Rufus Opus

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  • 1.3 – Spirits: Why we Work with ’em, How we Work with ’em

    Now we get to the meat of the matter. This is the post I’ve been looking forward to the most. Unfortunately, I’m short on space. My posts don’t look that big when I’m writing them, but then they’re huge on the blog. So I’ll keep it brief. I did finally break down and get a web page hosting service, so as soon as I find some nifty templates and do some quick-and-easy plug and play stuff, I’ll have a web site with the space for the huge rambling dissertations I’m fond of writing. 😀

    1.3.1 Why we Work with Spirits

    In the NP system, we work with the Spirits to get closer to God. This is called theurgy. Iamblichus, a student of Plotinus, taught that working with the Spirits was a means to purify the sphere of the magician, to make it more like the creator and less like the created. He recognized that when you conjure up a Spirit of Mars, you’re working with something on a higher level, and that something has emanated something into what eventually manifested as you. As it is more pure, its very presence close to your sphere purifies your own sphere, restoring a bit of the awareness of your own divinity as it relates to the powers over which that particular spirit presides.

    From the Thomas Taylor translation of Iamblichus’ Theurgia (Section IV, Chapter II):

    “in all theurgical operations the priest sustains a twofold character; one, indeed, as man, and which preserves the order possessed by our nature in the universe; but the other, which is corroborated by divine signs, and through these is conjoined to more excellent natures, and is elevated to their order by an elegant circumduction, this is deservedly capable of being surrounded with the external form of the Gods.”

    1.3.2 How we Work with Spirits

    The chapter I quoted from is in the context of how Iamblichus taught that we are to interact with spirits. He was addressing an argument from Porphyry, another of Plotinus’ students, who asked why a mortal man in the flesh would be conjuring a “superior” being, and then turn around and command it to act in such-and-such a way. (I’m paraphrasing.)

    The answer is that while yes, we are in matter, we are of two parts, the divine and the flesh. The divine aspect of the self has existed since before time within the One, God, who emanated down through all the spheres and beings and elements and stuff-ness of everything. The flesh part is the temporary shell of the divine spirit, and while it is lower in the cosmic hierarchy, the spirit within is still in authority. Therefore, the magician surrounds the material part of themselves with the symbols of the divinity within, and petitions the higher spirits to appear using the classic conjuring orations from such sources as the grimoires.

    The Spirits (and I’m including the “gods”, angels, daemons, elementals, or whatever else you would call them in your branch of the Western Mystery Tradition) appear in response to the conjurations because they have a vested interest in us. They are also aspects of the One within us. However, they are of a different form, and in that form they don’t have the same capacities that we do. Once they appear, the differences in the nature of our emanation place us in a position of authority over the spirits, and we are therefore able to “command” the spirits to do our bidding.

    Now, the basic formula for conjuring the spirits is pretty simple. You surround yourself with the things the spirit has an affinity for. Each Spirit is responsible for emanating an aspect of the One into the material realm. Michael, Archangel of the Sun, is responsible for emanating the things that manifest with a solar nature in the material realm. You surround yourself with the things that have solar properties to get his attention, and conjure him in the name of God that describes his function. Now, as a ceremonial magician, the best thing you can have that Michael has emanated into the material realm is his Arch-angelic Seal that he revealed to magicians. His Name itself is the means he revealed himself to this realm. The names of God that are associated with him are also revealed by Michael into this realm in order to establish contact with him.

    So to conjure Michael, you would burn some solar incense, wear the seal of Michael, and conjure him in the Name of God associated with the Sphere of the Sun, “Eloahv Da’at.” (Your spelling may differ.)

    When Michael appears, you explain your need, remembering that yes, he is superior to you in some ways, but at the same time, you are his boss (in a VERY spiritual way). That is to say, the Logos within you is the same Logos Michael receives his orders from.

    If you’re commanding the Spirits from the authority of the part of yourself that is the flesh, you’ll get no results. As a Christian, I know that I have been “Born of the Spirit,” and my work with my HGA has resulted in certain “initiations” that grant me the awareness of my Roles and Responsibilities in the cosmic Hierarchies, so I’m getting pretty consistent results. Not always pleasant from the mundane perspective, but always beneficial.

    So the proper order for conjuring the spirits is:

    1. Be right with God. Know your place. “Thou hast cleansed me with hyssop, oh Lord!” and so forth. (Remember in the Exorcist, the priest kept chanting, “It is not I, but Christ that commands you…”)
    2. Have the seal of the spirit.
    3. Call the spirit (“Thou spirit Michael, I conjure thee here in the name of the Most High God, in the Name of the Logos-Christ within me, in the name Eloahv Da’at, to appear before me in this crystal…”)
    4. Explain what you want from the Spirit. (It’s a good idea to get confirmation that it understands, and have it tell you how it will do what it agrees to.)
    5. Thank the Spirit, and bid it to go and do as it agreed.

    Pretty simple, eh? The rest of the details of the various grimoires and such are cultural necessities. That means that when the Almadel has you make a Beeswax Angel Conjuring Device, you make a Beeswax Angel Conjuring Device if you expect to work with the spirits of the Almadel. If you’re OK with working with something that MIGHT be LIKE the spirits of the Almadel, you’re free to make your own adaptations, but the results are not guaranteed. I must stress, you have to know the rules before you can break them.

    The three stages of Classical Education are Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. Grammar teaches the basic building blocks, Logic teaches how the building blocks are assembled, and Rhetoric is the stage where you demonstrate your understanding of the pieces and parts by assembling them in new ways.

    The Grimoires themselves contain the elements of the Grammar stage. Lists of spirits. Means of contacting them. Performing the instructions in the Grimoires brings you in touch with the Spirits, who teach the Logic stage. After you’ve been “initiated” you advance to the Rhetoric stage, and you can make things up based on your knowledge and understanding gained from research AND experience. I’m not advocating Chaos Magick, but I’ve grown to recognize the elements of Chaos Magick that are true in certain contexts. What gets on my nerves is that Chaos Magick doesn’t give magicians the context necessary for success. :sigh: I’ve ranted on that elsewhere.

    So much for keeping it brief. 🙂

  • Super Secret Occult Book: Heaven and Hell

    So the book I was published in is currently available to the public. The title is Heaven and Hell, and is a collection of Thelemic works, primarily. It’s a general blend of writings by people of various grades of initiation. They can’t TELL ME their degrees, the ones I’m most interested in knowing, but apparently I rank in by their degree system right where I’d consider myself.

    Anyway, the blurb says:

    A collection containing four issues of Heaven and Hell, along with additional material. Articles contain a wide variety of material from various authors of interest to magicians, occultists, mystics, Thelemites, Gnostics, and spiritual seekers.

    I’ve read it, and while it’s not even close to being a traditional grimoire/spirit model-based approach, I can say it’s totally written by magicians doing magic. The editor has this thing about expecting magicians to do magic, so he didn’t include any writings by people who think and study more than they do. I expect the Fras. and Sors. authoring the work to go on to greatness, and I’m privileged to be among them.

    Speaking of being among them, this is the first book ever published to have my name on the cover. It’s totally a collectible.

    As I said the other day, this is the most occult book I’ve ever seen. The book itself is a work of experimental publishing, and I’m interested in seeing how the editor’s choices in non-traditional layout and structure play out in the spheres of the owners.

    I think its primary value is in the fact that it’s written by practicing magicians. It’s a collection of the thoughts and beliefs of those who are experiencing the results of pursuing their magical paths, their “True Wills.”

    Buy it, read it, enjoy it.

  • Published: Secret Occult Printing

    I’ve been published in a secret occult collection of essays that may be publicly available soon. It’s not the kind of place one would expect to find my work published, but it’s totally cool. I’m even on the cover. I saw a proof of the book today, and it’s got to be the most occultish book I’ve ever seen. I’m shocked that I made it in.

  • Advice to As

    When asked for advice from an aspiring artist, H. R. Giger’s agent wrote an excellent reply. It can be found under the last entry, scroll down towards the bottom.

    Aspirants to the Great Work would do well to interpret this and apply it to their own lives. Mysel

  • The Gospel and the Zodiac

    I just enjoyed a lecture given by Mnsgnr. Scott Rassbach on the Gospel and the Zodiac. He’s cool.

  • Recent Talismans

    I took advantage of the Alkaid election posted recently by Chris Warnock of Renaissance Astrology, and made myself a primitive silver talisman. The image of a melancholy man is beyond my capabilities, so I stuck with the image of a Bull.

    It’s not particularly beautiful, but I like it a lot. You can see, sort of, the image of Ursus Major engraved between the bull’s horns. I spent the afternoon preparing the talisman for the engraving, and that was my usual fun time of heating and beating the silver until it was large enough to give me the room I needed to engrave the horns and the rest of the bull freehand. I practiced a lot with different images of a bull on paper before deciding on the final image.

    I conjured the spirit of Alkaid to consecrate the talisman, and it was a very smooth spirit to work with. I felt a coolness, a very comfortable coolness of spirit. It’s not like other silver talismans I’ve made, and I like it a lot. I plan on using it with the Box to interview the Intelligence of Alkaid.

    I also made a Moon Talisman of Gabriel relatively recently. I did it during the Mercury Retrograde, but I haven’t felt any ill effects from it. On the contrary, this is my favorite Gabriel Talisman I’ve ever made.I was going to use the image from Considerations for Monday from the Heptameron, but I checked the comparison link from the Golancz folio, 35a in Joe Peterson’s comments and I liked it better. It felt right, and even though I was a little concerned about trying to engrave the two 6 images, I decided to take a chance. In the Hour of the Moon on a Monday, I engraved it free hand, and it went so smoothly I was shocked. In trying to engrave the image from the Magical Calendar, I ran into a lot more difficulty.

    One thing I’ve noticed about this talisman is a complete lack of tarnish. The Alkaid talisman is a week or so younger, but it is already beginning to darken, as silver talismans do. They don’t turn black over night or anything, but they are shiny bright when first beaten out and polished with a dremel tool attachment, and then sort of … get darker. They lose their shiny newness.The Gabriel talisman almost glows in the dark. I used the same dremel, and I believe they’re both from the same silver coin that I melted and cleaned out magically a while back. (I have lumps of various planetary metals scattered around my garage.)

    I’ve used this talisman with the Box already, and the presence of Gabriel was tangible in the air. He spoke in a clearer voice than I’ve heard him use before.

  • Some sample feedback on the Angel Grimoires…

    I received a bit of feedback this morning from on the grimoire from one of the recipients. He said some generally kind and praising things, and then said:

    "Now the criticism part of the e-mail.   I would have liked some more angels in the grimoire or maybe some magical advice or guidance the archangels have themselves given to you.  Have you tried lesser angels in this system?  If so record what you did and your results so that the readers can experiment for themselves. "

    I think this is excellent advice, and would be a worthy addition to future revisions.

    Now I’m mentioning this because the guy went on to say, "I hate handing out negative advice I am always afraid someone will take it the wrong way."

    I want to tell everyone who got a draft of the grimoire: I write for a living. I have VERY thick skin. Satan is a kind and gentle friend compared to the editors I’ve worked with in the past.

    This is NOT negative advice. This is constructive criticism. I need honest feedback to make it the best it can be. I’ll be charging for this thing, and I want it to be worth the money.

  • Magical Projects

    “A project is a finite endeavor (having specific start and completion dates) undertaken to create a unique product or service which brings about beneficial change or added value.” – from Wikipedia’s Project Management entry.

    As you may know, I’m a priest in the cult of Project Management (PM). It’s supposed to be a business methodology for accomplishing projects successfully and efficiently. Wikipedia says it’s a discipline, but in real life, the disciples of PM are the true believers, the Project Management Office in major corporations are the Priests of their true God, and the rest of the team are heathens claiming to be converts to keep their jobs. The QA team is the Holy Inquisition, audits are their inquests, and …

    Ok, I can see I’ll slip off into some weirdness if I keep comparing my job to a religion. So to the point!

    Each project has a “life cycle” that can be broken down into basic phases. Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Control, and Closeout. It’s all pretty much common sense, but having it codified makes things a lot easier to figure out how to make things work. It provides a template for developing your projects efficiently.

    In my Great Work activities, I find that using the simple approach of PM helps immensely. It’s not something I have to do nearly as strictly, but it provides a framework within which I can work and excel.

    Usually when you decide to do a ritual, it’s in response to a need that has become apparent to you in your life. Obvious, eh? I know, but writing it down helps the rest of the post.

    When you’ve identified that something needs to be addressed Magically, you can enter the “Initiation” stage. In this stage, you identify what you want to happen, the result, or “deliverable” of the project. You identify when you want to start the project, and when you want it to finish. You loosely identify the scope, that is, the area of impact of your ritual, and put into writing exactly why you need or want to use magic to accomplish this result. You also figure out whether you can actually do the magic, whether you have the resources of time, skill, and information available to accomplish your desired result.

    Many ideas for projects get tossed in the trash can after this phase in business. The place I work added a pre-initiation phase to their projects called “Discovery” to eliminate the number of projects that got started and shit-canned along the way. It saved them a lot of money because one person can do the discovery phase in a major corporation, while to do the Initiation phase properly, you end up using a lot of people and wasting everyone’s time and cash.

    Magicians don’t have to worry about that. The primary value of going through the steps of an Initiation Phase in magical projects is that you have a time set aside to really think about the ritual and put some things in writing so you don’t lose focus along the way. When you’re finished with you Initiation Phase, you should have everything you need to begin the Planning phase. You should have on one piece of paper:

    • A start and finish date
    • A Statement of Intent
    • A paragraph or two explaining what it is you expect from the ritual, and how you want it to manifest.

    The next phase is Planning. In this phase, you take your deliverable and reverse engineer the requirements and processes you’ll need to be able to perform the ritual. In this phase, you identify what kind of spirit you’ll be working with, for example, Angels, Daimons, Gods, or Heroes using Iamblichus’ classifications of spiritual entities. You identify the planets, astrological influences, or which specific spirits you’ll be working with. You identify the prerequisites, like whether you need to be more in tune with a particular power to be able to direct the subjects of a particular spirit. You gather information about what herbs, incenses, or elemental forces that are in harmony with your intent.

    When you are finished with this phase, you will have a list of all the things related to your ritual that you will be using to perform the ritual. Writing these things down in bulleted lists grouped by subject area is an exercise that makes the following phase much easier.

    The next phase is the Design phase. In this phase, you actually write up the ritual. On Mars day in Mars hour, you burn Mars herbs and call upon Martial Intelligence, Martial Spirit, and the Elemental King of Fire in the Martial Names of God while wearing the Martial Lamen and tracing the Seals of the spirits you will be working with. You’ll write out your oration notes, and develop your basic Playbook. This is a document that details each step of the process you will be doing during the next phase, Execution. Personally my “playbook” will be written on 3×5″ cards. The Orations are usually just noted with the specific names of the beings, and I have place holders for when I’m supposed to ring a bell or light incense or trace particular seals using particular elemental weapons. When this phase is complete, you should have the following:

    • A playbook that has detailed instructions and sequential process steps noted and arranged in the appropriate order
    • A checklist of things that need to be in place before you take the first step in the playbook.

    Once you have all the planning and design finished, and you know specifically what you will be doing during the ritual, you’re ready to begin the Execution phase. In this phase, you gather all the ingredients you’ve identified in your requirements, and you make sure you’ve got everything you need ready to go at the right time identified in your playbook. This is the phase where I’ll be melting the copper and banging it into a disk to engrave in the appropriate hour, or performing preparatory kinetic meditations, or seeking initiation into the spheres I’ll be working with if I haven’t worked them before. This is the time that you set up your altar, if it isn’t set up already. This is the time you make sure all the candles are in their holders, the lighter has fluid, and the charcoal is sitting in the brazier ready to be lit. The last thing you do before the Execution phase is complete is perform the ritual you have designed.

    The next two stages are the ones most magicians don’t bother with. In Monitoring and Control, you are supposed to be watching how the ritual you did is unfolding in your life. You’re supposed to be checking to see that things are working as designed. Unfortunately, Crowley with his warnings about “lust for results” and the Chaos Magic meme’s insistence on banishing with laughter and forgetting that you even did the rite have made a lot of magicians stupid. Between the time you perform the ritual and the time you expect it to manifest, you should be keeping tabs on the results without “lusting” after them. You do this by checking with the spirits to see where they’re at in their processes, and by paying attention to the subject areas of your life related to the ritual. If something comes up that is obviously going to fuck up the result, you take steps to implement your controls, processes you design into the ritual to mitigate unforeseen risks to the successful completion of the project.

    The final phase of a project is the Closeout stage. In business, this means you’ve delivered the deliverable, you’ve made sure it’s working, and you pass on responsibility of ongoing maintenance to the appropriate business area “owner.” In magic, you enter this phase when the result has been accomplished. You clean up any offerings that were left out for the spirits, you send your spiritual thank you notes to the spirits that attended, and you write up the results of the ritual in your Magical PM log. This write up should include any lessons you’ve learned that will make future projects go more smoothly.

    Chances are you already use a process similar to this in your own Work. the steps are common sense, after all, but maybe you don’t bother writing anything up along the way. By taking the time to formulate your statement of intent and the requirements and the playbook and the documentation of the manifestation and lessons learned, you’ll have more repeatable, traceable, and consistent results. The planning that goes into each phase will help you identify any potential gaps that could become “showstoppers,” the things that will totally derail your intended manifestation.

  • Published: Rending the Veil

    I got featured!

    The editor at Rending the Veil online magazine and I cleaned up an old blog post of mine about conjuring spirits, and it’s the “Feature” article of this edition, so far.

  • Conduct Unbecoming a Magician

    HERMES, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests; and the power who presides over the true science concerning the Gods is one and the same in the whole of things. – Iamblichus, On the Mysteries

    I’m guilty of a terrible crime. If I belonged to an Order, a militaristic organization of magicians with a hierarchy of supervising rank and file to whom I would be accountable, I’m sure I’d frequently be demoted for Conduct Unbecoming a Magician.

    Fortunately, I belong to no such Order. There’s no person who has been through more initiations in charge of me. There is no committee of flesh and blood to which someone can report me. There is no chain of command that I must obey.

    There is no code of conduct.

    People have these rather stupid ideas of what someone who is “into magic” should look like. They have these ignorant expectations of how Adepts, Masters, and Illuminated Saints ought to behave. They think we should all be like Jesus, turning the other cheek, striving to be gentle and kind, never cursing, never harsh, never subject to raw emotion. As a result of the refinement of the process of the great Work, we’re supposed to be Heroes, with the powers of the Gods and the approachability of mortals.

    I’ve met some really powerful magicians, folks who are incredibly illuminated. You can feel the power of their spheres radiating outward from them into the universe around them. Talking to them leaves the weak-willed fawning and gibbering like tweens at a Jonas Brothers concert.

    They get angry, depressed, and violent like anyone else. When they do, the world has suddenly collapsed for these dweebs, and they’re left looking like the little girl dressed up like Princess Padme-Amidalla in the Natalie Portman interview video I posted a while back.

    Now don’t be all thinking I’m bitching about people that I think I’m better than. I’m not. I have these stupid pedestals in my heart and mind that I put people on too. I’m no better. I’ve learned to take it in stride when my heroes turn out to be human, though. I’ve lowered my expectations. I try to remember some basic things when I meet people I think are really cool:

    • Jesus took a shit. Daily. Even his digestive system was perfect.
    • Siddartha farted in his hand and sniffed it.
    • Penor Rinpoche declared Steven Seagal a tulku.

    These three little precious jewels serve to remind me not to set unrealistic expectations on people that they can’t live up to.

    WTF does any of this have to do with Iamblichus?

    It has a lot to do with the opening he made in his refutation to Porphyry: HERMES, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests.

    Hermes, the god who presides over language. Patrick Dunn has provided a better explanation than I can about the role of language and symbol in magic in Magic, Power, Language, Symbol: A Magicians Exploration of Linguistics. If you haven’t read it, you should. We who are Hermetic Magicians are priests of the god of Language. As a Christian, a believer in the Word of God made flesh, I am even more aware of my role as priest to this god in my magical practice.*

    Language is symbolic of something else. There’s a difference between the words we use and the things we refer to, the meanings of the words. Different people have different meanings for the same words.

    It’s important that we understand that words and our interpretations of them are not the things they represent. Hierophants, for example, are simply “interpretors of the Mysteries.” They aren’t perfect ascended masters, wizened and ready to do everything perfectly in every interaction with every person. There is no job description for Hierophant that includes “having reached my idea of what a Hierophant should be.” Anyone who can interpret the mysteries in a way that provides initiation into the mystery to those seeking his or her advice is qualified. If you expect your Hierophant to be perfect, you’re in for a shock.

    The same is true for any spiritual mentor. If the person you’re learning from is in the flesh, they are capable of being wrong about things. Don’t deceive yourself, or you’ll be running head first, full speed towards disappointment. Keep your definitons real, your expectations managed, and at the same time strive for the ideal, knowing that the words, symbols, and entities we interact with are representative of the ideal, not the ideal itself.

    * No, I don’t have Hermes as a god before God. That’s against the Law.