Rufus Opus

Tag: Teachings

Tag: Teachings

  • 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.

  • Daimon Brainstorming Sessions Part 2

    This is Part 2 of the Daimon-Brainstorming sessions that resulted from my recent experiences with getting sick from a Bune operation gone awry. For background see “The Weirdest Bune Thing Yet” and “Daimon Brainstorming Sessions Part 1.”

    Picking up where we left off, I had woken up feeling great after performing a really quick rite with my spirit pot that houses Bune. That doesn’t really convey how much better I was feeling than before, the difference was totally miraculous. But I also wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again by following up on the Hierophant information I had received through the tarot divination and the first brainstorming session with my Daimon.

    So that night, I sat down with my Daimon, and we talked. I can’t really convey the conversation because I don’t remember the actual dialog. I took notes, but it was the information we were discussing that I wrote down, and not the conversation.

    Basically, I asked it what I should be focusing on to enact the resolution shown in the tarot reading (Hierophant, six of Wands, King of Wands). It revealed I hadn’t been plugging into the Above spoken of in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. Most of my magical practices are pretty mundane-focused. I haven’t been doing a lot of Scrying of the Aethyrs, rising through the Spheres, or traveling through the heavens in a fiery chariot like Ezekiel did.

    And the Daimon reminded me that this is why the Hierophant is the Hierophant. The roles of the Hierophant are a reflection, a side effect of his relationship with God. The Hierophant gets his knowledge and experience and the ability to be a Hierophant on these spiritual journeys, and from contemplating the Divine Source.

    I hadn’t been doing these things much lately.

    So the next most obvious question was, “What should I actually be doing then?”

    We brainstormed for awhile, and what came out of that was a Merkavah–esque meditative ritual that includes visiting each Sphere of the Elements, the Seven Heavens (classical planetary realms), the “Heaven of the Stars” symbolized by Chokmah on the GD Tree of Life most are familiar with, and then the realm of the Prima Materia, the First Material that manifested in Kether. From there, my Daimon said, I needed to travel through the Pleroma and into the Divine Darkness in which the Creator dwells. After I was finished, I was to return going through each of the spheres in reverse order and then grounding out.

    This was all to be done in the Body of Light, making this a meditative and contemplative ritual. I don’t do many of those, and this one pretty much makes up for that fact.

    To begin, I lit a candle in my Lamp on my altar to represent the Light of God. Then I lit my incense charcoal and got some Abramelin Incense burning. It’s my favorite, and since I always start with a conjuration of my Daimon, it’s always appropriate.

    I then sat in my Comfy Chair (every magician should have one, as Patrick Dunn says; mine is IKEA’s Poang chair with the matching footstool). I had my notes. I entered my astral temple. I performed the rite. It took a while.

    First I conjured my Daimon. We have an agreement, I call, he comes. Next I quickly traveled up through the Elemental Spheres in my Body of Light. In the realm of Earth, I took on the form of a Bull, in Water the form of a Man, in Air the form of an Eagle, and in Fire the form of a Lion. When I got to the Lunar realm, I conjured Gabriel, the Archangel of the Moon using her Name, Seal from the Magical Calendar, and the name of God Shaddai El Chai. I then traveled through the Sphere of the Moon in my Body of Light with my Daimon until we got to the Gate leading to the Sphere of Mercury.

    At that Gate, I conjured Raphael, Archangel of Mercury. I follow the Trithemian school of placement for the archangels Raphael and Michael. This means that they are switched from what you see in the Magical Calendar link above. The seals stay with the planets, as they are the seals of the Intelligence of the planet. Only the names “Raphael” and “Michael” are switched from the Magical Calendar’s representation in the Trithemian school of correspondences.

    So at the Gate of Mercury, I conjured Raphael using his Seal and the God Name Elohim Tzabaoth. I traveled through Mercury to the Gate of Venus, and did the same with Haniel using the God Name Jehovah Tzabaoth. For each of the remaining spheres, it was the same, conhjure Archangel using the Sigil, name of the angel, and appropriate God Name, and then travel the sphere to the Gate to the next Sphere. After Venus, it went Sun-Michael-Seal-Eloah Va Da’at, Mars-Camael-Seal-Elohim Gibor, Jupiter-Sachiel-El, Saturn-Cassiel-Jehovah Elohim.

    When I got to the Gate to the Heaven of the Stars (roughly corresponding to Chokmah on the GD Tree of Life, I conjured Ratziel in the God Name Jah. I used the name Ratziel spelled out in the Celestial Script for the spirit’s Seal. After traveling through that sphere, I conjured the Archangel Metatron using the Name Eheieh to get access into Kether.

    The rest can’t really be described in words. I continued traveling through what is represented by the three negative veils. The first negative veil, the Ain Soph Aur was to me the Pleroma of the Gnostics. Multiple heavens, multiple entities that spoke in light instead of sound. Very interesting. I think that’s what you go through when you scry the Enochian Aethyrs, but I don’t know that to be true, just a suspicion. After that, I went through the Divine Darkness that Dionysius talks about. This is a must-read, in my opinion. Click that link later.

    Then I returned through the Spheres I had ascended through on the way up, conjuring each spirit at each gate until I reached the Elemental realm of fire. There I conjure Michael Angel of the the Element Fire and had him guide me through the Sphere to the Gate to the Realm of Air, where I conjured Raphael to lead me to the Gate of Water, then Gabriel who lead me to the Gate of Earth, and finally Uriel, who lead me back to my own Astral Temple. I thanked him, and my Daimon and then got up and did some grounding-out exercises.

    It took SIX HOURS. Strangely, three of those hours were spent in the Realm of the Moon on the way up. The rest took much less time. I had a lot of Lunar things to deal with. I may or may not blog about them. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of your own things to discover if you choose to do a rite like this, although the Moon realm might not take you as long.

    Dee does say something about needing to travel three times around the Earth in the Realm of the Moon before you can reach the next sphere in his Hieroglyphic Monad though, and I hadn’t known that before doing the rite. Maybe that’s part of it, I don’t know.

    Well, that’s Part 2. I wanted to get these out tonight before I forgot some of the details.

    Good Nigh, and Good Magick.

  • Strength Training

    I was reading Gwynt-Siarad’s 8 Winds and Broken Vow, and the follow up post. He was going through some really practical Mage stuff, serving his community in the role of the shaman. One of the things he mentioned was how tired he felt after going on a Spirit Walk and encountering a spiritual-beastie.

    I totally know that feeling. When you go looking into people’s “spheres” to see what’s going on in their spiritual life, it can be really draining to you personally. Emotional strain is tiring. It takes a level of compassion and empathy to be able to get a clear reading on someone’s spiritual state that can leave you feeling exhausted afterwards.

    We’re used to dealing with our own stress levels, and we’ve got the reserves necessary to deal with that on a regular basis. When we start working with other people’s stressors, it’s an additional load to process, and it can leave you feeling weak, even if there are no entities encountered.

    I’ve seen empaths advise different methods of maintaining a safe distance from your clients, ways to filter out the stressors so they don’t impact the empath. It’s a matter of maintaining a clinical objectivity while still interacting with some emotionally charged issues. It takes a lot of practice to do it well, and even in the best of times it’s still a filtering technique. Filters have holes to let things through that you want, on purpose. Extreme situations (or entities in your clients’ sphere) can rip right through the filter.

    Like physical exercise, spiritual exercises improve endurance and spiritual muscles. Regular core maintenance rites, like cycling through the spheres, meditation and contemplation, regular observances to patrons and so forth are good core exercises that help build up your ability to deal with other people’s shit.

    But emphasizing one or two exercises isn’t enough. There are people who do the LBRP and Middle Pillar daily, and they’ve got some really big muscles developed as a result. But when they get put into practical situations, they’re like the body-builder who finds himself in a Mixed Martial Arts octagon getting their asses kicked by someone half their size.

    Vary your routine, make sure your core practices involve more than just a couple basic techniques. If you have a reasonable expectation that you’ll be meeting up with demonic forces or hostile spirits, you need to get used to dealing with them. One of the few things I’d recommend the Lemegeton’s Goetia for is training in dealing with spirits with malevolent natures. Don’t challenge them to a duel to the death or anything, you know, stupid. But they’re safe enough to conjure and interview, when the proper precautions are taken.*  They’ve got a wide spectrum of abilities and specialties, and getting to know them, how they operate, the forces they represent and wield can be a very useful thing when you encounter them, or similar spirits in your Work.

    Also, it never hurts to make sure they’ll never work against you, especially with all the folks turning to that particular grimoire first when they think to curse you. Rofocal-Focalor (or one of his lackeys or corresponding spirits) will be sent against you sooner or later if you ruffle feathers in the occult community, and feathers are easily ruffled ’round here. Having him show up and say, “Hey, so-and-so sent me to kill you, LOL,” is much better than performing an exorcism from a hospital bed, you know?

    Now that I’m all side tracked, I’m considering re-releasing the Modern Goetic Grimoire. I’ve had a change of heart about them recently. An insight into their nature, and their role in the life and sphere of a magician. That’s another post though.

    This post was about strength training.

    daily exercises, meditation, contemplation, opening portals to the aethyrs, travelling in astral form through the elemental kingdoms and planetary spheres, ascending to the highest spheres through the Gate opened by Iophial… These things are important for the magician.

    Magicians are like Americans moving back to the countries of their ancestors. I’m French. I have relatives in the Alsace Lorraine region, allegedly. To live there, in the home world of my true ancestors, I’d need to learn the language, figure out local customs and economics, and integrate myself into the system so I could benefit from it, and it could benefit from me. It would take time, practice, and repeated exercises to make a place for myself, and to thrive.

    But I’d do it. What else is there than to thrive?

    If we’re going to thrive as magicians, we need to take time for strength training. Proactive research, conjurations, and the building up of gnosis so that when we are faced with situations that require strength, we have it.

    * It’s only when you start asking them to influence your life that you start asking for trouble, in my opinion. Not saying it can’t be done, if done in the spirit of “teach me to excel” rather than “grant me the fruits of excellence without doing anything for it,” but it takes wisdom and patience and work ethic.

  • The Fourth Pentacle of Jupiter from the Key of Solomon

    I’ve decided to make a talisman of the fourth pentacle of Jupiter from the Key of Solomon. The timing is all wrong, at the moment, and it would be a while if I waited until the stars were aligned right. So this post is about how to make the best of a bad astrological timing through the conjuration of spirits.

    Mathers‘ edition of the Key of Solomon has the following to say about the Fourth Pentacle of Jupiter:

    The fourth pentacle of Jupiter.– It serveth to acquire riches and honor, and to possess much wealth. Its angel is Bariel. It should be engraved upon silver in the day and hour of Jupiter when he is in the sign Cancer.

    Being the erudite occultist that you are, you are no doubt aware that Jupiter is not in Cancer. Nor will he be until June 25, 2013, five years and three months from now. How do we make an effective talisman for a spirit that is specifically supposed to be made at a time that’s beyond our reach? No matter what we try to do now, when Jupiter is in Capricorn, we aren’t going to be able to have it be as propitious as it would be if the timing were absolutely right. But we can try to come close.

    The first thing we’re going to need to do is create the same kind of astrological influences as we would have if the timing were right. We’ll need something to bring in the forces of Cancer to create a backdrop, and then something to bring in the forces of Jupiter to focus those forces through his lens. Since I work so much with the angels of the spheres, I elected to use Muriel, the Angel of Cancer, and Tzadqiel, the Archangel of Jupiter to bring their influences to bear upon this talisman.

    Considering that I’m trying to replicate the sphere of the constellations being in a particular relationship to the sphere of Jupiter, I thought it would be a good idea to draw out the talisman with an additional two spheres represented.

    When I look at any seal that is made of circles, in my mind’s eye I see it as a cross-section of a sphere. The center circle represents the core of what you’re trying to manifest in the mundane realm. Around that is usually some specific manifestation of God or his representatives. Each space between concentric circles represents a particular sphere, and within that sphere you write the symbolic representations of the forces of the higher sphere that you are depending on to make what you want in the center sphere manifest.

    So in the center sphere of the Fourth Pentacle of Jupiter, there’s the Name ADNI on one side of the seal, and the Name Bariel written on the other side. Within the center is the figure that represents what it is we want to manifest, riches, honor, and much wealth. I personally feel it is a derivative of the geomantic symbol “Joy, Laughing, Healthy, Bearded.” It’s in Agrippa’s Three books of Occult Philosopy, Book II, chapter xlviii. Page 398 for those with Llewellyn’s Tyson translation, or here for people looking for a link.

    In the table of geomantic figures, the figure is listed as corresponding to the planet Jupiter and the constellation Taurus. That makes sense. Because the intent of this talisman is to pull down not only the wealth and riches that a luxury-loving Taurus would desire, it is inscribed in silver when Jupiter is in Cancer to include the manifestation of honors and glory that come with Jupiter in Cancer.

    Around this inner circle is inscribed a star of David and Psalms 112:3 “Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endureth for ever.” The Star of David represents the “as above, so below” principle of the Emerald Tablet, and the Psalm describes what part of the above should be made to manifest below, specifically wealth and riches.

    Now, since I’m not in the mood to wait five years for this ritual, I created another circle around this inscription. Within this sphere, I wrote out the name and seal of Tzadqiel and the planetary images of Jupiter. These are all available within Agrippa’s Three Books, and I’m not looking up the reference for it right now. It’s where I found them though.

    Around this circle, I drew yet another circle and inscribed the name of Muriel, the Angel of Cancer along with its seal from The Magical Calendar. The end result is a talisman with four concentric spheres (fitting for Jupiter), with the Seal, the Versicle, Tzadqiel-Jupiter, and Muriel-Cancer represented.

    While drawing out the seal, I definitely felt the presence of Bariel, or at the least the forces represented by the seal manifesting. As I wrote out the versicle, the feeling of the presence became even greater. I felt a tingling in my forehead, which was not anointed with Abramelin oil or any other substance that might have made it feel odd. This spread around my head, and I felt quite stoned by the time I was finished with that part of the talisman.

    I finished the other parts of the talisman another day, in the hour of Jupiter. Before beginning, I conjured my HGA, and then I conjured Tzadqiel to bring the forces of Jupiter to bear and Muriel to bring the forces of Cancer to bear. Within their presence, I wrote out their seals on the talisman. Later tonight, since this is the Jupiter Day, I will be performing a full consecration as I paint the image. I don’t have the tools to inscribe a finely detailed silver talisman at the moment, and to make it big enough to capture all the details, I would need quite a bit more silver than I have on hand. As a result, I’m sticking with Virgin Parchment and paint in the appropriate colors from Agrippa.

    Note that for the conjuration I will be using the modified formal conjuration I discuss in my ebook A Modern Angelic Grimoire, available for purchase from my web site.

  • The Same and Different

    If you’ve become spiritually and or magically aware enough to have had the passing thought that, yes, that motherfucker who just cut you off in traffic, that lazy bitch at the MVA, and even that oh-so-irritating n00b magician on the Great Work list is in real reality some manifestation of yourself because God is All in All, or It’s all One, or All that is is Light, Light in Extension, then you know that everything is the same.

    One God, One Monad, but at the exact same time, in the exact same space, it’s also multiple emanations manifesting as different individual, unique combinations of the elements, planetary and astrological influences. Proportionally, things manifest differently. there’s no thing in this world that is separate from any other thing, it’s true, but don’t forget, things are different at the same time. Unique. Like the old saying goes, you can never cross the same river twice. You’re different, or the water’s different. Not the same.

    Things are different for a reason. The Monad emanated on purpose. It wasn’t some cosmic acident. Everything between hell and heaven has a divine purpose, an assigned trait, a role and a responsibility that it must fulfill. When I hear modern magical mofos going on about how it’s all One, or how the HGA is the Atman, or that Krishna is Christ, or that Ashtaroth the Daimon is Asherah the Goddess, I want to rip their faces off. They obviously don’t appreciate having a unique face through which to interact with the rest of existence after all.

    Look, yeah, every god, goddess, daimon, angel, spirit, man, woman, child, rock, tree, and shrubbery is an extension of the same God. But it’s extended itself in its own way for a reason. Things are the same in higher levels, but those levels are so much higher that we can’t access them, not from where we are, and not without giving up that which makes us uniquely us.

    So the next time someone tells you that the HGA is the higher self, do me a favor and give them a good solid bitchslap. Tell them it’s from me. After all, we’re all extensions of God, right? So obviously, that makes you and everyone else… Me.

    All your base are belong to us.

  • Fetching a Fetch

    Lately I’ve become enamored of the idea of having a “Fetch. A Fetch is another name for a familiar spirit, the kind usually given by the demons of the Abramelin rituals, or conjured from a graveyard at night in some other grimoires, like the Sefer ha Razim.

    From Wikipedia:

    In early modern English witchcraft or Superstition, a familiar spirit, commonly called familiar (from Middle English familiar, related to family) or imp is a spirit who obeys a witch, conjurer, or other users of the supernatural, and serves and helps that person. Although they may not be as intelligent as their masters, they are often as intelligent as the average human. Familiars often perform domestic duties and help in farming, but also aid the person in bewitching people. If they look like ordinary animals, they can be used to spy on their masters’ enemies. These spirits are also said to be able to inspire artists and writers (compare with muses). The familiars of some practicers of black magic also defined the characteristics of their owners. Some reclusive wizards rely on familiars as their closest friends. In demonology, it is said that many demons have the ability to grant to a conjurer a familiar to aid them.

    (More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familiar)

    I’ve loved the idea of having a fetch ever since I read a story by Lovecraft that involved the main witch character having a white cat-like thing as a fetch. Unfortunately, I’ve never had any reason to have one. Most of the things they are used for in stories and legends I can do for myself. I don’t farm, hexing people is generally bad form, in my opinion, and I’ve already got Bune to help with inspiration for my writing. Burning a tea lite candle is enough to get me motivated for a project, it seems.

    In spite of not having any reason for having one, I’ve got a method I’m itching to try out from the Sefer ha Razim. It involves heading to a graveyard at night, reciting the names of the angels, and performing the appropriate oration. Pretty simple stuff, and there’s as pillar of smoke involved.

    But I just can’t justify it. Doing magick for its own sake isn’t worth it to me. I’ve found that there are all kinds of unexpected side effects for every ritual, and without a pressing need, there’s no point in linking myself to the dead that I can think of. Rather disappointing, I must say.

  • 3.1 – Putting it all Together: The Altar Layout Revisited

    The first thing I did, being the pragmatic Tech-writing Taurus that I am, was to draw up the Glyph on my computer. It’s easier to do concentric circles and save them as images in Visio. What I ended up with is this:

    As you can see, there aren’t seven circles for the spheres of the planets, or four for the elements as you might expect. I drew out all the spheres in earlier drawings, but they’re just too big. This suffices, and it has a circle for each of the primary items one works with as an incarnate magician.

    The inner three circles represent the sphere of the incarnate magician. They are divided into four quadrants, one for each of the cardinal points. In the innermost circle are the four Demonic Kings of the corners of the world. The brackets here represent their influence upon the magician being bound. Surrounding them are the Four Angelic Kings of the four corners of the World. These angels bind the influence of the Demonic Kings from the sphere of the magician. In the circle around the angles, I placed the elements as presented in Agrippa’s Scale of the Number Four.

    In the outermost circle are the planets. The order is very specific. If you look at the table in Agrippa’s Book 2, Chapter vii, you’ll see why they are placed where they are placed.

    The order of the planetary spheres as the spirit descends into matter is Saturn-Jupiter-Mars-Sun-Venus-Mercury-Moon. However, we’re already incarnated, and when we look up at the spheres from the world of manifestation, we’ll see them from the perspective of the material realm.

    Placing the planets in their respective quadrants as seen from below represents understanding the place of the incarnated magician in the cosmos. We are spirits, sparks of the Logos, of the Race of Gods. Our origin is from beyond the stars and the planets they influence. Yet our home, our sphere of influence is the material realm. We transcend through the realms of the planets to return to God, yet we retain our places in the manifest world, anchors, as it were, for the power of God to return with us to this realm.

    Not to get all loopy or anything. There’s only so much theory and metaphysics I can personally stand. It doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t affect anything, in my opinion, and it was vitally important to get the harmony represented in the Glyph grounded in my sphere.

    Where is the magician’s sphere represented physically? Their altar, of course. It holds their elemental tools, the symbols of their authority over the essences that Plato taught combined to form all things. It’s also the Table of Practice, the key to working with the spirits of each realm. It represents the access point for the Magician. It’s the pivotal point between the realms Above and the realms Below. It represents everything spiritual in the magicians manifest realm.

    So I took the Key to Everything represented in the Glyph and put it in place on my altar. The first thing I did was bind the Demonic Kings in miniature Spirit Pots. Then I created miniature talismans of the Angels of the four corners of the Earth using the Kings of the elements in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Beside each of these cards on the Altar, I placed the Elemental weapons associated with the Corner. That was great for the physical sphere.

    For the planets, I placed the seven talismans in the layout in the outermost circle of the glyph. Outside the circle of the planets, I placed my Lamp, to represent the Source of all, the True Father, the Speaker of the Word who dwells in perfect darkness within the source of the radiating Light.

    Immediately I began to see the effects of cleaning up my altar space on my Work. The Spirits of the planets come more quickly, and every aspect of my life has been drawn into an increasing harmony. My credit has cleared up, my job has become more secure, communications that were blocked are open now. Questions I have are resolved quickly and “miraculously.”

    Everything isn’t perfect, of course. We’re still in the manifest realm. But I do have an insight and a position of stability and authority from which to oversee the sources and interactions of the forces behind the scenes in my life.

    Life is truly Good.

  • Cool Stuff about the Supernatural Assistant

    Hey everyone!

    Man, I just wrote a bunch of posts to the Supernatural Assistant Course yahoo group about the things you can get using the Supernatural Assistant. I forget how cool it is sometimes. Here are some quick reminders for anyone else who forgot, or who might need a reason or two to Acquire a Supernatural Assistant.

    From the PGM:

    • When you go abroad, he will go abroad with you; when you are destitute, he will give you money.  
    • He will tell you what things will happen both when and at what time of the night or day.  
    • If anyone asks you “What do I have in mind?” or “What has happened to me?” or even “What is going to happen?,” question the angel, and he will tell you in silence.  But you speak to the one who questions you as if from yourself.  
    • When you are dead, he will wrap [up] your body as befits a god, but he will take your spirit and carry it into the air with him. For no aerial spirit which is joined with a mighty assistant will go into Hades, for to him all things are subject.  
    • Whenever you wish to do something, speak his name alone into the air and say, “Come!” and you will see him actually standing near you.  And say to him, “Perform this task,” and he does it at once, and after doing it he will say to you, “What else do you want?  For I am eager for heaven.”  If you do not  have immediate orders, say to him, “Go, lord,” and he will depart.  In this fashion, then, the god will be seen by you alone, nor will anyone ever hear the sound of his speaking, just you yourself alone.  
    • And he will tell you about the illness of a man, whether he will live or die, even on what day and at what hour of night.  
    • And he will also give [you both] wild herbs and the power to cure, and you will be [worshipped] as a god since you have a god as a friend.  

    These things the mighty assistant will perform competently.

    Pretty handy, eh?

    As you likely know, I’m especially interested in the part that happens after death. I suspect it’s a transformation akin to the Rainbow Body. I could be wrong, of course. It may just be a spiritual transformation the Ruach goes through that empowers it to become a member of the Angelic Choir of “Powers.” If so, that would be pretty cool too. After I die, feel free to petition me for aid in your own endeavors, and if I’m a Power, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.

    Another cool thing about the list is how it reminds the magician that the SA is invisible to others. See my post from the other day on physical manifestations.

    It ties into the urge new members of the group of people with this “mighty assistant” feel to tell everyone everything about everything that Crowley warns about too. Even magicians from the first centuries AD had to struggle with acting like what they experience is true and valid for all mankind. Their mentors back then made sure their students weren’t acting like fruitcakes in public. “But you speak to the one who questions you as if from yourself” indeed.

  • Warnings

    Members of the first Red Work Course 1: Acquiring a Supernatural Assistant are seeing success in their efforts, and I recently posted some of Crowley’s notes on Liber Samekh to the yahoo group that helped me integrate the experience while I was going through it.

    I haven’t read Crowley’s notes on Samekh in years. Great stuff. I especially like this part:

    In the same way the Adept almost always begins by torrential lyrics painting out
    mystical extravagances about “ineffable love”, “unimaginable bliss”,
    “inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness”. He usually loses his
    sense of proportion, of humour, of reality, and of sound judgment. His ego is
    often inflated to the bursting point, till he would be abjectly ridiculous if he
    were not so pitifully dangerous to himself and others. He also tends to take his
    new-found “truths of illumination” for the entire body of truth, and insists
    that they must be as valid and vital for all men as they happen to be for
    himself.

    It is wise to keep silence about those things “unlawful to utter” which one may
    have heard “in the seventh heaven”. This may not apply to the sixth.

    It’s funny, I go through this with every deeper level of initiation I experience. I think I’ve mellowed out some with this whole thing, I rarely post “The Key to All Power in the Universe!1!!1!” posts over my revelations these days, but once in a while it still bubbles up and over. I can’t help it, and honestly, I think it serves a purpose. Reading through other people’s Revelations of the Key to Everything has helped me a great deal, so maybe it will help others as well. My Keys to Everything may be different than yours, but seeing the doors mine open may make you see a door you missed, and urge you to find your own Key to open it. I know that happens to me a lot. Like POS doing Jason’s daily exercises reminded me to do my own. It helps.

    So I disagree with Crowley, whimper and sob when you feel your HGA, there’s nothing “unmanly” about expressing the pleasure and pain of being with Purity. And don’t be afraid to go on about “ineffable love” and “inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness.” It’s important to remind people that this is what it feels like when they forget, or inspire them to feel it for themselves if they haven’t yet.

    But do be careful to remember that it’s not necessarily as valid and vital for all as it happens to be for yourself.

    I try, really I do. But if I can do this and get the results I do, so can you! Just try it, it’s freaking brilliant. Gushing chakras, revelations of knowledge, and worlds of practical techniques await you! It’s all right there.

  • On Physical Manifestation

    A potential course member wrote to me asking if the magic I teach in the course results in visible manifestations. He had read Lisiewski and others who claim physical manifestations are not only possible, but also necessary for the magic to be successful.

    I’ve heard the siren call of that level of fundamentalism. I tend to think of the new Hermetic Fundamentalists as Grimoire Thumpers, with all the zeal and common sense you find in extremists of any belief system.

    Look, when the spirits are present, yeah, you sense them. You might see something in your “astral” vision. You might smell them, hear them, or feel them press against you as they perform an initiation on you, tracing out seals on your forehead or whatever. you might even see them physically open the door, sit down next to you and spark up a bowl of fine imported tobacco. That doesn’t mean that anyone else sitting next to you in the room will experience the same thing, nor does it mean that your ritual will be any more or less successful.

    I’ve seen spirits. I look over and see darker or lighter “orbs” floating above the altar. Bune sits on the floor where my baseboard heater runs along the wall, with his long skinny knees up. I see angel faces appear in my crystal ball. I don’t pretend any of this is something anyone else would physically see if they were present.

    That said, my spouse sees stuff when I do magic. But it’s not always what I see.

    I’ve had magician friends tell me they followed the steps of the grimoires exactly, Lion Skin Belt and all, and they tell me they saw the spirits visibly. Great, but what about the results? No different than my own.

    Personally, I suspect they had a stronger psychic image of the spirits as a result of the increased initiatory vibration attained through the creation of the Belt. I don’t think a mundane person who hadn’t been through the process of creating the talismans would see it. That’s just my opinion. I don’t think something that can’t be photographed can be seen by the naked eye.

    As far as I know, the historic accounts of magicians conjuring a spirits using the techniques of Reanaissance grimoires don’t mention physical or visual manifestations, unless they used a skryer to see the spirits as Dee and Kelley did. Dee didn’t see the visions Kelley saw. Benvenuto Cellini, a 16th century goldsmith and magician performed the magic of the grimoires of his time to conjure up spirits in the Colosseum. No one but the skryer saw anything. The other witnesses literally and figuratively shat themselves in fear when they felt the spirits arrive, but no one but the skryer saw anything.

    So, since my own results don’t indicate physical manifestation is possible, or more importantly even necessary, and historic accounts of magicians of the time of the grimoires I use don’t mention physical manifestation, my stance is that sure, you may see something, but don’t expect anyone else to. And don’t worry if you don’t see anything; results are the only proof that matters.