Strategic Sorcery

ITS BAAAAAACK

2011-03-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

It looks like Google FINALLY solved whatever problem was keeping my blog off the web and now it is back.

In Case you did not already know, I have since started a new Blog at my webpage and that will be the one that I stick with from now on.

If you have not already please update your bookmarks to http://www.inominandum.com/blog/

Thank you so much,

STRATEGIC SORCERY FIELD REPORT - THE SS MINI GRIMOIRE AND GETTING A WORK VISA

2011-01-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, while the SS course is designed to work with just about any style of magic, there are spirits and sigils connected with the Strategic Sorcery Arcana. Some of these were presented in the one of the lessons that contained the Strategic Sorcery Mini Grimoire. I have gotten some really good feedback from people who chose to work with them, and since I havent posted a field report in a while, I figured it was a good time.

Here is the e-mail that I received yesterday from a student. Name and country have been omitted

As I wrote in the first homework my original goal was:

"My goal would be to get a visa here in COUNTRY X. I have been living my partner for 5 years, but as I am in an homosexual relationship, I don´t have any rights in this country, so couldn´t find a job, etc. I am waiting for my papers to come via mail, but they are very late. After that, we will try a civil union, and then, try to get a visa. I don´t know if it is possible to enchant our way into the state´s bureaucracies :-)"

I began the process almost two years ago, when the Constitutional Court allowed same sex couples the right of economic and civil partnership. But a lot of troubles, including the divorce papers from my partner that disappeared from the court, and then the own court burned down!

First I tried the Justice spell from The Sorcerers Secrets, no results. I also tried St Expedite and it was clear he wasn´t doing his job. Then I tried Patotriel from the SS grimoire combined with Ganesha.

I made several offerings to Ganesha, asking to help Patotriel to open the roads. I used "open road" oil and a white candle. I invoked the archangels of every direction and to each one I would pore breath the element and ask for their help (like, "water, wash away the troubles, etc"). Did the same with the planetary powers.

I also had some links with earth that I took from the notary.

My goal was the end of the year to get my visa. Then I had to travel back to my home country, december was coming, and none of the papers seemed to get here.

Then we went asking again, and suddenly, after two years, it all got solved in less than a week, no huss no fuss, nobody asked none of the numerous documents that have been asked over and over... nothing. I got my visa this december 30th and I give many thanks to Patotriel and Ganesha. I will also begin a new job (lousy payment but what to do) this tuesday.

Thanks for the course.

Keep Your Mind on Your Money and Your Money on Your Mind.

2011-01-06T21:12:00.000-08:00

On the 28th, RO Posted a post titled "Money: Getting it out of the Way". I have been meaning to post a response to that post for a while now, but haven't had the chance.

I agree with almost everything that RO suggests people do in that post. The thing that I wanted to respond to was the title itself. "Money: Getting it Out of the Way". Folks I am here to tell you that you NEVER get money out of the way. That shouldnt even be the goal. The goal should be to have your money managed and working for you without it taking over your life. That requires eternal vigilance. It never gets out of the way.

Now after talking with RO on the phone it was clear that he meant getting debt and crushing money problems out of the way, but thats not quite how it reads. Unfortunately, the way it reads is exactly how a great many people involved in any kind of money magic want their money magic to work. They want the whole issue out of the way and never have to think about it again. This scanario takes two main forms:

1. Winning the Lottery: Two of the first ten people in the course I asked to pick goals to work towards said their goal was to win the Lottery and never worry about money again. I have written about why this is a bad idea many times and it STILL gets turned in as homework. In fact I have to deal with the request for people to win the Lottery so often that I have the following saved amongst my form e-mails that I send out:

Sorcery can shift probability in your favor, and open opportunities where there were none, but some probabilities are just to long on the odds to be managed.

Just to give you an idea, while it varies state to state, on average your chance of winning the big pot in a Lottery is one in 18 million. Your chance of being struck by Lightning is one in 2,650,000. About 45 times more likely than you winning the lottery. If you drive 10 miles to buy a lottery ticket, its about 30 times more likely for you to die in a car accident on the way than it is for you to win the Lottery.

Now, magic does indeed make your probability of winning greater than the norm, as it does for everyone else using magick to win the lottery. Perhaps it reduces your chance from one in 18 million to one in 9 million or even one in 1 million. Not great odds.

Of course since so many people would like to use magick to win the lottery, its pretty safe to assume that there are thousands of people aiming their magic at any given lotterypot. Most of this magic cancels each other out.

Now here is the greatest rub. Lets say you win! 75% of people that win the lottery end up flat broke just seven years later. This is because they never took the time to understand money or how it works. If they did, they wouldn't have pinned their hopes and dreams on willing lottery.

2. Patron/Benefactor: A number of occultists have pined for the days of rich benefactors and patrons of the arts that would supply them with enough money to carry on their magic without the burden of earning a living.

The problem here is that the life they envisioned never really existed for anyone. Yes, there were people with rich benefactors. There still are. The problem is that the effort it takes to keep these benefactors is often more stressful than a regular job. One of my favorite books that all would-be-Sorcerers should read is Baltasar Gracian's "Art of Worldly Wisdom". Gracian was a Jesuit, but this book is filled with pithy Machiavellian tidbits aimed at keeping yourself in the company of the powerful and wealthy.

A great deal of care and conniving is often required when dealing with a patron. Sometimes the price is the integrity of your work. There are a lot of scholars who feel that the stories about Hoodoo initiations in New Orleans that fill the last few pages of Zor Neal Hurston's Mules and Men were fiction written primarily to titillate her rich white benefactor in New York who was essentially paying her to travel and report back with wild stories about what savage activities black people got up to down South. I myself have seen how the son of an important Patron can get recognized as a Tulku in exchange for some land in Mexico. Do you think Dee and Kelley wanted to travel around central Europe during the most of the 1580's putting on hokey alchemical experiments trying to get backing for their work? Nah

My advice is simple: Get your shit together and take care of business. How you do that is a subject for other posts. The thing that I want you to take home is that once you get your shit together, you need to keep your shit together and take care of business. At no point will it be ok to not keep your shit together and take care of business. There are no exceptions.

Rich people may not have the stress of debt, but they have to tend their wealth throughout their life. Rich people who do not keep track of their finances get it all taken away from them. Think that Leonard Cohen wanted to be touring at 76 years of age? Nah, his manager ripped him off cuz he did not have his shit together and did not take care of business. Think Annie Leibovitz wanted to put up the rights to her photos as collateral for a loan? Of course not. MC Hammer? Nicholas Cage? Ed Mc Mann? Don Johnson? The list of rich and famous who lost or nearly lost everything is long and all of them have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is? Thats right. They didn't keep their shit together and take care of business.

I can almost hear some of you whining internally as you read this: "But Jason, I am a magician, an artist, a mystic. I have no interest in finance and economics. I just want it to be out of the way!". I know some of you are thinking this because these exact words were spoken to me after a class in financial magic. I will tell you what I told that young man. "To bad. Your a fucking adult. Time to nut-up and handle your business. I am not telling you to become Ben Bernanke. Just figure out how to best make money for yourself and keep your head above water."

Or as Snoop Dogg so wisely does "Keep my on my money and my money on my mind".

Speaking of Snoop. This is the greatest cover of any song ever.

20 C+M+B 11

2011-01-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

Today is Epiphany, also called Theophany, Twelfth Night, and the Adoration of the Magi. Traditionally it is today we celebrate the extension of grace through Christ to the gentiles represented by the three Persian Magi that traveled great distance to honor the Christ Child. Of course being the holiday of the Magi, this all has special meaning for those of us that are sorcerously inclined and is an excellent time to begin any long term work.

For instance it is the traditional day to bless your house by consecrating chalk and writing the year and the initials C+M+B above the door. Of course the CMB stand for Caspar Melchior and Balthazar but also has the meaning of "Christus Mansionem Benedictat" (Christ bless this home).

It is normally done in this pattern: 20 C+M+B 11

It is also a good day to make a Three Wise Man cocktail:

1 part Scotch Whisky (recommend a blended Scotch for Coctails. Johnnie Walker Red or Black. Green, Gold and Blue should never be mixed with anything else.
1 part Tennessee Whiskey (e.g., Jack Daniels).
1 part Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey (e.g., Jim Beam White or Black Label).
Serve either neat or on the rocks, according to taste.

Variations include:

Three Wise Men go Hunting, which is the recipe above with the addition of Wild Turkey Bourbon.
Three Men and a Baby: recipe above, add milk. (YUCK!)
Four Horsemen: above recipe with the addition of 1 part Jose Cuervo

Enjoy!

May the blessings of Wisdom and Personal Sovereignty be upon your houses this day. All of you, without exception.

The Magic of the Necktie

2011-01-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

Several people have commented about me wearing a tie in the video. Let me just make one thing clear: I did not put on a tie for the video. I did not think about the backdrop, the lighting, or even what I would say, so I definitely did not dress up for it.

That said, I like neckties. I believe in the power of a necktie. I like the sliver of personal expression and color amidst the otherwise formal attire. The necktie can convey a lot. Blue with small red diamonds tells me that you probably vote republican and wish to convey your conservativeness. Pink tells me that you are probably urban, and confident. Your tie with shades of aqua tied in a four in hand knot tells me that you are laid back and possibly enjoy a Jack Johnson CD on the way to work. A red tie with strong pattern tied in a full Windsor with a perfect dimple tells me that you are strong willed and detail oriented. If you wear any color tie in a Pratt Knot, than you probably attending a boarding school or are just being a show off.

Personally I would like to see a return of just a wee bit of formality to American culture. For instance when I am on a cruise and attending the formal dress dinner, I HATE it when people show up without a tie and jacket. Those of us that showed up in a three piece suit and a date in an evening dress were looking for something a little more "Great Gatspy" and a little less "Margaritaville". I would also love it if I could go to a casino in Atlantic City and get more a little closer to the Monte Carlo in Monaco and a little further away from the cigarette dangling out of Grandmas mouth at the slot machine.

In the case of my video I simply wore a tie for business reasons earlier that night, and it being New Years, decided to keep it on, even though the missus and I were having drinks at home.

My advice top all you guys out there: learn to love your neckties. Unless you are working amidst machines that could catch them or are a doctor (they contribute to spreading infections in hospitals) you might want to consider sporting a tie now and then even if it is not required of you. Remember, unless you want to be a Mexican wrestler, you should dress for the job you want, not the one you have.

Apart from getting a better job it may even save the one you have. From 2000 to 2003 I worked for a VOIP company called Net2Phone. There was no dress code. People could, and did, show up in pajamas. I usually wore jeans and a T-shirt. My co-worker always wore a tie. We both survived 4 rounds of layoffs because we were good at our jobs. When that fifth round of lay offs came, and they could not find a significant work related reason to can one of us over the other, guess who got the axe? Thats right, me. That evening when I was out with my now former boss he basically told me that it just came down to the fact that my co-worker dressed better. Here is the thing: In my opinion, that decision was perfectly fair.

Now I know that by and large the modern occult scene is casual. Very casual. So casual that some events requiring no clothes of any kind at all. That is fine, a t-shirt and sport jacket is not only the favored uniform of stand up comedians, but of lecturing Sorcerers as well. I think it is a shame however when uber-casual becomes a uniform of its own. I should not be able to identify you as a Pagan because of your airbrushed wolf sweatshirt or pewter pendant on leather string. I was once given a lecture by a prominent OTO member on how pathetic it is that people conform to wearing a necktie to show their status. This same person wears badges made of sticky felt on their black robe to indicate that they are a "Master Magician". I mean who the fuck are you kidding here?

I am not suggesting that we get carried away with ourselves. Just stick to neckties on occasions that might warrant them. Unless you are wearing a tuxedo, or are a character on TV you should probably avoid bow ties. Likewise unless you are attending a Silk Pajama cocktail party or are a full-time flaneur you should steer clear of Ascots. It goes without saying that unless you are Charles Nelson Riley or Fred from Scooby Doo are you to don any other type of cravat.

So with all the above I propose an experiment for all my gentlemen readers. The next time that you take your woman (or man) out on a dinner date, why don't you throw on the theme to James Bond after your shower, take a little extra time getting cleaned up, and throw on a nice shirt tie? If its a first date it will make you stand out from some of the other jokers that she has been running around with. If you are married or have been together for a long time it will make a nice sense of occasion. She will appreciate the effort. She might even let you tie her hands to the bed post with it later that night.

MY FIRST VIDEO POST!

2011-01-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR

One of the things that I promised would be in the pipeline for 2010 was Video posts. Well, in the final hours of 2010 I recorded this. Sadly I had some issues uploading it, so it is hitting the blog in 2011.

Its one take, and done on my IPOD4G so its not exactly studio quality. There may or may not be more in the future depending on feedback.

With all that in mind, please enjoy this video where I FINALLY teach "The Gesture of Conjuring" that I allude to in the books.

CYCLE 4 IS ABOUT TO START!

2010-12-30T09:56:00.000-08:00

I want to thank everyone who signed up for Cycle 4 of the Strategic Sorcery Course. This is the largest starting class since the initial roll-out of Cycle 1, which made this a very Merry Christmas for me and my family!

8****UPDATE AT 7:11PM******
Since I posted this, today has been my most successful day ever for the course! Thank you do much!
*****************************

The New Years Catalyst Ritual is going out this evening.

If you want to get into the Course in time to take part in the New Years Catalyst I need you to sign up before 6pm tomorrow EST.

Below is the info for the course:

The class will begin with a lesson Zero going out on New Years Day followed by 52 lessons arriving by e-mail every Tuesday morning for the next year.

In addition to this, on December 30, I will be sending the instructions for the empowerment ritual that is taking place on the 1st. Whether you participate or not is up to you, but it is an excellent opportunity to tap into the current and share an experience with some of the students from previous cycles.

Some important facts about the class:

Due to some adult content in the later lessons, you must be 18 years or older to register for the class.
I will need your real name in order for you to take the class. We can call you whatever you like on the boards, but I at least need your real name A copy of "The Sorcerer's Secrets, Strategies in Practical Magick" is required for the class. Many lessons will refer to practices in this book as a jumping off point.
The lessons are for your eyes only. If someone cannot afford the class, which right now is less than $2 per lesson, please have them contact me as I will have a number of options available. If I see material plagiarized on the net, I will do what it takes to have it removed and take action against the offender.
There is no requirement of daily meditation or ritual to do the class. I learned the art working at my own pace and let others do the same. Some will surely do the exercises I recommend regularly - I am sure they will receive the fruits of their labors quickly as this system is quite streamlined for tangible results. Others will put the lessons on the back burner until a later time - may the instructions ripen when their time is right. Yet others will simply cherry pick a few techniques to work with and ignore the over all training - I wish them well and hope the techniques enhance whatever it is they do. I am sure some will simply collect the lessons and file them away with many of the books and occult ephemera that they have collected - never actually using the material - I hope that the course provides a thought provoking and entertaining curiosity, there is nothing wrong with knowledge for knowledge sake. In other words, what each student does with the material is largely up to them.
There will be 12 homework assignments - one a month. You do not need to complete these in order to receive further lessons. You do need to complete them in order to graduate. There is a five year limit on getting your homework in. If you send me your homework 20 years from now I am not going to send you a certificate of graduation...
The cost for the class is $150 payable up front. There are no refunds. Though much more advanced and detailed, the material is in keeping with my books and articles. Please refer to these to get an idea of my style and substance.
In order for me to filter messages properly I need all correspondence to have a subject line that reads STRATEGIC SORCERY. You can put anything in after those words, but without those words I may not get your message. Once you pay the tuition you will receive a student number, please reference this number whenever possible in correspondence to me relating to the course.

Payment for the class can be done either through PayPal using inominandum@gmail.com or by check or money order send to
PO BOX 36 Barnegat, NJ 08005

Please forward any further questions to me at inominandum@gmail.com and be sure to reference STRATEGIC SORCERY in the subject line.

THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE REVIEW

2010-12-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

Last year a former member of the Process Church of the Final Judgement stepped forward and produced a book called "Love, Sex, Fear, Death" that attempted to set the record straight about the much maligned and mysterious group. Though his own words, as well as original source material and contributions from other writers, he managed to shed light on the very real problems of psychological manipulation and exploitation that the plagued the group, while simultaneously dismissing the erroneous claims of murder, animal sacrifice, and child abuse that they have been accused of. One of the writers that contributed to that book was Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, the founder of Thee Temple ovPsychick Youth, and lead singer of Psychick TV.

Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth with its ever present symbol and use of uniforms, was partly modeled on the Process Church and eventually ran into its own issues of false accusations and vilification. It is good timing than that Genesis would release a new expanded version of Thee Psychic Bible, which contains numerous essays and documents from TOPY, commentary from Genesis and others, and some very interesting photographic art pieces throughout the book.

Now, I should say here that while I like some of Psychic TV's pop pieces like Godstar, Roman P, and their covers of Eve ov Destruction and Good Vibrations, I have never been a big fan of the music of Psychic TV over all, or for that matter the genre of industrial music. On top of that I tend not to like movements that are very self-consciously "too cool for school", which TOPY most assuredly was. Throw in my love hate relationship with Chaos Magic and Aliester Crowley, two of the biggest influences on the magic of TOPY, and you can understand that when Behutet sent me a copy of Thee Psychick Bible to review, I was prepared to give it a resounding and dismissive "meh".

I am happy and surprised that my expectations were entirely wrong. It seems that I let the few American members of TOPY that I knew personally color my opinion of the overall work. The book is quite simply brilliant.

Just like "Love, Sex, Fear, Death", this book tells the story of a magical/spiritual group that was as important to the 1980s as the Process was to the 1960's and 70's. It gives inside accounts of the raves and rituals that TOPY orchestrated, and tells the now infamous story of how Genesis was accused on trumped up charges and had to move to the US to avoid arrest in the UK. It also detailed the various social issues that TOPY worked on, including starting a soup kitchen in Nepal, and working towards the closure of a Dolphin Aquarium. Working for animal rights being yet another parallel with the Process which eventually became the Best Friends Animal Society.

This book however, is much more than the history of a Temple. In terms of philosophy, spiritual transmission, and practical magic, there is a lot here for the modern magician to chew on.

Though I had known about the practice of TOPY members making sigils with bodily fluidson the 23rd of each month and sending to a central location to be gathered, I never read the full philosophy behind it. The discussion of the "Sigil of Three Fluids" is probably the best explanations of sigil magic I have ever seen. The explanation of how each fluid relates to a portion of the brain puts a unique spin on a topic that has been done to death over the last 25 years.

The whole chapter on intuitive magic is worth its weight in gold. Here we have everything good about Chaos Magic: the streamlining, the shamanic method, the personalization, the use of modern technology, etc with none of the sillyness about belief shifting or invoking cartoon characters as gods. Indeed Genesis makes a point that I have often made myself, that belief is not only not necessary for magic, but can be the enemy of initiation. The sections on sex magic, the use of magical links (splinters), cut up methods, and other techniques is all top notch sorcery.

Most important are probably the three TOPY books collected in one place:

Thee Grey Book, the first TOPY text that one is introduced to, shows the youthful exuberance of the people who were involved in TOPY at its beginning. For as revolutionary as it may or may not have been at the time, it seems kind of "cute" in nostalgic sort of way now.

Thee Black Book takes things to a new level and gets quite serious about getting down to the business of undertaking the process of transforming the individual.

Thee Green Book, the final TOPY text, is a spiritual work that is on par with the Book of the Law, Liber Pene Penumbra, the Book of the Spider, and other important cornerstone texts. The talk of Ultraterrestrials may be dismissed by some, but whether you believe in them as actual beings or a metaphor for what we are doing to ourselves, the text is dripping with truth and is a wonderful call to action.

Throughout the book there is loads of stories from Genesis's life which explains some of the background of his writings and music. Want to know about the obsession with Brian Jones as Godstar? The story is in here. Want some insight into Genesis's work in the field of pandrogeny and transgenderism? The beginning is here, and I think it will be necessary reading for when he gives the topic a full treatment including his Ketemine explorations. To be clear, there are no plans for this that I know of, I am just assuming that it is in the pipe.

The book is 544 pages with fairly small type. There is a LOT to digest here. All of it is good stuff. If you were into Psychic TV and TOPY than you obviously will want this book. If you, like me, never really gave it much thought when they were active, you should pick it up to see what you missed out on.

Go out and buy THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE. The book is probably the best occult text to come out in 2010.

Just for fun, here is Psychic TV cover of Good Vibrations.

And the aforementioned Godstar

http://www.amazon.com/Thee-psychick-bible-apocryphal-scriptures/dp/0964113600

CHRISTMAS MEDITATIONS

2010-12-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

Howdy folks. It is once again Christmas Eve. Whether you celebrate the holiday or not there is a wonderful quality to Christmas Eve. So many people have been manically rushing about getting things done that there is a psychic quality in the air which builds and builds and builds until it climaxes this afternoon.

Tonight at around 9pm most stores will close. People will finish all their preparations and begin gathering with friends and relations or simply retire for the evening. Children will go to sleep with visions of Iphones dancing in their heads and there is a collective sigh of relief throughout the land.

Just as I did with the Eclipse, I encourage using this time to enter into contemplative prayer. Do not make a big deal about it, just slip off somewhere for 15 minutes and open yourself to the flow of grace. Relax the mind and be filled with the holy spirit. In this way you achieve Henosis, union with the ultimate reality. Rather than using effort to reach out to God, simply allow God to show himself within you. In this way you complete the circuit and will realize that as Meister Ekhart says: "The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love."

After you are done relaxing into contemplation, perhaps spare just a few more minutes contemplating the Christmas mystery. You do not have to be Christian to do this. I am often amazed at the zeal at which modern Pagans will jump willie nilly into just about ANY religion and lay claim to any mystery, yet feel absolutely forbidden from even thinking about Christian mysteries in the same way.

By the mystery of Christmas I do not mean the overall meaning of Yule, or the birth of the sun at Equinox or anything like that. I mean the mystery that Linus revealed so elequently to Charlie Brown.

Two Thousand Years ago, the gods were exalted as higher beings which rules our world. Most religion of any kind was mostly about making proper sacrifices at proper times so as to feed God or the Gods and not invoke their wrath.

The Christmas mystery is about cutting through that conception of divinity as something so distant from ourselves. In the Christmas story God manifests not just as a human, but starts off life in just about the lowest and meekest possible way: as a baby who has to sleep in an animal trough. The message is that there is no-one that is so low that the divine spark does not dwell within them.

It is a shame that most Christianity focuses more on the fact that Christ was fully God rather than the fact that, as the apostles creed states, Christ was also fully human. It is the fully human part that makes the whole thing useful. As Bisphop Athanaseus put it "God became man, so that man could become God.". The best part about this is all we need to do is allow it to happen. Theosis is the process of making us by Grace what God is by nature. There are no qualifiers for it, no hoops to jump through. Just do it.

This has NOTHING to do with "accepting Christ as your personal lord and savior" or any other such rubbish espoused by fundamentalists. Nor does it have anything to do with being part of the right Chruch as some Catholics and Orthodox would have you believe. It just has to do with openness to ultimate reality.

Throughout his life, Christ never drills people on their beliefs. He simply asked people to love god and their neighbors.

In the Gospel of Luke that Linus quotes in the Charlie Brown special the angel of the lord says:

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to ALL PEOPLE.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, AND ON EARTH PEACE AND GOODWILL TOWARD MAN.

Do not let anyone play the "us and them" game with Christmas. That is NOT what it is about.

So, for those of you that celebrate it: Merry Christmas!
For those that don't, hey its Christmas Day anyway, it may as well be merry!
Peace and Goodwill to you all, so matter what religion or lack thereof.
Amen.

What to do for the Equinox

2010-12-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Since I wrote my little call to arms yesterday several people have asked me what I think they should do if they did not already have something they were working on.

Patrick Dunn asks himself the same question in his latest blog post. Thankfully he gives himself, and us, a great answer.

He is spot on when he states that "doing magic during an eclipse can burn through blockages that prevent previous works from . . . well . . . working".

He wisely notes that if there is nothing pressing to mend to tend in your life right now, an eclipse, especially on that occurs on the Solstice, is a great time to work towards the greater good of the country where you live. In fact I am going to suggest that even if you do have some personal spell work that you are doing, it won't kill you to take a night of a cosmic occurrence and work on a more cosmic level. In fact it may help you gain a new perspective.

Patrick, is aiming for a noble goal and has invited us to work towards the following statement of intent: “I will that America and its people immediately develop greater freedom and prosperity.”

Thats quite a good one and I am going to add that to my closing invocation tonight. The bulk of my work tonight though is going to be spent in contemplation.

Those of you who have taken my course are familiar with the difference between meditation and contemplation. Those of you who have read Namkhai Norbu or Theresa of Avila also have a good idea of what I mean.

Meditation is an aid to cut through dualistic thinking. Contemplation is the effortless resting in the state of non-dual awareness, amidst which thoughts may arise and set while never disturbing awareness. While resting in this state something truly remarkable yet in some ways completely ordinary happens. It is only in this state can you really understand what the Buddhists mean when they talk about Sunyata and Emptiness and only in this state you really understand what the Christians talk about when they talk about Love and the Holy Spirit. It is in this state that you realize that God is not a noun but a verb. Its a flow that moves in allo directions at once. When you encounter it you only feel like writing poetry, dancing, praying, or remaining utterly silent.

This is not just navel gazing and personal illumination either. I firmly believe that the realization of this state of mind is the key to solvong world problems at their root. To quote Richard Rohr: "It is no exaggeration to say that 'us-and-them' seeing, and the dualistic thinking that results, is the foundation of almost all rge discontent and violence in the world."

As I said in the last post, the reason that eclipses are so powerful for magic is that the predominant spirit/energy/information factor that usually fills the night is silent. This is true in the world at large and in the world of your mind. The void is waiting to be filled or to have its silence used as a tool for cutting through the mechanistic mind.

So, it is 11:34 right now, and the eclipse is starting.

Whether you work on a specific problem for yourself, work towards the goals of freedom and prosperity for your country, or work towards resting in the state of natural indwelling - I wish you well and happy Yule.

Eclipse Sorcery.

2010-12-18T20:32:00.000-08:00

No, I am not talking about the horrible movie with glittery vampires. I am talking about actual Eclipses.

Eclipses are not that big of a deal in western Astrology but in Tibetan Astrology, which effects my own practice much more than western (though I am by no means an expert in either), Eclipses are HUGE.

According to Tibetans, all positive and negative actions are multiplied during an eclipse - 1000 for a lunar and 10000 for a solar. The reason for this is that when the eclipse happens, the influence of that planet is blocked and creates a vacuum which allows your own influence to have greater sway.

Think of it as sounds in a room, if there are 100 people talking in a room at any given time, your voice can only carry so far and still be effective. If the largest and loudest voice in the room suddenly goes silent, all of a sudden all the other sounds take on much greater significance.

According to Tibetan Shaman, the eclipse is caused by Rahulas, demonic planets, temporarily devouring the sun or moon so that they gain more power. Not only are your actions more powerful at this time, but they are more needed by the world because the eclipse is seen as moment of ill-omen leaving a gate open for negative influence.

Now you may not know this about me, but I am the mythic Yuleclipse Fairy. I need you to know a few things.

Tuesday is a lunar eclipse. It will be visible from most of North America

Tuesday is also the Winter Solstice - the longest night.

Tuesday is the first night that a lunar eclipse has occured on a Winter Solstice in 456 years.

Tuesday is the day that you will be outside doing magic.

If you don't do something I will know and I will be displeased. You don't want to piss me off. Just get your lazy ass out there and meditate, cast a spell, dance a jig, do something!

Now for something funny that is only here because of the word "eclipse",

On Secret Identities

2010-12-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

I recently switched career paths and my new job has a lot of people on facebook and does a fair bit of informal communication via FB. Though I could have just kept my FB private, I wanted to participate, so I created a separate non-occult related Facebook Page. This surprised a more than a few people that I, a published Author, lecturer, and professional Sorcerer would choose to be "in the closet". Since there are so many people who feel passionately about being out of the closet I thought it would be a good discussion for the blog.

Funny enough, while most Pagans want to get people more and more out of the closet, I actually recommend that Sorcerers stay in the closet! This position has surprised a couple people. There are three main reasons for staying in the closet about your magical practice, and I am not sure that people think very much about all three.

1. OUTSIDERS: This is the obvious one and it doesn't need much explaining. If your concerns are mostly about Wicca or Paganism as a religious movement than it totally makes sense to make a stand and come out of the closet despite whatever resistance you receive. I respect this highly and do not want the rest of my post to seem like I do not. A lot of people today have an understanding about these kinds of things anyway.

If however you are mostly about magic rather than religion, than you might be concerned more with how being "out" will effect your success and acceptance. This too is valid. Some institutions are better than others. When I hear someone that works for the state, tell someone who works for a Catholic Charity that they don't understand why they wont come out of the closet at work, I just shake my head because they are very different environments.

2. INSIDERS: This is actually my primary reason for being in the closet at work and in certain social circles. Despite the reasons above the worst scenario is not that someone I work with discovers my books or blog. The nightmare scenario is when someone that likes my work or who I do work for decides to come to my job or call up or leave a message about demons or exorcism or some shit like that. The nightmare for many of us that have professional careers is not them, its us.

Think it doesn't happen? It has happened. I was outed at AIG in the 90's by someone having an "emergency" and needing me to cast a spell for them immediately. I had a friend who lost his job at Motorola based on a similar situation.

Unfortunately if you are involved socially in any kind of Pagan or Occult community you have to deal with a higher than normal ratio of people that range from having little to no discretion to being nearly insane. If you see me out on the street and want to say hi, please do. But if you don't know who I am with, please do not share the story about how my book on protection magic helped you fend off a cult that was cursing you. Do not tell the group of my friends what a great lecture on Necromancy I gave. Do not ask the people I am with what "tradition" they practice in. The rule should be to assume discretion unless given the all-clear by whoever you are talking to to speak openly.

3. MAGIC: Being out about religion is not the same as being out about magic. You may be a Wiccan and have your co-workers fully accept and get behind your talk of the God and Goddess, Sabbats, Circles, etc. Do not expect those same people to be quite as accepting if you start talking about the spells you do with business cards to influence the minds of your boss, or rituals to insure promotion, or even your incantation to get laid. Witchcraft the religion and witchcraft the craft can be two different things when dealing with outsiders.

Besides that, as a Sorcerer you may be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or even Athiest. The religion is not what you are keeping in the closet, so what gets served by letting everyone know that you are a magician?

Anyway, lesson that I want you to take away from this post is not whether you should come out. It's simply that you should respect whatever decision that other people make based on their circumstances.

A rebuttal to Bathazars post.

2010-12-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

I tried to post this to Balthazars blog, but I have too many characters so I will post it here. I am sure that most of my readers also follow his blog, but just in case THIS is the post I am replying to.

Balthazar, I am usually right on with your thinking but I have to say that you are WAY off on this one in a number of ways.

1. First and foremost, Esoteric traditions are not made to appeal to most people. They provide a direct experience and self-transformation and all that you say that they do, but all of that is NOT what 90% of the world wants from religion. To borrow a term from Ken Wilbur they are not looking for transcendence, they are looking for translation.

People want a faith tradition to tell answer basic questoions (ie: translate the world). What happens when I die? How do I be a good person? What is the meaning of it all? The reality is that most people in this life are not mystics or magicians yet they need a spiritual outlet and spiritual guide. And that is OK. Most people are not mystics and not meant to be mystics. The roles of Pistis and Gnosis are VERY different. Complimentary but different.

Paganism is going through the change of its esoteric core growing an exoteric body of people around it who like the festivals and seasonal rites but have no interest in Witchcraft. This is a good thing overall for the growth of the current.

2. If you take any Diasporic or esoteric religion you mention above and make it serve the same function and sheer size of population that an exoteric religion does it, will become just as susceptible to corruption as any other. A look at the history of Haiti, or neighborhoods like the Bronx with a large enough Santeria population will spell that out for you real quick.

Catholicism has done a lot of harm in Africa by preaching against condoms, on the other hand African Traditional Religion has also done much harm in recomending people NOT take AIDS meds that are available and instead relying upon "traditional" cures like raping virgins, usually VERY young girls. Think this is exaggerated? One of my best friends counselled battered and raped women in South Africa - she will tell you different.

2. The Athiests argument is entirely based on straw man versions of the religions they attack and selective evidence. Yes horrible things happen in the same of religion. Horrible things happen in the same of politics. Horrible things happen in the same of national, tribal, and ethnic pride. This does not make these things evil, it makes them of the world. Human nature is such that we do shitty things out of self interest and use whatever is nearby to justify it. Religion is quite convenient. Without religion it is easy to see how evil men would find some other justification.

On the other hand it is not so easy to see what would replace exoteric religion for what it has done good. I know a woman who just recently gave up everything to go help start a school in Honduras. Another who dedicates her life to serving those on death row. Others who have risked their lives to feed and shelter people in war zones where even the UN and secular agencies have pulled out. There are entire countries in Africa that were only held together by churches who were standing up and talking peace and order when the government was dissolved. In all these cases people have been moved by Jesus or the teachings of the Buddha.

Cases like this are ignored by the Athiests or written off as humanities naturally good inclination despite religion. BULLSHIT.

3. You mention in your comment that you are speaking of all exoteric religions. What great evils have been committed in the name of Buddhism? This has been something that the Athiests have had a hard time with. All the talk of Dogma and Afterlife that you do above has absolutely no bearing on Buddhist or Taoist thought.

4. Your statement that the African Diasporic religions hold older unbroken traditions than other religions is unsupported by anything. In what way is it an older unboken line than other religions? The lines of the ATR's are no less (or more) broken than any other religion and definately not older by any means.

Again, I think you are an amazing writer, a great Rootworker and a very spiritual fellow but in this you are dead wrong. Your post really boils down to the same old "your religions suck and mine is awesome" argument that causes the worst religious conflicts.

Prompt Succor

2010-12-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

I will be writing a proper blog post or two as soon as time permits, but in the meantime I just HAD to spread the word about Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

I have used her twice in the last week for very material related issues and she delivered each time on the same day! If you need something now, as far as I am concerned, Prompt Succor is even more potent than St Expedite.

Added bonus for those of us that are lovers of New Orleans, she is one of the Patron Saints of the City and the figure that Catholics turn to when hurricanes approach. The Novena that I use from "Favorite Catholic Novenas for All Occasions", easily one of my most often used spell books, even mentions her connection to New Orleans.

Dear Lady. You rock. Thank you. Amen.

Above is a painting of her over the Battle of New Orleans. Below is a statue from the Chapel at the Ursuline Convent.

Twin Peaks by MC Chris

2010-12-03T18:59:00.000-08:00

Watched the Twin Peaks episode of Psych last night, very funny.

In related news someone sent me this link, which you must watch if you are a Twin peaks fan.

I still maintain that Twin Peaks can act as magical training for comminicating with certain spirits.

CYCLE 4 OF THE SS COURSE BEGINS NEW YEARS DAY

2010-11-27T05:57:00.000-08:00

START THE NEW YEAR OFF RIGHT...

STRATEGIC SORCERY STYLE!

I am now taking students for the next cycle of the Strategic Sorcery Training Course, which begins on New Years Day 2011.

Over 200 students are currently working through various stages of the course, many of whom have already achieved the goals they set out for themselves at the beginning.

These are just some of the reports of what students have achieved with the help of the material in the course:

Landed a 6 figure dream job
Found their soul mate and got engaged
Opened an Irish Pub
Learned to Astral Project
Conquered their smoking habit
Quit their day job to live off their passive income

The Strategic Sorcery course consists of 52 lessons arriving every Tuesday morning with a special "Lesson Zero" arriving New Years Eve.

Cost for the course is $150 - About $3 a lesson!

*********BONUS FOR EARLY REGISTRATION!********

This New Years Day you will have the opportunity to take part in a worldwide Strategic Sorcery Empowerment Ritual where you will link up with the other members of the Strategic Sorcery Course and perform an invocation that will act as a Catalyst for your work in the year ahead.

For more information write me at inominandum@gmail.com

Offering Thanks and a Rant

2010-11-24T20:03:00.000-08:00

Add caption

If you have a friend that is appreciative of efforts that you make on their behalf, chances are that you would be more inclined to perform further favors for this friend in the future right? If you had a friend who seemingly did not appreciate anything that you did for them, than you probably would be less inclined to offer further help right? Its just common sense.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the states. The universe is a friend that has done some favors for you, when you wake up tomorrow I want your first mental action to be to offer thanks for those favors. It seems sappy, but trust me my friends it is powerful sorcery. I do it every morning and again every night. If you believe in God than thank God. If you believe in fate than thank Fate. If you don't believe in anything like that just thank the universe and thank chance.

I was talking about this earlier today with someone and they basically told me that they have nothing to be thankful for, that nothing goes right for them, and that basically they feel shit on by the powers that be. This is not the first time I have encountered this attitude. My own Mother constantly says this.

Here is the deal: If you are reading this on your own computer, on a connection that you can afford to pay for, in your own place to live with heating and indoor plumbing, while maybe nibbling on some yummy snacks or sipping a glass of spirits than YOU WON THE FUCKING LOTTERY ALREADY.

Seriously. 50% of the adults on the planet make less than $800 a year. 20% has no access to potable water. Its a hard ass world out there and if you have the pleasure to read these words than you should take the first step in changing your life tomorrow by waking up and kissing the floor and offering thanks for your walls, bed, pillow, blankets, and food in the fridge. You don't have everything you want but for fucks sake people, with very little effort on your part you have eeked out some comfort for yourself just by virtue of being born in a 1st world country with an educational system. Have some goddamn humility.

On New Years day 2000 the Rokpa soup kitchen in Nepal that I worked in was over-run with people because another soup kitchen closed down for the day. After we ran out of Daal and Vegetables we only had rice. A girl with Polio crawled in on all fours too late to get anything but rice. She was genuinely thankful for the rice. I was just thankful I wasn't her.

In summary, the two points I want to make are:

First: Give thanks to the universe for what you have. It is a magical act that will benefit you in the same way that regular offerings do.

Second: If you think you have nothing to be thankful for, cut your crap.

Trojan Vobsicum!

2010-11-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

Hey Y'all. The Pope says that Condoms are better than spreading AIDS!

On the one hand I want to congratulate them for taking a step in the right direction. On the other hand, is it really necessary to applaud such a large organization for taking such a small and guarded step towards a position that is so common sense that they should have held it 75 years ago?

I dunno.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/vatican-condoms-for-hiv-p_n_787629.html

Is it Surrender? If so, to what?

2010-11-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

It seems that the blog-go-round has got a case of Jesus fever, which is cool.

Gordon wrote an excellent piece about his own emerging interest in Christianity that mentioned not only the fact that it can be terrifying, but that the reason for at least part of that terror is the element of surrender in Christianity. As Gordon notes in the post: "A magical worldview leans more toward taking charge and doing things yourself".

This is especially true of modern magic. In fact, the focus on the self has been the overall theme of most of the Magical, New Age, Self-help, and Spiritual movements of the last 150 years. Even when people get involved in traditional eastern religions like Buddhism, they often misinterpret it as being all about self-discovery and self-actualization. We ask ourselves questions like: What do I want to be? What are my goals? What should I do with my life?

In the orgy of self focus it is easy to loose sight of anything larger than our own ego. I mean, there is no self in Buddhism for crying out loud! It totally throws people for a loop when I tell them that Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche wrote "There is NO introspection in Buddhist meditation". Similarly Christianity is not meant to be largely focused on the self, but on God.

The issue is a matter of where we discover our true will or Thelema. In the Lords Prayer, we hear "Genetho Tou Thelema Sou", or "Thy Will Be Done". Theistically minded magicians have, right up unto the present, ended rituals prayers and spells with a statement along the lines of "as long as it does not conflict with your will o lord." This clearly seems like submission to an external authority.

Though this type of submission seems like groveling, it really is not. It is simply an acknowledgement that most of what you say think and do is confused and based on mechanistic reactions, attachments, and aversions that are not healthy. If you acknowledge that there is something underneath all this, than you begin to discover Thelema. Crowleyites think of it in terms of personal true will that is in harmony with the will of the universe itself, and Christians think of it in terms of Gods will. Either way it simply makes sense to say "this is what I want, but what the will of the universe is, is more important, so if it is counter to that, than never mind". After all, your own true innermost will, will not run counter to the universal flow. When I do work with the Sangreal Sodality we still do something like this and I do not feel like I am groveling at all.

When I think in terms of surrender to Christ, I do not see me as a separate being submitting to an external master. I think in terms of surrendering the false veneer of the ego to the true will of God that is inseparable from me.. The kingdom of God is within you, and you are within the kingdom of God.

The Power of Christ Compels You!

2010-10-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

I wanted to bring some attention to a post made by Balthazar today. It is extremely well written, and oh so true.

It is great to work with the Saints, and great to work with Mary, but if you are going that far and still hesitant about jumping with Jesus, than perhaps its time you gave him a spin. I was one of those people that Balthazar talks about, able to relate to the extraneous saints and such but not to Jesus himself because of all the baggage. Still though, something was pushing me forward. As early as Jan 2001 I was having visions of Jesus here and there when I meditated. With some work I began to relate to the Logos and the Gnostic Christ, but still had an issue with "Jesus". It was only through the several years of work with Tau Nemesius that I have been able to really work with Jesus, but man, when I do there is always a ton of juice.

You can attribute this to the Power of Christ as a Christian would. You can attribute this to the power of belief generated by over half the people on the planet. You can attribute it to my own deep psyche. Maybe it is all three, but if you want somnething done, even if you use another Saint for intercession, don't skimp on the Jesus!

When I finish the Strategic Sorcery course I am planning on offering a short course dedicated to specifically Christian Magic, and eventually want to gather a circle of Christian Mages tentatively named "The Circle of Cyprian" to do charitable magic.

That is all in the future though. For right now let me share with you my favorite all purpose short Christian incantation for spellwork. It can be used in conjunction with a larger spell or spoken alone. Its called the

"Novena of Confidence to the Sacred Heart".

O Lord Jesus Christ,

To your most Sacred Heart,

I confide this/these intention:

(mention your intention )

Only look upon me, And then do

What your Sacred Heart inspires.

Let your Sacred Heart decide

I count on it, I trust in it

I throw myself on Your mercy,

Lord Jesus!

You will not fail me.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

I trust in You.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

I believe in Your love for me.

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

Your Kingdom come.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus,

I have asked you for many favors,

But I earnestly implore this one.

Take it.

Place it in Your open, broken Heart;

And, when the Eternal Father looks upon It,

Covered with Your Precious Blood,

He will not refuse it.

It will be no longer my prayer,

But Yours, O Jesus.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus,

I place all my trust in You.

Let me not be disappointed.

Amen.

Doctors Without Borders Promotion.

2010-10-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

I just logged in student 200 into the Strategic Sorcery course!

To celebrate, from now till All Saints Day I will donate half the tuition of everyone that joins to Doctors Without Borders.

I did this after the Haitian Earthquake and with the current Cholera epidemic only days away from hitting Port Au Prince it seems like a good time. If you have ever thought about joining the Strategic Sorcery Training class, now is the time!

An Interview with Dugpanath

2010-10-23T21:58:00.000-07:00

I spent the last week up in North Vermont, and while I was there I ran into Frater Dugpanath of the EOD. Being October and all, I always feel a buzz in that part of the brain that is tuned to the 23 current, but since I am so swamped with productive work on Strategic Sorcery, Financial Magic, etc I have no time to devote to dancing with AzagThoth and other madness. So instead I offer up this interview with Frater Dugpanath and his work on restoring the Chod of the Old Ones.

INOMINANDUM: So what have you been doing since the EOD has entered its most recent period of silence?

DUGPANATH: I have been continuing my main work for the Dugpa Order, which is recovering the eldritch keys of the magic of the Old Ones that have been hidden amidst the occult teachings of the world. Hidden Keys amongst Hidden keys if you will.

As a Dugpa my work focuses on Buddhism and Himalayan Shamanism, though I have followed leads all over the world. For example the Tibetan/Hopi Indian connection, The Zurvan cult of Iran, and the lost culture of the Abinaki here in VT.

INOMINANDUM: Wow, well I hardly know where to start. Can you elaborate on what you see as the connection between Buddhism and the Old Ones? Is this Buddhism at large, or just Tibetan Buddhism?

DUGPANATH: Oh definitely Buddhism at large. Buddha and Avalokiteshvara were the Abdul Alhazzred's of their age. I mean if you read the Heart Sutra like its being read by a crazed street-corner priest rather than some sedated boob with a bump on his head, you get a much clearer picture of what I am talking about:

" Form is emptiness and emptiness is form! Emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness! Whatever is form, that is emptiness! Whatever is emptiness, that is form!"

Could these words not have been spoken by a priest of Azathoth in reference to what Lovecraft called " that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity?"

"In emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness! No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind!
No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind!
No mind-consciousness element!
There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance!
There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death!
There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path!
There is no cognition, no attainment and non-attainment!
IA! IA!

Clearly the supposed Bodhisattva of Compassion here is showing the illusory nature of our daylight world and pointing the way to the unlighted chambers beyond Space and Time.

Buddhism stands against the worship of the New Gods and calling them what they are: simply powerful beings that present themselves as dieties. Buddha pointed out that they, like all things will die, and that the only true reality is beyond all rational concept. The so called Divine Madness and Crazy Wisdom of the Mahasiddhas like Drukpa Kunlegs is the very same madness expressed in the beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous while of the accursed flutes of the Old Ones . One must, in the words of the heart sutra "Go beyond, go very beyond, go completely beyond" reason to grasp the truth. This is the truth of the old ones!

GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE! IA IA IA!

INOMINANDUM: I think you added those IA's in there...

DUGPANATH: I prefer to say that I have restored them.

INOMINANDUM: So how about the Tantric Tradition?

DUGPANATH: In the Tantric tradition, the Old Ones are reflected even more directly in the Yidams and Guardians. The Rinpoche's have used the Old Ones very images to keep them trapped behind the Star Gates, but the day is coming when the great RAHULA will blot out the sun and the call will be sounded by the 11 Dugpas in 23 tones! ZHAMBHALA/RYLYEH will rise! The Old Ones will once again manifest into the physical world and mankind will truly all know what ANATMAN - the lack of inherent self truly MEANS!!!!!

INOMINANDUM: So you are saying that the Tantric imagery is based on the Old Ones, but that the Lamas are using it to keep the Old Ones at bay? I am not sure I follow.

DUGPANATH: Clearly the Tantric Imagery of sex and death is very rooted in the old ones. Not everything related to the Old Ones has to be expressed as tentacle porn you know - that is only a particular facet or cult within the span of what the great old ones are. In some cases the Mahasiddhas adopted their Buddha forms to take the form of a specific type of old one so that they could control and exorcise that influence. Ekajati for instance is sometimes explained as having one eye and tooth because of single pointed concentration etc, but the real reason is simpler than that: that is what Mamo's look like! Same with Rahula, which is not only a guardian but an Evil Planet.... At any rate it is only the Dugpas that seek the real Dharma and hope to unleash the old ones.

INOMINANDUM: Ok, now I am interested in your take on this: who are the Dugpas?

DUGPANATH: Blavatski actually got something mostly right. We are the underground of Himalayan Magic that stand opposed to the type of day-side nicety that passes for religion and morality. We throw ourselves headlong into the true Tantra of Sex and Death. There are very few of us physically on the planet at any one time, but artists that have transcended reason have always known of us, which is why the legend lives on in the art of people like David Lynch and Talbot Mundy.

The Buddhists would have you believe that Blavatski confused us with the Drukpa Kagyu, but that is not the case. Our headquarters are in the Pemako region of Tibet. The Dugmas - female Dugpas that are known as "Poison Witches" guard the gate on this side of the Pure Land, and feed us with the merit that they steal from travelers.

INOMINANDUM: So what specifically are you working on now?

DUGPANATH: I just finished my work restoring the Chod ritual to its original Dugpa form. You see, the Tibetans have many kinds of very elaborate visualized offerings of the body listed in the of the Chod rite. Some where the skull cap is chopped off and used as a pot to cook the rest of the body in. Others where dakinis pour liquor and urine and acid into the central channel until the body is bursting like a baloon, at which point the belly is sliced open spilling the insides out accross the entire world. Still others where the four limbs are used as table legs and your skin as a table where the rest of the body is chopped up and served as is. All of these and more were once used on actual humans when the Old Ones still walked the earth. As such, if done with the proper instruments, to the proper tune, and in the proper state of ecstatic trance - the visualized offering of your own body attracts the attention of the old ones from, behind the gate. Machig Labdron was one of ours and knew this well, which is why she worked to spread the chod so widely that it would spill over from the controling grasp of the High Rinpoche's and Monastaries and into the streets where it could be practiced by the wandering bandits, homeless madmen, and long haired Ngakpas alike.

The white, red, and black feasts of Chod to be performed in the day, evening, and mid-night are well known, but only a true Dugpa will grasp the importance of the Green feast, which is performed outside the cycle of day and night entirely and which has the capacity to bridge the gap between the strange angles of space. I hope to make the Sadhana available online soon.

Advice for those looking to open Occult/Magic/New Age stores

2010-10-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

A few months back there was an article in Witchvox containing advice about running an occult store. I read it and thought to myself: Wow, that is almost all incredibly bad advice!

I have a background in retail: not only have I worked it but my father and grandfather both owned a hardware store. I got to be involved in the running, expansion, decline, and eventual rescue and sale of that business. As a lecturer and friend of some shop owners I have also gotten a good glimpse of struggle and often closing of magic businesses. Just to be sure that my opinion wasn't off though I asked three owners of occult stores to read it, and they found the advice so bad that they did not believe the author had any experience other than as a customer.

Many students and friends of mine have told me that they had aspirations to open an occult store. At one time, I myself had this aspiration. Since people are still losing their jobs regularly, and since I am always suggesting people start their own businesses, I thought I might share some of my thoughts on the subject.

I want to clarify that the following advice applied to brick and mortar stores only. This is not about web-based business.

So here than is Jason's advice for those hoping to open an Occult/Magic/NewAge store:

1. Get a lot of input on this before you invest a dime. I am not just talking divination here. Talk to people that owned stores that failed, which is almost every store that has opened in the last 10 years. Talk to people that own stores that are still in business. Don't just ask if its worth it or not - ask about how much a case of merch in the store is worth, ask about how much they started with, etc.

2. You need to LOVE retail. I do not mean the merchandise, but actual process of retail sales. After the novelty of the occult stuff wears off, its just stuff that you have to sell. In the end the merchandise doesnt matter. You have to love selling stuff, if you don't than don't do it.

3. Be prepared to work long hours 6-7 days a week.

4. Be prepared for worrying about things even when you are not at the store. When you own a business you never really clock out at the end of the day. When that business is almost guaranteed to be struggling through its whole existence than you need to be prepared for the psychic weight of that.

5. You need to know that you will probably not make enough to support yourself in a middle class lifestyle, much less retire, unless you have other means of income. Some people get the idea in their head that if you own a business that automatically makes you rich. It doesn't and in the case of an occult store it probably makes you the opposite.

6. You need to be prepared to lose every penny you put into it AND have serious debt if it fails - again just about ALL of them fail regardless of magic.

7. You are running a store NOT a community center. You are in business to make money. Lots of people will use your store as a community center, which is good, but they will often not contribute funds or worry much about you making money. If the people that hang around the store are blocking sales, than you need to be tough. If they are not paying for merch you need to be tough. The community itself can bleed you dry.

8. Do not pay for empty floorspace just for classes and rituals. If the store you are looking at has a big backroom and there is not a smaller cheaper place that you could rent, than great, I love giving talks in nice spaces. If there is a cheaper space though, save the money. Move bookshelves before classes, you will be amazed at how many people will pack into a small space.

9. Fill the space you have. This is a must and another reason for a smaller space. A full store looks successful, an empty one does not. People will talk about how they want to support the failing store, but in reality they go to and spend money in the successful store. If you have a big store, either figure a way to fill it, like with altars and such, or put up a wall to make the front smaller.

10. You need more money than you think you do. Number one reason that new stores of any kind fail is that they are under-capitalized at the beginning. You need to fill the store AND have money to fill it again. If you do not rotate merch, people will stop coming in to see what is new. You cannot just rely upon the initial sales to re-stock the store.

11. Have an angle. What makes you special? The only time that I considered opening a store of my own was going to be a small shop on the boardwalk in Atlantic City that specialized in Gambling Charms. If I felt like dealing with all the graft and possible legal hassels involved in such a venture, I would do it. Bottom line is what makes you special? Are you in a town known for that kind of thing like Salem, New Orleans, or New Hope? Are you servicing a specific community like an ATR or very New Age area? Just wanting a store near where you live is not enough.

12. Do not be afraid of competition. Sometimes its better to move into a town that has another store like yours than it is to go to a town that doesn't. Ever walk around a city? Notice how there is a district for jewlers, a district for Indian restaurants, a district for Punk shops? Your store alone may not be enough to get me to drive an hour. If you are in a town where there are three other shops that are similar but just different enough to make it interesting, I will drive that hour over and over again. What you loose to a competitor will often be more than made up for in increased overall volume.

13. Understand that from a financial standpoint this is a BAD investment. Even done as well as can possibly be done it is still a BAD investment. The ONLY reason to do it is that you are willing to deal with all of the above because somewhere deep down you want to be a magical retailer. ANY other reason and you should bail.

Title vs Ability

2010-10-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

Over on the Evocational Magic list they are having a discussion about ATR's (African Traditional Religions) and specifically the tendency for initiates to complain loudly about DIY'ers working with the Orisha, Loa, etc. I wanted to write about it here because it is an important issue in todays eclectic world. The same issues exist in almost every system to one degree or another. Certainly the issue comes up in Tantra a lot, as well as in the magic of various Orders. Why, I had one friend who still kind if insists that anyone who uses the term Witch should be a Gardnerian or they have no right to the term!

When these issues pop up in public forums things can get ugly fast. On the one hand you have overzealous trad-fascists insisting that you need to be an initiate to work with the spirits, methods, or rites in any way shape or form. On the other hand you have people approaching without any traditional initiation calling themselves Santero's, Houngan's, Tantrikas, after reading a couple books and doing a few workings of their own invention. This can be rather upsetting to those who spend years earning those titles and going through the traditional initiations.

After years of navigating this issue I have come to understand it in terms of Title and Ability. The problems usually spring up when someone is equating one with the other.

For example. I work regularly with certain Loa. I do so based on my readings, instructions from initiated friends, and finally instructions from the Loa themselves. It was in fact Papa Legba who steered me away from pursuing initiation as a Houngan. He steered me directly into the arms of the Buddha - go figure. Still I serve him, Ezili, Dambhalla, Simbi Makaya, and others. At this point my methods for doing so are different than you would see in a traditional house, but they are terms that I cam to with the Loa directly. There is no problem because my relationship is based on my ability. If I was to suddenly decide that I should call myself a Houngan Asogwe and set up shop as such without ever receiving that initiation in a traditional way THAT would be a big problem because I would be claiming a title. Get it? At very least I need to make it very clear that I am claiming the title based on my own spiritual contacts and not through traditional means.

When I meet people who describe themselves as Tantrikas, yet they have no Guru or Abhisheka, I have to object. There is no Tantra without a Guru or Abhisheka. Even Siddhas that are supposedly born fully enlightened like Padmasambhava and Dattareya seek out human Guru's to call teachers so that they can show others how important the Guru is. Now, that does not mean that these folks cannot study the texts and get tips from contacts that they can incorporate into their practice. In fact I would strongly encourage people like Thelemites to study modern translations of Tantric texts for a deeper look at Sex Magic than what E&MOU gives. Your use of the tech is based on ability so there is no problem, your claim to the title however is bogus.

Think of it in terms of a medical doctor. You can study medical texts at home and even apprentice under someone personally to learn all you want to know. You may practice medicine BETTER than 99% of actual doctors, but you cannot call yourself an MD because you did not go through the proper steps. The work is based on ability, the Title is based on certain protocols being followed. They are not the same.

Now, there are very different considerations of how they overlap. There are certain pieces of tech that will only be available to those with the initiation. They may even be dependent upon the initiation itself. Certainly this is the view in Tantra, and in Christian Apostolic tradition. In fact, one Priest I know insists that to work most of the Grimoires were mostly designed to be worked by those who have Holy Orders, in much the same way that Tantras are made to be worked by those with empowerment.

If you are doing your own thing, than you have to be happy with that to some extent and not confuse your own findings and experiments with the tradition that you are borrowing from. When someone tells me that they "do Phurba practice" and than use it to cast circle like an Athame, it takes a good effort not to laugh in their face.

While you shouldn't mistake your own work for the tradition, you also should not discount it. I know a two different cases of REALLY powerful people, one a healer and one a more general Sorcerer, who lost their abilities when they traded in their own work for that of the tradition. What you are doing based on your own work may be BETTER than what you would get in the tradition. Some traditions get stale over time. Some teachers within traditions suck. I know more than a couple Lamas who are legitimate in terms of being recognized Tulkus and such, but who know less about the Dharma than many students do, and who practice even less.

In some cases, though not as many as initiates like to pretend, there are spirits, practices, and energies that CAN be dangerous when worked outside of the tradition. Again, it is all about ability vs title. Your title may enable you to work with those forces safely right off the bat, but that doesn't mean that no one can learn to work with them outside of the tradition. They just need to be warry of the danger.

Basically, what I want to say boils down to two things. If you are an initiate, be a little more respectful of those working outside the tradition, if they can do the work than that may be all that matters. If you are not an initiate, be respectful of those that are by not laying claim to a title that you do not have. If people can follow these two guidelines, than there is no problem

Christine O'Donnel Ad

2010-10-10T18:51:00.001-07:00

Similarities between Tibetan Buddhist and Eastern Orthodox Art

2010-10-04T18:13:00.000-07:00

Great piece here on the similarities between Tibetan Buddhist and Eastern Orthodox Art. Of course there are manby areas where these two religious systems come into contact with one another, so it is not entirely surprising.

Crucible!

2010-10-04T10:01:00.001-07:00

This years Crucible was better than ever. Better yet, we had a small meeting of the NJ based members of the Blog Community.

Going from left to right you have Deb from Charmed I'm Sure. Jow from A Mages Blog, me from right here at Strategic Sorcery, and Kenaz Filan from his excellent eponymous titled blog.

For those that do not know Crucible is a convention of mages and mystics, and witches etc usually held in October. It is put on by the Omnimancers, If you are into non-ritual based magic that tries to take as scientific an approach as possible and you do not know Arthur and the Omnimancers, than you should definitely check them out.

Not only are the Omni's unique, but they tend to seek out unique topics for the festival, stuff that you just do not hear about elsewhere. In the past there have been workshops on Uncle Chuckies Psionic Devices, Black Magic, Astral Biology, etc.

This year I was on both Panels: Pop Magic along with Kenaz, Rich, and Heather Freeman discussed the ways in which magic, paganism and pop culture overlap and effect one another for good and for ill. Magical Screw Ups and Oh Shit Moments which also featured Andrei Freeman, Deb, Alex, and Arthur. If you dont know who these folks are , check out the Line up page.

Unfortunately being on the panels means that I missed a class in Psionic constructs and a workshop on Wyrd.

After the panels I was again torn: do I see Kenaz on Vodou or Jow on Alchemy? I planned to hop back and forth but when Kenaz and Kathy started going on Vodou Money Magic, I just couldn't pull myself away. Thankfully I will be able to catch up on it all on DVD.

After a very nice dinner, where the photo above was shot, I listend to Cliff Low - the proprietor of a site that has been a favorite from almost the very first day I got on-line Necronomi.com. Cliff spoke about his work with the Grimoire "Hermes Trismegistus on the Fifteen Fixed Stars" which is focused on making special rings that channel the powers of each of the stars. He spoke in detail about the Persian Roots of the text, the astrological theory behind it, as well as the current research being done by himself and his mentors Christopher Warnock and John Michael Greer. Better yet, he brought a large selection of rings that he made using the text and shared some stories from his own life that illustrate the powers he is talking about. This lecture was of particular interest to me as I had a vision of four of the symbols of the fixed stars and was told to work them into a spirit trap design. They in turn made their way onto the covers of both my books as well as the logo from this blog.

After that I attended Arthurs talk "Through the Magical Wormhole", which was on the Omnimancy view of realms and dimensions and how they get used in magic. While most magicians access various astral realms, Arthur is one of the few people besides myself that work magic that exploits extra dimensions of space, time, and probability in his magical system. His powerpoint video helped clearly illustrate a difficult subject and also present the Omni view of topics like the role of deities which differ from most magical trads. It was a great follow up to last years Astral Biology lecture and I look forward to the next in the series.

After that came my spiel on the 10 Principals of Strategic Sorcery. Readers here already know the 9 and I will be writing about the 10th one soon enough. Because I was speaking at the same time, I missed Simon Zelots lecture on "The Magic of the Angelic Wars" which present magic from The Malakim Society. I know absolutely nothing about them and I look forward to seeing that one on DVD as well as the others I missed.

Michael

2010-09-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the feast of St Michael the Archangel.

Many people know the short version of the prayer St Michael that was written by Pope Leo XIII, and even magicians have used this prayer to call on the power of the Archangel. Not as many people know the longer version of the prayer and the story behind it. For some reason I was meditating on this yesterday and thought it timely to share.

The story goes that on October 13th, 1884, Pope Leo entered a trance after celebrating a Mass in his private chapel. He heard two voices talking in the nearby tabernacle. One voice was the voice of Satan, the other the voice of Christ.

Stan Boasted: “I can destroy your Church.”

Christ replied: “You can? Then go ahead and do so.”

Satan: "To do so, I need more time and more power.”

Christ: “How much time? How much power?”

Satan: 75 to 100 years, and a greater power over those who will give themselves over to my service.”

Christ: “You have the time, you will have the power. Do with them what you will.”

Immediately after this he went from his chapel to his office, he composed the prayer to St Michael, with instructions it be said after all Low Masses everywhere. The long version of the prayer mentions specifically that Satan has infiltrated the Church:

“O Glorious Prince of the heavenly host, St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the battle and in the terrible warfare that we are waging against the principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the evil spirits. Come to the aid of man, whom Almighty God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of Satan.

“Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in Heaven. That cruel, ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.

“These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where the See of Holy Peter and the Chair of Truth has been set up as the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be.

“Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly find mercy in the sight of the Lord; and vanquishing the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.

V. Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.
R. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered the root of David.
V. Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.
R. As we have hoped in Thee.
V. O Lord, hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come unto Thee.

Let us pray.
O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as supplicants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin Immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious St. Michael the Archangel, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all the other unclean spirits who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen.”

This prayer, and this story, are very popular amongst ultra-conservatives who note that 75 years after it was written, the second Vatican council began, which in their eyes corrupted the church.

Of course to a liberal esoteric type like myself, it indicates much more than that. Especially if you, like me, consider "the Church" to be a lot larger than the RCC. When I first heard the story I immediately interpreted it as the rise of fundamentalism overshadowing reason. Of course you can find in it what you want. I am sure that some would link it to the sex abuse scandals.

Anyway, May Michael the Archangel protect you and keep you. Amen.

CRUCIBLE AND THE 10th PRINCIPAL OF STRATEGIC SORCERY

2010-09-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

I have talked about this before, but in case you missed it, CRUCIBLE is this weekend! If you are a reader of this blog and within reasonable distance of Princeton, yet not attending this, I have to ask: what is wrong with you????

I mean, not only will I be there, but so will fellow bloggers Kenaz and Jow. In addition to this you get Cliff Low (founder of necronomi.com) talking about ancient stellar magic, Arthur the head Omnimancer talking about multiple dimensions and wormholes, and... well just go read the line up.

Plus you get to have a proper sit down dinner with a room full of occultists at a four star hotel in Princeton. How many times does that happen?

And if that is not all, during my talk on the 9 Principals of Strategic Sorcery, I will be unveiling THE TENTH PRINCIPAL and talking about why it is essential for any strategic sorcerer.

I hope to see some of you there.

KEYNOTE SPEECH NYC PAGAN PRIDE - 1/24

2010-09-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

KEYNOTE SPEECH NYC PAGAN PRIDE - 1/24

Happy Mabon, I am honored to be the speaker here at the 10th NYC Pagan Pride day. Given that we are now at the beginning of the Harvest season and that the whole economy seems to be going to Hades in a hand basket, I thought I would talk a little about the intersection of prosperity and Pagan Spirituality.

Strangely enough I want to start this Pagan Pride address with a quote from the Bible. Specifically the book of Matthew where Christ says "you cannot serve both God and Mammon", mammon being a word implying money as a demon. Of course like many quotes from the Bible it has effected attitudes and culture far beyond Christianity. It is in fact a sentiment that I tend to agree with. You cannot SERVE mammon and Spirit. If you serve Money you tend to become a slave to money, which tends to run counter to the aims of spirituality. Money can corrupt those who serve it as sure as any demon, and I think it is fair to say that a lot of the problems facing our nation today are caused by people obsessed with money.

So how do you avoid serving money? One way that people avoid serving Mammon is by avoiding him entirely. This is the approach was quite popular amidst the counter culture movements of the 60's and 70's, a time that was also the beginning of Paganisms surface and increasing popularity that obviously continues all the way to the present day. It is a noble tactic and one that really works if you do it wholeheartedly.

My observation is that if you are going to avoid money and finance as a part of your spirituality, than you really need to do it! So with that in mind there are really only two ways that this has been a successful approach - become a Monk/Nun OR become a homeless wandering mystic.

For those wishing to become Monks or Nuns I have a list of contact info for Buddhist and Catholic Monasteries that you can apply to. I also have the number of Tom Browns Survival training down in the Pine Barrens. Spend a few weeks with him and you can walk into the woods and be self sufficient for life with just a good knife and the clothes on your back.

Any takers?

No?

Me niether...

Ok so if we are not going to become Monks and or wandering homeless Mystics, we are not going to avoid Money with much success. Since we cannot serve money or avoid money, that leaves only one choice: we need to Master it and bring it on the spiritual path.

Neo-Paganism has been a huge blessing for those looking for a spiritual path that possesses the deepest and most ancient mysteries religion has to offer, yet is consistent with the developments and values of a modern and free society. Many things that other religions consider sinful, the Pagan considers sacred.

Paganism has taken sex and made it a healthy part of the spiritual path.

Paganism has taken radical freedom of expression, the right to be gay, kinky, and straight up freaky and made it part of the spiritual path

Most important for me Paganism has taken Magic Sorcery and Witchcraft and make it part of the spiritual path.

It is for this reason that Paganism is the ideal platform to take financial wisdom and join it to spiritual wisdom. To marry fiscal responsibility with environmental responsibility and make the financial craft a part of the Witches Craft

It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil, but after traveling to 19 countries and having lived in one of the poorest places on earth, I can tell you for sure that the LACK of money is the root of way more harm. We need to be able to produce prosperity in ways that are in line with our values and objectives.

So how do we start? We start by realizing that Christ was not far off when he referred to money as a spirit. Money is a lot like a spirit. It is:

Intangible yet able to effect real events.

Represented by sigils, ie: cash, that get used as a means of contact.

Has its own nature and ways it likes to be handled

Like a spirit from an old Grimoire, if it is mishandled, it can corrupt and obsess the noblest among us.

So what than are the qualities of the Spirit of Money? What is the craft that we as Pagans can use to master it as part of the spiritual path?

First thing we need is perspective. You cannot start a successful journey without first having a clear idea of where you already are. With this in mind, let me ask you a question: How many of you are Rich? I don't mean rich in spirit or in friendship of anything like that. I mean monetary income. How many of you are rich?

Not many hands raised.

I think that we can all agree that we live in a one world Economy today right? Nothing happens anywhere without effecting economics the world over right? Let me share some numbers with you:

If you make over 40k a year, you are in the top 1% income earners on planet earth. If you make over 25 you are in the top 10% . 50% of the people on planet earth make less than 800 a year! If you think that can't possibly be right, I can tell you that in Nepal, when I lived there, the median income was $280 a year - and the lifestyle of the common person reflected it.

Now, am I saying we need to be happy with what we have? NO!. If you want to bathe in champagne every night than I hope that you can. I want that for you. Its kinda gross but if that is what you want, I want you to have it. I want you to have it because money is not a zero sum game. You do not put people out of work by making more money. IF you do it right when you make money, the community around you makes money and things get better, not worse for everyone.

Also, it is important magically to know where you stand. If you summon Jupiter and ask him to make you rich - he is probably going to look at you funny since you are already in the top 1%. If however you ask him to help you double your income by blessing your new web-based venture, he can probably work with that.

After we get some perspective we need knowledge. Unfortunately real knowledge about how finances work is not taught in schools. It should be but it isn't. If it was we would all be able to read balance sheets and income statements, and the small print in the Wall Street Journal. Instead of that financial education we were offered a deal.

They teach us how to be mediocre and not make too much of a fuss

How to get a good job with good security

How to show up on time, and clock in and out until you are 65

In exchange we get enough money to make us comfortable enough that we won't start asking too many questions, or do a re-run of the French Revolution.

The problem is that the deal we were educated for is NO LONGER THE DEAL.

Right now, here is the situation:

No Job security - Everyone talks about the unemployment rate being 10 percent. Let me tell you folks, that means NOTHING. In 1984 it was 14 percent. It can be 50% and everything can be ok as long as there are jobs for all those people top move into. The number that matters is the emplotyment offering rate. Right now if we filled every open job in America only one in 6 unemployed people currently collecting unemployment would have a job.

No Living wage - Chances are that the job you had and got laid off from will either not be there or will be paying half of what you were making before. If you managed to avoid a lay off, you might have had to take a pay cut.

No Pensions - These have been gone for a long time. Even your 401k matching contributions are going by by. If you ever get to old or sick to work, you are on your own folks.

This is the NEW ECONOMY and it is the result of what happens when Money becomes the master of its handlers rather than the other way round.

That's the bad News. Here is the GOOD NEWS: We are living in a time of unprecedented opportunity for building prosperity by throwing off the old deal and making our own. Once you have knowledge , you need the willingness and daring to stop acting like unthinking cogs in a machine and re-engaging your genius and your creativity to do something radical.

To use a business cliché, it takes "thinking outside the box" - and folks looking out into the gathering here today one thing is clear: PAGANS KNOW HOW TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! We have creativity and genius and strength of spirit. There is no longer a well trod path for living a prosperous and happy like in America. Today we must make our own, and we are GOOD at making our own path.

If you have a job, it is time to unleash the Pagan genius and creativity and make yourself the linchpin of your organization. All it takes is overcoming your fear and acting on that one thing that you KNOW would make things run smoother, faster and better but that you have been silent about because you are afraid of making waves.

If you don't have a job, maybe it is time for you to make one for yourself rather than finding one on Career Builder.With the advent of the Internet, you can come up with an idea, test market it, open a store, and sell your product for just a couple hundred dollars. If it fails, you close it up and try it again with no great loss.

Even if you do have a job, I am a big believer in multiple sources of income. With today's technology, you can work the 9 to 5, AND operate a website drop shipping specialty candy AND market your Astrology for Computer Programmers DVD AND still have time for the family and kids. Investors tell you to diversify your investments to prevent yourself from loosing it all from one bad deal. I am telling you to do the same with your income. When the fit hits the shan it is really good to have money coming in from multiple places.

Better than all the above is that many pagans, not all but many, know and use practical magic. The craft of the witchcraft. This is your ace in the hole, and since we have covered Know, Will, and Dare, this is the part that you want to be silent about. Don't broadcast your spells to everyone. This is your own little unfair advantage. Some people are born with good family connections, others with natural charm, everyone has their special tool that they use: magic can be yours.

Even if you are "out" as a pagan, I urge you to keep your magical activities quiet. It is one thing for your co-workers to accept and understand your religion. It is quite another for them to think that you are summoning unseen forces that they do not have access to and which will help you get ahead.

Now, in my classes I teach a variety of spells, but what is even more important than magical technique is the application. Some say that magic should only be used in emergencies when all else fails. Folks, I respect your view, but I gotta tell you that you are wrong on that one. By the time you have reached the emergency point, it is probably too late for magic to do much for you except damage control.

Worse yet, if all you are doing is emergency magic, you are simply keeping yourself trapped in the same situation: often a crappy job that you don't even like all that much. Sometimes it is better to let it all fall down and start building on fresh soil.

I am an advocate for smart strategic sorcery applied proactively. Use it to kill debt, to increase income, to manage investments, attain assets, and do it all in accordance with your spiritual view.

The last thing I want to talk about is another quality of the spirit of money. Money likes to move. Mercury has just as much to do with money as Jupiter Does. Jupiter is your savings account, but Mercury is your checking account. Which one do you use more often?

How you spend money is just as important as how you make it. You can start by supporting your community by purchasing things from pagan bookstores and businesses. You can spend it in ways that support the earth and the values that you hold as a Pagan.

Apart from supporting community through wise commerce that I will tell you one other thing that Christians have got right: the concept of tithing. This is not only a secret of spending money in a spiritual way, but is actually a secret of building prosperity for yourself as well. I know a lot of Christians that Tithe and I can tell you that all of them claim that they receive those blessings back many times over.

This is Harvest time, time to gather your fruits and Thank the Gods for the blessing you have, which I hope we have established are considerable. It is also time to plan your strategy for dealing with the long winter ahead, which economically speaking is going to be tougher than normal, but which with knowledge, will, daring and a little magic, may offer the greatest opportunities of your life.

I will close with a Mabon Prayer from a new Book called the Auguris by my friend Jospeph Merlin Nichter. He is the first California State recognized Minority Faith Chaplain for the California Corrections system and spends a large amount of his time ministering to those in need and doing Pagan outreach in the prison system. Not only is this book a good example of a Pagan building an Asset for himself in the form of intellectual property that will generate residuals, but also a shining example of community building and charitable works.

(closed with the Mabon prayer from the Auguris)

Thank you again. Happy equinox and Pagan Pride Day.

Now that is MAD

2010-09-27T09:36:00.001-07:00

Now that is what I call mad.

Strategic Sorcery Field Report - The SS Mini Grimoire and Getting Out of Debt

2010-09-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

The below field report is from one of my Students in Italy and is very special because it is the first field report involving spirits from the Strategic Sorcery Mini Grimoire: a group of spirits that appeared to me and whose seals are available to members of the course.

Everything in Italics is his words:

On September 15th I had a debt to pay. Nothing really big, but I didn’t have
the money and so, big or not, my bank account was going “into the red” (I
called my bank and told them I knew the situation - this avoided them calling
me and allowed me to be more calm in tryng to find a solution without having to
worry about the sound of my cellphone). The debt was more or less 2200 USD
(United States Dollars). What was worst is that there are some other debts to
be paid by October 5th, so the situation was… stressful.

Now I have to say that, apart from my 9 to 5 job I have some other incomes,
namely as a translator and practitioner in the field of energywork. I practice,
sometimes I teach, sometimes people who have no English hire me to translate
parts of books they’re interested in but they cannot read. These secondary
incomes have been nil for a while, as money here is quite tight for everybody.

But I spotted some former clients who, even if they hadn’t hired me for a
while (“we’d like to, but we’re short of money”) I knew could find the amount
of cash I needed. And I decided to give the Mini Grimoire a try. I know this is
bad emergency sorcery, but I badly needed the money on the spot, whilst waiting
for the other things I’ve planned to deliver the goodies…

I also know that experimenting with a new system when you’re in emergency isn’
t exactly the most clever thing to do, but when I first read the Mini Grimoire
something “clicked”, and so with the Mini Grioire I went. After all I had
summoned Patrotiel in August, asking him to help me find solutions to my most
urgent needs, and the idea to address these people could come from Him.

I used the summoning technique given by Azophaios with a single modification,
as I inserted the “ORKIZO” invocation of HGA from the Sorcerer’s Secrets and
the Invocation of Kundalini from Crowley’s Liber LXV (old habits are hard to
die).

So I basically:

Level One

Invoked my HGA asking Him to bless my efforts in getting rid of this debt and
the debts to be paid by October 5th

Level Two

Summoned:

Maxorial to have an income that could allow me to pay
Davian to help me pay these debts
Torien to bind these people and get them to do what I wanted

Level Three

Asked the Spirits to empower a controlling oil (bought years ago in a curio
shop in London – higly suspect but what the heck) and a compelling powder
(bought years ago from Technicians of the Sacred – more reliable)

Then I called a meeting (these people know each other, they are friends and/or
relatives among themselves) and before getting there I anointed my hands (we
would shake hands) and sprinkled the powder on some papers I gave them.

At the meeting I announced that my financial troubles forced me to get a
second job, and that I wouldn’t be available for only God knows how long to
provide my usual services (which they hadn’t purchased for a while). They
seemed disappointed.

The meeting was last tuesday. On wednesday they called me asking for a second
meeting, which took place yesterday.

Yesterday we met and they gave me the equivalent of 6666,6667 USD (currency
conversion plays strange jokes, eh?) AS A GIFT.

NO. STRINGS. ATTACHED.

They gave the money because, they said, they need me to be free and available
when they need my services (I DO know I will have to give ‘em some discount
next time they hire me. They deserve it.)

The sum they gave me nicely covers all the debts and leaves me with more or
less 2500 USD in my pocket.

What can I say? I am flabbergasted myself… but this shit really works!

I am happy, and I’m planning a rather gorgeous Spirits Feast (this evening or
tomorrow).

PS: DO work with these guys - they deliver outrageously...

On Pirates

2010-09-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Lots of stuff on Piracy going round the blog-o-sphere. I was not going to comment, but today I found out something that is spurring me to share my thoughts on the subject.

First of all, the extreme arguments on both sides are effin stupid.

On the one hand you have people out there who seem to think that you CAN stop torrents and file sharing and other types of unregulated distribution of information based products. You can't stop it. It will always happen.

One the other hand you have people who seem to think that because you CANNOT stop it, that makes it ok and that everyone should develop business models around piracy and file sharing being the norm. This is even more stupid. Keep it a crime and an action that society at large considers morally wrong and you automatically are controlling the problem because huge numbers of people will not do it. If you pursue penalties where it makes sense to do so and will not drive you broke, than go for it. If not than thats ok too. The mere status as a crime is enough to control it to an extent.

Now all that said, I agree with Gordon that the Freemium model is the only one that really works for web based business today. There are however two versions of this. The first basically gives the stuff away and hopes that 10-20% will want to buy the same thing in some form. For example, I give the PDF away and maybe 10%-20% buy the book. There are now a handful of famous authors who have done this and champion the model. The problem is that the model really only works for famous authors who will have tens of thousands of readers. The model does NOT work for lesser known authors, who still largely need to build credibility by selling books through traditional publishers.

The other model is the one that I use. A large amount of info is offered for free (in my case the blog, and articles, and such) as well as some things that are very inexpensive and which I do not make a lot of money on ( my books). The hope is that 10-20% will like it enough to buy the PREMIUM material such as the course or attend classes that I do make decent money on. This is the Freemium model that WILL work for people who are not famous.

At this moment, my books are torrented and on rapid share. I did not put them there and I do not approve of it, but I am also not getting all upset about it either. It gets the meme out there and is basically advertising. There is after all the chance that one of those people will buy the course or come to a workshop.

Now, if I see the course material up on a Torrent site, I am going to be seriously put out and take whatever action I can against those who post it. It is how I make a good amount of my income. If the premium stuff gets up on torrent sites and detracts in serious numbers from people paying for the course, that makes it not worthwhile to even bother with the course at all. So far, no one has, to my knowledge done this.

This brings me to yet another level of this discussion, and to a character that is the true Pirate - the guy that steals the work of another, reproduces it himself and makes himself a profit. I got word today that "The Sorcerers Secrets", along with Frater R.O.'s books, were being sold in spiral bound editions at a Pagan Pride Day in Mass. This person is a total scumbag and deserves what is coming.

Unforgivable Sins

2010-09-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

I just read Frater R.O.'s post on unforgivable sin. His mention of kidnapping Jesus reminded me of a story.

Kid learns in Sunday School to pray and ask God for what you need.

He goes home and prays: "Lord Jesus, please give me a new bike, my old one is too small and my parents want me to wait until Christmas, which is way too long. I learned that you are all powerful so please send me a new bike asap. Amen."

Next day he wakes up, no bike.

He does it again the next night. Next day he wakes up, and again, no bike.

He does this for a full week and still no bike.

The next day he goes into his mothers room and takes the statue of the Virgin Mary. He wraps the statue in duct tape and locks it in his drawer. He prays "Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again there better be a bike here in the morning..."

I would bet that if that story is true, the kid grew up to be a Sorcerer.

Skillful Influence vs Being a Douchebag

2010-09-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

At Thelesis on Saturday, after the Hekate initiation, conversation turned for a little while to the topic of influence, magical and otherwise. Specifically we spoke about how different types of influence play out and when it is appropriate or not appropriate.

First we need to make a distinction between what I call Commanding vs Controlling influence, (in the book they are listed as indirect and direct influence.).

Basically, Commanding influence is changes that you make in yourself to make you a more influential person. Moving your set point, adjusting the way you look, doing exercises to build confidence, smiling, etc. The idea is that men will give you money and women will swoon (or the other way around) not because you have made them believe that you are a person they want to know and follow the lead of, but because you are a person they want to know and follow the lead of.

For the most part you can go ahead and go nuts with commanding influence as long as what you are doing is making you happier. If you feel you are becoming someone that is fake, than stop and re-examine. You should be so happy about what you are doing that you can be totally up front about your work with those you are trying to influence. I really like Tynans concept that if you are a PUA, you should be able to tell a girl that you have studied PUA tech and make it work for you rather than against you.

Controlling influence is another matter. This is influence aimed at a target with the intent of effecting their mind directly. In "The Sorcerers Secrets" I have a chapter on magical influence. In the beginning of that chapter I make a defense of influencing magic as not being inherently unethical. In a nutshell you cannot not influence people around you by your actions so you may as well be skillful at it. At the end of the chapter I revisit the topic and remind people that while influencing magic may not be unethical, if you use it all the time on everyone you are a probably douchebag. The reason is that if you are always trying to get your point across to others 24/7 than you are never really listening. I am mostly talking about Controlling influence.

But there is more to it than just not using it on everyone all the time. There is a matter of how strong the method is and how ethical your methods are for what you are doing.

It may be appropriate to use some light influence like NLP style anchors or direct energy application on a rebellious teenager, but you don't want to go whole hog and try to dominate him if you want him to grow up healthy and maintain a good relationship. If you are trying to pick up someone at a club, you might want to use slightly stronger methods to get your foot in the door, than back off if you manage to get a second date and start a real relationship. You may want to go even heavier with your boss when trying to get a raise.

In all these cases though, if you go to heavy handed you cross the line from being charming to creepy. You cross the line really really fast. A while ago I posted a link to a blog about someone who hates Tim Ferris because he used some social trickery to get her alone for lunch and talk about his book in hopes of getting a favorable review. His tactics were clearly too heavy handed and while they worked, he left her with a bad taste in her mouth for him and his work. I count that as a fail.

If you want to go full on with your influence, make sure that you do not intend on being friendly with that person in the future. Competing company? Opposition political party? Person suing you? Go ahead and knock them dead with spells, NLP, marketing tech, energy work, and whatever else you have. Let them walk away confused and creeped out at how you got in their heads and made them your bitch.

If it is someone that you want to get into bed, or sell a car to, well that is up to you. If you don't care about repeat business of further dates, than yeah, your tactics will get you what you want for now. But like Tim, they will have the opposite effect later on.

If you are going whole hog influence on your wife, friends, and co-workers, than you are probably not going to succeed for long. You may get what you want in the short term, but in the end being a douchebag will overpower any influence that you may have gained.

Personal Account of Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche

2010-09-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

The kids are napping and I finally have a few minutes to myself. Having to write something like that shows how different life is right now than it was 10 1/2 years ago when my I was knocking back Tong-ba with my friend Barche at the Double Dorje in Boudha. We got to talking about Ngakpas and he invited me back to Pharping (Yang-le-shod) with him to a little compound called Tsogyal Ge Phel Jong in order to meet Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche.

Though Kunzang Dorje was not famous in the west like other Lamas have become, he was a true Ngakpa and one of the greatest living Yogis of our age. A master of Tummo and Tsa-Lung as well as Phurba and Charnel Ground practice.

What I didn't know is that the day I arrived for a visit, was the day before a three-day Kilaya Puja. He took my arrival there as a sign that I should stay on for the ritual. I was loaned a Ngakpa Zen and with Barche, joined in on the first really complete Kilaya puja that contained the full medlei section. Barche left the country soon after but was kind enough to give me his Ngakpa Zen which Rinpoche gave me the blessing to wear when I did Puja. I stayed on and moved into Barche's room right next to Rinpoches.

The next several weeks were a blur of practice and strangeness and I have trouble placing it all in order.

I remember being very sick for two days, and one morning at the height of my fever, I saw Rinpoche come into my room and take my phurba off my desk and tie a piece of blue cloth to it. He than did a little dance while rolling the phurba in his hands and moving it around his torso. He had me do the same. Since I was so ill at certain points I couldn't remember where I was, I honestly had thought I hallucinated the whole thing, but no. Gyur-me told me that actually happened. Later Rinpoche made sure I remebered how to do it as that is the proper way to empower the phurba.

For various reasons, I knew that it was not my karma to stay there for years and be his student the way he would expect - a process that he said would take two years just to decide firmly that he wanted me as a student and I wanted him as a teacher - so I did not try to get him to talk about Tummo or Tsa-lung, things that I was sure he would only reveal to someone who was there for the long haul.

Since he was famous for visiting most of the important Tantric Charnel grounds throughout Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and India I did get up the nerve to ask him about charnel Ground practice. He described the process in detail and asked if I was planning on doing a retreat. I told him that I wanted to go do one in Pashupatinath as soon as possible. He got very concerned and told me in no uncertain terms that I must NOT do this. I left thinking that for some reason I was not ready for such a retreat, but there must have been something lost in translation because two days later he asked why I was still there and not in Pashupatinath. I told him that he told me not to go and he laughed. He meant that I must not go yesterday because it was a missing day on the Lunar Calendar. It was fine to go now, which is what I did.

After my retreat, things started to get weird around the center: Rinpoche would ask me to get whiskey and his wife would ask me not to, Pema, a Thanka painter that was also staying there was starting to drink and get violent. One day I was asked to help his brother tackle him and hold him down, which I did. Since John Reynolds was coming into Kathmandu soon, and since I had plans for him to introduce me to Lopon Tenzin Namdak, I felt like it was a good time to leave Pharping and move to Boudha which I did.

I visited Rinpiche several times over the next several months and spent Losar with him. The last time I saw him was when he showed up at the Kathok Gompa for a couple days of the Kama Empowerments. Not one for large crowds he left after only a couple days, but made a very large offering, not only to the Lamas and Monks that were attending - as most other Lamas did - but to EVERYONE attending. Such was his faith in the power of everyone to achieve Buddhahood.

There are very few people that I would refer to as a Wizard, someone capable of bending the laws of physics, but he was one of them. I will leave the examples that I saw of this out of this post - stories like that only cheapen the event when told second hand. Honestly I would not believe them if I had not witnessed them myself so there really is no point.

Though I don't have any plans to go back to Nepal in the near future, I am a little sad today knowing now for sure that I will never get to meet him again in this life. I wish I had made more of the opportunity that I had when I was in his presence. I will always hold him in my mind as being inseparable from Guru Rinpoche himself.

Parinirvana of Kunzang Dorje

2010-09-10T06:10:00.000-07:00

Kunzang Dorje - one of the most powerful magicians to walk the face of the planet, has passed.

I lived with him for a month in 1999 and will have more to say about this later. Below is the press release from Lama Dawa's organization.

The Parinirvana of
Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche
With great sadness, we inform our greater Sangha of the passing and parinirvana of our precious Guru, our lineage Master and protector, Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche.

Rinpoche began the process of 'tugdam' (samadhi of pure mind) in the morning of Sept, 7, at his residence in Saraswati Bhawan, Nepal. Lamas are currently performing the necessary pujas under the direction of His Holiness, Trulshik Rinpoche and Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche. A cremation stupa is being constructed and the cremation will begin according to H.H. Trulshik Rinpoche's instruction. The cremation ceremonies will occur on the rooftop of Saraswati Bhawan upon the completion of Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche's samadhi.

Lama Dawa Rinpoche is sending his consort, Kunzang Dechen Chodron, to Nepal on his behalf. Kunzang will keep you updated on the progress of the funeral services.

Lama Dawa Rinpoche requests that all our practice groups and students remove Rinpoche's long-life prayer from their closing prayers. Please do not recite this now. Instead, to take advantage of the great blessings of Rinpoche's parinirvana, Lama Dawa recommends that we all recite the prayer "Yeshe Tsogyal's Prayer to Guru Rinpoche as He Left Tibet", which can be found at the end of the 'Shower of Blessings' tsog sadhana. You can download an English translation of the prayer, and a Spanish translation of the prayer.

As Lama Dawa Rinpoche says, there is nothing we need to do to help Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche - he has full confidence and ability to transform his elemental body into the three kayas. There is no need for practices such as sur offerings, mantras, etc. Instead, we should take this opportunity to connect with the tremendous blessings that he is now radiating throughout all the realms. The best way to do this is through aspiration prayers, such as the prayer the Yeshe Tsogyal spontaneously recited as Guru Rinpoche left this world. In addition, you can put extra effort in your current practices and dedicate the merit too all beings.

For those of you who are unable to come to Nepal to attend the funeral services in person, you can make connections by helping to sponsor some the expenses of hosting Lamas and making all the preparations. For example, there will be extensive butterlamp offerings to be made - called 'chomi zhaldeb'. You can sponsor some of these offerings, or offerings to the Lamas by making your donation directly to Saraswati Bhawan's PayPal account. Kunzang will distrubute those donations during the ceremonies.
This is a very special and precious time, and we request each one of you to take some time from your busy lives to connect with Rinpoche's vast mindstream. Although his passing is a great loss, it is also a time of great celebration and inspiration as he shows us the way beyond samsara.

This is how I felt all day

2010-09-07T20:52:00.000-07:00

Strategic Sorcery and Noisy Neighbors

2010-09-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

Below is from one of my students who just succeeded in his first Expelling Strategy:

Problem and context: New neighbors came three months ago. They don´t live on the city, they just come a few days a week for work in the capital city. No problems ever. One and a half month ago, just as mars entered libra, they started to make parties until 1am, 2am on weekdays, mostly mondays and thursdays.

Noticed that mine is an old building, not one of those where you can hear people talk over the walls. To one to hear a party on the first floor it means that your music are REAL loud and that you are a big SOB person.

It was all going withing livable circumstances until one Thursday that they parties (I think with prostitutes) until 4am, and ignored and mocked my asking them to be civilized. Of course, all gloves are off.

So, below my plan:

a) Mundane action: the administrator said that he was taking action, as he was also being disturbed. Unfortunately, I live in Colombia, a country where people are afraid of everything but respect nothing.

b) Level 3 action - I am placing at their doorsteps "Pimenta voladora" an local substitute of hot foot powder. I am also using a plant called "alejadera"

c) Level 2 - I am repeating the "novena of San Alejo", who is said by Catholics to make bad things go away. I also bought his medal. I am not Catholic or christian. I also gave offers to the spirits of teh building.

d) From the opposite side of spectrum I asked, with help of tarot, for goetia spirit andromalius to get rid of them in exchange of public praise and candles. He is not allowed to do anything that can damage the building or other habitants.

e) Level 1 - Invoked Michael to protect my home. Invoked Cassiel of Saturn to bind their wickedness.

Results: apparently, less than a week later the owner asked that they move because he wanted the place back.

How do I know if it wasn´t coincidence? Well, as always we never know with magic. But divination tells me that it worked.

Details on Andromalius:
I am not good at direct communication, but I am good at divination and so I used it to communicate with the spirits of goetia. Andromalius was the third one to answer and the first to accept the deal. She is said to discover all Wickedness, and Underhand Dealing; and to punish all Thieves and other Wicked People

I drawn his seal several times ("kinetic meditation") and then make contact and offered the terms of the deal very clearly.
He couldn´t damage the building or any living thing inside the building (except for the neighbors I was cursing) and she would have 1 month to work. She would receive praises on the internet (as I am doing now) and a blue candle (why blue? I don´t know, she asked for it) for 19 days.

Note on Goetic communication: Although she get rid of them in one-two weeks, I was waiting for the situation to clear out and to have confirmation. But Andromalius started to get really annoyed. Best to pay as quick as possible.

Now I am doing the invocation of terminus and a zone rite so any new neighbors behave!

best regards to all.

The Auguris - The Mill Creek Book of Shadows

2010-09-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

My friend Witchdoctor Joe has published his Book of Shadows. For those that do not know him already Joe is a Wiccan priest and founder of the Mill Creek Tradition and Seminary. He has studied and practiced various indigenous and European traditions most of his life. As the first state-recognized Minority Faith Chaplain, Joseph provides Pagan religious services and assists with minority faith religious accommodations for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; he has also served as instructor for Introduction to Earth-centered Religions, a course offered through the California Department of Mental Health.

On a more personal note, when I visited Joe at his home in California last year he presented me with a spirit fetish that has proven a powerful and valuable item of the art. In other words, the man is a first rate sorcerer!

Oh, and he makes the best Chorizo and Eggs ever.

Go here and learn more about the book.

Then, buy the book.

Not only will you be feeding your head with all of his delicious knowledge, but you will be supporting a good cause.

How what we know effects what spirits teach.

2010-09-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

Over on a yahoogroup that I belong to we are discussing the relative benefits of being taught magic by humans vs spirits. If you have been reading this blog you will know that I value the combination of both very highly. It got me thinking about how the spirits almost always use the language, perspectives, and technical knowledge that we already possess to instruct us. For instance John Dee was a master Cryptographer, the spirits delivered knowledge to him mostly through codes to be unraveled and names to be extracted from charts etc.

I was reading Frater U.D.'s "Where Do Demons Live?" today in the bathroom and I happened upon his discussion of cyber magic. While this was written a while ago, and he probably has more about his development of it in German, his description in the book did not deviate much from his description in his "Models of Magic" article from 1991:

"The application of the as yet evolving information model has led to the discipline I have termed Cybermagic (from “cybernetics” or the “science of control systems”). Contrary to the other models described above, Cybermagic does not rely on magical trance to achieve its effects. Rather, the Cybermagician activates either his own main memory banks, namely brain and spine (the Golf-club chakra, so-called because of its shape reminiscent of a golf-club) or those of the target person. The desired information is then called up and transmitted quite similarly to a copy command on an MS-DOS computer. The copy command analogy holds good insofar as the information (not having mass) is not actually “lost” in the process (as energy would be) but rather is duplicated. This is an important point as it allows for the magician to perform his magic even in a state of very low physical power, possibly even when almost completely intoxicated, as long as his basic “life support systems” are still functional and the command syntax is employed correctly"
- Frater U.D.

I had read this shortly after it was written and it didn't really strike a chord with me. A lot has changed since then. I have been using a similar copy and paste magic for years. I have also been "programming" astral matter for a long time, and thinking about it in those terms. Much of Tibetan Buddhist Magic is based on what he would call the "Information Model" and I never really thought about it before but in some ways digital thinking has helped me understand Tantric Kye Rim Mandala practice and how Mandalas essentially function as magical engines or CPU's. I remember back in 1999, Penor Rinpoche and other lamas were telling everyone to go see the Matrix because it is very Buddhist and will explain a lot of how Vajrayana works - that is pretty hip for a guy that was born in 1932 and raised in a country without a any modern technical infrastructure.
I have met several people who have practiced various types of magic that is even more directly influenced by thinking about things in the light of computers. I mentioned a cabal of Japanese Mages who work magic in ways inspired by how they design video games (they keep their tech very secret and since I am not a game designer, I do not qualify to get in on it). Another friend of mine introduced me to an astral space that works as a "Render Farm" for complex spells. Thinking about things in that way led me recently to some new ways to apply the properties of various Dakini Realms.

Anyway the point is, that the more we know here between us Humans, the more spirits will build upon that knowledge. There are certain things that just cannot be taught directly until we are ready to receieve them. Sometimes being ready means being able to access the mental planes, reverse the flow of Chi in the Dan Tien, or hold non-dual awareness. Sometimes it just means being tech savvy or understanding string theory.

Altars: A change in plans

2010-08-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Miss Sugars pics and descriptions of her Altars, and since I myself and going through a major Altar upheaval, I am going to make a similar post. In fact, I am just going to go ahead and put a call out to my fellow bloggers to post some Altar pics and make this a meme.

Now a couple months ago I was writing to say how I went from having a dedicated temple space with several altars throughout the room, to wanting to condense the altars into one mega altar so that I could give a wall of the room over to storage of twin-related things.

Before the twins I had a dedicated financial altar space:

Dedicated Buddhist Altar:

A pretty large Client Altar:

A standard CM style altar, in this case set up for Angelic Magic:

Even a little Hindu Altar on the end of a bookshelf:

So anyway, I had a lot of frickin altars, and decided that I should condense them down and make room. posted a pic of the work in progress a couple months back. Here it is again:

I was gonnna paint the walls blue, get rid of some things etc, no big deal:

Before I could do much of that though the kids had their first birthday and sitting there amidst the carnage of toys, and clothes, and stuff I had an epiphany. One that shocked everyone.

Instead of a temple room filled with Altars, or an office/storage room with one giant mega-altar in the closet, I wanted the room to look like this:

Yep. I am in the process of moving back to having most magic stuff locked away unless needed, and just a few small altars and magic knick knacks throughout the house. Strangely, it is wonderful to have everything so integrated into the rest of the house. I never thought I would say this, but dedicated temple spaces can be over-rated. Don't get me wrong, as soon as we position ourselves to find a bigger house, I will have one again, but if your work really revolves around doing the work, and not around just collecting stuff,. than it is not necessary at all.

I am still in the process of getting things set up, but do have a few nooks set up:

I have moved the water bowl offering to the bedroom underneath my Longchen Nyingthig Thanka, in a place I am not ready to have a photo of up yet, but downstairs in the living room the new Buddhist Altar is set into a bookshelf and is as minimal as I can make it:

The new desk is also in the Living room where I will not only write, but do my Kilaya practice and Mary work.

I haven't gotten the new wealth altar completely set up yet, but I did move my Chan-Chu, so that we have a small one near the front door to welcome in new money, and my consecrated one on a shelf where it will draw that flow of wealth from the front door, over the bookshelf and onto my desktop.

Is it ideal? Surprisingly yes. My wife spends a lot of time in the bedroom, so moving downstairs has given me more privacy even though I am in the living room. My morning offerings are almost always outside, so that hasnt changed. I am building a small workshop in the back of the garage where the Oils, Herbs, and other items can be stored and worked with easier and with less hassel than in my temple room.

For large rituals I can temporarily take over the living room and put it back when I am done, just like I did for most of my life.

I will post pics of the new wealth nook, the morning offering shelf, the workshop, and the new outside space as soon as they get respectable looking.

Reconciling the inherent perfection of all, with the harsh realities of evil actions.

2010-08-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

In his most recent post about the Helpful Deity, Robert noted a problem that a lot of people run into on their quest for enlightenment. In his words:

"The HD also told me that It is the all. Well not really, Its words were more subtle than that but what was not subtle was, "If you reject anyone, you are rejecting a part of me." Anyone really meant anything. So, here is my conundrum. What human being does not reject the child molester, rapist, holocaust engineer etc.?"

Whether it is a God or Tutilary Spirit telling us this, an established teaching of the path we are working, or a direct realization stemming from your meditation: this is a question that all people seeking enlightenment eventually have to deal with. It is easily dealt with in the subtle mind-space of emptiness/bliss/clarity, but less so when we reach our living levels and need to justify our gnosis to our rational minds and the harsh realities of the day to day.

For me the answer to making this part of your normal view, and not just something that you know while in rapture lies in three things:

1.A correct understanding of Karma - real cause and effect, not this kind of tit for tat crap that gets passed off as karma.
2 Understanding the difference between causation and excuse.
3. Understanding that until ALL sentient being are enlightened, there will remain two truths: an ultimate reality and a relative reality.

For the first, it is a matter of realizing that everyone and every moment is a result of countless causes impacting the present moment and present mind, most of which you had no control over. Indeed when you see that even your generics and upbringing are things that you had no control over, but effect your view, it is easy to see how without a strong way to cut through the mechanistic responses that rule 99% of our lives - everyone is basically just running a program.

The difference between cause and excuse comes in because, even though we can look at a Child Molester and realize that: they have inherited neurological and psychological issues that predispose them to what they do - and thus make them worthy of compassion no matter how heinous the crime - they also have victims and thus need to be dealt with. Sadly we have a very revenge focused justice system, and it is hard for people to wrap their minds around the concept, but it is entirely possible to imprison and even kill someone out of compassion.

The last element comes in because when we realize that everyone has Buddha Nature or Christ Nature or Enlightened Nature within them inherently, and that everyone is in a cosmic sense where they need to be - we are making a realization based on the experience of ultimate truth. While there are many changes that can be made from this point of view - especially within the stream of self - there are many that cannot be made until all other beings have realized ultimate nature.

Its kind of like the "give peace a chance" argument. It would be great if we could all just do it, but the question is how do you get everyone in the world to wake up to that realization at the same time? It cannot be done in a moment. It takes ages and ages, which is the path that we are on not only as a species, but as all sentient beings in all the multiverses. The realization that we are on that track, but not there yet is how we know that we cannot reject anyone, yet must deal with them at the relative level all the same. Our realization behind our actions though is what makes all the difference.

Since this post is ultimately about compassion, I have a picture of Chenrezig up top and will close with the statements that Buddhists know as the Four Immeasurables:

May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering
May all sentient beings never be separated from the happiness that knows no suffering,
May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free from attachment and aversion.

Strategic Sorcery 2 week challenge Field Report.

2010-08-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a field report from a student that decided to take my "2-week challenge" approach to a working aimed at helping them deal with ADHD.

I clipped the actual invocations he used but not because it was secret, just that the piece is long even without them.

Great stuff.

Strategic Sorcery Field report

Desired result: Seek out help from Planetary spirits to find new ways to deal with my ADHD. The ease in which I get distracted by things is a major impediment to my practice.

What ended up happening: Turned into several workings on fear. See Moon entry.

Overall methodology: 2 week planetary working using a combination of invocations and petitions. Main invocations would be to Mercury and Saturn to stabilize my mind. The other planets would be petitioned to uncover parts of myself that need to be worked on and assist Mercury and Saturn with their work.

Opening was the following for all seven rites: Pillar and Spheres, Universal Centering, Zone Offering, Rite of Exorcism, Simple Protection Circle. The work I’ve been doing prior to this has been paying off. The visualization is clear and the aesthetic feel of this setup has gelled. I definitely feel the space clearing out.

Closing was the following for all seven rites: Off-the-cuff license to depart and unwinding of the circle. Included a thank you to the local spirits and inviting them back to their normal abodes. No problems to report here.

Intended real-world work: Real-world work would involve doing research on the latest coping strategies, writing out my thoughts, contemplating the advice given by the spirits and lots of meditation. Meditation has helped a lot in this but I’m not as stable in the practice as I would like to be.

Actual real-world work: Series of situations the spirits plopped right into my lap that forced me to confront my fears. Writing and contemplation did happen but it was more getting thrown off the deep end and having to deal with things. Things are still getting shaken up.

-----------------------------

Moon working: August 9th 2010
Day and hour of Moon.

I wanted to work with a minimum of tools as a test for my visualization and energetic ability. The only tools that I used were a wand to assist in laying a boundary and a single candle to read by. The rest was visualization and speech.

Goal: Ask the Spirit of the moon Hasmodai to reveal hidden foundations to my deficit so that I can begin work on them.

Communication::
Said that I would now listen for any messages from the Moon. Closed my eyes and began to meditate. About thirty seconds in I began hearing a clear voice. Clairaudience seems to be the way that I communicate with spirits from my prior experience working with archangels.

I was expecting to receive dreams or to run across a reference that would leave me further on. Hasmodai had other ideas. I asked for revelation and I got a lecture. My internal fears form the foundation of my symptoms. When my fears are triggered my mind races. If I can deal with the fear then I can really work on the deficit issues. The anxiety that I feel about forgetting to do something because of distraction is more important.

I was told to pray and meditate more. I asked if the Headless Rite was appropriate for prayer and Hasmodai said it was okay but my own prayer would be even better and I should seek connection with divinity through prayer and not just through theurgy.

Then I was told I should talk with the Olympic Spirit Phul about this. This is the second recommendation that I’ve received from a spirit to talk with him. I asked Hasmodai what he would like in return and he said I should offer water to the Moon. I tried doing it mentally but he wants a physical offering.

I thanked Hasmodai and bid him to depart. Since the space was still cleared I thought I would try to contact Phul. I had already memorized his seal. I began meditating and visualized the moon and the seal in bright silver. There was an almost immediate connection.

The attitude that I got from “Phul” was like I was talking to House from House M.D. but just the sardonic side. I faltered a bit at the abruptness and stuttered a bit when I asked him why I contacted him. He said that he wouldn’t teach me his abilities until I became less timid and could state forthrightly what I wanted. He was especially peeved when I said that other spirits had asked me to contact him and was told I should just be bold and frank and not afraid to ask for things. This advice is spot-on for me cause I do have a very hard time asking for things.

He also wanted me to relearn to swim and to work harder fighting my fears. During the conversation I felt strong sensations in my throat. He gave me a way to contact him and told me he prefers to be contacted when the moon is above the horizon.

Reflections:
Amazed at how easy contact was achieved. Further reinforcement of the validity of the spirit model for myself. Definitely have a lot of self-work to do and research into spirits that can help with fear. Going to continue with the 2 week working and see what else comes up.

The directness of the Olympic spirit was very surprising to me. He didn’t want to horse around at all.

Results: Posted on the Evocational Magics yahoo group asking about spirits of fear that I could begin researching. Reflected upon my past fears and strategies for me to ask the remaining planets about.

-----------------

Mercury working: Aug. 11th 2010. Day and hour of Mercury

Goal: To help gain the ability to focus my mind and to help my intellect overcome my fear.

Communication: Felt something work on my head. There was some pressure and tingling for about a minute then I felt a presence move away from the area very fast. I asked my HGA if that was a spirit of Mercury and he confirmed it.

Results: Oddly enough, started seeing many references to Chod practice. It was something that I knew of but didn’t know much about. I thought it was a very advanced practice. I ran into a audiobook of Tsultrim Allione called “Cutting Through Fear” that describes a complete yet trimmed down version While I have not done the practice as of yet I have listened through it. Now that this overall working is complete I’m going to start doing that.

------------------------------

Venus working: Aug 13th, 2010. Day and hour of Venus

Goal: Ask Venus to show me how to love myself and to love my fears and my efforts to overcome them. Basically to keep myself from beating myself up when I slip in my efforts. By this point I was working completely on fear.

Communication: One of the most interesting. Pressure on third eye while communication occured. Very encouraging, very loving. Could see an image of an androgynous figure disrobing who kissed me (!) and said she’d be waiting for me (!!) after I learned how to love myself fully. She told me to take time to think of my good qualities and to love myself, and to see how some of my fears have driven the cultivation of some of my virtues. I should sort out the ones that don’t help and work on eliminating those. She also said to keep talking with “us”.

Results: Unsure honestly. I did feel a lot more comfortable in my skin afterward but there was nothing that really jumped out at me after the working. I have been working on being less hard on myself and to catch myself when I disparage my abilities or myself when I make an error with some success.

-----------------------

Sun working: Aug 15th, 2010, Day and hour of Sun

Goal: Gain courage and authority over my mind and my fears.

(By this point when I do the permuations of IAO I get a distinct sensation of the space around me shifting like tumblers in a lock. Most cool.)

Communication: Very short phrases. I’m slowly gaining boldness. Don’t be afraid. We will assist. Pray. Love, for we love you. Keep working with the spirits. No offering is necessary.

Results: Boldness has definitely increased. I will talk about it more later in the post.

-----------------------

Mars working: Aug 17th 2010, Day and hour of Mars

Goal: Ask for further courage and steadfastness in my battle with my fears

Communication:
Was told the following:
That I was weak in the area of Mars
That I must do things that scare me and do them.
Mars’ bravery will mingle with mine when I show bravery.
Fight with both force and strategem.

He also told me a personal item that I cannot divulge

Effect:
The next day I got pulled into a meeting with my bosses to get reprimanded for some recent issues. Normally this would have made me completely break down but I handled it with complete aplomb and dictated to them the changes I would make before they could impose their will on mine. They agreed with the changes and I got back to work. This is huge for me. But wait, even more to come!

------------------------------

Jupiter Working: Aug 19th, 2010, Day and hour of Jupiter

Goal: To grow in wisdom and become larger than my fears

Communication:
Very happy voice, very brief encounter. Said he would assist in growth then asked to leave.

Result:
An ongoing RL situation occurred this day and for the next few foreseeable weeks that is forcing me to apply everything that I’ve learned above in a rapid manner. I can’t go into details other than that I’m playing a mediator role between several angry parties in my religious organization and handling it much better than I thought I would. I’m really surprising myself. Even though things are admittedly falling apart I feel my role is to guide the group to a smooth landing rather than the crash landing that was sure to occur. It almost feels like I needed to do this work at this time in order to be of service. The coincidence is very striking.

-------------------
Saturn Working: Aug 21st, 2010, Day and hour of Saturn

Goal: To ask Saturn and his spirits to show me the proper boundaries for my fears and to bind the unreasonable fears.

Communication:
The voice was faint and old. Said that he had heard of my requests from the others. I assume he means the other planets. He said that while my fears have protected me my call for growth and readjustment has been heard. It is ‘seemly’. Gave me a prediction about a meeting that I was to have that weekend that would show me how much I have grown through this. Absolutely true prediction.

I was told to continue to do magic and perform the great work. I will be aided. He also told me to speak with the Archangel of Saturn for initiation.

Finally, he said “We love you. Don’t stop.”

----------------

Final analysis:

Complete success and still growing!

For being my first long-term working with these spirits I’m very impressed at how communicative they were. Your tech is proving remarkably helpful. Now that I’ve asked all the planets for assistance in something I’m going to investigate using the planetary seals you provided for a goal a little more down to earth.

When I worked with the archangels in the past it felt like they were working on a much more rarefied level of myself. In this working I had both my personal sphere worked on and had life place things in my path that made me use those changes right away. I have a pretty good feeling that this was because of the involvement of the Spirit of each planet.

I’m also intrigued at how eager they all seemed to want to help me and how encouraging they were. I wasn’t expecting that. The messages of love and acceptance from them also was a surprise.

While I have worked on some of the items I was asked to work on by the spirits it’s time to really dig in and see where this goes. Time to really study that Chod CD! Thanks for all the knowledge you’ve given me and I look forward to further magical adventures.

Strategic Sorcery and Student Loans

2010-08-25T16:18:00.000-07:00

Here is another testimonial from a student on the course.

Good work people!

Having read your blog post about the pub tonight, I thought I might share too...

I recently consecrated a wand using the methods in your course, and partly to work with it and partly because I needed it, I decided to use the wand to help me get a student line of credit for my upcoming
year of law school. I meditated on the goal and sought out a sigil, which I received. I used the wand to trace out the sigil of Jupiter you sent out, pore-breathed the energy, then sent that energy through
the wand into a nice purple copy of the sigil I received in meditation. I also charged a document I knew the loan officer would touch.

I then went to the bank (did this on a Thursday for more Jupiter power). I got the nicest bank employee I've ever met, and she was able to get me the loan, no problem, way faster than I expected.

As a bonus, my partner also received an unsolicited $1000 scholarship for her degree work, as well as a large low-interest loan.

Great stuff Jason -- thanks

- A

No, great stuff to you A! You took the tech, came up with the strategy, and then did the work.

ADVANCED ENERGY WORK

2010-08-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

SEPT 14th 2010

MYSTICAL TYMES
127 South Main Street New Hope, Pa. 18938 215-862-5629

7pm-9pm

ADVANCED ENERGY WORK

In this series of workshops, Jason Miller for the first time is teaching his own personal system of advanced energy work. Drawing upon his experiences with Tantra, Yoga, Taoism, western magic, and teachings from the Dakinis, along with a healthy dose of his own experiments and innovations, this system of energy and astral work is one that will compliment almost any magical practice, or can be used solely on its own.

Because these instructions require a live mind/body transmission, this is something that you will not find in any book. It can only be taught in person.

If you have been hungering for something that gets beyond vague instructions for moving energy that you find in most magic books. If you are looking for something with more punch then watered down reiki. If you are looking for something more direct than westernized descriptions of the chakras, than this may be what you have been looking for.

Strategic Sorcery and an Irish Pub

2010-08-24T20:19:00.000-07:00

Although the first cycle of the course is still only on lesson 35, a number of people have already achieved the goals that I asked them to set out at the beginning of the course.

Below is a field report from a student:

When I started the class we were given an assignment of writing down a goal we want to
accomplish - I wrote Own and Open an Irish Pub, well... I now own the Limerick Pub and it's set
to open December 2010.

I chuckle at that date because in Feb during the big snows I trudged out into thigh high snow
with a bottle of Guinness. I called to the quarters and spirits who were present. Then I asked
that the Gods I traditionally work with join in. I opened the bottle and did a magic working using
the Guinness as a gift. With the Guinness I drew the sigil you drew in my book. For every line
I poured I said aloud my goal – and toned it. I said “this year I and the business partners will
open the Limerick Pub” - I wasn't more specific so ... the Gods did this year - ok the end of this
year but....this year none the less. It has taught me to be more specific in my requests. Every
morning while beginning my day I would do specific breathing exercises. With a few exhaled
breaths I would say “The Limerick Pub” and think very positive thoughts about the pub. This
kept me focused. At certain times in the months past I lit a candle, with the same tone I used
when I did the snow sigil and re enforced the goal, letting the flame and smoke carry it upwards.
Using tone, breath, fire and candle I kept the goal alive and in the Universe’s consciousness. At
different times I would go to the garden with a bottle of Jamison’s and offer a tot of whiskey
to the land spirits and fair folk to aid in the process. Speaking aloud & hearing my own voice, I
knew others heard it as well. (Being mindful that all who heard weren’t necessarily there to aid
– I took that into account) All the while I kept believing in the workings, believing in the project
and believing in my own power to make this come about.

Because of these workings and beliefs, things have fallen into to place when they needed to be,
people were where they needed to be to help us and things fell out of place or simply did not
happen when it wasn't right. As annoying as this last part was – I can look back and see it was
for the best.

As an example of this, the first location picked out was "perfect" and we were gung-ho for
it - the landlord, we have since learned, is a real son-of-a-gun and that it was good that we
didn't rent from him. We found an even better location with a landlord (Allan) who wants us
to open so he can walk over from his office to the pub for lunch and have a good burger.
The rent is less than we could have imagined. When financing was needed the bank and state
money fell into place when we began talks with Allen on the new location. The gentleman from
the State even commented that working with Allen is a good indicator of success and he is a
good man to rent from. Fair and understanding.

I wanted to let you know that the magic works if you put real intent into it (offerings and working
it daily).

None of us just sat with our hands in our pockets waiting for it to happen. We went out and
made it happen. Believing all the while it would happen. It has happened. Thank you.

Blessings
M

I was inspired to do the snow ritual after reading about your snow ritual. I’m glad I did it
because not only could I see it until the mounds of snow melted, but others could see it as
well. It really helped with the focus and determination in realigning my magical thinking.

Naga Vase Curse

2010-08-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

Chatting today with a friend about the Naga Vase video. He suggested that it could be adapted from a wealth vase to a curse vase.

I thought about it and you wouldnt even need to adapt it. Just give it and don't tell the recipient how to care for it.

Fine Tuning the Planetary Energies through the Elements

2010-08-23T14:36:00.000-07:00

I went to the beach with fellow Sorcerer, Ngakpa, and Artist Matt Brownlee to do some meditation and body surfing, so I dont have time for a lengthy post today.

I did however want to share a quick piece of tech that I have been using for years, but which seems to be a new approach to some. Filtering the planetary energies through a specific element.

This came up on the inominandum.com forums because someone had pointed out that Venus might not be the best planet to use for lust, and mercury might have some trickster elements that take hold if you do not define your strategy well enough.

While I agree with Jow that Mars is an excellent planet for men to use for lust - especially when doing inner enchantment on the self - I have used Venus for lust many times, and usually look to the "Fire of Venus".

Common Hermetic Cosmology has the elements as being in the terrestrial realm, lower than the planets which are beyond them.

The way I deal with the elements is a bit different. I see the elements as the higher, more pervasive, and more subtle breakdown than the planets and see all things at every level but the Causal and Perfection level as consisting of the elements. Either view works though, whether you run the planetary energies through the terrestial filter of the elements or see the planetary forces as having elemental qualities that can be broken down inherently, using the elements is a great way to fine tune the planetary energies.

In the case of needing Venus for Lust, I would invoke the Fire of Venus. On the material level you can do this by building a temple and evocation that aknowleges this for instance, calling upon the Intelligence of Venus to bestow the blessing of Venus as it manifests through the element of Fire. On the energetic level - which is how I mainly work this kind of thing, you would pore breathe fire and attune yourself to that element and than pull in the Chi fromVenus through the gates of the body focusing using the pore breated fire to isolate the fire element within Venus that would be useful for lust. From there, there are a hundred different ways that you could use it.

Any combination has its uses:
Air of Venus can be used as a way to enchant on the intellectual level
Water of Venus could be used as a way to appeal to the emotions and wisdom level
Earth of Venus is a way to ground down flightly feelings and get to the bottom of a relationship dynamic.

What element/planet combos would be useful to you right now?

Lovecraft's Shambling Undead Form is 120 today!

2010-08-20T06:40:00.001-07:00

Naga Vase Do's and Don'ts

2010-08-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

I work extensively with Nagas in my own practice but rarely offer their services to clients. If you want to know why, here is a great video from Tsem Rinpoche about working with the Nagas.

Basically, they can be persnickety bastards and if it is one thing that clients love it is not following instructions.

Kiyosaki

2010-08-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

Monday I noted that in the same week that a couple people had criticisms of Tim Ferris, another acquaintance had some criticisms of another financial author whose books I recommend: Robert Kiyosaki.

Kiyosaki is the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad as well as many other books. I have only read RDPD and Cashflow Quadrant. Where Tim Ferris provides a lot of detailed information on specific steps, Kiyosaki is useful for developing a healthy philosophy about wealth. He is a big picture guy.

The whole gist of his message is this: Rich people do not primarily earn money from paychecks. They earn it from income generating Assets. These might be businesses that you own but do not work at, intellectual property that generates residuals, properties that you own and rent out, investments that generate dividends etc. The secondary message is that you need to be financially literate. You do not need to be an accountant, but if you do not know how to read a balance steet, income statement, or investment prospectus than you lack the tools to live in the real world.

The reason that I like Kiyosaki is that he made me realize that his strategy was exactly my Grandfathers strategy for building wealth. My father on the other hand did not follow this strategy and treated money how most people do. Today my Grandmother lives in her home off the interest from her assets. My father is over 60 and is never going to be able to retire on anything other than Social Security (which he is wise enough to realize might go further if he moves to Panama - so even my Dad gets the concept of geo-arbitrage).

Kiyosaki's books really helped me think about money is a positive way and whereas Tim provided the short term goals, Kiyosaki got me thinking in terms of the overall plan.

That said, even I have some reservations about some of his points. The difference between me and a lot of his detractors is that I do not expect to love something completely or hate something completely. If I say I like someone or something that does not mean I absolutely endorse everything about him. If I say I dislike something that doesnt mean I hate everything about it. This should be obvious, but it isn't - especially in the magic/pagan community. If I say something nice about Crowley's incorporation of Yoga, they assume that I am a die hard Thelemite. If I say that I do not think of Crowley as a prophet they assume that I hate the man and everything he did. Its called Nuance people, go out and get yourselves some.

Anyway, Kiyosaki does make some points that don't sit well with people. Among them:

Your House is not an Asset. This sets a lot of people off because they consider their house their main, and sometimes only, asset. Technically it is an asset. Kiyosaki however defines an asset as something that has a positive cashflow - in this case your house is a liability. Its a liability because you are dumping money into it for upkeep, because you are paying more in interest over 30 years than you are for the house itself, and because even if you pay it off, you still pay hefty taxes on it. Think you own the house when you pay it off? Try not paying the property tax. Someone will sweep in and wind up owning your house for a fraction of what its worth just because they could afford to buy the tax lien.

The problem is that a lot of people seem to say he is telling people not to buy a home! This is not true at all. He is telling people not to rest on your laurels and think that your house is the key to building wealth or that it qualifies as an income generating asset.
He is not a big fan of savings accounts. He points out that if you just have savings sitting in an account or a CD that you are actually loosing money because of inflation. Whatever interest rate you are getting is not going to keep up with the cost of living.

Again, people mistake this message as him telling people not to save. Not true. He specifically says that you should have 6 months to a year worth of living expenses in a savings account for emergencies. What he says is that beyond that you will get a better yield by investing in assets: businesses, real estate, or the market would be prime examples. All reports and statistics I have looked at back this up.
He makes it seem like you are a sap if you have a regular job. Basically he points out that rich people do not work unless they want to. Here I actually tend to agree with the criticism. While he pays lipservice to the idea that there is nothing wrong with being an employee or being self-employed, the books do read that way, and it is a shame.

While I disagree with his attitude, and honestly I still think about going for a good safe state job every now an then, he does make some points that are hard to ignore:

1. Being employed seems like security, but it is not as secure as people pretend. If you work for someone else, you can be let go and have NO control. If you work for yourself you still may fail, but you have a lot more control over it.
2. Employees who rely upon paychecks often do not even consider other ways that money can come in. In todays economy there are very few defined benefit retirement plans out there, and even the defined contribution plans are getting worse all the time. If you have assets to retire on, than you may find yourself looking for a job at 80 years of age.
He is more or less against diversified investments: Again, I am on the fence about this. There are a lot of people who invest with the sole intent not to lose money. This strategy is not the same strategy that you use if you are looking to make money.

The problem here is that it is a lot easier to make riskier investments if you have money that you can afford to lose. If you are just starting out, this is IMO not the time to risk a lot of money. He is correct in saying that risk is necessary for reward, but doesnt do a great job at pointing out things that are just too risky.
He seems very anti-tax. This is where I join the critics fully. I think is attutude towards taxes is repugnant. He gives a lot of good advice on how to avoid taxes through incorporation, purchasing real estate that gives tax breaks, etc. That is all fine, but it comes with an anti-tax message this is just foul

All that said, I have gotten a lot out of his books and make them work for me in tangible ways.

Tim Ferris and the Four Hour Work Week

2010-08-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

By pure coincidence this week I bumped into criticisms of two authors that have really helped me out in my life: Tim Ferris and Robert Kiyosaki. More importantly, these are two people that I list as recomended reading to Strategic Sorcery students as purveyors of ideas that are easily combined with magical methods. In this post I will talk about Tim Ferris. I'll talk about Kiyosaki in a later post.

For those that do not know, Tim is the author of The Four Hour Work Week and the blog of the same name. Though I had read books on productivity and business before, they mostly all dealt in generalities and vague notions. Lots of "You CAN DO IT!" and not a lot of "Here is exactly how". 4HWW was different. Tim is very specific about how to accomplish anything that he puts out there. As I see it there are three aspects of the book: Business, Time Management, and what we will here call Cheats.

It is the business end where I think that the book really stands out. Instead of just assuming that you had a product in mind, Tim went through steps about how to come up with products, why you might not want to deal with a product that did have in mind, and how to run a business without a product of your own. By the end of the first "Income Autopilot" chapter I had a list on a napkin of 9 different business projects. Among them was the Strategic Sorcery Course. In addition to that, I have used information from the book to get one friend set up with Guthy Renker to market a product she invented, and helped another friend start a website drop shipping a product that he discovered while traveling.

In addition to this, the book has a lot about time management. Maybe I was not well read enough before, but I had never heard of the Pareto principal before reading 4HWW. It has changed my life. Without that principal, and many other time saving tidbits that Tim throws out there (and a healthy dose of David Allen as well), I would not be able to raise twins, run a course, write books, and serve clients. It just would be impossible.

The last aspect of the book, what I call the cheats, are basically strategies that exploit the rules of a given situation and turn them to your advantage. Want to have a little cred behind your name before you sell that DVD on Yoga for Geeks? Tim has a Four step plan to establish yourself as a credible expert. Want to work from home? Tim has a system for getting your office to let you do that (which I have seen work BTW). Want a little help managing your life and business? Tim has advice on using 3rd world personal assistants. Want to boil an egg without having to work at peeling the shell? Tim has advice for that too.

I have used parts of the book myself, and I have helped other people apply parts of his advice in the course of my work.

So, now let me address the criticism from the blogs. Specifically Gordon, Deb, and an older post by Penelope Trunk that I just read this week.

Gordon, has mixed feelings because he feels his advice only works well for a very specific demographic. He feels that: "There is a definite class barrier to his suggestions which doesn’t sit well with whatever is left of the socialist student in me". I have to say that I just can't see it. Is Tim from a privileged upbringing? Yes, probably, but most of the advice in the book is totally applicable to most people. Do you need to have a certain amount of success before you can afford to outsource? Yes. So that is something that you may not get to use. I haven't used that portion myself. You do not however have to be privileged to find yourself working in an office where you can leverage yourself into working from home. You do not have to be privileged to come up with a product, market it, and sell it.

In fact using todays technology, and a lot of the tech that Tim throws out, you need less money than ever to start a company and start doing business. I forget where I got the statistic from, but something like 60% of the billionaires in America have only a High School Diploma.

I can see how the socialist thinker might get upset if the idea of geo-arbitrage doesn't sit well with you because you feel that you are exploiting people in poorer countries, To that I would just say that business needs to be done using facts on the ground as they are. Also, people in Bangalore do quite well in these call center jobs. Having once lived in Nepal and paid $60 a month in rent I can tell you that a little money goes a long way, so what may seem like exploitation here in America, amounts to a pretty good living elsewhere.

Deb has no mixed feelings about Tim. She hates him. She has not been able to apply any of his teaching because she feels, like Gordon, that the book is disconnected from most people and that Tim "has *no* clue what it means to be really honestly middle class though the re-write claims to". Before I deal with her specific objections, I want to point out that I don't care whether Tim Ferris knows what it is like to be middle class as long as his tech is applicable. He also doesnt claim to know the middle class in the re-write. In fact rather than pretend he has that insight, most of that material in the re-write is stories from other people who have had success with his advice.

The aspects of the teaching that Deb had specific problems with are that she could not afford to outsource small projects. Neither can I, unless you count the graduating college student that built my website as a way to finish his required work for school and now uses it in his portfolio while looking for work. Still though, the outsourcing bit gets a lot of attention, but it is a small portion of the book. I do not expect to be able to practice every last bit of advice in a book myself, but does that mean it shouldnt be there for those than can? Including myself when I CAN afford it?

She also mentions that in her work she is paid by the piece and doesn't see how she would be able to work less. When I read the book I had a job involving installation of high end window treatments at the beach, I also could not get to work from home. I used to have an office job though, and you do not need to be privileged to get one. I worked for AIG and for Net2Phone and if I stayed in that life I could have used that info. Should that advice not be in the book because not everyone can use it?

In a way Deb is missing the whole point of the book. Even the bit about working from home for an office is actually just a tool for eventually moving yourself from being an Employee to Self-Employed to Business Owner. The difference between being self-employed and being a business owner is all about whether you actually work at the business you own. I am friends with a Fire Chief in north Jersey who owns a chain of Bagel shops. He cannot work from home as a fire chief, but he used the principals in 4HWW to open a chain of Bagel stores that will provide for him when he retires in a way that his pension alone never would. How long does he spend working for the Bagel chain? Actually, about four hours a week.

The last blogger is Penelope. I am not going to spend a lot of time on this one because honestly, while Gordon and Deb have specific criticisms of his work, Penelope seems to pretty much be trying to parlay her personal dislike for him into that kind of criticism. Do I believe that he had employees pose as reviewers and posters? Yes, seems like something he would do. Do I believe that he hornswaggled her into a one on one sit down? Yep, if that is what he thought his business required. Personally I couldn't give a shit whether I like him or not. Its the advice I care about and that has worked wonders for me.

Does it work? That should not be the main question.

2010-08-13T12:15:00.001-07:00

My entire career in magic people have been telling me "Did it work or not? That is the main question."

When I questioned the efficacy of OTO initiations, people told me: "well they work. Something definitely happens".

When I question whether Scroodge McDuck is as effective a wealth god as Dzambhala, people told me: "but the ritual worked!"

When I question whether it is important to be so traditional that there is no room for creativity or improvisation people tell me: "but it worked"

That used to be the question for me, but I got over it.

See, the way that magic is, just about anything will "work". You can stick your thumb up your ass and dance on one foot while chanting for a result in pig latin and it will work. And yes, I know this from experience.

I assume that when just about anyone does magic, some magic happens. My questions are:

1. Did it meet the stated Goals?
2. How well?
3. How fast?
4. How applicable is it in most situations?
5. Can I do it anywhere?
6. Can I do it anytime?
7. Is it repeatable?
8. How strong was the result?
9. Were there any side effects?
10. Does this work for everyone or just me?
11. Do you need any particular gifts to work this?

Etc, etc.

So when people leave Chaos magic, its not because they think that Chos Magic doesnt work. Its a matter of how well it works vs other things. When people leave the OTO, its not that there is nothing happening at the initiations, its that they are not producing the results in people that is worth continuing on for, When people loosen up about tradition, its that they realize that they arent getting measurably better results using thread spun by a virgin than they were when they were using embroidery thread.

As practical magicians we need to ask ourselves tougher questions than we usually do.

Isaac Bonewits has passed

2010-08-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

Isaac Bonewits passed away this morning. He stirred the pot quite a bit while he was here, and whether you agreed with him on things or not, he got people talking, and more importantly thinking about important things. I first heard about him when I was a kid and was absolutely fascinated by a man that got an accredited Bachelors in Magic. People like him inspired me to do what I do now.

I was lucky to have met him several times, and now as an occult teacher and author myself, honored to speak on a few panels along side him.

May peace be with him, and may his family be comforted during their time of mourning by the immense impact he had on our community and the art.

PS: I had to post this photo, because it is IMO one of the coolest photos ever taken of any occultist.

Expectation and Observation

2010-08-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a conversation with a guy who mainly comes from a background of energy and astral work. I There is much room in the system that he uses for higher mystical states, transpersonal experiences, non-dual experiences and such. His opinion was that people who have such experiences are actually just mistaking an energetic and spirit process for something more. I had pointed out that if you only look for what you know or accept, than you will only find what you know and accept. The exact quote, if I remember it correctly was:

"We have looked at people on the astral who are claiming to have these intense spiritual or mystical experiences and all that is happening is that their angel is empowering them and they are moving their energy around."

I am sure that what they are seeing IS happening. What they are watching though is a reaction to the experience, not the cause of the experience. During an intense mystical experience the subtle body and associated spiritual powers on the physical, etheric, astral, soul, and mental levels all have a reaction.

Materialists who study these phenomena will notice an increase in Alpha and Theta waves in the brain during these experiences. They will also notice blood flowing away from the parietal lobe, which determines personal boundaries, and into the frontal lobe which controls analysis. Materialists will point to these changes and say:

"Aha! See, there is nothing spiritual going on here. This is just chemistry!".

Again, these are reactions to an experience, not the experience itself, but because the materialist wants a material explanation for everything, they are cling to this as the explanation.

The problem is that when you look at porn your brain also makes changes in waves and blood flow. That doesn't mean that the porn isn't really there on your screen. It just means that your brain is reacting to seeing the porn. You filthy deviants...

It is the same case for the energy/astral worker. He is trained to work in a certain strata and when he sees something happen on that level, he can be quick to dismiss any dimension of that experience that does not fit his view.

So, the lesson I want to get accross here is to always be open to the idea that you are not seeing everything. If you think you have the whole thing mapped out, you are probably wrong. Try to keep in mind that there is not only more than you know, but more than you can know.

Also, try to remember to delete your internet history every now and then...

Customization and Creativity

2010-08-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

In my Post "Opere Ex Operato Baby" I made the point that if you over-customize your path to your current personality, productivities, and beliefs you run the risk simply having that path reinforce the status quo, rather than actually using it as a tool for growth. Applying this idea to the field of practical magic, I also pointed out that the relatively modern fixation on belief and intent as the key to magic is bogus. Basically, I find a lot of people are a bit to solipsistic when it comes to magic. There is more involved than just you and your feelings.

Now if I let this post stand alone one might think that I am a hard core traditionalist and believe that everyone must follow instructions to the letter. I do not mean to give the impression that all you need to do are follow pre-set steps all the way to enlightenment. Nor do I mean to say that the individual is un-important in the operation of magic. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, as I recently pointed out in a lesson on working with the Spirits in grimoires, when it comes to the "do it exactly as it says in the book" approach vs the "lets make it better, stronger, faster, we have the technology" approach I lean much further towards the view of the hacker than the traditionalist. In the end I am much more interested in being, and teaching people to become, someone who can author and effective grimoire not just follow instructions in one.

When I would run into people in the Vajrayana who would argue about how one teachers approach was universally better than another, I would love to point out that the only thing that the 84 Mahasiddhas have in common is that none of them attained enlightenment in the same way. They were extremely dynamic and Tantra manifested differently in all their lives. Some became wandering Yogi's, some remained Kings, some worked simple jobs in silence. Some attained through sex, some through mantra, some through contemplation.

In almost all cases in all traditions throughout the world advanced practitioners seem not content to simply follow a path and leave it unchanged, but feel compelled to contribute something new. New versions of old rituals and prayers or entirely new practices that originate from them, it is clear that Creativity is part of the great work. My own course and teachings are an attempt at this.

Once you learn principals of magic, the specific methods can be customized and changed. Just realize that when you are changing it, you are making something new. If you do a prayer to Sophia over your Miraculous Medal, you are no longer doing the Miraculous Medal ritual. If you use your Phurba as an Athame, you are not in any way being a Phurba practitioner. What you do may be awesome, but if you go far enough off the map, it is no longer tapping into the same source as the original.

So, if I accept that creativity and customization are part of the work, why all the bitching about letting a path inform your personality rather than the other way around?

Because in all arts, not just magic, the people who successfully break the mold and create new things, know what it is that they are breaking and bending. The beats broke all the rules of literature and produced masterpieces (well, some of them did). The wanna-be beats that followed didn't even know the rules well enough to break them and ended up producing shit.

So is it necessary to be advanced for creativity and customization to play a role in spirituality and magic? No. Some people will feel those urges right at the start. It is however necessary to learn what it is you are changing and to be honest in your assessment of your changes. Some people claim that any ritual that you write will be better than something someone else wrote. Same with tools: anything that you make will be better than anything that you buy. With all due respect, I have found this to be completely false. The power of DIY is another over-rated factor. It is quite possible to produce something slower, lamer, and weaker than what came before. It is possible to create a tool so ugly that it inspires nothing but shame. Honest assessment is the key.

This skill of honest assessment is needed right from the beginning. After all, before you can let a path challenge you, you need to pick a path to start on. If you choose one that fits your personality, has a strong internal resonance, and offers up a challenging ideal to rise to than its great. When you come accross those aspects that you have trouble with it will be worth the time to try and understand and grow through it. If after an honest assessment you think the tradition needs changing you can do that from a place of knowlege and power. You will be doing the current a service by assisting in its evolution. Any path that is not evolving is dead.

If you chose a path because it is comfortable and requires nothing of you because the essence of it is "do whatever you feel" right at the start, than you are not going to get much from it.

Example of Opere Ex Operato

2010-08-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

In my Post "Opere Ex Operato Baby" I tried to point out two principals that I think are essential to magic and spirituality, but which seem to run against the common wisdom of the times. Those points are:

1. People need to stop fixating on customizing a path that fits their personality, beliefs, and proclivities. If you tailor your path to who you already are, it is not going to be a useful tool for transforming you into what you can become.

2. The idea that belief is the key to magic is bogus. There is a lot of magic, most in fact, that will work just fine if you simply follow the instructions. Your belief will be generated by results rather than the other way around.

I will give one example of how these two things work together. I was talking with someone about the pendant I was wearing, known as "The Miraculous Medal". I first learned about it from a group of what must be described as a coven of Catholic Witches at a shop in Pt Pleasant. They regaled me with stories of how The Lady of the Miraculous Medal did amazing things for them and their family. The very next day I was visiting my Grandmother, and noticed that she had one that used to belong to my Grandfather. I told her how just the previous day I had learned about it, so she gave it to me.

This particular medal has a specific history and use. On Nov 27, 1830 a French nun named Catherine Labouré reported seeing the an apparition of the Virgin Mary displayed inside an oval frame, standing upon a globe, wearing many rings of different colors, most of which shone rays of light over the globe. Around the margin of the frame appeared the words Ô Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous (in English, O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee). As Catherine watched, the frame seemed to rotate, showing a circle of twelve stars, a large letter M surmounted by a cross, and the stylized Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns and Immaculate Heart of Mary pierced with a sword. Asked why some of her rings did not shed light, Mary reportedly replied, "Those are the graces for which people forget to ask." Catherine then heard Mary ask her to take these images to her father confessor, telling him that they should be put on medallions, and that all who wear them and speak the prayer as they put it on shall receive great graces.

There are a number of Novenas surrounding the Miraculous Medal as well as shrines dedicated to her. The person who noticed that I was wearing the medal asked if I thought it would be good for her to use for a particular thing. I said of course, and even pointed out a Novena online aimed at exactly what she wanted.

A few months later I was talking to this person and she told me that the Medal did not do squat for her situation. This honestly was the first I had ever heard such a report. I asked if she said the prayer when she put it on, and if she did the Novena I pointed out. She answered that she doesn't believe in the Virgin Mary like that so she had to change it to Sophia which was an concept that she could deal with. She re-stated the prayer and Novena to refer to Sophia and also to acknowledge other gods that she works with from several different pantheons.

Now, was she doing magic? Yes.

Was she using the Miraculous Medal? NO.

I mean, how hard is it? Enity appears to a mystic and says:" Tell people to do this and say this and I will work for them." But because we in our modern world have allowed the "it's all in your head" and "everything must be customized to fit ME" zeitgeist to run away with the whole of magic, we cannot stop ourselves from tinkering with even the smallest thing.

This person was faced with three good choices:

1. Find a ritual that they jived with better. There are oodles of techniques from all over the world. Find one that you jive with.

2. Suck it up and just do it as described. Mary is there whether you believe in her or not. She loves you whether you believe in her or not. By doing the ritual you are opening yourself - that is all that is required.

3. Write your own thing. Nothing wrong with that, lord knows I do a lot of work that is my own. The thing is I realize that if I re-write the LBRP to use Septagrams and invoke Sumerian Gods, it is no longer the LBRP. It is my own thing.

But no, because according to this person "belief and intent are the most important things anyway, it shouldn't matter". In her mind she was doing the same ritual and so should have expected the same result. The problem is that when you change the ritual keys to that degree, you may be doing magic, but you are not doing THAT magic.

I want to close this post with a personal than you to the Lady of the Miraculous Medal. The reason that this story even came to mind that she has been helping me out recently and turning up results that are , well, miraculous.

Next Post I will be exploring the flip side of this argument: the place of personalization, antinomianism, and customization in magic and spirituality.

Esoteric Conference at the Rosicrucian Library

2010-08-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

I wish I could go to this.

http://www.metroactive.com/features/columns/silicon-alleys_20100714.html

Rosicrucian Conference
The Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose delves into ancient mysteries in July 22-25 conference on esoteric influences

IF ANY one slogan describes the Rosicrucian Research Library, it would be "Hidden in plain sight." The library occupies an 80-year-old building at the back of Rosicrucian Park and provides the most comprehensive collection of esoteric readings anywhere in San Jose.

IF ANY one slogan describes the Rosicrucian Research Library, it would be "Hidden in plain sight." The library occupies an 80-year-old building at the back of Rosicrucian Park and provides the most comprehensive collection of esoteric readings anywhere in San Jose.

Anyone from the public is allowed to hang out—it isn't restricted to Rosicrucians—but everything in Rosicrucian Park seems to exist behind some veneer of mystery. It's just how they operate.

These days, once inside the library, visitors are greeted with a display showcasing several copies of a 2009 Wired issue dedicated to esoteric mysteries, the CIA and the Rosicrucians. Also inside the room are portraits of Julie Scott, the current grand master of the English Grand Lodge for the Americas, Christian Bernard, the current Rosicrucian imperator in France, as well as busts of former imperator Ralph Davis and the Greek philosopher Epicurus.

And, of course, there are thousands of books on every occult and esoteric subject imaginable, in every format: ancient treatises, large-bound volumes, magazine articles, collectible Time-Life series, Rosicrucian material in probably 10 different languages, antiquarian volumes behind a glass case, folios and several shelves of new, yet-to-be-cataloged books.

Apparently, since people are donating books at such a frisky pace, the library has outgrown the current building, and the Rosicrucians will eventually move the entire library to the administration building on Naglee.
But there is another reason why I went to the library. There will be a conference, July 22–25, at Rosicrucian Park, five years in the making and commanding a hefty title: "Hidden in Plain Sight: The Influence of Western Esoteric Movements on Modern Thought."

Esoteric voyagers from across the globe submitted academic papers and will be descending upon San Jose to present their research. Everyone paid for their trips out of their own pockets.

"We wanted to reach out to other esoteric groups so that together we could really address the issues existing in the world at this time," said Scott. "For several years, we had a call for papers online. It was totally open. ... There are people from many esoteric groups; there are people not even associated with esoteric groups. It's wide open. There were no restrictions or requirements at all."

The now-sold-out conference features a lineup of highly intriguing individuals. Every man and woman involved will be a star. Here are just a few examples: Dr. Patricia Downes, an organization development specialist with a doctoral degree from George Washington University, will give an interactive presentation titled "The Great Work and the Workplace: Transforming Work and Workplaces Through Stealth Esotericism." Providing guidance for dealing with boring work environments, she will lead an experiment on a "mystical perspective of work which examines work from the inside out, allowing us to open the door to deeper learning, wisdom and the workplace."
Romanian-born Mioara Merié, Ph.D., wrote a paper titled "Christian Esotericism and the Inner Eye: Automatic Drawing, Sciences of the Mind and Religious Innovations in Mid-Nineteenth Century Britain." Her presentation will explore, among other things, the afterlife investigations of Victorian-era Christian spiritualists.

Retired Army Counterintelligence Special Agent, Herm Cardona, MSSI, 32°, will talk about Freemasonry and the Enlightenment; professor Bruce Krajewski, Ph.D., will analyze the unpublished papers of a bizarre castle builder in New Jersey; and Geoffrey Redmond will discuss the I-Ching's influence on Western esotericism. According to Scott, the presentations will be taped and made available on YouTube.

Back at the Rosicrucian Research Library, the shelves are overflowing due to lack of space. Even though the librarian isn't allowed to give me the secret WiFi password, I am at peace nevertheless.

Hekate in the PGM?

2010-08-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

I am going over my outline and was looking for a reference to Hekate in the PGM ( Papyri Gaecae Magicae) that I seem to have lost.

I did a quick Google search and came up with a different kind of Hekate related to a different kind of PGM

The Hecate II is the standard heavy sniper rifle of the French Army, sometimes known as the FR-12,7 (French: Fusil à Répétition de calibre 12,7 mm or "12.7 mm caliber bolt-action rifle").
It is manufactured by PGM Précision of France. This is the largest weapon manufactured by PGM, chambered for the .50 BMG (12.7x99mm NATO) cartridge.
Its design is the same metallic-skeleton as used in other similar rifles in the PGM family, only scaled up. It is equipped with both an adjustable front bipod and a rear monopod for maximum accuracy. The barrel is deeply fluted in order to disperse heat and reduce weight, and is fitted with a high-efficiency muzzle brake which reduces the felt recoil to about the level expected of a 7.62x51mm NATO-chambered rifle. The stock is also adjustable.
It is used as an anti-materiel rifle for demolition shooting at long ranges, harassing fire, counter-sniping and the destruction of unexploded ordnance from a safe distance, with High Explosive Incendiary/Armour Piercing Ammunition (HEIAP).
Standard issue sight is a SCROME LTE J10 F1 10x telescope.

Huxley vs Orwell

2010-08-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

Reposting this from Accelerating Future

Financial Sorcery Lecture at Pagan Center of NY Sept 18th

2010-08-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

FINANCIAL SORCERY
September 18, 2010 1pm-4pm

Pagan Center of NY
2486-Webster Avenue
Bronx, New York 10458 (718) 892-5350

There are many books on magic and witchcraft that promise material on wealth magick only turn around and say that wealth is measured more in friends and health than in money. Other teachers point out that spiritual people should be beyond money or even that money is the root of all evil. Don't Listen!

Lack of money is the root of far more evil than money itself, and unless you live in a monastery or are a wandering homeless yogi, you end up dealing with finances sooner or later. I agree that no one should be a slave to money, but if you live in the modern world you can’t avoid it, so why not master it instead?

In this class, Jason Miller will share secrets of financial sorcery that actually work. Every witch and magician knows a few good money drawing spells, but few really know how to build wealth using magick while maintaining their spiritual life. Learn how people have successfully used magick to get themselves out of debt, find work, grow wealth, or even escape the need for reporting to a 9 to 5 at all! Never mind the positive-think fairy fluff of The Secret and other wish games, learn how to really take control of your money and make it your slave rather than your master.

Jason Miller (Inominandum) is the author of Protection & Reversal Magick: A Witch's Defense Manual, The Sorcerers Secrets, Strategies in Practical Magick and the Strategic Sorcery One Year Training course. He has devoted the last 20 years to studying magick in its many forms and has traveled to New Orleans to study Hoodoo, Europe to study Witchcraft and Ceremonial Magick, and Nepal to study Tantra.

SPECIAL NOTE: The Pagan Center is above ORIGINALS BOTANICA. This is the largest Botanica on the East Coast, and takes up an entire supermarket sized space. Come hear the lecture AND stock up on supplies.

Keynote speaker at NYC Pagan Pride Day in Battery Park

2010-08-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have been chosen to be the keynote speaker at NYC Pagan Pride Day in Battery Park on Sept 25th.

Topic for the speech is yet to be announced.

Come down to party with the pagans under the shadow of Lady Liberty. Have me sign a book or two while you are at it.

The event is right next to Castle Clinton where you get tickets for the ferry to Ellis Island.

Strategic Sorcery Cycle 3 starts today

2010-08-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

Today is Lammas, the Feast of the First Harvest. I want to thank everyone that has signed up for Cycle 3 of the course, which starts today. May it be a fruitful part of your harvest. The response to the course continues to be overwhelming with no signs of slowing down.

Remember, it is never too late to sign up for the course. You will get all back lessons of the current cycle mailed to you at once.

Thanks again for your support.

Happy Lammas

HEKATE CLASS AND RITUAL

2010-07-30T09:57:00.000-07:00

HEKATE CLASS AND RITUAL

WITH JASON MILLER
Hekate Course
Teacher: Jason Miller
2 Tuesdays
August 3rd & 10th
7pm - 9pm
$60 for both classes
Reserve your seat now (seating is limited)
Must be prepaid by July 28th

The first part of this class is a crash course in Hekate's development, moving from her early illumination oriented role, through her Chthonic Dark Goddess stage, into her role as a Cosmic Goddess in the Chaldean Oracles. Spells from the Papyri Greacae Magicae, Defixiones tablets, and other traditional sources will be presented. Finally Jason will talk about his own work with Hekate and teh arcana of unique teachings that he has received over the last decade. The second half of the class is an empowerment of Hekate - an initiation into a powerful ritual that can be used for either illuminative or practical magic.

Jason Miller (Inominandum) has devoted the last 20 years to studying magick in its many forms. He has traveled to New Orleans to study Hoodoo, Europe to study Witchcraft and Ceremonial Magick, and Nepal to study Tantra. Miller is a member of the Chthonic Ouranian Temple and the Sangreal Sodality, as well as an initiated Tantrika in the Nyingma and Bon lineages of Tibet. He is the author of Protection & Reversal Magick: A Witch's Defense Manual and The Sorcerer's Secrets, Strategies in Practical Magic.

Opere Ex Operato Baby

2010-07-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of you out there who are deeplyy concerned with whether your magic and spirituality is a good fit for you personally. You want a symbol to excite and tickle you just in the right ways before you use it. You want the lessons to conform to your beliefs and expectations. You want spiritual teachings that make sense to your views of the world and you want your magic to be done in ways that you are comfortable with. You want to be told that while there are all these traditions, lineages, practices, materia, rules, and procedures that ultimately what feels right to you, is what is best. Want the path that is just right, for you.

Get over yourself Goldilocks .

Ultimately you need to make choice in how to persue spirituality and magic. You can make your path conform to your beliefs and ideas OR you can let your beliefs and ideas grow through working your path. Option one is a door to comfortable stagnation. Option two is hard because sometimes you will be doing things that you do not immediately click with, things that seem counter-intuitive, and sometimes even things that you do not believe in at all.

Here is the thing though, belief is over rated, that includes belief in the magic that you are doing.

I know, I know. This runs counter to everything that you have been told in the past about how your belief is what makes the magic work. The truth is though that while some magic (the weak watered down stuff :-) may depend upon your person belief in it, most of it does not.

When I write about Hekate I tell people that you no more have to actively believe in her to get her to answer your call than you need to actively believe in your car to get it to start. When a student asked Dr Kioni once whether it was ok to call upon Jesus even though he was'nt Christian, Dr Kioni said, it doesnt matter what you believe, that name has power because it has power and meaning way beyond what you could ever give it.

A few months ago someone in my course mentioned that they felt no "click" or attraction to the planetary sigils, but that they would use them anyway. They came back and admitted that they worked like a charm. This same person did not like my the Song of the Serpent, some of my invocations, and my approach to zone rites. They worked with all of these and have now made them part of their regular practice.

The term Opere Ex Operato is an ecclesiastic term that translates as "it works because of the working". It arose as a church doctrine as a response to competition between priests claiming to give more effective sacraments than other priests because of their proper view and purity. The doctrine basically states that if you have the magic Jesus Juice (is Holy Orders through proper succession), and perform the rituals in the right way, that the Priest is just a medium - his personal purity and views have no effect. Even a person who leaves the church and starts doing their own thing is giving Sacraments that are Valid but Illicit (they work, but are unsactioned by the Holy See). The same is true of good magic - there is more to it than just how you feel about it.

For lent this year my Bishop asked me to do an accumulation of the Prayer of the Heart (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy Upon Me a Sinner) that is linked with the breath. This was a major issue for me because while I do consider myself a Christian (among other things), I was not in the habit of begging for mercy and not all that hung up on the concept of sin. I did it anyway. I did it because a teacher I respected asked me to and because if we only do things that are comfortable we never grow. It turned out to yield amazing and potent fruit which furthered my evolution as a mystic and a magician.

Now, does this mean that every spiritual practice is for everyone? No.

Just as the student I mentioned above put aside his personal inclinations to find that some sigils and rites actually worked whether he liked them or not, another student attempted some rituals earnestly and found that they did not work for her well. This happens. Not everyone is served well by every practice.

My point is simply that your immediate attraction or rejection of an idea should not be the test of whether something works, nor should whether it fits your current world view and idea. In the spiritual world, it is often exactly what turns us off that is exactly what we need. I sometimes wish I could gather up those that love dork paganism (oops... I mean dark paganism) and enroll them into a white light crystal waving school.

Your belief doesnt matter as much as you think it does.
Your intent doesnt matter as much as you think it does.
How you feel doesnt matter as much as you think it does.
Sometimes it works because of the work,

Suck it up. Do the work and find out.

STRATEGIC SORCERY TRAINING COURSE CYCLE 3

2010-07-26T19:52:00.000-07:00

Strategic Sorcery Training:
New Cycle Starting on AUGUST 1st!

THE STRATEGIC SORCERY TRAINING COURSE
A ONE YEAR BOOT CAMP IN PRACTICAL MAGIC

If you are looking for measurable success with through magic, and not just fantasy attainments...

If you want to not only improve your spiritual life, but your financial and love life as well...

If you want real magic that works in the real world, than this may be the training for you.

Before I even wrote my first book, people have been asking me to present a complete and graduated system of magic as I practice it. At the end of last year I did just that and presented the Strategic Sorcery Training Course.

Due to the overwhelming response I am re-starting the class for a new cycle of students. This new cycle will start on August 1st and will consist of 52 lessons, which will arrive via e-mail each week. There will be one homework assignment per month, but no time limit on when those need to be completed – you work at your own pace.

This course jumps off from where my book, "The Sorcerer's Secrets" leaves off, and teaches very detailed steps for attaining just about any goal. Though the first cycle of students are only a little more than halfway through through the course, people are already getting great results.

The following are some comments from students on the material thus far:

"The exercises set are easy to follow yet produce results remarkably quickly. From the beginning initiation ritual I have experienced more results than on any other course... its like I’ve been super-charged. My channeling is coming through thick and fast, my healing abilities have increased and, in life in general, I feel more centered, balanced and content with life."
- Sue

"Through the Strategic Sorcery course, I have learned to change the way I do certain things and feel that now I am finally walking the magickal path that I was meant to be on."
- Rev. Jay K.

"Though we haven't even gotten very far in the course, I have already used material from the course in workings that have increased my income. After 12 years doing other types of magic, Strategic Sorcery has been a revelation! "
-Linda

"The meditations, especially the Pillar and Spheres, has brought me back into being in synch with time. Not rushing ahead or lagging behind, but being right there in the moment. And that is a Really Big Deal to me. I have gained---I kid you not----three to four hours a day. That's exactly what it feels like. I am getting things done like you wouldn't believe. I feel like I'm coming back home to my Self. "
- Susan

The Lesson on Thought Management alone was enough for me to overcome my fear of rejection and ask out the girl I have been obsessing over for months. We have been going out for three weeks now. This course is making a big difference in my life. "
- Thomas

"Honestly, I wish it had been around when I was a baby Mage. Jason's books, lectures, and course have something that a lot of other magical practices lack: Common Sense. If you are working Magic for cash and prizes then it is results that matter here. Results that don't bite you in the ass. Most practitioners get bit not from some Faustian pact, or constant barrages of magical attack, but because they don't know how to follow through. Jason interweaves a good dose of life skills in with his magical practice, and the common sense that you have to WORK for what you want to accomplish! "
- Joseph Scangarella

"I’ve been work the personal alchemy aspect of ceremonial magick for twenty years, Jason’s course has grounded my ethereal dreams into solid practical workings.
You won’t complete Jason’s class wondering if you’ve done real magick. You won’t leave asking, “Did I really feel that?” You will know that you have done something extraordinary . "
-Robert Hager

Ceremonial Magician and Blogger of Doing Magick

The only requirements for the course are that you be over 18 years of age, have access to e-mail, and a copy of “The Sorcerer’s Secrets, Strategies in Practical Magick”. There will be many other books that are recommended throughout the course, but this will be the only one that is required. Those that complete the class and the homework will be eligible for special classes and activities to take place in the future.

The cost for the course is $150 for all 52 Lessons. That is less than 3 dollars a lesson!

When the first cycle of students complete the class, the cost will be going up, so sign up now to get in on this price!

To sign up for the class write me at inominandum@gmail.com and put STRATEGIC SORCERY COURSE as the subject line. You will then be given a student number and further instructions.

Payment can be made through PayPal to inominandum@gmail.com or sent via check or money order to:
Jason Miller
PO BOX 36
Barnegat, NJ 08005

If you have been looking for a way to improve your life both your inner life and outer circumstance, than I hope to hear from you soon.

Oppression of Christians from inside the faith.

2010-07-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

I meant to do my last few postings on Christianity yesterday, but I ended up[ staying at a BBQ yesterday for a lot longer than I thought I would, and than had to do a series of conjurations for a client late into the night. So, just pretend today is Sunday.

Over on Levanah's journal a guy named Harold Roth made a few posts that made a couple good points. You can go read the entire thread here, but I wanted to deal with two of his points in posts of my own.

The first one is one that I more or less agree with him on: the supposed "oppression of Christians" in the occult community.

I for one have never (I think) claimed any kind of Christian Oppression from non-Christians. There is a lot of misunderstanding and stereo-typing, but not any kind of oppression. As Harold states:

Try being kept out a college for being Christian. Try not being allowed to hold public office for being Christian. Try not being allowed to stay in a hotel or motel for not being Christian. Try being kept out of particular neighborhoods for being Christian. Try being turned into soap for being Christian. Try that, and then maybe you will have something to complain about, but until then, please, have one single speck of humility and shut the fuck up about your oppressionl.

He is quite right about that. It is something for other faiths to keep in mind as well. I have known Pagans who have had their houses broken into by "prayer groups" looking for the sacrificed remains of children and animals. I have known Pagans that have lost their jobs because of coming out of the broom closet. This is oppression. Someone I read recently complained that they felt oppressed because when they buy a Yule tree people assume it is a Christmas tree. That is not oppression. That is someone looking for crap to whine about.

Anyway, most of what Christian occultsists complain about as oppression (which to be honest I don't see phrased that way very often) is mis-understanding. They tell people they are Christian and despite the fact that they are occultists themselves, people automatically project the beliefs of a fundamentalist conservative on them. This is mis-understanding, not oppression. The worst part is, like the Christmas vs Yule Tree, it is a reasonable mis-understanding.

The reason that it is a reasonable mis-understanding is that fundamentalists, at least in America, are the loudest and most prolific voice of Christianity. If there is any oppression faced by Christian Mystics, Christian Magicians, Liberal Christians, or Emerging Chruch Christians it is the oppression brought on by these nutty windbags that dominate the airways. It is the oppression of not being able to proudly proclaim that you are a Christian without people thinking that you: are anti-science, anti-gay, anti-abortion, and think everyone on the planet that doesnt think like you is going to hell for eternity. It is this oppression that other Christians, the majority, must fight against, thus the reason that I posted the Father Mattew Video. He is attempting to do just that.

A few people have doubted me when I say that the majority of Christianity is not fundamentalist. Here is a little thought experiment for you: think of the typical evangelical fundie Jesus freak. Think of how separated from most people at work and life that person is. They usually pride themselves on how they are not like the majority of "secular" society. Got that image in your mind? Good.

Now here are the numbers:

76% of Americans identify themselves as Christian. Are 76 Percent of the people you know and bump into every day like that? No? Well there ya go.

Do you run the other way when someone that is "Born Again" is trying to witness to you? So do most Christians.

You will find that while the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches are themselves fairly conservative (though not anti-science like fundie's) their congregations are not that conservative and in general more likely to hold personal views that are different than their church (note the many Liberal Democratic Catholic politicians). Episcopaleans and Quakers are probably the liberal extreme as far as mainstream denominations go, here the congregation is probably a little less liberal than the clergy, but still not anything like a fundamentalist. Methodists and some Lutherans are also fairly liberal, much to the consternation of Fundamentalists within those denominations.

When i was a teenager I started going to Methodist Church, my minister there who gave me a test to see what scripture books different quotes came from. We all thought he meant books of the bible, but at the end of the test he revealed that amongst the Bible quotes were quotes from books of other religions. The idea of the exercise was to show how there are many paths to god. Sound a bit different than what you think of when you hear about Christians evangelizing?

Again, I understand the misunderstanding. It is a reasonable misunderstanding because the Majority has not done enough to be as vocal as the intolerant minority. That is our problem, and thus the need for good evangelists.

200 Followers

2010-07-24T07:26:00.000-07:00

This blog has reached 200 followers!

Thank you all for your support.

I shall keep it rolling through thick and thin.

It would be cooler if this was a cult and you were all brainwashed followers who would act on my every whim... but I will settle for interested readers.

As if by magic, Anamchara posted a quote today that is relevant to our community here:

Listen to the prophets, not to some adolescent boy.
The foundation and the walls of the spiritual life
are made of self-denials and disciplines.

Stay with friends who support you in these.
Talk with them about sacred texts,
and how you’re doing, and how they’re doing,
and keep your practices together.

— Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne,
from The Essential Rumi

Readers, and most especially fellow bloggers, you help from exactly the kind of spiritual community that Rumi is speaking of. I thank you.

Daniel Schorr

2010-07-23T18:59:00.001-07:00

Danielle Schorr, heres hoping I am as sharp and as up to date as you were at 93. If they did not talk about your age 2 years ago on your birthday I would never have guessed. I will miss your commentary.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/23/daniel-schorr-dead-npr-cb_n_657314.html

On Emerging Christianity

2010-07-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

I guess this is just gonna be Christian week here at Strategic Sorcery because I keep coming accross things related to the tempest in a communion cup that I stirred up a couple days ago.

This is for those who think that Christianity must be about knowing that you are right and everyone else is wrong. It is a quote from Franciscan Fr Richard Rohr taken from a conference about the emerging church. Fr Rohr is one of my hero's.

“I hope whatever emerging Christianity is,” said Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr, a featured speaker at the conference, “it’s going to be much more practice-based than doctrine-based. Where has this obsession with believing correct doctrines gotten us? The Roman church is right back into it, although maybe that’s why God is humiliating us, to say: ‘This obsession with being right and having the whole truth, look where it’s gotten you, Roman church,’ ” he said in a not-so-thinly veiled reference to the then-breaking story that the shadow of the clergy sex abuse scandal had darkened the door of the papal palace. “It might well be in the great scheme of God’s grace the only way to bring us to humility, to balancing all of our absolutely certain knowing with a necessary unknowing.”

You can read the whole article here.

Thanks to Carl McColeman for pointing this article out on The Website of Unknowing.

Incidentally, if you were wondering is the Jason that asked the question he posted about yesterday yesterday was me, yes it was.

Mary Mary

2010-07-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

Since Christianity seems to be the theme of the week, I thought I might post a reminder that today is the feast of Mary Magdalene.

I am unconvinced that she was the wife of Christ and not convinced at all of her bearing the Christs or other Dan Brown type nonsense.

I am however convinced that she was probably the closest of the disciples, and know for a fact that she is herself a powerful force for both raising the mind towards union and for interceding on our behalf.

I post here the collect for the day taken from the Daily Office of the Anglican Church followed by a prayer for Haiti that the Church is recommending to people today.

Lastly, a reading from Thunder, the Perfect Mind, which is all about the divine feminine.

Collect of the Day: Mary Magdalene

Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed from all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, on God, now and for ever. Amen.

A Prayer for Haiti 
by Josh Thomas

O Father of the poor and Mother of the oppressed: Enfold in your arms the suffering people of Haiti. Comfort those in mourning; relieve those in pain; give shelter to the homeless and hope to those in despair. Feed your people, O God, with bread both earthly and divine, and give them your water and wine. Help them bury the dead, nurse the sick and wounded, and raise their faith and dignity, for they are some of your dearest children. Proclaim your truth that this vibrant, creative nation still shines as a beacon of freedom throughout the Americas. And help the people of Haiti, with the nations of the world, to rebuild their colorful land in the image of your Son Jesus Christ, who knows our suffering because he took our mortal pain into his body on the Cross, then rose again to live and reign with you and the Holy Comforter. Amen.]

A lesson taken from Thunder, the Perfect Mind:

I was sent by the Power and came to those who thought of me. I was found by those who sought me. Behold me, ye who thought of me. And ye who wanted to hear me, listen to me. And ye who expected me, accept me. And do not drive me away from before your eyes. And let not your voice or your ear hate me. Do not ignore me anywhere or at any time. Be careful, do not ignore me, for I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the despised one. I am the harlot and I am the saint. I am the woman and I am the virgin. I am the mother and I am the daughter. I am barren and I have many children. I have many husbands and I am unmarried. I am the physician who heals and I am the one who wounds. I am the bride and I am the bridegroom. I am the mother of my husband and my husband is my father. I am the daughter of my husband, and my husband is my son. I am the sister of my husband and my husband is my brother. I am the slave of my father and I am the mistress of my son.

Yet more thoughts on Evangelizing

2010-07-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

Ok there are a couple more things that I have to say on the subject.

The first is that after watching this video a number of times now, mostly to try and figure out how people were conflating it with what it is exactly against, I feel pretty safe in stating that the primary target for Evangelizing in the video are actually other Christians. There are a lot of people who look to follow Christ but cannot find their way out of the loud and noise mess that is fundamentalism. They want a Christianity that does not rely upon the bible being inerrant, and they want a Christianity that is inclusive and loving of their neighbors who walk different paths. These folks are the main target for Episcopal and Progressive Christian evangelizing. After them would come people who are nominally Christian but not really practicing. If you meet someone who is having tough issues and they celebrate Christmas and Easter, but do little else ( a Chreaster), is it really so wrong to offer up the idea that prayer and contemplation of the faith that they nominally belong to might be helpful?

Lastly, I wanted to point out that by synchronicity or dare I suggest the working of the Holy Spirit, there is an article today in the Huffington Post about Progressive Christianity.

My own thoughts on Evangelizing

2010-07-20T21:16:00.000-07:00

Wow. I posted a video yesterday that I thought was going to just be a throw away post. I wanted to show a Priest from a mainstream church who is specifically calling out against aggressive Christian tactics and actually calls them a jerks.

The big problem for Episcopalians as well as other Christians who are not fundamentalist nut jobs that think the world is only 6000 years old, is that they mostly mind their own business and do their own thing. Because of this their religion, and mine, is being usurped by hateful, anti-science, neo-conservative wind bags who actually know nothing of the Bible or Theology.

In the video he specifically calls for:

Not simply relying upon the clout of the church to transmit the message.
Not being a jerk, Don't argue or fight with people
Show that you can be Christian and still be smart, non-judgemental, and not have hissyfits when people hold different view.
Not tear people down in order to build yourself up
Let sharing your religion come out in a natural way
Most importantly, love the people you are sharing with
Continue to grow in the faith yourself.
Make the church more hospitable to different types of people and different cultures by transforming the institutions.

All this sounded pretty good to me.

Most commenter's felt differently. Some responses seemed to completely ignore the video and spirit of the post and just react to other types of Evangelizing (proselytizing really) that they are used to and which this video is in fact a rejection of. Others posted that evangelism is fine, but their automatic response is to ignore it completely or play into it for a gas.

My own feeling has always been that I appreciate it. Even the fundie, "do this or go to hell", types of Evangelizing. . I appreciate that someone, however misguided, is trying to do what they think is right and helpful. When I end with a polite rejection, or perhaps a counter point that they cannot answer and they reply "I will pray for you", I thank them. I mean it too. They are taking the time to pray for me, why would I be offended?

Also I have never felt that my own view is so perfect that I should ignore what other people are saying out of hand. I appreciate the education, even if it is just an education in the particular manner that you are wacky and intolerant. Here is the interesting thing about tolerence: If you are only tolerant of those that are tolerant of you, than you are not tolerant at all. Know where I learned that? Sunday school.

I want to thank people right now that have Evangelized to me. They took the time to talk to me about Buddhism, Thelema, Christianity, Gnosticism, Taoism, Ekankar, Anthroposophy, Vodou, Vortex Healing, Wicca, and a whole host of other things. You felt that your lives were being enriched by something that you knew about and I didn't and you wanted to share it with me. You shared your good news. I listened and perhaps I experimented with what you told me, and perhaps I didn't. Regardless of what i ended up doing with it, I appreciate you sharing the good news.

Why I love the Episcopal Church

2010-07-19T20:31:00.001-07:00

Certainly among non-Christians, there is nothing that makes them less comfortable than the idea of Evangelism. The fact is though that it is a duty of Christians to evangelize.

This is why I love the Episcopal Church Listen to Father Mattew address a conference of young Christians on the topic. He pulls no punches about how most American Christians approach this. I love Father Matthew.

Don't worry, there will be more Sorcery and occult stuff later in the week. I just thought that this was worth spreading.

Three Rules of Self Improvement in Magic

2010-07-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

Over here, Robert wrote a bit about issues that he has been Struggling with relating to different facets of his personality. In his post he mentions some advice that I gave him regarding not wasting all ones efforts on improving the outer personality. I thought I might take the opportunity to talk a little bit about that here.

There are really three things that people try to do with magic:
1. Change outer circumstance
2. Make self improvements
3. Attain Enlightenment, Gnosis, Union with the Divine or whatever you want to call moving towards ultimate truth.

All of these can be perused at the exclusion of all else, but in a well rounded Sorcerer all three are seen as interdependent. A lot of magicians and spiritual people do not see the difference between number two and number three. It is this connection that I want to speak about in this post.

There are some spiritual paths that rely upon self improvement as the primary means of spiritual development. You route out your flaws, you cultivate your virtues, and eventually you move further and further towards the sublime. This is a valid path. It is a very safe path. It is not a very straight path and also takes a long long time. You can spend lifetimes tweaking the personality and becoming "pure".

The ultimate truth does not require this. You are in fact not very far from it right now, no matter what state of mind or stage of development you are in. This is the operative concept behind Tantra - that you can through skillful transmutation of energies and manipulation of primordial experiences propel yourself into the experience. This is also one of the mysteries in Christianity, that you do not need to fulfill all the laws of Leviticus, you simply need to open up to the experience of Gods Love. This is why Aliester Crowley wrote that anyone at any grade could cross the abyss and become 8=3. This is why most people who get a taste of the high spiritual states, and even manage to establish themselves in the high spiritual stages, say that the great secret is that you are already there.

We all have things that we are good at and things that we are bad at. We all have hang-ups and things that we struggle with. Realization of higher states does put this in a different perspective, but it does not eliminate flaws automatically nor does it create virtues.

You may look upon the face of god. You may experience union with the cosmos. You may experience the symbol-less Gnosis. You may experience the non-dual state. You may do all this and still get angry at your spouse over stupid crap, be selfish and uncharitable, be bad with money, and still not be able to stop smoking.

So how much should I worry about Self Improvement? Here are three rules that I use as guidelines:

RULE 1: is to let go of the idea of being a fully actualized perfected persona. Unless you solve the problem of physical immortality, you will NOT perfect your egoistic personality. You cannot be all Myers Briggs personality types rolled into one. There will always be things that you are better at than others and there will always be things that you are just not good with at all. Get over it.

RULE 2: is to figure out which weaknesses are simply things you are bad with and which weaknesses are actually causing you problems. For instance, I can anger pretty quickly. If I angered to the point where I became abusive to people or found myself having violent episodes this would be something that I need to work on. As it is, I can control my anger pretty well and transform its energy constructively so it is not a priority to work on. I am also a fast food addict. This was in fact causing me physical harm as well as hampering certain dimensions of spiritual growth, so this was an area of self improvement that was vital to work on.

RULE 3: is to work more on enhancing your strengths than fixing all your weaknesses. If you run a business and you are great at the marketing end of things, but not so good with the accounting end of things your time will be much better spent focusing on marketing than accounting. Focusing on accounting may appeal to the part of you that wants to be all things to all people, but you need to remember Rule 1: you can't. Go hire an accountant. Now, if you are so terrible at accounting that as the owner you cannot understand what your accountant tells you, or even have a clue as to whether your costs are more than your income, this brings in Rule 2 - you need to work on your accounting skills. Only just enough to be competent though. You are not looking to master accounting, just the 20% or so that will get you able to communicate with the experts.

Using the example of someone looking for a lover I use these three when advising people. Some guys get so into the self-improvement that they never move on to actually asking women out on a date. If you remember rule 1, you will know that while our features make us attractive, our flaws actually make us lovable. Being too perfect is not attractive. If however you are so bad in certain areas that it makes you repugnant to the opposite sex (hint: "I want to cum on your tits" is not a phrase to utter within an hour of meeting someone) than you need to remember rule 2 and go ahead and work on that. If however you are an insightful person, you can use Rule 3 and offer a quick tarot reading or even a cold reading (all is fair in flirting) to build some value for yourself.

Now lets turn our attention back to ultimate truth. It is true that you can access the enlightened or gnostic state no matter what personality issues you have. These states, being by nature transpersonal, are not blocked by our petty issues. To take that temporary spiritual state and integrate that awareness into your living levels of consciousness and action however is a whole other story. To take the state and make it your next stage, usually take a bit of work on the personality. You still do not have to become perfect (Rule 1). You just have to work on those issues that present themselves as obstacles to achieving that state (Rule 2). You will then reflect that state outwardly through your strengths (Rule 3) which is why different enlightened beings manifest in different aspects.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Clarifications on What If

2010-07-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, I feel the need to `clarify a few points about the last post.

The first clarification is: It was supposed to be kind of a light musing on things, and perhaps some side experimentation. It was not a very serious doctrine that I am now espousing as the new and better way. I think a few people may have taken it that way.

Second clarification: It was definitely not meant as an accusation that Hermetic magic is wrong, doesn't work, or is fundamentally flawed. It was simply a post pondering if the system would have looked the same if we had always known about the Heliocentric universe. I don't think it would have looked the same, others suppose that it might. The point is that they did'nt know and it is set up that way and it has worked for many. Despite the nagging feeling with the symbol set, it worked for me. It still works for me when working with other people and we all need to get on the same page.

Thinking of things in different ways does not necessitate abandoning old ways. In Kabbala for instance different Rabbi's and different texts have attributed the planets in different order. Even in the same text this sometimes happens (Sepher Ratziel). Each arrangement is not an argument against another one, simply a different approach, sometimes yielding a different result.

Another example of an approach you could do using modern methods is to take the planets as they are typically arranged on a Septagram like this:

But instead connect them using an obtuse heptagram like this:

The planets automatically fall into the order of their atomic weights, which might be an interesting order to work them in if you were alchemicaly inclined. It looks like this:

Mars rules iron .. .. .. .. atomic weight 56
Venus rules copper .. .. .. .. atomic weight 63
Moon rules silver .. .. .. .. atomic weight 108
Jupiter rules tin .. .. .. .. atomic weight 118
Sun rules gold .. .. .. .. atomic weight 196
Mercury rules mercury .. .. .. .. atomic weight 200
Saturn rules lead .. .. .. .. atomic weight 207

Third clarification: This one is the MOST IMPORTANT. There tends to be a little confusion about the difference between the physical planets as psycospiritual batteries of power and the planets as symbols of the levels between material manifestation and subtler more ultimate layers of reality. I want to be clear that I was speaking about the latter, not the former.

Now, unlike Frater R.O. in his post here, I do actually use the planets as batteries of power. In this I follow a long tradition established in China, India, and several other places. One can draw upon the energies of the actual planets through the body, as well as certain stars and even groups of stars. One can also travel to these places in the Astral Body (indeed that is why the astral body is called the Astral or Star Body). You can zip off to the physical sun and other stars, and even the center of the galaxy. I can say from experience that it is worthwhile doing so. You are however simply traveling to a place in the lower astral that relates to the spacial coordinates of the physical location. You are not shifting your awareness to a higher sphere. Doing so from those coordinates can yield very interesting results, but that is perhaps best left for another day.

The type of work that Heremetic magic, Khabbalah, and other similar systems describe is NOT about traveling to the physical place. It is about travel to a higher vibrational sphere from material to subtle reality. I tend to describe this as Vertical rather than Horizontal travel.

The planets in this case are simply convenient symbols for dividing up the experience into manageable levels, which is exactly what R.O. states in the post liked to above. Indians and some Greeks divided the experience up using the elements. Golden Dawn took the Enochian Athyrs and used it in the same way.

My post was geared around setting up a system of experiencing this journey but which deliberately shifts consciousness away from being rooted in the earth. It is important to note that to the Gnostics the entire point was that the Earth was a trap and the planets, far from being helping stepping stones to the stars, were barriers ruled by Archons that essentially kept mankind imprisoned in earth consciousness.

The system that I mused about in the last post, was all about re-rooting in the sun, than re-approaching the lower spheres, the earth itself, and than the higher spheres from that anchor point. In the traditional system the stage of the Sun was thought to be particularly important, the system I put forth recognizes this by having you turn around after you have reached the center and than going to the outer reaches. This is also a good representation of the forumla IAO which uses the vowels associated with Luna, Sol, and Saturn respectively.

The thought of re-anchoring in the galactic center as a symbol of layers of consciousness beyond the ninth sphere was an extrapolation. In my experience, a black hole would be a pretty good symbol for the gnosis of these layers, represented by Causal Layers in my system and by the Veils of Unmanifest Existence.

What If?

2010-07-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

What if the Heliocentric view of the solar system was popular when the Hermetic, Chaldean, and other schools that teach that sort of climbing the planetary ladder of lights were invented. Would it change anything? I myself do not use that system of division anymore, but when I did, it was always a nagging feeling that this set up reflects a bad view of reality. Today I tend to not view the spheres recognized in the Hermetic set up as having anything at all to do with the actual planets. They are just a convenient metaphor.

If I was doing planetary initiations from a modern perspective though, perhaps it would look like this:

Aspirant moves to the Lunar Sphere, than to Venus, than to Mercury, than to the Sun. Note that this order reverses Venus and Mercury to set them how they actually are in space in relation to the Earth and the Sun.

After receiving the Solar consciousness the work of the aspirant is than to move outward and re-experience Mercury, Venus, and Earth through the lens of the Solar Consciousness Perspective. Note that on this outward journey you ignore the moon because, from the perspective of the sun, it is no more important than any other planets moon.

Interesting questions arise. Who would be the archangel for earth? Sandalphon? Lumiel? What about the Kamea, Intelligence, and Spirit? You might have to re-investigate the whole scheme and let new symbols surface.

Only after re-experiencing earth through the lens of Solar Consciousness would one then be fit to travel to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Now, since we are doing this based on modern understanding of the Solar System, it seems only natural to include the planets that we now know are there: Uranus and Neptune. Pluto too if you consider it a planet (Yuggoth!). It is sort of amazing that Hermes 8th and 9th and also Kether and Chokma work so nicely if you attribute them to these planets which were unknown at the time. It certainly makes more sense than jumping to fixed stars or the zodiac.

Anyway, this too brings up some interesting questions.

All the classical planets through Saturn were named by people with Astrology and Magic in mind. Not so for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, all named by scientists that had no real interest in the metaphysical aspects. Are those good attributions or are there better ones? What symbols work for these planets or are they best worked without the use of symbols (my own view). What do they govern? What Metals to use? Uranium?

After completing the journey through the Solar System, what next? Perhaps since we traveled in spirit from having an earth-centric perspective to a solar centric perspective, the next logical step would be to plunge ourselves astrally into the center of the Milky Way and seek to re-frame our consciousness from that perspective.

Again, more questions: Do we jump straight there from the outermost planet or do we jump star to star? It is looking increasingly like there is a super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, so what sort of awareness shift would result?

Of course the Galaxies themselves are circling around each other in groups, which could lead to yet another perspective shift. If we started jumping planet to planet, than moved from jumping star to star, do we jump black hole to black hole? To get to where? Maybe we go THROUGH the hole....

At what point though do you loose contact with earth though? How "far out" can you be and still be effective in life. There are lots of mind-states that are powerful and reality shattering, but unless they can be aligned with our living levels of awareness they dont serve much purpose, at least in this life.

Whew. Sound like a lot of work. Glad I don't do that kind of thing ;-)

New Age and Occult

2010-07-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

I used to joke that when New Agers progress after years and years they would find themselves reaching the stages that a serious magician begins at.

Based on some of the weird crap that happened to me on retreat I am starting to wonder if it is the other way around.

Morality and Magic part 2

2010-07-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

I should also mention that there are certain traditions where Morality is integral to the system itself. These are traditions that draw upon lineages, dimensions, or egregores set up by great sages who deliberately set up their systems to be used in certain ways.

Morality and Magic

2010-07-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

One of the trends of the last century is the de-linking of morality and magic. Crowley of course was the biggest and most viable leader in this, but there were many others from Spare to Dadaji as well as many others. This was a necessary phase for magic to undergo because by the turn of the century the concept of proper moral behavior was tied to many practices that were harmful (civilizing "savage" cultures, child labor, etc), hateful (racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc), and in some cases not really about ethics at all (Forced closures on Sunday etc.)

I mention all this because one of the formspring questions that I did not answer started out by praising me as someone who sees that there is no link between magic and morality, and for essentially being a "shoot first and ask questions later type of guy. Although this person was praising me, that is not praise that I want because nothing could be further from the truth.

It is true that when I teach protection magic or combat magic I do get into the subject of cursing. I even have my own ritual: "Inominandum's Shock and Awe Fuck Your Shit Up to Death Curse". I have not however actually used the ritual. I invented it as a teaching exercise. I feel that deliberately not covering cursing and harmful sorcery damages the tradition of magic overall and ill prepares people for what they may encounter in real life.

The part of the classes that everyone seems to miss however is when I say that there is almost always a better way. I try never to jump to harmful magic when I can avoid it. Even if someone or something is deliberately attacking me, I rarely attack back, preferring to let defense be my offense. In fact I usually try to make supplicating offerings on behalf of the person or spirit in question, that they let go of their anger. I also sometimes try to rein back some of the protectors that surround me because honestly, they can over react a little. I have regretted overzealous protection magic more than once.

I have used jinxes to confuse or dominate people in the course of business dealings where not doing so would cause greater harm. In a few cases I even did so just because I wanted my side to win and theirs to loose. These were not morally clean actions however and I would not pretend that they were.

The truth is that I do see a link between magic and morality. Compassion, truth, love, kindness, etc are all natural products of understanding and gnosis. Hatred, Violence, Lying, Theft, Selfishness, etc are products of ignorance. While in a state of pure contemplation it is true that actions have no Karma, however, most of us are not existing in that state all the time. One set of actions drives us towards realization, the other set away from it. I have seen this happen over and over.

Yes, you can draw power from negative emotions to fuel magic, but it is nothing compared to the power that you can effortlessly produce by cutting through those emotions and understanding the basis of reality itself.

Eastern Religion friendly to science

2010-07-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

Number one reason that Athiest evangelists never say a word about Eastern religions,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-goldberg/are-eastern-religions-mor_b_628533.html

Of course if more people realized how similar many Priests view of western religions to Eastern Religions, a lot of peoples worlds would be rocked.

Witchvox Article

2010-07-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all.

Witchvox posted my article about The Nine Principals of Strategic Sorcery.

Reading it today I was struck by how strange how work gets staggered. I am sending out things that I wrote a long time ago. I am currently writing things that I had thought about and sketched out the basics of around the time that I was writing the stuff I am sending out. I am now working with and fueled creatively by things that wont get written about for a long time, stuff that will form the base of the advanced classes and some side projects that are just to strange and laser focused to be part of anything else.

Hermetic models say that Saturn or maybe the 8th and 9th spheres are the finishing point of reality. In your course you claim there are more layers beyond this. You also say that the planetary layers are all in the lower astral? What model do you use?

2010-07-01T12:18:00.001-07:00

Short answer is: I do not use a firm model at all. I did, but eventually I pushed the boundaries of such models in so many directions that I found them all lacking,

Think about how big the planet earth is. You could spend the rest of your life wandering and not see every inch of it. Now think about how small earth is in the solar system. Now think of how small it is in the galaxy. In the Universe.

When you blow out your concept of reality to include other planes of existence accessed through different bodies and shifts in consciousness I just cannot accept a multi-verse that is explained completely. I think that these models are excellent as tools, and I have used them myself. If however they are treated as a finished product, they loose all meaning.

To twist a phrase that I heard from some astrophysicist whose name I cannot remember: Reality is not only more than we know, but more than we can know,

For the record, I do not treat the planetary levels as being in the lower astral. The spheres model used in Hermetics, is a type of vertical travel through planes of existence/consciousness. I do not see these as having anything to do with the literal planets and consider it a metaphor.

That said, the levels marked as planets exist in the astral levels. The lowest of them (luna) is above (more subtle than) the very low astral which more or less mirrors the physical world. To get past the Solar sphere your astral body undergoes a shift into what I call the Soul Body,. As you vibrate higher, you experience less ego clinging, more compassion and noble feelings. The reason for this is that consciousness itself is an integral part of all manifestation, and the further you get from the dense material world, the more this consciousness becomes refined. After Saturn is what can be called an Abyss, but not what I refer to as the abyss. It is however where you shift from the Soul Body (higher astral) into the mental body and enter the eighth and ninth spheres. This is roughly equivalent to the celestial triad on the tree of life.

The eighth and ninth spheres that Hermes Trismegistus wrote about in his discourse and which Frater RO is writing a lot about currently are in what I call the Mental Levels. You travel as consciousness only. You do however experience space and other beings at this level. Platonic forms and very subtle structures as well as beatific visions of angels and saints emanate from here. The Silent Hymns that Hermes wrote of are silent because they are the expressions of the Mind. In the Hermetic system you reveal the 9th sphere by singing these hyms. In the 9th sphere there is only you and God, or as I see it, you and everything else.

I know that some who like the Tree of Life model will disagree with this, but to me, the real Crossing of the Abyss happens after this point, not earlier.

Beyond this are what I call the Causal levels. These are areas of consciousness and awareness with no spatial dimensions or separation. Upper Causal Levels also have no meaningful dimension of time. Even here though there is room for movement in terms of experience of emptiness of form, experience of bliss, experience of light, experience of vastness, experience of fullness.

Beyond this are the perfection levels, that are pretty well meaningless to write about.

There may be things yet beyond that. I am only 37 after all.

All this however just speaks of VERTICAL travel from gross to subtle.

At each of these levels there is a, infinite plurality of experience. Those that experience the solar level for instance, have not experienced the entire level any more than you have experienced the entire earth. If you ask Michael to initiate you into the consciousness of the Solar sphere, you are going to get a very different experience than if you use the Necronomicon gate to walk the same levels. It is worth doing both.

It is in the Horizontal traveling that you can make a great deal of interesting discovery that is relevant to practical magic. There are for instance entire planes of specific types of force that have been set up by Wizards (a term I do not use lightly) that have stabilized awareness of the causal levels. Some of these are the Buddhist Pure lands designed to make tantric practice easier. Others are heavens set up to hold the consciousness of devotees of specific religions. Some are universe wide engines of healing force that can be tapped into. Others are places where ....

Well, you get the idea. The world is big, The universe is big, The multiverse is even bigger. The whole of reality is WAY to big to think that you have a firm grasp on.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

Are there any special problems or considerations when reusing the same object as a link in successive spells?

2010-07-01T09:19:00.001-07:00

I actually have never had a problem using the same link over and over.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

Do you know of any occult techniques to cure social anxiety?

2010-07-01T09:17:00.001-07:00

There are lots of types of energy healing that will assist in this. There are also distance methods that can work.

Invocations of Jupiterian energy or interacting with Jupiterian beings can help this immensely as well.

Make sure to follow up with theraputic techniques.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

What mundane actions are needed to successfully use hoodoo compelling/domination formulas or is the point of the formula that it does the influencing for you, irrespective of your mundane efforts?

2010-07-01T09:02:00.001-07:00

A traditional rootworker might say that magic is all that is needed. Though you might get a result without mundane effort, you will get a BETTER result with mundane actions. As to the specific actions, that depends upon who and what you are trying to influence.

Looking for a new Girlfriend of a One Night Stand, pick up a book like 'The Game" or "Let Her Chase You".

Looking for a new Job or to get promoted? Get a book on that.

There are too many variables to suggest specifics.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

Any suggestions to do spell/ritual work in small space? I live in a very small studio apartment and feel that I couldn't even cast a circle or have enough space to do rituals or work with spirits.

2010-07-01T08:59:00.001-07:00

Learn internal energy work, astral work, and cast spells without big rituals. I have my main Sorcery Altar in a closet. If I need to enclose it in a circle or sphere I do so letting it pass through walls and floors and such,

It is a myth of Wicca and Ceremonial Magic that you need circles, tools, or even rituals to do magic.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

When talking about crossed conditions, can they manifest in extremely specific ways? For example, could a crossed condition affect one's luck with vehicles and affect nothing else in your life?

2010-07-01T08:57:00.001-07:00

yes

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

with all the publishing chatter, I just have to ask: what operations would you recommend for a sorcerer/fiction writer trying to break through with agents and publishers using traditional query letters to pitch a finished novel?

2010-07-01T08:56:00.001-07:00

A combination of information and influence magic. You can think of these in terms of mercury and venus if you are a planetary thinker.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

As a practitioner of multiple faiths , will you raise your children in one of them or teach them to be eclectic right from the start?

2010-07-01T08:55:00.001-07:00

I will try to raise them to know that Truth itself is pathless and that any faith traditions are merely pointing at something, not the thing in themselves. They will have a mix of Buddhist and Christian upbringing as their base.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

Jason, you have recommended meditation as highly beneficial for the practice of sorcery. Would adding a healthy diet and getting good exercise significantly increase your proficiency with magick ?

2010-07-01T08:53:00.001-07:00

Some types of magic, yes. Others no. For instance being healthy and fit will help you with longevity magic, love magic, job magic, strength magic, etc.

It is not a necessity mind you, it is just a help.

Other types of magic focusing on higher plane astral work, or meditation are probably uneffected. Quite a number of Tibetan Lamas that are known to be magical powerhouses are fat and have terrible diets.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

do you think the direction of a magickal altar matters, not so in "traditional terms", but in regard to its energetic configuration, its function as an subconscious anchor and its representation of a sacred space? my altar right now:south-west-corner...

2010-07-01T08:50:00.001-07:00

Only in relation to the position of the body, and only for accessing certain flows of power. Others are non effected,

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

Hello Jason, What are the contributions Nuns have made to Tibetan tradition? Do they have their own lineages? Have you heard their perspective on the work? In the Western Catholic church, the sisters in convents are heirs to rich mystical experience-AIT

2010-07-01T08:48:00.001-07:00

To tell you the truth, I don't know.

I know a lot of the contributions that Female Yoginis have made to the Tantric tradition, but to be honest Ani's (nuns) get the shaft a bit in Tibetan Buddhism. Much more so than in Catholicism. Since I am not particularly interested in monasticism to begin with, I never investigated Nuns specifically.
My good friend Andre runs a charity to support the power place called Muktinath and the Nuns that live and practice there. I will ask next time we talk.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

I've seen you mention Robert Bruce several times. I was wondering what your opinion was on his New Energy Ways system of energy work/development, and how it compares/contrasts with other systems you're familiar with. Thanks!

2010-07-01T08:46:00.001-07:00

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, he does some innovative things with it and has built an excellent method for shaking loose the astral body.

On the other hand, he went really far out of his way to deliberately ignore anything "eastern". His explanation of why he did this is unsatifactory, The idea that systems of energy work practiced in the modern day by people in the east is somehow less accessible than things done in Greece thousands of years ago is just silly. In deliberately ignoring eastern energy body work, he re-invents the wheel and while he does put together a good system for astral projection, there is so so so much more.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

your trip brings another question: when u travel, what kind of practice do u bring w/u on the road? i am guessing u probably still meditate while on vacation? (that's easy to bring :) ); anything else? do u bring any magickal materia w/u ever?

2010-06-28T19:54:00.001-07:00

I meditate and do lots of breath/energy work. Every year in VT I try to get some good Tummo sessions in as the air is very clear for that kind of work. Other than that, I do magic as needed,

I bring very little materia with me. I bring a Phurba and my Q-link and my Sibilla deck. Maybe I will bring a zafu, but sometimes not.

Tools are wonderful to use, but you also need to learn to work without them. If you cant go on vacation without bringing an altar or even books with you than you have a problem.

As one Lama asked me "what if you get thrown in prison? You need to be able to take your sadhana down to the essentials and be able to perform it even under the eyes of people bent on stopping you".

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

what do you teach about healing or the relationship of magic to healing? I mean healing in the physical and social senses, in its broadest application of helping or balancing others or the self. Should the best magician/initiate have healing on her agenda

2010-06-28T19:49:00.001-07:00

The healing section of The Sorcerers Secrets was going to be a lot bigger , but I ran out of space and time.

In the course we will be dealing with a lot of energy healing technues and meditative healing techniques. I will stay away from herbal healing because it is not my area of expertise and I would not want to cause harm,

I think that healing should be near the top of the agenda, I have not paid enough attention to it in my own practice

Some of the work I am doing up here in VT this weekend centers around that. I am also going to be training in a particular style of energetic healing this fall, but I will talk about that later in its own post.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

Do you think that your Pillar Exercise or Pillars and Spheres would be an adequate or more than adequate substitute for the classical kabbalistic cross?

2010-06-28T19:45:00.001-07:00

Not exactly. The Khabbalistic cross does attune the body to the Ouranic/Chthinic verticle flow as does the Pillar exercise. The Cross also attempts to balance the male/female or left/right flow with the horizontal arm of the cross. The Pillar and Spheres focuses more on establishing the elements on the body in a particular order that causes an alchemical reaction between them. They are different rites that have some similarity, but not exactly the same aims.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

Have you ever used goofer dust, and if so what were the results? Has anyone actually died?

2010-06-28T19:42:00.001-07:00

If I did, and if they had, there would be no chance in hell that I would talk about it here.

At the moment I am taking no new questions.

Strategic Sorcery

ITS BAAAAAACK

STRATEGIC SORCERY FIELD REPORT - THE SS MINI GRIMOIRE AND GETTING A WORK VISA

Keep Your Mind on Your Money and Your Money on Your Mind.

20 C+M+B 11

The Magic of the Necktie

MY FIRST VIDEO POST!

CYCLE 4 IS ABOUT TO START!

THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE REVIEW

CHRISTMAS MEDITATIONS

What to do for the Equinox

Eclipse Sorcery.

On Secret Identities

A rebuttal to Bathazars post.

Prompt Succor

Twin Peaks by MC Chris

CYCLE 4 OF THE SS COURSE BEGINS NEW YEARS DAY

Offering Thanks and a Rant

Trojan Vobsicum!

Is it Surrender? If so, to what?

The Power of Christ Compels You!

Doctors Without Borders Promotion.

An Interview with Dugpanath

Advice for those looking to open Occult/Magic/New Age stores

Title vs Ability

Christine O'Donnel Ad

Similarities between Tibetan Buddhist and Eastern Orthodox Art

Crucible!

Michael

CRUCIBLE AND THE 10th PRINCIPAL OF STRATEGIC SORCERY

KEYNOTE SPEECH NYC PAGAN PRIDE - 1/24

Now that is MAD

Strategic Sorcery Field Report - The SS Mini Grimoire and Getting Out of Debt

On Pirates

Unforgivable Sins

Skillful Influence vs Being a Douchebag

Personal Account of Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche

Parinirvana of Kunzang Dorje

This is how I felt all day

Strategic Sorcery and Noisy Neighbors

The Auguris - The Mill Creek Book of Shadows

How what we know effects what spirits teach.

Altars: A change in plans

Reconciling the inherent perfection of all, with the harsh realities of evil actions.

Strategic Sorcery 2 week challenge Field Report.

Strategic Sorcery and Student Loans

ADVANCED ENERGY WORK

Strategic Sorcery and an Irish Pub

Naga Vase Curse

Fine Tuning the Planetary Energies through the Elements

Lovecraft's Shambling Undead Form is 120 today!

Naga Vase Do's and Don'ts

Kiyosaki

Tim Ferris and the Four Hour Work Week

Does it work? That should not be the main question.

Isaac Bonewits has passed

Expectation and Observation

Customization and Creativity

Example of Opere Ex Operato

Esoteric Conference at the Rosicrucian Library

Hekate in the PGM?

Huxley vs Orwell

Financial Sorcery Lecture at Pagan Center of NY Sept 18th

Keynote speaker at NYC Pagan Pride Day in Battery Park

Strategic Sorcery Cycle 3 starts today

HEKATE CLASS AND RITUAL

Opere Ex Operato Baby

STRATEGIC SORCERY TRAINING COURSE CYCLE 3

Strategic Sorcery Training:New Cycle Starting on AUGUST 1st!

THE STRATEGIC SORCERY TRAINING COURSEA ONE YEAR BOOT CAMP IN PRACTICAL MAGIC

"Through the Strategic Sorcery course, I have learned to change the way I do certain things and feel that now I am finally walking the magickal path that I was meant to be on."- Rev. Jay K.

"Though we haven't even gotten very far in the course, I have already used material from the course in workings that have increased my income. After 12 years doing other types of magic, Strategic Sorcery has been a revelation! "-Linda

The Lesson on Thought Management alone was enough for me to overcome my fear of rejection and ask out the girl I have been obsessing over for months. We have been going out for three weeks now. This course is making a big difference in my life. "- Thomas

Ceremonial Magician and Blogger of Doing Magick

Oppression of Christians from inside the faith.

200 Followers

Daniel Schorr

On Emerging Christianity

Mary Mary

Yet more thoughts on Evangelizing

Strategic Sorcery Training:
New Cycle Starting on AUGUST 1st!

THE STRATEGIC SORCERY TRAINING COURSE
A ONE YEAR BOOT CAMP IN PRACTICAL MAGIC

"Through the Strategic Sorcery course, I have learned to change the way I do certain things and feel that now I am finally walking the magickal path that I was meant to be on."
- Rev. Jay K.

"Though we haven't even gotten very far in the course, I have already used material from the course in workings that have increased my income. After 12 years doing other types of magic, Strategic Sorcery has been a revelation! "
-Linda

The Lesson on Thought Management alone was enough for me to overcome my fear of rejection and ask out the girl I have been obsessing over for months. We have been going out for three weeks now. This course is making a big difference in my life. "
- Thomas