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.

  • 4-11-06

    Introduction

    Welcome to the Head for the Red blog. The title comes from the four stages of the Alchemical Great Work, Black, White, Citrine and Red. In the Red Work, the final stage is reached, and the base elements are transformed into the Philosopher’s Stone.

    That’s my goal, to reach the Red Work, and this blog is going to record my thoughts, ideas, and experiences along the way. I hope to play the Hierophant here, or at least to record the wanderings of one Hermit and his experiences. I figure I’m still at the Black stage, and I’ve got quite a ways to go before I get to Red, if I ever do, but I have no qualms in striving.

    Fr. R. O.

  • Meditation on a Spark

    I was thinking about rising through the Spheres of the Planets tonight, and the image of a spark came to mind.

    You know, bonfires, they shoot out sparks. The sparks rise up high into heavens before they burn out. A little tiny ash floats back down to the earth. Every bit of it that could burn is consumed.

    So we’ve got seven planetary heavens, right? And under the lowest, the Lunar sphere, hanging off the lowest edge of heaven is the Elemental sphere of Fire, the highest and purest form of matter. Below that is Air, and below that Water. At the bottom is good old solid Earth, the most material of material realms.

    And here’s this spark. It’s sunshine and minerals from the earth consumed in the release of all that energy it absorbed while it was alive. As it goes through its final transformation, it shoots up through the aethers aiming for heaven, using the heat of its own combustion to get higher, and leaving behind a husk of itself to drift back down to earth, empty of all the power and effort that went into creating it in the first place.

    So, neat stuff. I don’t like ham handed mataphors, but I do seem to have a habit of using them myself.

  • 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.

  • How to be an Uber-cool Magician and Never Pay Taxes Again

    Ha! Yeah right.

    Anyway, here are some random thoughts about why I haven’t experienced the same level of creeping chaos in my life as I’ve been working with Goetic spirits.

    Generally, I think, people who have the creeping chaos had the seeds for it already there in their lives before beginning their Goetic Work.

    Most magical traditions in the West have a methodology of identifying the parts of the self that are out of harmony with the rest of the universe and bringing them into harmony. In the Golden Dawn, for instance, this can take the form of initiations. In Alchemy, there is the Black stage where the impurities of the base ingredients are brought to the surface, the White stage where the impurities are burned to ash, and the Red stage, when the essence of the original ingredients is purified and transformed into the Philosopher’s Stone.

    This purification process is essential, in my opinion. It happens as you do the Work. When you begin the Work, you’re supposed to start where you’re at, and then ascend through the heavens to your Source, and then return to the earth in great power. That’s the methodology laid out in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. The human being descends from the heavens through the elements into the flesh of the Earth. Through theurgical rituals, we ascend through the spheres of the heavens. As we do, the impurities get burned away, and when we return to the earth, we do so in power, and from this process the universe is continuously created.

    I didn’t jump ahead in the process. I started with making contact with my HGA. Based on the translation of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin by Mathers, I thought that after I had made contact with my HGA I was required to conjure the Four Kings of Hell, and all their servants, and get four familiars. Since that translation didn’t have all the seals of the demons you’re supposed to work with, I thought I would substitute the Goetia, as it’s more complete. Or so I thought at the time.

    Since my HGA was the only spirit I’d ever conjured, I figured I’d get my feet wet by Working with the Archangels of the Sephiroth. I looked for a quick and easy conjuration method, and found Trithemius’ Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals. This technique is pretty straightforward and readily adaptable. It also only focuses on the seven Planetary Archangels. I was learning more about neoplatonism at the time, and this fit my personal understanding of the universal cosmology and spiritual hierarchies anyway, so I went with it.

    As I conjured each of the Archangels, I asked them to “purify the tincture of my sphere.” I went through various issues as a result (although honestly, it wasn’t that hard to deal with). I also built up my own sphere by interacting with these beings over a period of about a year. By the time I got back to the Goetic entities, I had already performed the ascension part. I knew where I belonged in the cosmic hierarchy, understood my race and value from an eternal perspective, and was ready to assume my role as the administrator of my physically manifest realm. There was no room for the Goetic spirit to cause chaos. There was no reason for it to, either.

  • Helping Others in the Great Work

    I hope this blog has helped others in their pursuit of the Great Work. I’ve sold a couple books here and there, done some attunements on people, and have provided a lot of the information that has helped me. I hope reading it was as fun as learning about it.

    But this post isn’t about helping people like that. This post is about helping people along in their Work because you can’t stand how they behave.

    Surely you know the types. You love them, they’re sweet, but there’s just something about them that you can’t stand, and it keeps you from being able to enjoy the fullness of your relationship. You see their character flaws clearly, and so does everyone else, but there’s no way that they ever acknowledge that you’re right in your assessment of their behavior.

    Fortunately, you’ve done the ritual Work required to attain Adepthood, and you’ve been through the wringer yourself so many times with dealing with similar issues that you know exactly which spheres trigger the results you want to see in the other person’s sphere.

    I don’t know how ethical this is, by the way. It’s magick for the Great Work, and it might just backfire on you (or me) when you (or I) try to do it. Time will tell, though, time will tell.

    Say someone is, oh, I don’t know, hardhearted, jealous, and prideful, and because of this, they can’t seem to see you for who you really are. What do you do?

    Well, the Sun is the Sphere of revelation, and enlightenment, and that always leads to compassion. When you can’t seem to get someone to see your point, a solar working makes sense.

    Michael the Archangel of the Sun is who I’m planning on conjuring. This Archangel is good for almost everything, from wealth to exorcisms to initiations. It’s hard to beat Michael in terms of being there for you when you need him.

    Ok, so you’ve got the Spirit, go to the Magical Calendar and get the seal for Michael. (I believe the Magical Calendar places Michael in Mercury and Raphael in the Sun, but that’s not "right" for me. You still use the seal of Michael, and disregard the placement in the Magical Calendar.) Next you create a little shrine to Michael. A statue of Michael slaying the Dragon would be great for this, but I’m buying a house, and can’t afford to purchase statuary at the moment, so I’m going to make a lamen with his name and seal in it. Around the outside, I’ll write the Name of God that corresponds to the Sun (Eloah va-Da’at) and the symbol of the Sun (circle with a dot in the middle). I’ll include the names of the angels associated with the Sun (Melakim) and the name of the Sphere in the KBL (Tiphareth) Then I’ll include the Planetary Sigil from the Magical Calendar.

    In the center of the circle of the names and symbols, I’ll draw a Star of David, and in the center of that the Name Michael in English with his Seal below that. Above the Star of David I’ll write out his name (MKAL) in Celestial script, and around the Star of David I’ll draw four pentagrams, with the names of the Four Elemental Kings inside (Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel Clockwise, beginning in the East). I’ll draw all this out in gold ink from an 18 carrot gold leaf pen on a Sunday in the Hour of the Sun. I’ll mount the lamen on an ease-type thing I make out of dowel rods or something, so that the Lamen is mostly vertical. I could put it on a mantle or create a shelf on the wall for it too. Then I’ll place a picture of the people I’m wnating to change in front of the lamen, with the changes I want to see written on the picture in gold ink, like "compassion, enlightenment, caring." Then I’ll conjure Michael in his appropriate hour, and ask for him to do what I desire. Assuming he complies, I’ll then light gold or white candles in front of the shrine, and burn Frankincense sticks until the change is complete.

    I’m pretty sure there’s no harm in this kind of magick, but you never know what kind of gross stuff comes out of a person when they begin to integrate the energies of the Sun into their sphere, eh?

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The Weirdest Bune

    Ok, now I’ve been posting my Bune rites and rituals here along with results for over a year. Spirit pot, sigils, copper medallions, Jupiter-Sagittarius-OK-only-Venus, blah blah blah. From wealth to exorcisms, I’ve talked about the things this spirit can do and has done in my life on this blog.

    But this one takes the cake. It’s totally beyond anything I’ve experienced with Bune, and if anyone told me the following anecdote and the role Bune played in it, I’d tell them that based on my experience to date with Bune (up until yesterday), they were frankly completely full of shit. Just goes to show there’s always another wrinkle up the sleeve.

    Ok, so I’ve been sick. Really sick. For a few weeks. Bad. Fever, coughing, all the flu symptoms, the common cold symptoms, and sinusitis symptoms you can imagine. A sore throat, multi-hued phlegm, and my coughing muscles were literally sore from the non-stop coughing that had been going on. The doctors told me it was a virus, and that they couldn’t do anything but treat the symptoms. I got a $200+ bill for an inhaler (I’m not asthmatic), some prednisone, and a tiny little bottle of cough syrup that had morphine in it. Knocked me on my ass last weekend, from Friday afternoon when I got it until Monday morning when I had to quit taking it to be able to work. All I did was sleep and sweat and hallucinate from the fever. And cough.

    Ok, enough background. I was really sick. I was complaining to a friend in email who unfortunately asked how I was doing. I told them in such detail that they couldn’t finish their banana bread. I mentioned I was going to do a divination to see if someone was spiritually attacking me or if there were some crossed condition, as soon as I felt up to it.

    Whipping out their favorite oracle, a flippin‘ coin (get it, flippin‘!?) , they performed a quick divination and sent me the results. They said that a student had performed some healing rite using the techniques I’d taught them, but they had used a Bune spirit for some ignorant fucking reason. As a result of some stupid spiritual connection to me(!), their stupid failed rite ended up with me getting into a crossed condition, and that I could appeal to “my” Bune spirit in my spirit pot and get it to set things right.

    Ok, that sounded like horse shit to me. I don’t believe in that kind of backlash on teachers, first of all. Second, I’m no one’s fucking teacher. I had a guy I was teaching Samekh to, and my particular brand of Christian Magick, but he just sort of vanished in an electronic poof after doing Samekh for a few weeks. And I never had him doing anything with Bune, that I can remember, and I’m sure he’s bright enough not to try to use a WEALTH and EXORCISM spirit of the UNDERWORLD to do a stupid ass HEALING ritual.

    So if it wasn’t him, chances are it was the one complete fucking MORON that reads my work online (the rest of you are, of course, geniuses). MORON, however, was thinking about ME during their fucking ritual with BUNE and ended up fucking up my life.

    Look, I shouldn’t have to say this, but when you’re doing a ritual, THINK ABOUT THE RITUAL YOU’RE DOING!!! Not me, or whoever mentioned the techniques you’re using. If you do any magick based on something you read here, motherfucking don’t do it while thinking about me. All you need to be thinking about is your ritual, listening for the voice of the spirit, and maybe contemplating your role in the cosmic hierarchy in the midst of the Heavens emanating from the Source. Got it? Good.

    Ok, so like I said, horse shit. On a whim, I quick checked with my HGA, and got the go-ahead to do a divination on it. I whipped out my mini-Rider-Waite deck and shuffled and asked a specific question. Shockingly to me, it totally confirmed what my friend had said. I thought, no way, this isn’t how Bune works!

    But I don’t ignore friends, divinations, and my HGA all at the same time. Most days. The tarot spread had filled in some gaps from the coin-flip divination, and I followed the advice that got me past the particular feedback I was getting on the spiritual wire. Then I went straight to my Bune spirit pot and spoke to Bune directly about the situation, got confirmation again from him that he would fix it, lit five candles as an offering in front of the Spirit Pot, and went to bed, still not entirely convinced.

    And then I woke up this morning feeling a million times better. Lungs are still hurt, and I’m a little weak. Mildly dehydrated, but man, I felt good for the first time in literally weeks.

    So there you have it. You go on your way now and think about it, because that’s certainly something I’m going to be doing.

    In closing, if you learn any magick from me, you just remember I learned it for free on the internet, and from some spirits, and it’s got nothing to do with me except that I happened to write it down and post it here or something.

    DON’T THINK IT HAS SHIT TO DO WITH ME, IT DOESN’T!!!!

    It’s all about you, and God. Leave me out of it. Or I’ll kick your ass. I’ll curse the living SHIT out of you if you use my techniques and fuck things up in my life, even if you do it accidentally. Capiche?

    Good night, and Good Magick.