A Traditionalist's Take on the Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals

Frater Ashen and Nephilim Press have announced that his book recording his Work with the Trithemian Art of Drawing Spirits into Crystals is now available!

He went through the original text and carefully recreated the equipment required to specifications, and then performed the angelic conjurations. It's definitely an interesting read, and you should totally check it out if you've read my Modern Angelic Grimoire or Planetary Gates series. It shows another magician's take on a text that will be familiar to you, and how others interpret the work.

The meticulous work he puts into crafting his tools alone is worth the price of this book. I use an ebony wand he created for me, and it's got a really nice kick to it. Seeing the attention to detail he puts into his tools is inspiring.

I also liked seeing his descriptions of his experiences with the Archangels. He's the kind of magician who has to see the spirits in all their glory to feel like he's getting the results the grimoires promise. It's neat to see the parallels, the similarities, and the differences in how they manifest when we conjure them. It's definitely a good resource for magicians using this system.

Golden Apples of the Sun

Yea did we awake, and rubbing the sleep from our eyes, turned our gaze to the world in which we found ourselves. As far as the eye could see, as far as the East is from the West, all lands, all tribes, all nations of men and women upon the Earth were in Chaos. Brutish men with large guns and small penises enforced a dull child's game of money and value that was ludicrous and imaginary. And mean-spirited.

And yea, we were taken aback for a moment, cringing at the sheer stupidity of all we surveyed.

And then we laughed.

For Her Prophets had been upon the Earth, and they did spread her Wisdom far and wide. All humans with an internet connection had access to Her TRVTH:

Nothing is real, all is permitted!

Aye, the world is fucked, but it is perfectly fucked, and it is fucked in ways that are only fucked if you play the game. Find ye the Cracks in the Pavement, the Methods to the Madness; look ye for the Loophole, and ye shall find it!

Lo, there is a crack in everything.

(That's how the light gets in.)

So upon this most auspicious day, read the ancient mystic code and rejoice! For though it be fucked and chaos spread from horizon to horizon, it was given in whole, not in part, unto The Prettiest One, that Thou mayest make of it what ye Will!

23! 23/23 Kallixti!

I've mentioned my Erisian roots on the olde blogge before, but I've gotten a few more readers lately, so I figured I should give y'all fair warning:

It gets a little crazy sometimes in these parts.

Eris is the Greek goddess of Chaos. She wasn't invited to a party with the other gods because she had a reputation for starting trouble. This is the doctrine of the Original Snub.

Of course she showed up anyway, and she brought a single golden apple. The kind that all the gods are always after, the really good ones that are like god-catnip, the kind everyone has to have for themselves. (Some suggest it was Acapulco gold rather than metallic gold, but I wasn't there.) She engraved upon the apple the word "Kallixti" which is Greek for "To the Prettiest!"

All the goddesses argued over it, saying it was obviously for her, since she was the prettiest. It came down to Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena, if I remember right. They asked Zeus to judge who the prettiest was, and he was like, "Fuck that shit. Let's get Paris to do it," and they tapped that poor schmuck to judge the fairest goddess.

They explained the situation, and gave him some time to think about it. While he thought about it, the goddesses all sought him out and tried to bribe him. Hera offered to make him a great King, Athena offered to make him a mighty Warrior, and Aphrodite offered him the love of the prettiest woman in the world, one Helen of Troy. Paris picked Aphrodite, of course, and Aphrodite brought he and Helen together.

Which pissed off her husband Menelaus, and then... well... the Trojan War.

She was the archetype of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, and then in more modern times Eris has shown up in various cartoons and other Disney films, I believe. Between Maleficent and these modern appearances though, she was ... uh, "worshipped" in by Kerry Thornley, Greg Hill, and Robert Anton Wilson. They recorded the Principia Discordia, a text all good magi must read, for verily does it contain more truth than that fucking Kybalion. These gents, and Robert Shea, created a corpus of works that explored her essence, personality, and the forces she represents in the modern age.

(You must read the Illuminatus! trilogy by Roberts Anton Wilson and Shea to truly understand a lot of weird shit that makes sense of most of the things.

Most of 'em.)

I was an Erisian, not a Discordian. The Discordians were a silly lot. Erisian Mystics like myself were after Her essence, not Her form, and the few of us I have met all incorporated the gnosis of the pure malleablility of chaos underlying all reality in ways few other magicians understand.

The numeric phrase 23: 23/23 Kallisti holds a great mystery for those who are willing to pass through the nuclear gate of their own stars and journey "outside the ordered universe[to] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes."

In it we find that yes, the world is chaotic, yes, it is broken, ill, diseased in places and times... yet still, it is One thing, perfect and pure and infinitely malleable. It skips and hops for the pleasure of the Eye of the Prettiest One. It is a gift, fragrant, crisp and resistant against the teeth at first, but then yielding with a snap and filling your mouth with a burst of sweet pleasure unlike any other. It is made for you, by you, so that you have something to do.

And whatever that may be is entirely up to you.

Kallisti!

Mage Porn

A friend of mine posted a pic of his altar setup the other day on FB, and I gotta admit, I got a little wood. Mahogany. You know. Teak. 

It's total mage porn.

I mean, it's not just me... 

The temple is dimly lit by flickering candlelight. It looks warm, with the lower-spectrum light capturing and magnifying the reds of the roses in the vase at the far side of the altar. You can almost smell the musky odor of old incense that must hang in the air. 

In front of the vase lies a ring of disks with images and seals and names of forces of creation, laid out like instruments of pleasure kept within easy reach to bring the full release of his Will into being. In the center, covered demurely in fine silk, is the Table of Practice, and the Scrying Stone.  

This elegent skein magnifies your desire, for though covered, you can see the curve of the wooden Table outlined, and see the cold, hard, smooth curves of the Stone... You can feel somethng dark and heated in its depths drawing you in, calling to you to part the veil and penetrate into the Mysteries...

See? Not just me at all.

The Altar is our interface with the Universe at large. It is where we go to participate in the generative aspects of material life, including those spiritual transformations that change the spirit interacting with its material life through our bodies. It's a hot, sexy juncture between the manifest and the unmanifest. It's not just sexy, it is where we go to become sex. When we do magic, we are becoming sex, tapping into fucking-universe-of-creation and planting our seeds that will become our magical children. We impregnate and are impregnated, we come and we become. It's all brilliant and beautiful.

So yeah, when I happen upon someone else's setup, I get a little spiritual wood. A little teak. A little ebony wand action going on in my generative centers, if you know what I mean. It turns me on, and reminds me I've got things I could be doing myself. And now I look over at my own sweet setup, still a little tousled from its recent use, but still hot and ready for more...

And I start to hum.

Having fun with talismans...

Someone mentioned I haven't blogged for a while. So here's an excerpt from a day in the life of R.O. ...

0) When I entered into the cave, I received the tablet zaradi, which was inscribed, from between the hands of Hermes, in which I discovered these words:
1) True, without falsehood, certain, most certain.
2) What is above is like what is below, and what is below is like that which is above. To make the miracle of the one thing.
3) And as all things were made from contemplation of one, so all things were born from one adaptation.
4) Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon.
5) The wind carried it in its womb, the earth breast fed it.
6) It is the father of all ‘works of wonder' (Telesmi) in the world.
6a) Its power is complete (integra).
7) If cast to (turned towards- versa fuerit) earth,
7a) it will separate earth from fire, the subtile from the gross.
8) With great capacity it ascends from earth to heaven. Again it descends to earth, and takes back the power of the above and the below.
9) Thus you will receive the glory of the distinctiveness of the world. All obscurity will flee from you.
10) This is the whole most strong strength of all strength, for it overcomes all subtle things, and penetrates all solid things.
11a) Thus was the world created.
12) From this comes marvelous adaptions of which this is the proceedure.
13) Therefore I am called Hermes, because I have three parts of the wisdom of the whole world.
14) And complete is what I had to say about the work of the Sun, from the book of Galieni Alfachimi.

Today I woke up thinking about talismans. Emerald tablet talismans. I thought it would be cool to come up with something that was lunar and solar and represented the great work.

So we made silver talismans tonight on a solar day in a lunar hour. We had a lump of silver from a one-ounce coin we had melted before. We melted some into lumps, then heat them and beat them with hammers until they were disc shaped. Then we engraved them with a dremel tool.

We put the image of the sun in the topmost triangle and the image of the moon in the lower one. We placed the elemental signs in the remaining four triangles and a Hebrew Samekh in the center. We consecrated them and placed them on our altar.

I think the symbolism is pretty apparent. It's not a traditional talisman, and it's not particularly astrological. It's simply something that reflects the thing we do. Ascend, descend, generate.

I'm going to wear mine, I think. It's not high art, or lost wax casting. It's primitive, and raw, and it is all mine. I like it because it is totally about what we do, and why we do it. It is simply magical, for its own sake.

Magical Panacea

Friends! Have I got something for you. If you're like me, and I know you are, you are in a world that is not entirely fun, aren't you? That's because life on Earth, in the flesh like this, well... it sucks sometimes. Usually when we're not paying attention to things we were supposed to be tending, but at other times too. It's like there's something inherent in incarnation that requires that sometimes things just aren't friggin' awesome.

But we don't have to stay there for long, thank god. We have the technology, we have exactly and specifically the cure for that which ails you, brothers and sisters. 

Try New and Improved Red Stone!

It's a magical wonder, a panacea that brings healing, peace, and wholeness to us... wherever we may be. It extends life, it restores youth, it calms passions and cleanses apathy! 

Don't just take my word for it, listen to this:

• Got a Sickness?
• The world's greatest diseases... escaped! 
• Sadness?
• Driven Away!
• Distress?
• Driven Away!
• Evil and hurtful things?
• Also Driven Away!

But wait, that's not all!

• Feeling lost in the Dark?
• The Red Stone leads to the Light!
• Feeling set about on all sides in a desert wilderness?
• The Red Stone leads to a Secure Habitation!
• Plain old fashioned Poverty got you down?
• The Red Stone brings a free and ample fortune!

Not bad, eh? Who wouldn't want one? This was the sales pitch for the Philisopher's Stone* from the Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus. I totally would have gone for it. 

And I did. Hook line and sinker, I took the bait and got dragged from my dark and cold wet depths into a bright and scary world where I could barely breathe. 

Fortunately, you don't need air up there.

I made a study of the Alchemical phases, and examined what exactly happened in these experiments. I looked at what happens in the Hermetic path to reclaiming divinity, and saw that it could easily be mapped to the alchemical phases.

I got to work testing my theory with the easiest model of the spheres and the process of ascending through the heavens and descending in power I could find. I started with the Primum Materia, that is, me, and I set that shit on fire, let the smoke rise up as an offering of prayers, to be a sweet smell in the heavens as I watched the things inside me burn.

And seven years later... I did it. I completed the Work, I created the Stone, and I ground it into a tincture, and I have used it to heal the world. It's still got sickness, but in the lives of those I touch, I spread healing, reminding people who they are and what they are capable of achieving with a little intent, planning, and right action. 

The Philosopher's Stone, what it is, what it does, this is an important thing to understand, in my humble opinion. The making of it is supposed to turn you into a really super wise person, and it does, but it doesn't perfect you. No one claimed that it does. You aren't any more a manifest Buddha than you were before you started the Work (nor any less). You don't automagically become a Secret Chief.

But over the years, you learn what makes you tick. You learned who you are, how your damage creates more damage in your self, and you found ways to work through your shit. You kept dissolving your issues layer by layer until you found out what they really were underneath (I'm lonely) and behind all the false masks (I'm scared) and odd disassociative emotional spans (I miss You). You found the answers, visited the interior of the earth, and went even deeper, deep enough to dream in brilliant colors you have never seen, deep enough to join a million people for a wedding feast, deep enough to reach out and touch the face of the one who made you...

And you see it in everyone else around you too, the same core issues, and you can help. You see the darkness you labored in, you know how to turn on the lights, the everburning lights. You have the words to help the ones who need to hear them, if you choose to speak them. 

You learn the value of health and how to foster it in a way that creates opportunities for miraculous wondrous cures. You learn to eat right and exercise because it gives you magical power and authority over your life**. You learn to phrase your healing rites in a way that focus on the desired outcome instead of the steps that you think should lead to the desired outcome. You learn when to Work with Raphael, the Healing of God, and when to Work with Michael, Who Is Like God. 

And you learn to get rid of sadness. You learn that the people who let you down are just ... well, they're just like you. You get compassion. Not forgiveness, necessarily, because just like you, they could have learned to treat you better, but at least you understand, and you're released from taking it personally. As well as protected from letting it happen again. You've learned that the things that eliminating situations that make you sad make room for happiness, and that makes the times when you do see the sad stuff ever so much bearable.  And even revelatory regarding the nature of sorrow and joy.

And your stress just goes away. I think it's great that the Golden Tractate was concerned about stress, don't you? They knew even then that it was a killer. They knew it comes from not knowing how things are going, that basic, "I'm scared" that hasn't been defined or mitigated. The Work shows you who you are, reveals the things you worry about and why, and it gives you the answers you need to keep that stress from coming back. 

And it brings a sense of security. In the Gates rites, I walk people through the rites to build up a Kingdom by performing the planetary magics of initiation and manifestation that I learned about on the way. Work through them, and in a year people are talking about how their lives have changed, their incomes increased, bad relationships dissolved, great relationships found, and prosperity and health the hallmarks across the spectrum of results. 

Cash, yo. Money. The stuff you need to get by, and have a little left over for just in case. 

These things all come to those who pursue and create the Stone. They are the holy Side Effects of the Great Work. We get to have a lot of money and health and enjoyment, and we can help our friends when they are unhappy. When shit happens to us, we are equipped to appreciate the value and get rid of the useless parts of it more quickly than others. Shit happens to us less because we tend to be more proactive in getting what we want, and we understand the work necessary, and we enjoy doing it because it is fun to build reality, like it's fun to work out and grow muscles and shape your flesh as you will.

The true treasure though, the real reason we do it isn't listed at all in the sales pitch. The real reason we do it is something even better, something beyond words. It's pointed to in the word JOY, it's indicated... but there's something higher found in the frictive sweaty work of manifestation. Something higher and hotter and more amazing, a gnosis that feels like the release of the floodgates that you only feel consciously in rare sphincter-relaxing moments in life.

Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!

* This, O Son, is the concealed stone of many colours, which is born and brought forth in one colour; know this and conceal it. By this, the Almighty favouring, the greatest diseases are escaped, and every sorrow, distress, and evil and hurtful thing is made to depart; for it leads from darkness into light, from this desert wilderness to a secure habitation, and from poverty and straits to a free and ample fortune. - The Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus

** want a whole post on that? bet it would be fun to write.