Rufus Opus

Tag: RO’s Musings

Tag: RO’s Musings

  • What the HELL is going on here?

    Magicians. We’re all seeking the powers of the universe, changing ourselves into something greater than we started out as, or at least more pure so we can participate with God in the CREATION of the UNIVERSE. Okay, well, maybe just managing and maintaining the manifestation as it occurs, but being consciously aware of the fact during the planning and processing stages of the project at hand.

    But here I am reading John Dee this week, and come to find out, one of the “greater” magicians of recorded history was fumbling in just as much dark as me. He spent all that time with Kelley developing (or receiving, if you will) what amounts to a system of planetary magic. He conjured and cajoled, enticed and entreated God to send him these spirits that revealed a system of magic that he never even used.

    Heading back to Agrippa, the man was a brilliant librarian, researcher, and reporter. But for all his knowledge, he was just like us too. A man who had to keep his public and private beliefs strictly regimented. The only evidence we have that Agrippa actually performed magic is his obvious “insider’s” understanding of the material he recorded. That inference can’t even be made objectively. We have to experience the results of the operations he describes to realize what he is recording between the lines. Based on that experience, we can begin to understand the deeper implications of his writing.

    Leap ahead a couple years to Crowley. A great magician, an eager and prolific promoter of occult philosophy, Crowley stands out in history for his intelligence, wit, and most offensively to some, his self-confidence. Yet read through Soror Achitha’s Vision of the Amalantrah Working, and you see that Crowley in his magickal practice was a sulky, petulant, ignorant man. Not ignorant in terms of knowledge, learning, or experience, but ignorant of what is to come. He worries about money, and worries about plans to go to Cairo. He is revealed to be a whiner to the spirits, much like Dee and Kelley both. He shows a deep concern for his safety and well-being that speaks volumes, at least to me, of his lack of faith that “existence is pure joy.”

    Across history to the present day, magicians are fumbling in the dark, trying to figure out what the HELL is going on, and trying to influence things to work out in their favor. Their private diaries reveal them to be very small and very dependent upon the forces they work with for their mental well-being. Their greatest contributions to their fellow occultists are little more than sign posts and travel commentaries about the realms they visit.

    It’s baffling.

    From my own limited experience in the occult, in conjuring the spirits, in speaking with the intelligences of the spheres, in traversing the heavens that lie between us and God Almighty, I have seen things that make my toes curl in wonder and awe. I have done things that are miraculous in every sense of the word. In my conversations with the spirits of the realms, I’m no whining supplicant, begging for scraps of answers or a pittance to get to Egypt in the spring. I’m not demanding answers about God or the heavens, or secrets of the cosmos. I’m a traveler in the macrocosmic realms, a co-worker with the spirits in the microcosmic realms. There is no thing or state of existence beyond my ability to access and manifest through ritual activities. There are no limits beyond the practical.

    So just what the HELL is going on here? Am I the only magician that uses magic to rise above the problems of mundane existence? By no means is my life, or my skill in the Art of magic perfect and complete. My recent escapades with Bune seem to be unprecedented among my fellow magicians for example, although they have confirmed in one way or another through their own magical works that the source of the problem was related to the way I had approached the idea of being a Hierophant.

    The point is, when I found out what was going on, the first thing I did was fix it. Using magic. That’s my general approach to everything. It works really well. I use Magic to get ideas about what I should be doing in my mundane life. I use it to get ideas about what spiritual activities I should be pursuing. I use it for food, health, safety, and travel. With the knowledge I get reading and meditating, I create and perform rituals that bring about what I want to happen in my life and my world.

    I know I’m not the only one that does this. I talk to many magicians on the internet across the world who are doing the same thing. What I don’t understand is why it’s so relatively rare. The number of magicians in control of their lives is staggeringly low. Most people interested in the occult are interested in the power to control their worlds, but compared to the number of people interested, the number of people doing the Work, doing the magic that transforms their existence is less than half of one percent.

    Magic. It’s what a magician does. It’s not a last resort, it’s a first resort. The lungs breathe, the liver filters, the brain processes. The magician does magic. The magician is in control of their world, not isolated from other influences, but in a position of authority in determining which of the opportunities life will present, and how those opportunities will come about.

    There’s too much slap-dash going on. People slap together a quick one-time rite, and dash off to the next thing, which is usually something they are reacting to. There’s little or no actual proactive planning and implementation of their lives. They’re content to sit back and follow the script they’ve been given for the most part, with a little dabbling here and there.

    I’m not advocating any “Left Hand Path” philosophy here, but I do want to point out that YOU are not a passive part of existence. You have choices to make that affect many others. If you choose not to choose, you still have made a choice, to quote Rush. You’re an active part of existence, and magic gives you the keys to the Kingdom. You’ve got at your beck and call the very spirits that make up the world. Why on earth would you not choose to use them?

    Why didn’t Dee use the Angelic system of magic he received? Why didn’t Agrippa put his skills in the occult arts to use to keep from having to recant his writings? Why didn’t Crowley just manifest the cash to go to Cairo if he was that worried about it?

    Was it a lack of faith in their magic? Was it that they, like so many magicians today, believed that magic is interesting and neat, but when the rubber meets the road, you have to deal with life from the mundane? I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me.

    I understand that things won’t always work out the way you expect, and that’s fine, but one thing I’ve learned in this Great Work is that I am in control of what I experience in life. There is nothing beyond my ability to research, conjure, and influence. Sometimes the influence will be on my own expectations, changing what I want as I learn why things are the way they are. But there’s nothing my Daimon and I can’t handle, manipulate, and shape into what ought to be.

    So let’s all kick it up a notch or two. No whining, no fear. Let honest curiosity and righteous indignation fuel our endeavors. If money is a problem, conjure cash and multiple streams of income. If health is a problem, conjure healing and aid. If something is broken, fix it. If you don’t know how to fix it, find out how to fix it. You’re one meditation away from the brightest intelligences in the universe, literally.

    And trust the things you’re studying and learning in the occult. It really is real. And there’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ll be just fine.

  • Vouchsafing

    I mentioned the Doing Magick blog my friend started in a previous post. In Paradigm Formations, he mentions the following:

    So I spoke to one of the more famous goetic magicians around, Lon DuQuette. He gave me advice that both fit into my normal mode of working and blew me away. He said the trick to dealing with Goetic spirits involves worship. Not of them but of the ultimate — his term, the Goddess. He said that act is basically one of giving the goddess energy so She can raise you up. Inversely, the relationship with a demon should be accepting or ‘vouchsafing’ its energy so you can raise it up. By vouchsafing, I took his meaning to be that the energy so given, must be used is accordance with the cosmic flow in order to achieve full effect.

    The way DuQuette uses “Vouchsafing” is what I wanted to talk about. In my recent posts about the Hierophant, this is the idea I was trying to get at. The Hierophant is vouchsafing the “energy” of those he’s teaching or guiding. I don’t think of myself as a teacher, although guide might be closer to what I imagine myself doing with these public discussions of magick.

    The trouble I found myself in came, it seems, not only from the “student” performing a Bune rite, but also because I wasn’t performing any of the vouchsafing duties that come along with the role of Hierophant.

    I don’t entirely agree with Fr. BH’s interpretation of vouchsafing. I don’t think it’s how you use the energy, I think it’s more about getting the energy that’s been vouchsafed to you where it needs to belong. At least as it pertains to this Hierophant thing I’ve got going on.

    I see it as scarves or banners that go where they’re supposed to as you rise through the spheres. Sort of the collection plate you’ve passed in church. You’ve been vouchsafed the money because you’re representing the church, but you drop all the cash (well, most of it) in the total collection that goes to the back office where it’s made ready to deposit. You’ve been entrusted with something, and you’ve got the spiritual responsibility to see that you’re taking care of what you’ve been given.

    Someday I’ll write a book about teaching, and base it on the Hierophant. Pay no attention to the fact that the only real classes I’ve ever taught were 4th-grade Sunday School, and I had a book to teach from.

  • Daimon vs. HGA

    Recent conversations about the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) have reinforced my belief that the term “HGA” has too much misinformation applied to it to be used in public conversations.

    Most people think that having Knowledge and Conversation with the HGA (K&CHGA) is the end-all be-all goal of the Great Work, which it isn’t. They equate it with Eastern Mysticism’s enlightenment, which it isn’t. They think it makes them an Ipsimus, which it can, but it takes a while, it’s not an instant transformation.

    The “HGA” is a resource. It’s a helper spirit. It grants authority over most spirits (I haven’t found any that it doesn’t grant authority over). It tells you information. It can tell you what possible outcomes for a situation are. It can tell you what you should be studying. It WILL tell you how many times it saved your ass. It can also grant you other helper spirits. It protects from magickal attack by warning you, and actually shielding you to a large extent, if you ask it to. It guides you through the Planetary spheres. It tells you the truth.

    These traits were better understood in my opinion as the traits of the Daimon of the Greek culture. The Daimon was a personal spirit, and it was said that Socrates’ Daimon spoke with him all his life, and could be seen and spoken with by others. Almost like the mythical Don Juan of Castaneda’s creation, except it never told Socrates what to do.

    So going forward, I’m going to try to not use “HGA” when I reference this wonderful helper spirit. I’m going to try to stick with Daimon, but the term “Genius” can also be applied. If too many poeple start equating Daimon with either the Evil Daimon from Pymander or “demons” from Christian pop-culture, I’ll switch to Genius. The point of public communication like this is to be undertood by as many folks as possible.

  • No One Understands Me…

    Ok, well, I shouldn’t say “no one” understands me. The fact is that most folks seem content, at least, with the things I do, and seem to grasp that these posts I make here and on message boards are the records, thoughts, observations, and witticisms that come from my personal efforts to accomplish the Great Work.

    There are some folks who don’t get it though, and I’m not so enlightened that I can just accept that some people won’t get it. I’ve got this overwhelming urge to explain myself to my detractors in the naive hope that they will understand what’s going on at Rufus Opus.

    Why do I focus on Wealth and Prosperity primarily in my posts? Mainly because that’s something everyone I know can use help with, or could have used some help with at one point in their lives. I try to demonstrate that it’s not hard to make a talisman for great wealth and riches. I try to get people to do magick that serves them personally. I’m laying out bait, as it were, to get people doing magick.

    When you do any ritual that involves conjuring the angels or archangels of the higher realms, they have an effect on the magician. Each interaction with a higher power results in that higher power rubbing off on the magician a little bit, getting them closer to accomplishing the Great Work. Every conjuration of a spirit transmutes the magician’s primal material just a little bit, refining it, making them a better person, making them more magickally aware, more accomplished, and better-balanced.

    I could focus on all the philosophical implications of magick, and tell people how to do theurgical rites alone, but most folks will read it, think it’s a good idea, and then do nothing else. I know, I was there for years. But when I started doing the real stuff, I started growing spiritually as a side effect. The truths of the platonists and neoplatonists revealed themselves to me. I gained insight into the workings of the universe. I conquered character flaws, became more generous, and all the things that a spiritual person ought to experience.

    So that’s why I teach people the basics of material-manipulation on this blog. That’s why I sell the Angel Conjuration Kits that appeal to the basic needs and desires of humanity. If someone buys the Love Angel conjuration Kit and does the Work to get themselves their soul mate, then they will be hobnobbing with the Archangel of Venus, who will naturally attune their spheres, cleansing out their own problems and burn off the things that hinder them in the process.

    I didn’t think I needed to tell the more advanced adepts that this is why I do things, but a couple of people who should know better seem to think I’m in this for the money and that I think magick is all a scam, a way to pull a fast one.

    It is, in a way, a shortcut to everything you could possibly desire. But at the same time, you will undergo the four stages of the Alchemical Great Work. You can’t have mastery of the universe without the transmutation of the soul. It’s nice how that works.

    So for all of you who have thought that my magickal techniques were just for money, you’re wrong. I just don’t talk much about the spiritual aspects of the Work because really, you’ll need to experience them and interpret them within the context of your own life. The techniques I provide are a catalyst for the Great Work.

    That should sum it up. If anyone still thinks I’m in it for the money… well, let’s just say I’m not getting rich off anything I do online. I cover my expenses for the web site, and make a little more on the side, about enough for a dinner at Bob Evans once or twice a month for me and my family.

  • The Same and Different

    If you’ve become spiritually and or magically aware enough to have had the passing thought that, yes, that motherfucker who just cut you off in traffic, that lazy bitch at the MVA, and even that oh-so-irritating n00b magician on the Great Work list is in real reality some manifestation of yourself because God is All in All, or It’s all One, or All that is is Light, Light in Extension, then you know that everything is the same.

    One God, One Monad, but at the exact same time, in the exact same space, it’s also multiple emanations manifesting as different individual, unique combinations of the elements, planetary and astrological influences. Proportionally, things manifest differently. there’s no thing in this world that is separate from any other thing, it’s true, but don’t forget, things are different at the same time. Unique. Like the old saying goes, you can never cross the same river twice. You’re different, or the water’s different. Not the same.

    Things are different for a reason. The Monad emanated on purpose. It wasn’t some cosmic acident. Everything between hell and heaven has a divine purpose, an assigned trait, a role and a responsibility that it must fulfill. When I hear modern magical mofos going on about how it’s all One, or how the HGA is the Atman, or that Krishna is Christ, or that Ashtaroth the Daimon is Asherah the Goddess, I want to rip their faces off. They obviously don’t appreciate having a unique face through which to interact with the rest of existence after all.

    Look, yeah, every god, goddess, daimon, angel, spirit, man, woman, child, rock, tree, and shrubbery is an extension of the same God. But it’s extended itself in its own way for a reason. Things are the same in higher levels, but those levels are so much higher that we can’t access them, not from where we are, and not without giving up that which makes us uniquely us.

    So the next time someone tells you that the HGA is the higher self, do me a favor and give them a good solid bitchslap. Tell them it’s from me. After all, we’re all extensions of God, right? So obviously, that makes you and everyone else… Me.

    All your base are belong to us.

  • Note to self…

    Well, I just finished watching the Grudge 2.

    Remind me never to take the evil spirits from people and feed them to my daughter, ok?

    It always turns out bad in the end.

  • Really Interesting Blog

    For those who are interested in some really neat magickal stuff that is straight from the heart of Agrippa’s teacher Trithemius, or at least looks like it, check out this blog:

    http://blog.abrahadabramelin.org/?p=86

    Dude did an incredible job. I understand little of what I’m seeing so far, but I have a good feeling about this one.

    -R.O.

  • “Raising Energy”

    In the Neo-Platonic tradition, in the grimoires that comprise it, in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus that frame it, and in the writings of Agrippa that provide the most comprehensive resource of the modern occult, there are mentions of demons, maleficent spirits that cause trouble. I would personally rather believe that all spirits are basically neutral, and they don’t have any ill will in and of themselves towards humanity. Unfortunately, the Neo-Platonic writings (and my experience) fail to support this belief.

    Going back thousands of years, mankind has known that there are spirits that are out to make life miserable for humans. It’s in the Bible, the Hesiod, and in the African Traditional Religions. From the steppes of Siberia to the Amazon rain forest, shamans deal with evil spirits every day. Modern cultures have lots of rational ways to explain away the existence of demons, from anti-Christian rhetoric that says the Church is to blame for misrepresenting gods of other cultures (which is true, to a degree), to psychological models that say they’re all in our heads (which is also true, from the perspective implied by the notariqon ARARITA). Regardless of the veracity of these explanations, the pragmatic truth is that if you are doing magick regularly, you will run into spirits that will behave as if they are Demons.

    2.6.1 The Role of Demons

    Fortunately, we have the benefit of thousands of years of occult research on our side. We know from sources like the Bible and the Divine Pymander that the evil spirits are under the authority of God. If you’re into paganism, you’ll find in the story of Pandora’s box that evil spirits contained in a divine spirit pot were sent to plague mankind by Zeus after Prometheus gave us fire. They’re serving god. In the Divine Pymander, Pymander tells Hermes that the Evil Daimon is sent to the impious to drive man further away from the Logos by filling the senses with desire for more sensations than can ever be appeased. In the Bible, evil spirits are sent to set up kings to fall, to reveal the glory of God.

    They are sent by God into the world to wreak havoc in the lives of those who are ignorant of God. Their primary victims are those who have grown ignorant of their Race and Value in God and instead of seeking their Source, people who seek satisfaction in the things of the material world. Demons serve as tempters, bringers of illness, and they serve to create situations that result in spiritual advancement. They perform evil acts, but they do them to draw people closer to God.

    2.6.2 How Demonic Influence Manifests

    In your life, you’re going through all kinds stress that I can’t begin to know about. Job insecurity, financial woes, emotional problems, and sickness plague us all. Most of the people reading this blog have it pretty good compared to poorest of the poor on the planet, but that doesn’t make the problems we face any easier to bear in the moment.

    I don’t believe every bad thing that happens is the result of a demon, but they do happen to be present every time bad things happen. I’m sure it’s a coincidence, really. They could just be attracted to bad things… sure… that could be it…

    Alright, I really do think all bad things that happen are the result of demonic activity. I’m a Christian, for Christ’s sake. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, principalities, and wickedness in high places.” It’s the simple truth.

    They set the stage for pain and suffering, they sit at the edges of our sphere whispering thoughts that sound a lot like our own, speaking fear and doubt and anger and anguish and despair into our minds. They entice our senses with lights and shining things. They use the people at work like pawns to challenge us, to bring us to the brink of catastrophe. They influence kings, presidents, princes, senators, congressmen and women, people in power across the lands of the earth to create a realm that will drive those with an understanding of their race and value closer and closer to the Logos within.

    Pretty nasty, really. And as annoying as hell.

    2.6.3 How to Deal with the Bastards

    Demons are under God’s authority. God’s within. We deal with spirits in every ritual. We have the names of the demonic princes from Agrippa’s Book 2, chapter 7. We know how to make talismans and spirit pots. They can only do what they’re allowed to, and God sets the boundaries.

    The fastest way to lessen the effects of the evil spirits is to put the Demonic Kings in spirit pots and bind them with melted lead sealed with the Names of the four Elemental Kings. I’ve got a makeshift version of this on my altar at the moment. It hasn’t completely eliminated bad things from happening, but it sure has cut down on the extremes of my emotional reactions to bad things when they come. That in itself robs the demons of their powers over us and our lives.

  • Ceremonial Redneck

    I just looked over at my altar, and it seems that some GENIUS ( … er, no, not the spirit kind, the really sarcastically human kind) needed to light a candle to Bune a month or so ago, and he didn’t have a candle holder. What did he use to put the candle in? His empty chewing tobacco can, of course!

    Sometimes I worry about myself.

    At least my Camaro is Cthulhu-green.

  • Enochians

    Fr. AIT over at Heavens Within Earth recently posted the question, Is Enochian Theurgic? I’m interested in whatever follow-up he may have to post about it.

    In the Corpus Hermeticum, when Man came to Earth, seven Governors were made in the image of the seven celestial Intelligences. Eventually they became the Urges in later gnostic interpreatations, but originally they weren’t considered evil by any means.

    Sometimes I think the seven Terrestrial Governors and their legions are the Spirits of the Lemegeton’s Goetia. Other times, I think they’re the Seven Winds that make an appearance in the Picatrix.

    Right now, I suspect they’re the seven “Angels” on the SDA. I think it would explain the elemental attributes of the Enochian spirits, as well as the whole “I’m the savior of the WORLD” trip that the Enochians seem to pull on people, or at least, that people seem to pull on themselves after Working the EE’s for a while.

    I was just talking about this to a friend and student from the course earlier this week, and lo and behold Fr. AIT posts his corroborative hunches. I’m sure it’s all a coincidence.

    In my limited experiences with them, I felt like they were terrestrial spirits, akin to the Goetia spirits I’ve worked with previously. I think it’s odd that they express the kind of jealousy over the Goetia that they showed Kelley. It reminds me of stories of the Ghede and the Loa and other packs of spirits.