Rufus Opus

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  • Courses!

    All courses are still on track and on schedule to begin January 4th. Please sign up quickly for either the Supernatural Assistant or Hermetic Merkavah courses. The courses will begin Jan. 4th, 2010. If you wish to participate, the best thing to do is buy the course before January 4th.

    If you need time to make the payment, and still want to start the course with everyone else, please email me at frredactumopus@gmail.com with the subject “Course!” and I’ll see what I can do. Honestly though, speaking from a lot of painful experience, if you need a while to save up $75 for the course, you need to work on your money management skills first. Magic doesn’t make you magically better at handling money, and most of my problems come from that.

    And the furnace/water heater burning down the house. sigh.

    Anyway, yeah, courses are on track for the 4th of January. Tonight I’ll be setting up the yahoo groups and inviting those who have paid already…

    Ah crap! I just remembered my software for the charts is on my other computer at home in the office that was destroyed by fire!

    Shit shit shit. Hopefully the computer will be ok. It was off the floor when the water was flooding.

    Shit.

    Hmmm.

    Well, in the worst case scenario, you’ll be getting charts based on free software until I can get the good stuff working again. Man, what a freaking pain in the ASS.

    Public Service Announcement: Don’t have a fire in your house. Take some time and check your furnace and water heater, make sure there’s nothing nearby that can catch on fire if they suddenly shoot out a flame. We don’t know what started our fire, exactly, but we did have stuff in the room near the furnace. It was a foot or more away from the furnace, but if a flame shot out… yeah, it was a STUPID place to store shit.

    Sorry for the tangent, my mind is in many places, and you’re sort of stuck with a “screendump” at this point.

    Anyway, courses are on track, and things should be back to “as normal as they get” soon enough.

  • Just an Update

    Hey everyone, thanks so much for the outpouring of well-wishes. I really appreciate my friends. I mentioned to Joe that I have to drop “online” from “online friends,” because apparently the friendships we’ve established amongst our disparate community are stronger than I tend to think. You guys are friends in every sense of the word.

    For those thinking about this in terms of attack or other occult influence, I honestly don’t know what’s going on. My tarot cards are in the house, covered in toxic smoke residue. I’ve talked to my HGA, and he assures me this is indeed all under control and not out of the Will of God. Whatever that means.

    In terms of it being a magician attacking me, the only occultist that I’ve had any kind of trouble with lately was Lon DuQuette, but that was just me venting my spleen over his bad attitude about Christianity. He never responded to any of my comments, and I suspect he’s either totally unaware of my existence, or just not bothered by it at all. I strongly doubt this has anything to do with him. Maybe one of his fans got mad at some posts I made on the youtube page or something. I dunno. I doubt it. There are very few magicians online that I would credit the ability to do something like this, and of those few, I haven’t really pissed anyone off lately that I know of.

    Regardless, the shields have been raised, so to speak.

    What I strongly suspect is that my weekly rites to Bune for specific amounts are manifesting in a way that keeps everyone in my family and home safe from any harm, as specifically directed, but still provides a venue for a fresh start with a little left over.

    My first reaction to the whole mess was “Oh shit!” but it quickly became apparent that this isn’t a bad situation at all. It’s uncomfortable, to be sure, annoying, and the stress is running high. But overall, in a year we’ll likely look back at this and see it as a blessing in disguise. Who knows what disaster was averted by this catastrophe? I mean, things could have been so much worse. We were home, smelled the smoke, tried to put the fire out, failed, and called 911 within minutes of the fire starting. Everyone is safe, and the house has little real damage done to it. The basement will need to be refinished, a couple of joyces will need to be replaced, and the floor above them will be replaced. 13 of the house’s 19 windows were broken out by the fire department.

    I just saw Jow’s comment, about setting up a fund to help out with stuff between now and when the insurance gets in gear and starts paying for things. My first urge is to tell everyone I’m fine and I don’t need anything, but I’m going to sit on that for a while and think about it. We don’t really know much about what we need or will need in the immediate future. Getting through the next couple of weeks will be dicey.

    Above all else, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m truly humbled by the outpouring of support. The offers of money, shelter, food, clothing, etc. have been amazing. Thanks, it means a lot.

  • And then the house caught on fire…

    We had a great Christmas, and many thanks to all the well-wishers who wished us well through the holidays. We opened presents, visited grandparents, saw a movie, and went to bed. A great Christmas day was had by all.

    Then, this morning, the house caught on fire. We don’t know what started the fire, but it was probably the furnace or water heater, as that was the room with the flames and smoke. I ran in to put it out, and ran out coughing and yelling “call 911!!!”

    Everyone got out ok, and we’re all healthy and happy to be alive in our pleasant hotel room. The fire was bad, but not so bad that the house needs to be condemned. The fire department broke out every window in the house but three to ventilate the smoke. It was bizarre. Totally surreal.

    My hair is singed. Everything in the house is covered in a layer of toxic ash.

    Disaster? Catastrophe? Huge heaping pile of shit?

    Honestly, I don’t think so. This whole thing seems like it’s been ordained from above. I’ll talk more about it as things unfold. It’s just very … interesting.

  • Merry Christmas Eve!

    May your holidays be filled with love and laughter, and lots of loot.

    In case I don’t get back to the blog before the holiday is over…

    Merry Christmas!

    (Yeah, it’s a blink tag. Cause blink is festive! :D)

  • Cool Stuff about the Supernatural Assistant

    Hey everyone!

    Man, I just wrote a bunch of posts to the Supernatural Assistant Course yahoo group about the things you can get using the Supernatural Assistant. I forget how cool it is sometimes. Here are some quick reminders for anyone else who forgot, or who might need a reason or two to Acquire a Supernatural Assistant.

    From the PGM:

    • When you go abroad, he will go abroad with you; when you are destitute, he will give you money.  
    • He will tell you what things will happen both when and at what time of the night or day.  
    • If anyone asks you “What do I have in mind?” or “What has happened to me?” or even “What is going to happen?,” question the angel, and he will tell you in silence.  But you speak to the one who questions you as if from yourself.  
    • When you are dead, he will wrap [up] your body as befits a god, but he will take your spirit and carry it into the air with him. For no aerial spirit which is joined with a mighty assistant will go into Hades, for to him all things are subject.  
    • Whenever you wish to do something, speak his name alone into the air and say, “Come!” and you will see him actually standing near you.  And say to him, “Perform this task,” and he does it at once, and after doing it he will say to you, “What else do you want?  For I am eager for heaven.”  If you do not  have immediate orders, say to him, “Go, lord,” and he will depart.  In this fashion, then, the god will be seen by you alone, nor will anyone ever hear the sound of his speaking, just you yourself alone.  
    • And he will tell you about the illness of a man, whether he will live or die, even on what day and at what hour of night.  
    • And he will also give [you both] wild herbs and the power to cure, and you will be [worshipped] as a god since you have a god as a friend.  

    These things the mighty assistant will perform competently.

    Pretty handy, eh?

    As you likely know, I’m especially interested in the part that happens after death. I suspect it’s a transformation akin to the Rainbow Body. I could be wrong, of course. It may just be a spiritual transformation the Ruach goes through that empowers it to become a member of the Angelic Choir of “Powers.” If so, that would be pretty cool too. After I die, feel free to petition me for aid in your own endeavors, and if I’m a Power, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.

    Another cool thing about the list is how it reminds the magician that the SA is invisible to others. See my post from the other day on physical manifestations.

    It ties into the urge new members of the group of people with this “mighty assistant” feel to tell everyone everything about everything that Crowley warns about too. Even magicians from the first centuries AD had to struggle with acting like what they experience is true and valid for all mankind. Their mentors back then made sure their students weren’t acting like fruitcakes in public. “But you speak to the one who questions you as if from yourself” indeed.

  • Warnings

    Members of the first Red Work Course 1: Acquiring a Supernatural Assistant are seeing success in their efforts, and I recently posted some of Crowley’s notes on Liber Samekh to the yahoo group that helped me integrate the experience while I was going through it.

    I haven’t read Crowley’s notes on Samekh in years. Great stuff. I especially like this part:

    In the same way the Adept almost always begins by torrential lyrics painting out
    mystical extravagances about “ineffable love”, “unimaginable bliss”,
    “inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness”. He usually loses his
    sense of proportion, of humour, of reality, and of sound judgment. His ego is
    often inflated to the bursting point, till he would be abjectly ridiculous if he
    were not so pitifully dangerous to himself and others. He also tends to take his
    new-found “truths of illumination” for the entire body of truth, and insists
    that they must be as valid and vital for all men as they happen to be for
    himself.

    It is wise to keep silence about those things “unlawful to utter” which one may
    have heard “in the seventh heaven”. This may not apply to the sixth.

    It’s funny, I go through this with every deeper level of initiation I experience. I think I’ve mellowed out some with this whole thing, I rarely post “The Key to All Power in the Universe!1!!1!” posts over my revelations these days, but once in a while it still bubbles up and over. I can’t help it, and honestly, I think it serves a purpose. Reading through other people’s Revelations of the Key to Everything has helped me a great deal, so maybe it will help others as well. My Keys to Everything may be different than yours, but seeing the doors mine open may make you see a door you missed, and urge you to find your own Key to open it. I know that happens to me a lot. Like POS doing Jason’s daily exercises reminded me to do my own. It helps.

    So I disagree with Crowley, whimper and sob when you feel your HGA, there’s nothing “unmanly” about expressing the pleasure and pain of being with Purity. And don’t be afraid to go on about “ineffable love” and “inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness.” It’s important to remind people that this is what it feels like when they forget, or inspire them to feel it for themselves if they haven’t yet.

    But do be careful to remember that it’s not necessarily as valid and vital for all as it happens to be for yourself.

    I try, really I do. But if I can do this and get the results I do, so can you! Just try it, it’s freaking brilliant. Gushing chakras, revelations of knowledge, and worlds of practical techniques await you! It’s all right there.

  • On Physical Manifestation

    A potential course member wrote to me asking if the magic I teach in the course results in visible manifestations. He had read Lisiewski and others who claim physical manifestations are not only possible, but also necessary for the magic to be successful.

    I’ve heard the siren call of that level of fundamentalism. I tend to think of the new Hermetic Fundamentalists as Grimoire Thumpers, with all the zeal and common sense you find in extremists of any belief system.

    Look, when the spirits are present, yeah, you sense them. You might see something in your “astral” vision. You might smell them, hear them, or feel them press against you as they perform an initiation on you, tracing out seals on your forehead or whatever. you might even see them physically open the door, sit down next to you and spark up a bowl of fine imported tobacco. That doesn’t mean that anyone else sitting next to you in the room will experience the same thing, nor does it mean that your ritual will be any more or less successful.

    I’ve seen spirits. I look over and see darker or lighter “orbs” floating above the altar. Bune sits on the floor where my baseboard heater runs along the wall, with his long skinny knees up. I see angel faces appear in my crystal ball. I don’t pretend any of this is something anyone else would physically see if they were present.

    That said, my spouse sees stuff when I do magic. But it’s not always what I see.

    I’ve had magician friends tell me they followed the steps of the grimoires exactly, Lion Skin Belt and all, and they tell me they saw the spirits visibly. Great, but what about the results? No different than my own.

    Personally, I suspect they had a stronger psychic image of the spirits as a result of the increased initiatory vibration attained through the creation of the Belt. I don’t think a mundane person who hadn’t been through the process of creating the talismans would see it. That’s just my opinion. I don’t think something that can’t be photographed can be seen by the naked eye.

    As far as I know, the historic accounts of magicians conjuring a spirits using the techniques of Reanaissance grimoires don’t mention physical or visual manifestations, unless they used a skryer to see the spirits as Dee and Kelley did. Dee didn’t see the visions Kelley saw. Benvenuto Cellini, a 16th century goldsmith and magician performed the magic of the grimoires of his time to conjure up spirits in the Colosseum. No one but the skryer saw anything. The other witnesses literally and figuratively shat themselves in fear when they felt the spirits arrive, but no one but the skryer saw anything.

    So, since my own results don’t indicate physical manifestation is possible, or more importantly even necessary, and historic accounts of magicians of the time of the grimoires I use don’t mention physical manifestation, my stance is that sure, you may see something, but don’t expect anyone else to. And don’t worry if you don’t see anything; results are the only proof that matters.

  • Groan… Regularly Scheduled Pain in the …

    Man, I remember now why I “forget” to do regularly scheduled meditations. Last night I stayed up too late, and by the time I was ready for bed, I was exhausted. I kept losing focus and drifting towards sleep. I felt like Dexter in the boxing ring in Season 4, falling asleep during one of the most important things I do in life. I was wishing I had some smelling salts.

    But Perdurabo, as they say. I made myself do it all the way through, up and back down. I had interesting visions, but how much of that was sleep and how much was magic, I couldn’t tell you. I’m not entirely thrilled about how things worked out last night.

    I’m only posting this as a goad to myself. Making myself publicly accountable will make it a matter of pride, and while my pride can get in my way, I’ve learned to use it to my advantage.

  • Regularly Scheduled Meditations

    POS has been talking about how great his life is since he started doing the regularly scheduled meditations Jason Miller advises in Sorcerer’s Secrets and in his year-long course. Nothing gets on my nerves more than seeing another magician doing magic and having good results when I’m not doing magic and suffering through it. I know, it’s not noble or anything, but there it is. Annoyance is one of the prime motivators in my life.

    Now, long-time readers will remember when I started doing nightly meditative/contemplative astral rituals traveling up and back down through the Planetary Spheres. It’s been a while since I’ve done that regularly. seeing POS basking in his deserved results irked me enough that I started doing it again last night. Plus I knew I needed to be in good resonance before January 4th when the next Courses start. So I started the Merkavah process again.

    Well, I tried to.

    For those who don’t know about it, I basically get relaxed, conjure the Archangel of the Planet, go to their sphere, get a good sphere-cleansing, and move on to the next, all the way up through the spheres and all the way back down. I look for themes in the process. It takes about a half an hour to forty-five minutes to do the whole thing.

    Last night, I started with Raphael because I had some issues yesterday communicating, and when Mercury goes retro, I tend to have more frustration in trying to communicate anyway.* I didn’t want to get any lying spirits, either, so I figured I’d get the communication sphere taken care of first. When Raphael appeared, I authenticated him and then began asking that he fix whatever was wrong in my sphere that was resulting in such poor communication skills. I felt a “zing” shoot down through the core of my astral body, like silver fire that was cold instead of hot. I felt it all the way down my legs to my knees. There was a moment of feeling like a soap bubble stretched too thin, and then a “Pop” as my sphere went back into the proper shape. It was like popping out a dent from the inside.

    I felt him continue to do some work on me, but I got the feeling it would take a while, so I went back to the Moon and conjured Gabriel, and began actually going through the spheres. At each planet, the Archangels had something to do to me to get things cleaned up. Over the last few months, there’s been a steady accretion of disharmony and other kloogy things. The daily prayer and nightly conjurations of the Supernatural Assistant have been loosening up the garbage for a while, and heating it up, making it more and more apparent that I needed to make some drastic changes to my life. Going through each of the spheres and getting a “tune-up” to my sphere was exactly what I needed, even though I wasn’t aware of that until afterward.

    What a workout, man. By the time I had gone through the seven classical planets, I was humming. I felt stretched out and released at the same time. It was like being pleasantly sore after working out all your major muscle groups when you haven’t in a while, and then taking a hot sauna.

    I conjured the Archangels Iophiel and Metatron to take care of the super-celestial spheres, but I can’t really remember much of what happened after Saturn. It always gets hazy. I wasn’t asleep though, I was experiencing things and learning things, I just don’t have the symbols to express it in conscious thought.

    The next thing I knew, I was aware of my body, feeling great, and ready to head back down through the spheres. I could still feel the spirits at work on different parts of my sphere, so I simply thanked them and let them do their work. I did some chakra cleansing, more out of habit than any particular knowledge of the chakra system that I trust.**

    Due to the blizzard, I get to work from home today. I was sorely tempted to go right back to sleep since I didn’t have to drie in to work this morning. By sorely tempted, I mean I closed my eyes and started to go to sleep, half-awake thinking, “Meh, I’ll call when I wake up and see what I need to do.” All of a sudden, I felt this wave of responsibility wash over me, and a strong urge to get up and do what I needed to do. That might not seem like a big deal, and it probably shouldn’t be a big deal, but it was. I haven’t been exactly eager to do what needs to be done lately. I’ve been downright unmotivated to do anything. Everything I’ve had to do has seemed like a terrible chore.

    But something changed last night after doing the Work. I got up, called in, got some work to do, and started doing it. Because I want to. It’s weird how fast the attitude shifted, and how little effort was involved. I forget, when I’m not doing internal magic regularly, how just hanging out with the spirits makes you a better person. I’m cleaning up my office as I work now, something I haven’t felt any compulsion to do in months. And yes, there are months worth of debris sitting here now that I have to sort through. Half-finished projects, notes, mail, incense sticks, tarot cards, wood glue, various tools, and lots of incense ash coating everything. My god, I actually want to dust!

    Anyway, I’ve said it before, and I’ll likely forget and wind up saying it again, regularly scheduled meditation is key. If anyone else knew about it and forgot, today’s a good day to get started doing it again.

    *Retro’s not as big of a deal as I used to think. Chris Warnock is setting me straight little by little about it, but it’s still an affliction that seems to hit me where I’m the most vulnerable.

    **Everything I do with chakras is based on Leadbetter’s work. It serves my purposes, but I wouldn’t try to teach anyone what I do because they may think it’s actually grounded in the traditions that “own” chakras. It’s not traditional, I just don’t have anything else to call what I do besides “chakra work.”

  • Post removed

    I took down the On the Human Condition post due to it being more complicated and deeper than I’m equipped to handle well. I didn’t realize the depths stirred. Sorry if I offended, it wasn’t intended.