritual cleansing bullshit was expendable and un-necessary. I did not say that the hougans and santeros and such who have been doing this for hundreds of years were stupid and were wasting their time. Even in the part that he quoted from my blog, it says that I’m just talking about what you need to start conjuring. And I added the “pretty much” part because sage and holy water are enough to get started, but they aren’t really “the same thing” as a floor wash or ritual bath.

In fact, once a magician starts doing conjure magic, interacting with the spirits, and actually learning from them, I guarantee they will eventually be led to either learn the techniques he advocates, or will receive instruction on performing cleansings that will cleanse the house as well as any mambo or houngan on the planet can. Where does he think this instruction came from? The wise wisdom of weally wise human beings?

“PUH-lease” indeed.

At first I thought he missed the point of the article, but his opening paragraphs reveal he did in fact get the point. Devi’s post left people thinking they needed to spend years and years mastering a ton of things before they even considered conjuring any spirits. Mastery isn’t necessary, and my post was supposed to blunt that idea before it got legs.

St. B. agrees with that, he says. So he gets it. He sees the context of what I said, and he misrepresented the paragraph that annoyed him the most anyway. It didn’t make sense, so I reread the post, and I think I understand what he’s really pissed at, since I didn’t say anything remotely related to what he argued against. He says:

Modern solomonic magicians would do well to look to these living spiritist traditions to inform their own practices, rather than dismiss tried and tested cleansing techniques out of hubris.

Obviously he’s had his toes stepped on by arrogant folks who look down on his tradition out of cultural bias, racism, or just standard ordinary assholiness. Lumping me in with that crowd is offensive, and doing so based on what he quoted is stupid. How many times have I defended African Traditions as being more grimoirey than European Ceremonial Magick? How many times have I pointed out that the original Abramelin rite is more of a hoodoo receipt book than a path to transcendent enlightenment?

Obviously, his experience with assholes has left him crippled, unable to see the difference between those who really deserve his ire and those of us who are actually on his side. It happens, but it’s a shame.

So what I wrote was not “stupid.” His misunderstanding of it was stupid. Maybe I could have said something clearer than “pretty much” to indicate there was more to floor washing and ritual baths than holy water and sage smoke, but within the context of the post I was making, I think what I said was sufficient.

As for “sheesh, remind me never to ask you for help driving evil spirits out,” that part really pisses me off. I don’t know about you, but I’ve conjured “demons,” worked with ghosts, and gone deep with the Genius Loci of my neighborhood for years, and I have YET to need to drive any “evil spirits” off.

Then again, the “cornerstone” of my spiritual practice is nothing as advanced and mysterious as taking a bath and mopping the floor. Naw, I just go for a direct relationship with the Prime Mover and a tight relationship with my HGA. Silly me. Maybe that’s why I’ve never run into any spirit that needed anything more than sage smoke or a few drops of Holy Water to be sent along its merry way.

* I’m still on the fence about how much value there is in treating people like they were really human. There’s a slim chance that you’re all just back story characters in my life, included at the whim of the Author for the amusement of the Audience.

…then chances are pretty good this blog will, at times, offend you. I do not like it, Sam I am, I do not like lame rites in a can.

That said, have you ever said something in the heat of a moment that you later realize was perhaps a little more vehement and exaggerated than you really feel? In response to Jason’s first comment on my previous post, I said:

As for the LBRP, it’s a bullshit ritual, completely overblown, overanalyzed, and remains a shit stain on the underwear of the occult left by incontinent old men who pulled the teeth from the Hermetic Tradition trying to make it reflect the fairy tales of the Theosophists and their own made up “history” of their Masonic roots.

If occultists spent as much time reading chapters of Agrippa as they do analyzing that stupid fucking ritual, we’d probably have reached global Enlightenment by now.

Now, I really do believe that statement sometimes, but it’s totally hyperbolic and should be put in context, because there is one instance that I can think of where the above statement is completely false, intolerable, and should never have been uttered. So let me explain.

If you are in a Golden Dawn Order, if you are planning on going through all the initiations and achieving the Great Work following the path laid out within the Golden Dawn, the LBRP is a fantastic, and truly necessary ritual to perform daily. It creates in your sphere contact points, like a circuit, that are activated at various stages of your initiation. It prepares you for specific revelations and empowerments that you will achieve at later grades. From the first time you stumble through it, through the mid-career point when you realize you’ve been saying it wrong for the last two years, to the last gasping “within me shines the six-rayed Star” before you die, you are performing a ritual that is the keystone to an entire transformative process that can only be properly completed in the framework that originated the rite.

Do you know why you’re supposed to start a “Banishing pentagram of the Earth” by your left hip, trace up to your forehead, then go to the right hip, then the left shoulder, right shoulder, and end at the left hip? Or why the Qabalistic Cross puts the “vigiburah” at the right shoulder and the “vigedulah” at the left? It’s because you’re building the Tree of Life into your sphere, tracing a path along the Tree of Life, a graphic designed by Athanasius Kircher to reflect his understanding of Christian Kabbala and the Sefer Yetzirah.

In the Golden Dawn, the rituals performed create a spiritual, astral form of the Tree of Life in your own sphere. The left hip is the starting place of the Earth banishing Pentagram because that is where one of the spheres falls within your sphere. It’s Hod, or Netzach, depending on whether you believe you’re standing facing an image of the Tree of Life, or standing inside the image looking out.

Do you know which sphere the banishing pentagram of Earth is supposed to start in? The source of the powers you’re activating? The right side is the Pillar of Severity, the left is the Pillar of Mercy, and the Middle Pillar runs along the spine, but continues into the Earth and extends to a point well past Kether. It’s really a Circle, but that’s … a Mystery! Anyway, the banishing Pentagram of Earth begins in Netzach, which is really interesting when you learn what the Golden Dawn meant by the “natural magic” that is sourced in the Sphere of Netzach.*

If you didn’t know, then really you don’t know what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it. And that’s ok, for a Novitiate within an Order. They aren’t supposed to know everything.

I don’t know how much of the original Golden Dawn’s structure and instruction survive today. I hope that people who knew the original founders managed to get a complete rundown of what’s supposed to happen at each Grade Initiation. I know Regardie never made it past the 4th degree, and whatever he wrote was incomplete. All those people basing their Golden Dawn Orders on the published materials of Regardie are working from half, or less than half of the full understanding of the Order. Folks who have access to the Inner Order’s original curriculum and overall goal are better situated to form a complete system of initiation as envisioned by the original Golden Dawn founders. Whether or not their system actually does what they intended it to do is another topic.

Assuming some order out there has all the original plans for the initiatory process (or has guessed right about what they filled in the blanks with) and what has to happen to the sphere of the magician at each Grade in order to integrate the powers and lessons of that Grade, the LBRP can be an invaluable tool in the magician’s kit, one that is necessary for everything else to stick and manifest.

But if you’re not in the Golden Dawn, most of what it does is useless to you. You’re building a spiritual model of a tree of life into your sphere that may or may not line up with the forces you’re going to end up Working with in the course of your path. You’re creating a resonance that will mesh harmoniously with the more advanced Work of the GD structure, but may cause discord when you try to do something outside that very specialized field of occult practice.

When I see non-GD folks recommend the LBRP, I cringe. Most of it is based on traditional enough sources that it won’t likely interfere with your Work, but enough of it is specialized that it’s a waste of time, time that could be spent building the kinds of things into your sphere that will cause harmony and power to manifest over the course of your Work.

And that’s what I plan to focus on going forward. I’ve noticed lately that a lot of my posts tend to be me bitchin’ about this, or complaining about that. When I started this blog, it was a lot more about doing magic, and the neat stuff I was learning. The thing is, I’ve learned the pieces of a system that seems to do amazing things, and to find out how effective the system is takes Work. Now that I know the pieces and stages for each phase of the Work, I need to Work them to prove that I’ve properly understood what I’ve read and heard from the spirits.

So I’ll be writing about things that I do that form the system I use. Hopefully it will help people who are interested in finding a system to put the grimoire pieces into that accomplishes the Great Work. Instead of just pointing out what’s “wrong” with other people’s interpretations or techniques, I’d much rather focus on laying out what works.

Which doesn’t mean I’ll stop bitching. A man’s got to be what he is, after all, and sometimes this man’s a bitch.

* Fuckin, fuckin’, and more fuckin’, in case you were curious.

I really enjoy Devi the Danforth Witch’s Queen of Pentacles Blog. Her recent article, Shortcuts to Evocation? Yes and No provides an interesting take on what it takes to begin conjuration. She has 11 steps that she recommends to noobs looking to conjure their first spirit. She offers a great deal of really good advice for the prospective conjure magician, and she talks about the kinds of things that will make a magician successful with their conjurations.

While I agree with the advice she offers in most of her points, there are some differences in our approach that I’d like to point out to prospective conjure magicians. I’m one who happens to believe that all magic is a form of conjuration, from the most basic prayer or lesser banishing ritual, to the most elaborate conjuration. I’ve found that some of the things she recommends doing before conjuring a spirit are actually best provided by conjuring spirits. 

In this post, I’m only going to talk about the things I disagree about. Anything in her post I don’t specifically mention, I am in total agreement with. I think most of her points are valid and important for successful conjure magic, and I suspect the differences in our opinions are based on our areas of study and our experiences. Mostly though, she still believes, I suspect, that there’s a difference between “evocation” and “invocation.” I’ve ranted on that bullshit before, so I won’t go into again, but suffice it to say that anyone who thinks that you can do one without the other is in for a rude awakening at some point in their conjure magic career. There is no difference in the actual magical act. The only difference is what part of the effects of the conjuration the magician is focusing their interpretation on.

1) Some Form of Psychic Seership – While this is a handy thing to have, the idea that it is necessary keeps a lot of people away from conjure magic. Seeing the spirits is nice, but it isn’t necessary for the magic to work. Even those of my students who never see the spirits benefit from their Work. Most people are not psychic when they start doing magic, but if they start conjuring spirits (sanely), they’ll develop all the psychic skills they could ever hope for.

Most people don’t trust themselves, or their ability to differentiate between their own thoughts and the thoughts of the spirits. The sad fact is that nothing prepares you to do this, nothing but experience. You have to screw up and think that spirit telling you, “Yes, you WILL win the lottery today” was really Bariel, lose, and then realize it was your own wishful thinking. You have to ignore a spirit’s advice thinking it was your own “ego” a few times before you learn to recognize a spirit’s instruction. It’s part of being a magician.

More importantly than all that, conjuration of the spirits is what changes a magician, enabling the development of psychic seership abilities. Each time you conjure a spirit, its “vibration” affects your own, changing it by creating a resonance to its own powers in your sphere. It’s a natural thing, like a tuning fork at a note will make a string tuned to the same note vibrate. Only the spirits are actually tuning your sphere so that it will vibrate in harmony with their spheres. The Archangel Gabriel is an excellent spirit to conjure to develop the skills Devi recommends. Carrying its seal, meditation on its name, and ritual conjurations made with the appropriate candles and incenses that include a request for the development of these abilities is the most effective means of acquiring them.

I agree with points 2-4. Excellent advice that I wish I followed more consistently in my practice. There are a ton of mistakes that could have been avoided in my Work if I’d done these things. I think they should be seen as works in progress, and you shouldn’t wait to “master” any of this before conjuring, because the spirits can teach exactly what she suggests you need. Take these points as things to Work on with your Genius or Supernatural Assistant.

5) MASTER SPIRITUAL CLEANSING, PSYCHIC PROTECTION, AND RITUAL BANISHING!!! – Sigh. I think this is a good thing to have, but is not a requirement.

Spiritual Cleansing is a nice thing to know how to do, but once you figured out how to light a sage bundle and waft its smoke around, you’ve done enough to start conjuring. The floor washes and baths and such are nice things to know about too, but if you can sprinkle Holy Water, you’ve got the same thing. Pretty much. And again, the spirits will teach you how and empower you to do all this stuff. One of the things that shocked me while reading Pow Wow and Hoodoo recipes is how much they look just like the kinds of things the angels of the planets and their spirits tell me to do on a regular basis.

Psychic Protection – I think this is newage bullshit. Remember when I talked about the spirits changing your sphere’s vibration? Working with each of the planetary and elemental rulers takes care of whatever psychic protection you need. They energize your sphere, opening up channels of power and teaching methods that look a lot like the things people talk about when they talk about psychic protection. Devi recommends mastering several techniques for psychic protection, and in my experience, it’s overkill. In the time it takes to master the imaginary special effects most psychic protection provides, you could have taken over the world conjuring spirits.

Banishing rituals – This one really annoys me. How long will people continue to believe the LBRP is anything but a conjuration ritual? It works because most of the crap that we accumulate spiritually doesn’t like to be in the presence of the Four Angels Ruling over the Corners of the world (Agrippa, Book 2, chapter 7). The LBRP cleanses space because it is a conjuration ritual. It really sucks the way it’s tauhgt, in my opinion, because it doesn’t actually do anything once the angels are present. You should be telling all the nepheshim, wandering spirits, hungry ghosts, and any other spiritual entity to be gone in the names of the Archangels, and charge the Archangels to keep all unwanted spirits away. Otherwise, the spirits may leave while you’re seeing imaginary stars, but the angels aren’t going to do much for you to keep them away. It’s good to have in your pocket in case you’re ever under attack, don’t get me wrong, but treat it like the conjuration of the Four Angels of the Corners of the Earth that it really is.

Hermetic Conjuration rituals like the ones described in renaissance accounts of magic are the very best form of banishing you can hope for. Drawing up the Table of Practice from the Modern Angelic Grimoire, for example, is the creation of a talisman that does everything the LBRP does, and more, because it includes the powers of the seven planets in addition to the four elements. If you create a Magic Circle like the one in the Lemegeton, you’ll have nothing to fear from any of the spirits. The physical creation of that Circle is a form of kinetic meditation that results in an initiatory experience, granting you the authority to do the magic you’re trying to do.

And once you get into conjure magic, you’ll realize how a “banishing ritual” can actually be something that interferes with your Work. The Key of Solomon provides a technique that includes nine days of fervent prayer leading up to a ritual. In those nine days, spirits in harmony with the intent of your daily fervent prayers are drawn to you like moths to a flame. They gather, awaiting the Charge. Then you do the ritual, and using a talisman of an archangel, you put the spirits that gathered to Work on your behalf. Throw in an LBRP designed to banish away all spirits, positive and negative, and you’ve just ruined nine days worth of Work. The same is true of the Lem’s Goetia. As soon as you start sketching the seals of the spirits, you’ve started gathering their awareness of you. The banishing rite disperses the power that’s been built up, and you end up with weak results.

Devi’s next point, Point 6, is one I’ve made a few million times in my writing. Your relationship with the divine needs to be the foundation of your magic, imo. However, it is something that grows and matures as you practice conjure magic. I think having the intent of discovering your relationship to the divine is enough for you to start conjuring spirits.

Point 7 is another point I strongly agree with. I see making the altar to Michael and developing that relationship with the spirit as a very good first step. I personally believe the HGA or Supernatural Assistant is the best place to start. As soon as you start making an altar to a spirit though, you are conjuring that spirit.

Point 8 is another great chunk of advice. I have nothing more to say about that.

Overall, I agree a great deal more with the points Devi makes than I disagree. I think I just look at things differently. I’ve benefited a great deal from learning to see all magic as a form of conjuration. Even doing things that some people consider “energy work” from the perspective of “conjuring up my own spirit’s powers” has helped me a great deal.

I also want people to begin to see conjure magic as a valid form of magic that doesn’t require all these hoops to jump through before you get started. Pointing out that most of the preparation people advise is either already conjure magic, or is best accomplished through conjure magic is a start.

I do believe it’s best to start slow and work your way up. I use the Emerald tablet as the primary model of the Work. You start with the Abramelin Technique, you attain K&C with the HGA or Supernatural Assistant, or Genius, and then you Work with that spirit to get the basic skills and experiences you need to take the next step. You Work your way up through the spheres and then back down. You gain a deep understanding of your relative position, your “relationship” to God, the Source, all the spirits that are manifestations of that Source, and all the physical things and people in your life. Once you’ve got that perspective, and the authority that comes with it, you’re ready to start Working the sub-lunar spirits to take Right Action as necessary in your physical life.

Every step in the process, as I see it, requires conjuration for full effectiveness. Waiting until you’ve got everything ready to start conjuring spirits is like getting cleaned up to take a bath.

Apparently, there’s nothing in my Modern Angelic Grimoire about calculating planetary hours. And furthermore, I don’t seem to have ever written a blog post about it. I remember long discussions on yahoo groups about it, I think, and I must have just assumed everybody knew that part. Woopsie!

Planetary hours are periods of time during the day that are ruled by the Seven Planetary Governors.

The idea that each time period is ruled by a planetary spirit can be found most clearly spelled out in Trithemius’ De Septum Secundius, the Seven Secondary Intelligences. He explains how each of the Planetary Governors rules over a period of time that lasts 354 years, and tracks it back to the beginning of time as he knew it. He shows how the events of each age demonstrate the nature of the ruling spirit.

Similarly, each day of the week is ruled by a planetary governor, and each hour of each day is ruled by a planetary governor. When you are planning planetary magic, the most potent time to perform a ritual is during the Planetary Hour of the Planetary Day. The ruler of the Day has the most influence during his assigned hours of his assigned days. It’s easier to establish communications during this time, an the powers he can bring to bear are strongest.

In The Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals, Trithemius provides tables showing which Angels rule each of the Seven Days. Each day is divided into 24 hours, and one of the seven Planetary Spirits governs that hour. That means that it’s a good time to create planetary talismans, and to conjure the assigned planetary spirits.

The time period covered by a planetary hour is seldom 60 minutes long. Sometimes a planetary hour lasts an hour and twenty minutes, other times only forty-five minutes. This happens because the “hours” are divided into two equal sets of twelve time periods, twelve during the day, and twelve during the night. Due to the rotation of the Earth, summer day hours are longer than summer night hours.

To calculate the time periods represented by a “planetary hour,” the magician must figure out how many actual hours there will be during the day, from sunrise to sunset. Find the times of sunrise and sunset, and sum up the total number of hours and minutes that pass between the two. I convert it all to minutes and divide that total by 12. You do the same for the night hours, measuring the amount of time between sunset and the following sunrise, and dividing that total by 12.

Once you know the length of time each planetary hour will last, you can begin to chart the planets that rule each hour. Make a numbered list from one to twenty-four down the left side of a page. Write the Start and End Times of each Planetary Hour. Next you’re ready to start adding the planets that rule each hour.

To figure out the first hour angel, you need to know what day it is. Each Day is ruled by one of the seven planets. The first planetary hour is always ruled by the same planet as the planetary day. Today is Friday, Freya-Day, and is ruled by Venus. The first hour of the day was also ruled by Venus. The following list shows the planetary rulers of each day.

• Sunday: The Sun
• Monday: The Moon
• Tuesday: Mars
• Wednesday: Mercury
• Thursday: Jupiter
• Friday: Venus
• Saturday: Saturn

Now you know the planetary ruler of the First Hour of every day. To add the rest, you need to know the Chaldean “Order of the Planets.” This is the order that you pass through the planetary spheres on your way from the Sphere of the Fixed Stars to the Sphere of the Earth. For Golden Dawn Kabbalists, it’s the Lightning Path beginning with Binah, Saturn. The order is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, The Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon.

Next to the starting and ending times for the first hour, write the name of the planet that rules the Day. The second hour is ruled by the next planet in the Chaldean Order of the Planets. Since today is Friday, the first hour is ruled by Venus, so the second hour will be ruled by Mercury, the third by the Moon, then we go back to the top of the list, so the Fourth is ruled by Saturn, Fifth by Jupiter, the Sixth by Mars, the Seventh by the Sun, and the Eighth by Venus again. The list continues through each of the Planetary Hours until you’ve got a ruler for all 24 time periods.

Note that the Planetary day begins at dawn and doesn’t end until Sunrise the following morning. The day doesn’t start at midnight.So if I were planning a ritual for Venus today, I could pick any Venus Hour between sunrise today and sunrise tomorrow, even though my calendar thinks it’s Saturday starting at midnight. It’s not magically Saturday until dawn.

Here’s a neat little trick of the universe. Applying the order of the planets to the 24 hours of a day always results in the last hour of the day being ruled by the planet that precedes the ruler of the next day. So tomorrow is Saturday, ruled by Saturn. The first hour of tomorrow will be the Saturn Hour, so the last planetary hour today will be ruled by Jupiter. It always works out that way. The last hour of a Thursday has to be ruled by Mercury for the first hour of Friday to be ruled by Venus, and lo and behold, it always is.

The following table provides a quick guide for you to use to figure out the ruler of each hour of the day. You’ll still have to figure out the start and finish time for each planetary hour of the day, but this gives you a quick reference:

Now, for those who can figure this out by hand, more power to you! I prefer to use software, such as SolarFire Gold, Timaeus, or ChronosXP. Online, you can find a planetary hour calculator at http://lunarium.co.uk. They also produce a “widget” for the personalized iGoogle home page that I use. You simply enter your location, and it displays the current and upcoming planetary hours for your location. It’s pretty convenient, and takes a lot less time than figuring out sunrises and sunsets.

When planning your rituals, it is best to conjure the spirits during their planetary hour of their planetary day. If that’s not possible, the next best time is during their planetary hour, according to Agrippa. So if you really need to do a Solar Conjuration rite, the Sun hour of Sunday is best, but any Sun hour of the week will do. The first time you conjure one of the Intelligences of a Planet, I strongly recommend that it be during the planetary hour of the planetary day. Make sure you include the phrase, “and return to me in power when I call you by your name and by your seal” in your license to depart, and that will pave the way for quick contact in case of emergency.

When scheduling your personal initiations into the spheres, try to find a planetary day and hour combined for the fullest effect.

I just got the biggest payment of my life for my Work. It totally puts this whole “magic for money” thing into perspective for me, and it all just clicked. I understand why I do this better than I have before as a result.

Here’s the payment I received:

My daughter was born 3 months early with Apgar scores of 1 and was dying..her hemoglobin was less than 2 and she was profoundly ill. She was given only an hour or two to survive. I used the [Modern Angelic Grimoire] to ward her incubator and her health improved. I was warned, on several occasions, that just because she survived the night didn’t mean she would live much longer AND if by some chance she did happen to survive, her quality of life would be devastated. I did the ritual twice a day until we were discharged from the hospital several weeks later. I went home with a perfectly healthy baby. She just had her first birthday and is not only babbling, clapping, laughing etc. but she is walking! She took her first serious steps a few days ago and hasn’t looked back.  Despite the fact she still looks like a nine month old (which technically she should be) she is acting like any normal baby her age. The doctors saw her yesterday and were astonished.

First off, I’d like to point out that it was the Magician who did the magic, the Angels who did their Work, and my only role was to have rewritten a quick, easy, and effective system of magic in modern language.

I’m also not claiming that my book will save your premature baby’s life, make you rich, or get you laid. The book is useless without a magician to use it, and the information in it has been around for 600 years. My role was just sort of like a water boy; I’m not the water, I’m not the fountain, I’m just the delivery system. I don’t take any personal credit for what was done for her child.

I am, however, very grateful to have played the role I did get to play. Makes me feel damned good. And that’s worth more than a hundred million dollars.* I could die on the way home tonight, and I’d die content in the knowledge that my Work accomplished at least one good thing, and really, that’s the most valuable thing you can earn in any lifetime.

* Note: if you have a hundred million sitting around gathering dust and interest you don’t need, let me know. I’m here to help.

If you’re ever in a circumstance that requires contacting me for advice about your problem, by all means feel free to do so! My advice is not going to be all that great, as I tend to be a bitter cynic, but sometimes a pragmatic urge towards what you already know needs to be done can be useful, and I can handle that.

But here’s the approach I prefer:

• Get to the point quickly. The first sentence should say, “RO, can you help me with [my love life, my financial situation, telling me how to get rid of this stupid demon, getting better reception during conjurations, etc.]?” 
• Give me a synopsis of the causes and effects of the situation; provide enough detail to put the problem in context, and get rid of the stuff that doesn’t really matter.
• Let me know what you really want to have happen, your ideal solution.

If writing those things up doesn’t answer the question you have, send it to me and I’ll tell you what I think.

While I enjoy being told how cool I am, and I really like the emails from Africa that start, “GREAT LORD RUFUS,” the praise and stuff isn’t necessary. Feel free to skip ahead.

Now please note, this applies to people who haven’t purchased my time. When I was doing the Supernatural Assistant Course, I encouraged people to take their time to tell me all their problems. I signed up for that, in that context, and it was fun. The most fun I’ve had in years, in fact. I miss giving that course.

I forgot how stupid people can be. You’d think I would remember, but I guess I’m just naive. I recently joined Tribal Blogs, a secular blog community designed to promote people’s blogs. Normal people’s blogs, apparently. I started a discussion group for Occult Bloggers, and the site owner popped in and asked if we were just talking about astrology, or if they needed to keep us away from the cats and dogs. She asked if I bite heads off chickens, and put a little smiley face after that, because it’s funny.

Ha ha, it is to laugh.

I don’t know how some people have the patience and generosity in their hearts to educate the ignorant. I didn’t cuss her out, I calmly replied that I’m an esoteric Christian attempting to accomplish the Alchemical Work using the techniques of Renaissance conjure magic. I explained, nicely, how offensive it was to be asked if I bite heads off chickens, and then I deleted my membership.

The Norms get nervous at the mention of the occult. I haven’t seen that in years, mostly because I blend in, and hang out with people who know the difference between a phurba and an athame. When I joined Tribal Blogs, I figured there would be few occultists, but it might work to be a good platform for promoting my blog anyway. I never expected to run into that kind of ignorance. I’m not a very good diplomat to the realm of the mundane. I’m much more comfortable discussing the nuances of spirituality as a career choice than I am explaining that no, in fact, I don’t bite heads off chickens, and yes hide the dogs, but only because I’m allergic to their dander.