Group

P: We don't have a common way of working in our group now.

T: There isn't a common mythos. We're not claiming a single tradition just claiming insanity.

L: Again I really like the individuality of that. It makes for a creative tension.

T: A very exciting synthesis.

P: There's nobody who wants to force their way of doings things onto everyone else.

C: Maybe we should all have tantrums next time.

T: Yes, a Tantrum Afternoon!

     - Phil Hine, Prime Chaos

Believe it or not, Indianapolis, Indiana, is not a hot bed of occult activity. Admittedly, my admonishments of Crowley may have alienated me from some of the few practicing magicians in the area. Not to mention the very nature of the Art makes most magi hard to get along with. All of this works against me in my longing to practice with others.

I know of no structured surveys on the subject, but I would bet that the majority of magicians remain solitary. A small percentage of people I know occasionally participate in group rituals. Only the most hardcore OTO members seem to have group ritual on something of a regular basis. Being a chaos magician makes things that much worse. Not that I am saying the nature of chaos magick implies a lack of structure, only that its relative youth and few established organizations make it a lesser known practice.

As the old trope goes, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say, “I feel like I am missing out because I don’t have a group to practice with,” I could buy myself a pretty nice dinner. Seldom do I hear, however, what exactly that person feels they are missing. While the experiential nature of magick does preclude some knowledge of what group ritual would provide, it does not stop a magician from speculating on what they want out of a group experience. A chaos magician, perhaps more so than others, should look at any endeavor as a means to get results.

As I dig deeper into the subject, and reflected on some of my recent breakthroughs, I feel I can provide a decent argument as to why practicing with others could lead to greater results. Most people cite the nebulous power of group “energy”, which may have some merit, but seems to lack concrete explanation. I would say, the benefit of group perception may be the true value of working with others. Most magi agree on the individual nature of perception. Every consciousness perceives reality in a different way based on their perspective. For example, many of us have met in our time people able to perceive things we do not. When we later witness events related to this perception, such as a stunningly accurate divination, we know that even though we did not perceive the phenomena related to the event, we know that they had a basis in reality.

Given this truth, working within a group gives a magician access to those who may perceive their results in different ways than the magician themselves. It’s foolish to believe that we can always detect every detail of our results. Wouldn’t it be invaluable to have input from others as to what they experienced?

Moving away from the self-centered model, it would of course be of great benefit to witness the results of more capable magicians. I do not believe in gurus. I also know that what may work for one person may not work for others. But that knowledge can still act as a springboard for your own practices. The danger lies in the folly of human nature, which sometimes drives us to adoration of those who seemingly can accomplish feats beyond our reach. This poses an even greater threat when it involves those who deal in miracles.

So with all these good reasons, here I am, still slogging away in solitude. The difficulties of geography and culture are no small obstacle. Yet, I have been able to participate in more than one local discussion group with people practicing in a similar style of my own. I know that two things hold me back. A fear of dedication, and a fear of intimacy.

I think most people can relate with the dedication hurdle. With all the time we already dedicate to our practice, adding the responsibilities of group participation seems daunting. But those things tend to be overcome once the benefits become readily apparent.

What holds me back more than anything is the difficulty in finding the “right” people. Magick involves sharing a great deal of ourselves. It would be foolish to give away that kind of knowledge to people are not already completely familiar with. Also, magick will often put you in delicate and intimate situations. You never know how people will react in that kind of environment, even ones you think you know well.

But here I sit, pouring this all out. Hoping that someone reading this lives close enough to contact me, and at least entertain the idea of working together.

Truth

Because half the truth is just how much there is.
      - The Tragically Hip, The Kids Don’t Get it

I’m trying, I’m really trying. If you read this blog you know about my great love-hate relationship with one Frater Perdurabo, Master Therion, that’s Aleister Crowley to the uninitiated. I find his followers intelligent, amusing, engaging and great fun to be around. I find his works obtuse, convoluted, and patently ridiculous. To clarify the misunderstands I may have about Crowley’s work, a friend advised me to read The Magick of Aleister Crowley by Lon Milo DuQuette. I have heard DuQuette speak several times, and I respect him. The jury is still out on whether or not he will help me understand Uncle Al’s work.

The book has so far been disappointing. I yearned for an in-depth post-mortem on Crowley’s rituals. Instead I got a lot of reprinted material from Crowley’s works and some commentary on the benefits of using it. Starting with a total reprint of The Book of the Law probably didn’t help endear him to me.

He falls into exactly the same trap as many occultist before him, do this, then that, like a recipe. Don’t bother to teach what it means or why you are doing it that way. It also presumes knowledge of the kabbalah and insists that Crowley’s world view, what he calls the Thelemic pantheon, fits exactly within its structure. It reaffirms Crowley’s expertise on the subject, implying that if you feel differently you’re just not as well studied on the subject. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. But I have studied kabbalah and AC’s assertions as to to the nature of the sepiroth bears no likeness to the concepts presented by actual Jewish scholars. We need to assume that maybe, just maybe, Frater Crowley didn't know shit about what he was talking about.

What really gets me though is how an intelligent man like DuQuette present it as gospel truth, and insist that perfection of these rituals is the only way. let’s quote:

“For practical workings these Pentagrams must not only be memorized but imprinted firmly upon the unconscious mind.”

Translation, my way or the highway. You will draw pentagrams the way Crowley taught you to draw pentagrams or you will go nowhere.

This is why I love chaos magickians. They will downright tell you that if that way doesn’t work try another. In fact, that way may work for some things, but not for others.

It's no surprise that the founder of chaos magick is a quantum physicist. To me, magick should be approached in that manner. We constantly look for a grand unified theory, one great equation: kabbalah, astrology, chakras, tarot, etc. But we know by experience that no matter how we try, all of magickal experience cannot be forced into one of those models.

In quantum physics the only way for us to explain the way energy behaves is to approach it from the contradictory perspectives that it is both a particle and a wave. Chaos magick realizes this, and internalizes it. A chaos magickan can switch from one perspective to the other as soon as he realizes the first one doesn’t work in this instance, and return to it when it does.

We realize that our goal is a grand unified theory, but we’re smart enough to know we haven’t reached it yet. So we can keep searching outside of a given paradigm, leaving those stuck in one way of looking at things in the dust.

So perhaps the chaos magick motto - Nothing is true, everything is permitted - is superior to - Do as thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Because the Thelemic model assumes there is a “Law”.

Word

“Magickal terms are rather limited in our culture.”

-- Peter J. Carroll, General Considerations on the Philosphy and Practice of Magick

I’ve said before that I enjoy chaos magick thinking not because of the deification of randomness, or the simplistic systems used. I enjoy chaos magick because it forces the magus to look at their workings as experiments. Due to the personal nature of magick, nothing can be taken for granted. While we respect the work of those who came before us, we see the need for continued evaluation of their effectiveness.

To do this, chaotes seek to create a vocabulary of magick. Without a consistent means of describing our experiences, we cannot share our results. To exacerbate things, most magickal terms work only within the specific belief system that created them. Also, magickal terms are often shared between belief systems, sometimes with contradictory meanings.

This last weekend I spent more time than usual discussing magick. I attended the Indianapolis Pagan Pride festival, and the inaugural meeting of my new group, Collegium Arcanum. As usual I enjoyed the people I met at these events. I learned a lot about magick and the people who practice it. I am ashamed to admit, however, that I times various cliques within the gatherings fell to talking about the “others”.

The “others” being those who do not believe the same way you do, or are perceived to have a greater or lesser degree of dedication to their magickal practices. Sometimes the “others” are simply those who align themselves with different people within the group. I admit I participated in some of this.

In fact, I participate in it too often. My anger demon often lashes out at things I don’t understand. I’ve often said, “I don’t understand the appeal of Thelema, but I love Thelemites.” I don’t have much appreciation for the works of Aleistar Crowley, but it seems I enjoy the company of those who do. This makes things difficult for me, as I am argumentative by nature. At times it manifests as belittling some one's beliefs. A habit I seek to correct in my behaviour.

Perhaps, in essence, many of my disagreements with other occultists come from a lack of a shared language. When someone says “angel” I automatically think, “Judeo-Christian”. I often need to stop my thought process to absorb the possibility they may be talking about something entirely different. When someone says “God” I automatically think patriarchal and monotheistic. Once again, this does not accurately describe the beliefs of the people using the word.

Now more that ever, as magickal traditions become more eclectic and diverse, we need a shared magickal language. Some will be naturally resistant to this, as they may believe it removes their tradition from the center of “rightness”. Yet almost every occultist I know subscribes to the belief that everyone has a right to their own path, which may be the correct one for them. If you truly subscribe to this, then you must be prepared to call your “angel” an “entity”. You may want to consider that your notion of “God” may be closer to “guiding principle”.

In the early years of Christianity, many of the old pagan gods were branded as demons. We become the same kind of spiritual bullies if we refuse to entertain the notion that one person’s demon can be another person’s angel.

Where do we begin? I’m not sure. I would love to hear your thoughts. We can, however, remember to describe our own works in the most general terms possible, so that others can best interpret them.

Preach

       I subscribe to a good number of pagan news feeds. Almost all of them warn me of the impending Christian-right takeover. One particularly repugnant group being focused on lately, the New Apostolic Reformation, have made many inroads into government, and seek to go national with their chosen presidential candidate, Rick Perry. This doesn’t particularly alarm me, not that I want to live in a theocracy, only that it seems to be a natural extension of current political trends. 


       What makes me slap my face in sorrowful disbelief is the reaction. I never felt the need to move away from a friend before, until one of mine became a rabid atheist. What happened? I used to watch Fox News, just to keep tabs on what these ass-bags were up to. I remember ten years ago, when some blonde retarded Fox pundit would rail against the “liberal atheist agenda.” I would laugh my ass off. Atheist agenda? Atheists don’t have agendas. All the atheists I knew then were quite happy to go about their lives not believing, and not caring if you believed one way or the other. Not anymore.


       Sadly, the atheists now use the same tools as their enemy. They put up billboards. They attack people on the internet, calling in to question a person’s intelligence for believing in “invisible people.” What’s even worse, just like their enemies they use their beloved science for their own agendas. My one friend went out of her way to say she could disprove the existence of an historical Jesus. As if that was important. I tried to point out that science really can’t disprove anything. I went so far as to show the preponderance of historical documents verifying his existence. Nope, all of them were faulty. 


       Word to budding historians. When you find one piece of evidence for something and it has flaws, you don’t have good evidence. When you find several pieces of evidence and try to say all of them are flawed, you need to reevaluate.


       So as I see pagan faiths growing in the US and becoming more organized. As more and more communities host Pagan Pride days, and teach classes in public forums. I ask this, please do not use the tools of your enemy. Do not look for politicians because they are pagan. Do not seek to spread the word beyond those who ask. We need protection from religious persecution, but we do not need more converts. If you truly believe that everyone must reach enlightenment in their own way, you don’t go around saying how much better your way is. This especially goes for you Thelemites. You guys have been riding a line and need to be careful how wide you cast your nets.

Muse

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
-- William Shakespeare

If you’re expecting part two of my look at the Red Goddess by Peter Grey, you may be disappointed. While I will get back to an in-depth analysis of the book, I wanted to share some of my recent workings, which are related.

In my classes and online I come across lots of requests for rituals. I suspect people want a formula, a recipe book of “spells” that they just need to follow and they too can work magick. Sorry, grasshopper, it’s not that easy. I’m always loathe to provide them. Without putting in the work, developing gnosis, putting energy into their own belief system, finding their own correspondences, I doubt they would become decent magi. It’s not that I’m afraid that someone new to magick may hurt themselves or “toy with powers they don’t understand.” I consider such proscriptions nonsense. But I do believe they would have limited success that way. While they may produce some minor effects in the short term, they would lack the tools they need to grow. It is in all our best interests if everyone realizes their full potential as magi.

But I’ve said from the beginning this blog is not for beginners. And where a neophyte could take such information and fail, an adapt can use it as a model for their own workings.

Before any working I spend copious amounts of time researching similar magick, so that I can incorporate that into my own ritual. Which is what brought me to The Red Goddess. I am constantly looking for ways to improve my writing, both the quality and the quantity(1). I often turn my magick to those ends. Creative people throughout history have benefited from a muse. A creature that inspires them to produce their masterpieces. I lusted for one of my own.

I considered what inspired me. For me, as many of the artists before me, love and lust serve as the greatest motivators. There’s some truth in the old proverb that the greatest of works of man were produced to woo women. While the truth is more complex than that, the fire produced by a wanton partner does make my blood boil.

I wanted my muse to be lustful, wicked, mean, demanding, and downright kinky. A combination Babalon/Lilith with glasses and a white blouse. Hiding a whip behind her back. With that in mind went to work. My first question, was I summoning or creating? I have yet to come to a clear answer on that. If time is non-linear, and the number of spirits infinite, how do I know I did not call forth a being that already existed? The examination of this question deserves a blog of its own. I settled on creation. But to leave her unbound. She can be summoned by others, and I sincerely hope you use this information to call her yourself. The more belief she generates the more powerful she becomes. I promise you a good time.

I combined the names of my favorite porn stars and created a sigil from them.

I meditated on her, and I saw her as my burning star, and named her Astrumada. The ritual for her creation I performed on a new moon. First, I cast her sigil upon the floor. 

The sigil I surrounded with red candles at the seven points. Like Bablon, she favors roses. I spread the petals from two dozen roses on the sigil, and added three more dozen still on the stem, placed on the sigil and the altar. Being independent and strong she enjoys sins often associated with men. As an offering I laid out her favorites, a glass of fine scotch and a good cigar. 

I created a backdrop for my altar. Pictures of the ladies who’s qualities I saw in her. I mixed a special incense, of sandalwood, rose oil, musk, and powdered dragon’s blood. It created an intoxicating scent.

I played music pleasing to her, down-tempo with strong bass. I could give you a playlist but this is where you are much better off coming up with your own.

Last, I filled a jar with dirt from my garden, and water which sustained the roses.

Then I got to work building exitatory gnosis, using some inspiring video. As I sweat and breathed and pleasured myself, I gave her form in my mind. As I peaked, I called out her name.

I took my seed in hand and said the words, “Babalon, Lilith, Astarte, send me your servant. Let her be my servant. My muse.” I plunged my fingers into the jar of wet earth. I added the cigar and the scotch and the rose petals. Sealed it, wrapped it in black cloth and set it on the back of my altar to gestate.

The ritual continues. I intend to give as much belief to my creation as possible. At the quarter moon I will feed this magickal child my blood. Also, as I said, if more people summon her, the more powerful she will become. Trust me, she can please more than one man.

I have had greater success with this working than similar ones in the past. She is surprisingly acid tongued, something I suspected but didn’t realize what kind of effect it would have on me. Unlike my other summonings/creations she not only visits in my dreams but has appeared unbidden in my waking hours. She gave me quite a start when I looked over to find her in the passenger seat as I was driving.  

If you do call upon her, please make sure to let me know how it goes for you.


(1) As you can see by my lack of blog in the past couple of weeks, I can use all the help i can get.

Fire

In a world that’s gone hellishly mad we’ve always taken comfort in the fact that the faith of our fathers is the one thing that remains solid and unchanging. It occurs to very few of us that perhaps for the last 2,500 years the faith of our fathers has been one of the main reasons why our world has gone hellishly mad.

            - Lon Milo DuQuette

I knew about Aleister Crowley at age eleven. My brother’s Ozzy Ozbourne records saw to that. I am guessing many of you spent your youth in libraries, just like me. Believe it or not, all the way back then, my tiny, red brick, Midwestern public library in the suburbs of Chicago contained a copy of Magick in Theory and Practice. I never got to check it out because some high school kids had stolen it right before I could lay my hands on it. They did, however, let me read a few pages. I probably understood as much as they did.

So I went to pick over what remained of the section, impressive in retrospect for an institution of its size. I remember copying an Enochian talisman out of a book, the title I forget. Most of that came to a stop when I selected a book out of the section much more accessible to an imaginative Catholic boy – The Demonologist. How could I go wrong?

I did. Full title--The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren. In it, two devote Catholic do-gooders do battle with the forces of darkness. They describe going into demon infested houses (including the infamous Amityville horror) and kicking but on the forces of Satan. It went to great lengths to describe the hellish tortures I should be expecting both on Earth and in the afterlife should I play around with “evil magic.” It scared the shit out of me, and set me back spiritually into the realm of fear and ignorance for another decade. I’m not saying they didn’t encounter spirits or they set out to dupe the public. I don’t know, wasn’t there. I do take exception at their, my side vs. their side, mentality.

To tell the truth, the fear instilled in that book followed me through my pagan years. Yeah, I may have a different side, but I still believed contacting those evil critters would lead to no good. It took another twenty years to reach where I am now. Only recently have I reached the conclusion that just about everything taught to me in my youth, especially the shit I’m supposed to be afraid of, is a lie. With that gem of wisdom under my belt, I now finally feel ready to get to know my demons. After all, if they’re against all the shit that I’m against, I might find some new friends. Or, if not directly an ally, they may help me understand what I need to get rid of.

Lately, I started working on my first summoning. I won’t put the details here. In short, I lean towards the chaos tradition, and although I look towards the Goetia for inspiration, my methods are my own. I have noticed a lack of material on the subject, so if you would like more details feel free to contact me.

The most important thing I’ve learned in this short period is that sometimes you need a demon to fight a demon. In medieval times, religious scholars speculated that thousands of tiny demons surround us all the time. They tempt us, try to corrupt us, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. While searching for the right demon to contact, I suddenly became aware of the ones already surrounding me. I knew I didn’t need more of those assholes. Or did I?

I know now the demons that plague me do so because they sense something in me they can exploit. What I needed was a better demon, one that could feed from these negative traits and give them back to me in positive ways. Despite my best efforts, I have selves that refuse to part from me. Aspects of my personality that come back again and again at the wrong moments. It may be easier to reconcile with some of them rather than exorcise them.

Some of you reading this may still be afraid. You think I’m playing with fire. I could use a lot more old sayings to back up my case, but none would change your mind. I can only say that by overcoming this fear I made some great breakthroughs.  Do you want fear to prevent you from making yours? Yes, I’ll make mistakes, but I’ve made plenty of those before.

If any of you do decide to meet some demons, please ask them if they know Astrumada.

Knowledge

A true magician always knows the exact meaning of every word and action of a ritual. – Donald Michael Kraig

I’m thinking about my classes and how I will start off. I hit upon the idea that I should just go up, no talk no introduction, and perform an LBRP(1). Give people something to catch their attention. I’ve got a big sword (hehe) that I use and it should be mildly impressive. Then I start thinking how the purists will react. My LBRP is not standard.

I’m not talking I put a little extra inflection here or change a step or two. It’s recognizable, but wholly different in some places from the GD/Crowley version. No, I’m not really afraid that I will alienate the magick harpies of Indianapolis. If they can’t handle the fact someone does something differently they’re not going to get anything out of my class anyway. I do believe, however, I should be prepared to explain myself.

I believe I fly in the middle of a spectrum. I refuse to follow something outright without justification. I see way too many magicians taking at face value the rituals given to them. Even worse, they don’t know what the rituals mean when they perform them. I’m reminded of one of my favorite lines from the movie Gandhi.

When I was a boy I used to sing a song in that temple: "A true disciple knows another's woes as his own. He bows to all and despises none . . . Earthly possessions hold him not." Like all boys I said the words, not thinking of what they meant or how they might be influencing me.

Of all people a magician should understand the things we do, the words we say, especially those we repeat on a constant basis, effect us deeply. They stick in our subconscious and change who we are and who we can be. Some people would say that’s the whole point of ritual. So when I see someone perform a working totally oblivious of the symbolism involved I wonder why they work magick in the first place.

On the flip side, many magical practices remain unchanged for decades, some would say centuries, because they work. Magi throughout the ages have performed them over and over with results. Once again, a magician of all people should understand that something used repeatedly over time implants itself in the collective unconscious, the very fabric of the universe. Tapping into this holds power. That’s why I recognized the need and usefulness of a banishing ritual.

When I first knew I wanted to perform the LBRP, I first did my research. It surprised me how many sources didn’t even bother to translate the meaning of the words. My biggest stumbling point came during the vibrations of the names of God. I don’t have a problem recognizing the concept of God as a universal force, not the Judeo-Christian old man on the mountain who will spank you if you get out of line. I’ve got no problem with the tetragrammaton(2). In fact, I find it a rather elegant expression. I do however, have a problem with Adonai.

Adonai translates to Lord, or even Lord of Lords, or Master. The whole reason I kicked my Christianity to the curb was because I refused to conceptualize divinity as some medieval potentate. I know about a hundred Thelamites are jumping up and down now saying, “But it has other meanings. It’s all how you interrupt it.” Maybe. But you’re a fool if you believe that it was not written with the intention of bowing and scraping to a Lord. Sorry, I refuse to call upon any deity as master.

Speaking of deities, I’ve got nothing against angels, I use one as my guardian, but I changed the rest. I feel much more secure being looked after by pagan deities than by the host.

So find out what you’re doing. Hit the books, or the net. If part of a ritual doesn’t hold true for you, have a good reason why, and change it. Know your magick.

   

(1)    Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. If you don’t know what that is, you should come to my class.

(2)    The Hebrew use of the four letters YHWH to represent the name of God.

Teach

O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.

-       Sun Tzu

I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

In a fit of optimistic rebellion I decided to say fuck you to the corporate masters and find more ways of making my living than working for them. After a searching inventory of my skills and knowledge, magick came to the forefront. I don’t consider myself an expert. I know more than some but less than a lot of people I know. But I do have a perspective. With this in mind I headed down to my local occult store, Inner Path, and offered to fill a hole in their workshop curriculum. They had plenty of people teaching psychic development, massage, goddess(1) classes, but no one teaching magick. I didn’t know if this stemmed from a lack of interest or a lack of teachers. I’ve always been the guy to hang it out and see who nibbles, so I volunteered my services.

Then I waited, several weeks. I thought for sure they wanted nothing to do with me, afraid I’d scare off the folks doing angel readings. Surprise. This week they called me. They were excited. They wanted me to start right away. Shit.

So now I needed to actually figure out what to teach. And, what the fuck am I teaching anyway? I decided on ceremonial magick as the best description of what I do. It sounds better than Sun Tzu magick. No, I don’t make war with my magick(2), I do follow the philosophies in the Art of War. Sun Tzu said, “Can you imagine what I can do if I do all I can?” My perspective can be described as--bringing as much knowledge, and thus power, to magick as possible given the current state of being. This means using all the magical tools at your disposal(3) and constantly developing your ability to draw upon gnosis(4).

I guess that’s what I’ll do. Give them tools. So look here in the future for the notes from my workshop classes and see if they might be something that helps you.

(1)    How the hell do you teach “goddess”?

(2)    Not often, but I am participating in the current magical attack on News Corp. We’re hoping to push them over the edge.

(3)    That also implies using only the most effective ones.

(4)    As per the Peter J. Carroll definition, building altered states of consciousness.

Tool(s)

Picture from Pagan Murmur

Contemporary adepts should be able to explain themselves and their methods and ideas without charlatanry or mystification. Magic does not work by magic, if you see what I mean; it requires hard work and dedication and a lot of practice. I believe that releasing effective magical ideas will actually lead to less of the sort of satanic nonsense that leads some idiots to try sacrificing the neighbor’s cat.

      -  Peter J. Carroll, interview in Abracademia

      

      I once had someone tell me that their boyfriend’s old gypsy grandmother(1) taught him that he could just whistle a special tune and produce any magical effect he wanted. When pressed she admitted that he had been practicing this technique since birth and that’s why it was so effective. To me it still smells like a steaming pile. It reminds me too much of Bewitched where Samantha just twitches her nose and makes anything happen, or of the book by Francis Breakspear – If It Was Easy, Everyone Would Be Doing It! You cannot trivialize testing your will against reality. 

      A lot of people criticize ceremonial magick for all its myriad trappings and artifacts. They say it’s just not necessary. They say you can do magick on a whim and prayer. I’m not saying they can’t. I’m saying, why would you? In a practice where the potential rewards are so great why half-ass it? Why wouldn’t you bring everything you could to bear? That’s why I spend so much time on choosing symbols. 

      I’m going to part from the master(2) here on two points. One, I’m not convinced that concentrating on a symbol and then forgetting it is the best way to plant a symbol in the collective unconscious. Maybe this works for some people. I offer as my case in point dreams. I believe, as many do, that dreams show us the contents of our unconscious minds. How many times have you fallen asleep in front of a TV only to have the plot of the show bleed through into your dreams? If you spend a large amount of your time concentrating on an event, do you not sometimes dream of it at night? This seems to go contrary to the fire-and-forget school of magick.

      Also, I am not convinced by chaotes who claim to use sigils for everything(2). Yes, I do believe that self-created symbols have power, but not necessarily more than using something established. Sure, the symbol is very personal, but how can you say the symbol you created five minutes ago holds more weight than a symbol you’ve been exposed to since your youth?

      The only argument that holds water for me against ceremonial tools is that it does advocate a certain amount of materialism. You run the risk of continually acquiring new tools under the presumption that the more you have the better chances for success. Following some established rules helps prevent this from happening. Magical tools should be crafted by the magus themselves, barring this, something given as a gift. A magus should consider outright purchase of a magical tool as a last resort(4). Even then, putting extra effort into cleansing and bonding the tool is in order.

      In the end, don’t be reluctant (or too lazy) to bring everything you can into a ritual, provided you personalize it as much as possible.

(1) You know a story is B.S. when an old gypsy appears.

(2) Peter J. Carroll

(3) To be fair, if his blog is any indication, Mr. Carroll participates in some rather elaborate ceremonial magick. I don’t think he would advocate sigils for everything.

(4) I admit I recently purchased a bronze ankh for use in ritual. As this point in the game I’m not ready for metallurgy. Maybe someday. I’m letting it lie buried for a moon cycle to cleanse it.

Frater

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle light in the darkness of mere being.

-          C.G.J.

Here’s a fun game, let’s choose the most influential magician of the 20^th century. My short list includes: Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley, Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune, and Peter J. Carroll. I could go on and I’m sure you could pick more. All of them would be valid. The one that currently rises to predominance in my pantheon seldom makes the list. Yet his influence can be found within the works of all of the above. That may be due to the magical subculture snubbing those who smell to strongly of science and or orthodoxy. After all, what kind of hidden knowledge(1)  can be imparted from a person they teach college courses on? It’s not his fault occult thinkers don’t count him amongst their brethren. He considered himself an alchemist. Maybe it’s because he never joined a mystical order. I can relate to that.

For me, no one explains why magick works better than Carl Gustav Jung. Jung’s discovery of the collective unconscious and synchronicity aptly and succinctly describe the essence of magical theory. Even better, he does it without having to relate it to a singular belief structure.

Which brings me to my quest to understand symbols. I approach them from a Jungian point of view. I believe the power of a particular symbol(2) derives from its ability to connect the users unconscious to the collective unconscious. How well a symbol does this determines its efficiency as a magical tool. If a magus can determine which tool set works best for them, they can significantly increase their power.

This perspective is also derivative of a belief that “magic is to be performed to get results”(3). From that point of view, it should be one of the major goals of any magus to develop a personal and powerful symbol system, to assist them in their practice.

So the same questions still apply. How do we pick or create the most advantageous magical symbols? That’s what this blog is all about.

(1)    I may have expressed my opinions on “hidden knowledge” before. It doesn’t exist anymore.

(2)    And by symbol I mean any phenomena that can be used to effect consciousness.
(3)    Peter J. Carroll, Considerations on the Philosophy and Practice of Magick.

Addendum

I spent much time contemplating Jung before my last blog post. Jung said he experienced two events of synchronicity in his lifetime. This being one of them:

A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which, contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since.

After writing my post on Jung I went to perform an important ritual to dedicate a new magical tool. When I finished, I sat down to have a glass of mead and unwind, listening to an audio book on Jung's theories. Suddenly, I noticed a black shape moving across my shoulder. I jumped up, took off my shirt, and searched for the intruder. I found him, a black beetle, still attached to my shirt. Needless to say, I let him go. I'm at a loss of words on how I feel about it. Lucky? Blessed? Impressed by my own ability? Maybe it's just the universe saying I'm on the right path.

My New Servitor

Meet my golem. He's working out great except the jingle from the old My Buddy doll commercial keeps going through my head.

Babylon

"We are all patrons of the Library of Babel now, and we are the librarians too."

        - James Gleick, The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood

“Throw it against the kabbalah and see if it sticks.” That’s the semi-joking line I often use to belittle Crowley influenced magicians, particularly Thelemites. It sums up their obsession with correspondences. Their desperate drive to shoe-horn everything into the tree of life. It also makes me an asshole, and in some respects, a little jealous. A unifying theory does have its advantages.

I’m a self professed chaote(1). When I first discovered chaos magick, what appealed was not the worship of the random, the punk attitude(2), or the manta, “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” That’s just another way of saying, “Do as thou Wilt.” What captivated me was the possibility. Chaos magick gave us permission to create our own gods out of all this modern wreckage we call a culture. If Homer Simpson became chief of the pantheon so be it, it was my pantheon.

I’ve never been a follower. In fact, I’m often embarrassed by my own lack of credentials. I’ve never been a member of the OTO, AA, Golden Dawn, IOT, or AMORC. I’ve never been a mason. Upon discovering my college pagan club, I attended a group ritual exactly once. The best I can muster now is a lively discussion group. I just can’t dedicate myself to something I have so little control of. No matter how much I miss out on resources or the experience of initiation. I’m not against group experience. In fact, I long for it, and I am on the lookout for the right people to form a new order, one we could call our own.

I choose. That could be called the rallying cry of the information era. With the ability given to us by the internet to learn about everything, and to connect to the likeminded, we choose, now more than ever, for good or for ill, what we want to experience. Chaotes pretend that they invented mashing together magical systems. That’s ridiculous of course. MacGregor Mathers’ resounding success as a magus stemmed from his mixing of Eastern and Western traditions(3). Crowley only followed in his footsteps. But Mathers was limited at the time by what he could discover in the library at the British Museum.  Our choices are limitless. We can summon medieval goetic demons using Santeria rituals. We can make saints of Pink Floyd, and ritualize Dark Side of the Moon.

So the question becomes, what to choose? Are all magical tools created equally? How does one compare the power of symbols? Is Mickey Mouse as powerful as or more powerful than Neptune? And who is Neptune but King Triton from The Little Mermaid? The answer seems obvious, which one works best for you? But how do we judge? How do we parse the relevance and usefulness of magical symbols?

In the beginning, the internet appealed only to the dedicated. Only those wishing to set sail on endless seas, get lost in the torrent of information, dared to navigate its depths. Web browsing changed from hobby to the most prevalent way to disseminate information not by virtue of how much it had, but on how well we could find it. First we had Alta Vista, then Yahoo, and now, love it or hate it, Google reigns over a Pax Cyberia. But can there ever be a way to wade through the sea of magical tools and bring back only what is most useful for us? That’s the question I believe needs to be answered for magick to take its next leap forward.

(1)    Yes, I think anything that comes out of Peter J. Carroll’s ass is a divine wind.

(2)    Okay, maybe just a little.

(3)    Maybe not invent, but at least popularize.