Haus der Luege : Noli Evocare Quod Reprimere Non Potes

John Michael Greer Workshop/Lecture Intensive at Eye of Horus

I attended the intensive workshop/lecture series that John Michael Greer presented at the Eye of Horus, on the last weekend of January (01/27 - 01/29). The intensive was well attended and consisted of a series of lectures that lasted for a total of 18 hours. Although the series was a bit pricey, I felt that it was well worth the money. JMG successfully gave all of us some very valuable and important information about ceremonial magick, and also how to integrate this body of lore into a uniquely pagan perspective. Out of a possible four stars, I would give it four stars - it was that good! I should also mention that the staff at the Eye of Horus were exemplary in their management and presentation of this important weekend intensive.  I give them high marks for all of the incidental things that they did to make this lecture series a success. The two afternoon catered meals were excellent, and the availability of refreshments was also greatly appreciated. 
John Michael Greer is probably one of the more brilliant, articulate and insightful occultists that I have ever met. He is obviously one of those remarkable men and women that I seem to run into from time to time, and I felt very privileged to hear what he had to say and to share thoughts and ideas with him. JMG was fortunate enough in his occult career to receive the teachings of several traditions, some of which were more intact than others, from individuals who represented the “old guard” of the occult community, now quickly passing away. Such knowledge and lore, which has since passed into oblivion, was brought to John’s attention, and he artfully pulled all of this lore together to craft a fairly comprehensive system of magick.
It’s rare these days to find someone who has a comprehensive knowledge of the practice of magick, especially possessing those more obscure and rare techniques that were once part of the regimen of the education of magicians and occultists. JMG shared a few of these obscure techniques and how they were supposed to work, and he laid down a foundation revealing what the older traditions and lore taught the aspiring beginner. These insights were profound and amazing! They were things that I didn’t know about, despite the fact that I have been a practicing magician for almost four decades. However, I will definitely add these insights to my own lore, and hopefully make it more comprehensive than it is.
I would like to share a few of JMG’s salient points which he made during this series of lectures, but I will omit the details and larger share of what he had to say. If you find yourself liking what I am presenting here, then I would advise you to either buy some of his books, or attend, if you can, one of his lectures at a pagan festival or convention. You can also read his blog, which is located here.
During the three day lecture series, John covered an operant definition of magick (Friday evening), the essential foundational practice (Saturday), and some methods for deriving a personal and pagan ceremonial practice (Sunday). This lecture series gave the attendees an overview of ceremonial magick, its usefulness, and how one might derive from it an essential practice. What wasn’t covered, of course, were the basic rituals and practices of an accomplished magician, as well as the steps and direction that one would take in the progression of spiritual and magickal growth. To acquire this additional knowledge, JMG basically said that there are plenty of books of these topics, and there are also many organizations that one might conceivably join to receive this more comprehensive background. What John sought to give his audience was the most essential element that one might need to actually begin to practice an effective system of magick. I can say without any doubt that he was able to achieve that objective, which is why I believe that this lecture series was so valuable to me and to the other attendees. 
First of all, John’s main definition, which shapes his overall perspective, is that magick is a function of consciousness. John uses Dion Fortune’s amended definition of magick, which she appropriated from Aleister Crowley. Dion Fortune has stated that “magick is the art of changing consciousness in accordance with the will.” I have found that this definition is actually quite concise, and it would be in agreement with my own experiences. This is particularly true since I work a form of magick that focuses mostly on theurgic ordeals instead of specifically making things happen in the material world.
Some have said that JMG’s perspective on magick seems to be heavily aligned with the mental model of magick; that magick is something which occurs exclusively within the mind. Yet this perspective is far too simplistic. John has stated that the mind is the receptor of the field of consciousness, and not necessarily the exclusive generator of it. That would mean that because consciousness acts as a field that is both external and internal to an individual being, the border between the mental and material worlds is both porous and eminently elastic. Also, everything that we perceive about the outside material world is a mental reconstruction, so much of what is construed as objective sensorial apperception is actually a mental map of reality. While reality has physical constraints, the mind actually has no boundaries. This creates a very fascinating tension between the supposed perspectives of objectivity vs. subjectivity.
According to JMG, the three most important activities that act as the foundation for the practicing magician are encapsulated in ritual, meditation and divination. These activities are pulled together to form an essential discipline that is performed on a daily basis, without fail. The kind of ritual that could be used in this daily practice would be the lesser ritual of the pentagram and the middle pillar exercise. Other rituals could be used as well, such as generating sacred space (setting a magick circle). Ritual activity is some action that is deliberately magickal and that serves no other purpose. Meditation is defined as the practice of discursive meditation, which is the intense focusing, scrutinizing and reflecting on a written tract or text, and divination is the drawing of a single tarot card, rune, I-Ching trigram or geomantic character to act as a revealing significator for the day. This threefold activity should be performed each and every day, in a monotonous, endless, periodic repetition. Taking this practice beyond the point of boredom and mental rebellion is the key to making it into a technique for self-empowerment and an important exercise of the will.
Mr. Greer also told us that discursive meditation was almost a lost art, and that the various “meditations” found in the Golden Dawn initiation and training lore required this kind of activity. In the 19th century everyone would have known how to do discursive meditation, so it would have been an assumed practice, requiring only a simple rubric to inform the initiate that certain training lore was to be inculcated through this technique.
I also discovered that I had been confusing discursive meditation with contemplation, although the source of that confusion had more to do with popular usage and changes in Catholic church practices. It would seem that contemplation replaced discursive meditation in Catholic practices (through the writings of Loyola Ignatius), and was only salvaged by Martin Luther, the Anglican church, and other early protestant churches. However, by the 20th century, discursive meditation was dropped from most protestant church practices, except the Anglican church and some Lutheran churches. Present day western practitioners use the Eastern definition of meditation, which is to empty the mind. This is actually how contemplation was originally to be used. However, the Catholic tradition (until the 17th century) used the following practices (called the “lectio divina”) in conjunction with meditation.

• (Discursive) meditation - reflective reading of sacred texts and other material.
• Affective Prayer - spontaneous reaction in response to these reflections.
• Contemplation - reduction of meditation and affective prayer to a state of quiescence.

The popular definition of contemplation is that it is an operation of intently looking, thinking or examining something, such as a concept, ideal or short statement. It would seem that the definition of contemplation has been used to replace what used to be called discursive meditation. Needless to say, the same process is utilized whichever word is selected. Also, the above pattern of practices would represent a foundational technique that could focus and empower anyone who would use it, which is exactly the kind of mechanism that JMG was describing for magicians.
If a magician has adopted a core discipline that uses discursive meditation, then the obvious question would be, what is the focus for that meditation? The focus is anything that is used as the repertoire of the ritual body, the adopted symbology of the occult system, or the beliefs and affirmations that represent that core philosophy. The foundational ritual or rituals would be based on the rite that opens the self to the domain of the occult system, and the divination system would contain the coded symbols (representations) relevant to that system. Thus, the foundational practice would represent the method through which the magician would activate and enliven his or her target occult system. Not only would this practice empower the individual practitioner, but it would also make the chosen occult system both real and accessible.
In addition to this foundational practice, the magician would also acquire practices and techniques that would train the will and the imagination. The combination of these practices would ensure that the magician learned to be wholly self-directing and capable of producing occult symbols and representations in the mind’s eye, whenever required. Learning to master the will and the imagination allows the magician to not only powerfully influence and direct his or her own mind, but also to influence events and other individuals. In this manner, the mind becomes a potent tool that can change the magician’s consciousness at any given moment, and direct it towards a more progressive and evolving state of being.
Once these tools are acquired, then the magician can determine his or her own personal destiny and ultimate direction. Yet without these tools firmly developed and in use, an erstwhile magician will be unable to accomplish much of anything, other than wishful thinking and even self delusion. The foundational practice is the key to gaining everything that the magician seeks to acquire, and I am quite indebted to JMG for making this quite clear. Although I had the pieces of this practice already in my lore, I didn’t have it grouped in such an effective manner, so I learned something new and important. 
There were many other topics discussed during JMG’s class, and what I have revealed here is only a small sample of what was covered during those 18 hours. These topics, and many others, can be found written up in far greater detail in Mr. Greer’s books. So if you find what I have summarized here interesting, then I would recommend that you look over his list of books and find one to purchase. (I will be reviewing some of Mr. Greer’s books in this blog over the next several months.) I would recommend this book for the beginning solitaire practitioner, and this one for anyone who wants to assemble a magickal lodge.
I also personally found JMG to be quite witty, charming and at times, very animated. He made a very long series of lectures interesting, engaging and, I might add, fulfilling. The time often seemed to slip by because we were so wrapped up in his narratives. We spent a lot of time laughing at his amusing stories and enjoying some playful banter. John particularly enjoyed picking on me, although he did it with a great deal of humor and warmth. He also deferred to me when discussing a topic that was not directly in his area of expertise, which I might say, happened only seldom. JMG has a comprehensive knowledge of magick, and there wasn’t any question that he found either too rudimentary to answer or too complex to explain.
A great time was had by everyone, so I can’t but personally recommend John Michael Greer, his books and his ideas.  
Frater Barrabbas

Divination by groundhog has been a tradition in Pennsylvania for more than 120 years. Every year on February 2nd, Groundhog Day, handlers in the little town of Punxsutawney consult the world's most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. The legend goes that if the groundhog sees his shadow on that particular day there will be six more weeks of winter. This year the weather forecasting website StormFax posted a roundup of more than a century of Groundhog Day predictions from the various rodents who over the years have served as Punxsutawney Phil (which, as you can imagine given 122 years of predictions, is more like an office than a single individual). What can we learn from the list? First of all, Phil usually sees his shadow, and second of all, he's right only 39% of the time.

When German settlers arrived in the 1700s, they brought a tradition known as Candlemas Day, which has an early origin in the pagan celebration of Imbolc. It came at the mid-point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Superstition held that if the weather was fair, the second half of Winter would be stormy and cold. For the early Christians in Europe, it was the custom on Candlemas Day for clergy to bless candles and distribute them to the people in the dark of Winter. A lighted candle was placed in each window of the home. The day's weather continued to be important. If the sun came out February 2, halfway between Winter and Spring, it meant six more weeks of wintry weather.

The earliest American reference to Groundhog Day can be found at the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center at Franklin and Marshall College:

February 4, 1841 - from Morgantown, Berks County (Pennsylvania) storekeeper James Morris' diary..."Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate."
One of the problems with traditions is that they sometimes do not adapt to changing conditions. It would seem that the European weather on which the tradition was based is not similar enough to North American weather, which is both harsher and more unpredictable due to more of North America being situated far from any oceans along with its location on on the cold side of the Atlantic conveyor current that makes Europe substantially warmer than its latitude would otherwise suggest.

As far as this year goes, in Minnesota we've barely had a winter. There's hardly any snow left and the temperature has been above freezing for at least the last week. But the groundhog saw his shadow as usual. I'm guessing from what I've seen so far that this will be one more year he gets it wrong.

Over the course of the last month there has been some discussion in the magical blogosphere of Lon Milo DuQuette's maxim, "It's all in your head, you just have no idea how big your head really is" along with other statements of his to the effect that all a magician changes is him or herself. Articles related to this topic have been posted by Jason Miller, Patrick Dunn, Rufus Opus, Frater Barrabas, and a number of others. On the surface, DuQuette's statements would imply a psychological approach to magick, but at the same time he has written about various magical operations he performed that certainly seem to have produced results in the material sphere. As a result, speculation on the true meaning of "how big your head really is" abounds.

As it turns out, I'm in a good position to help resolve some of the ambiguity, as Lon DuQuette lectured on this very topic at the last National OTO Convention. Based on his comments, I can say with some certainty that DuQuette does believe that practical magick in which the material world is directly affected is for real, and that what he is proposing is essentially a discrete model of magick that fundamentally differs from those generally discussed in the magical blogosphere. To recap for new readers, those models may be summarized as follows:

• Psychological Model: According to this model, the function of magick is changing states of consciousness at will, limited to the individual mind of the practitioner. This model does not explain the success of most forms of practical magical work.
• Energy Model: According to this model, magick is accomplished by directing some form of subtle energy with the mind. This model works well for "energy work" systems such as Qigong, but has the problem that the supposed "energy" is hard to define and has some, but not all, properties in common with "energy" as used in physics.
• Spirit Model: According to this model, the changes related to magical operations are accomplished by spirits external to the magical practitioner. This model explains some systems such as grimoire evocation extremely well, but is less effective at explaining operations in which no external spirits are called upon.
• Information Model: According to this model, the changes related to magical operations are produced by an exchange of information in which magick is treated as a form of communication. The primary weakness of this model is that it does not explain the experiences of "energy work" practitioners.

My own thoughts on these models are best laid out here and here. In those two articles I think I did a reasonably good job of assembling a sort of "hybrid model" that combines the strengths of the energy, spirit, and information models and addresses their primary weaknesses.

Lon DuQuette's model is something else entirely, which I'm going to dub the "reality selection" model for the purposes of this article. According to his comments in his NOTOCON address, DuQuette's take on practical magick is that the way you change the events of the world around you is that you transform yourself into the sort of person that the outcome you want happens to. See the difference? Rather than trying to take an impersonal third-person perspective on magical operations, DuQuette directs his attention to the experiences of the individual practitioner. It's much like the perspective shift that you find in philosophy with Immanuel Kant's "Copernican turn" relative to the worldviews of Plato and Aristotle.

The idea of reality selection is a strong theme of the work of both Robert Anton Wilson and Antero Alli, writers with whom DuQuette is quite familiar. However, he explicitly takes this concept beyond the psychological realm, with the contention that you could, say, win a lottery by transforming yourself into the winner. Or, more specifically, selecting the possible future for yourself in which you will win. This idea pretty much hinges on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, in which every statistical possibility happens and in some manner our consciousness selects only one of those outcomes to experience.

Ontologically, this is pretty much identical with the one-world approach that I personally tend to work with. To my way of thinking, a magician builds up a desired probability shift within his or own sphere of consciousness, and then transfers that shift to the target of the operation via a magical link with or without the assistance of spirits depending upon the specific structure of the ritual. Using the reality selection model is more like looking at numerous different possible "reality tunnels" and then directing your consciousness towards one in which your objective is successfully achieved.

So by transforming yourself, you transform the world around you. Microcosm meets macrocosm. The role of spirits is not that well defined in the reality selection model, but if they are treated as beings that can help the magician guide his or her consciousness in the proper direction it seems to me that they can be integrated quite successfully. There are some oddities in terms of how you wind up having to define partial successes with the many-worlds model that I think are handled better by one-world probability shift modeling, but Lon's model certainly provides some food for thought. And it is anything but psychological, at least in the sense that the term is normally defined amongst magicians.

Here's a bizarre story from the early days of modern science. George Washington is best remembered as the hero of the American Revolutionary War who became the first President of the United States. But according to a new book by Holly Tucker called Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution he nearly became our nation's first zombie following his death in 1799 at the age of 67.

But Washington's body was not buried immediately after his death. The president may not have feared death, but he did fear being buried alive. Before he died, he commanded his secretary, Tobias Lear, to make sure that he would not be entombed less than three days after he died. In accordance with Washington's wishes, his body was put on ice until it could be moved to the family vault.

That's where the story gets a little strange. The morning after Washington died, his step-granddaughter Elizabeth Law arrived with a family friend, William Thornton. History best remembers Thornton as the architect who created the original design for the Capitol building, but he was also a trained physician, having studied at the University of Edinburgh. Although he did not practice medicine for much of his life, Thornton always had a keen interest in the workings of the human body, and he suggested a novel method for resurrecting the fallen warrior. Thornton told Washington's wife Martha that he wanted to thaw Washington's body by the fire and have it rubbed vigorously with blankets. Then he planned to perform a tracheotomy so he could insert a bellows into Washington's throat and pump his lungs full of air, and finally to give Washington an infusion of lamb's blood. Friends and family declined Thornton's mad scientist offer, not because they thought his solution impossible, but because they felt the nation's first president should rest in peace.
"A little strange" seems a mild description under the circumstances. If these were really the sorts of ideas floating around the medical community at the time, it would seem that the novel Frankenstein, published in 1818, was more firmly rooted in the scientific ideas of the day than is often recognized. It certainly is true that Luigi Galvani's discoveries in the 1780's and 1790's regarding the effects of electricity on dissected animals suggested to the popular imagination that resurrection of the dead might not be a far-off scientific achievement.

But the real question horror fans want answered is a simple one - if Washington had been successfully reanimated, would he have developed a taste for human brains?

This was recorded by playing a broken to shit cymbal with a cello bow and processing the output from a contact microphone. The signal was split into three bands, each band with its own effects chain. This produced a layered, full spectrum piece from a single input.

Special thanks to Trevor Blake and Justin Landers.

You can download it from SoundCloud or BandCamp.

I’d just finished setting up when an excited fellow in his 60s approached my table. “Are you the artist?!”

“Yup.”

“I had to come & thank you for what you did for me!”

“Excuse me? Did I meet you at the gallery?”

“No, I met you here last year. We talked about Katrina and your husband’s volunteer efforts, and about how it was frustrating that church groups were fixing up Section 8 housing & rentals for people who were just making money off it, rather than living in the homes themselves.

I’ve volunteered and come back to New Orleans four times, and I do my research. I make sure I’m helping homeowners who work on the house with us, who will then live in that house themselves. Thank you for talking to me, for inspiring me to do this. It’s an amazing experience, and it’s made me realize how the world really doesn’t understand what happened here, and how wonderful this city is.”

And he shook my hand and disappeared back into the crowd, and I finally managed to close my mouth, and spent the next hour grinning like a lunatic as tears threatened to burn my eyes.

THIS is why I try to talk to people, to connect, to be positive, even if I’m going through a tough time. The words and attitude we put into the world are sacred, and the smallest gesture from us can cause the most cataclysmic ripple. Perhaps we have some control over the outcome of that ripple if we greet the world with joy and openness rather than fear and suspicion.

You might be poly if... Email polyweekly@gmail.com, call 206-202-POLY, Twitter @polyweekly or visit www.polyweekly.com or www.facebook.com/polyweekly

This is part two of a two part article that discusses some of the various issues that have been buzzing around the blogsphere.


Are Spirits Real or Mental Constructs?

Lon Milo Duquette has been reputed to have said regarding spirits that they are all in your head. It’s just that your head is a lot bigger than you think. Others have proposed that spirits (especially demons) are psychological constructs, while others have even gone so far as to say polytheistic gods and goddesses are psychological archetypes found within the collective social mind of the culture or race. In such a manner, all spiritual phenomena are relegated to manifestations of the mind, and they cannot be seen apart or distinct from human consciousness.
I think that this perspective has its foundation in the fact that spirits don’t appear to have a separate existence outside of human interaction. The argument goes that because they don’t have an objective physical existence that can be empirically proven, they can’t exist as physical entities separate from the human beings who claim to experience them. Of course, the same thing can be said about the proposed existence of Deity or Deities. Everything is a facet of the mind. Everything spiritual is purely psychological.
This perspective is true, but only if you wholly or exclusively accept the psychological theory or model of magick. In fact, I would rate this perspective to be reliant on an overly aggressive use of the mind model of magick. There are, of course, other models, and if you adhere to any of them, the aggressive mind model would not only be immediately rejected, but it would also be considered intrusively obnoxious. The paradox of the reality of spirits is that they become identified and defined by the model that one uses, even though any definition or model will fall short of actually defining them. The same logic can be used in the discussion of the nature of the Godhead - it depends on the model or perspective that you are using. I would suspect that there might be some quantum magic to be found within these paradoxes.
If you are using the spirit model of magick, then everything is centered around a definition of spirits that is external and subjectively objective to the magickal operator. This model is very concise and simple to apply. You develop a relationship with specific spirits (invocation, evocation or votive offerings), and they in turn may be called upon to perform certain operations.  The most important task that a magician using this model performs is to consistently establish and build on one’s spiritual alignment. This process has both a liturgical and an operational quality, which means that the magician functions as a kind of priest/ess or spiritual intermediary. Devotion, service, performing periodic liturgical rites, as well as invocation, evocation and assumption represent the core practices of this methodology. All of these techniques are important practices for the magician who adheres to the spirit model of magick.
However, if the magician is strictly engaged with the energy model of magick, then he or she perceives magick as a kind of energy exchange, and that the typical source of that energy is the human operator. Another aspect of the energy theory is the thaumaturgy model of magick, which proposes that a magickal operation is nothing more (or less) than the combining of various specialized elements to fashion or create a spell which produces a specific effect or impact. A pure energy model is very similar to a pure thaumaturgy model of magick, since both use specific elements to produce a magickal effect. To a magician who uses the energy model in exclusion to any other model, the questions of the reality of spirits is irrelevant and unimportant. Still, they would object to any theory that attempted to nullify their belief in an energy that exists as the foundation of their magickal practice. An aggressive psychological model would postulate that any kind of energy, combination of components, or the use of spirits are nothing more than psychological tropes. Such an over-reaching theory or model would make everyone unhappy, except those who whole heartedly subscribed to it.
Since I seem to function as such  hybrid in my practices and beliefs, I would subscribe to all three models simultaneously, as I suspect many others do as well. That would mean that I believe, to a certain extent, in the subjective objectivity of spirits, but that I can also see their operation and impact within my mind and deeply embedded in my spiritual nature. Because I am also a spirit (as well as a body and a mind), then there must also be Deities and Spirits both within me and in the outside world. 
These entities can also be found embedded in our culture and exist as pure symbols within what I would call the “super symbolic reality.” That spirits are both completely subjective (mental constructs) and subjectively objective (disembodied entities that exist and reside in the higher and lower strata of consciousness) is a known paradox, but one that I have had to make an accommodation with in order to make any sense out of what I have experienced. My magickal associates have worked magick with me, or independently using the same techniques and devices to invoke spirits, and have had analogous experiences to what I have had. This would indicate that there is a certain objective quality to spirits, although they remain a purely subjective experience.

Spirit Invocation/Evocation - Must Spirits Be Visible?
If spirits are subjectively objective, then one would assume that they must be visible, and that a successful invocation or evocation would cause the target spirit to be visually apparent. This is another topic that is making the rounds of the blogsphere, and most of the magicians who have written about this subject seem to agree that invoked/evoked spirits should be visually apparent.
My friend Ananael Qaa has written an article on this issue in his blog “Augoeides,” which highlights some of these points as well as highlighting the other individuals who have commented on them (you can find it here). Even Donald Michael Kraig has opined on this issue in his Llewellyn blog. Some in the “exclusive use grimoire” crowd have gone so far as to say that not only should the spirits be visible when successfully invoked, they should also be fully verifiable physical manifestations with an accompaniment of various psychic perturbations. This, of course, is the theory that Joseph Lesiewski has promoted in his book on magickal evocation. I have pretty much debunked the whole physical manifestation model of successful evocation requirement, but the other considerations for some kind of visual affirmation remain.
I guess the whole argument is that if you don’t at least see the spirit, then it can’t really exist, or at least the attempt to invoke or evoke it has failed. I might agree with this opinion if were not for the fact that there are quite a number of ritual systems used to channel the powers and abilities of spirits, and not all of them require a verifiable apparition. Sometimes a skrying device is required, other times a young child is used as a medium. John Dee didn’t see the many spirits that he conversed with, and he had to rely on the services of Edward Kelly as his seer. 
It would seem that whether or not a magician is able to visually apprehend a spirit which is invoked or evoked has to do with whether or not he or she is so gifted. I have met individuals who don’t have visual experiences when they work magick, and others who are more prone to hearing spirit voices or sensing them in some other way. I think that it is narrow minded to discount dream incubation, which has an ancient providence, or other signs and portends as being less valid than a visual apparition. My theory is that spirits communicate on multiple levels simultaneously, and that the visual phenomenon that one might experience may not be the most important or significant.
As for myself, I am extremely visual and also gifted in the ability to clearly hear the spirits speak to me. Often when I perform an invocation or evocation, the apparition of the spirit is accompanied with a complete visual-like dream-scape. I not only see and hear the spirit, but I also see the spirit’s domain as well. It’s as if I were somehow consciously transported to another world altogether. When I have talked to other magicians, I seem to be part of an extreme minority in regards to this phenomenon. It is one of my magickal talents and it has served me very well. 
Yet even though my senses have allowed me to be transported to another world, others who have either worked magick with me, or performed the same rite independently, haven’t had the same level of visual experiences that I have had. It is my gift, just as others have their gift or ability in the business of magick, and who is to say what gift is greater than the other?  For one thing, I don’t bother using a skrying glass or crystal, and I don’t astral project. I don’t need to, but others might have one of these abilities fine-tuned to a point that would be analogous to what I am able to experience, or perhaps even greater. So I believe it has to do with your innate talent and ability. Certainly, having a powerful imagination is very helpful, but it isn’t necessary.
I have met a few powerful magicians who work with spirits and don’t receive any visual proof that the invocation has been successful. What they have instead of a knack for visualization is a powerful relationship with a spirit or group of spirits, and by assembling the components of the spell and directing the spirit to perform a service, the magick is succinctly accomplished. 
One of my friends was a practitioner of Afro-Carribean religions and magick, and he never visually saw a spirit nor could he hear it speak in his head. He sensed a presence in his gut and his emotions, and communicated through divination tools, such as various kinds of dice, colored pebbles, knuckle bones, etc. He also had a very tight relationship with his chosen demigods and associated servitor spirits, but he never saw any specific apparition. Was his magick a sham or somehow less effective than someone who does see a visual apparition? I think that anyone who would have said as much to him would have really pissed him off. He would have been insulted by that kind of judgement, and rightly so. Magick encompasses a huge variety of practices and experiences, and every magician is nearly unique in how they practice magick and how they perceive it as well.
I think that making rules and establishing assumptions about how magick should work if it is to be considered valid is misleading, even when concerning the specialized magick that deals with spirits. The proof is whether or not the magick works, and that the magician is using his or her talents and abilities to their fullest potential. The rest is just the multitude of various possibilities that one can experience or somehow sense when performing any kind of magick.

High Tech Pirates, SOPA and PIPA - My Opinion
Arrgh! Avast ye swabs! Even a pirate has a pirate’s code! (OK, I got that out of my system!)
Nearly everyone has weighed in with their thoughts and opinions over the ongoing debate about various forms of media piracy. As an author, I am, of course, interested in preserving my literary assets (meager as they are), which I have spent many years developing, acquiring and writing for others to utilize. I don’t look kindly upon pirates, but I also believe that it’s probably impossible to eliminate them altogether. Unless we are to live in a police state with invasive government control and strict censorship, media piracy is going to happen.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to curtail anyone’s freedom of acquiring information or expressing their opinion. There are already strict copyright laws, fair usage guidelines, etc., and every now and then some media pirate gets put down through international legal mechanisms (such as what happened recently to Megaupload). I don’t believe that we need more laws to govern the use of media, and I am wholly against any kind of interference, control or censorship of the internet. Thus I am glad that both SOPA and PIPA were defeated, although there are still opportunities for the moneyed elite to oppress the powerless masses. All we need to do is to be vigilant and scream bloody murder when someone attempts to curtail our slowly dwindling rights.
The internet is like the wild west before it was supposedly tamed. You can find nearly anything you want to find on the internet. Uninformed opinions, urban myths and complete misinformation abounds on the internet, and all we can do to cope with it is to use as much critical thinking as possible, and to try to put out the truth wherever feasible. The internet is an infant medium that is undergoing a great deal of growing pains. It has already caused a lot of good and also posed some major social problems, but I think that it should be allowed to evolve into something more splendid than it is, and not be egregiously curtailed before it can mature.
Even though I occasionally find sites that purport to offer free downloads of my books (most of them are empty ghosts sites), and I do attempt to do something about them, my books and writings will end up on someone else’s media device without either recognition or payment of any kind. There isn’t much that can be done about this, and I suspect that eventually it will make most writing jobs and the many works that such individuals  produce worth very little if anything. I also notice that there are quite a slew of books that can be bought on Amazon for as little as a few cents (the postage costs far more than the book, and downloading an ebook costs next to nothing). These wholesale sites put pressures on book publishers to make less money, and this will ultimately kill most of them off.
Most people don’t have a clue what it takes to produce a book, whether fiction or non-fiction, and I understand that. I had to learn how to write, both grammatically as well as communicating ideas in a recognizable format. As a writer, I often have ideas and whole stories living in my head and heart for months or years, anxiously waiting to be given a verbal expression. I have hundreds of characters and stories aching to come out, and as my skill as a fiction writer improves, I hope to give those stories and characters life. I am also very passionate about my practices and beliefs regarding ritual magick, and I feel moved to write about them and share them with my reading public. I don’t expect to make very much money doing this, but then again, I do it because I love to do it. Writing has become my passion and also the manifestation of my ultimate magick!
It’s all so ironic because I used to be a terrible writer, and I have reams of writings and notes to prove that point. When I was a young man I was a poor writer, and it has required me to work very hard to become as proficient as I am today, which, I might add, is far greater than I was, but a long way from where I want to be. Considering the hundreds of hours that I have spent developing, writing, editing and rewriting to get my message to you, my readers, I should think that spending a few measly bucks for my books would not be too much to ask. After all, I am constantly giving away a lot of my writings on this blog, and I also share my rituals and workings with the members of my Order, all at no cost to them. To honor me as a writer and as an individual who is passionately seeking to communicate my ideas, you could do no less than buy at least one of my books (even at a bargain price), attend one of my workshops, or even perhaps buy me a drink someday. After all, I am doing this for you as well as myself. My hope is that some of what I have written will be useful and helpful so you can produce your own magickal system, which is my overall writing objective. 
So for this reason I have been steadfastly against legislation such as SOPA and PIPA, but I am also against media piracy of any kind, even though I know that at times the innocent are often duped into purchasing pirated merchandise. This has happened to probably anyone who has sought to order things more cheaply through the internet than buying something at a store. I have found that if the price for a given item is too good to be true, then it is likely either pirated or fake, or a combination of both. We have to protect ourselves and use good judgment while the internet and its various offshoots mature and become more self-governed. Anyway, that is my opinion on this matter for the moment, and it could even change in the future, depending on what happens. I might support a fair set of legislation that enforces a modicum of order on the internet, but considering how cagey most hackers are, any rules will have technical loopholes.
Frater Barrabbas

Your first three books were set relatively far in the future from when they were written –

For my own purposes I assumed that “Neuromancer” was set in 2035, but I was very careful to keep out of the book anything that would allow anyone to date it by internal evidence, which I think was a smart move, considering the longevity that it has strangely enjoyed.

The next three were set in the near future, and your latest three have been set in an “imaginary present.” Are you working your way around to the past?

I once thought I was, but I think I’ve actually worked my way around to the future again. The first three were full-on “This is the future” genre sci-fi books; the next three were like the ‘90s in high cyberpunk cosplay mode. Those [characters], for me, hadn’t been altered by history at all. They were like ‘90s people, but inhabiting this satirical set. I never saw a critic or a reader even remark on that. They accepted them as folk from the very near future, and noticing the lack of response to that was one of the things that emboldened me to write “Pattern Recognition” [2001] and then the next two books ["Spook Country" (2006) and "Zero History" (2010)], which are speculative novels of the very recent past, in that they are each set in the year prior to the year in which the book is actually published, with huge amounts of internal evidence of when it is. A lot of people said to me, “Why are you doing that? It’s going to date it.” I said, “I want to date it. It’s in some way a description of life, and I want to know which month these imaginary events supposedly happened in.”

Salon: William Gibson: I really can’t predict the future

This looks like an interesting conference, November 8-11, 2012 in Tampa, FL:

The Internet and sex go together like Florida and sunshine. Online resources enrich our lives with sexual health and sexuality information, opportunities for relationship formation and sexual connections, sexually explicit materials, and commercial sex products. We can also face unintended consequences from Internet use, including dependence/compulsion, abuse, and inaccurate information and misinformation. However, beyond the Internet, myriad of technologies greatly influence human sexual behavior and sexuality both positively and negatively. Thus, the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) theme is Sexual Science 2.0: Technological innovations in sexuality research. Although submissions from all areas of the scientific study of sexuality are welcomed, we are especially interested in multidisciplinary submissions focused on how technology informs and is a part of the research being conducted by sexual scientists. Potential research topics for plenaries, presentations, and trainings may include:

• Sex and the Internet (Internet sex-seeking, navigating relationships online)
• E-dating (finding dates and relationships online)
• Technology-based sexual health interventions (video, web-based, chatrooms, etc.)
• Cybersex (sexual interactions mediated by Internet or other electronic technology)
• Compulsive online sexual behavior
• Non-monogamy and the Internet
• Special populations and online sexual communities
• Sex and new media, social networks, etc. (Web 2.0, Google+, Facebook, Foursquare, etc.)
• Reproductive and contraceptive technologies
• Technologies pertaining to pharmaceutical/medical treatments and sexual enhancement
• Sex toys and other commercial sex products that utilize technology
• Online sexually explicit material, pornography, and erotica
• Technologies aiding with sex therapy, sex research, sexuality education, etc.
• Technologies for measurement and data collection, including new measurement styles
• Sexual harassment online/cyber-stalking
• “Sexting” and other innovative ways to communicate about sex
• Sex and mobile phones/other portable communication technologies (tablet PCs, phones, laptops, etc.)
• And others…

Sexual Science 2.0 conference

Patrick Farley’s Electric Sheep is back with a new comic First Word, a psychedelic meditation on the origin of language.

WARNING: NSFW and contains strobing imagery.

Here’s a favorite old one: The Guy I Almost Was.

Colton Harris-Moore was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison by a federal court following his Washington state sentencing:

The LA Times reports:

U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones’ sentence runs concurrently with an earlier 7 1/2-year sentence imposed by a state court in Washington for his crimes under state law. Those offenses included a series of burglaries and thefts that terrorized citizens in several states as the brazen fugitive kept two steps ahead of the law. [...]

Prompted by the judge to share his advice to the thousands of admirers around the world who followed his exploits while on the lam, Harris-Moore downplayed the emails he has written from jail in which he described his aviation exploits as “amazing.”

“I would say that the things I did some, I think, thought was perhaps cool, we’re extremely dangerous and terrifying,” he said. “It wasn’t as if I just jumped in a plane barefoot and started flying around. I feared for my life in those situations.”

LA Times: Barefoot Bandit sentenced: ‘I should have died years ago’

This is part one of a two part series consisting of various assorted thoughts about recent blogsphere topics.
 It’s nearing the end of the month, and there are a number of small topics and comments that I would like to present to my reading public. I have truly enjoyed all of the comments and responses that I got for my article on non-duality, and I have a few comments of my own to add and also clarify what I said previously. Additionally, I have recently got a copy of Mr. E. A. Koetting’s more recent book “Ipsissimus” where he discusses the concepts and ideas of enlightenment ala the Left Hand Path. As I read deeper into his material, I will, at some point, deliver an opinion on his work. Despite the fact that I don’t actually consider myself an adherent of the LHP philosophy, I am also not disposed completely to the Right Hand Path either. I would also like to put forward my opinions about the issues of the reality of spirits, the verification of evocation, and literary piracy v.s. online freedom (the SOPA/PIPA controversy). There are a lot topics here to briefly discuss, and they are mostly unrelated, hence the title “Various Assorted.”


Multiple Paths to Enlightenment

In October of last year, I posted an article entitled “Path to Enlightenment Through Magick,” where I explained my perspective on achieving enlightenment through the artifice of performing theurgistic magickal rituals, which I call ordeals. You can find that article here, in case you want to review it. I have forged a path, although it is not thoroughly tested (I am not yet “enlightened”), which would take me to a place that is decidedly between the objectives of the Right Hand Path and the Left Hand Path, making me a proponent of neither. I should quote this passage, taken from another blog article here, which pretty much sums up how I seek to achieve my objective by following neither ethical orientation.

“This is particularly true because I consider myself neither a follower of the left hand or the right hand path, being a denizen of that shadowy grey area that is more a practical reality than an alliance to some path or persuasion. I aspire in my magickal workings to integrate the HGA or Bornless One into my own self, and thus elevate myself to the level of a godhead, however thinly or briefly. This is certainly a lefthand path perspective. However, I also give veneration, offerings and worship to my ancestors and my gods, thus making me a follower of the right hand path.”

First off, I would like to state that following a particular dualistic path (RHP or LHP) is probably overly simplistic. Practical approaches to the practice of ritual magick and its ultimate goal of union with the One would require any magician to forge a path that is unique and specific to his or her life path, keeping in mind the inherited legacy and the various virtues and flaws that each individual possesses. What this means is that a theoretical discussion based on ideals typically breaks down to practical necessity, and that there are as many different paths to that ultimate goal of spiritual unity as there are individuals who might seek it. Unlike mysticism, or mystical traditions and paths, the path of the traditional magician likely doesn’t exist. There are certainly traditions that form the foundation of any practitioner in regards to their inherent practice, but ultimately, every magician worth his or her salt will leave that tradition behind in order to create something specific and unique to themselves. So while there are specific and set mystical traditions, there appear to be no set magickal traditions in regards to higher level pathways and practices. This also means that the division of RHP and LHP becomes meaningless after a certain point in a magician’s development.

As I have stated in my recent article on monism, it is through our own internal godhead that we are able to perceive the active role of Spirit in the world, and it is when we become truly aware of our own godhead, and fully activate it, that we gain an intimate connection to that overarching Deity which acts as the ultimate source of all things. (We will talk a bit more about this issue later in this article.) Therefore, as far as functioning as a ritual magician and performing theurgistic ordeals, the primary purpose and task is to awaken the godhead within one. Once that awakening and merging of consciousness occurs, then we can proceed with the combined mystical and magickal tasks of completing that union with the One.

I think that the division of paths, and the ideation of RHP or LHP are useful discussion tools when one is below the level of achieving full union with the inner godhead. At that point and beyond, such distinctions are probably useless.

(A tip of the hat to my reader and commentator, Nik64, who gave me the inspiration and idea to write up this point.)


Further Thoughts About Non-duality, Magick, and the Qabbalah

One of my readers (Josh) had some real issues with what I had recently written about non-dual perspectives (i.e., monism) in regards to magick and a pagan based religious idealism, stating that monism was somehow restricted to a single viewpoint and that it excludes all other perspectives, which he called “pluralism.” I don’t really know where he got this idea from, since I couldn’t find in my article where I stated that my perspective and view was singularly correct, and that all others were somehow false. Here’s a small segment of what Josh said in the comments section of my article.

“The problem with monism (one view and one view only) is that those coming from a monistic viewpoint always try to demonize other views as dualism or dualistic, even when there is a multiplicity (more than two) views.”

I really think that Josh was thinking about his objections to “monotheism” rather than “monism,” and they are actually quite different. Stating that a certain deity is the one and only godhead (and all others are false) can create a closed system that eliminates the consideration of other factors, or other godheads and their spiritual creeds. Monotheism can produce exclusionary spiritual systems that negate pluralism. Adopting a mystical perspective seems to eliminate the possibility of believing in the exclusive truth of one’s religion, and it also separates or makes a distinction between individuals who espouse a faith based perspective or experience Spirit directly from those who are merely believers. Through the artifice of stating that both the internal and individual godhead and the ultimate unified source are co-equal and the same is to enshrine both a unitary perspective as well as a pluralistic perspective. Many variations of monotheism as they are practiced in the West exclude the possibility that the individual is also a distinct godhead in their own right, since such a perspective (“All art God) would violate the integrity of a strict monotheistic creed. Throughout the ages, there have been more than a few mystics who have been murdered or taken to task by narrow minded sectarians of their own creed, and that would include Jesus of Nazareth himself.

Lao Tzu says it quite well when he writes in the very first chapter of the Tao Te Ching:

“Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the manifestation. These two spring from a common source, but differ in name.”

According to Lao Tzu, the mystery or paradox is the One that is actually None, and the pluralistic perspective sees the Spirit alive and thriving in all things. I believe that the same ability to embrace the One and the Many exists in all forms of mysticism, and is important in regards to ritual magick, too. So I don’t think that there is an absolutist perspective in monism, but there certainly can be an absolutist perspective in monotheism and extreme sectarianism.

I also stated that my personal perspective was based on the pagan theology that I originally accepted as a part of being a practicing witch. As a traditional Alexandrian witch, I believed in the existence of a Goddess and a God, and that when joined together, they became a kind of union that has no name or characteristic. Traditional witchcraft (ala BTW) embraces a kind of “dual-theology,” and that only some of its adherents (such as myself) will hold that there is something that transcends them both. Not everyone in my tradition believes that the Goddess and the God are forever joined into a fusion that is greater than the sum of their parts. Yet once I grew beyond the boundaries that were defined by Alexandrian witchcraft, I also discovered the reality and necessity of individual and distinct pagan Deities, since there seemed to be many qualities to the overall aspect of deity in my experience, and these many qualities could be easily realized through a form of pagan polytheism.

What I found after many years of practicing witchcraft and paganism is that the concept of a dual-theology is just one way to perceive the concept of polytheism. There is also a true polytheism that sees many different gods and goddesses as distinct personalities, and there is the concept that all of these deities coalesce into a single unity, which I call the One. All of these perspectives are true and correct, but also limited and only conditionally true. Deity is, by nature, paradoxical, so any one single definition, model, description or perspective limits something that is unlimited, indefinite and infinite. Therefore, I would think that by making this statement I am embracing both a monism and a pluralism simultaneously. How I can do that (and get away with it) is to state that what is being described can’t be described. As Lao Tzu says in the first chapter:

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things.” 

Curiously, this whole issue of monism, monotheism, plurality, polytheism and the individuation of the Godhead has been getting a fair amount of buzz in various blogs, most specifically in the collected web journals that make up Patheos. Gus diZerega, who is the author of “Pagans and Christians,” brought up some very interesting points about how monotheism has some problems when characterizing their Godhead as being completely separate and distinct from everything, as a Deity that is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, while still being capable of being loving, directly experienced and intimate. These opposing perspectives are merely labeled as part of the paradox of a deity that is both immanent and transcendent, but there are some real problems to this perspective that labeling it all as a paradox does nothing to resolve. You can find his article here.

Anyway, I think that I have more succinctly stated my beliefs and perspectives on this topic, and so I can rest my case and move on to other topics. The only reason why I have been working on this topic and its related perspectives in regards to the practice or ritual magick is that when I have experienced the highest states of consciousness that I am able, the resultant state is unity. At that veritable peak of my magickal experiences, I am able to sense how everything is connected together, and that within that union I have found the ecstatic bliss of the One. I believe that it’s pretty hard to dismiss what I have experienced, and correspondingly, it’s pretty hard to adequately explain it using words or mental models.


Finally, I would like to announce that I will be attending a weekend intensive at the local Twin Cities store, the Eye of Horus, with John Michael Greer. He will be conducting a three day series of classes on pagan ceremonial magick. I will be very interested in learning to hear what John thinks about this topic, since he has recourse to much of this material written in its source languages, a skill to which I am quite deficient. These classes will be taking place on Friday, January 27, through Sunday, January 29. I will write up a critique of this class and let you know what I think of it. I am certain that it will be interesting and rewarding. I have been corresponding with John for a few months now, and I have found his letters to be refreshing, interesting, compelling and sometimes, quite humorous. He is another one of those remarkable men and women, and I encourage everyone to seek out these kinds of people and learn everything that can be learned from them. It is an excellent methodology for self-enrichment, and ultimately, if you have rubbed elbows with enough remarkable men and women, you may become one yourself. 
(To be continued..)

Frater Barrabbas

Demolition supervisor Robert Johnson got a surprise when reviewing photographs he took of a building that he had just demolished in the English city of Kendal. In one of the photographs, he saw a figure standing in one of the windows. Furthermore, the apparition was identified as that of the deceased previous owner by her son, David Grimshaw.

The 59-year-old was stunned and added: ‘I’m totally convinced – no one else looks like that. She had glasses and big earrings and she used to wear a dress with a bow at the front.’

While some may think the ghost is just a mere reflection, Mr Grimshaw remained convinced. He said: ‘She used to stand in that room for hours on the phone – it was the guesthouse reception and she took bookings from there.

‘She would have been horrified if she had known the house was being demolished because it was beautiful, so maybe that is why she’s turned up.’

The demolition team had felt an eerie chill at Meadowbank House. Worker Stuart Shan said: ‘The day before we took the photo, I noticed the chandelier swinging on its own.’
In my opinion the figure's precise features are hard to make out, so Grimshaw's identification may be due to the mosaic effect. However, it is pretty clear to me that this is the image of a woman, and you can see what looks like a necklace and an earring on the side of the woman's head that is visible.

This is one of the better ghost photographs that I've seen. It does not look like a reflection to me, but rather like a person standing inside the building. In fact, it's so good my immediate thought is that it's just a picture of somebody inside the building who wasn't supposed to be there. But if the demolition crew thoroughly checked the interior and nobody was there, it may be that something paranormal was indeed happening at the site.

I've long been of the opinion that the ritual of infant baptism as practiced by many mainstream Christian denominations is essentially pointless from a spiritual and magical perspective. My reasoning? If we assume that the Christian concept of salvation is based on spiritual realization, we must also take into account the basic truth that nobody else can do spiritual work for us. The problem with infant baptism is quite simply that while participating in a religious ritual led by another person can help speed one's spiritual progress, an infant really has no idea what is going on. Some babies just cry through the whole thing and find the water used unpleasant, which seems to me as about as far from a genuine spiritual awakening as I can imagine.

While baptism does serve a social function, it seems to me that people could get their socialization in clubs or organizations that are not religious in nature. This strikes me as a better state of affairs on the grounds that it would ensure that human politics and spiritual realization do not become conflated with each other. I'll add that this is not limited to churches, and the same point could be made about many magical orders and societies. There's a reason that when Aleister Crowley first put together his plan for A.'.A.'. he forbade socialization among its members. He had seen firsthand what political struggle had done to the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and had played a significant part in it himself acting as Mathers' representative in London during the "revolt of the Adepts."

Several new websites are now offering "de-baptism" certificates for those who wish to formally leave their Christian Churches. While requesting a certificate from a website is at least as pointless as an infant baptism ritual from a spiritual perspective, its political significance cannot be overlooked.


The idea of getting "de-baptized"-- or having your name officially deleted from the baptismal registry-- is relatively new, but one which the Catholic Church is beginning to take seriously, and with grave concern.

The movement may have begun just a decade ago when Terry Sanderson, head of the National Secular Society in Britain, posted an unofficial "de-baptism certificate" on the society's website, mostly as a joke. To date it has been downloaded at least 100,000 times.

"It was a joke to begin with, but now it has taken on a new significance because there are so many people who are anxious to leave the church that they are actually taking it seriously now, and they want some way to make their break with the church formal," Sanderson told VOA. "Often the church won't acknowledge their desire to leave."

Many disenfranchised ex-parishioners have begun to take it a step further, seeking official, legal acknowledgement for de-baptism. For instance, 71-year-old Frenchman Rene Lebouvier recently filed a lawsuit against the church after his initial request to have his name crossed off the church's baptismal registry was denied. Last October, a lower court in Normandy ruled in his favor, making him the first man to be officially de-baptized, though a local bishop has filed an appeal.
The very existence of de-baptism demonstrates the extent to which people have become angry with the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of ongoing scandals and the continued embrace of political positions very much at odds with those of the modern world. It remains to be seen if the current surge in de-baptisms represents a trend, or if it is simply the latest Internet craze that will fade as quickly as it emerged.

The islands of the Bahamas in the Caribbean Sea have a fascinating paranormal history. In the early 1900's psychic Edgar Cayce predicted that evidence for the existence of the continent of Atlantis would be found in 1968 or 1969 near the island of Bimini. It so happens that in 1968 an unusual formation was discovered off the coast of the island, usually referred to today as the Bimini Road. This formation consists of a line of flat rectangular stone blocks that suggest the possibility of human origin. However, a number of geologists have also pointed out that similar stone structures can occur naturally, as the stone of which the road is composed tends to fracture along flat and rectangular lines giving the appearance of an ancient pavement.

According to this latest story from the region, ancient Atlanteans are not the only paranormal forces that may be loose in the Bahamas. According to Bishop Neil Ellis of Mount Tabor Full Gospel Baptist Church three demonic spirits are also plaguing the islands. In a recent speech Ellis described these demons and their evil intentions.

"Sexual immorality," he told the large crowd, "is the oldest of the three. It's been assigned (to The Bahamas) since the early 1800s. "It has taken root in the lives and psyche of Bahamians." The demon's task - sexual immorality - he said was designed to "keep God's plan for you, from you, destabilise the Bahamian family" and "replace God with himself (the demon)".

He said that the demon of sexual immorality was evident in our society when one saw the high level of "promiscuity going on". Fornication and adultery, he said, are "literally glamorised". Speaking of the "sweetheart syndrome" - one of the three sub-assignments under the main assignment of the sexual immorality demon - "has striven and now become accepted as our normal way of life". As for homosexuality and incest, it was "rampant and ragged in the Bahamas", he said.


Calling up the second demon --financial instability -- Bishop Ellis said it was a demon "sent directly from hell primarily to enslave the people of the Bahamas. "It was designed," he said, "to keep you working, but keep you broke."

"The majority of the people in The Bahamas are one pay cheque away from poverty", he said, adding that there is an agreement between the first two demons. Poverty, caused by demon no 2, "allows demon no 1 to driver persons in poverty to sexual immorality".

The last demon, he said, is widespread throughout the Bahamas, as many are operating in "obeah and voodoo. It has been full blown in our country and it has been for some time." The demon of witchcraft, he said, is designed to "manipulate, intimidate, separate, segregate and control", he said. "It is not assigned to kill you. It is designed and assigned to terrorising until it drives you insane."

Bishop Ellis said this "demon" uses confusion as one of its major weapons. "This spirit will try to bring confusion to the home, the marriage and the family. There are divorced and separated people who love each other, but can't live together. Witchcraft!"
Or in the latter case, maybe they just can't live together without being constantly at odds. That happens all the time, demons or not, in many parts of the world besides the Bahamas.

As a ritual magician, my first thought here is that in order to truly banish a demon you need to know its name. Evangelicals often name demons according to what they do, such as "demon of witchcraft," but in the Bible even Jesus needed to know a demon's name in order to cast it out and I certainly hope that Ellis does not consider himself a better exorcist than the Son of God. My next thought is that social problems can arise on their own without the help of demonic forces. For example, why propose demons as the root of financial instability when oligarchs around the world time and again have proven that they can do it on their own?

Bishop Ellis claims that God has given him a special prayer to banish these "demons," and I sincerely hope that it works, especially in terms of improving the Bahamanian economy which has suffered a lot from the global financial crisis. I just think that even if paranormal forces are involved, there's also a lot of practical mundane work that's going to need to be done to really help improve peoples' lives.

Further Archeomantic Ordeal Workings
Having a smaller apartment did make my life more attenuated and crowded, but as far as my magick temple was concerned, I still had plenty of room. This allowed me to continue the work that I had developed in Tallahassee. I had brought my magickal work to the zenith of my ability through the entrance and immersion of the first and lowest of the Qabbalistic dimensions (Dimension XVIII). I had repeated that working a couple of times, exposing others to its wonders and ensuring that it was something that was real and objective. The Santa Fe temple seemed like the perfect place to expand on this knowledge, so I prepared and performed an entrance into the next dimension in sequence (XVII), and then later on, performed a ritual that joined the two dimensions together into a singularity. These workings proved to be astonishingly remarkable, and performing rituals at a higher elevation had its interesting effects as well. I found that working magick within the Santa Fe environment compounded and amplified what was done to a much greater degree than anything that I had experienced previously. This might have had something to do with the thin atmosphere, the ambience of the location, the magical qualities of the land or because of the dust in the air. It might have been a combination of all of these qualities, but I did notice how much more potent the magick seemed when performed in the Land of Enchantment.

As I have stated previously, the triangular shapes found within the lattice structure of the paths of the Tree of Life are defined as Qabbalistic Dimensions. There are exactly 18 of these dimensions, and all of them are triangular with exception to the 4th and 5th dimensions, which are trapezoids. A Qabbalistic Dimension represents the synergetic union of the three Pathways, Sephiroth and Angular Vectors, which are said to be the Enochian Aethyrs. Thus, a Dimension is the veritable spiritual flesh and internal organs of the body of the Godhead, but it functions as a powerful unified being whose very nature is completely paradoxical and transcends all mental structures and considerations. When I have entered into one of these dimensions, I have found that they appear to operate wholly within the Causal Level of Consciousness, and seem to function as an unknown Godhead beyond any known occult definition. Accessing one seems to resolve itself into the activated field where all eighteen are realized as a holistic meta Godhead. When I have encountered one of these massive entities, it’s almost as if my entire mind is wiped clean and all that remains is an overpowering sense of bliss, unity, and a faint sound of celestial music. All other senses are null and void, and even thinking or conceptualizing is impossible. 

I continued to perform these so-called Transdimensional workings that I had started in Tallahassee, seeking to fulfill and complete the workings associated with the XVIII dimension (whose spirit was called Autogenes), and then performing the entrance into the XVII dimension (whose spirit is Sophia Charisima). Where the XVIII dimension was located on the masculine side, the XVII dimension was on the feminine side of the Tree of Life. The numbering of the dimensions was based on a logical premise that what is more accessible and closer to the magician (i.e., the actualized masculine pillar) received a higher number and sequence, and represented where the counting begins (bottom right to left, then higher right, left, etc.). However, the sequential numbering of the dimensions doesn’t indicate any kind of ranking, since the dimensions are seen as operating as pairs of opposites all the way up the Tree of Life.

Gaining entrance into one of these qabbalistic dimensions requires a complete magickal exegesis of the three Sephiroth, Pathways and Aethyrs, which function as the components of this kind of working. All of these elements are pulled together into a synthetic structure grounded on a cross-roads vortex, and upon that structure is erected a grand gateway, which helps to fuse all of the components into a unified expression. Entering into that grand gateway is the way that the magician enters into the dimension, causing a complete immersion into the phenomenon of the transdimensional vortex. Having experienced this process a number of times, I have encountered all sorts of peculiar phenomena, such as extreme time dilation, full visual revelations of other worlds and domains, some of them completely alien to our own world, and visions of futureevents, some near and others far. Yet all of these phenomena only occur immediately before and after full immersion into the dimension. Full immersion produces the overpowering experience of being in a reality that is completely void of thought or any kind of intellection. Through the years 1994 through 1997, and the first quarter of 1998, I performed various workings engaging this very high form of ritual magick. I also exposed others to it and received complete corroboration from those who experienced it.

Although the initial ordeal working was quite elaborate and lengthy, taking a couple of months to complete, and the actual final ritual working took three consecutive days, there was a macro ritual that could be performed to regain access to the dimension whenever desired. This macro rite used the already previously established ritual structures to generate the transdimensional vortex, and all that was required to gain access was to perform the associated mystery rite and erect and enter the grand threshold gate. Using the macro ritual allowed me to re-enter and re-experience the already fully invoked dimension several times. This re-entry allowed me to more fully examine the phenomenon of the dimension, and also, to exhibit and share its power and qualities with a few others. At the time, I believed that I had discovered the most powerful and profound magickal ordeal that one could possibly experience. So I was quite fixated on this methodology for the next several years. I still believe today that it is one of the most powerful systems of magick, but it is only one of several that I now have in my repertoire.

In the autumn of 1994, I performed a final re-entry into the XVIII dimension and then sought to shift my focus to the next working. Yet on November 23, I performed a ritual working that attempted to exteriorize the dimension as an evoked spirit (in this case, Autogenes). I used the Gate of Revealing and Iron Cross rituals, which are expressly used to exteriorize a spirit into the mundane world, to coalesce s the spirit of the dimension into this world. The results of that working were quite remarkable, but I decided that such a working wasn’t really necessary, since it didn’t seem to actually make too much difference to my overall magickal and spiritual process. I also developed and performed a new version of the Bornless One Invocation rite that had as its foundation the completely exteriorized Four Qabbalistic Worlds, acting as a kind of tiered temple with four steps to the summit. I accomplished this ordeal on February 11, 1995, just before beginning a new cycle of workings. This new development was both relevant and critically important, as I later found out when seeking to do the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal.

From that date, and through the rest of the year and into the autumn of 1996, I performed a number of minor invocations and other workings, developing and refining the system of theurgy that I had first presented to the Order back in the late 1980's. I was also performing the final edits and revisions to my three volume book, and seeking to get it ready for publication in the near future. In 1997, I sent out samples, cover letters and a table of contents to a least a dozen publishers, and then waited for some positive response. Of course, all of these submissions received rejections over the next year and a half. Even so, I made copies of this book and shared them with my friends. At over 550 total pages, the book was quite voluminous. I later would find it to be poorly written and overly redundant when I re-wrote it as the “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” series.

In the autumn of 1996 I began the working that would help me gain entry into the XVII dimension. In October, I separately invoked the three great Aethyrs of ZAA, DES and VTI. These workings turned out to be quite powerful and amazing all by themselves. They also caused some interesting phenomenon to occur in my mundane life, which seemed to parallel the symbolic revelations of these three Aethyrs. Pulling some interesting text from my own magickal diary, the following was written up by me during that period.     

“The three invocations had a powerful effect on the outward experiences of my life, each seemingly having a direct impact upon me after their invocation. It was amazing to see these interesting and unusual (but also subtle) things happen. The first invocation produced an effect the day after it was completed. I received an unexpected call from an older woman (Gabriel) who was looking to put together a musical group to accompany the selected reading of Persian and Indian mystic poets, such as Rumi, Hafiz, Kabir, Mirabai and Lalla. These poets exemplified the qualities of the aethyr ZAA, and so I accepted [the offer] to join three other musicians on very short notice to perform a concert consisting of sketchy themes and ideas for accompanying the most excellent of poetry. The concert was performed on October 17th at 7:00 PM. It was a great success at moments, and a bit long over-all. However, the poetry perfectly meshed with the message of ZAA, that I must submit to the love and will of the Deity in order to master myself and my destiny. This message I received and understood. The second and third aethyr did not produce such dramatic and immediate results, but they joined to establish the mood of the time, and colored the mundane occurrences of my life in later October and November.

I attended an interesting Halloween party and performed some amazing tarot card readings. I found out that evening that my friend Shann had breast cancer and was likely going to die from it. (Without any medical benefits, she had been unable or unwilling to see a doctor about her condition until the cancer was well advanced.) I saw her attempt to live, and her struggle seemed futile even at that time, then much more so a little later on. I brought her to the Halloween party, where she attempted and succeeded in dancing for a short time. Three weeks later she was admitted to a Nursing facility where she died only a few days later, just barely 44 years old, even though her wasted body looked like someone forty years older. As her designated Wiccan friend (I owed her some consideration for introducing me to all her friends), I had sponsored a Phowa ritual in Albuquerque on November 23rd with the assistance of Sandy Bryon and OZ. Shann was too sick to attend, and so I video taped it for her, and she at least got to see it a couple of days before she passed. It had snowed the night of the Halloween party, and soon afterwards, winter held the mountainous realms of Northern New Mexico in its icy grip.”  

Winter had come to Santa Fe, and it was probably one of the more snowy and colder winters that I had experienced there. On November 9, I performed a newly developed and written invocation of Hermes Thoth Trismagistus, and through that working I discovered that he was my mysterious magickal mentor, guide, teacher and the inspirer of my magickal work. Thus my secret mentor was Hermes Thoth, so I received some very critical insights, lore and creative ideas from him through that invocation. Here is what I wrote in my magickal diary about that momentous event.

“This was a very intense working, and it was a kind of home-coming for me. For many years I had pondered the source of my inspiration in the fashioning of a new methodology of ritual magick. I had made amazing progress over the years, and at each loggerhead I received inspirations and insights that guided me to new vistas of understanding. When I succeeded in conjuring Hermes Thoth, he revealed himself to me in an effulgence of light and glory, telling me that he was my guide and muse in the arts of magick. The source of this new methodology of ritual magick was inspired by the spirit of Hermes Thoth, who proclaimed me as one of his emissaries in this world given the task to modernize a venerable spiritual tradition fallen upon hard times. I was to invigorate the arguments for ritual magick as the preeminent yoga of the Western Mystery tradition.

The spirit of Hermes Thoth pervaded the magick of the temple and assisted in making the magickal invocations of the three aethyrs even more potently realized within it. His power and inspiration helped me not to lose hope during the dark and cold month of November. I felt a powerful optimism emanate from him. He told me not to forsake my path because of apparent setbacks or the slow pace of the realization of my aspirations. All things would come to pass, and he was acting as my guide and muse, thus I was well protected and directed. I was amazed that yet another piece of my inner puzzle was revealed, and that the source and inspiration of my magickal ideas came ultimately from Hermes Thoth. It made obvious sense to me, but I had certainly pondered over it for many years, never suspecting such an obvious source. This connection does not negate my own true will nor my creativity, for these are important to my inner nature and they allow the free flow of intuitive occult speculations. Hermes Thoth acts as an intimate source and background for my occult studies and inventions, therefore, I am well integrated into the modern expression of Hermetic Philosophy and the Western Mystery tradition.”

Then on the long weekend of January 17 - 19, I performed the transdimensional vortex gate working to enter into the XVII dimension. This ordeal had to be performed by myself alone, since I didn’t have anyone to assist me as I had previously in Tallahassee. The three day ordeal was therefore much more arduous than the previous ordeal of 1994, but it was no less profound and mind blowing than what I had experienced previously. Here are a few diary entries that encapsulate what I experienced during that wondrous event.

“Without the aid of an assistant, the three night ordeal was very difficult but allowed me to exceed all expectations of endurance and perseverance. I relished the difficulty of the second evening and without much pause or rest, proceeded through all the rituals, establishing the three paths and Sephiroth associated with the XVIIth dimension. All throughout the ordeal, a myriad of reflections and insights occurred to me, all of which were of an extremely personal nature. I felt a profound degree of clarity in regards to the strange path I have been treading all these many years. My unusual relationships with women made perfect sense to me, and that society’s expectation that single people should find someone (just anyone!) to get married to is not relevant to one who is as deep a seeker of occult wisdom as myself, one who requires a partner who is willing to enter this World of Spirit and therein bond. I must determine for myself what is important in life and try to ignore or deeply understand the prodding and propaganda of our culture. Because I have abrogated the determination of personal meaning and truth, I must question the relevancy of all these urges, even those rooted in the core of my physical being.

Another insight that was revealed to me through this ordeal was that I must soon change the emphasis of my occult studies from being a solitary practitioner to a teacher among the peerage of magickal practitioners. I felt that this might also include a change of residence in the next two to three years, but there was not the powerful visionary mandate that was felt three years ago when I entered the XVIIIth dimension. But I felt that a change in my spiritual path would occur in due course.”

And this diary entry into the dimension recalls what entering it was like for me, and similarly, for others.

“The resultant impact of the egress into the XVIIth dimension was so great and so intense that it seemed as if my mental capacities were completely eclipsed. I was not able to think analytically, and all that was left of my conscious mind was an openness to the experience, an unresistant flowing with the currents of the greater power of the entity of the dimension, Sophia Charisima. Thus I saw no visions but only heard her voice in my mind, and felt the great power of her presence. I sensed profound changes occurring deep within me, but I could neither articulate nor even visualize them. Whatever was occurring, I could not even grasp it except in a deeply intuitive fashion. This was the most profound magickal experience that I have ever undergone, and in fact its effects still profoundly haunt me even several months later. It is a process that is still unfolding in me, as it involves the most personal and intimate aspects of my being. Through this process I am understanding my own complex sexual nature, and the peculiar relationships that I have with women - as their initiator and priest of the hidden genius (Goddess) within them. The question seems to be whether or not I can take this role with many women and still be devoted to a single woman.”

Even though I had been shown through my experience with the XVII dimension that my spiritual and magickal path would be changing in the near future, that change didn’t occur until another year had passed. During the interval, I re-entered the XVII dimension four times, in February, September, November and finally, January 1998. I felt that I had exhausted the transdimensional vortex system, but during that time I had also come up with another mechanism. I decided that I would attempt to perform a re-entry of both the XVIII and XVII dimensions simultaneously, thus uniting them into single meta-dimension. I know for a fact that I performed this working because I have the time table of planetary hours written up for that specific date, but the diary entry was likely written on some loose pieces of paper and are hidden somewhere amongst the mass of papers and folders in my black filing cabinet. The impact of that working was likely quite remarkable and represented the final apex of that series, but as I had been informed, my spiritual process was starting to change, and this final working would be the last of that type that I would work for many years.

Here is some text that I wrote up prior to performing this working that explains why I thought it would be significant to join the two transdimensional vortex gates into a fused union. I wanted to attempt to experience the dimensions unified into a single expression, so it seemed natural to join the masculine and feminine dimensions together.

“After having entered and experienced all the phenomenon associated with the two lowest but still potent Qabbalistic dimensions, I had pondered producing an expression representing their union. It is part of my methodology to seek a shortcut in order to gain egress to all dimensions without the arduous performance of all the ritual steps - the full three phases. However, such a complicated and intensive working as the trans-dimensional gate could not be expressed in a simpler fashion than through the synthesis of its component parts - namely the aethyrs, paths and sephiroth. Therefore, it seemed that in order to continue to benefit from the transforming powers of the Qabbalistic dimensions, I would have to continue to invoke them through the large array of the trans-dimensional vortex gate pattern one by one. I sensed that because there was a common thread to the experience of a dimension that it must represent a common space and state of consciousness, only marginally defined by the nature and quality of the ‘being’ of the dimension. Each entrance into a specific dimension represents the opening of a door into a common reality wherein the magician and “being” of the dimension enter into a profound union of consciousness. It should be possible for the magician to enter into that field of consciousness itself and seek communion with any or all of the dimensional ‘beings’.”

“An examination of the dimensional structures of the Tree of Life revealed a double anomaly, that is, there are two dimensions that contain four sides instead of the customary three. The two dimensions indicated also have two dimensions on either side, thus causing them to be closer to the center than if they occupied either side of the middle pillar alone. There is a corresponding pattern if the two trapezoidal dimensions are joined to form a variant octagram that is analogous to joining two trans-dimensional vortex gate ritual patterns. Thus the trapezoidal octagram represents the key to all dimensions.

There are two methods of accessing the key to the dimensions. First, one may select any two opposing dimensions and perform their corresponding trans-dimensional vortex gate rituals together, forming an overlaying trapezoidal octagram. Second, one may perform the complete trans-dimensional workings to gain egress to the two trapezoidal shaped dimensions (dimensions IV and V) and then perform the Double Trans-dimensional vortex ritual and fuse them into the key. The first method will expose the magician to the power of the key and reveal its essence, the second method will assist the magician to master the key, thus allowing for subsequent macro-ritual workings to reveal the nature of all eighteen dimensions.”

So I managed to perform what I called the Double Transdimensional Vortex Gate ritual, but I never went any further with this methodology. What remains is for me to pick up this thread sometime in the future so I might complete this series of working. I suspect that such a task will include entering into the two higher dimensions that are trapezoids instead of triangles. It would also appear that the trapezoid is a special to key to the completion of this process, and one that I have yet to fully develop. Yet in the year 1998, I had exhausted all of my creative ideas about this methodology, and it was obviously time to focus on other tasks.

At times when we are deeply engaged in a highly self-absorbed process of high magickal theurgy, it becomes necessary to return to earth. This is part of the overall cyclic process, and one that I seem to always experience. After performing all of these workings it was time to return to earth and to ground myself in what was for me a foundational earth-based paganism. I had gotten very far removed from that spiritual perspective, and whether I realized it or not, I needed to get back to my basic spiritual beliefs and practices and re-constitute them. This began to happen when I was teaching and initiating my girlfriend into Alexandrian witchcraft, and it continued to build as I reconnected with my pagan friends and began to get involved in the pagan and witchcraft community again - although that was not to happen in Santa Fe. My relationship with my girlfriend was stagnant (she would never seek to make me her primary lover even after she was completely single), my work situation was stagnant, and so were my spiritual and magickal processes. I needed a complete change of venue, so in 1999 I began to seek one out, having decided to pull up stakes and leave town permanently.

After five years of living in the odd town of Santa Fe, I felt that I needed a change, so I sought and got a promotion with the company that I worked, which assisted me to move to yet another town. This time, I moved to the Twin Cities of Minnesota and left behind the wonderful (but desiccated) southwest. I took on a new job that gave me far more opportunities, and I also felt that I needed to move to a place that would accommodate my reintroduction into the pagan community. The Twin Cities are called Paganistan by the witches and pagans who live there, and for good reason. I would also become involved with the local body of the OTO in that town, but that, of course, is another story altogether - one that I will relish telling some day in the future. 
Frater Barrabbas

Kathy Labriola discusses the autonomy-intimacy scale and how it might be affecting your relationship. Email polyweekly@gmail.com, call 206-202-POLY, Twitter @polyweekly or visit www.polyweekly.com or www.facebook.com/polyweekly

After a busy couple of weeks I'm looking back over some of the topics that have come up on the blogosphere during this last month. One of these is the discussion of visible manifestations during evocations. The discussion was started off by an article from Frater Ashen, which was followed by two others from MC and one from RO. The general consensus is that visible manifestations of spirits do occur in the course of the work, and usually people who say otherwise have little experience with working grimoire magick. I would agree with this, which may seem a bit surprising at first in the context of my published work. On page 112 of Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy you will find the following:

The determination of a ritual’s success or failure should depend on only one factor – whether or not the objective of the operation is achieved. It should not make any difference whether or not you see the spirit, whether or not you hear unexplained sounds, or even whether on not your spell focus explodes as you complete the conjuration. Such things are side phenomena unrelated to the operation at hand, and obsession with them can lead to a profound misunderstanding of the nature of the magical arts.
To clarify this a bit, with the Enochian angels you generally have to use some sort of scrying device like a mirror or crystal in order to see them. This lines up perfectly with the the history of the system, as this is how John Dee and Edward Kelley originally communicated with the angels and I assume this method would not have been necessary had the visible manifestations associated with those angels been more strongly perceptible. Furthermore, I would not necessarily characterize an interest in evoking spirits to visible manifestation as "obsession." While such manifestations are rare when working with Enochian angels, I also know from experience that they do occur when working with other grimoire systems.


The first Goetic ritual I was involved in was quite different from the Enochian work I was more familiar with, at least in terms of visible effects, as the Goetic spirit we evoked was visible without a mirror or scrying device of any sort. We were using a triangle suspended vertically from the wall, and once the conjuration was complete there was a definite visible form that seemed to manifest within it. It looked like the rough image of a face constructed from the shadows of the room, except that I was able to move my head from side to side, change position, and so forth and still see it, as though it were physically drawn within the triangle.

I was impressed enough by the image that after the ritual I tried playing with the lighting and so forth in the temple to see if I could duplicate what I saw, but after a whole lot of experimentation found that I could not. Furthermore, during the ritual the visible manifestation did appear following the conjuration and seemed to vanish along with the license to depart, so I can only conclude that this was in fact the visible manifestation of a spirit. For the ritual we had carefully followed the instructions from the grimoire, and so I have to say that like Ashen, MC, and RO my first question for somebody who did a Goetic evocation and didn't see anything would be how carefully those instructions were followed. It seems that adherence to the source material has a lot to do with whether or not you get a visible manifestation at all, as most authors on the subject suggest.

The thing about that ritual, though, was that other than the manifestation it was a complete bust. The information we got from the spirit was inaccurate and the charges we gave it were not carried out. So here's where I differ from some practitioners - I don't consider that a successful evocation even though the spirit was clearly successfully evoked. To me magickal success is about the results, not the phenomena, and I have yet to see much evidence that there is a direct correlation between the intensity of a spirit's manifestation and the successful achievement of measurable magical objectives. That's what I mean when I say that I judge magical rituals from their results.

In this regard it seems my perspective is quite different from that of practitioners like Frater Ashen, who considers the experience of evoking spirits profound and well worth the effort for its own sake. I don't see it that way in the context of my personal magical practices, but its also true that from the standpoint of magical practice as a whole visible manifestations are certainly an area in which there's a lot more research to be done. I'd be interested in seeing if the intensity of a manifestation corresponds to any sort of physical measurement, like an EMF detector, and whether or not the images can be photographed or recorded like some ghost phenomena can be. If anyone's done that sort of work and is willing to discuss it, feel free to share.