Rufus Opus

Tag: RufusAstraCheck

Tag: RufusAstraCheck

  • Just what are those spirits up to?

    Have you ever wondered why exactly the spirits are so helpful? For years I suspected there was some plot or conspiracy behind what was going on, from the GWB to the Illuminati. When I went through a fundy phase, I was convinced they were demons trying to lead me away from Christ (never mind that they all pointed me back to Christ anyway). In my secular human phase, I assumed the advanced technology of some members of society was being used to manipulate otherwise talented individuals to keep them from interfering with the plan for interdimensional control.

    I think I’ve finally got it figured out. It has to do with their intrinsic nature. Each of these spirits is a self-conscious non-corporeal intelligence. It was created (or emmanated) in order to direct a current that influences manifest reality. For instance, Jupiter is an aspect of God that is assigned to dignities, prosperity, and offices of authority. Venus is an aspect of God that has influence over the domain of the heart. They each have a set of skills and talents that they’re really good at.

    These spirits are helpful because that’s what they do. They want to spread love, or assign dignities. That’s what they exist for. While they have general work to do, every time a specific mage calls upon them or their representatives, they have the opportunity to work with another intelligent aspect of God that wants to communicate with them. It brings them joy.

  • 7 Planetary Spirits in a Week

    I’ve failed in this particular endeavor. I was attempting to work with one archangel of the planets (as listed in Trithemius and Heidrick’s resources) each day this week. I made it as far as Michael on Sunday. (Note: Michael is associated with the sun in Trithemius notes instead of Raphael. My own work with Raphael supports the Trithemius correspondences that put Michael in Tiphareth/Sun and Raphael in Hod/Mercury.)

    By Monday, I was exhausted. I was working with the archangels of the planets in the planetary hours of the planetary days. Due to my work schedule, I was waiting until 3:38 or 3:39 a.m. each night. The day time hours fell when I was at work, and the earlier night time hours coincided with the time I spent with my family.

    The results of my Saturday working with Tzaphkiel of Saturn were very pleasant. Previous expereinces with Saturn had been unpleasant, and depressing. For this operation, I started with the LBRP, went on through Liber Samekh to invoke my HGA, and then performed the evocation of Tzaphkiel. The results were immediate.

    Tzaphkiel appeared in the shewstone, and I stated my intention, to integrate the energies of saturn into my magickal sphere. Tzaphkiel agreed to help with this, and I felt the saturnine energies flowing into me, pooling in my fore-arms (of all places), like a weight was applied directly to my muscles and bones. Tzaphkiel explained the use of that energy as part of the operation.

    Sunday I worked with Michael, following the same pattern. I got a false spirit the first time who wouldn’t enter the consecrated shewstone. I banished and conjured Michael again, this time with the desired result. I asked for him to help integrate the energies of the sun into my sphere, and he agreed. The feeling was again physical as the solar essence entered my sphere. This time I felt it in the base of my lungs, and Michael explained that the key to accessing solar energies was in the breath. The four-fold breath excites solar energies (inhale for four seconds, press the breath down in your lungs for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, wait four seconds, and repeat) in your sphere.

    Monday I made a half-hearted attempt to contact Gabriel, but I fell asleep. Tuesday I was going to work with Gabriel and Kammael to “catch up,” but I figured it was a bad idea, and chose to stop the operation there for now.

    Working with each planet for as little as one day seems to give useful results, but not a lot of depth of understanding of each of the planetary powers. I started to understand the binding aspects of Saturn, and its application in assiah, but before I really integrated the energies, I was on to the Sun. In the future, I’ll pick up with Luna, but spend more time than just one day integrating lunar energies, and so forth throughout the planets.

  • Why would you want to talk to angels or demons anyway?

    Contacting Spirits that move between the aetheric planes is a relatively simple process, I’ve found. Whether you’re looking to speak with an archangel of a sephiroth, an earth-bound (i.e. goetic) demon, or a planetary intelligence, they’re ready to talk and are just waiting to get in touch with you. The process is simple: draw the symbol that represents them, open a portal to their dimension, and then ask them to show up.

    But why would you want to meet them? For years in my occult practices, I truly believed I had no interest in working with them. I would do a Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), and sure, that involved calling the four archangels that surround the throne of God, but then I would go on to do whatever ritual I had in mind at the time. Usually, this was either financially related or emotionally related. Either I was trying to get more money by landing a better job, or I was trying to bring peace to an emotionally chaotic situation in my life or in someone else’s. Occassionally I would perform a healing ritual for my sick friends.

    What I’ve found out lately is that I’ve always worked with “spirits.” Whether they are gods of a pantheon, or a sigil I created in my harried Chaos Magick days, the fact is that I would summon intelligent autonomous entities to provide energies to create change according to my will. Since receiving this revelation, I’ve begun studying specific catalgues of spirits, and I’ve found an amazing set of well-defined, documented entities that have greatly expanded my ability to perform targeted magickal rituals.

    Whether I work from the Goetia of the Key of Solomon, the Archangels of the Sephiroth, or the Olympik Spirits of the Arbatel, I’ve found that they are incredibly responsive and willing to perform their assigned duties as quickly as possible. This knowledge has translated to incredible power. Not the “power-mad, dominate the entire universe and reap untold wealth and glory at the expense of all others kind of power,” the physics potential-energy power.

    So why would you want to contact spirits in your magickal path? Because that’s the way magick is done. All magick is based on contacting god in his infinite rays, or the representatives of his energies as they manifest in this world.

    Are you trying to raise the tincture of your sphere to become a better person and advance in the Great Work? Evoke the spirits that exist in the realm of Atziluth of the qabalah. Their very presence will begin to transform your own sphere, raising your tincture (tincture refers to the vibrational level, the intrinsic quality) of your sphere, your soul.

    Looking for ancient knowledge or hidden texts? The list of Goetic entities is replete with spirits capable of bringing you knowledge from the spheres. Entities from Briah and Yetzirah of the qabalah are also great at this. They bring books into your life related to the subjects you ask them about, or simply tell you what you need to know.

    How about getting prosperous or getting health? The spirits of Assiah of the qabalah work at the mundane, physical level. Being closely related to the material realm, they are wonderful resources for manifesting wealth, health and prosperity.

  • Back to the Spirit Pot

    I wasn’t going to focus much on the Spirit Pot here anymore, but I’m finding out that the thing is incredibly useful and interesting. At the beginning of this moon-waxing phase, I lit a 7-day candle for the spirit pot, and the first interesting thing that happened was the candle only lasted three days. Bune really ate it up, in my humble opinion.

    Another thing that happened that week was I got another job offer, this one for incredibly stupid amounts of money, a security clearance, and a means to acquire a certification that doubles my value in the market. I’ll be making the same amount of money from one source working 40 hours a week that I would be making from the three different income streams I mentioned before. It keeps getting better and better. I’ll be in a quasi-management position as well, where I’ll be putting things into their appropriate places, which Bune revealed to me is the purpose of “causing his spirits to appear on sepulchres.”

    Yet another aspect of working with this spirit is that I’ve found my writing skills improving. I’m spending less time trying to think of the right word for an idea than I used to. The eloquence that Bune provides is very useful to magicians of the Judeo-Christian path because so much of our magickal activity involves selecting the right word or symbol to achieve the desired result.

    Crowley once mentioned that the perfect symbols of the Magus are the pen, ink pot, paper, and a candle to light the writing area. One of his Magus card images in the Toth deck showed the Magician surrounded by the tools of a stenographer.

    The point of this tangent is that the spirit you choose to work with continues to reveal new applications of its attributes as you work with it. Bune is much more than a cash source.

  • Why would you want to talk to angels or demons anyway?

    Contacting Spirits that move between the aetheric planes is a relatively simple process, I’ve found. Whether you’re looking to speak with an archangel of a sephiroth, an earth-bound (i.e. goetic) demon, or a planetary intelligence, they’re ready to talk and are just waiting to get in touch with you. The process is simple: draw the symbol that represents them, open a portal to their dimension, and then ask them to show up.

    But why would you want to meet them? For years in my occult practices, I truly believed I had no interest in working with them. I would do a Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), and sure, that involved calling the four archangels that surround the throne of God, but then I would go on to do whatever ritual I had in mind at the time. Usually, this was either financially related or emotionally related. Either I was trying to get more money by landing a better job, or I was trying to bring peace to an emotionally chaotic situation in my life or in someone else’s. Occassionally I would perform a healing ritual for my sick friends.

    What I’ve found out lately is that I’ve always worked with “spirits.” Whether they are gods of a pantheon, or a sigil I created in my harried Chaos Magick days, the fact is that I would summon intelligent autonomous entities to provide energies to create change according to my will. Since receiving this revelation, I’ve begun studying specific catalgues of spirits, and I’ve found an amazing set of well-defined, documented entities that have greatly expanded my ability to perform targeted magickal rituals.

    Whether I work from the Goetia of the Key of Solomon, the Archangels of the Sephiroth, or the Olympik Spirits of the Arbatel, I’ve found that they are incredibly responsive and willing to perform their assigned duties as quickly as possible. This knowledge has translated to incredible power. Not the “power-mad, dominate the entire universe and reap untold wealth and glory at the expense of all others kind of power,” the physics potential-energy power.

    So why would you want to contact spirits in your magickal path? Because that’s the way magick is done. All magick is based on contacting god in his infinite rays, or the representatives of his energies as they manifest in this world.

    Are you trying to raise the tincture of your sphere to become a better person and advance in the Great Work? Evoke the spirits that exist in the realm of Atziluth of the qabalah. Their very presence will begin to transform your own sphere, raising your tincture (tincture refers to the vibrational level, the intrinsic quality) of your sphere, your soul.

    Looking for ancient knowledge or hidden texts? The list of Goetic entities is replete with spirits capable of bringing you knowledge from the spheres. Entities from Briah and Yetzirah of the qabalah are also great at this. They bring books into your life related to the subjects you ask them about, or simply tell you what you need to know.

    How about getting prosperous or getting health? The spirits of Assiah of the qabalah work at the mundane, physical level. Being closely related to the material realm, they are wonderful resources for manifesting wealth, health and prosperity.

  • Why would you want to talk to angels or demons anyway?

    Contacting Spirits that move between the aetheric planes is a relatively simple process, I’ve found. Whether you’re looking to speak with an archangel of a sephiroth, an earth-bound (i.e. goetic) demon, or a planetary intelligence, they’re ready to talk and are just waiting to get in touch with you. The process is simple: draw the symbol that represents them, open a portal to their dimension, and then ask them to show up.

    But why would you want to meet them? For years in my occult practices, I truly believed I had no interest in working with them. I would do a Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), and sure, that involved calling the four archangels that surround the throne of God, but then I would go on to do whatever ritual I had in mind at the time. Usually, this was either financially related or emotionally related. Either I was trying to get more money by landing a better job, or I was trying to bring peace to an emotionally chaotic situation in my life or in someone else’s. Occassionally I would perform a healing ritual for my sick friends.

    What I’ve found out lately is that I’ve always worked with “spirits.” Whether they are gods of a pantheon, or a sigil I created in my harried Chaos Magick days, the fact is that I would summon intelligent autonomous entities to provide energies to create change according to my will. Since receiving this revelation, I’ve begun studying specific catalgues of spirits, and I’ve found an amazing set of well-defined, documented entities that have greatly expanded my ability to perform targeted magickal rituals.

    Whether I work from the Goetia of the Key of Solomon, the Archangels of the Sephiroth, or the Olympik Spirits of the Arbatel, I’ve found that they are incredibly responsive and willing to perform their assigned duties as quickly as possible. This knowledge has translated to incredible power. Not the “power-mad, dominate the entire universe and reap untold wealth and glory at the expense of all others kind of power,” the physics potential-energy power.

    So why would you want to contact spirits in your magickal path? Because that’s the way magick is done. All magick is based on contacting god in his infinite rays, or the representatives of his energies as they manifest in this world.

    Are you trying to raise the tincture of your sphere to become a better person and advance in the Great Work? Evoke the spirits that exist in the realm of Atziluth of the qabalah. Their very presence will begin to transform your own sphere, raising your tincture (tincture refers to the vibrational level, the intrinsic quality) of your sphere, your soul.

    Looking for ancient knowledge or hidden texts? The list of Goetic entities is replete with spirits capable of bringing you knowledge from the spheres. Entities from Briah and Yetzirah of the qabalah are also great at this. They bring books into your life related to the subjects you ask them about, or simply tell you what you need to know.

    How about getting prosperous or getting health? The spirits of Assiah of the qabalah work at the mundane, physical level. Being closely related to the material realm, they are wonderful resources for manifesting wealth, health and prosperity.

  • The Occult Ties to the Ancient Astronauts

    I’ve recently joined a new yahoo group called EllenLlloyd. This group is dedicated to the Ancient Astronaut Theory, that the earth has been visited and continues to be visited by beings of an (or many) advanced civilizations who have either influenced or are directly responsible for the advancement of human civilization.

    I generally try to stay away from our Alien-conscious, UFOlogist cousines. I believe I have a better understanding of the phenomenon they report interacting with than they do. I’m sure they believe the same about occultists in general. However, I am not willing to reject their theories altogether. There are some amazing overlaps of our particular fields.

    For instance, today Ellen posted an article she recently wrote about the Everlasting Lights found in ancient tombs and reported above the temples of the ancients. Her article is good, and I recommend reading it if you have a few minutes to spare.

    A few months ago I was researching the Portae Lucis, the Portal of Light ritual. The goal of this ritual is to raise the tincture of the sphere of your soul by making contact with Binah-Saturn. It’s very similar in effect to the Abramelin Ritual for making contact with your Holy Guardian Angel, and also similar in effect to Crowley’s Liber Samekh. The goal of the ritual is to establish and empower a higher connection to the Divine source, sort of. I had first read about this ritual in an interview with Jean Dubuis by Mark Stavish at the Alchemy Website.

    In seeking more alchemical lore on the building of Houses of Light and Portals of Light, I found a treatise called The Everburning Lights of Trithemius. As most people who know me are aware, I am extremely fond of Johannes Trithemius. He was an abbot of a monastery who taught Agrippa, wrote some of the foundational texts on communicating with spirits, and wrote the original tale that became known as Faustus. Having read parts of the Steganographia and having practiced from the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals, I thought this treatise would be about the angels or spirits, and that it would be an allegorical reference to these entities as the “Everburning Lights.” Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a recipe for creating physical lights that one of his students had recorded.

    So today, when I read Ellen’s article, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the overlap between our fields of study. I personally believe that the “Ancient Astronauts” and the “Angels” or “Spirits” of the occultists are the same entities. For proof we have Crowley’s Alamantrah working that resulted in LAM making his appearance, and the subsequent UFO phenomenon that occurred after Crowley established contact with that dimension’s beings.

    By the way, that’s one of the many reasons I don’t combine alcohol, hashish, cocaine, ether and ritual magick. You just don’t know what you’re going to end up doing. But Crowley was a pawn his whole life, god bless him.

    Jack Parsons, father of the Space Age, did what he could to create a “Moon Child” or a Nephilim in his Babalon working. Plato was the first to say that every man and every woman is a star. Well, every man anyway, and that if you’re not a rational man, you get reborn as a woman… That’s not my fault. Read Timaeus sometime. Good stuff.

    Additional evidence is found in this Everburning Lights phenomenon. Where did Trithemius learn how to create these lights? We know from the other writings he is famous for that he was experienced in contacting the entities that travel between planes that we do not normally physically experience. His methods (or at least methods attributed to him) for contacting the angelic spirits work. I’ve spoken with Michael, Tzadkiel, and Haniel using the practices discussed in the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals (by the way, you need to include the sigils from the Magical Calendar and the method of creating Talismen from Agrippa’s Book 4 of Occult Philosophy). The spirits of the Goetia and the Arbatel are useful for a lot of mundane things, but I find it extremely interesting that their primary functions are not to provide physical results, but to provide information.

    I believe Trithemius learned to make the lights from the Spirits. Those who believe in the Ancient Astronaut Theory believe the Everburning Lights are evidence that aliens have visited the planet and given us extra-terrestrial knowledge. What better term exists for the information we receive as magicians from interviewing the spirits than “extra-terrestrial?”

    This doesn’t mean I believe the spirits “really are” aliens, or that there are no interstellar or inter-dimensional civilizations that influence humanity. Looking at the occult cosmologies of the ancient pagans, gnostics, and occultists around the world, I find it hard to believe that any magician would discard the theories of the Ancient Astronaut crowd completely. Our cosmologies are remarkably similar. Invisible entities bringing knowledge to mankind for our betterment, or for their own purposes. Think about it, what’s the difference between the theories of Niburu and the Annunaki compared to the deliverance of the Qabalah to Abraham by Ratziel?

    The chief difference is that we as magicians continue to interact with these entities, while those of the Ancient Astronaut crowd seem to think that the aliens will be returning in some distant future. Then again, I’m not that familiar with the Sitchin followers and whether they believe the Ancient Astronauts are still working with particular individuals.

  • The Occult Ties to the Ancient Astronauts

    I’ve recently joined a new yahoo group called EllenLlloyd. This group is dedicated to the Ancient Astronaut Theory, that the earth has been visited and continues to be visited by beings of an (or many) advanced civilizations who have either influenced or are directly responsible for the advancement of human civilization.

    I generally try to stay away from our Alien-conscious, UFOlogist cousines. I believe I have a better understanding of the phenomenon they report interacting with than they do. I’m sure they believe the same about occultists in general. However, I am not willing to reject their theories altogether. There are some amazing overlaps of our particular fields.

    For instance, today Ellen posted an article she recently wrote about the Everlasting Lights found in ancient tombs and reported above the temples of the ancients. Her article is good, and I recommend reading it if you have a few minutes to spare.

    A few months ago I was researching the Portae Lucis, the Portal of Light ritual. The goal of this ritual is to raise the tincture of the sphere of your soul by making contact with Binah-Saturn. It’s very similar in effect to the Abramelin Ritual for making contact with your Holy Guardian Angel, and also similar in effect to Crowley’s Liber Samekh. The goal of the ritual is to establish and empower a higher connection to the Divine source, sort of. I had first read about this ritual in an interview with Jean Dubuis by Mark Stavish at the Alchemy Website.

    In seeking more alchemical lore on the building of Houses of Light and Portals of Light, I found a treatise called The Everburning Lights of Trithemius. As most people who know me are aware, I am extremely fond of Johannes Trithemius. He was an abbot of a monastery who taught Agrippa, wrote some of the foundational texts on communicating with spirits, and wrote the original tale that became known as Faustus. Having read parts of the Steganographia and having practiced from the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals, I thought this treatise would be about the angels or spirits, and that it would be an allegorical reference to these entities as the “Everburning Lights.” Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a recipe for creating physical lights that one of his students had recorded.

    So today, when I read Ellen’s article, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the overlap between our fields of study. I personally believe that the “Ancient Astronauts” and the “Angels” or “Spirits” of the occultists are the same entities. For proof we have Crowley’s Alamantrah working that resulted in LAM making his appearance, and the subsequent UFO phenomenon that occurred after Crowley established contact with that dimension’s beings.

    By the way, that’s one of the many reasons I don’t combine alcohol, hashish, cocaine, ether and ritual magick. You just don’t know what you’re going to end up doing. But Crowley was a pawn his whole life, god bless him.

    Jack Parsons, father of the Space Age, did what he could to create a “Moon Child” or a Nephilim in his Babalon working. Plato was the first to say that every man and every woman is a star. Well, every man anyway, and that if you’re not a rational man, you get reborn as a woman… That’s not my fault. Read Timaeus sometime. Good stuff.

    Additional evidence is found in this Everburning Lights phenomenon. Where did Trithemius learn how to create these lights? We know from the other writings he is famous for that he was experienced in contacting the entities that travel between planes that we do not normally physically experience. His methods (or at least methods attributed to him) for contacting the angelic spirits work. I’ve spoken with Michael, Tzadkiel, and Haniel using the practices discussed in the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals (by the way, you need to include the sigils from the Magical Calendar and the method of creating Talismen from Agrippa’s Book 4 of Occult Philosophy). The spirits of the Goetia and the Arbatel are useful for a lot of mundane things, but I find it extremely interesting that their primary functions are not to provide physical results, but to provide information.

    I believe Trithemius learned to make the lights from the Spirits. Those who believe in the Ancient Astronaut Theory believe the Everburning Lights are evidence that aliens have visited the planet and given us extra-terrestrial knowledge. What better term exists for the information we receive as magicians from interviewing the spirits than “extra-terrestrial?”

    This doesn’t mean I believe the spirits “really are” aliens, or that there are no interstellar or inter-dimensional civilizations that influence humanity. Looking at the occult cosmologies of the ancient pagans, gnostics, and occultists around the world, I find it hard to believe that any magician would discard the theories of the Ancient Astronaut crowd completely. Our cosmologies are remarkably similar. Invisible entities bringing knowledge to mankind for our betterment, or for their own purposes. Think about it, what’s the difference between the theories of Niburu and the Annunaki compared to the deliverance of the Qabalah to Abraham by Ratziel?

    The chief difference is that we as magicians continue to interact with these entities, while those of the Ancient Astronaut crowd seem to think that the aliens will be returning in some distant future. Then again, I’m not that familiar with the Sitchin followers and whether they believe the Ancient Astronauts are still working with particular individuals.

  • Oh, so that’s what the HELL is going on…

    We interrupt the regularly scheduled nothing new or magically oriented topics brought to you by Head for the Red for the following important News Item:

  • The Occult Ties to the Ancient Astronauts

    I’ve recently joined a new yahoo group called EllenLlloyd. This group is dedicated to the Ancient Astronaut Theory, that the earth has been visited and continues to be visited by beings of an (or many) advanced civilizations who have either influenced or are directly responsible for the advancement of human civilization.

    I generally try to stay away from our Alien-conscious, UFOlogist cousines. I believe I have a better understanding of the phenomenon they report interacting with than they do. I’m sure they believe the same about occultists in general. However, I am not willing to reject their theories altogether. There are some amazing overlaps of our particular fields.

    For instance, today Ellen posted an article she recently wrote about the Everlasting Lights found in ancient tombs and reported above the temples of the ancients. Her article is good, and I recommend reading it if you have a few minutes to spare.

    A few months ago I was researching the Portae Lucis, the Portal of Light ritual. The goal of this ritual is to raise the tincture of the sphere of your soul by making contact with Binah-Saturn. It’s very similar in effect to the Abramelin Ritual for making contact with your Holy Guardian Angel, and also similar in effect to Crowley’s Liber Samekh. The goal of the ritual is to establish and empower a higher connection to the Divine source, sort of. I had first read about this ritual in an interview with Jean Dubuis by Mark Stavish at the Alchemy Website.

    In seeking more alchemical lore on the building of Houses of Light and Portals of Light, I found a treatise called The Everburning Lights of Trithemius. As most people who know me are aware, I am extremely fond of Johannes Trithemius. He was an abbot of a monastery who taught Agrippa, wrote some of the foundational texts on communicating with spirits, and wrote the original tale that became known as Faustus. Having read parts of the Steganographia and having practiced from the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals, I thought this treatise would be about the angels or spirits, and that it would be an allegorical reference to these entities as the “Everburning Lights.” Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a recipe for creating physical lights that one of his students had recorded.

    So today, when I read Ellen’s article, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the overlap between our fields of study. I personally believe that the “Ancient Astronauts” and the “Angels” or “Spirits” of the occultists are the same entities. For proof we have Crowley’s Alamantrah working that resulted in LAM making his appearance, and the subsequent UFO phenomenon that occurred after Crowley established contact with that dimension’s beings.

    By the way, that’s one of the many reasons I don’t combine alcohol, hashish, cocaine, ether and ritual magick. You just don’t know what you’re going to end up doing. But Crowley was a pawn his whole life, god bless him.

    Jack Parsons, father of the Space Age, did what he could to create a “Moon Child” or a Nephilim in his Babalon working. Plato was the first to say that every man and every woman is a star. Well, every man anyway, and that if you’re not a rational man, you get reborn as a woman… That’s not my fault. Read Timaeus sometime. Good stuff.

    Additional evidence is found in this Everburning Lights phenomenon. Where did Trithemius learn how to create these lights? We know from the other writings he is famous for that he was experienced in contacting the entities that travel between planes that we do not normally physically experience. His methods (or at least methods attributed to him) for contacting the angelic spirits work. I’ve spoken with Michael, Tzadkiel, and Haniel using the practices discussed in the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals (by the way, you need to include the sigils from the Magical Calendar and the method of creating Talismen from Agrippa’s Book 4 of Occult Philosophy). The spirits of the Goetia and the Arbatel are useful for a lot of mundane things, but I find it extremely interesting that their primary functions are not to provide physical results, but to provide information.

    I believe Trithemius learned to make the lights from the Spirits. Those who believe in the Ancient Astronaut Theory believe the Everburning Lights are evidence that aliens have visited the planet and given us extra-terrestrial knowledge. What better term exists for the information we receive as magicians from interviewing the spirits than “extra-terrestrial?”

    This doesn’t mean I believe the spirits “really are” aliens, or that there are no interstellar or inter-dimensional civilizations that influence humanity. Looking at the occult cosmologies of the ancient pagans, gnostics, and occultists around the world, I find it hard to believe that any magician would discard the theories of the Ancient Astronaut crowd completely. Our cosmologies are remarkably similar. Invisible entities bringing knowledge to mankind for our betterment, or for their own purposes. Think about it, what’s the difference between the theories of Niburu and the Annunaki compared to the deliverance of the Qabalah to Abraham by Ratziel?

    The chief difference is that we as magicians continue to interact with these entities, while those of the Ancient Astronaut crowd seem to think that the aliens will be returning in some distant future. Then again, I’m not that familiar with the Sitchin followers and whether they believe the Ancient Astronauts are still working with particular individuals.