Rufus Opus

Tag: Teachings

Tag: Teachings

  • Calculating Goet

    Bokonon23 left a comment that he wanted to know more about calculating the correct correspondences for Goetic entities, so here’s a little more detail on the subject.

    I used 777, the correspondence chart developed by Aleister Crowley (from Alan Bennet’s notes, probably) when he was still a member in good standing in the Golden Dawn. This correspondence chart was published in 1909, and reflects the Golden Dawn attributions to magickal subjects.

    To use 777 effectively, you must understand how information is presented in a spreadsheet or table. “Columns” are the vertical data sets, and “Rows” are the horizontal data sets. The first column is the “key scale,” the number that will provide the common reference point for all other columns of data in the table. There are 35 rows of data, and 183 columns of corresponding attributes, items, angels, god names, goetic entities, plants, perfumes, etc. This compendium of information is extremely useful to magicians of all types.

    To find the correspondences of a particular Goetic entity, first find the entity in the columns of goetic spirits (Columns CLV-CLXV, or pages 27-28 [printed page numbers] / 36-37 [pdf page numbers]). Bune/Bime is found to correspond to Key Scale 25.

    Knowing the spirit is associated with Key Scale 25, I then went through the other columns in the table to get an idea of what correspondences related to Bune. All the information in the row labeled 25 had some relation to Bune. Since I was making a physical pot, I paid special attention to the physical items associated with Key Scale 25, the plants, the incenses, and the magickal weapon. I also checked the color charts for selecting the appropriate colored candles to use as offerings for the spirit. Since I am primarily interested in physical results, I used the color charts associated with the material realm, Assiah, which is called the Empress Scale in the Golden Dawn.

  • An Astral Ritual

    So last Tuesday I was dealing with some annoying crap in my life. Finances were sucking. My job, my beautiful job, was in trouble. The gov’t contract has to be reviewed and funds reallocated at the end of each fiscal year. (That’s Sept. 30 for you civilians that don’t know.) My company subcontracted renegotiations out to the locals, and they totally dropped the ball. I should have known this would happen, but you know, I was distracted by other things.

    I got a call saying I would lose half my hours and all my benefits. Oh boy, was I thrilled.

    Since I had failed to proactively magick up a good contract ahead of time, as I should have, I ended up having to do damage control magic instead. Reactionary rather than Proactionary magic is not the preferred modus operendi, but it would have to do.

    Tuesday, what a wonderful day for doing wealth magic, eh? I checked my Current Astrological Weather, and found that Mercury was Cazimi (within 17 minutes of the Sun). Cazimi is supposed to be like plugging the planet into a tesla coil or something. According to some, and I believe it. I figured the Cazimi effect would overpower the retrograde sufficiently to get some clear communications with the spirit world, plus I needed help in business.

    The Moon was also right on Jupiter’s ass, in the Second House. I mean, they were overlapping one another. I found this gem on an astrology site about the Second House: “Specific possessions covered by the Second House include earned income and our ability to influence it.”

    The Moon is waxing, and I had been reading in Agrippa that day about how the Moon has power over all growth and decrease (Book 2, chapter something or other). Since Jupiter is health and prosperity, and I needed both of these things for various other reasons, I thought, hey, that’s great!

    The other issue was Saturn hanging out in Virgo. As you may know, this can bring strife and discomfort into the hearth and home. My spouse was ill and dealing with a great deal of pain since Saturn wandered into Virgo. She’s a Capricorn, so I suspect that wherever Saturn wanders, she gets hit especially hard in that aspect of her life. This job issue was affecting our house and home and family, and knowing what I know about Saturn, I figured out that I would need to include this planet in the rite to get the boundaries moved.

    Since I was going to be trying to move the boundaries, I knew I’d need to go through the Sun to get to the proper part of Saturn’s sphere. The Solar Gate to Saturn provides the best landing pads, in my opinion. The Mars Gate sucks.

    So if you’ve been keeping track, by this time I had figured out I needed to work with the Sun, Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter, and the Moon. And it was a Tuesday. I looked at what I was thinking about, and laughed. Five of the Seven Governors working together to get me out of a mess on a day that none of them ruled. So what the hell, says I, I’ll throw Mars in too. I should probably have included Venus anyway, but it didn’t seem to make sense at the time. Looking back, it could have helped with the Hearth/Home issues too.

    So I had analyzed my situation and identified what some of the contributing factors were. I looked to the stars and found what was looking good and what wasn’t. I identified the key players, and figured out how each could be used magically to turn around my situation.

    So, in the hour of the Moon (because I was primarily trying to expand Jupiter’s influence to overcome the slow-but-steady aspect of financial growth that controls him while he’s in Capricorn), I conjured the following Archangels of the Planets:

    • Gabriel – Moon, to increase Jupiter’s influence
    • Tzadqiel – To increase Jupiter’s influence, bringing health and prosperity to the situation
    • Michael – To work with Tzaphqiel in a nice smooth manner to loosen bonds and move the boundaries that were constricting hearth and home, and to turn the boundaries from being walls of confinement into walls of protection
    • Tzaphqiel – To actually move the boundaries that were keeping our family poor and ill outwards, providing more space for the Jupiter-Moon effect to fill up the new gap, and to strengthen our defenses of our house and home
    • Raphael – To specifically aid in inter-communications between the other planetary governors, and to provide a focus on business to the rite
    • Kammael – Because it was Tuesday, at first, but as I was conjuring him I realized that he could add a certain “violence” to the rite, making its effects happen more quickly, and to turn it into a military campaign of sorts, like the Delta Force of Archangelic Powers

    I didn’t have time to set up a full ritual with all the incenses and lamens and seals and what have you. Astrologically, the clock was ticking, and I had about six minutes left in the Hour of the Moon, if I remember right. So I decided to go the Astral Temple route.

    I sat here in me leather chair before the computer monitor, closed me eyes and breathed. Focusing on the breath stills my mind, like the Qabalistic Cross used to back in the day when I practiced the GD-style magic. As my mind cleared, I began intoning the name of my HGA. At the same time, I visualized my Astral Temple around me. I basically placed myself at the center of the Altar setup I have, with the Four Angelic Kings surrounded by the Seven Planetary Seals. I felt my HGA’s presence in the room with me, and the golden light descended into my astral temple, bringing the seven planetary seals representing their spheres around me into sharp relief.

    As each of the Planetary Seals began to pulse with light and life, indicating to me that the Intelligences represented by each were at least listening, I began conjuring the Archangels. Each seemed to materialize around the seals that represented them, sort of. When I got to Raphael, the other Archangels seemed to clear up, and it was like putting on your glasses in the morning, or when the weather changes and a haze you didn’t realize was there just goes away.

    When I had all the Archangels present, I outlined why I had conjured them. I explained what had happened at work, and how it was affecting me. I then went through each of the Archangels mentioned above, and went over what it was I wanted them to do. I felt this warmth and this tingling in my body, which I had mostly forgotten about by then, and had to focus again on the temple. Can’t get distracted when the magic starts working.

    The Archangels all understood what it was I was trying to accomplish. Each agreed that they would do their part to make what I wanted manifest. It was a lot like a corporate meeting. they “talked” amongst themselves, and I sort of sensed what they were doing as different parts of my “Sphere” would resonate to each angel’s influence as they wove together the fabric of reality to accomplish what it was I was looking for.

    I thanked them, and my HGA, and God in Jesus name, and returned my awareness to my body. I felt completely different. Before beginning the rite, I was stressed, and felt a lot like a cornered, caged animal. The stress was like a heavy, humid heat wave on my soul. After the rite, it was jsut gone. Instead, I felt alive, healthy, and optimistic. That’s a big thing for me, because when I get going down the depression road that stess usually puts me on, optimism is the furthest thing from my mind.

    That day I got a call from the Vice President of the company I work for, and he went over everything that was going on with the contract in detail with me. He explained how things had happened, and what they were doing about it. He assured me that he would reissue a new contract that would work things out in my favor.

    My thoughts: “Yeah fucking right. You’ll say anything to keep me on your payroll, I’m making you money. No way I’m staying with a place that cut my paycheck in half and cut my benefits. Get fuct.”

    The next day, I got the contract. I got a raise, I got my benefits, and I was able to work out a 32-hour work schedule with the local sub-contractor that’s managing the project. I’m still losing money, but not half, and not the benefits. With a five-person family, you’ve got to hae benefits. That day, I also got multiple other job leads that would double my income for a couple of months, which was as long as the company expected me to be on reduced hours. I will be able to hold both jobs simultaneously by a stroke of luck.

    Now, ideally, I would have been performing divinations regularly enough to know what was coming. I would have seen this heading my way and done some proactive magic to eradicate the stress. I blame no one but myself. I’ve got to get a grasp on my life, and do all the things I mentioned in the Invisible College post so that I’m no longer left in a position of climbing back up the side of a cliff after I’ve run off like the Coyote chasing the Road Runner.

  • Opening Portals to Commune with Specific Spirits

    For the purposes of this post, a “Portal” is defined as a gateway through which communications with non-corporeal entities can be established.

    All magickal acts consist of working with non-corporeal entities, whether they are gods, demons, angels, egregores, eidolons, or servitors. I prefer the term “Spirits” to non-corporeal entities. It’s more personal. The entities we work with are generally self aware to some degree, and thinking of them as cold constructs with no will of their own can lead to all kinds of problems later in your experiences with the spirit realm.

    To get the spirits’ attention, we have to open a portal between our normal reality and the realms they exist in. There are many ways of accomplishing this, but all seem to include intoning specific god-names. The Druids are recorded as calling out their curses on the Romans, and throughout the Eastern mystical paths mantras are intoned to bring about access to higher states of consciousness. I don’t know what the mechanism is, but vibrating aural tones creates changes in the environment.

    Once the environment has been changed through the intonation of the “words of power,” it is necessary to get the specific Spirit’s attention. This is done by having an image of the spirit on hand. There are catalogues of the symbols and seals of the spirits we have made contact with as magicians over the centuries contained in grimoires and described in sacred texts.

    Having the symbol or talisman of the spirit we wish to contact, we call the spirit by its name(s) and ask/order it to appear by the “power” of various associated god names. I believe that vibrating these god-names further tunes the portal that is opened at the beginning of the rite to the specific energies that are compatible with the desired spirit, and incompatible with any other spirit. When the environment is sufficiently tuned, the spirit can appear, and communications can commence.

    In the Lemmegetton, there are records of the spirits appearing at first in forms that are horrible to look at, and acompanied by noxious fumes and gases. To eliminate this, you are instructed to hold a ring in front of your face inscribed with specific names of God, and to order the spirit to appear in a particular form by the power of specific god names. I think that what might be happening is that the connection of a partially tuned portal must be more finely tuned once the spirit begins to appear. After this has been accomplished, the spirit is comfortable and can communicate quite well.

    In 1918, Aleister Crowley performed the Amalantrah working in New York. During this ritual, he opened a portal to other dimensions, and called various entities through it to communicate with him. One of these entities was LAM, which resmebles what we now call “Greys,” those pesky aliens that are seen during what science calls sleep paralysis and occultists know as night hags. After he finished the Amalantrah working, he carefully closed up the portal he opened.

    Years later, in 1947, Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard performed the Babalon rite. They were attempting to create a Moonchild, a human body that contained the spirit of Babalon from Revelations. It is postulated among many occultists that the rift they opened to draw down the star spirit was never properly closed, and this portal remains open to this day. 1947 marks the beginning of the UFO sightings that swept the world. Another connection between the interdimensional astronauts and the occult.

    As this example demonstrates, there is an important need to close a portal after you’ve communicated with a specific entity. This is done rather simply by performing an LBRP. Thank the GD for that contribution.

  • Learning Goetia the Easy Way – Kinetic Meditation

    I sold a set of the plaster seals of the nine Kings of the Lemegeton’s Goetia last week. The images in this post are scanned wooden blanks that I used to make the Sculpey molds for the plaster casts. I discovered some flaws in my process, but it all worked out in the end. I had to soak the wooden seals in oil to get them not to stick to the Sculpey. The “size” used to make the gold leaf stick to the seal gets rapidly absorbed into the plaster, so the leaf doesn’t stick to regular plaster, unless you use all the size, and then you can’t make out the engraved seals. I’m trying a polyurethane seal now. As soon as they dry, I’ll see if a couple coats of poly seals up the plaster enough for the glue to stay on the surface. (Edit: It worked!)

    But that’s not the point of the post. Just passing along information I’ve picked up. The point is this:

    I have learned SO MUCH about the personalities of the Kings of the Goetia by engraving their seals. I worked from the online version of the Goetia primarily to get the seals. I like some of Crowley/Mathers more stylized seals, but there’s something more authentic, more “down and dirty” to the seals on Joe Peterson’s site. They were carved into wood, I think, or were drawn by an unsteady hand. They look “lived in.” The seals in the Crowley/Mathers translation are too perfect to be made by the hands of any but the most practiced or naturally talented craftsmen. I’m neither.

    But to engrave a seal into wood, you have to know it pretty well. I drew each seal a couple of times, getting the feel of the proportions, learning how it was “supposed” to go. Then I had to scale it to two-inch disks. At first I tried doing it all technical using graph paper and rulers and protractors and compasses like I was some kind of master draftsman. Things kept turning out wrong. They looked straight, and the proportions were technically accurate, but they felt wrong. So I went back to free-hand drawing, and it worked much better.

    As I drew the seals, I found myself immersed in each one’s details. Little circles that might have marked the beginning or ending of their name on a Kamea, crosses and daggers, hearts, tridents, and classic demon tails with the pointy barbed tips. I saw how the seals were expressions of each spirit, direct revelations of themselves to people. I saw how tracing each seal was itself an act of conjuring the spirit. I understood Nazca Lines, Pictographs, and the development of writing from the moment we took on fleshly form through James Joyce.

    (It stopped at James Joyce because, frankly, NO ONE UNDERSTANDS JAMES JOYCE. That was the point of Ulysses, and all the Bloom freaks out there can’t prove anything. It was just bullshit.)

    But in tracing out the seals by hand, you are joining with the countless aeons of other people who have evoked this spirit, from the crazy drunk blonde in Australia getting revenge on some shiela to the African engineers of ethnic cleansing, to the Popes of France. I mean, you’re joining together with bastards and kings from across time to conjure up the spirits of hell to get what you want. You’re entering the myth, becoming the myth, and making it real. It’s some powerful stuff.

    I’ve come to understand why people think the Lem’s Goetic Spirits are manifestations of the human psyche. It’s more than “They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.” Honest. I can grow spiritual compassion.  Anyone can. If they want.

    It’s because they do the magic, and they feel parts of their brain warm up when they trace the seals. They feel the shift in the vibration of their spheres that comes when you start drawing out seals. They attribute it wrong, of course, but that’s fine.

    (Note: “Of Course” almost always denotes SARCASM, or that which should be mocked. And not just when I use it. That’s what it “really” means for everyone. Watch tomorrow, and every time someone says “of course,” you’ll see that whatever they’re referencing is completely worthy of endless ridicule. When I use “of course,” I do it on purpose. Unlike those dweebs you work with. They don’t know what they’re doing, they’re barely fucking human. Of course.)

    When you put that pen or pencil to the page, and move it along the ancient pathways, you immediately get the attention of the spirit you’re working with. It checks in on you and sees what’s going on. If you seem like you’ve got something interesting going on, it sticks around and helps you understand its seal a bit more. You feel where the guy recording the Seal was coming from. You get the feeling that you know where he messed up and had to leave it that way because it was close enough and he was out of parchment. You get the feeling you know how to extend something just right.

    So how do you know it’s “real”? I mean, how can you tell a spirit is influencing you, and it’s not “just” your ego thinking it knows better than the grimoires? Do it a lot, and you’ll get what I mean. Do it with different seals. Draw them out, and pay attention. Here’s what I mean:

    Balam. He’s got this three-humped B, an arrow, what looks like an IAO permutation, a trident and a spear-thing. Oh, and a pointy pointy tail. The three-humped B has these little squiggles coming of the top and bottom where the humps meet the vertical line. They could be artistic flourish, or they could be the remnants of the starting and stopping points of the spirit’s name on a Kamea, or Tablet of some kind like the Great Table of Enochian Magic, or the Tablets of the Planets in Agrippa. You can’t tell by looking at it, and it’s apparent that the one in the manuscript at Joe’s site is drawn freehand. The squiggles are disproportionate. You can’t tell if it was on purpose or not. I went with my intuition on this one, and made the squiggles more reflective of one another. It was that feeling I described above.

    Vine. The Peterson seal from the manuscript is just ugly. In trying to copy it out, I understood why. If the original dude recording the seal didn’t grok the spirit, then he would make the kinds of mistakes that were made. It’s got seven “humps,” and one in the manuscript is heinous. It has an out-of-center cross coming down, and you can tell it’s just not right. There’s little circles inside this one part that don’t line up with anything. I tried “fixing it” the same way I tried with Balam’s seal, and it just didn’t work. I stylized it, I made it my own, I tried rulers and measuring so each hump was equidistant, I tried everything I could think of to make it look right, and I still had this empty feeling, like a void where the “Eureka!” should have been.

    Then this warm inspiration hit to check the Crowley/Mathers seal. I did, and I saw how it had been presented, and what the “right” way was. I remembered something Belial had shown me about his seal, and it all clicked together. The seal is a picture of a crown, or a helmet, or a mask. As soon as I understood what it was, I was able to sketch out the seal just “right.” That feeling of correctness that flooded me left my arm hairs standing up.

    See how the techniques were different for different seals, and yet still informed by one another? That has become a hallmark of the spirits in my Work. In my day-to-day existence, I find a way to do something, and I use it from then on. Like in Microsoft’s Word, you can do the same thing like a bajillion different ways. Some are faster than others, some are actually logical, sort of. I’m using the techniques I developed in Word when its releases were still numbered. Even if I find a faster, easier way to do something, once I’ve learned how to do it I usually stick with it. That’s how I am in myself.

    When I’m being informed by the Spirits, I can feel them offering new ways to do things, and they appeal to me. It’s a very subtle thing about myself that I’ve noticed in my getting to know me, and I can tell when I’m not doing things the way I normally do. That’s why it’s so important to Know Yourself.

    Someone posted on the Solomonic group the other day that they wanted to learn the Goetia. Almost everyone on that list is an author or aspiring author, and they’re almost all interested in the Goetia. The archives are fabulous resources of excellent information. I can’t recommend enough that people interested in learning Goetia should go out and research other magicians that have worked with these spirits to familiarize yourself with their experiences. From Lisiewski and Konstantinos to Jake Stratton-Kent’s pact work to Moloch the Radionics Sorceror. From Poke Runyon to Lon DuQuette. From the liberal chaos magical blogs to the conservative reconstructionist traditionalists of the world. From Chris Warnock to Pat Zalewski. Crowley, Mathers, Agrippa, hell even Levi.

    But not Dion Fortune. Not ever her. And don’t read the Kyballion. I mean it. If you do, do not ever quote from it. Chances are very, very good that you’re misrepresenting it, and it’s misrepresented to start with.

    Read, read, read, and read between the lines, with one ear cocked and listening to the Voice of your HGA, Genius, or the Holy Ghost of your belief system. Listen from your spirit to the spirits of the authors, not their personalities, but their experiences that lie behind their words. Separate the message from the word the way you have learned to separate the voices of the spirits from the voice of your own mind. Study.

    But… A faster way is available. Draw the frickin’ seals! Read the description of the spirit. Draw it’s seal. Write out its description. Draw its seal. Draw its seal again. Draw it some more. Buy a dremel tool and some wooden blanks from Wal Mart. Make sure you’ve got a steel cutter tip of some kind, the smallest spherical ones work best for me. Wooden disks are in the craft department. They have squares, circles, triangles, and a ton of selection of just wood stuff for crafters. I bought a boat to paint for fun for a buck too. Pick up some of that. I don’t care what it’s made of, this is kinetic meditation we’re talking here. It’s not an actual conjuration and communication with the spirit. It’s a tactile communion with it instead.

    Anyway, once you’ve got the sketching of the spirit seal down to an art and science, then sketch it on the wood. Engrave it. Start by tracing over the design lightly with the tip of the tool. Focus on how the tool behaves as you work with the grain of the wood as opposed to how it behaves when you work against it, or worse, if you’re trying to engrave a curve diagonal to the grain…

    (If a dremel tool is out of your financial budget, get a wood burning tool. It’s like $12. Wood’s cheap. Scrap works for this. Go without lunch for three days, or dinner. Save $12 and buy a damn tool. It’s an investment, you cheap bastard. Some readers of this blog might not even make $12 a month, and that’s shitty… but I’ll bet you have SOMETHING you can engrave wood with. A knife. A nail. Be creative. Adapt. Or you’ll never be a decent magician. Nothing works exactly as described, ever. Get used to it and make do, or give up and go get a job. And a shower and a haircut, you hippy.)

    As you focus on the crafting of the seal, you’ll find your mind detaches itself from the process, but it remains silent. The process of engraving the Seal draws the attention of the Spirit it represents, and you become aware of its presence. Pay attention to information that comes to you at this point. The spirit is watching you engrave the seal, and talking to you as you make each part. A scene unfolds, or you hear a story about that part of the seal. You understand what each part of the seal represents within the textual description of the spirit. It becomes illustrated in a way that it wasn’t before.

    Now, when you’re ready to conjure the spirit, you know a bit about it. You’ve Worked with it a bit, and your sphere is being affected, adapting to the new vibrations. It is incorporating the harmonies of this new entity. You’re performing a part of the Great Work, adding a crescendo to the overall melodies of existence.

    Oh, before you do any of that, you should work with your HGA. I mean, do the same thing. Figure its Genius Name and write it a few times in every magical script you can find a reference to on the internet. Focus on Agrippa Book 3, chapters 29 and 30. As you do, you’ll get to know the spirit. Engrave its seal or Name in wood, or metal, or something. Make a talisman. This communion with the HGA is essential to your work with the Goetia, in my opinion. In my Work as a magician, I strive to be the fulcrum between the manifest and unmanifest. As you work with the goetic spirits, your sphere adapts. Keep Working celestial spirits to maintain your position relative to God. Don’t lose sight of the big picture and your place in it, or you’ll end up in a “wasted burned out nut job” phase of the work, and that’s no fun.

    (Kittens make terrible blog helpers. In case you were wondering.)

  • 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.

  • Thar be Gold in them thar Grimoires, Arrrrrrr…

    Pirate treasure hunters. For the duration of this post, ye do be pirates, arrr, and pirates searchin‘ fer the treasure hidden in them thar grimoires…

    Abramelin, the Holy Guardian Angel, the Agatha Daimon, the Nativity Angel and Other Important Things that Must be Discussed

    Prior to finding any gold, and really, I can’t stress this enough, you need K&CHGA. You aren’t going to get anywhere as a pirate without a ship, or a sea, or a map, and a magician without K&CHGA is exactly that. You aren’t going to find the kind of success I have found without it.

    I used Liber Samekh and the complete and total intention of conjuring my HGA. Every night, or every other night, I would sit on my couch, light some Abramelin Incense (from Soma Luna), anoint my forehead and temples with Abramelin Oil (also from Soma Luna), and I would perform Liber Samekh in my Body of Light.

    In other words, I imagined a temple. I stood within it and performed an LBRP. I then performed Liber Samekh. When I got to the hard parts to remember, I cracked my eyes and read the printed rite, while trying my damnedest to keep the Temple and Body of Light in my mind’s eye at the same time. After that I’d meditate a while, stilling my thoughts and waiting for some kind of response. Then I’d perform another LBRP and call it a night.

    A couple of weeks into it, I met my HGA and we started hanging out formally. At that point, I got the spirit’s name, and it agreed to come whenever I called it by name.

    Now, you don’t have to perform Liber Samekh to get K&CHGA. You can also contact your Nativity Angel, who can foster a relationship with your HGA. You can contact Agrippa’s “Genius,” which I believe Aaron Leitch equates with the Nativity Angel for the same purposes. You can acquire a Supernatural Assistant using the Greek Magical Papyri. You can go to a pentecostal worship service and get slain in the Spirit of God. You can perform the Abramelin rites (I would use the Dehn translation of the Book of Abramelin).

    The point is to get in touch with the “Good Familiar” who has the authority to Speak For God into your life. I recommend reading through Bill Heidrick’s “An Abramelin Ramble” a couple of times, reading Crowley’s Notes on Liber Samekh, and reading the descriptions of the Good Daimons and Familiars in the Greek Magical Papyri. I believe the Dehn translation of the Book of Abramelin is a must-read for every modern magician who has been spoon-fed the concept of the HGA that we’ve inherited from the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. Mather’s Introduction to The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage is also required reading, in my opinion.

    Take all these points of view together and look at the differences and similarities in the descriptions of the experiences. Get to know the authors of the work as best as you can. There are biographies of Agrippa, Eleazar of Worms, Crowley, and Mathers all over the place. Read through Heidrick’s other stuff to get a grasp of how he writes and what he means when he puts phrases together in different contexts. Try to see where the authors were coming from in their presentation of their experiences with these entities.

    When you do, you’ll find that you have an inventory of reports that you can use to help understand your own experiences with the entity that has so many names. You’ll be able to fill in the gaps that aren’t apparent in the writings of these authors as you develop your relationship with this spirit. You’ll be able to see what parts of Liber Samekh were just Crowley being Crowley, and what parts are effective techniques derived from thousands of years of practice.

    The cool part is this info is all online. I’ve got links above to everything I’ve mentioned. The only thing not free is the Book of Abramelin. You should also get Tyson’s modern translation of Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy and read it a chapter at a time. That’s optional, but it teaches you more about magic than the rest of your occult library combined.

    Goetia Gold

    Now, assuming you’ve got that bit of business out of the way… You do be ready, arrr, for ye next steps.

    Get ye the Map to the Treasure. I used the Lemegeton’s Goetia. I went through the spirits and found one that brought riches to a man. Bune. That’s good. He brought eloquence too, and I’m a writer by profession, and that makes sense to me. something about spirits on sepulchres. Ok, whatever. I needs me some riches and I needs me some good talkin‘, the rest is fer whatever, y’know?

    I made a “Spirit Pot” based on Aaron Leitch’s article at the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition. I got a pot from Goodwill, brass, had a lid. I drew up the Seal Solomon used to bind the spirits in the vessel. I printed a Triangle of Art from a drawing on the Internet. I wrote out the stuff that was supposed to be on the side of the pot on thin strips of paper, licked them, and plastered them with spit to the side of the pot until I had a chance to get my dremel tool going and engrave it properly. I used 777 (that was a mistake, arrrr) to get some corresponding materials to line the pot with, herbs, associated “weapons”, and I threw in some dirt and rocks from a local branch of my bank.

    I threw it all together on a Thursday, lit some purple candles, and conjured Bune. I asked him to live in the pot. He was thrilled at the idea. I asked him to bring me riches in the amount of $7MUSD, and change. I drew up his seal with the prayer “Bring riches to the man [my name] in the amount of [an exact amount to the penny that I had come up with to cover the lifestyle I wanted based on the house, the cars, and the income I wanted left over after bills were paid].” I licked that and stuck it to a purple seven-day candle. When it burned out I wasn’t rich yet, so I stuck it to another one.

    A few months later, when that wasn’t working, I tried just lighting anointed candles near his pot, and left the seal I’d been licking for months in the pot. It had started to taste pretty gross. Oddly enough, my health improved after that. Must have been magic, I’m sure.

    So fast forward through several increasingly better jobs, a house, vehicles, and some Exorcisms and other sepulchre-related stuff to the present. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a statue I wanted to be able to buy. It would have cost $30,000. I was pissed that I couldn’t just buy it, and also that for TWO YEARS almost, I had been dicking around with Bune, and there were months when the money I had left over after paying bills and everything was like $35. Sure, I had everything on the list I had made and shown Bune all that time ago. But I never got the lump sum amount that I needed to get set up for life.

    Arrr.

    So I turned to my left from the computer I work at, and there is my Spirit Pot housing Bune. “THIS! This is what I want, Bune,” I said. “I want to so rich that I can see something that costs $30,000 and be able to BUY IT on the spur of the moment without it even DENTING my finances.

    That was on a Friday. By the next Monday, I get an email from a relative with an awesome opportunity. It’s going to take work and savvy to make this as profitable as possible, but not THAT much work. See the link for an explanation of the opportunity I got if you’re interested.

    That’s my story, my advice, and my experience. This is what I would do if I were you:

    • Get K&CHGA
    • Read the Goetia and the Pseudomonarchia
    • Make a Spirit Pot
      • Fill the pot with the herbs and other items that are related to their assigned planet or attributes (Use Skinner’s Complete Magician’s Tables instead of 777)
      • Engrave the sides with the right words
      • Leave off the seal that binds them to the pot so they can get to work
    • Conjure the spirit and ask it to get in the pot
    • Develop a relationship with the spirit
    • Tell it you want it to bring you SO MUCH WEALTH that large purchases won’t make a difference to your net financial worth
    • Watch for opportunities
    • Take risks to get rich only if the risks are not going to bankrupt you
    That’s it. The last line is just advice. Will this work for you? It should. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t, that’s for sure.
    And if it doesn’t, feel free to contact me. AFTER you’ve tried it out on your own and have some informed questions to ask. Like, “I read the Goetia, do I HAVE to have all that shit?” Not like, “Can I have some money to buy all the stuff I need to do the work?”
    And if you want me to pay me to do magic on your behalf because I’m SO successful… I’m totally going to refer you to other people. Like Jason Miller. He does work for people. I’m not up for it.
    I’m leaving my blog up and intact. That comment I made about taking it down, publishing it, and selling the info to make even more money was just greed speaking. Refer to my archives, and learn from my experiences. I’m going to keep writing here too, even when I’m rich, because I’ll be able to focus more on the Thaumaturgical stuff when I’m not worried about making the mortgage payments. That’s the goal, anyway.

  • Spirit Conjuring Overview

    Due to recent experiences at the Spirit Summoning yahoo group, I’ve decided to write a quick, down and dirty introduction to spirit conjuration. You won’t be a pro after reading this, but you will know enough to start asking the right questions, and maybe conjure a spirit or two. No promises on it not eating you though. Especially if you’re not a Christian.

    That was a joke.

    To conjure a spirit, you have to know a couple of things. Who are you to conjure a spirit anyway? Why shou

  • Spirit Conjuring Overview

    Due to recent experiences at the Spirit Summoning yahoo group, I’ve decided to write a quick, down and dirty introduction to spirit conjuration. You won’t be a pro after reading this, but you will know enough to start asking the right questions, and maybe conjure a spirit or two. No promises on it not eating you though. Especially if you’re not a Christian.

    That was a joke.

    To conjure a spirit, you have to know a couple of things. Who are you to conjure a spirit anyway? Why shou

  • Spirit Conjuring Overview

    Due to recent experiences at the Spirit Summoning yahoo group, I’ve decided to write a quick, down and dirty introduction to spirit conjuration. You won’t be a pro after reading this, but you will know enough to start asking the right questions, and maybe conjure a spirit or two. No promises on it not eating you though. Especially if you’re not a Christian.

    That was a joke.

    To conjure a spirit, you have to know a couple of things. Who are you to conjure a spirit anyway? Why should they answer you when you call them? What are you going to tell them to do? How can you be sure of success?

    If you know those things, you’re ready. If not, read Agrippa’s Third Book of Occult Philosophy. Skim the bits that don’t make sense yet. Go back and re-read those parts some other time. Get familiar with the basics of magical conjuration.

    To conjure a spirit, you need its seal and/or its name. You’ll need some method of communicating with it. You’ll need to know what its native pantheon is, and who it answers to in that pantheon. Here’s a hint: If you’re not in the pantheon somewhere, don’t work with that spirit. In traditional grimoires written from a Christian perspective, we get to conjure spirits because we are the “angels” of the Earth, and we have a place in the hierarchy. In Pagan stuff, if you weren’t an initiate into the Mysteries, your place in the pantheon was “target.”

    Once you’ve got the spirit’s name and/or seal, draw it out on paper and wear it on your chest. You can engrave it in the appropriate metal, or color it according to the spirits’ favorite color scheme, or whatever details you want to add to make it more effective, but at least start with the Name/Seal on paper on your chest.

    Now you’ll need to know its superior in the hierarchy. If you don’t have this, have a damned good reason to call the spirit anyway. Like, “Tezcatlipoca, I conjure you as God of Sorcerors to aid me in my sorcerous warfare against Magician X! You, oh God of Sorcerors, alone have the power to destroy him” and so forth. Convince them that they need to be here, or that they’ll get something out of the deal.

    If you’ve got the name of their superior, use it to conjure them. “In the name of God IHVH Tzabaoth I conjure you, Archangel of Venus ANAEL to appear before me in this crystal…” and so on.

    Then you talk to the spirit. Tell it what you want. Check to see if it’s who you expected (make it say “Jesus is Lord” if you’re a Christian). See if it can do what you want it to do, or if there’s another spirit that’s better suited. Get a personal seal and/or name.

    When you’re done, tell it goodbye. “Thanks ANAEL forstopping in, I had a great time, come back when I call you by the name you gave me and the seal, and if I even imagine the seal and say your name, be with me immediately. In the name of IHVH Tzabaoth, go in peace.”

    Do something physical to ground yourself out. Hold a hunk of Iron Pyrite, Hematite, or go outside and stand barefoot in some dirt. Take a bath. Imagine you’re a piece of rock, molten in the earth’s core, oozing up through a crack in the ocean and then hardening as the sea water sizzles against your skin. Whatever works for you.

    That’s a spirit conjuring overview. Most of the rest is details, and you’ll pick them up in researching each grimoire’s internal structure. After a while, you won’t use the grimoires because you’ll already have made contact with the spirits, and they’ll be guiding you directly. It’s neat.

  • Solve et Coagula

    The other day, I was reading Ouspensky’s “The Symbolism of the Tarot” over at the Sacred Texts web site (www.sacred-texts.com). In the section “What is the Tarot”, he used the word “problem” in a sentence that shed new light on an old question of mine.

    Regarding the study of IHVH, he said “The study of this Name (or the four-lettered word, tetragrammaton, in Greek) and the finding of it in everything constitutes the main problem of Kabalistic philosophy.”

    He wrote in 1913, and his use of the language is different from my own. When I say I have a problem, I don’t usually think about it as a good thing, or as a subject of research. I think of “Problem” as something that’s bad, negative, something that is impeding my ability to enjoy life. In Ouspensky’s mind though, a problem is the central core of a philosophy.

    It got me thinking about how philosophy is a solution to a problem. When you have a problem, you try to solve it, and that got me thinking about the old alchemical axiom, Solve et Coagula.

    I’ve tended to think about the process of Solve et Coagula as the process of breaking apart a conglomeration into its individual parts, refining it, and bringing the parts back together as a new and better whole. That’s how the Great Work has manifested for me. But to the Solve stage, you must first recognize on some level that there is a problem that needs to be solved. What’s my problem? What is it that I’m trying to solve?

    The goal of “reuniting with God” is the solution to being separated from God. I’ve understood for a long time that the separation is only one level of existence, and that ultimately no one is separated from God. Through the Logos, the way back to Union and communion with the Divine was paved. So my problem isn’t that I’m not united with God.

    I perform the Great Work because I want to be a better person. I want a stronger character, I want to pass on a legacy of doing the right thing for my fellow incarnate beings to my children and grand children. I want to help people, and not be a selfish, lazy, ungrateful man. My problem is that I do the wrong thing instead of the right thing.

    At any given moment, I have a pool of energy I can draw on to do something. I can go for a walk, give money to the poor, or insult some moron who cut me off in traffic. The potential for whatever I do is always there.

    How that energy manifests is determined by what I decide to do. My decisions are influenced by my impulses towards selfishness, and how I’m going to make myself happy in the next moments. I’m a conglomeration of parts, some parts of me want to do the right thing, others jsut want to do the lazy thing. The way I make my decisions is heavily influenced by these component parts. The parts of myself that have control over my energy resources, my potential determine what I’m going to decide to do with my potential in any given moment, in any situation.

    The solve process is where the component parts are melted down, and the imputities are taken away. The Great Work is to get rid of the negative components, and allow the positive components to dominate the decisions, to control the manifestation of the potential I carry.

    So what is the Great Work? At this point, it’s a series of little problems that need to be Solved and Coagulated. Each of my “High Magic” rituals need to be focused on resolving the problems in my character that I’m made aware of through the Conversations with my HGA. There are areas of ignorance about the roles of the archangels I need to Solve. There are problems of the heart, mind, and spirit, each of which will need to be addressed, and in the process, perhaps the greater Work will be accomplished.