Friday, September 25, 2015

Is ''public occultism'' dying?

Alright I'll bite, Mr Farrell.  Personally I enjoy a bit of an argument during retrograde.

Mr Farrell's general points are only in the headings of this post if you want to read them in detail you need to go to:

http://www.nickfarrell.it/ten-reasons-why-public-occultism-is-dying/

I have been posting about this topic for quite a while now in my ''The WMT - What Went Wrong?'' series.  Unlike Mr Farrell who is always more than a little tempted to blame the youth I plant the blame squarely on the leaders, elders and teachers.
 
1. The contamination of occultism by dumbed down “New Age” systems, fantasy and fraud. 

Absolutely agree with you here Mr Farrell but of course I would add the Golden Dawn and its spin-offs to your list as they are the ones responsible for most of the problems we are now dealing with. You are right in the early part of your post when you say the GD has been a failure.  It has.

2. Contamination by Intellect.

Absolutely agree.  There is a certain tendency these days to attempt to dress up your occultism in the language of the Ivory Tower as if this somehow makes it more legitimate.  Magicians as academics is one of the reasons I cite for the increasing dissolution of the WMT.  You're esoteric scientists dammit, come down from the Ivory Towers, and get back in the lab.  I read so many very general or abstract posts about magic these days and precious few discussions of concrete experiments or experiences.  This is why I quite enjoy Magick from Scratch  - here is someone bashing out concepts with Gods in the astral, in dreams and in trance and then recording them.  They are demonstrating, by way of example, what other people should be doing in the magic blogosphere.  There needs to be a massive shift towards practical experimentation and reporting and an openness towards admitting failure in these endeavours.  Most so called magickal blog content is identity politics, thinly veiled promotions for books/workshops or conspiracy gnosticism with magick lightly drizzled over it like raspberry sauce.   

3. Contamination by Psychology. 

I think this is less of a problem than Farrell (prob. becuase I am younger than him and I think this problem affected earlier generations more than mine) but I agree its a problem.  I think the pressure from the Grimoire Crowd and the Pick n Mix Sorcery Bunch over the last 10 years or so has done a lot to reverse this by getting people to focus on external magickal results (for instance Fr. Assan Chassan's insistence on conjuring to physical manifestation, etc) rather than just on dealing with their neuroses and other issues.

4. Contamination by fundamentalism. 

Fundamentalism is stupid but a concern with correcting errors in the tradition by a recourse to earlier source material and fresh archaelogical evidence is absolutely rational.  There should be arguments about the Kabbalah and the way it is used in the WMT.  These arguments need to be had, those conflicts are signs that the tradition is living.

5. Contamination of training systems by “non-occult” leaders. 

I agree with Dionysian Atavism who pointed out in social media that magicians have been using their mysterious arts to make money and get laid for most of recorded history.  The proliferation of lower quality sorcerers and simple con-men in the WMT also doing this, is of course largely the fault of the Golden Dawn, Golden Dawn spinoffs and Aleister Crowley et al who created the books behind their materials in the first place. 

6. The failure of modern students to study or give the work priority.

Don't blame the kids again, bro.  We can go round and round on this all you like Mr Farrell, but it is the teachers of this generation who are failing to pass the tradition on because we are not teaching properly or handling the changes in the Zeitgeist.  If you can't change with the times, you, and your order are dust.  Magick will survive in a different form.

7. Failure to financially support teachers, writers, or orders. 

Look, this kind of whining from occultists annoys me more than anything else.  First of all, you're supposedly magicians right?  If you're not magician enough to magic yourself up some money then maybe you shouldn't be teaching ''sorcery'' in the first place.  This kind of financial pressure will hopefully cut down the amount of wannabe writers/teachers out there who don't want to do anything but write and teach on the occult and return the balance in favour of the groups who have the money from their normal occupation and practise esoteric sciences on their own time.  If not that then to the actual shamans who work tirelessly with and for the community that support them and which they live in.  Nothing wrong with this, in fact this is how it should be and how it has been for most of recorded history.    The 70s circuit, etc were the self absorbed baby boomers of the occult revival who failed to effectively pass on the tradition.  So in this Golden Age you are missing these people laid the foundations for the current problems.  It was a blip in the history of magic not its peak by any means.

My entire work will continue to be published for free on this blog.  Thanks but I don't need your money for my ideas.  The tranmission of the knowledge is reward enough. I just want people to use the tools they now have at their disposal to create a Renaissance and stop holding back because they think they might one day turn it into a few thousand books. Josephine McCarthy's high quality Quareia course is free.  

If you want to charge a fortune for your work bear in mind that people do just steal what they need - people break intellectual copyright laws all the time.  We don't make a big deal about all the movies and music that have been stolenThe internet has changed everything. If you're not good enough to make it as a writer, a teacher or an order in these new times because of a lack of marketing nous or basic business acumen then get a different jobYour customers don't have as much money as they used to.  Most practitioners are poor and therefore the extra cost of supporting jet-setting teachers is not something they are comfortable with.  You want to get money from an average Gen Y you better be good, because they are going to read reviews, check and double check before they spend it. If you are reputable and adaptable enough to survive, excellent, you have been sucessfully selected by the Zeitgeist.  ''Its the economy stupid''.  Don't whine, adapt or die.

8. The collapse of the Order and Teaching system. Orders and teachers used to be the balance.

Orders perpetuated misunderstanding as well as protecting nefarious secrets.  They brought the wrath of the collective tradition down on their heads when they behaved so terribly during all the legal cases over the use of various names, etc ad nauseum.  That we have such low opinions of them these days is their fault or the fault of individuals within their organisations.
  
Independent magicians who occasionally work in small groups on specific projects is the trend and this is actually a return to the natural state of these individuals.  As I understand it this is Mr Stratton'-Kent's position and I am in complete agreement with him.  If the order system is indeed collapsing then good.

9. The Internet has made occultism too accessible.

Mr Farrell here seems to be complaining mainly that the internet has made occultists too accessible as opposed to occultism itself.  If you don't want to recieve messages from idiots then don't give out your contact details to them.  Its not rocket science.   You need to filter the students that's part of the job of the teacher.

10. The quality of occult information has become less and not more.

The quality of occult information is the highest it has ever been.  Humanity now has much greater access to the actual sources that most modern commentaries are based upon than ever before, can read them and make up their own minds.  We don't need the next 101 sorcery guide from Llewellyn.   Sales are down from tens of thousands to hundreds? Good, its done.  Game over.   Just like the music industry. They were charging eighteen pounds for a CD in the 90s - I am glad these industries are dying - they deserve to.  Publishing will only exist for these small beautifully bound works of the grimoire crowd, as it should be, and the way it once was - these books are not for the mass marketing of the occult they are for the veneration and dedicated study of the secret and the few.  

Magick will always protect itself from the worthless who just want it dumbed down and served up on a plate to them ( and they are common to all generations not just ''kids today'').  

Magick will always seek the shadows.  


In conclusion I agree with Mr Farrell that the WMT is going through a very rough patch and might dissolve.  In order to penetrate the mysteries you are going to have to work hard but at least we no longer have to painstakingly copy esoteric treatises by candlelight in secret basements while hiding from the Inquisition - I can now just go to sacred-texts.com. If the price of that is dark fluff blowing in the wind  so-be-it.  Its worth it, more than worth it for what we have now.    These are boom times for the elect.   Make the most of them.  Work harder, stop chatting shit, share results, be selective and ignore the idiots.




Monday, September 14, 2015

Raziel - Time Travel



A few months ago I asked Raziel some questions about what time travel was like.  In order to perform this kind of communication I enter a trance state and then engrave the Hebrew letters for Raziel on the astral vision, light then streams through the letters and they become like gates.  Below are the details of the communication.


- Think of time travel from the perspective of an entity who is a time traveller

- From their point of view the future already exists as does the past, and they see them as places rather than as times, as you would step into the next room that is time travel for them

- Although they can move around in time they cannot change history as this time stream is fixed but the future caused the past as much as the past caused the future

- Time did not play out ''once'', from beginning to end, as a certain sequence of events in linear time and was then saved in the temporal dimension, rather the two depths, future and past, cause each other simultaneously

- We call this the wellspring (gimel lamed) and the beginning (reshit), since they cause each other any point in time is the beginning

- You can access a different version of this universe but only from the dimension above time, this would not be time travel but something else

- Time travellers sample time at different points

- Imagine there are three loops in any given fixed time stream, the past, the present and the future and each loop is pinched at its conflux with the next loop

- Pinchpoints occur in every time stream and are fixed events in history, which includes the future, thus each timestream is divided into past, present and future with the pinchpoint occuring at a point in the linear time of this universe, there are two pinchpoints in each timestream

- The pinches are caused by events involving the ''invention'' of time travel that occur at those points in history

- As you approach a pinchpoint the percieved flow of time increases

- Entities which discovered time travel in the past loop, thereby creating the ''first'' pinch cannot go past the pinch with the future, entities which discovered time travel in the future loop, thereby creating the ''second'' pinch cannot go past the pinch with the past, only entities that discover it in the present can travel in (and sample) both

- For our closed timestream the entities are as follows:

Past - ''Dinosaur'' time travellers (past and present zones)
Present - ''Human'' time travellers (past, present and future zones)
Future - ''Utopian'' time travellers (present and future zones)

- All three groups are genetically related via the Tree of Life, in that they share common ancestors, but dinosaurs and Utopians can only meet in the present, as an entity from the past approaches the pinchpoint between the past and the future it gets pushed back and vice versa

My reflections on this:

I can understand how the paradoxes involved in time travel would affect the nature of time.  As you invent time travel in the future all time after that time becomes one time, it would effectively be simple space.  So the invention of time travel effectively ends time as we know it.  And this has already happened.

Perhaps the pinches occur naturally in the overall structure of time and are a feature of all timestreams but these pinches then cause time travel as opposed to the invention of time travel causing the pinches???  Or maybe they cause each other?

According to Raziel since the future and the past cause each other and happened simultaneously, the two pinchpoint paradoxes involved in the invention of time travel and the subsequent end of time also happened simultaneously i.e. dinosaurs and Utopians invented time travel at the same time which was actually the beginning?

He did not give me the dates of the actual pinchpoints.

In multiverse theory when we observe the wave form it collapses into the universe that we percieve but it does not mean that other universes are not happening - we just can't see them.  By choosing which path to take at any given time are we in fact surfing universes.  Is magick the process of selecting the universe you want to live in?  As time passes are we on some level surfing universes?

Probably should look for common ancestor with dinosaur and explore this point in the ToL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diadectomorpha

Friday, September 11, 2015

Initiation and Genetic Disease


Locating yourself in the physiognomial Tree of Life is a good place to start if you are attempting to understand how it can inform your own practice.  Knowing yourself is in fact the essence of the mysteries.  When looking through the Hermetic Lessons on the Physiognomical characters bear in mind what I am really talking about is the spectrum of these conditions, i.e. you may have schizophrenic or anorexic tendencies without necessarily manifesting the full blown disease.  Similarly you may be aware that you gain weight easily but keep yourself on a very strict diet because of this - genetically though it is more likely that you would still be a physiognomical character associated with Tifereth or Daat, even if you manage to keep your weight down.  What follows below is not a complete list and if you have a question about where some disease or advantageous trait should go please ask me or consult the archives for more information - bear in mind that you may have some symptoms of your character and are unlikely to have them all.

  • Kether (The Ignorant Genius) - megalomania, controlling, agromegaly (spectrum is seen as large facial features/prominent brow without harsher symptoms), creative, future-oriented
  • Chokmah (The Ignorant Fool) - hard-drug addiction (cocaine, ecstasy), schizophrenia, groomed, charming, seductive, stocky
  • Binah (The  Bloodless Being) - anorexia, self-obsession, young-looking, slim, good complexion, irregular menstruation, sleeping problems, low self-image, aloof
  • Daath (The Treefrog) - metabolism (hyper or sluggish), restlessness, growth problems, froggy-toadiness
  • Chesed (The Shellfish) - obsession, addictions, alcoholism, lazy, wider-spaced eyes, fleshy 
  • Gevurah (The Confused Venutian) - overly analytical, anxiety, chain-smoking, paranoia, sniffly because of overactive immune system, skinny
  • Tifereth (The Prisoner) - abdominal weight gain, diabetes, epilepsy, fantasy prone, lazy, daydreamer, narcissism, anarchical, pigginess of feature
  • Netzach (The Mime) - manic-depression, skin conditions (urticaria, eczema), high sex drive, stress control, emotionally cold but with breakdowns that lead to sickness/infection - stocky/fleshy
  • Hod (The Jay) - anger management issues, lithe, dextrous, avian features (sometimes owl-form), good memory, bears grudges
  • Yesod (The Many Mannered Mind Man) - aggression, paraphilias, lots of body hair, balding. facial width is closer to facial height 
Since most individuals lie on the path between two of the Sefirot it is probable that you will have defining characteristics which are linked on that path.  For instance a manic-depressive, highly sexed person with paraphilia could be said to be on the path between Netzach and Yesod, and a lithe, muscular, aggressive individual with paraphilia could be said to be on the path between Hod and Yesod.  In this post on the path of Venus I discuss the symptoms of an individual who is on the path between Chesed and Netzach in more detail.

Ultimately we have to decide whether this kind of knowledge constitutes knowledge of the self, or knowledge of the vehicle of the self.  I certainly believe that I am inhabiting this body and will survive its death, but during this incarnation it is to my advantage to learn what this particular body is capable of.  If this body is on a particular path does it mean I should neglect work that is more in the domain of other paths?  No.  As initiates it is our task to attempt to develop the entire being and we will find that some areas are more difficult to develop than others we are gifted naturally in.

Aleister Crowley has this to say in a footnote of Magick in Theory and Practice, Ch.7:

''Every person, whatever his grade in the Order, has also a "natural" grade appropriate to his intrinsic virtue. He may expect to be "cast out" into that grade when he becomes 8'=3'. Thus one man, throughout his career, may be essentially of the type of Netzach; another, of Hod. In the same way Rembrandt and Raphael retained their respective points of view in all stages of their art. The practical consideration is that some aspirants may find it unusually difficult to attain certain grades; or, worse, allow their inherent predispositions to influence them to neglect antipathetic, and indulge sympathetic, types of work. They may thus become more unbalanced than ever, with disastrous results. Success in one's favourite pursuit is a temptress; whose yields to her wiles limits his own growth. True, every Will is partial; but, even so, it can only fulfill itself by symmetrical expansion. It must be adjusted to the Universe, or fail of perfection.''

When one graduates then one can be expected to become a living archetype of their path but only by exploring the symbols of the entire system of the Tree of Life, and embracing them can one hope to achieve this.  This ''casting out'' becomes a return to the primary destiny of the incarnated self and its role as a differentiated cell within the tissue of humanity and its specific role in the Metabolism of Time. As each cell contains all the DNA necessary to create any cell in the body but only expresses that which differentiates it as a nerve cell or a liver cell so our minds contains all knowledge of the entire human organism but only express that which differentiates us from others.  In exploring the system of initiation we are providing a context of knowledge whereby we are better able to define ourselves.

As someone whose natural grade is primarily Netzach, I can be expected to find the initiations of the Philosophus grade to be especially easy and pleasing to me.  In fact I could become so successful at the mysteries of devotion that I could neglect all other paths or similarly the vices of my own character could destroy me if I let them.  However in exploring other paths one must be careful to avoid distortion of the self - at ''graduation'' you still want to be cast out into your *natural grade*.

Let me furnish this by way of example.  Many women become obsessed with looking slim, young, etc and some go so far to achieve this that they distort their natural forms with plastic surgery, etc.  The entity that they are trying to become is the Bloodless Being - (to make this more complicated this is the type of those with a natural grade of 8 = 3)  Now I am not saying that some cosmetic surgery/makeup, etc is not necessary in certain situations or indeed pleasing but if you completely distort the natural self you will not be able to succeed in these initiatory endeavours, at least this time.  Only 10% of women are natural bloodless beings, i.e. natural 8 = 3's.  Whilst it makes sense to explore the role and the initiations associated with it (to treat all phenomena as a direct dealing of God with your soul is appropriately self-obsessed for the Bloodless Being) it does not make sense to lose the sight of one's own path.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Cellular Consciousness and The Prison Planet


The word cell often evokes the word prisoner and those who grasp the principles of cellular consciousness will understand how the prison of our mind is very similar to the prison of the biological cell.  Indeed a set of minds in a room, are something akin to cellular tissue - which could be likened to a line of prison cells.




We have talked at length about the difficulties of breaking through the membrane of our own minds into the bloodstream of time - the problems with accusing angels, time police, etc -  we are inclined to remain in our cells and for the vast majority of the population, the only way out is through their dreams.

Sometimes the problem with spiritual people is they assume a perfection of the spiritual dimension which isn't present on Earth, I personally don't see why this should be the case - the spiritual dimension if not directly overlapped on the cosmos proper and therefore not a separate thing at all persay, could be just as messy.  If this is a prison system, justice may not be the first thing on its mind and even if it is, its probably not always properly executed

For consideration:

- individuals wrongfully imprisoned on Earth
- individuals doing their time who want to keep their heads down and not risk any talk of breaking out, perhaps this is an explanation for why some people avoid spirituality, they are nearly out and don't want to jeopardize their release
- corrupt/sadistic guards
- corrupt prison regime, exploiting prisoners for manufacturing work, a cosmic incarceration complex
- rehabilitation vs punishment, this ends up including the ideas of education with the idea of imprisonment
- individuals breaking in so they can break others out
- multiple defensive layers - barbed wires, sealed doors, spiked walls, watch-towers, etc perhaps represented by the crystalline spheres and the angels/entities that protect them when you attempt astral ascent

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Healing and the Sorcerers

Philosophy isn’t just reading what dead guys said or contemplating the sun. It’s about putting the will of the gods into action, no matter what they’ve given you to do. We should all be dignified public servants, fearless, striving for what’s good instead of what’s popular. Seriously, if you have something to say, fucking say it; the truth always comes out. Until then, it is better to live in the favor of the gods who see all and be hated by fallible men than the other way around. If some petty motherfucker hates you, maybe he spreads a rumor or throws a rock.  So what? On the other hand, if Jupiter isn’t thrilled with you, well, you’re pretty much fucked then, huh?

Marcus Aurelius, paraphrased by Philosophy Bro
What is healing?

The Kingships of the seven planets in the Sefer Yetzirah are - Wisdom, Wealth, Fertility, Health, Power, Peace, and Beauty*.  Their transpositions are Ignorance, Poverty, Desolation, Sickness, Submission, War and Ugliness.  Using the double letters in their soft form Kabbalists are said to be able to dispel the transpositions and restore the Kingships.  A practical meditation on a letter might involve writing out the word BYTh in Hebrew and then writing out the full spelling of those letters BYTh, YVD, ThV and so on and so on until the mind goes on to what cannot be counted.

Quarry, carve, engrave, probe.

I associate the seven double letters with the chaldean order in their rational order:
  • Saturn - Beit - Wisdom (V)
  • Jupiter - Gimel - Wealth (J)
  • Mars - Daleth - Fertility (Dh, or Dj)
  • Sol -  Kaph - Health (Kh)
  • Venus - Peh - Power (F)
  • Mercury - Resh - Peace (Rrrr or ř)
  • Luna - Tav - Beauty (Th)
If you have only studied the Crowbalah and not the Kabbalah this may seem like a strange order and perhaps a strange concept.  In truth various Kabbalists have offered up different arrangements over the centuries but I feel that the above is the oldest order and also the most rational.

TYPICAL WMT STUDEN|T
If you understand that Mars was originally an agricultural deity, fertility may start making more sense when you also understand that the corrupted understanding of Mars as a God of War brings only devastation and desolation.  Perhaps you believe that the Kingship of Beauty would better rest with Sol or Venus - but the Sun is the Lord of Healing and dominance and submission are definitely in the dominion of Venus aren't they?  You naughty folk.   Perhaps the God of communication seems out of place ruling war and peace until you start thinking about it for a moment...

Example lifestyle ritual behaviour based on the order:
  • Monday - vanity and glamour preps
  • Tuesday - the tribe, the farmstead and maintaining its fecundity
  • Wednesday - communications and meditation/mediation, inter-personal and intra-personal
  • Thursday - money management
  • Friday - love-play, dating
  • Saturday - chowing down on knowledge pie 
  • Sunday - healthy eating and exercise
Some Kabbalists apply a more flexible approach and permute the letters, as esoterically as is possible of course, to achieve blends of the planetary forces, which as a group of entities can be said to govern over the group of Kingships.  I mean its not like we can just focus on looking good on Mondays and let ourselves degenerate over the rest of the week until we are a shambolic wreck.  Similarly if health activity only happens on Sunday you are probably going to end up a little out of shape.  These Kabbalists' approach makes sense to me, we must permute and mix the letters, adjusting their forces to the astrological weather, compensating and reacting to the cosmic wind.

As ever, in medicine, precision is everything so without understanding the correct order its difficult to zoom in on individual problems.  Most Crowbalists end up with a shotgun rather than a laser and their surgeries are often a little rough to say the least - if they even use the Crowbalah to attempt to heal another person.

To what extent does our will have to bend with the astral forces, and to what extent do we remake the world with that will?  A planetary lifestyle as I have outlined above need not exclude other planets on other days but making sure to include appropriate planetary activity for appropriate day cannot help but remake you over time and most of us need some sort of scaffolding to build anything lasting.

To what extent can the work of our sorcerers be said to be healing?
  • You are ignorant.  A healer teaches you.  You now know.
  • You are poor.  A healer helps you make money.  You are now rich
  • You are infertile.  A healer grants you the power to create.  You have children.
  • You are sick.  A healer cures you.  Your are healthy.
  • You are in chains.  A healer gives you strength to break out.  You are free.
  • You are vengeful.  A healer calms you down.  You are at peace.
  • You feel ugly.  A healer gives you glamour.  You feel beautiful!  Awww.
 Sorcerer or Healer?  Does it matter?  What's in a name?






*Grace, but the transposition is ugliness - do we mean beauty or does ugliness really mean a complete lack of sophisitication?