The Church is Dead and God is in Hell...so your Freedom is Sacred

I'm sure many of my friends and blog readers know I love Lent and get super excited about it. Last year I had a pretty popular post about Ash Wednesday and my Gnostic interpretation of the meaning of Ash Wednesday vis a vis Palm Sunday. But did you know I think Holy Saturday is the most amazing day of the year? I made sure my ordination as a Gnostic Catholic Priest fell on the Saturday of the Easter Triduum for this reason, once I organized a Mass, Class, Spaghetti Dinner, and Dionysian Mystery Tradition ritual for a Holy Saturday chocked full of wonder. I think it's a day which is in itself mystically inclined...here is a discussion I had this early afternoon of why. I hope you enjoy it, and that you share it with your friends, so that you and they can go find the infinite in all that you do.

BJ: After 3pm we enter the best time of the year. Because the church is dead and god is in hell.

College Fencer: I’m sorry I must have been to the boring catholic education cause that sounds way more fun than my average Good Friday

My explanation as to why Holy Saturday is the Greatest Day of the Year for Mystics, Gnostics, and Antinomianists:

The Harrowing of Hell occurs on Good Friday after Christ's death when Christ descends into Hell and tears down its gates and in doing so conquers sin and death. In this process God essentially descends into Hell. Christ's incarnation is described as God achieving sympathy for Man by taking on Man's suffering and weakness. With the Passion on the Cross and the Harrowing of Hell God takes on all sin, all suffering and pain and descends into a moment of isolation from himself, achieving the ultimate weakness and powerlessness before then conquering it. In this moment God is closer to mankind than ever. In an almost gravitational way God sinks below man and draws man closer into a shared proximity than would seem otherwise possible.

When Christ dies the Church as his Bride dies as well. From 3pm on Good Friday until Dawn on Easter Sunday there is no Church. This is the most sacred antinomian moment. There is no institution, there is no mediation so there is only man and God. God's grace exists simultaneously with the depths of human experience and error with no Magisterium to dictate its nature or how to access it. This is shown when the veil of the Holy of Holies is rent in the temple at the moment of Christ's death. The veil separated the common man from the sanctum in which God resided, an inner sanctum in which only the High Priest could enter. With the veil torn asunder God permeates the world. With no Church and no Veil man and God stand face to face unmediated such that man directly experiences the infinite fully and unfiltered on his own terms in his own space of being. With this it can be interpreted that in this time all acts that express man's nature and his experience of the world are redeemed and are in contact with divine grace.

Death, or the withering of man from a state of perfection in which he resides within divine grace, is the price of experience and knowledge in the story of Man's exile from Eden. It is by descending into the fullness of human experience that Christ defeats death and returns the dead to paradise. Thus again, the full experience of our humanity during Holy Saturday is the experience of divine grace which allows death to be conquered and Sin to be transcendent.

So in my view, as a Gnostic Catholic, from the afternoon of Good Friday through to Dawn on Easter represents full access to the goal of mysticism, union with God and transcendence over the suffering and error of humanity such that our humanity, our drives and desires are elevated as the vehicles by which we Triumph and are resurrected with the Dawn. 

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Ritual Drama and Missing the Boat

When I was a teenager I was preparing to run my first group ritual. I was probably 15 or 16, I'd been doing rituals on my own, formally from books for about 4 or 5 years at that point, but being more or less a kid I hadn't had a team to work with. There was no Scooby Gang ala Buffy and unlike Scott McCall I wasn't alpha of a supernatural pack (yet), despite how much TV makes it look like high school is one supernatural group play date after another. 

Around my sophomore year of high school I began expanding my group of Pagan and magic curious friends and we lived in a magical world of hormone soaked epicness complete with our own little magical adventures. We eventually decided to unofficially become "Pagan Youth Group" and have special outings for magic kids only...mostly hanging at the mall and witch shops. And our first official unofficial outing was going to include a Celtic Reconstructionist Bealtain ritual which I was writing. 

Proud of my first attempt at a group ritual I sent the script to Ceisiwr Serith (author of Pagan Family, A Book of Pagan Prayer, and a few other titles) to get his feedback. In that feedback he gave me some really important advice "Remember this isn't a Protestant service, you don't need to give a sermon to try and teach a congregation." Ritual isn't preaching, it isn't Sunday school it doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be just a verbal recounting of a religion's ideals or history or mythos. 

Cei's advice on this (as with many things he taught me) has stuck with me such that here I am 20 years later recalling that first attempt and his guidance. 

On the other end of the spectrum, as an adult I recall one of my early experiences of group ritual magic in which a magician in the local community exclaimed during practice - with an attempt at dramatic gravitas: "remember, this. Is. THEATER!"

I recall being wholly unimpressed. 

Now, as I write this, I've been working in a group for 17 years, I've been an ordained priest for 7 years, I ran the Pagan student Union at my college for 5 years, so I have a lot of experience writing group rituals, doing well established group rituals, and being in or watching people's original group rituals. 

I have seen and been in several clumsy rituals, even a couple of my attempts have been clumsy. Group rituals are tough sometimes because you have to balance having an effective ritual with satisfying the group's desire to enjoy the ritual, to feel like they got to participate, to feel entertained. 

These goals often don't serve each other. 

You get a lot of people who toss in a Eucharist or burning an intention or putting a personal item on the altar as easy ways to include people. Sometimes these elements make sense sometimes they're a little forced but typically they're an attempt to keep the magic there while managing group needs. 

You also get people who essentially produce very overdetermined plays which don't do anything operatively in terms of magic or spirituality...they just present ritualized drama, they engage in theater, they maybe beat you over the head with a message.

Things like that aren't magic, they aren't ritual, and they're in the bargain basement bins in terms of religion. 

If your ritual acts don't do anything, if they are just a show, if they are just communicating an idea, they aren't magic and I'd argue might only barely be ritual if at all. 

Now you can easily cite academic books which equate ritual and drama and look at ritual as psychology. But these books are generally written by secular researchers looking to explain human behavior in a secular context. There is a lot of useful stuff magicians and Pagans can take from the academic press but an ethnographic bias or contextualizing religious practice to fit secular concepts are not elements which help us. 

We can cite the relationship between theater and religion in Greece...clearly with that in mind, ritual plays can be magical religious rituals. Right?

Maybe. 

I've definitely done rituals which involve elements of drama and theater, but the point is always to create a real magical impact. Spiritual forces are engaged and applied to accomplish something. There is a goal beyond a message. Theatrical elements can be tools used by a magician, but they must be used towards a magical purpose. Your actions and words, your costume, your space, these can contribute to theater and to magic even simultaneously. But the theater shouldn't replace the magic. 

If we're doing mystery plays we're not doing a play with a clever twist to reflect upon, we're confronting spiritual powers that change us through directly experiencing them.

I was thinking about all this as I was showering this morning. I was thinking about rituals and communities. It made me think of a ritual I read recently by a pretty secular Thelemic author. Putting aside culturally insensitivity problems in it the ritual is basically a series of quasi-history speeches. Nothing really happens. It is literally a pageant. 

To me that's sad. Killing the experience of the mysteries, deadening the fires at the core of magical practice in favor of a sort of psychological Protestantism is the work of "The Great Sorcery" the aim of the Black Brotherhood. It moves us to a complacent and distracted place where we get mired like a fool with our "one one one". 

So remember, ritual isn't Sunday school, magic isn't Protestantism.

When did you work for the Secret Chiefs?

Facebook has my previous employer as the Secret Chiefs. Currently it has down that I work at the Gnostic Catholic Church. But it asks frequently "When did you work at the Secret Chiefs." It wants to complete my profile info by knowing when I did the job, that wasn't a job.

The question is weird in a couple ways. One, it's Facebook being invasive so it can figure out how to better connect me to stuff. But for two, the question just looks funny when asked, like if it were a conventional job what would your job be? Are you like their liaison, or agent who goes on missions for them? The page who takes memos from one ascended master to another? What would a job working for them look like? Would they have a big top floor group of offices in a skyscraper? Would it be the 11^th floor of a building with an elevator with no button numbered 11?

The real odd part of the question though is the word “when.” Working for the Secret Chiefs is the sort of thing that doesn't have a start and stop, it just is. You might think of it along the lines of the point where you join an organization committed the the Great Work, or to initiation or spiritual development, but that presumes that the Secret Chiefs operate purely through clean cut lines of temporal agency.

They don't.

Cutting away the mythology of ascended masters, or of a secret continental fraternity of masonic occult initiates, we can approach the idea of secret chiefs in a way that is useful and makes more sense. There are two ways I like to look at the idea of the Secret Chiefs.

The first of these is more temporal in nature. Initiates who reach the third order of initiation, or the Order of the SS would be counted amongst the Secret Chiefs. Now this does not refer to a specific order's curriculum or way of doing things, but rather the specific initiatic experience of unifying the ego of the manifest self with the fullness of the unmanifest divine. Any organization led by people in this state of initiation would be a Fully Contacted order in communion with the Secret Chiefs.

That said, this does not mean that everyone who has achieved this level of initiation is in communication with each other. It does not mean that there is a secret group of initiates playing poker in a hidden temple in the Himalayas and deciding the spiritual affairs of mankind.

It means that anyone operating from this perspective is operating in communion with the Harmony which underlies the universe. Their own individual expression of that Harmony will be unique to them, but it will still be an expression of the same source. So their guidance of their students, or of their particular spiritual order or school will still stem from that Invisible College of Masters even if these Masters don't get together and discuss plans and curricula. There is a unity beyond temporal ideas of unity expressed through corporeal agency.

The other half of the coin is the divine fullness, or the pleroma. In traditional Gnosticism the pleroma is an understanding of god which is unified and transcendent but also manifest and individuated. The ultimate God of Gnosticism is like that of Hermeticism or NeoPlatonism, a non-anthropomorphized non-characterized God who is undivided and complete. The pleroma is the movement of this divinity towards manifestation. This is the collective of the divine forces within the whole. The forces within the pleroma are individual divine beings, but the pleroma itself is a singular transcendent nature.

The unity a master has with divinity is a unity with this element of divinity, the full Harmony of the forces of creation united into a singular coalescent whole. Like the metals and planets of alchemy, iron is the manifestation of a particular force within the world, and Mars is the manifestation of the same force within the Heavens, so the planets and the metals form a bridge expressing the communication of the forces embodied in the stars into the elemental sphere of the world. Masters and the forces of the pleroma share a similar relationship.

So then anyone who is in a system being led by one of these Masters works for the Secret Chiefs right? Maybe, maybe not.

Sometimes people join orders, or become students without fully engaging the Work because it just isn't where they are going, or this particular expression might not be the way they're getting there. So working under that Master might not be a situation where an individual is doing the Great Work.

On the flip side, someone called to the Work, is working for the Secret Chiefs as soon as they begin movement towards answering that calling. That same Harmony which represents a component of the concept of the Secret Chiefs and works in tune with Masters might inspire, and draw, and guide people who might eventually become Masters even if they haven't realized they are that at this point in life. So anyone earnestly engaged in the Work, operating under inspiration from Truth, is in the employ of the Secret Chiefs, even if they don't yet realize they're doing the Work. So long as they continue on that path they still work with the Secret Chiefs.

So in the end, there really is no “when.”

Gandalf, Dumbledore, and True Will

First, I am not a fan of people who can't delineate between fiction, fantasy and the real world. Naming magical orders, and schools and temples and stuff after fictional characters and groups and places does not tend to help me take a group seriously, and in general it won't help most people take you seriously.

That said, fiction and mythology can be amazing for illustrating ideas and for providing inspiration. That's a large part of why we develop and tell stories, to convey ideas and knowledge, and to provide icons to help teach us things and demonstrate stuff to us. Stories can be a great jumping off point for discussing concepts which may be useful, and sometimes they can elucidate them more clearly than we could on our own. I'm totally on board with using our modern cultural stories as teaching tools and I intend to use them as a jumping off point here.

Merlin. Merlin is like the archetypal magician of western culture. But in a lot of versions of the Arthur legend we don't see Merlin do a ton of magic, at least not recognizable big flashy magic. When the legend is redone for TV or for children's books we see him do a lot more, but a lot of the time he's wise. He sets up situations. He has a plan. One of the most powerful things he does is to sit back and watch, he observes so he can play the long game.

While I am familiar with Gandalf and Dumbledore from their film adaptations I think I still have some idea about how their characters work. They both seem to be cut from the same cloth as Merlin.

Gandalf does a lot less magic than I would expect. He seems to be connected to just about everyone and everything in Middle Earth. He has a ton of influence and has set up people everywhere who are assets able to help him affect the steps and pieces needed towards achieving his goal. He, like Odin after whom he is modeled, understands the coming destruction and he travels throughout the world gathering all the knowledge he can for centuries so that he can understand how things flow together, interconnect, and unfold, so that he can position the smallest, most insignificant seeming people exactly where he needs them to achieve the one goal which over all else directs his life.

Dumbledore is again similar. He does a little more flashy magic, and his character is not completely a manifestation of a particular goal, but he's also written for a modern book series for children. Despite that, Dumbledore sets a plan into motion, well before Harry Potter's birth, before the details of Tom Riddle's plans are revealed, for him to ultimately stop Riddle using people who aren't even around yet. He sets up intricate scenarios allowing characters to think they are doing things on their own, allowing enemies to think they are making in roads, all to put people together to give them the tools and knowledge they will need to solve the problems he knows they will encounter, or to gain information on, or to weaken, or give false security to the enemy. He goes so far as to plan his own death, and to create a scenario of infiltration of his strong hold to create the situations and environment needed to accomplish his goal. While we know a little bit about his life before the war with the Dark Lord, the bulk of what we see is his life devoted to accomplishing a singular purpose, and him observing and coordinating the world around him towards that purpose.

In a sense, each of these magicians embodies the True Will. Not in that they have a single moment they must achieve, but in that they have a singular purpose which guides them and everything they do is in support of this. For real people, this isn't so much that we need to destroy a ring, or crown a king, or defeat an enemy, we have to live in a certain way which allows us to actualize who we are, find the work which is suited to us, and be successful in accomplishing that work. Like these iconic wizards we have a single pointed duty. Our duty is to understand and accomplish whatever our True Will is. Everything we do ultimately sweeps into the current of that work. The more we align our actions, our understandings, our environments, our influence over the world to whatever that Will is, the more successful and powerful we become in accomplishing this duty.

The magicians in our story don't accomplish their Wills through flashy shows of power. They use them when necessary, when they support what they are doing. In fact, every action they engage in, every word they say, seems to carry some inexplicable power with it because it is drawing the world around them into the gravity of their current of action and force. They are stars aligning the cosmos around them in support of their own trajectories, but in a way which benefits the overall cosmos.

A big part of the power that defines these wizards beyond their ability to orchestrate the world, is their ability to observe and comprehend it. They wait, for years, or in some cases centuries, taking the world into themselves by knowing each piece of it until they comprehend every force, whether that force is manifest as a person, a place, an object, or an idea. As they comprehend the whole of the world they understand its patterns, they understand what people will do, when things will happen, and how every small movement will affect the things around them. While I'm often of the position that magic involves manipulating the underlying forces of nature to bring about changes, that it isn't just any action we do that serves our Will, there is definitely a magical element to understanding all the small factors involved in a situation and positioning the pieces so they fall together like a beautiful pattern of dominoes. There is a magic to understanding and navigating interconnectivity.

This is a big part of magical initiation.

We don't always look at this piece of it but it's there as a huge piece of what we should be doing as we develop ourselves.

In the A.'.A.'. system, and the Golden Dawn system, people move through grades accorded to the elements and the sefirot. These grades can be accorded to the four kabbalistic worlds and to the kabbalistic parts of the soul. In these grades we learn various skills, and we develop tools, we pick up pieces of occult knowledge. The real beauty of it though is that these skills, and practices, the process of developing tools, learning correspondences, and then understanding how these all fit together, why they all fall within they same grade, these begin to paint a picture of a particular worldview, or perspective, a way of viewing how everything fits within the light of that particular elemental world. We begin to deconstruct and reconstruct the world in new ways with each grade, expanding our field of vision, our apprehension of the interactions and natures of things. We change the eyes with which we see the world and complete our capacity for knowing and understanding the further and further we go.

A lot of people don't get this piece of the work. It's part of it that you can really only get by fully engaging it. But it's incredibly important. You expand the way in which you understand yourself, and the way in which you understand the world, and how you and the world interconnect. This allows you to know yourself and what your Will is and how to begin to unfold it in the world. The more you practice techniques of deepening your awareness, your ability to be attentive and analyze, and the more you understand the elemental components of the people, places, and things within your life, the more power you will have to both understand and influence the world around you. The more ability you'll have to do magic.

A magician who understands the world understands the forces he needs to apply to change the world, whether it is positioning a person, or speaking a word, or conjuring a spirit. Part of our work is to seek out knowledge from the spirits, and from the powers of the natural world, but the more expansive our awareness and understanding is the more we can ground this knowledge, the more we can understand this knowledge, and the more we can use this knowledge. If we better understand the way in which things interact, we can understand the cause of a problem, we can understand the solution, and we can point the right thing at it to get stuff done.

One of the cool things about what we do is running around gathering knowledge. The Ars Notoria is cool because the prayers present a ton of interesting effects, powers, and knowledge that seem like they would be useful for the magician wandering around doing his work. The Veritable Key of Solomon presents so many more methods and effects than one thinks of when we think Solomonic, in doing so it presents a pretty full picture of skills and powers a magician might gather. Going through books of spirits presents spirits that can teach us a ton of things and do a ton of things for us. We have a lot of sources to gather knowledge and powers. Part of being a capable magician, part of embodying the presence of a bad ass wizard, is going around and increasing our understanding in tandem with increasing our grasp of knowledge and power.

So go out and engage your world, know yourself, and make shit happen.

Git Gud...or...The Wrong Kind of Fool

Magical folk like to associate themselves with wisdom. There is a certain way in which understanding hidden elements of reality and being able to use them to your advantage might be considered wise. An expanded situational awareness and the ability to deftly redirect things that are happening to help your cause might be thought of as being wise too.

But maybe all of that is just a matter of being clever. Not precisely wisdom, but still good.

The fixation on being wise leads to a lot of stuff that isn't magic. Attempts to claim credentials, or to have known certain people or to have read certain books. It leads to a focus on practicing a lot of impractical techniques. Some of these are mystical or are developmental and can help make you a better magician. Some are good for being a more successful person. Some are a waste of time. But we eat them up like a sweet confection made into a smoothie.

They're easy. They make us look good. They aren't something for which success is measurable. And they lead to guru level bragging rights without the stress of failure.

We laud people who memorize philosophical platitudes from JV team occult philosophers and regurgitate them with just the right cadence to make them seem mystical instead of creeperish or dysfunctional. We whack off to memes of quotes from famous renegades even when they really aren't useful statements magically or for life in general.

Because...we have to be wise, so we have to be in on the hidden wisdom. We have to show we GET IT and are part of the club.

Honestly, a lot of this stuff. It can be good. It can be useful.

But we fill our cups with so much of it we forget to actually learn and do magic. We don't immerse ourselves in the powers which will actually make our lives better and at the same time transform us into something better.

Because we're busy. We're busy with being the cool kid in the misfit club. We're busy embracing stuff to tell us how awesome we are in a way that is so fixated on that embrace that we forget to actually make sure we're awesome.

This hurts us because it leads to us no longer being open to learning things. We're convinced that some basic stuff makes us so l33t that we know the score. We don't have to listen anymore, we just have to talk, because the shit coming out of our mouths, or flying off our fingers into the electronic aethyrs of the internet...well that shit is fucking gold.

But it isn't.

We listen to people who don't know shit because we've decided they're cool because they regurgitate the same unexamined poorly sourced mish mash that has become the norm. And then we spoon up more of the same for the next guy.

While all this is happening, we still don't do magic. Because we are busy, we have to take time to gesticulate and gibber so we can catch a good case of the feels. At least 15 minutes a day.

We don't question people or say people are wrong. Because people who don't want to be questioned have told us it's rude. They've told us everything is right. They've told us it's all about how we feel or about what we want.

I'm sorry. Reality doesn't work that way.

If we want to be serious, and take magic seriously, if we want to be successful and real, here is some wisdom. Understand what is true, and use it. Appreciate learning what is false, because it helps you understand what is true. Call people out on their shit, or at least, reject it. Reject your own shit when it turns out it's nonsense, even if you wish it were true. Don't worry about being wise. Embrace being a dumbass who needs to find out everything and who needs to explore and who needs to drink deeply from the well of knowledge because without it you're going to drown in all the goofiness that surrounds you. Don't worry about being the teacher, or being the best, or showing you know the score.

In my own life, the road to successful development has never been about understanding that I know stuff or that I get it. It's always been about finding someone who is bigger and better than me, someone who knows more so I can say "I'm not as far along as him, I need to get there." Or seeing a system and saying "I don't understand that, maybe I'm not ready to now, I need to make sure I get to the point where I do get it."

Know what you don't know.

If you want to git gud. That's how you do it. Inspiration. You can't be inspired to be better if you know you're the best.

Git gud.

It's what you want to do. At least up to whatever point is good for you.

So get your ass handed to you. Read the comments on a thread which answer a question better than your answer does. Question your masters and determine if it makes sense. Reject what makes you feel like you're top dog when you realize it's not more than a feeling. Ask questions so you can listen to the answers, not just to show off how clever you are for asking, or how cool what you're doing must be.

And do magic. Serious magic. With right and wrong answers being part of your worldview.

Modern Solomonic Magic

A few years back I began occasionally presenting angel conjuration rituals at the local OTO body, William Blake Lodge. We mostly did a conjuration based on Mathers's Greater Key of Solomon but at one point I decided to experiment with using the Solomonic structure to create a conjuration based on Thelemic imagery.


Some participants found that the Thelmic imagery spoke to and inspired them more than the more traditional Kabbalistic imagery. Most reported that the spirit seemed to arrive but with kind of a "what are you even doing?" sort of feeling coming from the spirit until we began using divine and angelic names, at which point the spirit seemed in their perception to kind of "snap to" and pay attention more ardently. 

This result is interesting in that several people mentioned this impression to me, and if it is the case it would suggest that yes, our modern magical practices do invoke appropriate forces, but the classic ways do tend to exert control over the spirits as that is their nature. I do not know precisely what things people asked for or what they got, but people reported being happy with their results. 

I would love to hear what results people get from experimenting with this.

Thelemic Solomonic Evocation v.1

Fr. VH

Preparation of the Circle

Let the circle me marked out in salt, or chalk, or carved into the ground as described.

As the circle is drawn Liber Lapidis Lazuli is read.

Ablution

Once the circle is drawn all exit the space devest themselves of their street clothes, wash in spring water and abramelin oil and put on white EGC robes. As they wash they say:

“He that is righteous shall be righteous still, he that is filthy shall be filthy still, deem not of change: ye shall be as ye are & not other.” AL 2.57 - 58

Before using the water it is consecrated by tracing the symbol of water followed by the rose cross above it and imbuing it with light while saying:

“Aye! Feast! Rejoice!! There is no dread hereafter. There is the dissolution, and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu.” AL 2.44

When this is accomplished all return to the temple and stand in the circle.

Consecration of the Circle

From the center of the circle let the Karcist recite before the altar, facing the high altar in the east:

“Oh circle of stars whereof our father is but the younger brother, marvel beyond imagination, soul of infinite space, before whom time is ashamed, the mind bewildered, and the understanding dark. Not to thee may we attain unless thy image be love. Therefore by seed and root and stem and bud and leaf and flower and fruit do we invoke thee.

Then the priest answered and said unto the queen of space, kissing her lovely brows, and the dew of her light bathing his whole body in a sweet smelling perfume of sweat. Oh Nuit, continuous one of heaven, let it be ever thus that men speak not of thee as one, but as none, and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous.”

Let one participant advance to the East. He will visualize the pentagram in brilliant red within his mind and fling it out ending in the sign of the enterer and say Chaos. He will then make the sign of silence. Then, making the sign of the Theoricus he will say:

“Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!”

Then let one participant advance to the South. He will visualize the pentagram in brilliant red within his mind and fling it out ending in the sign of the enterer and say Psyche. He will then make the sign of silence. Then, making the sign of the Philosophus he will say:

“Hail unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy triumphing, even unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy beauty, who travellest over the heavens in thy bark at the Mid-course of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Morning!”

Then let one participant advance to the West. He will visualize the pentagram in brilliant red within his mind and fling it out ending in the sign of the enterer and say Eros. He will then make the sign of silence. Then, making the sign of the Practicus he will say:

“Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even unto Thee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Day!”

Then let one participant advance to the North. He will visualize the pentagram in brilliant red within his mind and fling it out ending in the sign of the enterer and say Babalon. He will then make the sign of silence. Then, making the sign of the Zelator he will say:

“Hail unto thee who art Khephra in Thy hiding, even unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy silence, who travellest over the heavens in Thy bark at the Midnight Hour of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Evening.”

Then let each return to the center of the circle.

When all are at the center the Karcist shall make the rose cross above the altar and say:

“Now let there be a veiling of thise shrine: now let the light devour men and eat them up with blindness.” - AL 2.14

After this pause for a space and contemplate the presence of the divine light.

Invocation of the Highest

Let the Karcist face the East and invoke the Holy Guardian Angel with these words:

“In the sphere I am everywhere the centre, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found.” AL 2.3

“I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. ‘Come unto me‘ is a foolish word: for it is I that go.”

“IO IO IO IAO Sabao Kurie Abrasax, Kurie Mithras, Kurie Phalle, IO Pan, IO Pan Pan, IO Ischuros, IO Athanatos, IO Abrotos, IO IAO, Kyrie Phalle, Kyrie Panphage, Kyrie Pangenetor, Hagios, Hagios, Hagios, IAO”

“I adore thee in song

I am the Lord of Thebes, and I

The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu;

For me unveils the veiled sky,

The self-slain Ankh-af-na-knonsu

Whose words are truth, I invoke, I greet

They presence, O Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

Unity uttermost showed!

I adore the might of Thy breath,

Supreme and terrible God,

Who makest the gods and death

To tremble before Thee: -

I, I adore thee!

Appear on the throne of Ra!

Open the way of the Khu!

Lighten the ways of the Ka!

The ways of the Khabs run through

To stir me or still me!

Aum! Let it fill me!

The light is mine; its rays consume

Me: I have made a secret door

Int o the House of Ra and Tum,

Of Khephra and of Ahathoor.

I am thy Theban, O Mentu,

The prophet Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

By Bes-na-maut my breast I beat;

By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.

Show thy star splendour, O Nuit!

Bid me within thine House to dwell,

O winged snake of Light, Hadit!

Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!”

Conjuration

“0. Deeper and deeper into the mire of things! Farther and farther into the never-ending Expansion of the Abyss.
1. The great goddess that bendeth over the Universe is my mistress; I am the winged globe at her heart.
2. I contract ever as she ever expandeth;
3. At the end it is all one.
4. Our loves have brought to birth the Father and Creator of all things.
5. He hath established the elements; the aether, the air, the water, the earth, and the fire.
6. He hath established the wandering stars in their courses.
7. He hath ploughed with the seven stars of his Plough, that the Seven might move indeed, yet ever point to the unchanging One.
8. He hath established the Eight Belts, wherewith he hath girdled the globes.
9. He hath established the Trinity of Triads in all things, forcing fire into fire, and ordering all things in the Stable Abode of the Kings of Æ.
10. He hath established His rule in His kingdom.
11. Yet the Father also boweth unto the Power of the Star 418 and thereby
12. In his subtlety He expandeth it all into twelve rays of the Crown.
13. And these twelve rays are One.” Liber ARARITA 6:0-13

By Eheieh and Metatron we stir the world, by Yah and Ratziel we move thee forth, by YHVH Elohim and Tzafkiel we receive thee! By the name EL! We call and command thee Bariel! By the force of Tzadkiel we stir thee to action Bariel! By the presence of Sachiel we conjure thee with us Bariel! By the name of Iophiel we direct thee Bariel! By the hand of Hishmael thou art present Bariel! Hear our commands and answer our seeking, by the name of EL whose mercy is unending, by the name of EL from whom all gifts flow, by the name of EL, rich and fertile, by the name of EL whom you hold dear, we command you rightly.

All make their requests of the spirit.

License to depart

By the name of EL go forth Bariel and see to this work. Travel swiftly and in peace that you may succeed, and come again quickly when you are called. By EHIH, YAH. YHVH ELOHIM, and EL go forth and fulfill your commands!

And On That Note...How do we know our magic is MAGIC?

So, yesterday we talked about how you're stronger when you're really you, and so if being you is being a magician then you need to actually be a magician and do actual magic. So what does that mean?

When discussing this issue the other day the person complaining about people not doing magic was mostly complaining about people not doing ritual. Of course there is magic which doesn't involve ritual, and there is ritual that doesn't involve magic. Now, when I pointed out that even people who do ritual are not always people who do magic, the person originally complaining asked, despite a clear lack of desire for an answer, how one would determine that a ritualist is not necessarily a magician.

So let's take a look at a few elements to keep in mind. Hopefully for those who are looking to develop their magical practice, these thoughts might help with developing more powerful, effective, and meaningful rituals.

1. Magic is by it's nature goal oriented.

In general a big part of developing into a more useful person for me was learning to understand the importance of being goal oriented. In college I took a class called “The Psychology of Motivation” it was an upper level neurology class and the professor had a reputation for being amazing but also incredibly difficult. The material was riveting in general, but the most interesting part was how well the teacher drove home the point at all motivation is goal oriented. It made me realize the importance of understanding clearly what a goal is and how to move towards it in terms of understanding our motivations and those of others, and therefore understanding the underlying elements of a situation. This is a huge part of being a magician. We have to be able to look at the world and see through the bull shit down to the truth of a thing. We have to be able to pull apart the puzzle and see the strings which form the maze. We have to know what will happen when we pull on a particular string and what will pull back on it from each end. Understanding goals is a big part of this. Understanding goals, and what is necessary to reach them is also hugely important to success.

From the perspective of a magician, understanding our goals and how to achieve them is part of how we decide what magic to do in what way. Understanding that magic requires a goal is an important part to distinguishing our magic from playing dress up.

Magic is about willed change.

Crowley defined magic as “the art and science of causing change in conformity with will” there is a bit of an implication towards the mystical elements of changing things based on one's true will when we quote Crowley. Personally I like to take it more generally “Magic is the process of causing change through the manipulation of subtle and unseen forces.” The will part is less obvious, but manipulate implies that we are determining the change created by these forces. In either case, we make a decision about what we want to have happen, and we make it happen.

So if we're doing ritual and it's not supposed to do anything, or we don't know what it's supposed to do we probably aren't doing magic.

2. So...being goal oriented, means we want the goal to happen

Years ago I was at a coffee house near a college. It was run by local NeoPagans and they used to do Pagan Band Jams. Sometimes the OTO would go hang out and meet people.

I once met a young man there who was clearly very concerned about his 1980s punk rock chaos magician image. He told me all about how he liked reading chaos magic books, he was wearing his chaos star t-shirt, and he told me about how he didn't believe in magic but sometimes liked to do rituals when people pissed him off so he could feel better by pretending to curse them. I said I preferred to spend my time doing things that accomplished stuff.

To me it seems silly intentionally doing something that we don't think will accomplish anything, but, I guess in his case it was accomplishing a sort of catharsis or distraction. This behavior isn't just a chaos magic thing, there are people who dress up as witches, druids, thelemites, wizards, whatever because they feel better doing so and doing rituals even though they only look for them to make them feel better. It makes sense, as a lot of writers stick to magic as kind of an in home self help ritualized psychology. Arguably this is a goal, feeling better, and there is a change, you feel better than you did. But putting on a warm blanket, or eating ice cream, or thinking happy thoughts can do the same thing. I wouldn't really consider this a change in the sense of magic.

When we're looking at changes sometimes they might be things which aren't clearly perceptible, but they're still things where there is a meaningful and significant difference. For instance rituals or practices which develop and strengthen the subtle body of the magician, or which expand awareness or psychic capabilities, or even revealing knowledge can all be magic. We're working internally in these cases, but they result in clear applicable changes at are more than us just deciding to smile.

Changes quite often can be external perceptible elements of reality. There is a clear presence in the magical community of people trying to downplay real external change because it's easier to look acceptable and not crazy, but, magic, throughout history, has always primarily been about creating a world we want. Looking through the grimoires we see rituals for gaining treasure, procuring favor, gaining love, taking love away, defeating enemies, tons of stuff. All of it is stuff that is beyond our ability to achieve it just by deciding that we want it, but it's all also stuff that can be the object of a clearly defined goal.

3. Magical practices should involve means of making the goal happen

If you want to hit a baseball, you probably need to swing a bat. Conversely, just because you're swinging a bat, doesn't mean you're hitting a baseball. You need the right tool applied in the right way at the right moment to the right thing in order to achieve your goal.

If a ritual or practice does not engage in any means of applying change it can't accomplish change and isn't magic. Now, a ritual which has no means of effecting change, or which applies the wrong means, or the right means incorrectly doesn't mean there is no intention to do magic necessarily, it may just mean the ritual is poorly constructed. Either way though, not going to hit the home run.

So what're some means of creating change by magic?

Spirits. Spirits are probably one of the oldest identifiable methods of agency in magic. They can achieve goals by way of offerings, pacts, or commanding them by names and seals.

The Kabbalah's magical elements involve arranging series or correspondences to track pathways of manifestation along the Tree of Life to create particular results.

More modern sources deal with flows of psychic energy and the creation of manipulation of thought-forms or of the astral light.

Somewhere between that more modern method and classical ones we see the conjuration of elemental and planetary forces, and other unseen forces within the universe to be applied to a situation by way of symbols of not by spirits.

There are many forms of agency, or means of power and action, which your magic can take, but it has to take one, or at least one, in order to be magic. Even more it has to apply it appropriately in a way relevant to the goal.

So in summation your magic should...

...start with a clearly defined goal

...have the actual intention of achieving the goal

...use techniques to manipulate and apply some means of achieving that goal.

So, you might still say, “well, how can we say these things are required for magic or that just doing ritual doesn't mean these things are happening?”

I would answer that it's pretty easy to watch a ritual and see if you can determine the goal, and the method for achieving it. The intention to succeed is less visible. Either way, magic should be somewhat testable. For those coming out of a Thelemic background, the method of science, the aim of religion. We should be able to review our actions and anticipate results and track whether to actions and results align and potential causes of error. This is a key part of training within the A.'.A.'. system, and was also applied amongst the Golden Dawn. Further both the A.'.A.'. and Golden Dawn worked to expand the powers of the subtle body of the initiate, with this being accomplished the initiate should be sensitive to the magical movements stirred by another's ritual, and a sufficiently advanced initiate should be able to recognize magic from theater. This testing of results and abilities was not something that was unique to the student, both the A.'.A.'. and the Golden Dawn worked with experiments to test psychic perceptions as the initiate developed.

In any case, arguing about the historical support for a magician to be able to recognize whether something is magic or bunk won't get us too far, but we at least have some notes to consider when planning our ritual actions so we can ask ourselves “Is this functional as magic or am I just doing ritual for some other reason?”

Little questions like that might seem unimportant if you're getting something out of it either way, but they're necessary to help you get to know your most reliable partner in all of this, yourself. As you understand what your motivations are more clearly, you can begin to understand how to achieve them more thoroughly.

Why your Magic should, you know, be magic.

It came up recently in a discussion the criticism of magicians who don't do magic. It's a strange sort of topic. People like to point the finger despite the three which point back at them. I myself try to point all four, retaining the thumbs up for those who actually do the work. What I mean to say here is, it's reasonable to criticize those who want to be magicians but don't do magic, but often those making the criticism fit the bill too. So we should be at pains, as magicians, to make sure that our magic is in fact magic and that we encourage and develop real magic when we can. Notice, I didn't say we should be at pains to do anything to the fake magicians. We should be too busy doing magic and being awesome to have time to become inquisitors, but we can spend our time being awesome and powerful presences and maybe lead others by our own gravitas towards being magicians who do magic.

Jack Parsons said in the Book of the Antichrist:

“An end to all authority that is not based on courage and manhood, to the authority of lying priests, conniving judges, blackmailing police, and An end to the servile flattery and cajolery of moods, the coronations of mediocrities, the ascension of dolts. ”

And the Book of the Law says:

“Despise also all cowards; professional soldiers who dare not fight, but play; all fools despise!”

In the first instance we're kind of calling for the unseating of the false from positions of power. There is a definite social commentary element but also a mystical one. For our society to truly flourish we need those who are rooted in strength and forcefully called to grow in the proper manner to not only be its leaders, but also to be its people. We need those who are fully self possessed and ready to commit to the virtues of the heroic that flourish when we know and live in accordance with our natures.

The second statement is a little clearer to our purpose. Both note people whose actions are in opposition to their natures, lying priests, black mailing polices, soldiers at folly. In neither statement is the specific type of individual listed important, but more the point that we see individuals who turn from the work suited to their natures. In both we are set against such people as they are the antithesis of Thelema. Even for those who do not consider themselves Thelemites, this line of thinking is necessary to magic. Thelema simply restates principles which have been part of the Western Mystery tradition for millenia. Most simply we can look to alchemy, and see the idea of removing the gross detritus which hides the fine and subtle truth of a thing. We decay the outer shell and strengthen the pure inner essence to reveal the power of a thing.

With this line of thinking, that removing that which is not a thing and focusing that which is a thing we get to the true strength of the thing, and further that we must seek this in ourselves and our society in order to turn from failure to greatness, we can continue it to the idea that if we're going to be magicians we need to really be magicians in order to be successful.

This is kind of a “duh” moment. Doing actual magic gets you further as a magician than not doing magic does.

To look at it a little more, we have multiple ways in which magic can operate, multiple places from which magic takes its power. There are simple external things, signs and names, spirits, connecting with flows of energy, kabbalistic paths of manifestation, lots of different ways we can externally do simple magics. Exploring more deeply we get to points where the power and authority to do magic is strengthened as we connect more deeply to the elements of our essential natures. Just like the materium of our alchemy, as we decay the outer gunk around ourselves and strengthen our essence we become a more powerful medicine to get shit done.

Alternatively, when we're at odds with ourselves we're fighting against our success. If we are spending energy trying to be something that we aren't we aren't spending energy actually accomplishing what we want to accomplish. No one has to be a magician, but everyone should be themselves. So if you're a magician, do magic.