I work from home these days, and I tend to take it for granted that I can just print off a picture of Hermes, light a candle and incense, say a prayer, and have instant magics on demand. I have to remind myself that everyone doesn’t live exactly like I do sometimes.

There will be no bonuses again this quarter due to poor performance. YOUR poor performance.

But things haven’t ever been thus! I too was stuck in a cube farm*. Most of the buildings I’ve worked in as cube-cattle have been pretty depressing places. If a place has cube farms, you can bet that even the middle management knows its getting screwed; there’s an air of quiet desperation that you can taste.

The astral miasma of places like that is pretty awful, and going into a place like that every day can get super depressing, super fast.

Fortunately, we’re magicians and we can do stuff about that kind of thing. A few well-placed sigils of Michael the Archangel of the Sun in corners, under desks, in cabinets, etc. can do wonders. I used yellow sticky notes, and simply sketched the seals out during the closest solar hour. Ideally you’d make them at home on a Sunday at dawn with the Sun in a Fire Sign, and your natal chart completely unafflicted, using the blood of a goat specifically killed by a flaming pheonix that just happened to be an Aries…

But life’s not always ideal. Sketch the seals in a Solar hour, and you’re good. Sketch them in a non-solar hour, and you’re still in a better position than if you hadn’t. When it comes to doing magic, there will always be a reason you don’t do it right now. Sometimes I wait, but mostly I recommend you do the magic now, and if there’s a better time for it, do it again then to reinforce the rite. Because you never know whether or not something else will come up later.

You’ll find your cube isn’t quite the downer it used to be pretty quickly. I found my cube became a depressurization zone for other people too, which I nipped in the bud ASAP. I had just cleansed my cube, I didn’t need them bringing their shit back in. Plus I had work to do.

So, you can just write the name Michael, and draw his seal under it (the part inside the hexagram), or you can get all CRAZY and draw out the whole lamen shown below. I recommend making at least one and putting it under your desk, but also a few more to place around the walls in inconspicuous places. When they are positioned, say a quick prayer to Michael, thus:

“Michael, thou Archangel of the Sun! Come now, come in Power, by your Name and your Seal, I call upon the forces of the Sun to cleanse this place! Consume utterly all darkness and drive off every unclean, parasitic, or plaguing spirit; sanctify and make sacred this ground, that it be a holy place wherein I can work in peace, FFS, Amen.”

Feel free to change that last part, or any of it, to suit your own style.

* For those who don’t know, a cubicle is a fabric-coated metal-framed pen that you keep domesticated office workers in; a cube farm is an otherwise large open space that has had rows of these cubes inserted with workstation hookups for computers and laptops. The fabric comes in two colors, suck-your-will-to-live beige, or crush-your-individuality-and-conform gray. I don’t know where they find these hues, but they. always. do.

We want what we want harder than most people. We value our desires in ways that others don’t. We look at all the “you can’t do that” comments in life, and we’re like, “who says? I do what I want.” It’s what drives us to accomplish the Great Work, to become a Power upon the Earth in this life and beyond, because we are driven to create the world as we see fit. That drive, that urge that compels us to become empowered magicians to clearly express our wills upon the Earth… that is what sets us apart from everyone else. We are arrogant enough to think we should be more godlike… because (really, underneath it all) we know full well that we could do better.

Because we are better, I’m sure you’ll agree.

As a result though, we magicians tend to have large opinions, for very good reasons. It should be no surprise that someone who is putting themselves through the rigorous and often painful process of the Great Work – refining the self, releasing the powers of creation, attaining the wisdom to use it well – is going to be pretty sure about themselves. The traits that make us good at this kind of thing are amazing powers of self confidence, and full awareness of our basic god-like natures.

A group of powerful egomaniacs with really healthy levels of self-esteem are likely to behave a lot like we really do in real life. Take offense, give hexes. Fortunately, most of it is harmless, because the kind of people who take offense and curse others are usually interacting with folks at about or slightly less than their own levels of attainment. So they curse each other with the same levels of technology, with the same levels of initiatory force, and end up basically sending the kind of shit that the other people are already capable of deflectinvg and banishing with their own levels of attainment.

I think this shit happens most at the adolescent stage of the development of the magician. After you’ve got some power and some wisdom, but before you’ve come to really integrate the fullness of the spheres you’re working with. Around the time when you have discovered you can change the world so fucking easily, but you haven’t been doing it for long enough to understand how the long term consequences will unravel your best intentions. It seems to be the people who’ve been doing this magic shit for about a decade or so, with some years as an armchair mage, some years as a dabbler, and then a couple years studying grimoires and a few months to a couple of years worth of actually conjuring spirits and getting results.

But when you get through the Seven Spheres a few times and start scratching at the Eighth sphere, you grow past this phase. You realize other magicians have other things to do, that we’re all doing our thing, and that we are most powerful ruling our own world, and how futile it is to fuck with anyone else.

That’s why Jason and I disagree about things and never hate each other or curse each other. We both have reached the phase where we appreciate the differences of other magicians’ opinions, and we’ve realized that once someone has K&CHGA you can’t really curse them anyway. At least not with any decent, ego-appeasing effect. We save our hexery for those moments when it will be effective, and enjoyable. We don’t waste time on bullshit.

Unless we want to. Then we get all evil.

I recently heard about some bullshit in my sphere. A couple mage friends a couple degrees removed from me and my Elite Group of Super Advanced Magi Who Are at Least Out of Our Adolesence(TM) are going through shit. Because they’re angry. And hurt. So they’re going to throw curses.

I advocate a Thunderdome experience for folks like that. Two magi enter, two bruised and slightly embarrased, but wiser magi leave. I think it’s healthy, the whole “as brothers, fight” thing.

But honestly, it’s childish.

Fuckin’ kids.

This magic stuff has gone to my head. I can tell. I really believe this stuff, and it seems to work. It’s not my fault.

“World creation is friggin’ complicated. In Crowley’s Thelema, we learn the magick number is always 11. That’s seven planetary spheres and four elemental ones. Every magical act that we perform takes the intricate layering of the seven planetary forces around an idea before turning it over to the elemental forces to make the Idea manifest materially where we can experience it.

Think of the possibilities! Think of how many different things we can create! Think of all the steps in the process! Imagine how many ways there are to screw up! Now remember how piecemeal the grimoires are, and the likelihood of finding anyone who understands this well enough to pass on more than warning stories and really crude techniques!

Sure would be cool if we had an awesome teacher, eh? Someone who could introduce us to the spirits we need to meet to learn how to materialize our desires… someone who could train us, teach us, help us, someone who loved us, and was intimately invested in our personal ascension… Someone to protect us from our own ignorance, who would provide the wisdom we needed when we needed it to help our struggle to become creator gods pass without so much gods-damned drama… Someone like the Holy Guardian Angel!” 

Hey everyone, I am no longer offering the Hermetic Diagnosis service. It takes too long, and most of you already know what they’re going to say, honestly. You rock, and you should do more magic. That shit that’s bothering you will go away as soon as you change the things that caused it and maintain it. Do more magic. Make the small changes that are easy and see if they help, if not make the larger ones. Leave the person who makes you feel bad about yourself. Ask the person you like out on a date. Do more magic. You’re probably right about what you want, and if not you’ll figure it out faster trying to get it than you will wondering if you should try or not.

And do more magic.

There you go, all wraped up in a nutshell.

Defense.

(See: Mars)

As she mentions in her latest blog post (Shabbatai!), Harper and I performed a Saturn rite this weekend. It went really well, and she outlines the steps we went through for the conjuration, so I’ll try not to repeat too much.

My experiences were very much in keeping with hers. I saw an old man’s face in the crystal when we conjured Tzaphqiel, and he just sat there staring at us. There wasn’t a lot of interaction, the way there usually is. Harper is often filled with the Spirits we summon, and the conjurations can get really intense. Having a standy-offey spirit was sort of weird in comparison to our usual experiences.

I should note that we conjured Tzaphqiel instead of Cassiel. I’ve been working with the names of the aRchangels from the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals for a few months, because I liked them. I wanted to switch to Tzaphqiel because I’ve been … ahem, I’ve been studying KBL and doing Golden Dawn derived rites lately. It’s been pretty cool, all things considered, but that’s another post.

Anyway, we went for Tzaphqiel instead of Cassiel this time, and I thought it would be pretty much the same experience, the way Tzadqiel and Sachiel tend to be pretty much the same. It was not. Cassiel fills the room all heavy and dense. He is FATE on site when he comes. He is full and present and expectant, and he fills me with an awareness of his presence. Tzaphqiel was less intense, and a hella lot more observant. Expectant. Tight-lipped and sealed. I felt like I had to do the talking. Which was actually ok, but I didn’t understand what was up until later.

Harper did some research afterwards and found several parallels between our experiences with Tzaphqiel and those of other folks. The common theme in descriptions of this Archangel in modern literature revolves around the word “watcher,” with the emphasis being on the things Tzaphqiel observes coming down from the unmanifest to the manifest, and vice-versa. So seeing a face of a hoary old man looking at me intently makes perfect sense. I felt observed.

So I went into the statement of intent:

“Open us now to hear (+), and to receive (+) and to express (+) the accumulated wisdom of your sphere as we need it in these temporary lives. Make us fit vessels to bear the Wisdom of Jehovah Elohim, make us wise in your ways, yea make us wise in your ways.”

The (+) indicates making the sign of the cross, specifically over the wine that became a eucharistic sacrament we later consumed.

Then I saw a young face superimposed over a dead face, a lot like the Anatomy Occultus face I referenced the other day.* I saw that face obscured by scintilating glimmering web-like occlusions in the crystal, and then I saw those fade away, revealing the face again. I understood without hearing a word that what I was seeing was the means to attain that which I desired.

Saturn is the first sphere through which an Idea passes on its way to manifestation in the Hermetic cosmology. It’s also the last sphere things pass through as they return to the unmanifest as they fade from this world into the experience of the Source of all. In this sphere can be found the wisdom of all that has ever been intended, and the experience of all that has ever happened, all that ever was, all that is, and all that is to come. ALL of it. All the time. In all the times.

So that’s what I wanted to be able to tap at will. And that’s what I saw. To get there, remember that we are the was/is, the youth-in-death and death-in-youth, be in touch with that mortal-immortal selfness, remember clearly that we are immortal gods made flesh for the sake of love and the experience of our lives, recall and reclaim our essential nature, and that wisdom is ours for the taking. Just get past the glimmery glinty shit that gets in the way, tune out the bright shiney, and focus on the essential nature of ourselves-in-toto, us perfectly manifesting for the pleasure of it all.

And then we’ll simply know.

After the rite, we went to bed, and I woke up fucking freezing. Like ice. My extremities were extremely cold. feet and hands, and I couldn’t warm up, even though it was in the 60s outside, and warmer inside. Took a hot shower to get the chill driven out completely.

That passed, but I’ve been feeling the forces integrating into my sphere eer since. I dreamed of being eternal, like Doctor Who, and saw specifically how the things I spent my time on changed immediately from mundane to epic. Because when you live forever, you have time to do whatever the fuck you want. I found myself restructuring my personal time, scheduling workouts, daily practie, meditation, LRPs, LRHs, fucking journaling, and my new day-job work, and the things I can do to get to the stuff that makes me happy. Effiiency, effective spending of the currency of our times upon the Earth.

And tapping into all that, it’s really a simple thing, it’s turning the attention inward and upward, seeing past the illusion of both, and being what we are. Lifting the “veil” of all the things we get wrapped up with on a daily basis, and seeing that simple truth of who we really are underneath, and why we’re here.

And yeah, it’s something we can do, any time we want to.

Just remember who you are.

Any time you want to.

* The sales of that image have raised over $700 for Dove and Serpent Oasis in less than a week. You guys ROCK!

Today I was ever so pleased to receive a long-awaited piece from a fellow Mage and artist by the name of Chuk Vinson. He put together a print called “Anatomy Occultus: A Study of the Tree of Life” as both a magical study of the ToL and Adam Kadmon, but also as a means to raise funds for his local lodge (Dove and Serpent, Atlanta).

(Yeah, and it’s that shirt.)

Hey folks, a lot of people are interested in the Venus Talismans, and someone asked me in email if they would arrive by Valentine’s Day. The answer is yes, of course, as long as you order them far enough in advance, I can ship them overnight as long as you’re willing to pay the shipping… but that doesn’t mean you get your lover by then.

These things, like all magic, take time to work, and there are variables involved.* Most of the magic I do takes about two weeks to manifest. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but on average a couple weeks. Some people have said that’s really good, but based on recent experiences, I think there are ways to make it even more immediate, with, ahem, practice.

More on that in posts to come.

Anyway, if you’re looking for love by Valentine’s Day, sooner is a better time than later to get your talisman and start directing the, uh, ahem… ‘spirits’ to manifest your desires.

I’m enjoying making these a whole lot. Being a Taurus, I have a special relationship with my Lady and her spirits. Fridays have become the busiest talisman making day of the week lately, and I’m able to pump out about three per Venus hour now, with all the practice I’ve gotten lately. I get all pumped up on Venus energy in the process, and then hit the post office to mail the talismans out.

The results are … tangible. Although I am in a relationship that fulfills me in every way, it’s still nice to be hit on when I stop at the liquor store to pick up beer and bourbon on the way home from the post office on Friday afternoons. That kind of thing never happened to me before. I’m more the nerdy shy guy in real life than anything else, but there’s something different when you’re pumping the Venus forces into the world at large. It sort of changes you, makes you more aware of body language, poise, tones of voice. It’s like a “knowing and being known” feeling overtakes the normal reticence. Very cool.

Anyway, I still haven’t bothered with setting up the web page, so you get the same purchasing options below that you had in the last post about this stuff. Past that are the usage instructions, in text form, that I’m sending out with the talismans.

Purchasing:

Use the Buy Now option below to select the talisman you’d like to order:

Using the Talismans


I’ve developed a couple methods of working with the 4th Pentacle of Venus (Come to Me!) talismans, mostly because these are selling more than any others, of freaking course.

Method 1 is pretty simple, Method 2 is a little more Hermetic-Magic-ey.

Method 1:

Take a picture of the person you want to come to you, and place it on a table. Place the talisman over the image, with the 4th pentacle side (with the square design on it) facing up. Light seven green candles in a circle around the talisman and photo, and speak the names of the spirits (Achelia, Nogaliel, Nangariel, and Jocodia), and say “By your names and the seals of these Pentacles, I call you. Receive this offering of fire, and bring to me [Name of person], draw (her/him) to me, bring them to me in love and desire, let them have no rest until they contact me, bring them to me now.” Picture the person you want the whole time you’re saying this. Let the candles burn all the way out, if possible (I use tea-lite sized candles for this kind of thing because they burn out in a relatively short period of time). This method can take a couple of weeks to get the result. If you don’t have the result in a couple of weeks, do it again.

* Note some people are reporting instant results, but some people are lucky assholes. 😀

“Get from Goal setting to Doing” -Jason Miller

Ok, so I’ve got to admit I’m bored writing the “analyze your life and then make a plan and then implement the plan” posts. I think it’s helpful, it’s a really useful system for folks who like to make plans and shit, like myself, and it’s a wonderful organizational tool to help you figure out what comes next.

Jason Miller wrote an awesome post on it this year, a follow up to a video he posted last year, and it’s really awesome and covers just about everything I’d like to say anyway. So, go read it, because it’s exactly the kind of balanced motivational thing that puts you in the right frame of mind for getting your ass in gear and making your life better, and it provides a perfect segue to what I REALLY want to talk about instead…

You know how he says the next thing is to do what you’ve planned? So true. Riffing off that, I’m going to get back to some really basic basics for magicians, and get a little philosophical and a little deep in the analysis of what it is we do as magicians, and why we do it, and how we can do it better.

There are a lot of people into magic(k) for self improvement, and while there’s a lot to be said about how the magic(k)al framework provides a good framework through which you can attain knowledge and understanding of the practical application of the mystical fact that you are, in fact, a living and breathing incarnated deity, I’d like to focus on a different motivational reason to learn to use magic, to gain initiations, wisdom, understanding, and attainment:

To be able to cheat like bastards. To stack the deck in our favor. To have an ace in the hole, to have friends in high places pulling strings to our benefit, to bea ble to get stuff we want more easily than anyone else.

Hermes Plays Scrabble

Yes, you should be making a plan, and yes, you should be activating that plan as soon as humanly possible. Yes! YES YES YES!

But magician, fuckin’ cheat. Use the power you have at your disposal, take authority over shit, make offerings, use talismans, conjure spirits, make offerings to gods, join a cult dedicated to the mysteries of manifesting wealth and power and blessing for your personal enjoyment, do the things we know how to do that make things happen the way we want for our benefit. Identify your key milestones in your plan, your main goals, and conjure the fuck out of it.

And let’s be completely frank… Most people want money, and after they have as much of that as they need, they want someone to spend it with. Preferably someone they can also fuck. Don’t feel bad if your primary goals involve money and being alone.

Tangent: You know, the mystical goals of magic(k) can also be said to be directly related to wealth and loneliness too. The main goal of reuniting with the divine Source of all is because we’re unhappy with the material world, because we’re broke and lonely. Or even worse, wealthy and in one or more otherwise healthy relationships, and still feeling unsatisfied and alone. The point of the personal transformation that takes place as a result of accomplishing the Great Work can be argued to be the attainment of the wisdom, awareness, understanding, and power that makes it possible to truly enjoy your life.

Money and sex might not provide the end state, it’s true, but it does afford you the opportunity to truly understand their role in the creation and experience of joy. Joy can’t be bought, or ever received from another person, it’s got to come from you. That’s a for real true fact that can’t be dodged, denied, or avoided, you *will* learn that sooner or later, I guarantee.

But even after learning it, I gotta say… money and sex are still my favorite means of expressing my personal joy. It’s fun. Neither are the point, both are modes and methods of expressing something beyond either, and there are plenty of other ways to get to the joy, for sure.

They’re just my faves.

Back to the main point: CHEAT.

I decided to change the direction my life was going a couple weeks ago. I had been living off my occult business, which was technically doing pretty well, but I wasn’t really happy. I was making what I needed, my growth was on track, about what I expected, and I could see that in a year I’d be where I wanted to be… but I could also get there faster, and have more fun in the process, if I did things differently. So I decided what I wanted to do instead, and did some magic, and tomorrow I start a new job doing what I did before, making more money.

I used my skills and talents, the power I’ve attained, I worked with the spirits I have established relatioships with, and I changed my life. I cheated, as it were, I stacked the deck, I worked with the forces that manifest reality to create an opportunity that was to my benefit.

I don’t REALLY think it’s cheating, by the way. I think it’s just using the resources we have available. We can’t do anything we aren’t allowed to do in magic. We can’t even consistently make everything happen exactly how we want. There are limits, there are unforeseeable consequences, there are unexpected results, and there are ways to use all that to your advantage when you get the knack.

But you can’t REALLY cheat. It only looks like cheating to people who make plans and do things, and only have their own efforts working for them in life.

You know more, you have better access to the kinds of things that will help you win. Make talismans, conjure spirits, get money, find a relationship, do what it takes, follow through on your magic, of course, but use it!

Ahem, and if you’re not comfortable with your own abilities, hire that shit done by others. I sell Business Booster rites to people that double and quadruple their revenues. I sell talismans that blow open the floodgates of opportunity for people to get wealthy. The Key of Solomon Talismans can help you attain more profitable knowledge and understanding and expand your skill sets, they can create opportunities for great wealth, get you the favor of people in high places, and bring you into relationships with the partner of your dreams.

But you don’t need to buy that stuff, you can learn to do it yourself. I have courses, Jason Miller has courses, you can take these and learn the secrets yourself, go through the Work and become the Magus who creates as they speak.

Or do both, buy talismans and magical services you can’t do, and use the resulting release of stress and pressure to take the time to take the courses. Because you can.

Resources:

Jason Miller’s courses in Strategic Sorcery are a great and comprehensive approach to understanding and applying the principles of practical, effective magic. To join, write to him at inominandum@gmail.cominominandum@gmail.com and ask for a Strategic Sorcery Course information packet.

The Red Work Series of Courses – This is my set of courses that take you through the process of the Great Work I’ve used. It’s based entirely on traditional Hermetics (the kind from the Corpus Hermeticum, not the stuff attributed to it after 1799 AD), the Greek Magial Papyri, and the Three Books of Occult Philosophy. I found in the belief system of Hermetics some truly amazing and empowering things, and I’ve been able to successfully pass on the information and techniques that have transformed my life.

Talismans and Magical Services – I need to update my web site. I’ve stopped offering the personal services and hermetic diagnoses, because they were just not as much fun to do as I thought they would be. But I’m still selling the Key of Solomon Talismans, because they fucking rock out loud, and I also offer services based on the talismans. For a full description of the talismans, see THIS POST.

I’ll put this on a web site eventually, but for now, you can only buy these here on my blog:

Purchasing:

Use the Buy Now option below to select the talisman you’d like to order:

Key of Solomon Operations on Your Behalf

If you’re looking for a short-term influx of the forces represented by the talismans, I have a full set that I can use on your behalf. The results will not be as impressive, or as effective as if you buy the actual physical talismans, of course, but it’s a useful solution for people going through conflicts, dealing with love issues, or who need a boost in being able to see spirits. It doesn’t work with all the talismans, of course. You need to actually apply the Disease Destroyer talisman to the afflicted part of the body, for example, and the King Maker talisman… well, it definitely needs to be operating physically in your sphere to reap the full benefits. The things I think will work without purchasing the talisman itself can be purchased below, but bear in mind for the full effect in the long term, you’ll need the talisman.