Sex Magic Class in New Hope, Tuesday August 11th

Tomorrow night at Mystical Tymes!

Modern Sex Magick

Once considered a closely guarded secret of the upper echelons of magickal orders, Sex Magick is a controversial and powerful facet of the magickal art. Due to improved scholarship, influx of teachers from authentic eastern traditions, and societies increased openness about sex itself, there is more and better information currently available in the public arena than that which formed the secret teachings of the old orders. In this class Jason will talk frankly about the history and techniques of Sex Magick, giving practical exercises for men and women

Montague Summers

Today is the aniversary of the passing of Rev Montague Summers. Raise a glass to one of the unsing heroes of the Occult.

The Measure of Wealth

Frater R.O. posted a fantastic article on understanding wealth. We have both been working on perfecting wealth magic in our own way, and it seems that we once again have arrived at a similar place – yet different enough to make an exchange worthwhile.

R.O. quotes his teacher Frater S.L. as giving a great definition of wealth:

To live a life where your actions are determined by your will and not by your bills. “

Nice. He than goes on to note that most wealthy peoples riches are not tied to their paycheck week to week. This is an important point. Remember it.

I would like to accept the above definition of wealth, and offer a unit of measuring same. I got it from Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. He claims to have gotten it from Buckminster Fuller, though I cannot find the reference:

“Wealth is the ability of a person to survive any number of days forward… or if I stopped working today, how long could I survive?”

This unit of measurement: the number of days that you would survive without working, hits right to the heart of the wealth definition above. When that number is infinite, you are rich. Wealthy people largely do not rely upon their job for their income. This is the big difference between the upper and middle classes.

Now, R.O. has taken a look at famous and wealthy magicians of centuries past and concluded that benefactors and wealthy friends are the key. While that is true for some, its not quite as reliable as I would like. Though I will say that reading Baltazar Gracians “Art of Worldly Wisdom” is worth everyone’s time. It is a guide to currying favor and pleasing benefactors written by a Jesuit Priest. While I agree that it is important to have wealthy friends, and aquaintences, its not because I seek their money directly. I seek their advice. They are the ones that have the inside scoop on what is going to be a good investment or not. They are the ones that have the know how on how to protect assets in an LLC and lessen your tax burden by incorporating. And yes, they are the ones that will front some money, but only if you offer than a good investment. The days of someone sponsoring your magickal career are over.

Anyway, if we cannot rely upon a rich family or benefactors, there is still a way that we can channel our meager means into wealth that frees us from the drudgery of bills, or, using Kiyosaki’s measure: sets the amount of days that we could survive without working at infinite. I know this not only because the books say that it is possible, but because I know people that did it. Its what my Grandmother did. I was just to stupid to really see the pattern.

Poor people channel their paycheck directly into basic needs. That’s all they have. Middle income people however have money to cover basic needs and than some. The problem is that we dump it into liabilities rather than assets. We buy new cars, a big house, fast computers, two vacations a year, etc. My Grandmother, and most other really successful people that didn’t start off the game with a rich family, buy assets instead of liabilities.

Assets are basically anything that can make you money without you having to work by the hour to earn it. Intellectual property, real estate that you don’t live in, stock investments, companies that you do not work at, bonds, mutual funds, etc. In other words, your money should make money for you.

In the past I have talked about the need for mercury to circulate money and grow your jupitarian pool. This is the flip side of that, rather than Mercury leading to Jupiter, it is Jupiter leading to Mercury. It’s a cycle that, once started, perpetuates itself and grows.

My Grandmother and Grandfather owned a Hardware store and a house – these are NOT assets, at least not purely. My grandfather bought lots of land around his house and used that to make extra money, that was an asset. They bought the building that the store was in and started collecting rent – that was an asset. They purchased stocks, Bonds, and mutual finds, some of which were higher risk investments – assets. When they were ready to retire, they moved the investments into low risk portfolio’s, sold the building that the store was in to one of the tenents, sold the store itself to my dad, and retired rich: they could survive an infinite amount of days without working and still leave a healthy chunk of change as retirement.

In my new book, I give five basic steps for setting finances straight that you should hang your magick upon: 1. Spend less than you earn 2. Spend less 3. Earn more 4. Manage wisely 5. decide on the right amount of wealth for your self.

While all five of these are important, it is number 3 and 4 that really hold the key. If your day job is just barely making the bills, start a secondary income stream going. Could be anything from being a re-seller, to reading cards, to hocking arts and crafts. Once you get some money coming in from that stream, DO NOT spend it on Bills and DO NOT spend it on luxuires. Spend it on assets - things that will themselves make more money.

Quick Post on Magical Laws

Witchdoctor Joe wrote an article for Witchvox where he basically says that anyone who suggests any hard rules for magick is lying. Any attempt at suggesting you use red candles for love and green for money is false, because in the old days they didnt have those colors anyway. Go read the article.

Frater POS already posted a response, but I am going to take a somewhat even harder line approach.

Heres the deal as I see it: there are Laws to magic and there are Rules to magic.

The Laws: Magical Laws are just like natural laws. Actually they are natural laws, they just pertain to magic. Triangles can be used to trap spirits and manifest spirits. Iron can disrupt spirits and spells. There are subtle bodies that can function temporarily apart from the physical. Etc etc. These pop up all over the world in every culture. Even the 5 elements are a natural law to some extent.

The Rules: Magical rules exist within different cultures and traditions. The roles of the planets, colors, directions, ethics, symbols and so on. It's pretty easy to tell if something is a rule vs a law. If people do magic effectivly following a different set of rules, its not a law. Vedic astrology vs western astrology, hoodoo color associations vs planetary, native american attributes of plants vs european. Etc, Etc.

Now, today in our multi cultural world it is tempting to say that since the rules are not Laws, or not inherent to the universe itself, we can just toss them or play with them willy nilly. Not so.

While the rules are not universally applicable, that doesnt mean they only have meaning within the mind of the operator. They have meaning within the egregore of the tradition. The fact that traditions practiced over time develop a certain matrix and start to behave according to those rules IS a universal magickal LAW.

If you go to Nepal and offer the Nagas meat, whether you know you are offending them or not, I assure you they will fuck your shit up. If you evoke Yemeja in the west and Oya in the North because you want to plug the Orishas into your LBRP, I assure you, they will fuck your shit up. If you accidentally do saturn invoking hexagrams instead of solar invoking hexagrams every morning - even though you are not aware of the mistake - you will fuck your shit up.

These are not academic examples. They are three real things that happened to three real people that really had their shit fucked up.

Now, you can bend and break the rules. Every great magician does so. But, you need to know the rules first. This is not just true in magic. When I was young and hanging out at coffee houses, I was subjected to a lot of horrible wanna-be beat literature and poetry. They never learned the rules because guys like Burroughs and Ginsburg turned the rules on their head. The difference is that Burroughs and Ginsburg knew the rules to start with.

Protection and Reversal Magick has a NEW COVER

INOMINANDUM.COM IS UP!

Hi all.

I did my first website myself in the 90's using just word and a little knowlege of HTML. Later I used front page and angelfire. For a few years now, ever since I let Tantrickery lapse, I had making a newer more professional website on my "to do list". I downloaded Dreamweaver, I bought an account at a proper host, but I just could never find the time and motivation to do anything with it. After finally coming to terms with the fact that I just was not going to do it myself, I hired someone.

Thank you Donald, my oldest friend, first magickal comrade in arms, and now webmaster.

Check out his work, and my latest activities at INOMINANDUM.COM

If you like what you see, keep him in mind for your next web project. The design is all his, and I think he captured it beautifully.

Keep an eye on the site because there will be a lot going on there over the next few months:

• At the end of the week, the Strategic Sorcery forum will be up and running
• A series of Advanced Magick Chapbooks will be sold via the site: the first one tentaivly titled: "The Seven Sigils" and the second one titled "Dimensional Magicks"
• On Halloween 2009 I will be launching my 52 week Strategic Sorcery course.

Who can do magic effectivly?

Scott over at Augeides posted a rebuttle to some of what I had to say about the frequency of psychic attack in a recent interview I have to the SoulJournings blog. I want to thank him for bringing attention to the interview, and thus advertising for me; and for making well reasoned arguments in his critique rather than some of the silly criticisms that are sometimes made. I think he is wrong of course, but this is largely based on us having a very different experience. I am not going to draw that conversation over here exactly, those interested in the argument can check out his posts, and others in the past where we have debated the same thing.

In the process of making his case though, he touched upon a subject with larger implications. He states:

“Casting a spell with a targeted, measurable macrocosmic effect is not easy. If it were the effectiveness of magick would be an undisputed scientific fact. Part of the reason that spells are so difficult to test empirically is that so few people can perform them in such a way that they produce noticeable, tangible results. An effective curse consists of a lot more than hitting up the local occult store for some Anna Riva war water and splashing it on somebody's doorstep. The power comes from the magician, the materials just help to focus the effect.”

This is a topic worth exploring on its own: who can do effective magick? What does it take?

Here again, I respect Scotts thought process, but experience has taught me differently. I have two specific arguments to make, the first is about the power of the magician necessary and the second is about the role of material in magick.

My first few spell attempts were spectacularly successful; one of them frighteningly so. This beginners luck is something that other people have also observed, their first attempts at magick ended up being very successful. The strange part is that as they began to learn the art, their effectiveness actually decreased for a time. It is as if learning the rules of magick is counter-productive to the performance of magick until such a time as you have really integrated them.

This success has been accounted for in a number of ways. Simon once told me that it was because doing something mysterious and forbidden had its own energy – the energy of blind faith. You are told that a certain ritual will work and even if you don’t know why it will, you believe it will which is a heck of a lot of energy. Learning the actual rules of how it works takes some of the mystery and faith away, and thus requires the adept to channel it a different way.

Another explanation is pure focus. When a jilted woman buys a candle spell to get back at a lover, she lights the candle and just lets it rip. She doesn’t think about letting it rip. Trained magicians, especially Chaos and Ceremonial magicians go through a whole “statement of intent” process that takes the whole thing from the emotional to the intellectual. The spell has its balls cut off by you trying to stand their in perfect stance, and thinking about your intent rather than just intending. Chances are if you are there with a green pyramid candle, a bottle of steady work oil, and some desperate prayers that you don’t get laid off and go bankrupt, you are really friggin focused; you don’t need to tell yourself to focus, than breathe, than have some contrived moments to eye squinting fake telepathy.

Magick is so easily accomplished that most cultures acknowledge the idea that it can be done accidentally. In Africa for instance the difference between a Witch and a Sorcerer is that the Witch most likely doesn’t know what she is doing. In the congo for instance it is thought that the presence of a special gland is the cause of her magick. In Italy the evil eye is thought to be cast most often by jelous or angry women, not trained Strega. The idea that you need years of training to make a spell work is just incorrect. You need years of training to really be a magician and sorcerer, to travel the planes, to call the spirits and have them come, to channel energy as energy and not as emotional bile. BVut to just make a spell work? Nah, just a little inherent psychic gift, some good instruction, and than BAM!

The second issue that I have is about the use of materia magica. Scott say’s that the power comes from the magician, and the materials just help focus. Meh. While it is true that magical materials are mostly “dead” until brought to life in a spell by a worker, that doesn’t mean that they are merely focusers. This is a common attitude amongst many ceremonialists who do not fully understand magick that is worked with materials. Its also somewhat disrespectful. For years and years magicians and shamen have been painstakingly recording their formulas. How foolish of them! They could have just picked up any old rock and used it as a focus! Really? Is this what we think of any type of magick that doesn’t work the way we think magick works? I call Bullshit.

In short, there does NOT have to be anything more to a curse than a pissed off person going to the local botanica, buying a batch of war water and splashing it on someone’s doorstep. In fact I have seen people do just that and cause problems for a Thelemic ceremonialist that he had a very difficult time dealing with.