NEW WEBSITE

I purchased the domain and hosting space on Candlemas. 

My friend Don is working on a professional looking site that will be up sometime in the future. 

I have tacked up something fast, and incomplete using the hosts site builder.

but...

www.inominandum.com is now live

If you don't know squat about Tibet, than STFU about it.

One of the things that really sticks in my craw is when western magicians make absolutely rediculous claims about how magick works in another system based on, well, nothing really. It's bad enough when the system they are referring to has'nt been worked on a large cultural basis for hundreds of years like many western Pagan systems, but it really pisses me off when they are talking about systems that are still "living" and easily accessed. 

No system has been more abused in this way than the Tibetan systems. I realize that Tibetan magick stimulates the imagination. They have spent as much time in the last 1000 years working on magick and meditation that we have on science and industry. All the cool superheroes like Mandrake the Magician, The Shadow, and even Dr Strange get their powers through Tibetans. 

It was bad enough before Tibet opened up and people like Blavatski and even my hero Franz Bardon, would write absolute false crap about Tibetan Magick. But today, there is no excuse. NO EXCUSE! You don't need to base you knowlege of what Tibetan magick is like off people that wrote in the early 1900's and had the barest of exposure to it. You don't even need to travel there youself to find out: They come here every summer. Some even live and teach here year round.

Yet I still real the same crap about Tulpas, Chod, and Kyil-Khors that Alexandrea David Neel misunderstood being bandied about like its news. May as well just pretend that Blavatski was right and that the Dugpas (Drukpa Kagyu) are the source of all evil in the world. 

What brings up this rant you ask. 

THIS

The author of la Croix petite claims:

"The monks apparently have a system they use to access this technology which as far as I can tell is based on years and years of meditation. But I have discovered a short cut: hallucinogens and pranayama. My favored cocktail is lsd + mj. For pranayama simply the 'little pranayama' (hum-sah) is all that is needed."

He has dscovered a short cut ladies and gentlemen! Get the Fucking Dalai Lama on the phone! Tell all the monks to just drop some acid and do a lame pranayama meditation picked up from Modern Magick. Thats really all there is to it!

Speaking as someone who has worked this system AND someone who has worked with psychedelics and pranayama I can assure you that its not even remotely the same thing. The two dimensional sand-mandala that he points to is not even meant to be meditated on directly. Its a map for a three dimensional space generated through meditation, entered through initiation, and actualized through various completion stage practices. 

I have no doubt that he gets something from doing what he does, but to confuse it with what the monks or yogis do is just criminal. Its like discovering that if you take acid, do pranayama and look at a car, its a short cut to driving. 

SCORE!

Speaking of magick from the 70's, I found this in a book bin today. 

The Great Work

I trun your attention to two posts. 

The first here, where Frater RO argues: 

"K&CHGA is the means to attain the authority to conjure and command the demons. The point is not to attain spiritual enlightenment. It is to attain the power to control the world by gaining authority over the spirits that manage it.That, brothers and sisters, is the Great Work."

The Second is here, where Frater BH argues:

"Doing the Work is about manifesting as much of human version of 'God' here as possible. It is about controlling your evil daimon for your own purposes and letting your 'good' daimon reign."

For myself, I truly do not understand the need to forsake one for the other. RO seems to think that the infiltration of Theosophy and eastern mystecism into ritual magick is a bad thing. I completely disagree. I think Theosophy is crap of course, but if you take a look at genuine Eastern Magickal systems they have a lot to offer a more broken and diluted western magick. If you don't think its more broken and diluted, than you are just kidding yourself. 

BH seems to emphasise the "your demon" part as opposed to "demons". The "spiritual" work over the "material" work. This is a dichotomy that is completely false. Indeed, nothing is quite so un-spiritual in my book, as the person who is feeding his ego by worrying about destroying it, or causing further dis-union with teh divine, by worrying about uniting with God. We are here for a reason. There is an upward flow and a downward flow. Matter ever strives towards spirit while spirit ever strives towards manifestation. 

The important point that I want to make here is that both seem to be confusing K&C of the HGA with THE GREAT WORK. Truth be told, I don't really even like the term "Great Work". It means something specific in Alchemy but has been so overused over the centuries that it essentially means nothing anymore because it can mean anything to anyone. Its crap. It also indicates a final enlightenment outcome, which I just don't believe in. 

However, if we want to play with this term, than attaining K&C of the HGA is a step on the attaining of the Great Work, not the great work itself. In fact, I would argue that it is not even a necessary step. There are other ways to go about doing things. 

RO is right that Abramelin is a book primarily about Demonology. Its a book. Thats what its about. He than takes the statement a bit more broadly, and I can't quite follow him there. 

For me, the great work is about awakening. It is about Realization. Transformation possibly. The term comes from Alchemy after all. I think to say that The Great work is about controling the evil little bastards that run things is a bit narrow. I could point to a dozen people that I would say have "attained the great work" that had no interest in such things. But again I point out that to be a mystic or even an alchemist, one need not be a magician. In fact, as I have said before, if you want union, and realization of God than magick is a bit of an ass-backwards and inefficient way to attain it. But make no mistake: the mystic, the alchemist, the magician, the witch, the yogi, the priest, the monk.... they are all concerned with the great work. 

But again, I pretty much find that term useless.

Dear Occult/New Age Shop Owners

This is an open letter to all owners and would-be owners of Occult, New Age, Witchcraft, and other types of shops that cater to the magickal set. 

First, thank you. You are doing thankless work and probably going broke in the process. People won't even realize what they had until you are gone, which is actually why I am writing this letter. I don't want you to go. 

The problem is that many of you have already gone, most of you that are still around are on your way out, and those of you thinking about opening new don't stand a snowballs chance in the Watchtower of Fire unless you get smart. 

The first thing I want to tell you is, it may say "shop", or god forbid "shoppe" on the sign, but you had better not plan on being just a shop or you will fail. If you are planning on just kicking back in your store and being a clerk you will fail. You need to do more than just sell stuff if you want to survive. I can get stuff cheaper and faster than I can get it from you. You need to be a community center and a service provider first, than a shop. 

Lets take each of these in turn. 

COMMUNITY CENTER: I was talking today to my friend Howard who is a PR guy for some major acts, and a lover of record stores. He noted that people don't really go to really good record stores for records and never did. They go because they want to learn about the music they dont know about. The owner of the store knows more about whats cool, and is cooler, than you are at 16. You go to soak up his wisdom on music, and hopefully be recognised by this older, cooler, more knowlegeble guy. In the process you will buy stuff, but the buying is a by-product of just being there. If you havent ever been to a good record store, than I pity you. Watch High Fidelity to see what I am talking about. 

Occult stores are the same way. The first guy I ever picked uyp Hoodoo tricks from was a Conjure shop owner. I learned all about Santeria and Palo primarily from shop owners. I met John Reynolds, my most primary spiritual and magickal teacher in an occult shop. Now a days people turn up in occult stores to meet me. In the process, they buy things. Often just because they feel akward hanging out so much in a store without buying anything. 

Build a community around your store. Most of you have events and such, but do more than that. Introduce people. See what customers are interested in and hook people up with those of like mind. You may not make a buck off it directly, but it will come back. 

SERVICE: This is really the big one that I want to stress. Provide services for customers. You will probably make more money off this than you do from the stuff you sell. Sure, most of you have readers available, but go the extra step. When talking to customers about their problems, suggest a spell. Put it together out of stuff in your store. Most of you have herb cabinets, learn how to use them. Crack open a few books and know how to put things together on the fly. I sat in a struggling store one afternoon a couple weeks ago and convinced the owner to let me run her store for 2 hours while she watched. I spoke with customers that came in, suggested magick that would be applicable to their situations, taught them how to do it and sold them the stuff. I made more in those two hours than she made in the last two days. Its not enough to know your stock, know how to use it. If you arent charging customers unfair prices or making up fake curses that need lifting than you are providing a service that they will respect and come back for again and again. This is also how you get non-occultists in. 

If you are brave and want to go a step further, you can set up altars in the shop, set lights for clients, and do rituals for them, not just tell them how to do it themselves. Some won't want to go there, and I understand fully. There are plenty of reasons for and against this route for a store, but its worth considering. 

SHOP: Lastly, you are a shop. Unfortunately you have some pretty steep competition. B&N, Borders, and Amazon are gonna kick your ass in Books, so carry what you need to but don't go overboard. You need to fill your shop with stuff that your clients did'nt even know to look for. Stuff that will catch their imagination and make them ask questions. When they do, make sure you are ready with answers. Remember, you don't want to just be a shop keep. You want to be a Priest, a Scholar, and a Worker. Something that the Internet and Barnes and Noble will not provide. 

Necronomicon 31st Anniversary Edition Review

The following review will appear in the Spring Issue of Behutet. Readers of this Blog get to see it first.



Necronomicon 31st Anniversary Edition Review



In 2003 I made it a project to track down Simon, the famous Priest/Occultist behind the Necronomicon, and score an interview for Behutet Magazine. Finding him in Malaysia, he agreed to grant an interview, the first the occult world had heard from him in almost 20 years. Little did I know that just three years later he would again explode onto book shelves with “Dead Names, The Dark History of the Necronomicon”, soon to be followed by “The Gates of the Necronomicon”. Together with “The Necronomicon Spellbook” and of course “The Necronomicon” itself, Avon press now provides a detailed and workable system of magick complete with history and commentary. The only problem was that all the books are mass-market paperbacks.



It sounds silly but this has been one of the biggest criticisms of the Necronomicon ever since Avon took it over; that the “the most feared, reviled, and desired occult book” on the planet was a cheap paperback just seemed to cause cognitive dissonance in many people. Other than the few of us lucky enough to possess one of the first editions or second editions, both impressive leather bound volumes, people were forced to work from small cheap editions. Critics have used this as fodder against the magick in the book itself, as if the price actually affected the magick. Fans of the tome have gone so far as to have their mass market copy re-bound as a hard cover, or written the whole thing out by hand in a blank hardcover book. It just seemed to critics and fans alike that the infamous Necronomicon of legend should look the part.



Well ladies and gentlemen, problem solved!



Ibis Press, who has been putting out some amazing texts lately, has worked with Simon and the designer of the original 1977 edition to once again offer a respectable medium for the dreaded black tome. And none too soon! My old leather bound 2nd edition is falling apart from use!



As with the first edition, there are two options for purchase. The first is a deluxe leatherbound edition,with three-sided silver-gilding, ribbon marker, deluxe endpapers & special binding boards. Each of the 220 copies of this edition is signed by Simon and sells for $275. Expensive, but no where near what you would pay for even a beat up first or second edition hard cover.



The less expensive option is a quality hardcover, printed on acid-free paper and bound in high quality cloth, with a ribbon marker. It sells for $125. It is this edition that Weiser sent me a copy of for review.



Even at the lower price point, this is a quality tome. The black cloth looks like it will hold up well over time the silver lettering, boundary, and famous sigil shimmer brightly against the black. For as nice as the cover is, especially for those getting by with the Avon paperback, the place where this new edition really shines is the paper. The Gates and Seals look even better on this pure white slick stock than they did on the original leatherbound editions. Having walked the gates myself, I can tell you that just looking at the Nergal Gate on this bright white background was enough to draw me psychically in to the mars-space that that gate links to.



Other than a short two page preface to the new edition where Simon muses on the Gematria of 555, and reminisces about some of the lives that have been touched by the Necronomicon, the text is exactly the same as it was in older editions.



Though only released a few months ago, it has already made quite splash with a whopping 218 reviews on Amazon as of this writing. Most of these reviews are focused on the pedigree of the text either dismissing it as a bad fraud and hoax, or defending it as a good fraud and hoax whose magick is still valid. A very few defend it as THE Necronomicon – the ancient text of the Mad Arab who Lovecraft borrowed for his stories.



Let me end this review with a few of my own thoughts on this subject.



I have written back and forth with Simon privately and he has never wavered from the history that he relates in Dead Names. That’s his story and he is sticking to it. Without a manuscript however, it is a hard story for people to swallow, and I think he knows and accepts that as well. This however is all beside the point.



Whether ancient or modern, the magick works as well as any other magick. It is based on Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian religion, and much of it correlates nicely with the Ennuma Elish, Hymn to Gilgamesh and other source materials. If it is modern, which I am inclined to believe until a manuscript surfaces, than it is not much of a different case than the Key of Solomon which was in its time a “modern” magickal take on ancient tradition attributed to a famous figure that did not actually write it.



Unlike the keys of Solomon however, the Necronomicon is not Christian, and thus makes it perfect for Pagans, Thelemites, and others that do not jive with Jesus to use. Those like me, who have set aside academic critique and actually walked the gates and called the names can attest that the magick in the book taps into the oldest mythos that we have record of, and channels it effectively into the modern world.



Harry Smith famously commented on the Necronomicon that it is “the type of thing that you would love if you loved that kind of thing”. It definitely is. Is the book real? Don’t be daft! Of course it’s real; you can buy it right now and hold it in your hands. In fact I recommend you do just that.



Jason Miller

Candlemas 2009

BLOG WATCH

If you are looking for some blogs to follow, I have recently added a few to my list over on the right side of this page. 

So if you are looking for a good read check out: 

SUBJECT TO CHANGE: This is the blog of my oldest magickal compatriot. When I was cobbling together a practice at the age of 15 from photocopied Tarot cards, a used copy of The Magus, trips to the Conjure Shop in Lakewood, and advice from a certain school teacher who knew a lot more than she was letting on at the time; he was right there at my side. I am happy to be back in touch with him both virtually and in meatspace. 

GOING QBALLISTIC: A brand new blog but a bloke that has sent me some insightful e-mails over the past few weeks. He seems a bit shy, and I hope he doesnt mind me posting a link here. He is thinking about making his blog private, which would be a shame. Go show him some love. He gets points for the title of his blog alone. 

AUGOEIDES: He is a Thelemite and his page is bright pink, but I won't hold either of those against him. He is making a lot of good posts sparked by news events and has offered some good comments here at Strategic Sorcery. 

GIVING NOTICE NOW: Not about Magick, this a blog about mindfulness and using Sutric Buddhist principals for better living. Jenn is a close friend of mine and I am delighted by her efforts. She is a total non-magician/occultist so don't comment with any magick jargon or she won't know what the heck you are talking about.