Rufus Opus

Tag: RufusAstraCheck

Tag: RufusAstraCheck

  • Magiced on a Boat

    Pretty much anything I’d post about recent events would be a Hermeticized version of this:

    I’ve said it before, and it should come as no surprise: Magic Works.

    So I spent a couple weeks doing magic to get back on track and start scratching the gate to the 8th sphere. Please note, I performed the Gates Rites, basically, every morning at dawn for two weeks straight. The first week was focused on cleansing rites, the second on reclaiming my standing in the Work.

    First thing that happened was my whole fundamental perspective was realigned along more purely Hermetic-Mercurial lines… Hail Eris. Then I met this priestess of Babalon. And then some amazing personal shit went down that if I put it in writing, I swear to god it would be that video up there.

    Magic, it works, brothers and sisters. Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all the other stuff will be added unto you. Thou art God. Focus on ascension, keep that One Star in sight, and do the magic to get what you came for, and amazing things will follow.

  • 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.

  • Opening the Gate of Jupiter

    Wow, it’s been a really hectic week. I started a few epic blog posts that I’l never get back to. I’ve got to start writing shorter posts. Time fills quickly when you’re tapping the Jupiter Current.

    Everything fills quickly when you tap the Jupiter current. Prosperity, health, wealth, it’s just a boomin’, brothers and sisters.

    Remember those two weeks of Hermetic angelic planetary conjurations I did? Scratching at the Gates of the Eight Sphere? They culminated in the physical manifestation of a Muse. Polyhymnia, or one of her legions, I suspect. That’s one of the epic blog posts I started that you’ll probably never see. She’s a force of Nature, blew into an occult meetup two Saturn days ago, and reminded me that certain core principles in life are amazing, we’re free to be honest and deal with the consequences, and there’s nothing, absofuckinglutely nothing keeping you from living a miraculous life. On a daily basis. Except your own bullshit and lies.

    On a much more personal level, and in the form of a completely different manifestation than the Muse, I’ve also apparently been tapped by the Goddess Babalon. I’m pretty sure Babalon loves me. I thought I knew what smoldering heat was about, but I was wrong. Calcinato, baby. Damn.

    So yeah, the Jupiter current cascades down through the other planetary spheres, cleansing them out in a rush of flowing power, flowing through channels, filling in details, making you alive and excited again. I can’t recommend Jupiter magic enough. Int brings health and necessary wealth to all the spheres. The Business Booster rite is an excellent example.

    A while ago, I started offering Business Booster rites. They’re aimed primarily at business owners who already have a working model in place. In this rite, I conjure up the forces of Jupiter and release them into the person’s business. Having a structure in place is vitally important, so I don’t recommend it to people who just have an idea for a business. You need to have the framework in place, and then Jupiter will fill it in with all kinds of joy and opportunity.*

    I’ve got testimonials to the success of this rite on a few blog posts. It’s priced at $1,200 to deter people who don’t have a business model in place that’s strong enough to handle the degree of the forces I focus during the rites. If your business is strong enough to have $1,200 to invest in increasing profits 50% or more, it’s strong enough to handle the forces. If it’s not generating that kind of money, the Jupiter forces released would likely overwhelm you, leaving you in worse shape than you started.

    There are seven rites performed over five to six weeks, each building on the previous. The seven rites go through the seven planets, but they are all focused on creating and developing a channel to focus the expansive beneficent forces of Jupiter into every facet of your manifestation. It’s a relatively simple concept, but the results are incredible.

    I’ve been through roughly the equivalent of the Business Booster rite lately. I’ve started tapping into the current of the Jupiter cult I belong to, and giving it places to manifest in my daily life. It’s been an amazing trip, and it’s not limited to money, thought that’s been flowing in with abundance. It’s manifested through Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, and Saturn with his Occult wisdom, and guidance in expanding boundaries, removing limitations, and … enjoying my freedom. Libertas.

    We are all free to live and love as we will. We sacrifice that freedom for perceived “greater good” goals and aims. Sometimes it’s valid, there’s a time to go do whatever the hell you feel like doing, and there’s a time to go to work and make SharePoint sites, even though it sucks and doesn’t really work as planned, ever.

    But there are other freedoms that we put aside to meet responsibilities that we never should put aside. We accept being miserable because we think we should for some greater good. I spent 13 years in a terrible marriage because I thought I should, for my ex, for my kids. I thought I owed it to them to suffer through the hell of life with my ex, even though we were both miserable together. Totally stupid, brothers and sisters, it’s totally stupid. When events transpired that brought the truth to light and it was clearly communicated, we split up and went our separate ways, both of us finding happiness, and the kids expressing their relief that they don’t have to worry about their parents fighting every time they’re in the same room for more than ten minutes.

    What I’m saying isn’t new, it’s old. Really old. Older than Do what thou Will, older than Nothing is real, all is permitted, but the same thing. Pretty much. Thou art god, go, be, do, Know Thyself. This above all things, to thy own self be true. Fuck this shit, I’m leaving.

    Take a look at your life, take a look at what you’re doing and what you want. Do magic to empower and secure your kingdom. Make that your goal, Seek First the Kingdom of God, and All These Things Shall be Added Unto You, and shit.

    It’s a simple formula. Do magic, and have fun.

    * If this describes you, and you’d like me to perform this rite on your behalf, shoot me an email and we’ll talk.

  • First public Appearance that Anyone can Listen To

    I’m going to be on “Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole” TOMORROW at 8:00 PM EST. Or EDT. Whatever. 8:00 PM Eastern. The topic is a discussion on Angels, Demons, and Magicians, and how we interact from a neoplatonic/hermetic perspective. We’ll be discussing the Kingdom metaphor of the Gates Rites, as well as the roles of the different classes of spirits, “Angelic,” “Demonic,” and “Human.” I’m sure the Genius Loci and Elementals will come up as well.

    I’m really looking forward to this conversation with Andrieh and Jason. I’ve had a lot of vitriolic things to say about chaos magic over the years, but last year sitting down and talking to Andrieh at Crucible, I realized that most of our points of disagreement are either semantical, or interpretive. The bottom line of practical experience, regardless of approach lined up so nicely I had to assess my stance on chaos magic, NLP, and the whole psychological paradigm in general. Part of growing up, I suppose.

    Anyway, Tuesday at 8:00 PM. I’m probably going to be talking a lot about the Modern Goetic Grimoire I recently republished too, as that was the inspiration for the invite. I’ve been reviewing my work, and seeing what I believed at the time it was originally written, and comparing it to my current take on things, and it’s been an eye-opener for me. I’m looking forward to discussing what went wrong, where I was right, and where I was wrong.

  • Feeling a little old today…

    Holy crap, I feel old today.

    I finished up another week’s series of rites first thing this morning. Saturday. Saturn Day.

    I feel fucking ancient.

    After conjuring the Archangel, I passed over to my astral temple, where I could ascend to the higher heavens. I went to the sphere of Saturn and I spoke to a couple of the spirits I know there.

    Then I went into the heart of the sphere itself, with Cassiel as my guide. There, in the center of the Sphere, I saw myself, extending to the Mind of God, across lifetimes past and future. I saw myself as a channel of awareness, of observation. I saw myself extend through the supercelestial, celestial, elemental, and infernal spheres. I saw the flow of information down through this channel into the material realm, and I saw information flowing back up at the same time. We are conduits, you see, of God-awareness. We are the embodiment of observation and interaction. Our hands are the hands of fate. Our wills are the will of god. Our experience of the world we create is holy unto the Lord.

    There is a border in the Sphere of Saturn that “separates” it from the 8th Sphere. It doesn’t separate anything, it’s really more of a veil, a filter, a line of demarcation between the spheres. I approached this veil, and found it to be dark grey on this side, cool and smooth, electric and alive. And it hummed with the vibration of the forces passing through it in both directions.

    Once I started to pay attention to it, I realized it was a symphony, and back in my flesh my arm hairs stood on end. It was beautiful and horrifying all at once, thrilling, and maddening. It was Mozart and Tchaikovsky and Zann all at once. Touching it, I saw a vision within the vision, of dark and monstrous shapes passing through alongside brilliant manifestations of godlike awesomeness. 
    And then it was gone.

    The veil, the vision, everything, vanished, and I stood in a foggy plane with Cassiel, the universe of stars shining brightly,with Hubble-like clarity everywhere I looked. He gestured to the plane below, and I saw the fog clear in a place. Within the cleared place, I saw a model of my personal Sphere here on Earth. I looked at it in detail, noting the shapes and sizes and forms and boundaries were most prominent in this view. Together we took inventory of the state of things in my life. We talked for a while, and then got to Work.

    Today we laid foundations for the coming ROpocalypse. We identified the scope of the project, determined what is “in scope” and what is “out of scope.” Lenses were focused. Boundaries shifted. Things have been set in motion by setting them in stone.

    The Word of the Day is: Focus. Focus your attention. “Pay” attention, and understand it is the currency of the realm. Observe with intent.

  • Back to Business Part III

    I’ve had really good rites this week. Like… really good. It turns out I wasn’t nearly as rusty or out of shape as I thought I was. I thought it would be like going back to exercising after taking three months off, having to rebuild my stamina, my strength, and so forth. Turns out I just needed to start being a Magician again.

    Working through the spheres has brought everything back into focus rather quickly. The familiar patterns, the old friends among the stars, witnessing again the crystalization of raw power into form… It wasn’t long before I realized I had lost nothing. I had just sort of forgotten, and needed a reminder of Who and What I am.
    When it all clicked, I found that the recent rites had actually resulted in further integration of the forces of the planets. I’m not only still where I was before taking a break, I’m able to reach higher, and go further. The Eighth Sphere stuff isn’t nearly as far off as I’d thought.
    Last Sunday I felt what I believe is Kundalini shoot up my spine and through my chakras and down my arms and out my fingertips during the Solar Rite. I hesitate to say it was the real thing, as I’m not exactly into yoga and the proper rites to raise it and channel it, but it was amazing. 
    Throughout the week since, I’ve had incredible experiences in each planetary sphere, each accompanied by different flows of forces through all my chakras, but affecting them differently depending on the planet I was Working with at the time. 
    I think it’s important to note that I did not consciously do anything to trigger the rise of these forces. I’ve felt them before, but not this intensely. I haven’t done serious Work on integrating the forces of the planets like this in a while, and I’m able to pay closer attention to what’s going on in across the intellectual, mental, and physical layers of my sphere. The Hermetic Retreat, and ongoing conjurations and meditations and contemplations of the powers of the spheres are resulting in a transformation, a metamorphosis. The drastic change to my personal life has served as a catalyst, and I’m enjoying seeing the reactions in my own sphere. I’m looking forward to doing client work to see how this impacts the results in practical ways.
    And just for the record, I haven’t done any Work focused on the chakras since last year when this started happening after I’d started scratching at the 8th Sphere. I’ve kept them functional, and noted when they seemed to be open or tingly or in pain during certain rites, but I haven’t just focused on developing, strengthening, and cleansing them specifically.
    So these effects are not the result of chakra work, devotions designed to raise the kundalini, or meditation techniques that are designed to activate the kundalini power or whatever. It just happened, and I’m paying attention.

    I need a better taxonomy. I’m using the terms chakra and Kundalini, but since I’m not in that tradition, I’m probably using them wrong. Fr. AIT suggested “Metals” instead of chakras, and “Internal Fires” instead of Kundalini.I like “Internal Fies” but I’m not sure about the Metals. I’ll have to talk to him about it.

  • Back to Business… Part II

    My next Order of Business is Business itself.

    I cut way back on promoting my services since getting this new job. I simply didn’t have time to do magic for people. 
    But now that I’m filling in all my spare time with productive, profitable things, I’m going to pushing my Applied Hermetic Services again. Hermetic Diagnoses, Rites of Fortune, Prosperity, Hex Removal and never ever any love spells.
    I will also be offering the Business Booster rites again. Expect a blog post with testimonials soon.

    And of course, the Red Work series of courses. Those are always available.

    This comes as a result of yesterday’s awesome Mercury rites performed at dawn, and throughout the day. I had some good long talks, and an interesting time in trance visions.

    I saw this chaos of dots of light, each representing a manifestation point of one aspect of my life. I was able to touch them and understand what they represented. I started moving them around, and connecting the dots in my vision, and realized I was reshaping the flow of my life. I had this rush of information, and saw how the patterns needed to be arranged in different areas and different aspects of my life.

    I was also able to take a look at a lot of the emotional stress I’ve been under from an objective point of view, and understand what it is exactly that pisses me off about this whole situation, and why I feel so angry and out of control, and I honestly laughed at what I found. I’m angry because I wanted to be the one to leave.

    It was so silly. I was like, wait, me, really? You have what you’ve wanted … for years, and you’re able to do what you’ve wanted to do now for years, and you’re free way ahead of schedule, and the adjustments to the plan aren’t that hard, and you get to do magic, and really you’re quite happy with everything overall, but… you’re shitting on everything because someone else made it happen?

    And then I got this wave of relief, and gratitude. Not forgiveness, quite, but definitely gratitude. I think it was the nicest present my ex ever gave me.

  • Back to Business

    With things settling into place and a sense of normalcy returning to my sphere, I find I have a lot more time on my hands than I used to. I have found that idle hands are, indeed, the devil’s playground, and so I’ve put my hands to producing some positive manifestations rather than leaving them to find mischief.

    And yes, that happened after they had gotten themselves into mischief. Fun mischief, effective mischief, but ultimately just mischief that led nowhere I wanted to be.
    So Back to Business.
    First Order of Business: Hermetic Retreat

    When my ex and I separated, it was a pretty big shock to my system. While I had dreamed of getting a divorce for years, I never did because I believed I had a responsibility to be the husband and father of the family I brought into the world. And I did love my ex. I just couldn’t stand her. I’ve got issues, she’s got issues, and our issues are incompatible. They bring out the worst in both of us. We knew divorce was inevitable, but I thought we had a couple years left.

    But I had planned for it. It came ahead of schedule before I was ready to implement the plan, and now the plans have to be adapted for less-than-ideal circumstances. I have to do things now that I wasn’t going to start for another year, and I’m honestly not ready. I haven’t been doing a lot of magic lately, and the plan requires me to be at peak operating capacity. I’m out of shape.

    So the first thing I did was a Hermetic Retreat. For seven days I conjured the Archangels and Inteligences and Spirits of the Planets at dawn, meditated and contemplated the planetary symbols, and immersed myself in the powers of their spheres. It was like going on a planetary spa day.

    I started on a Sunday and finished last Saturday. By the end of that cycle, I was feeling a lot better, much more myself than I have felt in months. I focus a lot on the practical aspects of the magic I do on the blog, but I don’t really talk a lot about the mental and spiritual effects of regular practice. I figure there are plenty of blogs out there that do, and I think they encourage people to think about and feel about magic instead of doing magic.

    But the peace and power and mental stability that come from regular, balanced practice is the best and most practical magical effect you can ever ask for. The Hermetic Retreat went a long way to restoring me. I’m not where I need to be yet, but I’m able to get there as a result of the refreshing streams pouring through my sphere.

    I’ve continued to conjure the Archangels, Intelligences, and Spirits of the planets this week. Last week was a passive approach, relaxing, refreshing, cleansing, but this week I’m going into more active strength training exercises. It’s more of a Hermetic Workout than a Hermetic Retreat now. Opening chakras, directing the forces as they manifest through me into my sphere. There are still things I can’t do that I used to be able to do, no problem. It’s kind of frustrating.

    I thought about just doing a Reclaiming Rite, taking back the power and authority I had before. I’ve done them before and had really good results, but things were more … stable. I’m not consistently stable enough to handle it without it burning me yet. Major changes in a person’s life brings the Spiritus, the part of the soul responsible for survival to the foreground. It’s emotional and passionate, and mine is very angry.

    So I’m Working out the old fashioned way instead, rebuilding the muscles gradually. As I do so, the Spiritus is backing down to its more neutral state, and the Animus is much more engaged. My brain is also physiologically adapting to the change in my circumstances, and the chemicals flowing are becoming more regular and regulated. Returning to the familiar neuropathways that developed when I went through my initiations over the years has helped restore a sense of normalcy to my life. The urge to smash recedes.

    I don’t know how long this phase will last. I had planned on being well into the Eighth Sphere Work before having any of this shit go down, and I’m not ready yet to even start heading there to pick up the trail of Azoth consciousness. I feel like a lawn mower that’s getting started after spending the winter and most of early Spring in the garage.

  • Mr. Cecchetelli’s Latest

    A long, long time ago, I worked in an organic new age grocery store produce department. Having lived and worked on an organic farm/hippy cult commune for a year qualified me in their eyes for the job. I know a lot about vegetables now as a result.

    The employees tended to be into a lot of weird shit, and I fit right in. We’d be stocking the produce and talking about Eckankar and Soul Travel, or debating LSD vs. Ecstasy. There was an espresso and juice bar there too, so we’d do shots of wheatgrass and pound crowbars, and talk all kinds of weird shit, really quickly.
    I worked with a guy named Zeus. His parents named him that. On purpose. I thought that was pretty cool, and hard to beat as far as having a bad-ass name from birth. And then they hired Abraxas.
    Abraxas was an interesting fellow. His parents had named him after, he said, the God of Magic. My ears perked right up and I tried to have an occult discussion with him. I quickly learned that in spite of being named after the “God of Magic,” he knew nothing about magick. He didn’t know Peter Carrol, never heard of Robert Anton Wilson, Malaclypse the Younger, Anton LaVay, Donald Michael Kraig, Austin Spare, Israel Regardie, or Aleister Crowley.* 
    So I started researching Abraxas, the God of Magic on my own. I hopped on Altavista, which seemed to have a lot more occult information than the other search engines of the day, and went to town. 
    The first thing I thought I found was that it was misspelled. It was Abrasax. And while “God of Magic” is part of the story, it’s not the whole story at all. I found myself reading gnostic texts, learning about the Archons and the Demiurge, Sophia and the Pleroma, and the role of Abrasax in different Gnostic sects. It was my first exposure to non-Christian mystical texts written in the first through third centuries, and it was mind boggling. I couldn’t figure it out just by reading it, for the first time in my life. 
    Mr. Cecchetelli, author of Crossed Keys,  has managed to wade his way through the morass and meet the God himself. He’s been Working with him and writing up his next book, The Book of Abrasax. I can’t wait for that one. It’s going to be a really interesting read. My favorite parts of Crossed Keys were the personal anecdotes he provided. I love reading the experiences of other magicians doing magic, it confirms my own experiences, and I can pick up really neat little tips and tricks that other people have figured out. It helps refine my praxis.
    Mr. C is now offering talismans based on his successful experiments with Abrasax. The talisman he’s making provides both protection and prosperity. That’s a brief summary, they do a lot more than that and he explains it in detail on his blog post. 
    I happen to know the current of Jupiter Mr. C Works with regularly, and with that involved in the creation of any talisman that brings prosperity, I know these will be particularly powerful talismans, and I whole-heartedly encourage you to buy one for yourself. I rarely buy talismans, I prefer to make my own, but this is something I’m getting for myself as a treat. 
    * This was in my Chaos Magick daze, and these authors were about the extent of my exposure to occult materials; I believed that Aleister Crowley’s Book IV was the epitome of Western Magick, and that Peter Carroll had discovered the secret means to get around having to do all that Work to make your magick effective. It was the ’90s, and I did a lot of drugs.

  • Path of the Rose

    Sefriel, international occult man of mystery, is launching a course in some serious Angel Magic called the Path of the Rose. 
    Sef is the inspiring force that started the Gentlemen for Jupiter, and a magician I’ve been happy to work with for the past year plus. I know he’s well trained in Angel Magic, the real thing. He’s got an inside track. He’s also good with the technologies, so I know it will be uber-professional in addition to being a solid intro to some of the most powerful magical systems available.
    And it’s in Glastonbury. So I can’t go. But you European magi should totally sign up. It’s going to be very worth it.
    He’s also just put up a page for his occult business, Exodus Solutions. Sef’s one of those exorcists who really loves his job. I’m not sure what other services he’s going to be putting together, but I’m looking forward to seeing what comes up.