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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Bela Bartok: Tapping into the Power of the Early 20th Century

    This morning, on my way to stinking work, I had the good fortune to hear a story on NPR about Bela Bartok. He was a Modernist composer who wrote some lovely dark-themed music based on the cultures of Eastern Europe, and it totally reflects the post-industrial Modernist influence of the late early 20th century.

    Who cares? Magicians care. We have to. So many of our modern occult influences condensed in the Modernist period. Crowley, Mathers, Fortune, and even the Chronicler Regardie were products of the illuminated age brought about by the wealth of the industrial revolution and the excesses of colonialism. The culture of their time influenced their writings, and to understand their legacy, we need to be able to tap into the gestalt of their period. It provides a frame of reference from which we can understand why they said things the way they did.

    Bela Bartok captures in his music the dark side of the struggles of the post industrial age. Society had changed, and people were glorifying things that they took for granted twenty years earlier. People were adapting to the automated production of basic goods and services, they were adopting the most efficient methods to achieve their goals. Increased wealth and leisure created a culture of opulence for many, but at the same time revealed in stark contrast the darkness of the soul. Man’s eternal struggle with himself entered a new stage of understanding.

    The industrial revolution hit the realm of the occult, and a new system of initiation emerged. The Golden Dawn took your average Anglo and fed them the pablum of the esoteric in the early degrees, progressively building up the framework of the system until the finished product could be taken off the assembly line and put into the Inner Order. Like the rest of society, the members of the occult had to adapt to the industrialization of their processes. The writings of Crowley take on a new meaning when you can see behind his words both the glorification of traditional craftsmanship and the child-like wonder of the shiny new method to produce attainment. His cynicism becomes warm and friendly when placed in the context of his day.

    To get a feeling for what I’m talking about, try listening to some of Bartok’s music. NPR has some available here:

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14416746

    While you’re listening to this music, read some of the poetry that reflects the Modernist literary current. The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot is incredibly good to read while listening to Bartok, in my humble opinion. It can be found online here:

    http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html

    After you’ve read The Wasteland while listening to the profound music of Bela Bartok, go back and re-read Crowley’s Notes section on Liber Samekh. It explains a great deal of what was going on in the background that influenced the publication of this work.

    http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib800.html

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • 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?

  • What Happened to Evil?

    In  recent conversation at Spiritus Mundi, during a conversation about Mercury going retrograde June 15th, the subject of good and evil in modern context came up. Chris Warnock pointed out that Mercury Retrograde has become a major catastrophe in modern astrology, and its influence, while still being negative, has been blown way out of proportion. He believes this is because modern astrologers have set about removing anything evil or negative from astrology in general, and have basically sugar-coated every malefic force in astrological readings, turning everything fluffy and light. Mercury retro is hard to make look pretty, so it’s sort of picked up all the negative baggage of everything malefic, making it look much worse than it really is.

    This series of posts got me thinking about evil in general in the modern age. Everywhere I can think of, the things that were seen to be evil in the past has been presented and turned into opportunities for growth in the present. Demons aren’t demons serving Satan, they’re gods from pagan pantheons that got a bad rap under Christianity. Gods of the underworld aren’t evil, they’re benevolent. Death isn’t evil, it’s an opportunity for change and metamorphosis. Every negative manifestation in our lives that would have been understood as an evil influence in the dark ages has been turned into an opportunity for growth. Everybody’s looking on the bright side of things, no matter how calamitous.

    I may or may not have ranted on the existence of evil here on my blog before, I don’t remember. It really gets on my nerves when people refuse to acknowledge evil.

    But I’ve been thinking. How bad is it that people don’t see evil as evil anymore? How wrong is it to approach evil things as challenges instead of something to avoid at all costs? The result of our approach to evil changing is that we deal with it, seek solutions to problems instead of just saying "That’s just evil," and walking away. We face the sources of evil more often now. We aren’t afraid of evil the way we used to be, and that’s a good thing. The Super Heroes of old would protect the helpless from the villains. Today we’re all Heroes on the sacred quest, thanks to Joe Campbell and George Lucas.

    I still think relativistic ethical stances, moral ambiguity, and saying "There’s no such thing as evil!" is stupid and dangerous. Evil does definitely exist.

    But I’m glad we’re working on getting rid of the pesky thing now.