Talking About Ritual Magick

Various Assorted Thoughts and Considerations About Ritual Magick - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

This is part two of a two part article that discusses some of the various issues that have been buzzing around the blogsphere.

Are Spirits Real or Mental Constructs?

Lon Milo Duquette has been reputed to have said regarding spirits that they are all in your head. It’s just that your head is a lot bigger than you think. Others have proposed that spirits (especially demons) are psychological constructs, while others have even gone so far as to say polytheistic gods and goddesses are psychological archetypes found within the collective social mind of the culture or race. In such a manner, all spiritual phenomena are relegated to manifestations of the mind, and they cannot be seen apart or distinct from human consciousness.

I think that this perspective has its foundation in the fact that spirits don’t appear to have a separate existence outside of human interaction. The argument goes that because they don’t have an objective physical existence that can be empirically proven, they can’t exist as physical entities separate from the human beings who claim to experience them. Of course, the same thing can be said about the proposed existence of Deity or Deities. Everything is a facet of the mind. Everything spiritual is purely psychological.

This perspective is true, but only if you wholly or exclusively accept the psychological theory or model of magick. In fact, I would rate this perspective to be reliant on an overly aggressive use of the mind model of magick. There are, of course, other models, and if you adhere to any of them, the aggressive mind model would not only be immediately rejected, but it would also be considered intrusively obnoxious. The paradox of the reality of spirits is that they become identified and defined by the model that one uses, even though any definition or model will fall short of actually defining them. The same logic can be used in the discussion of the nature of the Godhead - it depends on the model or perspective that you are using. I would suspect that there might be some quantum magic to be found within these paradoxes.

If you are using the spirit model of magick, then everything is centered around a definition of spirits that is external and subjectively objective to the magickal operator. This model is very concise and simple to apply. You develop a relationship with specific spirits (invocation, evocation or votive offerings), and they in turn may be called upon to perform certain operations. The most important task that a magician using this model performs is to consistently establish and build on one’s spiritual alignment. This process has both a liturgical and an operational quality, which means that the magician functions as a kind of priest/ess or spiritual intermediary. Devotion, service, performing periodic liturgical rites, as well as invocation, evocation and assumption represent the core practices of this methodology. All of these techniques are important practices for the magician who adheres to the spirit model of magick.

However, if the magician is strictly engaged with the energy model of magick, then he or she perceives magick as a kind of energy exchange, and that the typical source of that energy is the human operator. Another aspect of the energy theory is the thaumaturgy model of magick, which proposes that a magickal operation is nothing more (or less) than the combining of various specialized elements to fashion or create a spell which produces a specific effect or impact. A pure energy model is very similar to a pure thaumaturgy model of magick, since both use specific elements to produce a magickal effect. To a magician who uses the energy model in exclusion to any other model, the questions of the reality of spirits is irrelevant and unimportant. Still, they would object to any theory that attempted to nullify their belief in an energy that exists as the foundation of their magickal practice. An aggressive psychological model would postulate that any kind of energy, combination of components, or the use of spirits are nothing more than psychological tropes. Such an over-reaching theory or model would make everyone unhappy, except those who whole heartedly subscribed to it.

Since I seem to function as such hybrid in my practices and beliefs, I would subscribe to all three models simultaneously, as I suspect many others do as well. That would mean that I believe, to a certain extent, in the subjective objectivity of spirits, but that I can also see their operation and impact within my mind and deeply embedded in my spiritual nature. Because I am also a spirit (as well as a body and a mind), then there must also be Deities and Spirits both within me and in the outside world.

These entities can also be found embedded in our culture and exist as pure symbols within what I would call the “super symbolic reality.” That spirits are both completely subjective (mental constructs) and subjectively objective (disembodied entities that exist and reside in the higher and lower strata of consciousness) is a known paradox, but one that I have had to make an accommodation with in order to make any sense out of what I have experienced. My magickal associates have worked magick with me, or independently using the same techniques and devices to invoke spirits, and have had analogous experiences to what I have had. This would indicate that there is a certain objective quality to spirits, although they remain a purely subjective experience.

Spirit Invocation/Evocation - Must Spirits Be Visible?

If spirits are subjectively objective, then one would assume that they must be visible, and that a successful invocation or evocation would cause the target spirit to be visually apparent. This is another topic that is making the rounds of the blogsphere, and most of the magicians who have written about this subject seem to agree that invoked/evoked spirits should be visually apparent.

My friend Ananael Qaa has written an article on this issue in his blog “Augoeides,” which highlights some of these points as well as highlighting the other individuals who have commented on them (you can find it here). Even Donald Michael Kraig has opined on this issue in his Llewellyn blog. Some in the “exclusive use grimoire” crowd have gone so far as to say that not only should the spirits be visible when successfully invoked, they should also be fully verifiable physical manifestations with an accompaniment of various psychic perturbations. This, of course, is the theory that Joseph Lesiewski has promoted in his book on magickal evocation. I have pretty much debunked the whole physical manifestation model of successful evocation requirement, but the other considerations for some kind of visual affirmation remain.

I guess the whole argument is that if you don’t at least see the spirit, then it can’t really exist, or at least the attempt to invoke or evoke it has failed. I might agree with this opinion if were not for the fact that there are quite a number of ritual systems used to channel the powers and abilities of spirits, and not all of them require a verifiable apparition. Sometimes a skrying device is required, other times a young child is used as a medium. John Dee didn’t see the many spirits that he conversed with, and he had to rely on the services of Edward Kelly as his seer.

It would seem that whether or not a magician is able to visually apprehend a spirit which is invoked or evoked has to do with whether or not he or she is so gifted. I have met individuals who don’t have visual experiences when they work magick, and others who are more prone to hearing spirit voices or sensing them in some other way. I think that it is narrow minded to discount dream incubation, which has an ancient providence, or other signs and portends as being less valid than a visual apparition. My theory is that spirits communicate on multiple levels simultaneously, and that the visual phenomenon that one might experience may not be the most important or significant.

As for myself, I am extremely visual and also gifted in the ability to clearly hear the spirits speak to me. Often when I perform an invocation or evocation, the apparition of the spirit is accompanied with a complete visual-like dream-scape. I not only see and hear the spirit, but I also see the spirit’s domain as well. It’s as if I were somehow consciously transported to another world altogether. When I have talked to other magicians, I seem to be part of an extreme minority in regards to this phenomenon. It is one of my magickal talents and it has served me very well.

Yet even though my senses have allowed me to be transported to another world, others who have either worked magick with me, or performed the same rite independently, haven’t had the same level of visual experiences that I have had. It is my gift, just as others have their gift or ability in the business of magick, and who is to say what gift is greater than the other? For one thing, I don’t bother using a skrying glass or crystal, and I don’t astral project. I don’t need to, but others might have one of these abilities fine-tuned to a point that would be analogous to what I am able to experience, or perhaps even greater. So I believe it has to do with your innate talent and ability. Certainly, having a powerful imagination is very helpful, but it isn’t necessary.

I have met a few powerful magicians who work with spirits and don’t receive any visual proof that the invocation has been successful. What they have instead of a knack for visualization is a powerful relationship with a spirit or group of spirits, and by assembling the components of the spell and directing the spirit to perform a service, the magick is succinctly accomplished.

One of my friends was a practitioner of Afro-Carribean religions and magick, and he never visually saw a spirit nor could he hear it speak in his head. He sensed a presence in his gut and his emotions, and communicated through divination tools, such as various kinds of dice, colored pebbles, knuckle bones, etc. He also had a very tight relationship with his chosen demigods and associated servitor spirits, but he never saw any specific apparition. Was his magick a sham or somehow less effective than someone who does see a visual apparition? I think that anyone who would have said as much to him would have really pissed him off. He would have been insulted by that kind of judgement, and rightly so. Magick encompasses a huge variety of practices and experiences, and every magician is nearly unique in how they practice magick and how they perceive it as well.

I think that making rules and establishing assumptions about how magick should work if it is to be considered valid is misleading, even when concerning the specialized magick that deals with spirits. The proof is whether or not the magick works, and that the magician is using his or her talents and abilities to their fullest potential. The rest is just the multitude of various possibilities that one can experience or somehow sense when performing any kind of magick.

High Tech Pirates, SOPA and PIPA - My Opinion

Arrgh! Avast ye swabs! Even a pirate has a pirate’s code! (OK, I got that out of my system!)

Nearly everyone has weighed in with their thoughts and opinions over the ongoing debate about various forms of media piracy. As an author, I am, of course, interested in preserving my literary assets (meager as they are), which I have spent many years developing, acquiring and writing for others to utilize. I don’t look kindly upon pirates, but I also believe that it’s probably impossible to eliminate them altogether. Unless we are to live in a police state with invasive government control and strict censorship, media piracy is going to happen.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to curtail anyone’s freedom of acquiring information or expressing their opinion. There are already strict copyright laws, fair usage guidelines, etc., and every now and then some media pirate gets put down through international legal mechanisms (such as what happened recently to Megaupload). I don’t believe that we need more laws to govern the use of media, and I am wholly against any kind of interference, control or censorship of the internet. Thus I am glad that both SOPA and PIPA were defeated, although there are still opportunities for the moneyed elite to oppress the powerless masses. All we need to do is to be vigilant and scream bloody murder when someone attempts to curtail our slowly dwindling rights.

The internet is like the wild west before it was supposedly tamed. You can find nearly anything you want to find on the internet. Uninformed opinions, urban myths and complete misinformation abounds on the internet, and all we can do to cope with it is to use as much critical thinking as possible, and to try to put out the truth wherever feasible. The internet is an infant medium that is undergoing a great deal of growing pains. It has already caused a lot of good and also posed some major social problems, but I think that it should be allowed to evolve into something more splendid than it is, and not be egregiously curtailed before it can mature.

Even though I occasionally find sites that purport to offer free downloads of my books (most of them are empty ghosts sites), and I do attempt to do something about them, my books and writings will end up on someone else’s media device without either recognition or payment of any kind. There isn’t much that can be done about this, and I suspect that eventually it will make most writing jobs and the many works that such individuals produce worth very little if anything. I also notice that there are quite a slew of books that can be bought on Amazon for as little as a few cents (the postage costs far more than the book, and downloading an ebook costs next to nothing). These wholesale sites put pressures on book publishers to make less money, and this will ultimately kill most of them off.

Most people don’t have a clue what it takes to produce a book, whether fiction or non-fiction, and I understand that. I had to learn how to write, both grammatically as well as communicating ideas in a recognizable format. As a writer, I often have ideas and whole stories living in my head and heart for months or years, anxiously waiting to be given a verbal expression. I have hundreds of characters and stories aching to come out, and as my skill as a fiction writer improves, I hope to give those stories and characters life. I am also very passionate about my practices and beliefs regarding ritual magick, and I feel moved to write about them and share them with my reading public. I don’t expect to make very much money doing this, but then again, I do it because I love to do it. Writing has become my passion and also the manifestation of my ultimate magick!

It’s all so ironic because I used to be a terrible writer, and I have reams of writings and notes to prove that point. When I was a young man I was a poor writer, and it has required me to work very hard to become as proficient as I am today, which, I might add, is far greater than I was, but a long way from where I want to be. Considering the hundreds of hours that I have spent developing, writing, editing and rewriting to get my message to you, my readers, I should think that spending a few measly bucks for my books would not be too much to ask. After all, I am constantly giving away a lot of my writings on this blog, and I also share my rituals and workings with the members of my Order, all at no cost to them. To honor me as a writer and as an individual who is passionately seeking to communicate my ideas, you could do no less than buy at least one of my books (even at a bargain price), attend one of my workshops, or even perhaps buy me a drink someday. After all, I am doing this for you as well as myself. My hope is that some of what I have written will be useful and helpful so you can produce your own magickal system, which is my overall writing objective.

So for this reason I have been steadfastly against legislation such as SOPA and PIPA, but I am also against media piracy of any kind, even though I know that at times the innocent are often duped into purchasing pirated merchandise. This has happened to probably anyone who has sought to order things more cheaply through the internet than buying something at a store. I have found that if the price for a given item is too good to be true, then it is likely either pirated or fake, or a combination of both. We have to protect ourselves and use good judgment while the internet and its various offshoots mature and become more self-governed. Anyway, that is my opinion on this matter for the moment, and it could even change in the future, depending on what happens. I might support a fair set of legislation that enforces a modicum of order on the internet, but considering how cagey most hackers are, any rules will have technical loopholes.

Frater Barrabbas

Various Assorted Thoughts and Considerations About Ritual Magick - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

This is part one of a two part series consisting of various assorted thoughts about recent blogsphere topics.

It’s nearing the end of the month, and there are a number of small topics and comments that I would like to present to my reading public. I have truly enjoyed all of the comments and responses that I got for my article on non-duality, and I have a few comments of my own to add and also clarify what I said previously. Additionally, I have recently got a copy of Mr. E. A. Koetting’s more recent book “Ipsissimus” where he discusses the concepts and ideas of enlightenment ala the Left Hand Path. As I read deeper into his material, I will, at some point, deliver an opinion on his work. Despite the fact that I don’t actually consider myself an adherent of the LHP philosophy, I am also not disposed completely to the Right Hand Path either. I would also like to put forward my opinions about the issues of the reality of spirits, the verification of evocation, and literary piracy v.s. online freedom (the SOPA/PIPA controversy). There are a lot topics here to briefly discuss, and they are mostly unrelated, hence the title “Various Assorted.”

Multiple Paths to Enlightenment

In October of last year, I posted an article entitled “Path to Enlightenment Through Magick,” where I explained my perspective on achieving enlightenment through the artifice of performing theurgistic magickal rituals, which I call ordeals. You can find that article here, in case you want to review it. I have forged a path, although it is not thoroughly tested (I am not yet “enlightened”), which would take me to a place that is decidedly between the objectives of the Right Hand Path and the Left Hand Path, making me a proponent of neither. I should quote this passage, taken from another blog article here, which pretty much sums up how I seek to achieve my objective by following neither ethical orientation.

“This is particularly true because I consider myself neither a follower of the left hand or the right hand path, being a denizen of that shadowy grey area that is more a practical reality than an alliance to some path or persuasion. I aspire in my magickal workings to integrate the HGA or Bornless One into my own self, and thus elevate myself to the level of a godhead, however thinly or briefly. This is certainly a lefthand path perspective. However, I also give veneration, offerings and worship to my ancestors and my gods, thus making me a follower of the right hand path.”

First off, I would like to state that following a particular dualistic path (RHP or LHP) is probably overly simplistic. Practical approaches to the practice of ritual magick and its ultimate goal of union with the One would require any magician to forge a path that is unique and specific to his or her life path, keeping in mind the inherited legacy and the various virtues and flaws that each individual possesses. What this means is that a theoretical discussion based on ideals typically breaks down to practical necessity, and that there are as many different paths to that ultimate goal of spiritual unity as there are individuals who might seek it. Unlike mysticism, or mystical traditions and paths, the path of the traditional magician likely doesn’t exist. There are certainly traditions that form the foundation of any practitioner in regards to their inherent practice, but ultimately, every magician worth his or her salt will leave that tradition behind in order to create something specific and unique to themselves. So while there are specific and set mystical traditions, there appear to be no set magickal traditions in regards to higher level pathways and practices. This also means that the division of RHP and LHP becomes meaningless after a certain point in a magician’s development.

As I have stated in my recent article on monism, it is through our own internal godhead that we are able to perceive the active role of Spirit in the world, and it is when we become truly aware of our own godhead, and fully activate it, that we gain an intimate connection to that overarching Deity which acts as the ultimate source of all things. (We will talk a bit more about this issue later in this article.) Therefore, as far as functioning as a ritual magician and performing theurgistic ordeals, the primary purpose and task is to awaken the godhead within one. Once that awakening and merging of consciousness occurs, then we can proceed with the combined mystical and magickal tasks of completing that union with the One.

I think that the division of paths, and the ideation of RHP or LHP are useful discussion tools when one is below the level of achieving full union with the inner godhead. At that point and beyond, such distinctions are probably useless.

(A tip of the hat to my reader and commentator, Nik64, who gave me the inspiration and idea to write up this point.)

Further Thoughts About Non-duality, Magick, and the Qabbalah

One of my readers (Josh) had some real issues with what I had recently written about non-dual perspectives (i.e., monism) in regards to magick and a pagan based religious idealism, stating that monism was somehow restricted to a single viewpoint and that it excludes all other perspectives, which he called “pluralism.” I don’t really know where he got this idea from, since I couldn’t find in my article where I stated that my perspective and view was singularly correct, and that all others were somehow false. Here’s a small segment of what Josh said in the comments section of my article.

“The problem with monism (one view and one view only) is that those coming from a monistic viewpoint always try to demonize other views as dualism or dualistic, even when there is a multiplicity (more than two) views.”

I really think that Josh was thinking about his objections to “monotheism” rather than “monism,” and they are actually quite different. Stating that a certain deity is the one and only godhead (and all others are false) can create a closed system that eliminates the consideration of other factors, or other godheads and their spiritual creeds. Monotheism can produce exclusionary spiritual systems that negate pluralism. Adopting a mystical perspective seems to eliminate the possibility of believing in the exclusive truth of one’s religion, and it also separates or makes a distinction between individuals who espouse a faith based perspective or experience Spirit directly from those who are merely believers. Through the artifice of stating that both the internal and individual godhead and the ultimate unified source are co-equal and the same is to enshrine both a unitary perspective as well as a pluralistic perspective. Many variations of monotheism as they are practiced in the West exclude the possibility that the individual is also a distinct godhead in their own right, since such a perspective (“All art God) would violate the integrity of a strict monotheistic creed. Throughout the ages, there have been more than a few mystics who have been murdered or taken to task by narrow minded sectarians of their own creed, and that would include Jesus of Nazareth himself.

Lao Tzu says it quite well when he writes in the very first chapter of the Tao Te Ching:

“Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one can see the manifestation. These two spring from a common source, but differ in name.”

According to Lao Tzu, the mystery or paradox is the One that is actually None, and the pluralistic perspective sees the Spirit alive and thriving in all things. I believe that the same ability to embrace the One and the Many exists in all forms of mysticism, and is important in regards to ritual magick, too. So I don’t think that there is an absolutist perspective in monism, but there certainly can be an absolutist perspective in monotheism and extreme sectarianism.

I also stated that my personal perspective was based on the pagan theology that I originally accepted as a part of being a practicing witch. As a traditional Alexandrian witch, I believed in the existence of a Goddess and a God, and that when joined together, they became a kind of union that has no name or characteristic. Traditional witchcraft (ala BTW) embraces a kind of “dual-theology,” and that only some of its adherents (such as myself) will hold that there is something that transcends them both. Not everyone in my tradition believes that the Goddess and the God are forever joined into a fusion that is greater than the sum of their parts. Yet once I grew beyond the boundaries that were defined by Alexandrian witchcraft, I also discovered the reality and necessity of individual and distinct pagan Deities, since there seemed to be many qualities to the overall aspect of deity in my experience, and these many qualities could be easily realized through a form of pagan polytheism.

What I found after many years of practicing witchcraft and paganism is that the concept of a dual-theology is just one way to perceive the concept of polytheism. There is also a true polytheism that sees many different gods and goddesses as distinct personalities, and there is the concept that all of these deities coalesce into a single unity, which I call the One. All of these perspectives are true and correct, but also limited and only conditionally true. Deity is, by nature, paradoxical, so any one single definition, model, description or perspective limits something that is unlimited, indefinite and infinite. Therefore, I would think that by making this statement I am embracing both a monism and a pluralism simultaneously. How I can do that (and get away with it) is to state that what is being described can’t be described. As Lao Tzu says in the first chapter:

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things.”

Curiously, this whole issue of monism, monotheism, plurality, polytheism and the individuation of the Godhead has been getting a fair amount of buzz in various blogs, most specifically in the collected web journals that make up Patheos. Gus diZerega, who is the author of “Pagans and Christians,” brought up some very interesting points about how monotheism has some problems when characterizing their Godhead as being completely separate and distinct from everything, as a Deity that is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, while still being capable of being loving, directly experienced and intimate. These opposing perspectives are merely labeled as part of the paradox of a deity that is both immanent and transcendent, but there are some real problems to this perspective that labeling it all as a paradox does nothing to resolve. You can find his article here.

Anyway, I think that I have more succinctly stated my beliefs and perspectives on this topic, and so I can rest my case and move on to other topics. The only reason why I have been working on this topic and its related perspectives in regards to the practice or ritual magick is that when I have experienced the highest states of consciousness that I am able, the resultant state is unity. At that veritable peak of my magickal experiences, I am able to sense how everything is connected together, and that within that union I have found the ecstatic bliss of the One. I believe that it’s pretty hard to dismiss what I have experienced, and correspondingly, it’s pretty hard to adequately explain it using words or mental models.

Finally, I would like to announce that I will be attending a weekend intensive at the local Twin Cities store, the Eye of Horus, with John Michael Greer. He will be conducting a three day series of classes on pagan ceremonial magick. I will be very interested in learning to hear what John thinks about this topic, since he has recourse to much of this material written in its source languages, a skill to which I am quite deficient. These classes will be taking place on Friday, January 27, through Sunday, January 29. I will write up a critique of this class and let you know what I think of it. I am certain that it will be interesting and rewarding. I have been corresponding with John for a few months now, and I have found his letters to be refreshing, interesting, compelling and sometimes, quite humorous. He is another one of those remarkable men and women, and I encourage everyone to seek out these kinds of people and learn everything that can be learned from them. It is an excellent methodology for self-enrichment, and ultimately, if you have rubbed elbows with enough remarkable men and women, you may become one yourself.

(To be continued..)

Frater Barrabbas

My Santa Fe Adventure - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Further Archeomantic Ordeal Workings

Having a smaller apartment did make my life more attenuated and crowded, but as far as my magick temple was concerned, I still had plenty of room. This allowed me to continue the work that I had developed in Tallahassee. I had brought my magickal work to the zenith of my ability through the entrance and immersion of the first and lowest of the Qabbalistic dimensions (Dimension XVIII). I had repeated that working a couple of times, exposing others to its wonders and ensuring that it was something that was real and objective. The Santa Fe temple seemed like the perfect place to expand on this knowledge, so I prepared and performed an entrance into the next dimension in sequence (XVII), and then later on, performed a ritual that joined the two dimensions together into a singularity. These workings proved to be astonishingly remarkable, and performing rituals at a higher elevation had its interesting effects as well. I found that working magick within the Santa Fe environment compounded and amplified what was done to a much greater degree than anything that I had experienced previously. This might have had something to do with the thin atmosphere, the ambience of the location, the magical qualities of the land or because of the dust in the air. It might have been a combination of all of these qualities, but I did notice how much more potent the magick seemed when performed in the Land of Enchantment.

As I have stated previously, the triangular shapes found within the lattice structure of the paths of the Tree of Life are defined as Qabbalistic Dimensions. There are exactly 18 of these dimensions, and all of them are triangular with exception to the 4th and 5th dimensions, which are trapezoids. A Qabbalistic Dimension represents the synergetic union of the three Pathways, Sephiroth and Angular Vectors, which are said to be the Enochian Aethyrs. Thus, a Dimension is the veritable spiritual flesh and internal organs of the body of the Godhead, but it functions as a powerful unified being whose very nature is completely paradoxical and transcends all mental structures and considerations. When I have entered into one of these dimensions, I have found that they appear to operate wholly within the Causal Level of Consciousness, and seem to function as an unknown Godhead beyond any known occult definition. Accessing one seems to resolve itself into the activated field where all eighteen are realized as a holistic meta Godhead. When I have encountered one of these massive entities, it’s almost as if my entire mind is wiped clean and all that remains is an overpowering sense of bliss, unity, and a faint sound of celestial music. All other senses are null and void, and even thinking or conceptualizing is impossible.

I continued to perform these so-called Transdimensional workings that I had started in Tallahassee, seeking to fulfill and complete the workings associated with the XVIII dimension (whose spirit was called Autogenes), and then performing the entrance into the XVII dimension (whose spirit is Sophia Charisima). Where the XVIII dimension was located on the masculine side, the XVII dimension was on the feminine side of the Tree of Life. The numbering of the dimensions was based on a logical premise that what is more accessible and closer to the magician (i.e., the actualized masculine pillar) received a higher number and sequence, and represented where the counting begins (bottom right to left, then higher right, left, etc.). However, the sequential numbering of the dimensions doesn’t indicate any kind of ranking, since the dimensions are seen as operating as pairs of opposites all the way up the Tree of Life.

Gaining entrance into one of these qabbalistic dimensions requires a complete magickal exegesis of the three Sephiroth, Pathways and Aethyrs, which function as the components of this kind of working. All of these elements are pulled together into a synthetic structure grounded on a cross-roads vortex, and upon that structure is erected a grand gateway, which helps to fuse all of the components into a unified expression. Entering into that grand gateway is the way that the magician enters into the dimension, causing a complete immersion into the phenomenon of the transdimensional vortex. Having experienced this process a number of times, I have encountered all sorts of peculiar phenomena, such as extreme time dilation, full visual revelations of other worlds and domains, some of them completely alien to our own world, and visions of futureevents, some near and others far. Yet all of these phenomena only occur immediately before and after full immersion into the dimension. Full immersion produces the overpowering experience of being in a reality that is completely void of thought or any kind of intellection. Through the years 1994 through 1997, and the first quarter of 1998, I performed various workings engaging this very high form of ritual magick. I also exposed others to it and received complete corroboration from those who experienced it.

Although the initial ordeal working was quite elaborate and lengthy, taking a couple of months to complete, and the actual final ritual working took three consecutive days, there was a macro ritual that could be performed to regain access to the dimension whenever desired. This macro rite used the already previously established ritual structures to generate the transdimensional vortex, and all that was required to gain access was to perform the associated mystery rite and erect and enter the grand threshold gate. Using the macro ritual allowed me to re-enter and re-experience the already fully invoked dimension several times. This re-entry allowed me to more fully examine the phenomenon of the dimension, and also, to exhibit and share its power and qualities with a few others. At the time, I believed that I had discovered the most powerful and profound magickal ordeal that one could possibly experience. So I was quite fixated on this methodology for the next several years. I still believe today that it is one of the most powerful systems of magick, but it is only one of several that I now have in my repertoire.

In the autumn of 1994, I performed a final re-entry into the XVIII dimension and then sought to shift my focus to the next working. Yet on November 23, I performed a ritual working that attempted to exteriorize the dimension as an evoked spirit (in this case, Autogenes). I used the Gate of Revealing and Iron Cross rituals, which are expressly used to exteriorize a spirit into the mundane world, to coalesce s the spirit of the dimension into this world. The results of that working were quite remarkable, but I decided that such a working wasn’t really necessary, since it didn’t seem to actually make too much difference to my overall magickal and spiritual process. I also developed and performed a new version of the Bornless One Invocation rite that had as its foundation the completely exteriorized Four Qabbalistic Worlds, acting as a kind of tiered temple with four steps to the summit. I accomplished this ordeal on February 11, 1995, just before beginning a new cycle of workings. This new development was both relevant and critically important, as I later found out when seeking to do the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal.

From that date, and through the rest of the year and into the autumn of 1996, I performed a number of minor invocations and other workings, developing and refining the system of theurgy that I had first presented to the Order back in the late 1980's. I was also performing the final edits and revisions to my three volume book, and seeking to get it ready for publication in the near future. In 1997, I sent out samples, cover letters and a table of contents to a least a dozen publishers, and then waited for some positive response. Of course, all of these submissions received rejections over the next year and a half. Even so, I made copies of this book and shared them with my friends. At over 550 total pages, the book was quite voluminous. I later would find it to be poorly written and overly redundant when I re-wrote it as the “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” series.

In the autumn of 1996 I began the working that would help me gain entry into the XVII dimension. In October, I separately invoked the three great Aethyrs of ZAA, DES and VTI. These workings turned out to be quite powerful and amazing all by themselves. They also caused some interesting phenomenon to occur in my mundane life, which seemed to parallel the symbolic revelations of these three Aethyrs. Pulling some interesting text from my own magickal diary, the following was written up by me during that period.

“The three invocations had a powerful effect on the outward experiences of my life, each seemingly having a direct impact upon me after their invocation. It was amazing to see these interesting and unusual (but also subtle) things happen. The first invocation produced an effect the day after it was completed. I received an unexpected call from an older woman (Gabriel) who was looking to put together a musical group to accompany the selected reading of Persian and Indian mystic poets, such as Rumi, Hafiz, Kabir, Mirabai and Lalla. These poets exemplified the qualities of the aethyr ZAA, and so I accepted [the offer] to join three other musicians on very short notice to perform a concert consisting of sketchy themes and ideas for accompanying the most excellent of poetry. The concert was performed on October 17th at 7:00 PM. It was a great success at moments, and a bit long over-all. However, the poetry perfectly meshed with the message of ZAA, that I must submit to the love and will of the Deity in order to master myself and my destiny. This message I received and understood. The second and third aethyr did not produce such dramatic and immediate results, but they joined to establish the mood of the time, and colored the mundane occurrences of my life in later October and November.

I attended an interesting Halloween party and performed some amazing tarot card readings. I found out that evening that my friend Shann had breast cancer and was likely going to die from it. (Without any medical benefits, she had been unable or unwilling to see a doctor about her condition until the cancer was well advanced.) I saw her attempt to live, and her struggle seemed futile even at that time, then much more so a little later on. I brought her to the Halloween party, where she attempted and succeeded in dancing for a short time. Three weeks later she was admitted to a Nursing facility where she died only a few days later, just barely 44 years old, even though her wasted body looked like someone forty years older. As her designated Wiccan friend (I owed her some consideration for introducing me to all her friends), I had sponsored a Phowa ritual in Albuquerque on November 23rd with the assistance of Sandy Bryon and OZ. Shann was too sick to attend, and so I video taped it for her, and she at least got to see it a couple of days before she passed. It had snowed the night of the Halloween party, and soon afterwards, winter held the mountainous realms of Northern New Mexico in its icy grip.”

Winter had come to Santa Fe, and it was probably one of the more snowy and colder winters that I had experienced there. On November 9, I performed a newly developed and written invocation of Hermes Thoth Trismagistus, and through that working I discovered that he was my mysterious magickal mentor, guide, teacher and the inspirer of my magickal work. Thus my secret mentor was Hermes Thoth, so I received some very critical insights, lore and creative ideas from him through that invocation. Here is what I wrote in my magickal diary about that momentous event.

“This was a very intense working, and it was a kind of home-coming for me. For many years I had pondered the source of my inspiration in the fashioning of a new methodology of ritual magick. I had made amazing progress over the years, and at each loggerhead I received inspirations and insights that guided me to new vistas of understanding. When I succeeded in conjuring Hermes Thoth, he revealed himself to me in an effulgence of light and glory, telling me that he was my guide and muse in the arts of magick. The source of this new methodology of ritual magick was inspired by the spirit of Hermes Thoth, who proclaimed me as one of his emissaries in this world given the task to modernize a venerable spiritual tradition fallen upon hard times. I was to invigorate the arguments for ritual magick as the preeminent yoga of the Western Mystery tradition.

The spirit of Hermes Thoth pervaded the magick of the temple and assisted in making the magickal invocations of the three aethyrs even more potently realized within it. His power and inspiration helped me not to lose hope during the dark and cold month of November. I felt a powerful optimism emanate from him. He told me not to forsake my path because of apparent setbacks or the slow pace of the realization of my aspirations. All things would come to pass, and he was acting as my guide and muse, thus I was well protected and directed. I was amazed that yet another piece of my inner puzzle was revealed, and that the source and inspiration of my magickal ideas came ultimately from Hermes Thoth. It made obvious sense to me, but I had certainly pondered over it for many years, never suspecting such an obvious source. This connection does not negate my own true will nor my creativity, for these are important to my inner nature and they allow the free flow of intuitive occult speculations. Hermes Thoth acts as an intimate source and background for my occult studies and inventions, therefore, I am well integrated into the modern expression of Hermetic Philosophy and the Western Mystery tradition.”

Then on the long weekend of January 17 - 19, I performed the transdimensional vortex gate working to enter into the XVII dimension. This ordeal had to be performed by myself alone, since I didn’t have anyone to assist me as I had previously in Tallahassee. The three day ordeal was therefore much more arduous than the previous ordeal of 1994, but it was no less profound and mind blowing than what I had experienced previously. Here are a few diary entries that encapsulate what I experienced during that wondrous event.

“Without the aid of an assistant, the three night ordeal was very difficult but allowed me to exceed all expectations of endurance and perseverance. I relished the difficulty of the second evening and without much pause or rest, proceeded through all the rituals, establishing the three paths and Sephiroth associated with the XVIIth dimension. All throughout the ordeal, a myriad of reflections and insights occurred to me, all of which were of an extremely personal nature. I felt a profound degree of clarity in regards to the strange path I have been treading all these many years. My unusual relationships with women made perfect sense to me, and that society’s expectation that single people should find someone (just anyone!) to get married to is not relevant to one who is as deep a seeker of occult wisdom as myself, one who requires a partner who is willing to enter this World of Spirit and therein bond. I must determine for myself what is important in life and try to ignore or deeply understand the prodding and propaganda of our culture. Because I have abrogated the determination of personal meaning and truth, I must question the relevancy of all these urges, even those rooted in the core of my physical being.

Another insight that was revealed to me through this ordeal was that I must soon change the emphasis of my occult studies from being a solitary practitioner to a teacher among the peerage of magickal practitioners. I felt that this might also include a change of residence in the next two to three years, but there was not the powerful visionary mandate that was felt three years ago when I entered the XVIIIth dimension. But I felt that a change in my spiritual path would occur in due course.”

And this diary entry into the dimension recalls what entering it was like for me, and similarly, for others.

“The resultant impact of the egress into the XVIIth dimension was so great and so intense that it seemed as if my mental capacities were completely eclipsed. I was not able to think analytically, and all that was left of my conscious mind was an openness to the experience, an unresistant flowing with the currents of the greater power of the entity of the dimension, Sophia Charisima. Thus I saw no visions but only heard her voice in my mind, and felt the great power of her presence. I sensed profound changes occurring deep within me, but I could neither articulate nor even visualize them. Whatever was occurring, I could not even grasp it except in a deeply intuitive fashion. This was the most profound magickal experience that I have ever undergone, and in fact its effects still profoundly haunt me even several months later. It is a process that is still unfolding in me, as it involves the most personal and intimate aspects of my being. Through this process I am understanding my own complex sexual nature, and the peculiar relationships that I have with women - as their initiator and priest of the hidden genius (Goddess) within them. The question seems to be whether or not I can take this role with many women and still be devoted to a single woman.”

Even though I had been shown through my experience with the XVII dimension that my spiritual and magickal path would be changing in the near future, that change didn’t occur until another year had passed. During the interval, I re-entered the XVII dimension four times, in February, September, November and finally, January 1998. I felt that I had exhausted the transdimensional vortex system, but during that time I had also come up with another mechanism. I decided that I would attempt to perform a re-entry of both the XVIII and XVII dimensions simultaneously, thus uniting them into single meta-dimension. I know for a fact that I performed this working because I have the time table of planetary hours written up for that specific date, but the diary entry was likely written on some loose pieces of paper and are hidden somewhere amongst the mass of papers and folders in my black filing cabinet. The impact of that working was likely quite remarkable and represented the final apex of that series, but as I had been informed, my spiritual process was starting to change, and this final working would be the last of that type that I would work for many years.

Here is some text that I wrote up prior to performing this working that explains why I thought it would be significant to join the two transdimensional vortex gates into a fused union. I wanted to attempt to experience the dimensions unified into a single expression, so it seemed natural to join the masculine and feminine dimensions together.

“After having entered and experienced all the phenomenon associated with the two lowest but still potent Qabbalistic dimensions, I had pondered producing an expression representing their union. It is part of my methodology to seek a shortcut in order to gain egress to all dimensions without the arduous performance of all the ritual steps - the full three phases. However, such a complicated and intensive working as the trans-dimensional gate could not be expressed in a simpler fashion than through the synthesis of its component parts - namely the aethyrs, paths and sephiroth. Therefore, it seemed that in order to continue to benefit from the transforming powers of the Qabbalistic dimensions, I would have to continue to invoke them through the large array of the trans-dimensional vortex gate pattern one by one. I sensed that because there was a common thread to the experience of a dimension that it must represent a common space and state of consciousness, only marginally defined by the nature and quality of the ‘being’ of the dimension. Each entrance into a specific dimension represents the opening of a door into a common reality wherein the magician and “being” of the dimension enter into a profound union of consciousness. It should be possible for the magician to enter into that field of consciousness itself and seek communion with any or all of the dimensional ‘beings’.”

“An examination of the dimensional structures of the Tree of Life revealed a double anomaly, that is, there are two dimensions that contain four sides instead of the customary three. The two dimensions indicated also have two dimensions on either side, thus causing them to be closer to the center than if they occupied either side of the middle pillar alone. There is a corresponding pattern if the two trapezoidal dimensions are joined to form a variant octagram that is analogous to joining two trans-dimensional vortex gate ritual patterns. Thus the trapezoidal octagram represents the key to all dimensions.

There are two methods of accessing the key to the dimensions. First, one may select any two opposing dimensions and perform their corresponding trans-dimensional vortex gate rituals together, forming an overlaying trapezoidal octagram. Second, one may perform the complete trans-dimensional workings to gain egress to the two trapezoidal shaped dimensions (dimensions IV and V) and then perform the Double Trans-dimensional vortex ritual and fuse them into the key. The first method will expose the magician to the power of the key and reveal its essence, the second method will assist the magician to master the key, thus allowing for subsequent macro-ritual workings to reveal the nature of all eighteen dimensions.”

So I managed to perform what I called the Double Transdimensional Vortex Gate ritual, but I never went any further with this methodology. What remains is for me to pick up this thread sometime in the future so I might complete this series of working. I suspect that such a task will include entering into the two higher dimensions that are trapezoids instead of triangles. It would also appear that the trapezoid is a special to key to the completion of this process, and one that I have yet to fully develop. Yet in the year 1998, I had exhausted all of my creative ideas about this methodology, and it was obviously time to focus on other tasks.

At times when we are deeply engaged in a highly self-absorbed process of high magickal theurgy, it becomes necessary to return to earth. This is part of the overall cyclic process, and one that I seem to always experience. After performing all of these workings it was time to return to earth and to ground myself in what was for me a foundational earth-based paganism. I had gotten very far removed from that spiritual perspective, and whether I realized it or not, I needed to get back to my basic spiritual beliefs and practices and re-constitute them. This began to happen when I was teaching and initiating my girlfriend into Alexandrian witchcraft, and it continued to build as I reconnected with my pagan friends and began to get involved in the pagan and witchcraft community again - although that was not to happen in Santa Fe. My relationship with my girlfriend was stagnant (she would never seek to make me her primary lover even after she was completely single), my work situation was stagnant, and so were my spiritual and magickal processes. I needed a complete change of venue, so in 1999 I began to seek one out, having decided to pull up stakes and leave town permanently.

After five years of living in the odd town of Santa Fe, I felt that I needed a change, so I sought and got a promotion with the company that I worked, which assisted me to move to yet another town. This time, I moved to the Twin Cities of Minnesota and left behind the wonderful (but desiccated) southwest. I took on a new job that gave me far more opportunities, and I also felt that I needed to move to a place that would accommodate my reintroduction into the pagan community. The Twin Cities are called Paganistan by the witches and pagans who live there, and for good reason. I would also become involved with the local body of the OTO in that town, but that, of course, is another story altogether - one that I will relish telling some day in the future.

Frater Barrabbas

My Santa Fe Adventure - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

This is part two of a three part biography about the time when I lived in Santa Fe. Continuing with my discussion about the New Age community and its foibles that I encountered back in 1990's.

New Age groups and perspectives were very dominant within the limited population of occultists in town. As a witch and ritual magician, I couldn’t have been more unusual or scary if I tried. My perspectives would either be misconstrued or treated as if I were some kind of perversely evil person. Two events that I remember seemed to really highlight the contrast between myself, a very serious insular occult practitioner with years of experience, and the fluffy, arrogant, naive, and superficial adherents of the New Age that seemed to flourish in that town.

A friend of mine who belonged to the Albuquerque Golden Dawn temple (and had to travel the 130 miles round trip to attend meetings) decided that he would sponsor a group discussion on angels and angelology in town to see if he could identify any interesting local individuals or groups. The discussion group was to last several sessions, but it only occurred once. I was invited to attend this group discussion, but others learned about it through the local occult book store. Those who attended were quite a mix of different spiritual perspectives, but I was probably the truly black sheep in attendance, or more accurately, the wolf in sheep’s clothing. My friend started the discussion and then requested that each individual sequentially in the circle of attendees talk about their experiences with angels and state what they believed about them. Since I was sitting on the left side of my friend, I was the last one to speak. However, what I heard everyone talking about was the most fuzzy, warm and diluted sort of religious nonsense that I have ever heard. It was the very sort of insipid things that many were reading and raving about in various New Age circles at the time. According to these folks, angels were beautiful, wholly good, friendly, helpful, guiding, child-like and sweet, as if the folks there were describing the chubby baby-like cherubs seen in various paintings and sculptures of the 18th and 19th centuries.

It was all much too sweet and cute for my tastes, and I found myself disgusted, bored and brooding about how I was wasting my time listening to these people. Almost all of the attendees were middle aged or older women, and all of them were obviously very proper Christians with some minor New Age leanings. When the discussion finally came to me, I stunned everyone by talking about how frightful, awesome and terrible many angels were to human sensibilities. I regaled them about the fierce Seraphim and Kerubim, armed with swords and spears, and that they fought wars, killed enemies and warded the Hebrew God from the profane. I also said that if anyone ever had a real encounter with a supernatural being like an angel, that they would probably shit their pants unless they were properly prepared. Of course, what I had to say was highly objectionable to all (except my friend, who was holding himself from laughing out loud), and they looked at me with loathing and outrage as if I had crawled out of some crypt from the bowels of Hell itself. Needless to say, they hurriedly left soon after I had said my piece, giving me pitying and hurt looks, and I am sure that I was the talk of their social circle for a long while, though I doubt if any of it was positive.

Another strange situation showed me how the New Age community was ravenously appropriating Native American shamanism into their practices, although without the usual care and sensitivity that such appropriations should require.

There was a household of women who had put together a supposed “pagan” New Age temple of the Goddess, and it was run by a matronly woman who had moved to Santa Fe from Dallas, Texas. She kind of reminded me of a Tammy Fey of the New Age community, overly made up and highly pretentious. She and her adult daughter (who was something of a hottie) espoused supposedly pagan sentiments about the Earth Mother and the Great Goddess, and they had gathered together a large social group, consisting mostly of women and couples, to practice a kind of New Age shamanism. I found her and her group to be mostly unschooled and spiritually superficial, but they seemed an earnest and nice enough group of people. Since there was little else that was going on in this vein in Santa Fe, I decided to accept their invitation to one of their gatherings. I should have known in advance what was really going on, because in order to attend this gathering, I had to pay $120 to help defray the expenses. The money collected was used to purchase a quantity of ground up magick mushrooms and XTC tablets, which were taken together to simulate the experience of mushrooms and ayahuasca. Of course, it wasn’t at all the same, and also, none of the important Native American practices and beliefs were incorporated into this event. It was, in a word, a New Age drug party, using some pretty powerful drugs to facilitate the breaking of social boundaries and inducing some kind of ecstatic release.

I had fancied maybe getting to have sex with the matron’s calmly daughter, but of course, that didn’t happen because there were too many people there (and she wasn’t interested). I brought my flute and entertained everyone with my music, but after a time, I found myself more interested in going deep within myself to fully experience the powerful influences of the drugs. Supposedly, that kind of antisocial behavior went against other people’s interest in taking combined baths, naked massages, getting “touchy and feely” and invading each other’s space. (The daughter managed to evade most of these attentions as well, but with better grace than I was allotted.) I endured the long session of being drugged out of my mind, which lasted the whole evening, and then in the early morning, without any apologies to those who acted so concerned about my social reticence (even though they didn’t know me), I got into my car and made my way carefully home to crash and reflect. I had a much better time once I was home and alone with my drug addled thoughts and feelings.

Afterwards, I politely told the matron that I wasn’t interested in any future gatherings and quickly disconnected from her and her group. I later heard that one of her sessions had ended in disaster when a young woman who was attending had passed out and died from taking the combination of drugs. She supposedly had an allergic reaction to the XTC and it killed her. Her death may have occurred because she was taking other medications and forgot to tell anyone, or perhaps due to some preexisting health condition - who knows. That event not only terminated the group’s activities, but likely put the matron and her drug procurer (and others) into jail for awhile.

I wasn’t surprised by anything that had happened because I felt that they were too inclusive, unknowledgeable of what they were doing, and that sooner or later, someone would have an adverse reaction to the combination of drugs. It proved to me that what you don’t know can kill you, and that a loose amalgamation of New Age naivety, illicit spiritual appropriation and a lack of spiritual discipline can be highly disastrous. My periodic loneliness made me reach out to groups and individuals that I wouldn’t have normally bothered to contact, and such attempts only showed me that I, like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh, was the only one of my kind in town. However, unlike Tigger, I wasn’t happy about that fact.

As a single man, I also made many attempts to find a lover, but they usually fell short, too. The one girlfriend that I did acquire (after living in Santa Fe for over two years) was also living with a flamingo guitar player who had been one of the local town drunks, now rehabilitated. He had the reputation of being quite a jealous and violent man, so we had to engage in our clandestine relationship at times when he was otherwise disposed. (This duplicity went on for a year or so until her lover finally got angry at her reticence to marry him, and left her when he found a suitable Trust Fund Brat.) She was one of the better known local belly dancers in town and was introduced to me by some mutual friends. She lived many miles north of town on a small ranch (exemplifying the term ‘land rich and money poor’), and we would discretely meet up at my place in town.

We seldom went out, since too many knew her and would ask questions about me, so our relationship had some pretty severe boundaries. I taught her some rudimentary magick and initiated her into witchcraft, while she entertained our more carnal interests. She was quite a beautiful woman, but was also high strung, willful, emotionally volatile, stubborn and independently minded, even though she sought and did receive some financial support from me. That relationship lasted until I moved away from town some years later, although she never seemed interested in making me her primary relationship. I was always, and conveniently, the “other” man in her life. I later found out that this situation is rather typical of Santa Fe since there is a dearth of potential mates outside of the Hispanic and gay communities.

As for my career, I had the wonderful opportunity to work for a woman named Jo who ultimately guided and helped me to change the entire direction of my career. Through her I got the training I needed to transform myself from a mainframe programer and business analyst to a decision support analyst, UNIX programmer and database administrator. I learned the arcane art of data warehousing and I have continued to expand on that knowledge and capability all of the years since that time. It was a brilliant career move for me, since it meant that I wouldn’t likely experience any kind of downsizing or employment interruption due to the later fad of off-shoring technology jobs, which started to happen only a few years later.

My area of expertise was in government health services (such as Medicaid and Medicare) in combination with my knowledge of developing, building and maintaining data warehouses that served as the source systems for all credible reporting, analytics, fraud and abuse detection, and policy management. This was obviously a level of expertise that couldn’t be exported to some DBA in India or China, since such policies didn’t exist anywhere in the world except in this country. Therefore, I had a certain amount of job security because of what my boss did to push my career in a certain direction.

Jo also was something of an occultist, and was steeped in the study of the Fourth Way, which consisted of the writings and practices of Gurdjieff and his followers (such as Bennet and Ouspensky). She managed to find a very important group in Santa Fe that actually practiced what the Fourth Way followers called the “Work,” so her move was spiritually fortuitous. Having a boss who was also an occultist was also very helpful, and I relaxed my typical discretion and reticence concerning my own studies and practices. This would come back to haunt me later on, but luckily it never caused me to lose a job promotion or get terminated. Later on, I would resume that discretion, but that single period of relaxing my boundaries did cost me something of my anonymity for a while.

(To be continued..)

Frater Barrabbas

My Santa Fe Adventure - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Santa Fe is a very strange place to live and function as a magician and a witch - I know because I lived there for five years. While the New Age, Eastern traditions and Native American shamanism (as well as Native American religions) are well represented in this tiny town, the wiccan and pagan communities are barely in existence. There were only around 67,000 people living in Santa Fe when I lived there, and most of them were either Catholic, New Thought or Protestant Christians. Tibetan Buddhism had a large presence there as well, but paganism had probably a population of less than 50 individuals. I am speaking about Santa Fe in 1994, when I moved there, but it hasn’t changed very much in regards to paganism and witchcraft since I last visited (November 2011). It’s also a tough place to live if you are single and heterosexual, not to mention untenable if you happen to be a witch and sorcerer. Hispanic and Native American women that I met there found my involvement in the occult to be disturbing and highly off-putting.

Odd is a word that pretty much describes Santa Fe. All of its buildings are made of adobe and limited to four stories, so there are no large glass office buildings there, even though it is the state capitol. It’s also a very old town (est. 1610), probably rivaling St. Augustine, FL for the oldest town in the U.S. The original town consisted of two or three blocks on either side of the central plaza, bordered on the south by a small creek (Agua Fria), which is dry most of the year.

Santa Fe is located on a flat rocky plane just below the Sangre de Cristo mountains with an elevation of seven thousand feet; its altitude poses problems to visitors and newcomers alike. Cooking becomes more difficult and so does the consumption of alcohol. It was not unusual for a lady tourist to pass out at a restaurant or bar after drinking only two of her usual margarita cocktails. Doing anything physical was also much more taxing to someone not acclimated to the high elevation. It was also dry and hot in the summer (with cool mountain breezes in the shade), and somewhat damp and cold in the winter time; but overall, the temperatures were quite mild when compared to my birthplace (Wisconsin). One thing that I can say is that the quality of light during the day was quite remarkable, having a kind of a startling brilliant yellowish or amber hue offset by the bluest of skies. Sunsets and sunrises were also unusually remarkable due to the constant dusty atmosphere. I also found that the smell of the place was quite remarkable, too. The combination of sage, juniper and mesquite made the breezes off of the high chaparral foothills after a brief afternoon rainstorm smell like a romantic incense concoction, as if someone lit incense in preparation for some southwestern religious liturgy.

Traveling to Santa Fe by air usually required that the traveler land in Albuquerque and then travel the seventy miles north over three large escarpments to finally arrive in Santa Fe. This is because the airport in Santa Fe is quite small and ill-equipped to handle large airlines. The journey up and over these escarpments makes the drive quite scenic, since the traveler has to drive not only the geographic distance between these two points, but the journey also increases the altitude by two thousand feet. The last escarpment is the tallest and most intimidating (especially when it snows), and coming over the ridge and into the valley where the town is located illustrates to the traveler how well adobe blends into the rest of the landscape. Adobe buildings make Santa Fe fairly invisible from the heights during the day, and it only begins to reveal itself when the traveler exits the turnpike and drives into town. All of the buildings in the town and the surrounding area consist of various shades of tan, brown, beige and dun, which matches the color of the surrounding earth and rock.

There are patches of green, but these are interrupted by sun baked boulders, red clay and rocky tables. While there are trees in the areas where there is water (such as around arroyos, wells or creeks), the greater share of vegetation consists of stunted and twisted juniper and mesquite bushes, along with an abundance of sage, jimson, and various other kinds of hardy thorn bushes. All of these plants are quite tough and able to withstand the periodic droughts that plague the area. Most of the water comes from the mountain runoff of melting snow, which tumbles down the creeks and arroyos and seeps into the sparse aquifers. Santa Fe is often a dry and dusty location, except during the winter and the monsoon season in June.

My reasons for moving to this exotic place was two-fold: I had an opportunity to advance my career by joining the team that would work as the front line for the company’s fiscal agency contract with the State of New Mexico, and it seemed like a really cool place to move. I knew next to nothing about Santa Fe other than it’s reputation for being weird, and New Mexico was called (in tourist books) the Land of Enchantment. Perhaps if I had known a lot more about what Santa Fe was like (and what life was going to be like living in that sparse pagan community), I might have decided not to move there. However, the opportunity was too good to pass up, and as it turned out, the move profoundly changed my career in a very positive way. As for my magickal career, it began a long period of spiritual isolation that continued even when I moved from that place five years later.

I got the news that I had been selected to be part of the team in May of 1994, and took a trip out there with my fellow teammates to meet with the client in June, and also to begin looking for a place to live. I discovered that houses were very expensive, the rents were high and the apartments small, due in large part to the fact that the standard of living was much higher in Santa Fe than in Tallahassee, and that Indian reservations surrounded the city, making available living space a premium expense. I settled for an apartment in the Zia Vista apartment complex off of Zia Road, which was both smaller and more expensive than my lovely townhouse in Tallahassee. The only saving grace was that my small apartment had a large master bedroom with an adjoining bathroom. There were mirrored closet doors on either side of the short hallway between the bathroom and the bedroom, so I had, in effect, a built-in system to trap and thwart spirits from entering the room where I would perform my ablutions. The room was large enough to accommodate my magickal needs, but the rest of the apartment was small. I had a futon couch in the tiny second bedroom, and the living room and dining room were crowded around the kitchen. This place became my humble home for the next five years.

Perhaps I could have found a better place to live if I had spent more time looking, and the particular irony is that many people have lived in the Zia Vista apartments as their first temporary residence. It was located on the southeast side of town, and was conveniently close to the road into town and that most of the stores I would need in order to live were nearby. Unlike Tallahassee, having a vehicle was very important, since nearly everything was distant and spread out, requiring a car to get around. There was also no effective transit system in the town, other than taxis and tour buses.

In July, I packed my things up in my Tallahassee townhouse, with some hired help, and everything was put on a truck and carted away. The Tallahassee pagan community must have finally found some value in me, since they even gave me a large going away party. (Or maybe they were just happy that I was finally leaving.) It would be the last community connection that I would experience and enjoy for years to come. What faced me now was a kind of hermetic based isolation, where I would have little or no contact with the pagan community where I lived. I rationalized that this new kind of lifestyle was necessary because I thought that it would better suit the kind of magick that I was now working. This new magick was deeper and much more intense than what I had been working in the past, and it monopolized my time away from work. I found that I had only a small amount of free time and less interest in what was going on in the occult community. In Santa Fe this attitude was probably defensible, but later, it seemed more of a trap than an important regimen of my magickal practice.

However, I felt that I had enough of living in the south for time being, but ironically, I would return there again several years later. While I lived in Santa Fe I would seek to develop my new system of magick based on Archeomancy and also attempt to develop my skills as a writer. I was still in the process of writing my first book on magick, called “Pyramid of Powers,” and actually, I had made a lot of progress on that writing project. A year after I moved to Santa Fe, I would complete the three volume book project that I started in Tallahassee and seek to find someone who could help me edit it. My objective was to publish this book so I could advertise the magickal order that I had helped to found.

Another odd thing about Santa Fe is the larger than usual population of artists, musicians, New Age spiritual leaders and others who are living in that town. When I did go to some social gatherings, which was rare, I was amazed that I found myself to be one of the few individuals who had a regular job and a real career. Many of the rest of those whom I met had odd jobs to help them survive, but were pursuing their true vocation as artists, which evidently didn’t pay very much. I did meet some very creative people, and even some world class artists, musicians, dancers, writers and many various New Age prophets and teachers. I also met a breed of people that I had never met before, and that was the “Trust Fund Brat.” This is the kind of person who has far more spending power than the average working stiff (such as myself), but who has no sense of the practical value of money or its singular importance, having gotten it without having worked for it.

Of all the people that I have ever met, the Trust Fund Brat seemed like the least practical or down to earth person on the planet. They were filled up with their own personal importance and had grand visions of what they were going to do. They also had the bad habit of always insisting on getting their way and knew that money could help them achieve that objective. Since there were many artists and others in town who just scraped by, these same folks availed themselves to be bought by those who had money. I saw a number of bizarre and dysfunctional relationships between Trust Fund Brats and their human pets. That pampered human pet was often some pretentious and mediocre starving artist who, through his or her moneyed significant other, gave the false impression of success and artistic savvy. These rude couples would ultimately make nearly any social affair tedious and poisonous. I also met some very eccentric and ostentatiously wealthy people whose origin was from California or the East Coast. They had decided to move to Santa Fe because of its supposed charming ambiance. These rich folks would build an expensive adobe mansion outside of town and reside there periodically during the summer months. Some of them were kind, generous and genteel, others were just rich, rude and totally obnoxious.

I also ran into self-made men and women who were the salt of the earth, and whose tenacious drive to survive and thrive in an inhospitable economic climate was a wonder to behold. I truly admired these rugged individuals, who seemed to possess the qualities that the first settlers might have had when they came to this part of the country as wanderers, traders, hunters or explorers. I had many interesting conversations with these earthy, rugged individuals, and they were far more interesting and fascinating to me than the puffed up Trust Fund Brats or the condescending and ostentatious wealthy expatriates. Yet I was an odd addition to this population, and didn’t seem to fit in wherever I traveled. I loved the country, but I was distinctly separate from it, as if in a permanent state of being a visitor or observer. I was intoxicated by the ambiance of Santa Fe, but found myself unable to relate to most of the people that I met. That is how I lived my life for five years in Santa Fe, but it was not without its charming qualities, captivating scenic vistas or moments of pure mystical awe. The land around this town was incredibly beautiful, but I found most of the people to be at odds with that beauty, except those who were really connected to the earth.

After discovering the local pagan community, or what little of it there was in Santa Fe, I met an odd middle aged women named Shann. We became friends because we both didn’t fit in the local pagan community. I found that community to be stunted and weak, sort of like the Juniper trees that grew in abundance out in the hills. There were a couple of individuals that I liked, but mostly I found them to be at the beginning stages of learning their craft, which meant that I was too advanced to function as any kind of teacher or spiritual leader. I suppose I could have tried to organize a group, but it seemed like it would require a lot of work, and I wasn’t interested in pursuing that path.

Shann was an outcast because she had problems with the inherent hierarchy of a traditional witchcraft coven and had spoken her mind far too often. So Shann had gotten kicked out of the only functioning coven in the area, but I liked her wit and her wicked sense of humor. She was a competent seamstress, artisan and purveyor of oddities, but I suppose that her real income was derived by selling pot and magic mushrooms to the local hippy population. She was also involved in the local middle eastern dancing community, and provided some of them with their costumes. I hired her to sew up some new robes for myself, and also through her, met most of my friends. She lived a sparse and economically precarious existence, and I suspect that she was disappointed that I wasn’t interested in her romantically.

The local occult book store was the Ark, located in an alley that was so narrow that it could barely support parking on one side of the road and traffic on the other (it was, therefore, a torturously one-way road, one of many in that town). The Ark was in many ways a weather vane on the alternative spiritual community in the town. Eastern systems of spirituality, as well as those based on the New Age or Native American spirituality were well represented with all kinds of stock. As for paganism, witchcraft, magick or the many forms of Western spirituality, there were some books and materials, but not very much. However, the Ark did sponsor some interesting events and was a center for anyone who wanted to contact individuals of like mind.

(During my most recent trip to Santa Fe, I visited the Ark and found it be slowly falling into decay, and the stock was of a poorer quality and greatly diminished. So it would seem that most forms of alternative spirituality have hit some hard times in that town. All traces of pagan or wiccan based books or materials were completely missing, perhaps representing that such interests had reached a new low point. One might speculate that the decline of the Ark might be due to the recent recession, but I found that other shops and stores doing quite well, representing that the buying power of the 1% had not diminished at all during this time. There had even been quite a bit of recent building in the area, showing that the recession had affected some, but not others.)

I can recall attending a lecture that the Ark sponsored at a large public auditorium presented by Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi, the author of several books on the Qabalah. That was back in October 1994, during a bitterly cold autumn rainy evening in Santa Fe. I don’t remember much of Halevi’s lecture, other than he was a strong proponent of the exclusively Jewish reclamation of that discipline. I also distinguished myself by asking him a question at the end of the lecture based on what Gershom Scholem had written about the Qabalah; that forms of gnosticism and magic were very much a part of its practices and discipline and were excluded only much later on. Halevi sternly denied that any occultism or magic ever had anything to do with the true Qabalah, a statement which would have astonished many of the academics of the time, including Scholem, had he been alive to hear it. As a good attendee, I didn’t contradict Mr. Halevi or argue with him, but it did unfortunately turn me off to his teachings and remained in my mind as a bitter experience. I came to the conclusion that Halevi was very biased and sectarian, which I found to be remarkable for anyone who was supposedly mystically inclined.

While living in Santa Fe, I attended some remarkable concerts, dance exhibitions and other interesting presentations. There was always something going on to suit the pallet of the afficionado of the obscure and the exotic. Shann and a few of her friends made certain that I knew about these social venues, and there were also some large block parties, effete gatherings at someone’s mansion or other events that I was able to secure an invitation. I was always seeking to connect with someone or to find new friends. Most of my attempts at expanding my social world met with dismal failure. I was just too different and set in my insular ways to be able to connect with any groups.

While some folks I have met have always raved about the Burning Man gathering that occurs in the southwest, there is another similar festival that is held right in Santa Fe, and has been going on since the 1920's. In September, the tourist season abates somewhat before the ski season begins, so the town’s temporary population drops down considerably, and local folks can actually find a parking place or go out to eat without having to deal with the crowds of tourists. In a sense, the local population gets their town back for a few months, and to celebrate this event, they hold an annual fiesta. September is also the month supposedly when the town was re-colonized by the Spanish conquistadors in 1692, after having been temporarily kicked out by the native inhabitants for 12 years.

So the town has two events to celebrate, and this celebration is called the Fiesta de Santa Fe. I imagine if you were an Indian, the parade of horse mounted conquistadors dressed in Spanish colonial outfits is rather offensive, but no one seems to mind. The highlight of that fiesta is when the town gathers at Ft. Marcy park to burn a giant effigy of old man gloom, called El Zozobra, a fifty foot spooky looking marionette. The event is marked by a whole retinue of odd costumed characters, such as the fire witch, the gloomies (children dressed up like ghosts), who dance before the moaning and menacing effigy. At the climax of the ritual, the marionette (who has movable arms and glowing eyes), is put to the torch of the fire witch along with scraps of paper and other items collected to represent town members' personal gloom. It is a very magical theatric event, and one that I have personally experienced more than once while I lived there.

(To be continued..)

Frater Barrabbas

Secret History of the Nephilim - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:45:00 +0000

This is the third and final part to the Secret History of the Nephilim series. This part discusses the alternate formula that assisted me in determine the descending fortunes of the followers of the Nephilim, their ultimate fate, and the legacy that they have left behind for us to realize.

The application of the Temurah cipher of AThBSh to the Pentagrammic Formula of the Nephilim substitutes ZYDChR for OMQSG (where the O is actually the letter Ain). This formula represents the fall of the Nephilim and the consequential retaliation against their illicit joining with humanity. It is critically important that we disregard the mythic trope that Yahweh cursed and punished the errant angels who deserted their heavenly posts and profaned themselves with women. It should instead be interpreted as the allied forces of progressive spirituality encountering terrible foes in the forces of orthodoxy, as it always does. The establishment of the spiritual and political power of an organized religion has always invested its leadership with a powerful desire to maintain the status-quo.

This conservatism has the compelling force to maintain the beliefs of a religion as a doctrine and a dogma, which blocks all possible change while enveloping its followers in a static social organism. The powers of progressive spirituality liberate the individual so that one can engage in a natural processes of social and spiritual evolution. It is the very nature of the descent of the Absolute Spirit, disguised as incarnated divine beings (avatars), to cause the ascent of liberated humanity. These two processes join together to form part of a larger pattern. Yet the forces that directly oppose this process of natural spiritual evolution do little more than give it greater power, endowing it with a greater facility and more clever stratagems for success. So, even the rigid adherents of orthodoxy actually play a part in the greater plan of spiritual evolution.

To clarify this point even further, it’s necessary to fully interpret the five new letters that were derived from the process of Temurah, thereby describing the struggle that the establishment of the Nephilim precipitated.

Ain - The Devil, Atu XV: The Promethean descent of the Nephilim violated the spiritual status-quo of human-based religious institutions, unleashing upon spirit and human alike, a contagion of inner plane contacts. Although the contact between human and spiritual agencies, as fostered by the Nephilim, was strictly controlled through the transformational process of initiation, it was only a matter of time before this process became abused by unauthorized individual use. Any system that is devised and used by humans will eventually fail unless it is continually regenerated. The spiritual intelligence who promotes spiritual evolution require that the instrument of progressive indoctrination be in a constant state of modification and growth. However, religions tend to become ruled by the powers of inertia. As the magickal system of the Nephilim became more vulgarized, its vibrant creative core slowly became inert. Magickal systems should retain a certain degree of secrecy and limited access so that their unique individuality and the purity of their inner plane contacts remain inviolate, otherwise they will be unable to survive intact.

Mim - The Hanged Man, Atu XII: The new system, which the Nephilim had established, allowed for a limitless degree of personal freedom and personal power; but this quality could also become chaotic and anarchic. Early societies required a greater amount of social cohesion than later cultures, even though later cultures appeared to demand far more cohesiveness of its peoples. The freedom of the village gave way to the tyranny of the city state. So the positive impact that a divinely born individual could bring to bear upon earlier societies was markedly less in later and more complex city states. It became necessary for the existence of an avatar (manifested godhead) to be realized through miracles in life and transformation within death.

The Nephilim could no longer live among humans without profoundly impacting them and powerfully influencing their free will. So they retreated to the abysmal nether worlds (a form of hyperspace) that lies between all time and space, emerging only at times of paramount need, otherwise existing in their guarded solitude. Those great spirits who had sacrificed their spirituality to partake in humanity could neither return to their formal existence nor remain in perpetuity in their human role. There was no place for them to finally reside except in a world that consisted of both spirit and physical matter, yet was neither. After their transition, the secret knowledge that they had built up was slowly lost and dissipated, until now, only echoes of it exist in the world. Yet this knowledge is still fully possessed by them and can be revitalized in our world, if only a way could be found to enter into their world and receive it.

Samek - Art, Atu XIV: The occult knowledge, myths and esoteric philosophies that the Nephilim founded managed to continue in some form or another, as time passed, and the various fragments of this lore was added to other occult philosophies. The Nephilim attempted to engage in a limited and indirect means of influencing humanity from their place of solitude, but this avenue became completely closed off. Only in dreams and in visionary magick did the potential of their teachings seem to survive. In time, through the methods of ritual and ceremonial magick, the knowledge of the Nephilim became more known and partially revealed (witness the skrying sessions of John Dee). Only echoes of this distant and isolated knowledge, in its pure and empowered form, still lingered in the world. Enochian magick, as unwittingly revealed by Dee, brought some of these themes forward, but still there was more mystery and an incomplete system of occult lore that confronted those who pored over his magickal diaries.

What is required to unleash the true knowledge and power of this lineage is for seekers to pass through a special transformative initiatory process that will reveal the manner of gaining access to the hidden domains of the Enochian lineage. In this manner, the Nephilim will eventually become rediscovered and perhaps even reincarnate into new forms, leading humanity as they did in the ancient times of myth and legend. Their occult knowledge will be restored and updated to the modern age, making it far more useful than the current fragments of their knowledge spread through many disciplines and cultures.

What this means is that the power of magickal creativity will directly determine the outcome of the manifestations of events, so magick, philosophy, science and art will once again become united and distinctly relevant in the post modern world, after a long slumber through the ages.

Gimmel - The Priestess, Atu II: Two important things need to be revealed before the heralding of the New Age of Magick and Mystery. The first is the ascendancy of the Feminine Spirit and the realization of the critical importance of women in spirituality. The Nephilim succeeded in merging the two polarities of ancient culture, which were the Patriarchate and the Matriarchate. We have come to a time where the absolute rule of the old patriarchy has ended, but what remains is neither a reintegration with nor a re-emphasis on the feminine. Where there is fear and chaos due to the fears of uncertainty associated with social change and spiritual transformation, then the time for change is long overdue.

Whatever conservative political forces and orthodox religious societies seek to achieve in their attempt to guarantee power and stability, nothing can keep the status-quo from changing, whether by false assurances (propaganda) or draconian social controls. Those who are open to change, accepting both the positive and negative forces of our future heritage, will gracefully achieve their own self-apotheosis. Those who align themselves with reactionary ideals will ultimately reap the rewards of backing the wrong course. An incapability to change in changing times has its own eventual curse. The power of the Feminine Deity as the Great Goddess is already awakened in our world. Soon it will act as the symbolic transformer of all Western Culture.

The second event concerns the spiritual crisis that is occurring particularly in the West, where the old religions are dying and new ones are arising in their place. The institutions of orthodoxy are failing to promote the kind of group significance and destiny that has seemingly satisfied the ranks of individual believers for centuries. In the past it sufficed that religions dictated the meaningfulness of life and its ultimate purpose through the societal group as a whole. Now, the breakdown of mass religion has caused individuals to uniquely seek their own personal salvation and destiny. This individual search will lead people away from the mainstream religions of the prior age and herald the coming of the New Age.

An answer to our collective problems lies not in orthodoxy, which actually has assisted in fostering them, but in the individual syncretistic approach to spirituality that evolves into a custom methodology of personal ascendancy and spiritual growth. A fully spiritualized person will have a tremendous impact upon those who are family, friends or associates. Although this process will begin with very few individuals, it will become contagious, spreading throughout the social fabric of the Western World.

This is the beginning of a social spiritual revolution that will fulfill the secret destiny of the Enochian system of Magick. It began with the descent of the Nephilim in the dim mists of the mythic morning of humanity and it will end in the ascendency of the human race as a unified godhead.

Frater Barrabbas

Secret History of the Nephilim - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

This is part two of a three part series that explains how I determined the importance and role of the Nephilim in the Enochian system of magick. This part uses the five letter formulas that I determined to tell the story of the rise and fall of the Nephilim and their followers.

Ascendency and Decline of the Nephilim and Their Followers - A New Age Legacy

The Pentagrammic formula of the Nephilim has been revealed as Z, Y, D, Ch and R, (pronounced Zidecher). I have created a Tarot card reading that tells the story of the ascending fortunes of the Nephilim, associating each phase of that story with the corresponding Tarot Trumps.

Zain - The Lovers, Atu VI: What prompted the Nephilim to manifest on Earth and take wives of the Daughters of Men was the choice, rather Promethean, of whether or not to assist in the spiritualization of humanity. Of course, they were also smitten by the fair features and natural wiles of human women, and desired to ground themselves completely within the flesh of these women. Their choice represented the noble and even prescient sacrifice of their static but eternal spiritual state of existence, ultimately but not unwittingly, for the sake of Human spiritual evolution. This explains the bond established between them and their combined intention through the means of mutual oaths, and the joining that they initiated with women. We are told that the love of the Deity for humanity causes its ennobling, and perhaps this was just another example. The product of this joining is known as the nature and the cycle of the Avatar (Magus), those divine humans who have shaped the course of history and influenced the creation of cults and religions. These avatars, or divine humans, have nurtured and shaped the spiritual dimension of human nature since earliest times. In this context, the card of the Lovers symbolizes the powerful spiritual process of involution, which it turn sets up the necessary stage for the corresponding evolution of spirit.

Yod - The Hermit, Atu IX: This card indicates the solitary path of the Hermit, representing an alternative to the usual path of the family clan and its leadership. I felt that this card represented Enoch as someone who branched off from the clan of early mythic humanity and forged a new path of esoteric and mystical practices, to be performed by the solitary seeker.

From the perspective of our post modern age, the patriarchate lineage of Enoch (as leader and independent seeker) represents an alternative magickal lineage to the Masonic initiatory line and its predecessor, the secret guild or society. This lineage would have originally been associated with the ancient and archaic priesthood of the Nomadic Bedouin, handed down from father to son (or mother to daughter) typically without any measure of worthiness, but necessarily dictated by family survival. Such a lineage gave the leader personal freedom and autonomy once the old line had passed to him, but it also included responsibilities for guiding the clan or cult. It also forced the other members of the clan into strict obedience. However, such a close knit clan or cult allowed for certain checks and balances against the leadership, forcing him to be generous and compassionate towards his followers. The leader was guided by the grace, understanding and also the tolerance of those ruled. For those who were ruled could justifiably overthrow a bad leader, and from their ranks, choose a new one. This alternative path branched off of the Magician Priesthood of Melchisadek, Abraham and Moses. Eventually, the rule became very loose and was associated specifically with an egalitarian Star Group organization and a series of measurable transformative initiations.

The Catholic Church has continued the progression of this lineage supposedly through Jesus Christ, from Peter and Paul, establishing for itself and the church, the Apostolic Succession. However, certain Bishops broke with the solidarity and spiritual monopoly of Rome, (and some, like the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and certain Gnostic sects, were never really part of it) and turned their pursuits to more occult orientated endeavors. Presently, through the Old Catholic Church, and its scion, the Liberal Catholic Church, the availability of this lineage has become more pronounced as occultists seek to undertake the disciplines of the Magician Priesthood to expand their base of knowledge and initiation.

The Hermit card, therefore, represents the institution of the Magian Priesthood, which once held great prestige and authority, then was lost, and in the present age, it has been rediscovered.

Daleth - The Empress, Atu III: The third component of this process of spiritual integration (Nephilim, Enoch, and the Daughters of Men) was the independent lineage of the Priestesses and the crafts that they received from their union with the Nephilim. These crafts represented the facets of the new occult knowledge established by the translation of the wisdom received via the Inner Planes or Worlds of the Spirit through the Nephilim. Also, the marriage of the Daughters of Men can be interpreted as the forming of alliances and the importance placed upon the power of the Feminine Spirit as the Goddess physically represented by her priestesses. The birth of children, also considered the Nephilim, (here interpreted as giants or great “Men of Names”) represents the establishing of tribes or sub-organizations that contained the physical lineage of kinship (either spiritual or congenital). It also represents the fusion of the genetic heritage of humanity with that of the Sons of God, thus producing divine off-spring or Avatars. These groups became the possessors and preservers of priestesses dedicated to the secret spiritual arts.

Chet - The Chariot VII: What was derived from the joining of the lineages of the Patriarchate of Enoch and the Matriarchate of the Daughters of Men, with the blessing of the initiation of humanity through the descendant avatarship of the Nephilim, was the creation of the first Magickal Order of progressive spirituality. Within this new union could be found the resolution of the age old conflict between Agriculture and Animal Husbandry (hunting and gathering), which symbolized the polarity between Village dwellers and Nomads, and their resultant natural animosity. Also, there was resolved the differences between feminine based spirituality and masculine based spirituality. However, the actual focus became orientated towards the achievement of complete liberation of the individual from all limitations; this freed humanity from its bondage to traditional ways of life and elevated their souls to an exclusively esoteric perspective.

The scion of the union of supernatural beings and mortals created a race of spiritual nobility that established all legitimacy through its creation of a physical lineage (the Sang Real or Blood Royal) realized through both physical and spiritual techniques. It endowed its followers with special powers and prerogatives. The family of the Nephilim became an anointed and revered lineage whose mythic symbolism and mystic power was distantly echoed in the much later lineages of the exoteric church and the divine rule of kings - but these are considered degraded imitations. Equality and egalitarianism associated with this secret lineage also manifested within the Pagan Mystery Traditions, whose secret members existed in respectful equality regardless of caste or life station, and who held positions of responsibility based upon merit rather than heritage.

Resh - The Sun, Atu XIX: The efficacy of the resultant synthesis or heterodoxy of these three lines established the ultimate structural basis for a new spiritual order, which ultimately became a variant of the occult wisdom known as the Perennial Philosophy. This underground bastion of secret wisdom would continue to exert its influence in many exoteric institutions, but would never be under the control of any one person or group. It would span the boundaries of nations and eras, and bridge the differences of language and custom, building a universal consensus consisting of many and often contradictory doctrines. The occultism of the individual seeker frees one from the narrowness of secular and sacred institutions and establishes a precedent for the derivation of personal significance and direction. This world of equality and unanimity was kept to a large degree both secret and inaccessible to the larger masses of humanity, therefore it remained an elite cadre of selected initiates. However, in the advent of the New Age, this lineage will avail itself to all who desire membership and will fulfil its destiny by being one of several possible paths for true spiritual enlightenment in the West.

(To be continued..)

Frater Barrabbas

Non-Duality, Magick and the Qabbalah

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:37:00 +0000

I recently read a book review that Allogenes wrote up on his blog, “The Magical Messiah,” which examined a book entitled “Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction” by Eliot Deutsch. I have some knowledge of the Indian mystical philosophy called Vendanta, but I couldn’t define what the specific sect of Advaita was and how it related to the essential tradition. In order to sensibly read over Allogenes article, I had to research what Advaita Vendanta was, and that research helped me to resolve a long term issue that I have been mulling over for many years.

Since Advaita Vendanta is a “living” tradition, that is, it is still being taught and practiced in India, I found the whole concept of reconstructing it, or better yet, mutating it so that it better corresponds to a Western philosophic perspective, was problematic at best, or clearly misguided at worst. I am glad that Allogenes found this proposition to be somewhat dubious as well, since in order to master a tradition, one must become an adherent and be completely immersed in it. Attempting to de-construct a living tradition would be a formidable task even for a master of that tradition, not to mention a “fools” errand for one outside of it. Needless to say, I lost interest in Eliot Deutsch’s book due to its basic premise, but I found myself interested in knowing more about Advaita Vendanta. That interest led me to examining some webpages where I discovered something that completely amazed me.

Prior to making this search, I had learned years ago that Vendanta was an Indian mystical philosophical system of some antiquity that sought to comprehend the nature of deity directly through the intellect. The intellectual basis of Vendanta is founded upon the holy scriptures of the Upanishads, Bhadavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras. Vendanta literally means in Sanscrit, the “goal of the Vedas.” Vendanta requires the assistance and discipline of a guru, and uses the mechanisms of mental discipline, ascetism, and the techniques of meditation and contemplation. The source of all wisdom and intellectual illumination are to be found in the proper interpretation and realization of specific passages in the above named sacred texts.

Vendanta is a very intellectual approach to realizing the Godhead, but it relies far more on an intuitive and a subjective understanding of the nature of that cosmic deity, known as Brahman. The methodology used to gain that understanding was to reduce what is known about the Godhead by a process of intellectual reductionism. Vendanta can be summed up as the mechanism of knowing and realizing God through the elimination of what it isn’t as opposed to what it is. This is exemplified through the “neti neti Brahman” (not this, not that, is Brahman) approach to the Godhead. In this manner, Vendanta is similar to Mahayana Buddhism and also Taoism. In fact, some have said that the inspiration for Vendanta came from the impact of Mahayana Buddhim on Indians who sought to propose a counter philosophy that was fully grounded in traditional Indian religious culture.

Advaita is a specific subsect of Vendanta, and probably the oldest and best known. It was founded by Shankara Bhagavadpada (Adi Shankara) sometime around the first half of the 9th century CE. Advaita means “non-duality,” so this form of Vendanta was concerned with a fundamental philosophical question, which is whether or not there is a difference between the Cosmic Godhead (Brahman) and the individual godhead (Atman). According to the tenets of Advaita Vendanta, there was no difference between Brahma and Atman. To state otherwise (that the cosmic and individual godhead are distinct) is to commit the error of duality. Therefore, the principle philosophical tenet can be stated simply as “Atman doesn’t dissolve into the unity of Brahman - it is always directly equivalent, since Brahman must be non-dual and without attributes.” Brahman is therefore the supreme cosmic spirit - the One, the whole and the only reality. It is the undefined source of everything spiritual, mental and material. It is the source of consciousness itself. Perhaps the most succinct and comprehensive article that I have found on this topic is in Wikkipedia. You can read that article for yourself, here.

What completely astonished me while I was reading this article is the statement “Atman doesn’t dissolve into the unity of Brahman.” I was so startled by this statement because it was clearly the opposite to a statement that I have made myself many times when talking about an individual’s Higher Self or God/dess Within and the Cosmic Godhead. I have said or implied that the Higher Self dissolves into the unity of the Godhead, or exists in a state of separation for the sake of the being of individualized incarnation. This, I suddenly realized, was questionable. If I were a proponent of non-duality as the ultimate state of being (and I suspect that am), then it would have to be true that there is no difference between the Higher Self and the ultimate Godhead. They are one and the same, thus making each and every one of us a direct participant in the nature and being of the Godhead.

This realization also makes a lot of sense in regards to the Qabbalah, since the highest attributes on the Tree of Life are the negative veils, representing that aspect of the Deity which is the unknowable and absolute Godhead from which all things have their origin, and I might say, their return. It is the One that is the None, and this would agree with Advaita Vendanta, as well as Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, Qabbalah, and other mystical traditions which have sought to realize and teach the nature of non-duality.

The key to this conundrum is the statement that the Atman doesn’t dissolve into Brahman, or, the Higher Self doesn’t blend into the Absolute Godhead. There are no differences between them; but the Absolute Godhead functions as the absolute reality, where everything else is just a temporary illusion, or what the adherents of Vendanta call Maya. Since according to their philosophy, the absolute reality must, by definition, be non-dual and non-material, then the Godhead must, by definition, be the ground basis for all reality, whether spiritual, mental or material. The true nature of that non-dual source must be hidden and unintelligible to all conscious beings, which is analogous to what Plato said in his dialogues - that we only perceive the shadows and play of light on the walls of the cave (and not the true reality outside of the cave). This premise is also found in the Qabbalah as well. (You can look over my article about the mysteries of creation espoused in the Qabbalah, which is found here.)

Human beings derive and build up the attributes for the Deity, or perceive it grounded in mental models or divine images, even though it actually has no attributes whatsoever. This human propensity for creating illusions for spiritual phenomena becomes organized and intelligible to us as the domain of symbols, myths, spirits, deities and demigods; but it doesn’t have any reality beyond our own limited perceptions. It is a human creation that masks the real truth, yet it is also important, compelling and useful, too. Also, if we reside in a fashion within the Absolute Godhead, then all of our perceptions of that Being arises from within us as a manifestation of that individual godhead called the Higher Self or Atman. It is through that mechanism that such beliefs that “God is watching everything I do and judging me,” or that certain (or even all) “events in my life are caused by the hand of God” can be explained. This perspective is uniquely human, since it indicates that all of humanity is capable of sensing the Deity in a very intimate and direct manner. Yet such statements would otherwise be absurd without the stipulation that the Absolute Godhead is non-dual.

We are, therefore, a direct and dynamic part of the Deity, whether we can either mentally perceive that union, intuit it through our emotions in some manner, or else it remains to us wholly unrealized. If we loose the context that the deity that we are relating to is through our internal god aspect, then we can assume a kind of privileged association with what we believe is the Cosmic Godhead. Monotheism can foster the egoic illusion (through a misinterpretation of its own theology) that the immanent experience of the internal godhead is synonymous with the greater Godhead. This causes a kind reversal that amplifies the importance of the individual or the religious sect, and it has led to all sorts of terrible religious persecutions and conflicts. The actual truth is just the opposite, since we partake of the cosmic Godhead and interpret it through our own individual and internal connection. We are the created illusion of this unified, singular and non-dual expression of Godhead, and not the other way around. Disengaging the ego from religious or mystical experiences is very important, and represents the first step to gaining any form of spiritual union. (All of the saints in every form or sect of monotheism have made this perspective abundantly clear by promoting humility and selfless devotion.)

What this means is that the Cosmic Godhead is the greatest and only magician, engaging in pure creation (and destruction) for its own sake; but the true reality is grounded completely into its own being, and is found nowhere else. This might seem a bit confusing or that it somehow negates the importance and priority of the spiritual, conscious and material universe of the individual, yet this is not true. What is created by the Cosmic Godhead is done through love (unity) and a corresponding reverence for all of the facets of that creation. We are, therefore, not a meaningless expression of an exalted Deity who is beyond our realization. Our destiny is to realize this Cosmic Godhead through our own internal godhead. The methodology of achieving this destiny plays an important part in the conceptual frame work of Theurgy, Ritual Magick and Mysticism, and rules how these elements work together to give meaning and significance to the world that we live in. If the Cosmic Godhead is the magician creating (and destroying) the universe, then we are (though our individual inner godhead) simultaneously creating and destroying the universe. When we practice ritual or ceremonial magick, we are emulating that process through our own microcosmic attribute of creation and dissolution - the natural cycle of everything.

Another concept that is fundamental to magick and non-duality is that the joining of polarities, the merging through the artifice of spiritual love of the archetypal masculine and feminine within ourselves, emulates the essential union of all being, and triggers, through ecstasy, the realization of our internal godhead, which is the Higher Self or Atman. We approach this ultimate resolution of selfhood in stages and in phases, but the final act is where we discover the One within ourselves. This is the foundation for working magick through a process of spiritual alignment that leads to spiritual union. Theurgic magick promotes this objective, and so do various forms of religious mysticism. They begin with the process of mastering the multiple layers of manifestation, and ultimately end with the perfect realization of union with the Godhead.

These concepts that I have attempted to explain in my own limited way appear to be somewhat contrary to the writings of Neoplatonism and of Western religious philosophy. Christian theology maintains a powerful distinction between the Absolute Godhead (as the trinity) and the individual souls of humanity, and this can also be found in Judaism and Islam as well. In my recent readings of the philosophical tenets of Iamblichus, it would seem that even he maintains a distinction between the classes of spiritual beings, stating that human souls cannot evolve or reach to the level of the Gods, but could only perhaps rarely ascend to the next level, that of angels.

However, my own experiences within the context of magickal phenomena would seem to agree with the Indian masters, that within humanity appears to be an aspect of deity operating, and through which the spiritual domain, as well as divinity, can become realized. In assuming the Godhead in the practice and work of ritual magick, I am, over time, activating my own Atman or Higher Self, which causes direct and permanent spiritual transformations. That is how I define theurgic forms of magick, and that does appear to differ from how Iamblichus has defined theurgy. What was missing in my speculation (which is far from complete) was to define this process in a manner that would eliminate the duality of the Absolute Godhead, and the God/dess Within.

So the key is that there is no difference between the internal godhead and the greater Cosmic Godhead. They are one and the same! That is a profound paradox, and one that can never be resolved so long as we live in a state of duality and multiplicity. Only by resolving everything into the One that is None will we truly realize the non-dual truth, that all is Godhead, and nothing else is either real or true. At that moment of realization, though, our individual selves will cease to exist, and the true reality will be finally revealed. Until that time, we are given the task of completing the Great Work, however long that takes.

Frater Barrabbas

Secret History of the Nephilim - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:42:00 +0000

While I was going through my various notes and unpublished tracts on Enochian magick, I came across this piece which, I felt, explained the way in which I see the connection of the Nephilim with the practice and spirit lists of Enochian magick. How I managed to pull all of the threads together occurred through some spontaneous divination, and an apparent spiritual communication from an unknown source. Looking over the content of the communication, I later realized that it was a brief manifestation of my inner spiritual connections showing me a new pathway through the published Enochian lore. Therefore, it became a key part of the unpublished manuscript “Sepher ha-Nephilim,” which I hope to complete and publish some day in the future.

I essentially wrote this tract in the spirit of mythopoetry, and it was not to be taken as either an historical analysis of the socio-religious world, nor does it fit in with any known spiritual literature. I would recommend that you not take this writing as any kind of literal truth, but as a powerful and compelling allegory. Think of it as a magickal and occultic form of mythology and metaphysics. A type of secret history of the Nephilim, woven together like some arcane initiatory lore, and shared only with the newly initiated adept. So, as you read through this article, let your imagination run wild, since by doing this, something of the greater esoteric truth will be revealed.

The extracted text used in this article is also biographical, since the events it describes occurred in 1990 when I was on temporary assignment to Dallas, Texas. While I was there, I had a lot of free time when I wasn’t at work. That period of living away from my home base and sequestered in my furnished apartment turned out to be quite fortuitous, as can be determined by the importance of what I discovered.

Mystery of the Five-fold Formula of the Nephilim

In the Winter of 1990, while I was on temporary assignment in Dallas and away from my home in Atlanta, something really amazing happened to me. I had in my possession a few of my treasured occult books, some blank pads of note paper, my favorite pens and a lot of free time. I began to alternatively meditate and study during the evenings and weekends when I was alone and mostly idle. It was a time of great internal discovery and new insights into established occult lore, since my studies had little distraction from friends and social obligations.

At one of those times, while I meditated on the mythology of the Nephilim (as found in the Bible and the first Book of Enoch) and pondered their apparent “Promethean” descent and integration with common humanity, I heard a voice from within my mind speak very clearly to me, “The secret of the Nephilim shall be revealed through the chance drawing of five Trump cards of fortune. This drawing shall be like unto their fate, a fortune to which they desired and bound themselves onto with sworn oaths upon a mountain top.”

I was quite amazed when I heard this pronouncement, which was unprovoked by me and seemed without any physical source, since I was quite alone. It was spoken in an archaic manner and with a deep melodious voice with which I was unfamiliar. The awestruck silence that followed in the midst of my perplexity seemed only to mock and taunt me. Then, I noticed my Tarot deck laying before me upon the table, and it seemed to beckon to me. This particular deck was the Voyager Tarot, a favorite of mine and one that I had recently learned to use with much skill and insight. I picked up these cards and began the process of separating out the Trump cards. When this was completed, I took the deck of Trump cards and thoroughly shuffled it, randomizing them as I concentrated on deriving this most secret formula of the Nephilim. I then randomly selected five cards out of the deck and laid them before me. In this manner I was able to depict, by means of the archetypal nature of the Trump cards, the destined mythopoetic rise and fall of the Nephilim. I then began to carefully study the cards that were selected in this fashion.

The first card was “The Lovers,” Atu VI, and I immediately saw an image of the Nephilim admiring the daughters of men and desiring them. I deduced that this card represented the necessity of free choice and free will. It was this factor, along with their powerful infatuation, that motivated the Nephilim to pursue their earth bound quest, which was integrating with human nature and thereby ennobling it.

The next two cards were “The Hermit,” Atu IX, and “The Empress,” Atu III, respectively. These two cards represented the personages of Enoch Ben Yared and the Daughters of Men who became partners with the Nephilim in all that subsequently transpired. The illicit marriage of the Nephilim or Fallen Watchers with the Daughters of Men produced children, beginning a spiritual dynasty that was also linked to the patriarchate lineage of Enoch.

The fourth card was “The Chariot,” Atu VII, indicating both the process of integration and the power it transferred throughout the newly founded union of Enoch, the Daughters of Men and the Nephilim. The creation of a new spiritual lineage is indicated by this card, with an emphasis on the mystical Grail as its inner-most symbol. The Grail represented the holy containers that each of these exalted women had become, since through them all manner of knowledge and wisdom was revealed. Those who were properly prepared through the occult training of this new tradition were exposed to the guarded secret sexual and alchemical techniques that had become part of this magickal tradition.

The final card, completing the Pentagrammic Formula, was “The Sun,” Atu XIX, which represented the creative freedom and independence that the Nephilim and their associates enjoyed through the careful exercise of their newly revealed occult knowledge.

The complete formula consists of the five associated Hebrew letters, which were Zain, Daleth, Yod, Chet, and Resh, respectively. These five letters and trumps of the Tarot became the reading of the ascending fortunes of the Nephilim. Of course, the missing part would explain the ultimate destiny of these three parties and their offspring, which would be the corresponding descending or falling fortunes of the Nephilim. Everything that rises, must, unfortunately, fall as well.

Additionally, I was able to determine this final outcome of the descent of the Nephilim through the crafty use of the AThBSh cipher, which gave me an alternate five letter formula to examine. Ostensibly, I produced this new formula through a process of letter substitution (Temurah). This formula informed me about the consequences that occurred due to the founding of this new magickal lineage. So I was able to extract the following five additional letters, which were Ain, Mim, Qoph, Samek and Gimmel. These five new letters were taken from the transposition of the cipher applied to the original formula. I performed this operation to determine the reverse of the original formula, capturing a symbolic narrative that described the consequences associated with the actions of the Nephilim. In this manner I was able to realize their ultimate destiny.

What I deduced while analyzing these five new letters was that certain forces had became arrayed against the progressive spiritual philosophies and practices of the followers of the Nephilim, and this conflict caused their ultimate demise. I also saw the subsequent rediscovery and ascendancy of their knowledge at a much later age.

This influx of new material was very thought provoking and required a thorough examination. So in the weeks following this discovery, I was able to make complete sense out of these two formulas. Curiously, I completed what became the story of the Nephilim, their actions and their destiny, in only twenty-one days following that fateful revelation. This is a story that is not at all represented by history, source texts, archaeology or even accepted theology. It is pure mythopoetry, based as it is on the occult thread of the Nephilim. I could even say that perhaps it was directly inspired by them through some kind of inner plane contact. All of this occurred before I had built up the rituals to finally invoke them and hear their stories first hand.

(To be continued...)

Frater Barrabbas

Beginning a New Year 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:22:00 +0000

So here we are in the new year, and I have several little comments to make so far. A more engaging article is in the works and should be posted over the next week and a half. Before that article goes into my future post queue, I wanted to discuss a few minor things that I have been noticing on the blog scene, as well as talk a little bit about some topics that I am currently thinking about.

Heptarchia Mystica

First off, I received a copy of Scott Stenwick’s newest book “Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy,” (Pendraig Publishing 2011) and I have looked it over. This looks like a really interesting and useful book, which will give the Enochian magician an important complete system of planetary magick to add to the already existing and well documented systems of Elemental and Talismanic Elemental magick. Scott takes two approaches to this more obscure Enochian material, and these two paths will satisfy the adherent using the Golden Dawn methodology of magick as well as the grimoire afficionado who wants to work magick as it would have been worked by Dee himself.

I can say that both approaches are satisfactorily documented, making this book a lot more valuable than it might be if one approach was chosen over the other. Scott is an excellent writer and has made this book quite accessible to the average occultist, so it shouldn’t be difficult for anyone who seeks to master this system of magick to be able to do so. As a friend and magickal associate, Scott is one of those remarkable men that I have had the honor to know and talk with from time to time. So I am recommending that if you have any interest in Enochian magick, this book is an important addition to your library of magickal books. Also, you can find his book on Amazon here, and his blog, here.

Not very many magicians have worked with the Heptarchia Mystica, those mysterious 49 spirits who are also called the Bonarum, or “Good Spirits.” These entities are divided into three groups, which include seven kings, seven princes and thirty-five ministers. The seven kings are used to produce a high level type of magick (visions, knowledge and illumination), and the seven princes are used for more practical or earth-based endeavors. The groups of seven kings and seven princes each have a controlling or ruling spirit (Carmara and Hagonel), which brings the number to eight spirits in each group. The rest of the 35 spirits are supernumerary ministers who are invoked through the hierarchy of king and prince. Like most forms of planetary magick, the magician must use both the planetary ruler of the day and the hour to “tune” the working to the specific planet. Scott has been careful to ensure that the use of these spirits are in agreement with the text found in the diaries and writings of John Dee, thus establishing the boundaries of what would be considered the accepted Enochian tradition of magick.

I have also worked extensively with the Heptarchia Mystica, but unlike Scott, I approached this system in a manner that completely ignored what Dee wrote and established in his diaries. To me, a matrix of 49 spirits would obviously represent a symbolic table consisting of a base planet that is qualified by a second planet. In other words, I saw these spirits as a kind of binary planetary intelligence. Even their names begin with a “B” - representing to me that each spirit is a “Beta” or binary entity. Invoking one of these spirits would produce a complex whose basic meaning and value would oscillate between the qualities of the two planets; where the base planet would anchor the focus and the qualifier would add an additional dimension or even a conflicting polarity.

Having two planets banging against each other might seem strange or even counter productive, but such a mechanism can be found if one examines the dynamics of astrological planetary aspects in a natal, progressed or transit chart. The planets are in an angular aspect to each other, producing good and negative combinations in a natal chart, and this represents the dynamic planetary nature of a human psyche according to astrology. Using the spirits of the Heptarchia Mystica in this fashion will emulate the astrological dynamic interaction of two planets, which would unleash the power of that dynamic in the personality of the magician and all who are exposed to it. This produces a kind of magick that is not particularly useful for making probability changes in the physical world, but is truly amazing in the kind of powerful magickal internal effect that it manifests in the psyche of the magician. Thus, from the standpoint of the kind of magick that the 49 Bonarum would produce using my model, this type of magick would be purely theurgic. In other words, it would represent a process that I have referred to as a magickal “ordeal.”

Just so you understand what I am saying when I talk about engaging in ordeals as part of my magickal regimen, I am not discussing how difficult or intense the working is when performed. What I am referring to is a theurgic process that is analogous to the transformative initiatory cycle (which I have previously discussed), so that would mean that an ordeal is a kind of mini-initiation which advances the mind and spirit of the practitioner through an ultimate process of ascension. When I performed a series of seven invocations of these Bonarum, I did them every weekend for seven weeks, and ended the process through invoking the ruling spirit Carmara, therefore pulling the whole construct together into union with a ritual that I called the Septagramic Vortex Gate. The combination of all these invocations, performed in a tight and contiguous period of time, produced within my mind a profoundly illuminating process, which I have called an ordeal. It was also like going through a few years of psycho-therapy in just under two months.

Each of the distinct invocations of one of the seven Bonarum spirits produced a correspondingly powerful psychic effect. Some of them amplified internal psychic issues and complexes within me, producing disturbing and intensely difficult mental processes. Others exalted what could be considered my internal psychic virtues. Each spirit communicated directly with me, and gave me an important piece of my overall spiritual and magickal puzzle. I have written up each of these experiences and have analyzed them over the years. I can say that they greatly helped to advance my knowledge of magick and to evolve me as a person. Since I subscribe to the belief that magick should have an overall transformative effect on the practitioner, ascribing the Heptarchia Mystica to this kind of role makes sense to me. By opening the magician to the dynamics of his or her own internal psychic processes, the element of undergoing a kind of personal mystery seems to justify how I ended up developing this system of magick.

Looking over Scott’s book, I am fairly certain that what I have done with the Heptarchia Mystica is completely unwarranted and unsupported by the traditional Enochian lore as set down by Dee. Yet this is how I approached this obscure system of magick, and I had the assistance and advise of spirits that Dee himself had invoked and encountered many centuries ago. If those spirits sent me in a completely different direction than Dee himself went with these spirits, then I can only say that it is likely just one of many different resolutions that are available to a magician who is practicing magick in an inventive and creative manner. What that means is that there isn’t one correct or right way to work magick, which makes the practice of magick more like an art than a science.

Golden Dawn Issues (Still and Yet Again)

Morgan Drake Eckstein has been furiously writing up some interesting blog articles as of late. For those who are interested in the ongoing discussion between traditionalists, reconstructionists and revisionists in the Golden Dawn blogsphere, you can find his blog postings here. One thing that Morgan has recently discussed involves how to have a constructive discussion within the intra-Golden Dawn community instead of a flame war. He seems to be concerned that his comments and statements of belief will be misconstrued as a flame war by the other side of the Golden Dawn divide, namely the traditionalists headed by David Griffin of HOGD. Another point that he has discussed is the synthetic nature of the original Golden Dawn as shown in the contents of the Cipher Manuscripts, and that Mathers lost his connection to the Third Order due to his illicit mixing of various systems in the second order workings, and having that issue revealed by Aleister Crowley in the Equinox. This has brought up the issue of mixing unlike systems together, and whether or not you have to be a “master” in order to rightly perform this task.

First off, a flame war, in my opinion is where someone deliberately engages in defaming another individual or organization. Discussing differences of opinion is one thing, which if unresolvable, becomes nothing more than two people or parties agreeing to not agree. That isn’t a flame war. However, to declare that important beliefs and foundational ideals of a person or group are actually fraudulent, is, in my definition of the term, a form of flame war, especially if it isn't true.

You can agree or disagree that secret chiefs and a third order is relevant to your particular Golden Dawn organization, but to say that anyone who says that they have contact with such individuals or organization is a liar amounts to defaming their entire organization. This seems to be crux of the ongoing argument between certain Golden Dawn reconstructionists, who say that the secret chiefs never really existed, or that the founding of the Golden Dawn was fraudulent, or that Mathers was a liar, pervert or somehow demented, and the traditionalists, who truly believe in the secret chiefs, the third order and that the Golden Dawn was founded by individuals who were trustworthy and sound. This doesn’t mean that the founders of the Golden Dawn were perfect, but it does represent the fact that in order to accept the Golden Dawn teachings, you have to accept many of the inherent beliefs.

To attack the foundation is to destroy the organization, so why some reconstructionists feel it necessary to completely defame the Golden Dawn is beyond my understanding. I find that I don’t agree with anyone who seeks to destroy the foundation on which the Golden Dawn was based, so I have been in a natural harmonious agreement with those who revere the Golden Dawn and believe in its tenets.

In my opinion to push these various toxic talking points is to promote a flame war, since all it does is anger folks (some of whom are not even in the GD Order) and create extreme polarization within the community. However, to disagree and state one’s opinion, but to respect that others might hold a different or opposite belief (even passionately), is the basis of a constructive dialogue - one that I feel would be beneficial to the GD community. Name calling and defamation are not part of a dispassionate and constructive discourse. I hope that this simple contrast makes that difference quite clear.

Also, I suspect that the real reason that the third order cut its ties with Mathers had a lot more to do with his emerging instability, stubbornness and his poor choices in who to trust, such as the Horos scandal, the London lodge rebellion and the subsequent order schism, which occurred in 1900. Crowley didn’t publish the second order material in the Equinox (Liber O) until 1909, which was nearly a decade after all of these events had already occurred. So I truly doubt that the breaking of the relationship between Mathers and the secret chiefs was due to any inappropriate syncretism, despite what David Griffin has reported. When that severing of relationships occurred is anyone’s guess, but the early 1890's were times of remarkable growth and expansion in the GD community.

This brings me to the issue of syncretism and the fusion of incompatible lore. There are two schools of thought on this issue, and one is that whatever works is OK. Then there is another opinion that seeks to apply a certain amount of esthetics to the development and practice of magick and the occult. I think that a beginner or a careless dilettante doesn’t concern themselves about the esthetics of their rituals or even the congruency of their beliefs. Yet those who have had years of experience will discover by trial and error, and later, through a refined sensibility, what combination produces an elegant resolution and what combination produces occult garbage. Esthetics are, of course, subjective, but I think that one rule of thumb is to establish boundaries between different cultures, systems and methodologies that could produce disharmonious combinations or unworkable structures when mindlessly joined together.

Simplicity, consistency, orderliness and a certain intrinsic and intuitive harmonious blending of elements makes for an esthetically derived ritual or ceremony. To produce a manual on how one would do this could result in quite a large volume of writing, and its usefulness and relevancy would be hotly debated. I think that this is not a particularly useful topic, so I think that the prime rule is functionality.

If the early Golden Dawn seems to be highly syncretistic, then I think that state is analogous to most systems of occultism, both ancient and modern. As a witch, revisionist and ritual developer, I have no problems with experimentation and attempting to combine various systems together to discover new possibilities. By doing this I have, in my time, produced some unworkable junk, but also some truly astonishingly elegant systems and techniques - knowing the difference requires judgement, experience and making lots of mistakes.

Frater Barrabbas

Looking Towards the New Year 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

This coming year will be a real banner year for me, unless of course, the world ends as some folks think it might. As an occult optimist (or pragmatist), I don’t believe in mythic ends of the world. What happens is either determined purely by chance (the earth gets hit by a comet or a giant meteorite) or by the collective actions of the human race (decline of fossil fuel sources and rising carbon emissions).

There’s also the local and national politics to consider, since this is going to be an election year of great importance. I might not be thrilled with many of President Obama’s decisions, but considering the alternative, I think that even Mitt Romney as President would be a disaster for our country. Listening to the Republican candidate’s debates and stump speeches makes the current president look better and better every day. I already know where my vote is going this coming year, and I hope that a significant portion of the rest of the country will follow suit. Hopefully, a year from today, I will be relieved that we won’t have to deal with another reactionary upperclass twit for a president. We have already had eight years of such a presidential wonder, and it led to two wars, a tanked economy and a massive national debt.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I can now discuss what you’re really interested in reading, namely, what are the magickal tasks that I am going to do in the coming year. Hah! Surprised you there, didn’t I? Yet sharing these objectives might give you some ideas of your own. Every year at this time, I believe in filling up my plate with lots of magickal objectives and see how much of those I can accomplish in the next twelve months. It won’t get warm up here until mid to late May, so I do have some time on my hands to focus on some interesting magickal objectives, especially something that I can work with my girlfriend, and also write up to share with you, my readers.

“Start off the year with a bang!” I have always been a believer in doing something dramatic for the first month of the year, and this coming year I will be attending a weekend intensive workshop with John Michael Greer. He will be teaching a weekend long class entitled “Ceremonial Magic for Pagans,” from Friday, January 27 through Sunday, January 29. I am really looking forward to attending this intensive workshop, which is to be held at the local metaphysical store, Eye of Horus. I have always found it useful to compare perspectives with other pagan magicians, and I have found John’s books, blog articles and email correspondences to be insightful and even inspiring. I believe that John has quite a lot to share with the average pagan occultist, so I expect to learn something new from him. Of the many occultists and pagans that I have met over the years, John Michael Greer is one of the brightest and one of the best. He is one of those individuals that I consider to be a “remarkable person,” the kind of individual that an occultist should have among his or her collection of friends and associates.

I will also be attending and presenting classes at the second annual Paganicon convention, to be held on March 17th in the Twin Cities. I will be giving some thought to exactly what I want to present at the convention, and it will likely have something to do with the Qabbalah, so as to coincide with the manuscript that I have recently sent to Llewellyn. I will write up more details about the convention and what I will be doing there in the next month or so. I won’t be attending Pantheacon this year, unfortunately, since I need to preserve my financial resources for other more local venues, like Paganicon. Traveling out to San Jose and having to deal with the vagaries of the weather is also something that I don’t want to deal with this year. Last year I got stuck in San Jose for two extra days due to a snowstorm in the Twin Cities, and the trip home on a red-eye flight was a miserable experience.

My magickal objectives for the year 2012 are quite ambitious. I don’t know if I will be able to complete them all, but I will be, at the very least, performing another large ordeal. As far as writing and publishing more books, a couple of my book projects are stalled and need to be jump started so they can be finished and moved on to the next phase, which is editing and preparing for the layout stage. I will also need to acquire artwork, diagrams and cover illustration, so that will need time and resources as well. I think after the New Year I will look at where these projects are and see what I can do to move them forward. I also understand that the Qabbalah book project may take up some of that time I have reserved for writing during the year, as I undergo the process of making corrections and revisions to the manuscript. I am hoping that a year from today I will be able to eagerly anticipate the publication release date of that book.

So here are my magickal objectives for the year 2012.

1. Perform the Portae Lucis ordeal working. This ordeal requires quite a bit of preparation. It’s supposed to be performed on or just before the Summer Solstice. However, there are twelve talismanic elementals that will need to be invoked, along with their corresponding Lunar Mansions, so that I might generate three highly charged talismans for the planets Luna, Sol and Saturn. There will be an additional talisman (Mercury of Fire) generated that will represent my own personal spiritual contacts and my demigod muse, Hermes Thoth. I will begin to work on the talismans a full lunar cycle after the Solstice, so that work will start after the New Moon in January, and continue on through May. I will report on the progress of this venture, and I am looking forward to being able to accomplish this ordeal. It will certainly add another important step to my progress towards magickal ascension.

2. Invoke some of the spirits of the Theurgia-Goetia. I am planning on invoking three spirits in this list of spirits to help me refine and vet the ritual, which is called the Hexadecimal Vortex Pylon Invocation Gate. Although I haven’t yet actually chosen the specific spirits that I am going to invoke, I would like to select one of the 16 Elemental Dukes, one of 48 Zodiacal Elemental Dukes and one of the 7 Planetary Archetype Princes. In invoking three of these spirits, I will have at least tapped one of each of the target categories of spirits available in this system.

3. Invoke the angelic ruler of one of the 36 astrological decans. I haven’t selected one yet, of course, but I want to revisit this system of magick in order to fully access and work with the ha-Shem angels and the Goetic demons. I have developed some new rituals in this series that I need to test drive, as well as to prove the usefulness of the matrix system that I have adopted to define the basic qualities of these spirits. I have also discovered the seals associated with the ha-Shem angels, so that will be interesting to test as well. This objective can be delayed until the coming autumn or even a little later.

I would like to complete all three of these objectives, especially the Portae Lucis ordeal working during the course of the year. It will be quite wonderful to be able to work a powerful ordeal that will climax at the moment of the Summer Solstice. I must say that I am jazzed just thinking about it. The other two workings can be done whenever I have some spare time, which hopefully will occur during the long winter months, and also when late fall descends into the another winter later in the coming year. I know that this is quite an ambitious schedule, but I am hoping that it inspires me to be more engaged with working ritual magick in the coming year, since that is one things that has suffered somewhat in the previous year.

In addition to the magickal objectives that I have outlined above, I am also going to be doing some other things as well. Since my girlfriend is going to be very busy with her master’s degree during the summer, I have decided to take over the responsibilities for planting and tending our large garden. I am going to literally get into the soil and really explore that whole domain. This will be something new to me, but I think that it will really help me to better connect with the earth and growing things. My repertoire for a gardening regimen is to plant a cluster of vegetables just like the Native Americans did. I am going to plant corn, beans, potatoes, squash and pumpkins all together, with the corn stalks acting as a kind of natural trellis for the rest of the plants. Another thought about this methodology is that planting these vegetables together in clusters will help them grow, since the cluster of different plants will bolster each other by providing mutual soil nutrition. Anyway, I will give this ancient technique a try and see if that makes our garden much more productive than it has been previously.

I would also like to finish up writing my outdoor grove based magickal system and actually try it out in the grove. As the possessor of a really nice piece of property (3.5 acres adjoining wetlands and a shallow lake), I would like to make a real presence in my outdoor grove this year. The previous summer came and went too fast, and I was just too busy (and also sick for three weeks) to take advantage of it. I intend on remedying that in the coming year. Hopefully, everything will work out and I can perform some magick in the outdoors to add to my yearly accomplishments.

Adding to this large list of things to accomplish in the coming year, I would also like to adopt a more realistic approach to my finances (make up a budget and stick to it) and my health (develop and keep an exercise regimen and eat more responsibly). I will also have to help out my girlfriend through assuming all of the cooking and house cleaning chores while she focuses intensely on the more difficult phase of her master’s degree. I have plans for all of these tasks, and I will diligently seek to realize them. Since I am a Capricorn, I am typically able to adopt a list of tasks and to consistently work through them. I may not get all of these objectives met, but at least most of them will be successfully completed. Of course I will also be continuing to write, and hopefully I will be able to knock off some fiction writing, now that I know how to do that. You can also look forward to continuing to receive from me around two weekly blog articles for a total of eight a month.

Are you putting together a list of tasks and objectives for the New Year? I prefer to put together a task list than making resolutions, since a task list is a lot more tangible and realistic, in my opinion. I find resolutions to be more negative and often, too nebulous. If you have a resolution, then go one step further a put together a list of tasks that will make that resolution capable of being successfully realized during the year.

Finally, I am thankful to my readers for their continued support and thoughtful comments. Feedback for the blog articles has helped me to grow and learn, so the mere act of writing an article is really a two way street. I write these article to share my ideas and thoughts with you, and you leave comments to let me know if you agree, like what you’ve read, think that I am wrong or even delusional. Thanks to all of you and your occasional comments, together we have learned something new this year. Hopefully, that relationship will continue, to our mutual satisfaction So have a wonderful, safe and joyously happy New Year. May the magickal year of 2012 be a banner year for you, too.

Frater Barrabbas

Ordeals of High Magick in Tallahassee

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

So what were those three ordeals that I was able to perform while living in Tallahassee? My home at that time was the perfect place to perform elaborate rituals that required multiple days to complete. I had no nosey or loud neighbors to contend with, and once I was sequestered in my apartment with the phone unplugged, I was free to perform rituals for hours, and I did. Every year, starting in late October and running through early March I would perform a major ordeal. The first ordeal was performed in the winter of 1990 - 1991 (First Enochian Ordeal), the second ordeal was broken into two parts: the winter of 1991 - 1992 (Heptarchia Mystica) was part one, and the second part was performed during the winter of 1992 - 1993 (Greater Enochian Ordeal). In the winter of 1993 - 1994, I performed the third and final ordeal, which was the Ordeal of Spiritual Archeomancy.

First Enochian Ordeal

Here are some quoted text taken from the Book of the Nephilim, part 1, which defines the specific nature of the first Enochian ordeal. This is an unpublished book from the Order’s lore that is still undergoing editing and refining. I thought that this text would explain the nature of the ordeal in greater detail than what I am able to relate off of the top of my head.

“The First Enochian Ordeal is divided into seven distinct tasks. The first four concern themselves with the Invocation of the Four Archangels [Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel]. Each Archangel has been mythically given a role in the act of sealing the Enochian Mysteries from the profane. They therefore act as Guardians as well as Guides to the information being sought. The justification for applying to the Archangels for this knowledge, besides the fact that one knows enough to ask, is the proof of the Deity's favor as established by the successful manifestation of the spirit through the ritualized activation of the Eneagrammic Gate. This sacred domain of the spirits serves as the key for allowing the whole process to proceed, without it, the petition for the wisdom of Enoch would fail.

[The Eneagrammic Gate is a ritual construct consisting of three different personal aspects of the Deity, three animated statues orientated to three different gate structures. The combination of the three gateways and godheads produces a potent personal spiritual domain through which the first ordeal is performed.]

Each Archangel that is invoked is asked to reveal the special knowledge through which the Nephilim may be directly contacted. There are four principle knowledge base tools through which this contact may be established, and these are:

Opening and Closing the Threshold Gate to the Inner Planes;
Revelation of the Mysteries of Shemiezez, his magick current of Ceremonial Archeomancy and his special cult;
Transformation pattern [initiations] of the Chenoch and the preparation that is done before the threshold of the Inner Planes;
Revelation of the Mysteries of Azazel, his magickal current of the Magician Warrior and his special cult.

The Archangels will facilitate the revelation and organization of these four knowledge base tools prior to contacting the Nephilim. The Archangels will also act as advisors and wardens for the celebrant, and thereby protect one from all potential harm.

The Fifth Task represents the invocation of the Archangel of Spirit (Ratziel) and through its sovereignty summon the Primary Agency of the Enochian current, Naluage. Also, the magick Tablet of the Mystery of the Seven Rays is charged with the Talismanic Elemental of Mercury of Fire, thus establishing the connection with the Spirits of Light who are called to assist the future tasks of the working. While the traditional Enochian system has the fifth archangel listed as Annael or Aniel (Glory of God), I have chosen Ratziel (Mystery of God), since that entity is more involved in the actual myth of Enoch, and Aniel is just another way of spelling Haniel, the archangel of the planet Venus. The fifth task is broken up into two ritual workings, the one that will invoke the talismanic elemental and charge the Tablet of Mystery, and the other one is for the invocation of the archangel Ratziel.

The Sixth and Seventh tasks are the Invocation of Spirits of Shemiezez and Azazel. In these actions the celebrant will use the Gate of Revealing to establish a full Invocation of their Spiritual Intelligences. Subsequent skying sessions will reveal more of the material of the Enochian System of Magick, which will assist in its full re-immersion. Also, the ritual of the Enochian Mystery Vortex is used to establish the foundation of the Enochian system of magick that uses the Nephilim as its source.”

In my opinion, the Nephilim represent the “Briatic” source of the Enochian system, but the alignments that Dr. John Dee established in his skrying sessions were also not ignored. Particularly, the five Archangelic Intelligences who acted as the wardens and sponsors of this occult knowledge and are an important link, as well as the Primary Enochian Agent, Naluage. Also included are the Spirits of Light, and the Tablet of Planetary Intelligences, of which the Mercurial Daughter of Light known as Madimi is of special consideration. This represents the complete repertoire of the first Enochian ordeal.

Heptarchia Mystica - Part One of the Second Ordeal

The first part of the second Enochian ordeal was a system of magick that could invoke and evoke one of the 49 Bonarum, or Good Spirits. I had previously determined that these spirits were actually binary planetary intelligences. As simple spirits consisting of two planets active within their combined intelligence, they represented a polarized planetary force that seemed much more like a psychic artifact or mental complex than any other type of planetary spirit.

You can easily imagine the kind of quality one of the spirits would possess if it consisted of the planets of Venus and the Sun. If the Sun were the base and Venus the qualifier, then one particular quality would be evident, and if Venus were the base and the Sun was the qualifier, then another quality would be evident. For instance, from the Heptarchia Mystica Concourse of Forces, the following qualities are associated with the two binary planetary intelligences of the Sun and Venus.

Sol/Venus - The sharing of esthetic values for beauty and culturally significant artistic expressions. Sun base represents the expression of the Arts, Venus base represents their enjoyment and critique. (Bornogo, Bagnole)

Then there is this definition of the spirits of the Heptarchia Mystica, which I will quote here from the specific concourse of forces document in the Order’s library.

“The hierarchy of the Heptarchate consists of seven dignitaries under the leadership of one of the seven Principles. The stations of the dignitaries are represented by seven royal titles of the monarchical system of mediaeval Europe.

The first and highest is the King, followed by the Prince, the Duke, the Baron, the Count, the Earl and finally the Knight. The monarchical quality of the spirits of the Heptarchate was described partially by Dr. John Dee, and thus followed a natural progression upon which to build. Dee only described the first two positions of nobility within the Heptarchate, but it seemed reasonable to apply the rest as they are currently known.

[One of the assumptions of this system was that the planetary archetypes were also represented by the seven Sephiroth of the Tree of Life, from Yesod to Binah. If one were to unify this system, then the next higher sephirah would be selected, namely Chokmah.]

The Principles ruled the Kings who ruled the rest of the nobles within the planetary dominion. However, there was also a ruler who joined the seven Principles to a single will, and that ruler represented the sephirah of Chokmah. The prime ruler was called Carmara, and it ruled the seven Kings and Princes Heptarchical. The spirit called Hagonel ruled the Sons and Daughters of the Spirits of Light (Talismantic Elementals), and the 42 Ministers who govern the powers of the Green Ray of consciousness. Correspondingly, the other six Principles also have 42 minsters who govern their associated Rays. The ministers appear in the form of a talismanic tablet that is a matrix of letters seven across by six down; thereby enclosing the names of the associated six Heptarchical Spirits.

The combination of the seven stations of nobility under direction of the seven Principles constitutes the matrix of 49 binary planetary intelligences. These spirits are the intelligences of the Heptarchate and emanate from the 7-fold spiritual archetypes. These seven archetypes are resolved in an eighth, which represents their union. These seven also represent the mediation between Atziluth and Assiah through the world of Yetzirah; and the product of this mediation is the spiritual hierarchy of the Sons and Daughters of the Spirits of Light, (7 × 4).”

An ordeal that could be used to fully engage this system of magick would consist of invoking seven of these Bonarum spirits, with the base being represented by the seven different planets (the qualifiers could be any of the seven planets). Thus all seven of the Heptarchate spirits would be summoned and fully experienced, each performed every weekend, for seven continuous weeks. The eighth and final working would consist of invoking the eighth spirit, Carmara, and to configure the already invoked Heptarchate spirits into a septagramic gate structure. The combination of all eight spirits would simultaneously produce the vortex structure that would completely reveal the holistic Enochian system of magick. I performed this working in 1992, and it was so successful that I am still seeking to digest all of the material which I was able to reveal. I hope to have a completed system written up sometime in the not too distant future.

Greater Enochian Ordeal - Part Two of the Second Ordeal

Since I had identified that the Nephilim were the spirits who had supplied the bulk of the Enochian wisdom and whose heretical teachings consisted of an entire system of magick, it became imperative that I invoke all four of the chiefs of these spirits. Therefore, I performed a long series of rituals to specifically invoke these demigods and their associated demi-goddesses, the daughters of Lilith. Since there were 20 chiefs of the Nephilim, and also 20 daughters of Lilith, I found that this was no coincidence. Therefore, I proceeded to invoke another two of these chiefs of the Nephilim (Turiel and Ramatael), and then invoked the spirits of Enoch, Lilith and finally, Seth.

A final point of consideration concerns the lineage of the Enoch (or Chenoch) as an initiated body of adepts who have mastered the methodology of Inner Plane workings. The actual techniques that they used have been lost, so they exist only as fragments in the Western Mystery Tradition. It is the primary goal of this working to reestablish these techniques and to reorganize them into a complete system of modern theurgy.

From these entities I was given parts of a new system of magick. In fact, from the invocation of Lilith, I received a completely unique system of performing an invocation. Instead of building a custom invocation rite for each spirit, I instead was shown a way of performing an invocation through a matrix of symbolic correspondences. If I could find corresponding symbols and other occult qualifiers (including attributes of deities), then I could use those correspondences to perform a modular invocation rite.

This magickal technology was revealed to me from the invoked spirit of Lilith. From the spirits of the Nephilim, I was able to build up an Enochian Qabbalah and an integrated system that included specific godnames and archangels. It was a radical departure from the traditional Enochian system, and one that I am still working on today.

Ordeal of Spiritual Archeomancy

As if these two ordeals of Enochian magick weren’t enough to keep me occupied, I also received a completely new magickal technique from these workings. I called this technique “Spiritual Archeomancy,” and the advanced workings that this new methodology helped to explore literally blew me completely away when I later performed them. Not only was this an unprecedented magickal system, but it was also intelligible to others. I shared these workings with Trevor, and then later, with a few other members of the Order, and everyone who experienced them was profoundly impacted.

I had previously devised a system of Archeomancy that invoked through the matrix of the Qabbalah of the 40 Worlds, which is represented by the Tree of Life as projected through the Four Qabbalistic Worlds. The 40 cards of the Lesser Arcana of the Tarot (Naibs and Aces) could also be used to represent the matrix of spirits that could be invoked through this Inner Plane domain.

Through my workings I had discovered another new system of Archeomancy that was based on the Aethyrs and the geometry of the back side of the Tree of Life. In this methodology, the angles (vectors) of the triangular structures of the Tree of Life lattice (skeleton of the pathways without the ten Sephiroth) were directly attributable to the Aethyrs, and that there were 56 of these entities instead of just 30. This information had been imparted to me from the Nephilim, Lilith, Enoch and Seth through the various Enochian magickal invocation ordeals that I had previously performed. Since this methodology was not associated with any kind of traditional Enochian lore, it put me into a place of completely stepping outside of what Dr. Dee had written and presented in his diaries. I was, in a word, in completely undiscovered country.

Spiritual Archeomancy has its own special purpose, since it gives the operator complete access to the triangular dimensions found in the Tree of Life. If you count these triangles, there are a total of 18. However, two of the shapes (above or at the Abysmal gateway of Da’ath) are actually trapezoids, making this system asymmetrical and much more interesting. In an unpublished document that discussed the magickal system of Archeomancy, the functional parts of this new methodology were thoroughly discussed. I shall quote a few paragraphs here to more succinctly define this system of magick.

“The domains that are defined in Spiritual Archeomancy are based upon the triangular shapes that are found in the structure of the Tree of Life and are bounded by the twenty-two paths and ten Sephiroth. These triangular structures have not been named nor defined in the traditional Qabbalah. However, by the very nature of the discipline of the Qabbalah that states that all structures in the Tree of Life must be considered significant and in some manner, accounted for, we must seek to define them. The space surrounding the Tree of Life has been defined as the Three Negative Veils, and the reverse side of the paths and Sephiroth have been defined as the Qliphoth (shells). The triangular shapes between the paths and Sephiroth have not been defined, and I have discovered that they also have an important significance. According to traditional Qabbalists, there are two Qabbalahs, the revealed Qabbalistic lore that we possess in written and oral tradition, and there is an unwritten Qabbalah, which is called the Spiritual Qabbalah. I believe that the undocumented triangular shapes have something to do with this unknown and secret doctrine.

I propose that the key to the Spiritual Qabbalah is revealed in the definition and revelation of those domains consisting of triangular shapes found in the Tree of Life, and I have deemed to call these shapes the Qabbalistic Dimensions. There are eighteen Qabbalistic Dimensions in the Tree of Life, and two of these dimensions actually have a trapezoidal shape instead of a triangular shape. Thus compounding the mystery of these eighteen dimensions are two that defy the patterns of the other sixteen, and are therefore of even greater significance. Herein are great mysteries for the boldest and most imaginative of occultists into which to delve, discovering for themselves the key to the unwritten and apparently unknown Qabbalah.

The Qabbalistic Dimensions have as their qualifiers the paths and Sephiroth that reside on their boundaries. However, there is also another qualifier that consists of the vector or angle where two paths and a Sephirah are joined. If one counts all the angles that are found in the structure of the Tree of Life, then fifty-six will be counted and identified. These angular vectors of the paths represent a spiritual process active in the Tree of Life. I have chosen to associate these spiritual processes with those mysterious Aethyrs that John Dee had listed in his Enochian magickal diaries. However, John Dee identified only thirty of these Aethyrs. Yet if one counts the angles from the bottom right dimension, then proceeding to the left dimension, and then crossing up to the next dimension on the right, and he/she continues counting in this manner until all thirty Aethyrs are so placed, then the approximate boundary of the Greater Abyss will be revealed.

Those additional twenty-six Aethyrs could be said to exist above the Abyss, and so would not have been visible to John Dee, since he did not realize the Qabbalistic implications of the Aehtyrs nor their place in the Tree of Life. And perhaps Edward Kelly was himself too awestruck to attempt to pierce the veil. Other magicians have used the thirty Aethyrs in their magickal workings, most notably Aleister Crowley, and have assumed that they spanned the Tree of Life in some fashion, where the final and the highest Aethyr was associated with the Supernal Triad above the Abyss. Because they believed this was the truth, their experiences were shaped by that truth. However, until now, no one has adequately placed the Aethyrs in the scheme of the Tree of Life, where they should be an integral part. The Aethyrs have found their place as the determining quality in the definition of the Qabbalistic Dimensions.

The Qabbalistic Dimensions are defined by a combination of path, Sephirah and Aethyr; they collectively represent the facets of the teleological process of the Deity and the destiny of its associated individual sentient souls. To unlock the mystery of a dimension is to reveal a part of the Divine Plan, and also the individual’s association with the fulfillment of that plan, however great or small.”

Beginning in the year 1993, I tested this newly derived system of magick, and the results were spectacular. Trevor and I both performed the working, which took the entire weekend to complete. The final results were mind blowing. Prior to that long weekend, I had also invoked each of the three Aethyrs that were associated with the lowest dimension, which incorporated the Sephiroth of Malkuth, Yesod and Hod, and their associated pathways. The resultant egress into the 18th and lowest dimension had far ranging effects, and in fact, I was still processing that experience a year after it was performed. In performing this magick, I had approached the Tree of Life as a veritable map of the Inner Planes, and had entered what would seem to be completely new spiritual universe.

Two years later I had managed to enter into the 17th Qabbalistic dimension and experience even greater revelations and empowerment. After another year, I then joined both dimensions into a fused Qabbalistic structure that revealed still more lore and a greater degree of empowerment. In all, these three workings represented a methodology and ritual technique that had no previous representation in any magickal tradition that I was aware of. It was a new system based on some very cutting edge Qabbalistic and Enochian speculation.

I have not performed any further workings, but I am planning on picking this operation up again in the future, and I will seek to gain entrance into the two trapezoidal shaped dimension situated just below the Supernal Triad. I have all of the materials that I need to perform these new workings, all I need is the time and the commitment. Other projects have intervened, but I am hoping to continue with this technique of Spiritual Archeomancy in the next few years.

Once I had accomplished these three ordeals, it became obvious to me that I had gone far beyond what the functioning temple in Kansas City was able to either perform or even digest without my direct intervention. In 1991 the temple had split into two groups, with one group abrogating the work that I had set forth, and the remainder of the primary group continuing with the workings. This smaller group only managed to perform part of the first Enochian ordeal, and the rest of it was either beyond their abilities, resources or just wasn’t as relevant.

After a couple more years, the last functioning temple group had broken up, but my own work continued with renewed vigor and at an accelerated pace. I did share the Spiritual Archeomancy working a couple of years later with Frater Arjuna, but no one else in the Kansas City group was either interested or capable of engaging with this work. Knowing its importance, I have proceeded to refine and document this system of magick. Even so, the documentation is not yet complete, and there are piles of notes, diaries and other materials that await the time when I will draw them together into a completed series of books, which I have called the “Sepher ha-Nephilim.”

Anyway, I lived in Tallahassee for over four years, and then, as predicted by a few of the powerful spirits that I had conversed with, I was promoted and sent to Santa Fe, New Mexico by the company for whom I worked. The next important part of my life adventure had begun, and by the summer of 1994, I had relocated to that small strange town in the middle of the old west. But that is another tale which I will relate to you at another time. The time that I spent in Tallahassee was highly valuable, both from the standpoint of the occult, ritual magick and also my career. I had progressed to new levels in all these arenas. I had also avoided having to deal with the cold and snow of winter for a period of five years.

Even though I had traveled yearly for a while to Kansas City for the annual Heartland Pagan Festival, most of what I had worked to establish in that town was sadly diminished. So I looked forward to my new adventures in Santa Fe, even though that meant that I would have to endure the snow and ice of a mountainous western town, known for its enchanting vistas, unique architecture and Spanish Colonial and Pueblo Indian cultures.

Frater Barrabbas

Where Winter Has No Domain - My Southeastern Refuge - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Tallahassee and the Great Magickal Revelations

Oddly enough, Tallahassee is where I performed some of the most incredible magickal work that I had ever performed before. The reason was two-fold: I had a perfect magickal temple space, and my magickal work had matured to the point where my rampant creativity seemed to have no boundaries. It was the time when I created the system of magick that I call Archeomancy, and greatly deepened the lore of the Order, bringing it to the exceptional level that it now occupies. I also managed to map out the practices that became the lore of the inner order, or the initiatory degrees of fifth through seventh. I also had quite a number of friends, although only a few were actually interested in the magickal work that I did. It was a very exciting time for my magickal development, and I reveled in the new lore that I was developing.

At that time I lived in a wonderful two story, two bedroom townhouse located on Keily Run off of N. Paul Russell Road. The first level had a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room and dining room. The second level was a fully enclosed master bedroom with adjoining full bathroom and an alcove (with sloping ceilings) that could function as a walk in closet. I set up this alcove as an occult study area where I kept my grimoires and other ritual documents. The master bedroom had a door leading to the stairway, so the entire area could be closed off for maximum privacy. The master bedroom had high arched ceilings and even a small round window at the apex point where the angled ceiling met the wall. There was also a wooden plant shelf ensconced there, which I used for the placement of magickal icons. The only problem with that temple was that the vaulted ceilings made cooling difficult, so it was often too warm to work magick robed, even at night. Because it didn’t get cool in Tallahassee until November, and then it warmed back up in March, I was limited to doing my more engaging magickal work during that four month period. I lived in that fabulous townhouse from 1990 until I moved in the summer of 1994.

Tallahassee was a very marginal town in regards to occultism and paganism. If it weren’t for the two large universities (FAMU and FSU), I would have found it quite intolerable to live there. There was just one tiny occult bookstore in town, and very few individuals seemed to visit it. However, through that store I met two individuals, one of whom would be important to my occult work. One was a young college student named Trevor, and the other was a local pagan and witch named John. Trevor turned out to be a good friend and a magickal accomplice. We spent a lot of time going over the Order’s ritual lore, and he assisted me in performing some of the more complex workings. John, on the other hand, introduced me to some people who became my friends, but my association with him was short-lived. I found John to be completely unethical and untrustworthy. He seemed more interested in spreading malicious gossip about me and then innocently pretending to be my friend. After busting him more than once, I decided to break my ties with him. Yet through my association with Trevor, I met many college students from FSU who were interested in paganism and occultism, although not to the degree that Trevor and I had established for ourselves. Because of my friendship with Trevor, I had an inside connection with a younger crowd than I might have had, being by this time, in my mid thirties.

The office where I worked (on Old St. Augustine Road) was within walking distance of my townhouse, and most of the other necessary stores and services were just a short drive away. Tallahassee was a small town, and parts of it were quite old, but I found it a pleasant place to live. It never snowed there, and only some of the trees briefly lost their leaves in the winter. Late February was the beginning of Spring, and in March, the temperatures went back up to the high 70's and low 80's. Summer time, which lasted from around April through October, saw average temperatures in the high 80's and mid 90's, the air saturated with high humidity. It often rained in the early afternoon during the summer, too. Since I was expected to wear dress shoes, slacks, a buttoned down shirt and tie, I often had to wear short sleeved shirts (looking sort of like Dilbert), and I would skip wearing a suit jacket. The heat and humidity made it imperative to wear a new set of clothes every working day, even though the office was heavily air conditioned. The brief periods of being outside in the hot summer would cause my shirt to be soaked with sweat. Laundering was a weekly affair that took up my Sunday afternoons until I could afford to take them to the Laundromat.

Tallahassee is an old southern town, with cypress trees and Spanish moss growing everywhere. There were avenues that were framed by trees and hanging moss forming kind of a natural tunnel called canopy roads, which looked quite picturesque. The town was surrounded by a forest and a swamp, and in fact some of it was just down the two lane road that adjoined my apartment complex. This made Tallahassee into a haven for alligators and various breeds of snakes, not to mention a hoard of mosquitoes and lots of other bugs. I also heard that at one time, perhaps more than half a century ago, it was a place frequented by malaria and yellow fever, although there appeared not to be any cases of it by the time I lived there. If it wasn’t for air conditioning, I doubt that it would be habitable there for most people. In finding a place without any winter I had also unwittingly found a place that was almost unbearably hot several months out of the year.

Often I would leave my car parked at the apartment complex and walk to work, cutting across the municipal golf course to get to my office. Because the apartment complex adjoined the golf course, there were typically golf balls in the yards and the parking lot left there from individuals who would terribly slice their drive down the fairway which ran parallel to the complex. In fact one weekend day someone had their car window badly cracked, setting off their rather loud car alarm, simply because a falling golf ball had bombarded the parked car. I also recall that the car was an expensive silver grey Mercedes, obviously owned by some rich parents visiting their college student son or daughter. I am quite certain that they were not pleased with the surprise. Since no one came around looking for their lost ball, there was no one to blame for the damage.

Luckily, my car and townhouse were never hit by these errant balls. I also never bothered to learn golf, so I have no idea what hole number caused so many balls to be sliced to the left and bombard the complex. I only ventured onto the golf course a few times, and mostly at night. One time I remember having a very enjoyable sexual tryst on the downy soft grass of some dark fairway with a young woman. That was about my only real scoring engagement with the peculiar game of golf.

Tallahassee had a large contingent of strident feminist witches who called themselves Dianics, but who were actually more aligned with Reclaiming. Of course, I was a traditional witch and also a middle aged male, so I was pretty much excluded from that group. There were also some rumors being spread around about me (probably by John) that I was some kind of sexist and sexual predator, which was pretty funny because I had been practicing a form of strict celibacy at that time. I did that because I felt it was necessary for the magick that I was working and also to avoid involving myself with someone who might turn out to be too great a distraction. I had been burned by the “Girlfriend from Hell,” so I was attempting to protect myself. Therefore, accusations about me being a sexual predator had a high degree of irony associated with them, since I was about as squeaky clean as any man could be.

Looking back on those times, I can understand my need to create boundaries and to stave off the disaster of a previous bad relationship; but to live in a town that is filled to the brim with very attractive young women while declaring to be celibate was amazingly stupid. While I was pining for a relationship and putting out magickal feelers and asking the Goddess to help me fulfill that aspect of my life, I was also inadvertently turning down a lot of opportunities for having some good clean fun. To this day, I continue to scratch my head about why I behaved in this manner. It’s my assumption that the Goddess was trying to help me resolve my issue with being single, and I was turning a complete blind eye to all of the potential possibilities that came my way. I sort of wonder if the Goddess found me to be an exasperating idiot. Examining some of my magickal diaries at the time, it would seem that the spirits were trying to tell me what was going on, but I was too oblivious to get it.

During my stay in Tallahassee, I also became involved with a coven of witches in Tampa. One of my old students and initiates (Debra) had assembled a coven in her home in Tampa, and requested me to act as High Priest because she lacked any qualified male to take that role. Since I was her elder and former teacher, and had recently moved within a five hour drive of her home, it seemed to me like a good thing to do. For a year or so I traveled down to Tampa for Sabbats, teaching sessions and initiations. I met and became friends with the members of her coven, and experienced some really wonderful gatherings down there. Tampa had a much larger pagan community, and through my connections down there I also attended some pagan festivals and community Sabbat gatherings. I had the best of two worlds - working high magick with myself or with Trevor, and then traveling down to Tampa to celebrate the Sabbats. One of the more memorable initiations that we performed was when we initiated Jacky into the craft. She was vivacious young woman who was just beginning her path. We incorporated a “seining” rite where the candidate was immersed in the salty brine of the Gulf surf as part of her initiation. I still have the ritual that we used, and it was really quite beautiful and inspiring to celebrate that part of her initiation rite on the beach at night.

As you can see, my life was very full, and even though I lived in a small college town (and the State capital of Florida), I had a lot of pagan and occult contacts. I still visited my friends in Atlanta from time to time, too, so it was a truly great time for me. My involvement with the coven in Tampa drew to a close after a year or so of being the high priest. I had some rather heated disagreements with the high priestess and felt that she would be better served selecting someone else to fill my role. Even so, I remained friends with some of the coven members long after my tenure ended. Trevor and I proceeded to work some very advanced ritual magick together, and I also performed a number of ordeals by myself. That work managed to help me to complete three major ordeals, and they took me to a level of magickal work that was far beyond anything I had ever imagined. Previously, I had only been rewriting and reworking rituals and techniques that I had initially invented in the early 1980's. Now I was inventing lore that was completely new and different. Here is a brief description of those three ordeals. (I will write more detailed descriptions of these workings in future articles.)

(To be continued...)

Frater Barrabbas

Happy Winter Solstice 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

It is the time of the Winter Solstice and I am on an extended vacation for the next three weeks. I want to first wish everyone a very pleasant and happy holiday season. Be safe, be warm, have a feast, and give a tribute to the Sun God (in whatever form you might perceive him), whose life is renewed this day for another year. I have always loved this season, no matter where I have lived or under what religious regimen I was subjected.

Growing up, I never really got too deeply into the Christian aspects of this holiday, since the wintry weather, the spirit of the changing year and diminishing light had its own magick for me. While I might find myself dragged into a church on Christmas Eve or Day, the whole religious aspect of this holiday was always quite unreal to me. I found the images of Santa Claus, his elves, the reindeer and the sleigh, and the giving and receiving of gifts, along with the colored lights, decorations, songs and the ubiquitous Christmas tree and wreath to be quite magical and wonderful - and I might add, tangibly real. Although I didn’t believe in the customary religious considerations of Christmas, the magic of the season was something that truly inspired me! However rotten things had become in my dysfunctional family life, all of that seemed to be forgotten for the weeks between Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. After that, things went back to being grey, colorless, boring and at times, frightful and abusive. (No wonder I found such a haven in the study and practice of magick!)

Much of that magic has disappeared now that I am middle aged, but I find that it’s still there, under the surface, waiting to come out. As a pagan, I can easily relate to the various secular tropes of the season, but the whole ‘birth of the savior’ theme is quite alien to me. Rather, I see it as the rebirth of the Sun God, but I suppose that the Christian theme is analogous to the pagan one. Every year during the holiday season I find myself looking for something special, miraculous and amazing. I guess that’s where the giving and receiving of gifts comes into the traditions of this time, and it’s something that I still very much practice. You give gifts to those that you love and care about in the hopes that it might touch them in some special manner. Conversely, you hope to receive something very special and meaningful from someone that you love - something that you will remember for many years. It is the magick of that moment which makes everything that happens during this holiday season so much more significant and special, even if nothing special is externally received from anyone. I suspect that the real true meaning of this mystery is to be found deep within oneself, and also deep within the mystery of the season itself. This year I am going to be seeking out something special for myself. It won’t a present or a gift received from someone, but instead it will be some undefined quality that will give me a special and meaningful joy.

Also, this season is the second anniversary for the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal that I performed two years ago. It was in December of 2009 that I performed the core of this ordeal, and it was a year later that I determined what I needed to do to complete it. I will certainly be taking up my specially consecrated ring and going into the magick circle, saying a Mass, and calling my HGA to commune with me. I will seek to be grateful for all of the good things that have come my way, and the fact that I am still employed and employable, and that there is plenty of food and drink, good cheer and friends to share it all with. I will be thinking about all of the Solstices of the past (and there are many to think about), and I will also be thinking about what I should do in the future. It would seem that in terms of my magickal and spiritual development, I am at a very pivotal point in my life. I have accomplished much, but there is so much more to develop and complete in the days and years ahead. Since I am no longer young, I don’t feel as though I have an unlimited amount of time to complete my life’s objectives. Anyway, I will be taking some time out to commune with the ghosts of my past and future as the holiday season expands and wanes, to become only a fading memory in the hearts of most, but not all.

Thankfully, the winter has come upon the Twin Cities in the gentlest of ways, softly announcing that winter is here, even though there has been very little snow and most of the ground is bare. November had some warm days, and even now in December, it isn’t too cold yet. I hope that this mildness continues, even though I know it won’t. There will be snowy and cold days yet to come, until late April of next year ushers in the transitional (and brief) time of Spring. I will be waiting for that change with an open heart and pining soul, since three weeks of my last summer were stolen with a terrible cold. I intend on reclaiming those days by getting outside and communing with nature more intensely this coming year, when the sun returns and the warms breezes of May arrive.

May you all have a blessed holiday experience, and may your cookie jar be filled with the cookies of your choice, of course!

(And don’t forget to love your kitties, if you have any.)

Frater Barrabbas

Where Winter Has No Domain - My Southeastern Refuge - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

The next phase of my life was quite an adventure compared to the settled years of living in Kansas City. It was the summer of 1989, and I had started yet another job with another company. This one was with a telecommunications consulting firm, and I began to get paid a lot more for my DP expertise than previously. However, working for a consulting company is pretty chancy and hazardous with unwanted changes. I sought to leave Kansas City and explore other locations, and one opportunity that came my way was to work in Atlanta. Atlanta was a much bigger town than Kansas City with a warmer climate and more opportunity. It was a very urban environment mixed with a lot of rural and folksy life-styles, a social striation that happened due to the local indigenous population being infiltrated by a host of east coast refugees. It was probably, at the time, one of the fastest growing communities in the U.S., and therefore I decided to throw myself into it to see what happened.

I was living in an apartment with Frater Arjuna when this sudden call to move to another community came upon me. I managed to leave town without causing him too much disruption, and the temple group seemed to be both stable and independent. I was free to leave if I wanted to. So it was in the late summer, I departed Kansas City for Atlanta and engaged in a rather messy and piecemeal move to that large town. I had to learn how to drive very defensively and navigate around that sprawling metropolis. Little did I know how capricious my fortunes would be living in that town with my new job position. The whole situation would last seven months before I would be relocated again. Yet in that short period I made some very important friends and contacts, and had some very interesting adventures. I also made some enemies, too, and had a completely disastrous relationship with a women, whom I later called the “girlfriend from Hell.” I won’t dwell on that situation or discuss it in much detail, only to say that when a young man has moved to a new large town, he often makes alliances that are later regrettable. I was something of a fool and an easy mark for predatory women, a weakness that I wouldn’t conquer for many years to come.

What I was seeking was a new and exciting life, and the pleasant experience of missing winter altogether. I had no idea what winter would be like down there, and even asked a few locals if the leaves would actually change like they did in the north. (They do change, and winter can be cold, damp and even a bit bitter, but without the accumulation of snow.) I had to move into a rather small apartment located outside the perimeter, but I did manage to at least quickly find a place to live. After a few weeks and haggling with my employers, all of the my stuff arrived (more or less), and I was able to put together my own household. I was once again living alone, and that would continue for 16 more years. Needless to say, I was much too busy with my job to spend time actually working magick, but I did have time to develop new lore, and to study and research things. That hiatus would last for less than a year, since my next home would have the required temple space for performing elaborate magickal workings. What I then possessed for temple space was a cramped alcove in my Atlanta apartment, which was useful for saying mass and doing some minor magickal work, but not much else.

Atlanta was, and still is, a very dark and sinister town. By dark and sinister I mean that it is pitiless to those who are seeking their fortune there. It has a very exploitative underworld that consumes men and women and then discards them like so much refuse. That underworld is based on strip clubs, peep shows, small pornographic movie production facilities, S & M clubs, heterosexual and gay prostitution, extensive and widespread drug use, and even some clandestine gambling - in short, every kind of vice. Because Protestant Christianity has such a pervasive influence there, these vices are not joyful expressions of a liberated population, but the vices of a very guilty people who should supposedly know better but succumb to human weakness anyway. Since Atlanta is a major convention center in the southeastern U.S., and it even annually hosts the Southern Baptist Church convention, the city has ironically adapted to cater to any and all needs, however perverse, illegal or immoral.

Outside of the central urban area, Atlanta is actually heavily wooded with tall spindly pine groves growing wherever possible, and all of it is covered with a carpet of kudzu. Abandoned homes and cars are gracefully covered over by the fast growing vegetation, giving it a kind of greenish feral quality. However, there is an implicit boundary in Atlanta that begins just below midtown and continues for miles south through the downtown area towards the airport. It encloses an inner city ghetto that is quite severe and dangerous, even in broad daylight. I have heard rumors that there are neighborhoods in that inner city where even the police won’t venture except when there is a fire or a major accident.

When I moved there, Atlanta had a burgeoning occult and New Age community and boasted nearly a dozen stores and numerous occult, pagan and wiccan groups. Yet that community was already in decline in 1989 when I moved there, and has steadily diminished ever since. Endemic witch wars shattered the wiccan community, and some occult organizations had very seedy reputations. To my knowledge, there are now only two stores left, and both of them reside in the same neighborhood. There are a couple of nice botanicals as well, and one of them has been in business for decades. However, the sex business is still booming, and those who are engaged in it as purveyors of fleshy fantasies are making a lot of money. Those who are its youthful pawns are nothing more than commodities to be used and then discarded. The occultism of Atlanta has been invariably tainted by this remorseless underworld, although, as always, there are some exceptions.

I had some interesting adventures meeting some remarkable people in Atlanta, a few of which would turn out to be very important to my later occult work. After looking over the underground newspaper for the Atlanta area (called “Creative Loafing”) not long after I moved there, I found that the occult and pagan community was quite large, in fact, much larger than it was in Kansas City. There were a lot of Eastern traditions, represented by Japanese, Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, Indian mainstream temples and Indian Tantra, and a host of New Age organizations. I also found some advertisements for a local chapter of the O.T.O., and a few witchcraft organizations, most notably, the House of Ravenwood and the Unicorn Grove. I checked out these organizations and snooped around the many occult book stores, and it seemed like my new home was very promising in regards to occult activity. However, what I soon discovered was far less interesting and engaging for me personally.

Eulis Lodge was what the local “body” of the O.T.O. in Atlanta was called at that time, and since they were having an open house, I decided to check them out. I finally found where the lodge house was located (on North avenue, just a few blocks down from the infamous night club Masquerade), but it was in a metro area that bordered upon the beginning of the inner city. Around the block from the lodge house were dilapidated tenements adorned with trash and abandoned cars. It was an obviously economically stressed neighborhood. I found out about this because I went around the block after missing the address of the lodge house. I opted to park my rental car across the street in a vacant industrial parking lot and then walked across the street.

The lodge house was in a state of serious disrepair, and it immediately reminded me of the infamous fraternity house in the movie “Animal House.” Inside, the walls of the house were decorated with various perforations, showing the rib-like timbers behind the ablated plaster board and chipped paint. I also noticed the pervading smell of urine and garbage, and the lack of any kind of air conditioning. The air inside was humid and quite disturbing with the funk of rot, tobacco and unwashed bodies. This atmospheric miasma didn’t recommend itself to whatever was going to be presented at the so-called open house. I also noticed a massive collection of occult books on a shelf in the hallway, and upon examining a few, I noticed that many were the first editions of some of Crowely’s best books. However, all of the books were suffering a slow decomposing death in the humid and fetid atmosphere of the lodge house. A couple years later I bought the ten volumes of the Equinox from the remains of that library through a mutual friend of the past body master, and they still have the stamp “Property of Eulis Lodge” on them. (They were serviceable and inexpensive, but still bear the marks of misuse and an overly humid environment.)

As the open house was about to begin, a tiny handful of erstwhile seekers (like myself) gathered in a room with a few rickety tables and chairs, and a chalk board in front. The body master, whose name was Bill Padgett, stood in the front of the room and began to lecture those of us who were passively sitting before him. He was boasting about the great initiatory line of the occult order of the O.T.O., beginning in ancient Egypt and proceeding in an unbroken line to the present. Any real questions about ritual or ceremonial magick (respectfully asked by individuals such as myself) were inexpertly deflected as irrelevant to the current discussion. He smoked a cigar as he talked, occasionally puffing on it, flicking the ashes on the floor, and even offered some for the refreshment break. The stench of cigar smoke added to the already reeking environment, and I wondered if anyone ever burnt any incense in that house.

By chance I happened to sit at a table that shortly became occupied by a young blond woman who was dressed up in full punk regalia, with multicolored hair and a bizarre set of clothes. She was attractive enough, but was too far out for my tastes. She got my attention when she told me offhandedly that she was a stripper. I also noticed that she was popping some pills while slurping her can of Diet Coke. Although they looked like proper pharmaceuticals, I got the sense that she was doing it for the high rather than for some medicinal need. Another individual sat down next to her and possessively put his arm around her. He introduced himself as Allen Greenfield, and then proceeded to tell me that the woman I was sitting next to was his, and he said it to me in a very firm manner. “This woman is mine! M-I-N-E!” I felt like saying to him, “So what? S-O W-H-A-T!” Needless to say, I was quite put off by the whole spectacle, and I found the lecture to be irrelevant to my particular occult interests. No one talked about magick, and I was treated as if, as a non-initiate, I couldn’t possibly know anything interesting or useful.

The final annoyance to an overall disappointing and unproductive evening was when I had to give Allen and his drug-addled squeeze a ride to their apartment. While in the car, Allen tried to recruit me by telling me how great the order was because they knew so much about magick. He informed me that I would be foolish not to eagerly join. I listened to him boast about himself as I drove, but I had already made up my mind. I wasn’t ever going to return to that lodge house for any reason. One humorous aside, when Allen’s girlfriend got into the back seat of my rather fancy rental car, she whined to him, “Why can’t we have a car like this?” Allen said nothing in response to this whining complaint. From what I later heard, whether true or not, he had previously blown a six digit inheritance on various frivolous vices and was now fairly pinched.

Some weeks later, when I related my experience to my associates in the KC ESSG temple, they coined the label “that ghetto Eulis Lodge” epitomizing my overall experience, and soon afterwards it found its way into the writings of G. M. Kelly, much to the annoyance of Bill Padgett and Allen Greenfield. One of my protege’s in the temple happened to know Mr. Kelly, and told him the whole story while talking on the phone to him. He published an excerpt of it in his Thelemic Newsletter along with a humorous anecdote, and word eventually got back to Bill. I had burned a bridge, but in my mind, it wasn’t really an important one. I decided at that particular point in time that the O.T.O. wouldn’t ever be on my radar in regards to joining an occult group or receiving any ancillary initiations. Of course, that opinion would be remarkably changed later on when I moved to Minneapolis, but that was not until nearly a decade had passed.

My regretful open house experience with the Eulis lodge had pretty much curdled any interest I might have had in the O.T.O. Later on, when I was on temporary assignment in Dallas (while still living in Atlanta), I met a feminist Thelemite who was running a body in that town. I told her about my experience and the reputation that the Eulis lodge had in the city of Atlanta with other occultists, and she was so outraged that she reported our conversation to individuals who were members of the Grand Chapter. They, of course, had a conversation or two with Bill Padgett, who likely found even more reason to despise me. I imagine that he succeeded in assuring his leaders that nothing bad or disreputable was going on at his lodge, but that must have been cold comfort for all concerned.

A couple of years later, Bill dropped out of the O.T.O. and handed the Atlanta body over to Allen Greenfield, who managed, either through neglect or incompetence, to get the lodge closed down by the Grand Chapter. Since that time, at least one other body was forcibly closed, and the O.T.O. organization in Atlanta was still attempting to rectify itself as a competent and earnest occult organization years later. While other O.T.O. groups have shown themselves to be exemplars of occult practices and possessing a peerless magickal knowledge, the Atlanta bodies have been much more akin to badly run fraternity houses, with all of the onerous notoriety which that implies.

I have already mentioned that I spent a few months in Dallas on temporary assignment. From December to March I actually had two residences, one in Atlanta and one in Dallas. I was able to contrast both cities at that time, and I found Dallas to be a lot more open and filled with potential for me. I met a man who called himself the Fish, who was 6' 5" and weighed around 300 pounds. He was the bouncer at a friendly strip club (called “Southern Belles”) and was also an avid occult student. The people I met in Dallas seemed really interested in me functioning as a teacher and initiator. The Fish had a number of friends, including several women who stripped for a living, all of whom desired to have me as their teacher and pagan spiritual leader.

Unfortunately, I had to leave Dallas after my assignment had ended, but I found myself wavering between attempting to find another job or assignment there and making my temporary residence permanent. I felt at the time that Dallas was just a lot friendlier and open to my way of working magick. Had I stayed, there’s no telling what might have happened. I would have easily been able to form a new magick lodge just with the folks that I had already befriended. After I shut down my temporary residence in Dallas and moved back to Atlanta, the Fish stayed in contact with me, and even visited me the following year. For a few years thereafter, he was keen on learning to master the lore of the E.S.S.G. Because of the Fish and his famous complaint about the steepness of the Order’s learning curve in regards to its lore, I began, in 1992, to write the Pyramid of Powers, my first attempt at writing a book about the magick that I had invented.

However, as I have previously said, I did meet some remarkable people in Atlanta who became long term friends. Their perspectives and insights helped me to master the new ideas and materials that I found myself acquiring through my research and later intensive magickal work. When I moved to Tallahassee, I rented a large townhouse that had an upstairs master bedroom dedicated exclusively as an enclosed and sequestered temple. It was a grand and wonderful time, which lasted for four years, and it also represented a period of career stability and opportunity. My Atlanta adventure only lasted eight months and my consultant job ended in April of 1990. Since I had received very little in regards to any kind of severance pay, I had to quickly find a replacement job. I managed to secure an employment possibility with a company who promised to pay me much more than I had been previously paid by the consultant firm, but the stipulation was that I would have to accept a corporate move to Tallahassee, Florida. Without any other prospects in hand, I decided to take the one in Tallahassee, so by the middle of that month, I had moved down to that town, and soon afterwards, my stuff arrived as well. Even though I had moved to another town, it was a mere six hours drive to Atlanta, so I managed to keep in touch with my friends there, and would, from time to time, come up to visit.

(To be continued...)

Frater Barrabbas

Impressions of Taoism and the Tao Te Ching

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Of all of the Eastern systems of mysticism, the one that I find most akin to my own beliefs is Chinese Taoism. There is something natural, earthy and simplistic about Taoism, and also something that explains the mysteries of life and magick in a concise and profound manner. Unfortunately, my source for Taoism isn’t some faraway monastery in China, or even Boulder Colorado. It’s from the Gia-Fu Feng translation of the “Tao Te Ching” that I have gained a personal connection with Taoism, and I see it as one of the ways of describing the very spiritual core of natural paganism and ritual magick.

I realize that Taoism would seem to be far removed from Western occultism and quite foreign to the practice of ritual magick, but I found that it speaks volumes to me about the very core of the universal spiritual essence in a manner that is superior to any other book that I have found. To me, the Tao Te Ching is a most splendid counterpoint to the hustle bustle and frantic activity of a modern life - or even a modern practice of paganism and magick. For some reason, the Tao Te Ching cuts through all pretensions, revealing to me (and others) the source of all being-ness and its silent, dark and mysterious pathway as it effortlessly threads itself throughout all Life and Spirit.

Unlike other spiritual movements, the actual author of the Tao Te Ching and his history is unknown. He is called Lao Tzu, the Ancient Teacher, but nothing is really known about him, where he was born and when he lived, who was his teacher or point of inspiration. How long did it take him to write this book, and what were his intentions for writing it? Lao Tzu’s name is obviously an honorific, since his real name has remained unknown. All of these questions are never satisfactorily answered, so the author, his mission and intentions are a mystery. All we have is the book itself.

Tao means “the way,” Te means the right way to live, and Ching means text, so Tao Te Ching means the “book of the correct way for humanity to find the way of nature.” I think that this is a remarkable task for all those who espouse an earth-based spirituality - to find the way of nature and emulate it in one’s life and practices.

To celebrant the fact that I am a closet Taoist, I would like to share some of my insights and my particular awe for one of the oldest books of earth-based intuitive wisdom. Even though this book is steeped in the Chinese mysticism of the 6th century BCE, it speaks to me in a timeless but modern and contemporary voice. I hear it clearly as if it were just recently written, and I feel its words presenting to me a reality that is at once infinitely complex and inherently simple. It is the nature of the Tao to be essential, unknowable and the mysterious path between extremes, following a course that perfectly balances the cosmic Yang (archetypal masculine) with the cosmic Yin (archetypal feminine). Perhaps the most profound chapter amongst the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching is found in chapter six, where we read that:

The Valley Spirit never dies;
It is the woman, primal mother.
Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth.
It is like a veil barely seen.
Use it; it will never fail.

I have interpreted this chapter as promoting a form of earth-based Goddess veneration, that it also presents to me a form of transformative magick and a kind of Tantric discipline. It has many levels of interpretation, and each time I read and meditate on it, the words grow and expand in my mind. I literally feel chills when I ponder this simple chapter of five lines, as if the words speak far more than my poor mind can grasp.

Yet the really exceptional chapter (and they are all exceptional) is the very first one, which I have memorized and periodically use in my meditations.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Every desiring, one can see the manifestation.
These two spring from a common source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

The author of this chapter, like many of the following chapters, takes the point of one perspective, then looks at its opposite, rotating from Yin to Yang, and back again. This is done in a dispassionate manner, merely stating facts and observations without any judgement. The main concept is that the Tao, obliquely defined as the source or the way of nature, is inexplicable. It has no definition and no form - it’s like an uncarved block or a newborn child.

To name something is to give it form, and that in turn causes it to be no longer capable of being the Source of All. Yet there is no fault associated with this perspective, since it is important to perceive reality from both the perspective of being “desireless” and also “desiring,” or naming and also allowing something to be nameless. As long as we avoid attempting to classify and attribute qualities to things that are of the Spirit World or of Deity, and then attempting to not only explicitly define them, but to believe that our definition represents an absolute truth, we will not err. Mental models are useful, but they fail to truly capture the essence of anything - they are maps, but not the territory.

This brings to mind the concept of defining our gods, giving them qualities and a mythic context, and then believing that what we have derived is somehow the whole picture. What we name and define in regards to the domain of spirit does in fact become limited and detached from the true mystery of that world. When we engage in religious liturgies and give images to the aspects of our Deities, then we have pulled them away from the true reality of Spirit, which is inexplicable and completely unknowable to the rational intellect. What that means is that even as we make mental models and Deities with attributes and human likenesses, we need to leave a lot of room for variations and the unmistakable entry of mystery and spirit. This is because what we assume and believe is always far less than what the actual truth is in regards to the Spirit World. To name and identify something is important, but to believe that the name truly represents it is a falsehood. The true way of nature and spirit is beyond human conceptions and definitions, and if we can embrace that amazing insight, then we will be free to experience the mysteries whenever and wherever they might occur.

A few other chapters of the Tao Te Ching also help to make this point very clear.

Returning to the motion of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
The ten thousand things are born of being.
Being is born of not being. (chapter 40)

***

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering. (chapter 48)

***

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain to the divine.
Being divine, you will be one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And although the body dies, the Tao will never pass away. (chapter 16)

I could go on and on, but there is little point in doing that. The simple quotes above all point to a profound natural wisdom of the earth and its ceaseless cycles. Instead, I should contemplate this wisdom and seek to find that place of power and peace within me, and ultimately, I may know the True Way of Nature, which can’t be written, spoken about, named or in any manner defined or identified. The true mysteries are inexplicable and all around us, if we can just shut off the ceaseless mental talk in our heads and really witness it for only just a moment.

As Lao Tzu has so eloquently put it - “Those who talk do not know, those who know, do not talk.” May I be embraced by the silence that is deafening and the emptiness that is full. May my head be emptied of non-essential beliefs and my heart be opened to all possibilities. I hope that you have found this meager introduction to Taoism to be useful and perhaps even seductively enticing. I will be occasionally presenting more ideas like this in my articles to counterbalance the heavy orientation to mental models and definitions.

Frater Barrabbas

Thoughts About the Real Hogwarts

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

A lot of people who love the Harry Potter stories and have read the books (maybe even more than once) have taken some of the obvious fictional concepts of magick found in them as truly representing the methods whereby one becomes proficient in the art of ritual or ceremonial magick. Of course, these books are completely within the literary domain of fiction, and the author has maintained she didn’t incorporate any real occult lore into the stories. Anyone who is a real practitioner of magick and who has even a passing knowledge of the stories would agree with Ms. Rowling’s opinion. Real magick isn’t at all like what is practiced in the stories, but some folk, especially a lot of kids, seem to think that it is. Others have capitalized on this misconception, yet the best of them offer a compelling variation on the themes that Rowling has created in her books. I am, of course, referring to Oberon Ravenheart’s “Grey School of Wizardry,” which I believe is an excellent bridge between the fantasy of Rowling’s Hogwarts and real pagan occultism. You can find a link to Oberon’s website here.

However, as a fan of Rowling’s books (yes, there is a child-like side to me, too), I have often thought of what a school of magick would be like if I ran it. You could imagine that it would be called something like Frater Barrabbas’ School of Pagan Magick, or maybe the “Pansophic Academy for the Dilettante Dark Arts.” How about the “Occult Guild for the Ultra-self-absorbed?” Anyway, I would like to present the kind of occult curriculum that I think would be important and useful for someone to begin the road of mastering the art of ritual magick. Gee, what a catchy phrase - it would make a good book title, yes? Oops - it already is a book title, and in fact, it’s one of my own. Sorry about that - just another senior moment of mine. Let’s continue with the article at hand.

So what would I propose to teach in a school dedicated to the kind of ritual magick that I practice? That’s a good question, and even if I never get around to actually building a school with a regimen of occult course work, going over a curriculum would at least give my readers an idea of which topics I consider important, and which ones I don’t think are important. Anyone who has studied for a time is going to have their own list of topics, but since this my blog, we shall momentarily allow me to indulge myself. What would the Barrabbas Tiresius School of Magick curriculum be like.

I won’t bother putting together a four year curriculum where students would be spoon fed their subjects over a period of time. Instead, I will assemble a group of topics that I consider to be crucial for an aspiring magician. I will let each individual take as much time as they need to master each topical area, but I will emphasize that some degree of mastery is important. Anything less would lead to possible problems later on, either in the area of confusion or personal delusion. Anyways, here goes - let me know what you think of this curriculum.

1. Divination - Perhaps the most important mechanism for occult self discipline is the mastery of divination. In the Harry Potter books, divination is considered the least important of the classes that a witch or wizard should take. Yet, in my personal experience, it is likely the most important topic that anyone aspiring to be proficient at ritual magick could possibly learn. The reason why this is true can be simply stated: “A magician who is unable to work any form of divination is effectively blind and insensitive about the greater mechanics of the Spirit World.” Not only does divination open a window into the Spirit World, but it also facilitates a sensitivity to paranormal phenomena and helps one to understand the symbolic language used in that domain.

Elements and aspects of the Spirit World are revealed in a rational manner through divination, and it also allows the magician to understand his or her world, fate and personal destiny. Without these tools a magician can only guess at what is required or needed for a successful operation or how to work on a specific problem and be capable of successfully resolving it. If the occult were so opaque (cut and dried) that divination wasn’t needed, then it wouldn’t be called the “occult,” now would it? The Spirit world is very oblique and inexplicable, so it expresses itself only through symbols and allegories. Not knowing the language of occult symbols and allegories and trying to function as an occultist is like attempting to communicate in Italian without knowing any of that language. Learning divination teaches the aspirant to understand the symbols and allegories through which the Spirit World communicates its mysteries. Competent ritual magicians should be fluent in several forms of divination, although they will likely be exemplary in only a few. Here’s a list of divination systems that a student should learn, and they are listed in the order of greatest importance first.

Astrology
Tarot
Geomancy
Runes
I-Ching
Crystal Skrying
Pendulum and Dousing
Palmistry
Aura sensing/seeing
Envisioning or Dreaming True

There are, of course, many more, but I think that these would represent the top ten.

2. Qabbalah - Yes, I know what some of you are thinking - why the Qabbalah? Well, as a meta-system for all religious and occult systems, I think that a working knowledge of the Qabbalah is very important. Since most occult systems refer to the Qabbalah, knowing it would seem to fill in a lot of blanks that would otherwise remain unfilled if one were ignorant of the Qabbalah. Also, if we consider that working any kind of magick is greatly enhanced by a competent ability with the Qabbalah, then it could only greatly aid the erstwhile student to master it.

3. Pagan theology and liturgy - This is where religious practices and magick coincide, and for the type of magick that I work, it is a very important intersection. Liturgical rites would include all forms of rituals and workings that involve spiritual alignment. Pagan liturgy would include the rites of devotion, spiritual service, godhead invocation, communion, charging and blessing, and the most important, godhead assumption. Such rituals require an in-depth knowledge of theology, choosing a pantheon, knowing the myths, stories and songs, the proper offerings and methods of devotion and service, as well the calendric rites and celebrations in order to produce the final product of such a regimen of study, and that is a spiritual discipline (to augment the magickal discipline). In addition to the above, training in meditative postures, temple dance and movement, meditation, contemplation, visualization, trance work and body work, grounding and centering would also be important areas of mastery.

4. Magickal Theory and Practice - Learning the theories and mechanisms of the three basic models of ritual magick: Energy, Spirit and Psychology. Of course, there are specific methodologies and techniques that are strictly within these three models, but most systems of magick incorporate all three. So the ultimate aim of any such training would be to identify the usefulness of all three models in a single system of magick. Learning to write good rituals and ceremonies for all occasions as well as the optimal methods of ritual performance would be the ultimate goal of this course.

5. Practical (Earth-based) Magick - Learning the most simple and basic techniques for making changes in the material world (through a mastery of the operant link). This methodology would include using different systems of divination and magick to chart a life-based strategy, both for short term gain, and for long term material mastery. Also included in this instruction would be learning how to acquire and manage information, to be able to effectively research and discover strategic data, especially inside or intuitive based information, and using it to develop a larger perspective useful for charting one’s life-path. Another important topic would be to learning how manage one’s finances and to create and follow a budgetary plan. (You would be surprised by how many occultists have problems with mundane money issues.)

6. Mundane Arts and Sciences (All of the external studies important to magick) - History, Anthropology, Biology, Psychology, Geometry, Sociology, Comparative Religious Studies, Music, Poetry, Linguistics (magickal languages), Literature, etc.

7. Craft Works - learning how to manufacture magickal tools, devices, talismans through metal, wood, textiles, and leather work, using painting and calligraphy, performing candle making and oil lamp management, food preparation, flower arrangement, theatrical works (makeup, masks, stage lighting, script writing, directing, blocking, and acting), herbal lore, acquiring and using magickal substances (elixirs, supplements, drugs), basic local and continental occult geography, woodcraft (camping) and mastering the four mundane elements.

So these are the seven areas that would be the main course curriculum for Frater Barrabbas’ Pagan School of Ritual Magick. I supposed that you could either emphasize one category or another, or even add additional ones that I have forgotten or omitted. The above categories would represent the list of things that I have at least dabbled in or even mastered in my many years of my magickal practice. Of course every magician would likely produce their own list, so I would like to request that if you can think of anything else that might be added, or perhaps put together your own list, please write up your thoughts in the comments section of this article. You might even write up your own blog article, too.

Frater Barrabbas

Thoughts About Magickal Ethics

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I should also entitle this article - “What to do when virtue fails!”

Recently, there was a hotly discussed topic concerning ethics and magick between various blog authors in the blogosphere. I was busy at the time and didn’t really have time to respond to the various threads that were out there. I won’t bore my readers with the details or name any of the individuals who were engaged in this discussion (it was just the usual suspects anyway). The real crux of the issue is whether or not ethics is important in the practice of magick.

Some have stated that there should be a course in magickal or occult ethics that goes with any book or course on how to practice magick. Ethics do impact such disciplines as the hard sciences, soft sciences, business colleges (although one would think that such tropes would be quickly dropped once in the real business world), and even large corporations and professions. A lawyer can be disbarred for unethical behavior, and a doctor can lose his medical license for a similar lapse. The company I work for has annual training sessions in ethics, and requests its employees to report unethical behavior whenever it occurs. I would assume that this is rigidly enforced to ensure that the company retains its good reputation and avoids costly legal battles where possible. So if ethics seems to be important in the exoteric world, then it must be also important for the esoteric world as well.

Yet when it comes to working magick, ethics is a very subjective quantity. Witches are supposed to align themselves with the Wiccan Rede, written by Ms. Valiente, however, she never wrote this slogan with the idea that it was to be used as some kind of law. For those who might be unfamiliar with this slogan, it has been variously quoted as “Eight words hath the Wiccan Rede - And it harm none, do what thou wilt.” Some have compared this law with the similar sounding slogan derived by Aleister Crowley from the “Book of the Law,” but they are quite different. Even so, the slogan about not hurting anyone was always taken as a suggestion or guideline by Ms. Valiente and not put forth as a defacto law. Of course, if you think about it, abiding by this law takes the teeth out of being a witch in the first place, so many, especially the old guard (such as myself) will tactfully ignore it.

If there is any kind of ethics to be used in witchcraft proper, it would be to keep oaths of secrecy, don’t cheat, curse or steal from coven members, and don’t get caught by the authorities doing malefic workings. Otherwise, witches have always been known as being outside of the laws of the land, so as “outlaws,” they are free to do whatever they wish to do. The only caveat is that they take responsibility for their actions, and if things go wrong in their magickal operations, then the only one to blame is themselves. This is based on the folk tradition of witchcraft, and is often the place where one goes to determine a realistic approach to working witchcraft outside of a strict tradition. Some traditions of witchcraft are rather strict about performing what would be called “black magick,” but other traditions rely on the common sense of the operator.

I believe that anyone who calls themselves a witch should have the ability to defend themselves and to use whatever means necessary to protect themselves from the predation of others. Working malefic magick isn’t always the answer to a problem, and sometimes solutions can easily be found using one’s common sense or what I call the direct approach. When wronged, I always use the direct approach to getting justice, and when that fails, only then would I resort to magick, if indeed, it is warranted. You see, that is the key to this whole issue, which is what I call justification. If you are justified in working magick against someone, and you have exhausted all other approaches, then you can perform your malefic working with a clear conscience. If it fails or backfires, then it’s completely your fault, and only you will reap the consequences. Perhaps the easiest way to find out if you are indeed justified is to talk to someone who is not involved with the situation and see if they agree with your opinion. If they strongly disagree, then you should seriously rethink what you are about to do.

When I say exhaust all other possibilities, that’s exactly what I mean. If someone threatens you or any of your loved ones with physical violence, then contact the local constabulary and get a lawyer. If someone is threatening you with a lawsuit or claims that you owe them money (and you don’t), then contact a good lawyer to guide you and protect your interests. Same thing if someone has cheated you out of money or taken something from you. You can also work magick to ward yourself, your home and your loved ones in addition to using more direct methods of self-protection without having to resort to cursing someone. Still, if the direct methods fail to protect you, or if you are unable to get the justice that you deserve, then more extreme magickal methods are open to you. Of course, this assumes that you are justified, since working negative magick to force unjust results could readily backfire. This caution also applies to what I call a guilty conscience. If you aren’t sure of yourself or if you feel any regret about doing something wicked to someone, then you shouldn’t do it. Otherwise, as a witch, you may proceed to “puttin’ a hurtin’ on someone.” The key to the ethical consideration is that you are eminently justified in taking this kind of action (others think so), and you feel very, very strongly that it is both right and good.

These kinds of actions are typically called “black magick” by the masses. I see them as the kind of magickal workings that seek justice and self protection and the protection of one’s loved ones. These represent what any witch must consider when virtue fails. When your back is against the wall, you come out swinging, using whatever tools are at hand to get justice, retribution and to retain your personal honor. I know that some folks will be dismayed at what I am advocating here, but if you are engaged in a life or death struggle, adhering to Queensberry rules (and fighting fair) is a complete waste of time.

My approach to ethics is to use common sense, a dispassionate analysis of the problem, ask other people’s opinions about the matter, search out other ways to resolve the issue, including talking, writing letters, engaging a lawyer and/or contacting the authorities. I reserve the use of forms of negative magick when all other means have failed. So far, I have very seldom had to resort to performing any kind of malefic magick in nearly four decades of being a witch. So now that we have gotten that issue covered, we can move on to other more interesting topics.

Frater Barrabbas

I Am Not Frater Barrabbas

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:21:00 +0000

Many years ago, after Star Trek (the original series) had gone off the air and the fan mania began to really spike to a desperate level, Leonard Nimoy wrote a book that sought to explain to that fan base that he was just an actor, and he was not Spok. Mr. Nimoy discussed how some fans had approached him with absurd requests that only the character Spok could have done, such as mind-melding or other attributes associated with the TV show character. This caused Leonard Nimoy some consternation, since he was, after all, just an actor and not an alien named Spok. So he wrote this book to explain what was patently obvious to himself and many others; that he was first and foremost a plain old working stiff like everyone else. There was nothing sensational about him, nothing special - in fact, he didn’t even consider himself a talented actor.

This was a rather modest pronouncement, since out of the entire cast of Star Trek, Mr. Nimoy has shown not only a competent acting ability, but also abilities in the disciplines of script writing, movie directing and producing. Even so, you have to admire him for telling his public that he wasn’t Spok. (Contrast that to Clayton Moore, who all but told his public that he was the real “Lone Ranger.”) The character Spok was just something that Mr.Nimoy had invented, a kind of acting persona useful for a TV show that only lasted a few seasons. Little did he know at the time that the character Spok would become so well known and loved by his fans that it would take on a life of its own in their minds and imagination. What he had to do was create some boundaries for himself so that others would realize that Spok was a fictional character.

So why am I relating this story and what does it have to do with the surprising title of this article? The reason is subtle but also obvious. My pen name, Frater Barrabbas, is a fictional persona that I use to promote the books that I have written, my system of magick and the magickal order that I represent to the public. While I may illuminate ideas, insights and opinions that do indeed belong to me, my author’s persona, Frater Barrabbas, doesn’t really exist. In truth, I am just an ordinary person who has had some rather unusual life experiences, but then again, so have many other folks. My intention is to share ideas and perspectives about ritual magick, and to aid and assist my readers in mastering their own process and doing the magick for themselves. What I am not trying to do is to create a cult of personality around myself.

However, I have recently been getting, from time to time, more unusual emails making fairly outrageous requests of me. A few have presented me with terrible life issues that are afflicting them, and have asked me to intervene so that through magick I might miraculously change their fortunes. These requests, if they are true, deeply touch me with sadness, but there is little that I can actually do to help them. Most people send me kind words or encouraging compliments, others tell me that they disagree with what I have written - all of this is well received and appropriate. Yet it seems that I am starting to get more outrageous emails as my popularity and notoriety expands, so I felt compelled to write this revealing apologia.

I have found that when I write articles and state my opinions to the public, and even banter with other occultists, it’s always within the persona of Frater Barrabbas. Seldom do I actually reveal my true self hiding behind the scenes, since that real person doesn’t want publicity or any notoriety to intrude into a very private life and career. While it might be true that such a revelation might not jeopardize my mundane existence, I have found that it is more expedient to use a pen name. Using an author’s persona also forces me to apply a great deal of professional discipline when dealing with the public. This means that I must overcome my true feelings about a matter and respond in a tactful and dispassionate manner, even if that means stepping away from a hotly contested issue for a time and writing about it later when my passion has abated. I have learned the hard way that to write scathing or threatening emails, articles with a lot of cuss words or flaming replies to those who disagree with me is highly unprofessional, and it’s also really stupid! If I act like an obnoxious idiot, then that will really distract and interfere with the real purpose for my writing, which is communicating my ideas.

To understand why I use a pen name, you would have to go back to where I lived in the past couple of decades. Some years ago I lived in a part of the country where sectarian prejudices could indeed make life difficult for me if it were known that I was a hard core occultist. I have always felt that it was prudent to mask myself with a pseudonym in order to safely present my beliefs and practices to the public. Even though I have moved away from that part of the country, the habit of using a pen name has continued. My author’s mask is not particularly opaque or very effective, since anyone who really wants to know who I am could find out on the internet without too much difficulty. I am continuing to use this pen name to establish some boundaries within my life, and not out of misplaced fear, and I am hoping that my readers understand this point.

Does that mean that I am a fraud or somehow duplicitous? Actually, no! What I say in my books is true, as far as I know, and much of it is based on my own real experiences. My biographical pieces do indeed reveal my actual history, but mainly through a tightly focused occult lens. My mundane life and its various happenings haven’t been fully revealed in any of my articles or writings. There is still quite a bit about me that is kept private and locked away in my heart and soul. That part of me is the real me, and it powerfully affects who I am and how I act towards others; but it’s not the part of me that I reveal when I am writing as Frater Barrabbas.

For instance, I certainly wouldn’t talk very much about my love life unless it had a bearing on the topic at hand, and then it would be made into more of an interesting story, colored by my occult proclivities and esoteric understandings. I am writing to present my ideas, thoughts and reflections, and at times I might take a few liberties with the actual facts to get those ideas communicated. I don’t lie or make up stuff; I just don’t tell the whole story, or I might even embellish a fact or two. I also omit things that I consider to be too personal and too revealing about the real me. I am sure that you can find those omissions, especially when I briefly mention something and then go on without explaining it much. The details of my mundane life are really no one’s business but my own, so I do have boundaries that I seek to maintain.

Additionally, my persona, called Frater Barrabbas, has a certain personality that doesn’t really represent me in a clear light. Frater Barrabbas is all about the glamor of occultism and ritual magick, and not much else. That really isn’t who I am, since I have a life style, a career and an important relationship that I am often engaged with. If you read too deeply into the Frater Barrabbas persona you would think that all I do is work or study magick nearly 100% of the time. A misconstrued impression is that Frater Barrabbas is an unrelenting, self absorbed, occult fanatic. He has shown a tendency to be arrogant, impatient, judgmental, overly intellectual, too confident of his “truthiness” and even sometimes a bit of a prick (according to my girl friend). That isn’t the real me, since I am often scratching my head about something that I am trying to figure out, or failing to adequately judge people or situations. I have a somewhat weaker personality with less intense opinions than how my persona is presented. I have doubts, fears and worries - pretty much like most everyone else. I am not insane (certainly) or delusional, and sometimes I revel in not thinking about anything serious or philosophical at all. Sometimes I just enjoy having some mindless fun. That’s the real me behind the occult author facade, but of course, there’s a lot more, too.

So if I say as a reminder to everyone that I am not Frater Barrabbas, then you might understand that I am just stepping away briefly from my author’s mask to speak to you as a real person. It won’t happen often, but at least you have been advised about this little fact. I am hoping that by writing this article that I might be able to stop some folks from sending me outrageous requests that I could never accomplish. I don’t know the winning lottery number (if I did, I would use it myself), I can’t levitate or cause others to fly, and I am not a miracle worker. As I have previously stated, my purpose for writing is to help people learn to use their own magickal powers. Even so, magick is really a human phenomenon. It can bend probabilities, but it rarely causes miracles. Since I am writing through an author’s persona to help teach others what I know, it doesn’t mean that I am all knowing or all powerful. Far from it! I am just a human being with certain particular virtues and flaws. If you send me an outrageous email request or come up and ask me to perform miracles for you, then I will have to back off and politely say to you, “I am sorry, but I am not that Frater Barrabbas!”

Frater Barrabbas

King of the Cats

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

“Cats remind me of a true story,” he said to the mesmerized boys, speaking as if he were merely yarning, as if nothing but entertainment were on his mind. “It’s an old story, but the truest stories are very often the oldest ones. This was told by Sir Walter Scott to Washington Irving, and by Monk Lewis to the poet Shelly – and to me by a friend of mine who actually saw it happen.

“A traveler, in other words, my friend, was journeying on foot to the house of a companion – not me – where he was going to spend the night. He had been walking all day, and even though it was already late and night was coming on, he was tired enough to rest his feet when he came to a ruined abbey. He sat down, took off his boots, leaned against an iron fence, and began to rub his feet. An odd series of noise made him turn around and peer through the bars of the fence.

“Down below him, on the grassy floor of the old abbey, he saw a procession of cats. They were formed into two long equal lines, and were marching forward very slowly. Now, of course he had never seen anything like that before, and bent forward to look more closely. It was then that he saw that the cats at the head of the procession were carrying a little coffin on their backs, and were making for, were slowly approaching, a small open grave. When my friend had seen the grave, he looked horrified back at the coffin borne by the lead cats, and noticed that on it sat a crown. As he watched, the lead cats began to lower the coffin into the grave.

“After that he was so frightened that he could not stay in that place a moment longer, and he thrust his feet into his boots and rushed on to the house of his friend. During dinner, he found that he could not keep from telling his friend what he had witnessed.

“He had scarcely finished when his friend’s cat, which had been dozing in front of the fire, leaped up and cried, ‘Then I am the King of the Cats!’ and disappeared in a flash up the chimney. It happened, my friend – yes, it happened, my charming little birds.”

Shadowland - by Peter Straub (p. 8 - 9)

***

One of my favorite fictional stories is the novel Shadowland, written by Peter Straub. It’s a story about magick, magicians, youthful regret, the loss of innocence, and the battle of good against evil. Except for the description of the supposed magickal abilities involved, which regrettably are based on the levels of magic as found in DND, the rest of the book is quite a fascinating read, especially for someone who is really seeking to master ritual magick. The most fascinating story in the whole book, oddly, is one about the King of the Cats, which I have purloined above for your enjoyment and discernment.

Mr. Straub has admitted that his main source of inspiration for his novel is the book written by John Fowles (1966), called “The Magus,” and I did notice, when I first read Shadowland, the ghost of that other story lurking behind the scenes. Both stories are highly recommended fictional reading, in my humble opinion. If you haven’t read them, then I would advise you to do so sometime in the future. I believe firmly that the student of magick and the occult should read both non-fiction and fiction in order to get a complete picture of the mythic reality of the domain of Spirit, and its intersection with ritual or ceremonial magick. Often, fiction reflects the content of what is popularly believed in a culture or sub-culture, and this is excellent fodder for occult creativity and speculation.

So you might be asking yourself why I have quoted a short passage from Mr. Straub’s book, and what does the art of ritual magick have to do with the King of the Cats? That’s a good question, and one that I intend on answering in this article. It would seem that the story presents an obvious morality play, where an aging amoral antagonist fights against a young idealist protagonist. The fight is where an older adult, who is the master of his domain, fights a losing battle against a boy who has just emerged into manhood. The battle is infused with illusion, deception, delusion and the hubris of old age; but the prize that they fight for is the domain of sorcery itself, which Mr. Straub calls Shadowland. He who is the master of Shadowland is the rightful heir to the jeweled Owl Throne, and receives the title of King of the Cats. For this story, the greatest master of magick is the reputed king of all other sorcerers, and he must rule with a certain cruelty in order to keep his high station.

The antagonist in this story is a man named Coleman Collins, a retired stage magician and master occultist, who through remorseless aggrandizement and the corrupt use of his godlike powers has acquired for himself a beautiful secluded country estate on a private lake in Vermont, and vanquished all of his enemies. Unwittingly matched against this rather powerful and evil magician is the innocent youth named Tom Flannigan, who discovers his own godlike powers as he tries to defend himself against the older man. Tom is the friend of Coleman’s nephew, Del, and is enticed to visit the secluded estate of Del’s uncle because in meeting and befriending him at the private school they both attend, Tom feels the instinctual need to protect and be a true friend to him.

Of course, nothing is at it seems, and there are many layers to the unfolding adventure. This is also not a children’s tale, since it involves the dark forces that lie at the very depth of human depravity and debasement. I could easily see Anthony Hopkins playing the part of Coleman Collins, since he has that innate ability to play the dual character of the menacing and evil sorcerer disguised by the charming elderly retired stage magician.

Coleman has murdered his way to the vaunted Owl Throne, and now as an old man, he seeks to keep his place despite the fact that his time is passed and a new powerful sorcerer has come to take his place. Only death can resolve this competition, and so the stakes are very high indeed. When Tom wins this contest by default, he becomes himself the King of the Cats. Yet Shadowland is irreparably changed, and Tom enters into the world as a man scarred by terrible circumstances, and he lives a life that is desultory and low key as a hapless stage magician playing shabby clubs. Yet as I said, not everything is as it seems, and even the under achieving magician hides a deep and terrible secret, about powers and domains that few can either see or understand.

So once again, what does all of this have to do with magicians and sorcerers in the real world? Why is this tale so compelling to me (and I might add, to many others)? Magicians are mostly dull characters scratching a living like everyone else, but also having to feed their ever hungering monomania for mysteries and hidden or occult knowledge. They may jostle each other from time to time, and perhaps even annoy the shit out of their fellow magicians, but it is all unglamorous and perhaps even a bit petty - so unlike the story.

We are all like the cats in the real world, each taking its turn at being the alpha cat, but always being turned out by some other cat with a more frightening meow or a more menacing and hissing puff-ball facade. I have to say that as the owner (if such I could be called) of four cats, I have gotten quite a bit of exposure to how cats work out their boundaries and establish supremacy amongst each other. When I read this story I had imagined that there was a kind of hierarchy amongst magicians, and that perhaps one of them was the King, or King of the Cats. I had thought that if I became good enough at my studies and adept at my magickal work that I would be brought into this hierarchy, but alas, all I have found after these many years is a kind of chaotic one upmanship where anyone can claim supremacy, but it is never taken seriously by anyone else. We are more like a bunch of overly fed house cats in a very large mansion - everyone gets to pretend that they are dominant without having to really prove it.

Morgan Drake Eckstein calls his house cats the Secret Chiefs, but that would represent a more democratic kind of polity, which would be a meritocracy that no cat would ever tolerate. In observing and even talking to my own cats, I have found that they are much more inclined to royalty and feudal fiefdoms, ruling by guile and fanged fiat as long as they can, which usually isn’t very long. You can always find another cat who will claim to be dominate and challenge the status quo, which is always changing and in flux. Perhaps magicians and sorcerers are more like real cats, seeking dominance, but always finding themselves ultimately in an inferior place due to the cleverness or craftiness of some other feline practitioner.

As I think about this trope, I feel a brief tinge of sadness and bitter remorse. How wonderful it would have been to eventually be able to sit on the jeweled Owl Throne and tell the world: “Now I am the King of Cats!”

Frater Barrabbas

Novemberist Work - Where Did the Year Go?

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:24:00 +0000

Here it is, the end of November, and I have not yet gotten into the temple to do some magickal work. I had to make a business trip early this month, and then traveled down to Milwaukee to see my brother just before the Thanksgiving holidays. I also had to focus on getting the final set of edits done on my manuscript for the book project, “Qabalah for Beginners,” and that took most of the month as well. Not only did I have to produce a finished copy of the manuscript for submission, but I also had to supply the tables, timeline and examples of the 22 diagrams. Luckily, I found representations on the internet for what I want Llewellyn to produce for the diagrams, so I included them with a document that gave further instructions for each. The whole mass of documents, spreadsheets and pictures were bundled up into a zip file and sent off to Llewellyn for their perusal and inspection.

We’ll see how things develop from this point on. I have successfully produced the required manuscript and materials as my contract required, so now it’s in the hands of the editors and the publication committee. They could reject the book and decide not to publish it, but I doubt that will happen. I suspect that what will happen will be a round of revisions and rewrites, and then it will be assembled for publication. I am expecting myself to be quite fast and efficient in the turnaround process associated with the rewrite phase, so maybe the book might be published in the autumn of 2012, or perhaps in the Spring of 2013. That’s a lot of time, so I will be working on other projects in the interim.

By the way, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday season, starting with last week’s U.S. celebration of Thanksgiving. I have a number of things to be thankful for, and I stated these when my girlfriend and I had a feast of roast duck with a cherry sauce, wild rice, cranberry fruit salad, and brandied carrots. It was a different sort of thanksgiving dinner than is regionally typical, but it was filling (yet not too filling) and also quite delicious. I said that I was thankful for my wonderful relationship, loving critters (four cats and a dog) and steadfast employment. Of course there are many other things that I am thankful for, but these three seemed to top the list.

I have been periodically communicating with John Michael Greer, and he had highly recommended a book for me to read, so I purchased it and am reading it now. I have always wanted to examine the Neoplatonic roots for modern occultism, but found that it was a very complex topic to examine. JMG has made that process much easier for me by recommending the book “Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus” written by Gregory Shaw (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995). I must say that I am enjoying reading this book, and I am also discovering that a number of very important occult concepts which I have long held are actually derived from Iamblichus’s work. I decided that it would be useful for me to remark on some of the more salient points as I carefully read the book, chapter by chapter. I might also add that this is not an easy book to read, and sometimes I need to use my Classical Greek dictionary to get at the roots of some term that is being used (and not adequately defined). It would seem that Mr. Shaw expects his readers to be much more knowledgeable of Plato’s works and the core issues of Neoplatonism than I have at my disposal. Since I lack this knowledge, I have had to do some ancillary study to make complete sense out of what I am reading. Even so, I have found this book to quite illuminating so far. I could go so far as to recommend it to my readers as a book that they should look over in their studies.

For many years I have been told by various savants that the roots to modern occultism, and even witchcraft and paganism are to be found in tenets of Neoplatonism. I have long regarded this idea as a great truth that I have not had the time or opportunity to adequately verify. I just accepted it as true without knowing the exact details. At this time in my studies, I feel that I need to finally examine this topic as thoroughly as I am able, even though I might lack a deep understanding and knowledge of classical philosophy. I have read over some of Plato’s dialogues, but not to the detailed level or with the required understanding that would make acquiring the knowledge of Neoplatonism an easy process.

I envy those occultists who have a classical education and are fluent with the writings of Plato, especially if that knowledge includes being able to read his works in classical Greek. Having a smidgeon of Greek and a rusty and ill used knowledge of Latin does put me at a slight disadvantage. Some of the various quotes that scholarly authors like to put into their published works includes languages that I regrettably don’t know, such as French, Italian or German. So I stumble along, and if I need to decipher an important and cryptic quotation made in another language, I will attempt to parse it myself or use some other online translation process. I suppose that if I were truly qualified to study this material and expound on it, then I would have already mastered these other languages. So what I will do is just attempt to distill some important points in the language that I am quite familiar with, which is English.

One thing that has always put me off from accepting Neoplatonism is its assertion that material existence is somehow debasing, or that the material cosmos is to be considered either inferior or controlled by demonic powers. This idea and opinion has a kind of prominence in Christianity (prior to St. Thomas Aquinas) and also was well developed in a number of forms of Gnosticsm. That some forms of Christianity still devalue the material world could explain why certain sects are predisposed into believing in an immanent apocalypse, which would make all forms of conservation seem irrelevant. I believe that it has fostered a deep sense of disrespect for the Earth, or that it is somehow irrelevant or even contrary to spiritual redemption. This negative impression of nature and the material universe has always puzzled me, since it’s not part of my thinking in regards to my pagan religious beliefs. Yet even so, I have found that this kind of thinking has unwittingly infected even my beliefs, based as they are on a modern paganism. That it was popular amongst the Greek intellectual pagans of antiquity (and by extension, to the entire Roman world) to believe that the material world was defective and life was not worth living seems to be in conflict with what I would have thought as a healthy form of paganism. Perhaps this pessimism could be summed up by a famous quote of Sophocles, who was amongst the more brilliant and creative minds of the 5th century BCE.

“Not to be born is, past all prizing, best; but, when a man hath seen the light, this is next best by far, that with all speed he should go thither, whence he hath come.” - Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus)

This latent pessimism can also be found, although ambiguously, in two of Plato’s famous dialogues, which were the “Phaedo” and the “Phaedrus.” I have said ambiguous because the very opposite opinion can be derived from Plato’s other famous dialogue, the “Timaeus.” For some reason, Plato believed that from a cosmic perspective, the material world was good and that human beings had a soul that was fully engaged in the process of creation; but from an individual and psychological perspective, he saw human nature as trapped and imprisoned in matter. This ambiguity caused a major schism in Neoplatonism, with the philosophers Plotinus and Porphyry taking the ultimate stand that matter was inherently negative, and the opposite was taken up by Iamblichus, that matter, and the cosmos which it represented, was positive. For Plotinus and Porphyry, the soul did not fully descend into the body, and that it was up to the philosopher to forge a pathway that would allow for a complete escape from material existence. Like Sophocles, they seemed to believe that the material world was the domain of demonic forces, and that not to be born at all was a better fate for the human soul. Of course this perspective seemed to feed some gnostic cults, whose anti-cosmic beliefs were based in part on the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Porphyry.

Porphyry’s doctrine of the undescended soul was the ultimate conclusion of this rather negative perspective. Even though this idea was not to be found in any of Plato’s dialogues, the Neoplatonists, starting with Plotinus and continuing with his student, Porphyry, seemed to accept this tenet as a great truth. An undescended soul represented the implied fact that the human soul was identical to the divine Nous (thought). It represented that humans were locked in a material existence and were bereft of any spiritual connection with the divine. The solution to the problem of material existence was to sever that partial connection between the soul and the body, which would have been to the undisputed benefit of the soul against the body. Additionally, to be redeemed, therefore, one had to escape from the cosmos of matter. Porphyry went so far as to say that the wise philosopher shouldn’t even participate in traditional or civic festivals, such as sacrifices and other religious celebrations of the time, because they were tied to the powers of nature, which were controlled and directed by inferior demonic gods. In taking this stand, he seemed to advocate the division of the sensible cosmos from the noetic, proposing a world of extreme dualism.

However, in my opinion, this perspective of the world of matter as being the source of evil for the human condition presents a tenet that I would have to reject out of hand. In my experience, life is a mixed bag, and it is, to a certain extent, based on the motivations and expectations of the individual, as well as their outcome. I believe, to a certain degree, in the power of self-determination and the ability to transform and change, not only the individual, but even the world at large. The philosophy of Plotinus and Porphyry would seem to paint the material world as a kind of prison for the soul, where the mechanisms of fate (as determined by a negative astrology) and the extreme limitations and suffering of life would ensure that most of humanity could never evolve or even be capable of any kind of spiritual transformation. That seems too pessimistic for me, and there is nothing in my life experience that would even support it. As a naive optimist, I believe that everyone has at their disposal the mechanism of ascension and the realization of the Godhead.

For this reason I have found myself shying away from Neoplatonism and its philosophical creed, that is, until I discovered that Iamblichus broke completely from his predecessors and stated the opposite position - that matter is an important part of the greater good. While it is undeniable that material existence imparts suffering and trials, it can also be said that maintaining a balance between material desires and drives, and the desires and aspirations of the soul and the intellect is the key to a harmonious and fruitful existence. One of the ways of establishing that balanced relationship is through a religious life, and most particularly, the practice of theurgy.

Theurgy is defined as the “work of the gods,” and that work consists of invoking the powers of the physical cosmos, and through a linkage with the divine, cause a state of union to exist between the soul of the individual and the World Soul. Theurgy allows a fully embodied soul to engage the divine powers hidden in matter, and to thereby realize the paradoxical nature of human existence, which is that it is both mortal and immortal. Theurgy aids the soul of the individual practitioner to directly participate in the creation and salvation of the cosmos - to precipitate the ultimate union of the many into the One. The goal of theurgy, then, is to assist human beings to gain union with the One, which is a form of spiritual ascension. The World Soul, or Anima Mundi, is analogous to the soul of the individual and the ultimate expression of the One (the Unity of All Being). As Plato said in his dialogues, the world is a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence and is therefore, an intermediary of the Gods and the One. I think that many pagans can easily identify this concept of a World Soul with the modern concept of the Gaian eco-consciousness.

As Iamblichus has stated in his book, “De Mysteriis:”

“And thus, from on high to the lowest things, the Egyptian doctrine concerning principles (archai) begins from the One and proceeds into multiplicity, and the multitudes in turn is governed by the One; and everywhere the indefinite nature is ruled by a certain and defined measure and by the highest uniform cause of all things”

What Iamblichus is saying is that there is an unbroken continuity between the divine and the material world, since matter is divinely created and therefore is dominated by the One.

Theurgy, according to Iamblichus, has two basic functions. The first is that it consists of rituals conducted by mankind that assist in preserving the natural order. The second is that these rites are empowered by divine symbols, which causes the human spirit to ascend to the level of the Gods, and thereby to join with them. This is what is known as “taking the shape of the Gods.” A theurgist is simultaneously mortal and immortal, both man and god, and through theurgy, he or she becomes an icon (what I call an imago or eidolon) and an incarnated symbol of the divine. In this manner, a human practitioner of theurgy becomes powerfully aligned with the World Soul, and becomes fully awakened to his/her augoeides soma, or star-body.

What this means is that the ultimate purpose of performing ritual magick must be the revelation of the higher self as the augoeides, or holy guardian angel, and through it, to consciously exist as the mediator of the divine agencies of the One. Whatever else a practicing magician might attempt or seek to materialize, this ultimate goal represents what he or she will eventually achieve. I think that to state the overall premise of being a magician, and performing magickal rites and workings, is that it is a process of ascension and union with the One. It would seem to perfectly represent what I have been maintaining all along, and it makes sense as a pagan and a witch. It also likely makes sense as an esoteric Christian as well.

These are some of the concepts that I am examining and analyzing from this wonderful book, and I will be discussing other important elements as I read and digest them. What I am seeing from this information is that the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus would seem to agree with how I perceive ritual magick and pagan occultism. I guess you could say that I owe a great debt of gratitude to JMG for directing my attention to this book.

Frater Barrabbas

My Kansas City Adventure - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

This is part 2 of a two part biographical article about the times when I lived in Kansas City in 1980's. This part is about the Order of the Gnostic Star and how it was founded.

It was in the year 1986, when I was living in Westport that I met two individuals who talked me into sharing my recently developed knowledge. I had been a confirmed solitary practitioner and as I said, I didn’t seek to form any group or teach my knowledge to anyone. I had been convinced that my newly acquired knowledge was for me alone, and that it was useless for anyone else. That made me shy away from sharing it with others. However, these two individuals, who became known in the Order as Frater Calixtus and Frater Discipulus Merlinii, convinced me that not only was my knowledge of magick relevant and intelligible to others, it was also incumbent upon me to teach this knowledge and spread its practice.

So inspired was I by these newly met friends and future associates that I began to immediately formulate what I had developed as a personal system of magick into the lore of the E.S.S.G. Frater Calixtus had been a wiccan high priest, occult scholar and theosophist, with many years of occult practice and knowledge. Frater Discipulus Merlinii was also an accomplished occult scholar, who had a quick wit and was also a brilliant writer. The three of us became the founding elders of the first temple of the Order. What they saw in me was someone who had a lot of practical magickal knowledge, the kind of knowledge that they needed to build a magickal lodge. So they formed an alliance with me and melded their greater scholarly skills and erudition with my practical and creative capabilities. The result of this synthesis was the birth of the lore of the E.S.S.G.

To gain an even better understanding of this event, I will use the musings of Frater Calixtus written in 1996, which was used in the prologue of the first volume of “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick.” I think that you can get a pretty good idea of how he perceived me and what he thought of my supposedly “useless” lore.

“Nearly a decade ago [1986] through the kindness of a mutual friend I met Frater Barrabbas. That encounter is still reverberating and growing within my magickal life. And much of what is best within me I owe to that encounter. It is difficult if not impossible to write of the life of any occultist, as Moina Mathers once wrote of her late husband MacGregor; ‘...there being so much of an inner and secret nature involved...so much of the symbolical in the historical, so much of the latter in the symbology.’ ( Preface to ‘The Kabbalah Unveiled,’ p. viii by M. Mathers) Thus to write of Frater Barrabbas's outer life, his family, his siblings, his academic background is but to give you a single dimension of this myriad minded man.

At our first meeting it was our love for that Western yoga known as Magick which sparked our further conversations and enlivened our discussions. But I noticed early on in our friendship a unique quality to his Magickal vision and work. There was no derivation, no dependency upon past systems of magickal exploration in his philosophy. He was not content to retrace old patterns within the Magick ritual Circle, but to use them as jumping off points for deeper pioneering in the transfigured time and space of the Circle. Only with great reluctance on his part and even greater prodding on my part was I eventually able to see his Magickal diaries and rituals - and nothing I could have done could have prepared me for the experience. Immediately I saw innovative ritual structures such as the vortex and the Elemental Octagram presented. I saw his respect for Magickal traditions of the past; be they Kabbalistic, Enochian, Freemasonry, Golden Dawn, Thelemic or Neopagan. Moreover I felt his frustration that here in the late twentieth century ‘Magick’ for the most part was merely endless variation on themes established in the past and frozen in time.

Others of like mind came together to form the Egregora Sancta Stella Gnostica (E.S.S.G.) a gnostic ritual magick order. Uniting us was Frater Barrabbas's view that the sheer stasis of contemporary Magick was evident by the nature of the information available to the occultist in the public arena. And that adherence to a tradition regardless of its historical richness was a prison with its doors locked from the inside.”

How odd it seems to me today to be credited with changing Frater Calixtus’ life when not long after writing that tribute, he abandoned his study of magick altogether and became, instead, an atheist and a political Socialist. He must have believed what he wrote at the time, but whatever effects the group had on him were completely supplanted by other beliefs that he held more dear than the practice of magick or any form of occultism. Perhaps it would have meant more to me if he had remained and even mastered his occult practices and advanced his beliefs. I believe that he would have made a formidable occult scholar and practitioner. He even wrote some of the lore that the Order uses today. One other point, what Frater Calixtus was writing may have been true of the occult community in the 1980's, but by the 90's, there were a lot of new directions being developed, not to mention Chaos magick and the forming of the new Golden Dawn orders.

Anyway, let me continue with my narrative. At first there were only five or six members of this loosely defined group of magickal students. Then within two years, it had reached its peak of around fifteen active members. Those members began their task of crafting the lore of the Order by first writing all nine of the seasonal ceremonies. All I did was set the pattern for the rituals, the rest was their work entirely. Also, the first of the Circle Consecration and Elemental Octagon rituals were developed at this time. During the Autumn of 1987, all sixteen Elementals were sequentially invoked by the group in a period spanning a couple months of Saturdays, so they experienced the first flush of their own generated magickal power. In the midst of these intense workings, the egregore of the temple began to emerge, becoming a tangible presence. Also, the first two initiations were written and performed for most of the members of the group, and the first vision quest was devised and performed that autumn. We had planned to fast for most of the duration, but found that camping and fasting didn’t go well together, so we broke the fast and decided that such activities were better deployed in other types of (mystical) workings.

In January 1988, I wrote and performed an invocation ritual for the spirit of the Egregore, known as the Archangel Chiramael. This rite was attended by some of the members of the group and represented their first exposure to the specialized techniques of invocation and evocation as conceived and developed by me. Needless to say, the overall experience was quite a hit with the group, and that finally determined for me that the invocation technique which I used was capable of being perceived and experienced by others, not that I had any doubts.

In the second year, the group had already tired of the Celtic Grail lore and proposed to write up a completely Egyptian variation. I helped them with this task, but once again, they did most of the work. I later refined those rituals, but the material used was selected and incorporated by members of the group. So the more basic rituals were written and practiced as a group effort, all I did was act as the teacher and guide. I also often led the first attempts at performing these rituals, but soon afterwards, others were getting their chance to lead the group in the performance of these magickal rites. At this time I introduced not only the techniques of talismanic magick, but also my system of invocation and evocation. I conducted classes where these techniques were taught, and some of the group members were able to take up these new practices and perform them for themselves. The group also performed some of this new lore, but not as aggressively as had been done with the elemental workings. In the second year, I also introduced the specific five Grail celebrations, and then later on, the five Grail Alchemical mysteries. There was a lot of creative effort going on all during this time, and not only from me.

As new levels of occult knowledge and practice were needed by the group, the associated rituals and lore were translated from my seemingly endless personal supply. I also formulated the structure of the Order, and with the help of my associates we put together the bylaws and determined the hierarchy of the temple. On February 13th, 1988 (after practicing together for almost a year and a half), the group officially inaugurated itself as the first temple of Isis-Sophia #1, which was based in Kansas City. For the next year, I acted as the Magister Templi and brought to fruition the study and practice of magickal Gnosticism and the liturgy of the Anti Apostolic succession, which became the backbone of the initiatory lineage of the E.S.S.G. At least two members became ordained as gnostic priests, and one of them made it to the grade of acolyte.

I had believed (and still do) that the Masonic lineage and occult lore, which had spawned numerous occult lodges and organizations, had been exhausted. So, I had based the lineage of the Order on my personal spiritual lineage, transmuting this new occult lineage from the ordination and consecration that I had received years previously. Thus, the Order became a Gnostic magickal religious order, based on initiatory holy orders and a sacramental system of illumination, making it quite different from what had been practiced previously.

Also, I decided, and was enthusiastically supported by the members, to fashion the hierarchical structure of all temples of the Order into a Star Group. This is an organizational structure where each temple is an autonomous group ruled by the consensus of its members regardless of rank or spiritual accomplishment. The internal hierarchy of the temple was temporary and subject to the will of the group. In this manner, I had finally put to rest the particularly bad experience that I had in the “coven from hell”eight years previously.

The structure of the Order and the hierarchy of the temple was successfully established and accepted by all. Yet as a sign that even I was subject to its rules, I relinquished my role as Magister and turned it over to my second, Frater Discipulus Merlinii, in an orderly fashion on Feb. 13, 1989 (the second Anniversarium). Group consensus was absolute, allowing no one to dominate it, which was a good and wise decision on everyone’s part. That meant that as the founder, I was not beyond or somehow outside of its rules. I had to comply with them in order for me to continue as an active and equal member, and I had no problems with this approach.

As I had given up my status as preeminent member of the group, some of the most important activities that the group engaged in were done without my direction or leadership. I can recall a couple of outdoor Vision Quests being done without me being the ritual leader, and at one of them, all I did was the domestic work of making certain that the torches and the fire were tended. The rest was done by members of the group, and the resultant ritual performances and magickal effects were quite profound.

Then in the early summer of 1989, I finally left Kansas City permanently to pursue career opportunities in the Southeast. The temple in Kansas City continued on for another year and a half and then folded in late 1990, when its members could no longer function as a consensus-ruled group. The last Magister was Frater Arjuna, who was a faithful, brilliant and dedicated member of the Order, having received all of his transformative experiences through the practices and initiations of the Order. He was the product and prime example of what the Order was capable of doing for an individual seeker. He continued to be the head of an informal body, known as the Isis-Sophia #2 temple, which also finally disbanded in 1993.

My move took me to Atlanta, and then to Tallahassee, where I was able to assemble and perform some of the most important magickal and occult work that I had ever managed to previously achieve. Of course, that story is part of my continuing sojourn through the southeast, and one that I will relate in the future.

So that was my Kansas City adventure, and it lasted for six very important and formative years. At one of the last pagan gatherings that I attended there, one person summed up what I guess most folks felt about me leaving their community. She told me that the community was going to lose an important and valuable member, and that it would be nearly impossible to find anyone to replace me. I was flattered by her effusive support and belief in me, but I knew that no one was irreplaceable. However, according to my friends who still live there, the community did change, losing its depth and quality of engagement for a larger and less knowledgeable community. I blush at the thought of this acknowledgment, but I don’t for one minute believe that it was my fault or occurred because I left.

All communities change, and sometimes that change makes things less meaningful and engaging to some, but to others, it might seem as though things got much better. It all depends on your expectations and goals. One person’s engaging community might be another person’s boring continuation of fluff and superficial mediocrity. It all depends on your point of view. Needless to say, I will always remember my wonderful time in Kansas City and the great crew that I helped to assemble so we could forge and practice a new cutting edge type of ritual magick.

Frater Barrabbas

My Kansas City Adventure - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Here’s another biographical piece, which is all about the time that I lived in Kansas City. That town had a profound effect on my practices of paganism, witchcraft and magick. This is a long biographical piece, so I apologize in advance. Often, biographical details about the founding of an organization can be important to understanding the nature of that organization, and I believe that is the case with this article, which covers some of the details about how the Order of the Gnostic Star was founded back in the 1980's. I will pick up this story in early 1983, when I had managed to get my career in data processing started with an opportune job.

Because the economy was so bad in southeastern Wisconsin in early 1983, I decided to keep the job that I had miraculously acquired and migrate with the company move in June to Kansas City. Since I had been hired in early January of that year as a temporary COBOL programmer for the National Insurance Commissioners organization, I wanted to keep that job and make it permanent. The two primary staff programmers had homes and families in Wisconsin, and they weren’t keen on moving to another part of the country. I was single and ready to engage in my life as a great adventure, and moving to a south Midwestern town seemed like a wonderful opportunity, especially since the company was going to lose both of its permanent DP staff members. I was able to move cheaply and without any complications, so from the standpoint of the company, I was the perfect alternative choice for relocation. My period of being poor, dependent on my parents for support and not having a viable vocation was over. I had passed a milestone, and I was eager for it to begin. So in June 1983, I left my home turf, never to live there again. Behind me were friends and even a troubling love affair, but my ambition dictated that I leave, since there were few other opportunities that were so splendid.

As I prepared for my move to Kansas City, little did I know that I was about to embark on a very significant journey. The people that I were to meet and the things that I would do would leave a lasting legacy in that town as well as establish a foundation for all of my future occult work. It was there that I would found the Order of the Gnostic Star, help to start a coven or two, and establish the tradition of hosting an annual pagan festival. I would also form some of the most important friendships that I had ever had, and see my career go through its more difficult beginnings to become fully established and mainstream. I was leaving behind my failure to form a replacement coven for the Coven From Hell, and admittedly, I found the whole coven business and its leadership hierarchy unsatisfactory, since the lore and practices were too simple and limiting. During the highly and intensely creative period from 1980 through 1983, I had discovered a whole new system of magick and a possible group organization. Although it would be a few years before I would found the Order, the basic structure and occult philosophy of that organization had already been established before I even moved. I had also achieved my desire of gaining an episcopal consecration, so I was spiritually and magically ready for assuming the leadership of a magickal occult group, if such an opportunity presented itself to me.

So it was that in June that I packed my sparse belongings into a U-Haul truck, with generous contributions from friends and family, and with my brother, girl friend and lover, drove the long distance from Hartland, Wisconsin, to Kansas City, Missouri. It was a torturous journey that lasted the whole night and into the dawning light of a new day. We all crashed on the floor of my new apartment located in Gladstone (a northern KCMO suburb), insensibly tired from our arduous trip. After a couple of days of rest and transferring my stuff into the apartment, my brother and my girlfriend departed together in the U-Haul and left me to my new life far from home. I remember weeping at the departure of those closest to me, especially for my obvious temporary relationship with my girlfriend that was now apparently ending. I was alone in this new place, and although that might be intimidating to most people, I saw it as the beginning of a great adventure, even though I had become separated from what had been some very important friends.

Perhaps the most important thing that I achieved was to have my own private home and an extra bedroom reserved for a permanent temple, something that I had previously never had. My last independent residence had been sharing an apartment with my brother, and now, I had my own place. In the near future, I would have other homes where I would share the space with roommates, but this was my first home where I lived alone. It didn’t last, though, since I would have a roommate and friend move in with me before I had lived there a year. I used my time alone very productively, taking up the many rituals that I had been writing during the period of the early 1980's and performing and refining them. During that first year, I had managed to perform many hours and days of ritual work, and had completely tested and established a distinct system of magick. My world at that time consisted of spending many hours at work, or performing many hours of ritual magick in my apartment temple and not much else. It was a truly formative time for me, and it was where I built up a system of magick that covered the transformative initiations of the four Elemental degrees as well as both the fifth and sixth degrees. There were a lot of holes in this system that would be filled in over the next several years, but the basic structure was fully established by this time, and I had fully vetted my new system of magick. What I might not have realized was that I would soon meet individuals who would want to explore and adopt that system of magick, but before that could happen, I had to experience some hard times.

Kansas City had a moderate sized pagan and wiccan community, but most were eclectic and solitaire, and very few had acquired any kind of tradition or training. A few months after I moved there a new occult book store opened up, and it was called the “Magic Lantern,” owned and operated by Mike Nichols. Mike not only operated a shop that sold books and equipment used by magicians, pagans and witches, but he also taught a several week workshop on Witchcraft. Mike used his store as a contact point and clearing house for individuals and groups seeking to find each other, and a large informal group of people became associated with him and his store. I was one of those individuals. I was invited to sit in on his classes (since I was one of the very few trained and initiated witches in town), and later on, I also taught a class or two myself. Through the store I sponsored a group of individuals to form their own coven, and performed a handful of initiations for those who were seeking to run their own covens as legitimate high priestesses. However, I had lost any interest in forming my own coven, so I acted more as an elder, teacher and initiator than a high priest. I desired to work high forms of magick, like invocation and evocation, and that seemed to be far more advanced than what anyone else really wanted to do.

In fact during the first two years of my life in Kansas City, I had been hurt and put down by my old friends and my erstwhile lover, who had convinced me that what I had recently formulated and tested was too advanced and personalized for anyone else to be either interested in or even capable of learning. I found their arguments to be compelling and I believed what they said, perhaps because I had entered a kind of masochistic phase and felt that I needed to be put down. According to them, the new system of magick that I had been deeply and profoundly inspired to develop was only useful to me, and it remained unintelligible to anyone else. This was the reason why I kept to myself and didn’t want to found any covens or act as a high priest. I felt that I had nothing really valuable to give to anyone, since what I valued the most was without value or virtue to anyone else.

I don’t know why my friends made this point so emphatically to me, except to perhaps give me a good kick in the ass and bring me down to earth. Maybe I was a bit arrogant or really self-absorbed in my personal magick, and this is why they rejected what I was doing as relevant to them. However, they couldn’t have been more wrong and misguided if they had told me that I was insane or raving mad. What I was developing was not only relevant, it was highly cutting edge and represented a complete breakthrough in the practice of witchcraft-based ritual magick. What I now know is that they were justifiably concerned about me and what I was doing. They didn’t understand what it was about, but felt that it was taking over my life and making me less sociable and accessible. I was humbled by their harsh criticism, but I also likely took it too far.

Social politics was something that I seemed ill equipped to deal with, whether it was in my circle of friends and acquaintances or with my peers and superiors at work. During the period of time at my job when I had a gifted and creative boss encouraging me (who was also something of a womanizer and a drunk), my career really took off and it seemed as if there was nothing that I couldn’t accomplish. But when he quit after two years to become a consultant, he left behind an upset management that found great fault in me. Since they couldn’t touch my old boss, they instead focused their ire on me. I was a useful scapegoat, so they fired me soon after he quit, and I began a long period of being unemployed.

I searched for a job for nearly 18 weeks, and finally, when I was nearly out of money, managed to talk myself into a consulting job. I had to move out of my nice, new, beautiful apartment, which I had previously moved into with my roommate and friend nearly a year before (and who had moved out to live with his girlfriend), and instead moved in with a friend who owned a dilapidated house in Westport. I managed to continue to build my career, but had to look for a new job every year. This period of instability lasted the rest of the decade, and although I managed to get increases in my payroll, it didn’t look particularly great on my resume. From the period of October of 1985 through April 1990, I had four different jobs, but I had made a transition from Data General technology to IBM, and that had greatly increased my marketability. I might have had trouble finding a corporation where I fit in, but my new skill set opened doors that would have otherwise been closed to me.

In 1986, I got tricked into being the main point person for forming the metro area’s first pagan festival. Actually, it was a very important time, and I had a lot of fun doing it, but after a while, it became too much like work. So I passed it on to other folks, and it’s still going on today. I would like to quote from my lecture notes that I gave at the 2010 Heartland Pagan festival, which was the 25th anniversary commemoration of the first one that occurred in 1986.

“It all started on a cool somewhat rainy Sunday, August 18, at Antioch Park by the lake. This was the site of the first Rune Picnic (a local pagan newspaper), one of several to come. I had met both Lane and JoLynne at Mike Nichol’s classes on Modern Witchcraft. Anyway, someone was talking about Pagan Spirit Gathering and how it was so far away, making it unlikely for many of us locals to be able to attend. I dismissed PSG and said, “We should just put together our own pagan festival for the local people.” I believe that JoLynne said rather dryly, ‘Then why don't you do it.’ I was taken aback somewhat, then I remember thinking to myself (which I did out loud), “Yeah, we could do it. It can’t be that hard to put on a festival for maybe two or three nights.” Little did I know that what I was suggesting was actually a lot more difficult than I could possibly have understood, having never done anything that large before.

So the first meeting was scheduled to occur at a woman’s home named Storm Raven, on October 5, 1985, at around 3 pm. Only three people showed up! The next meeting was held at Marilyn’s home a couple of weeks later, and then we had a whole living room full of people - both locally and also a large contingent from Lawrence, KS. The group from Lawrence were heavy Liberal politicos, so they knew about community organizing, and a few of us had attended some pagan festivals in the past, so we bravely faced the logistical odds and got to work. There wasn’t any real organization or official roles, and many of us volunteered our money and labor to make this event happen.

Some of the early logistics that we faced - getting a name for the festival and for our newly formed organization. Finding an acceptable site (this took a lot longer and was a lot more complicated than we realized at first). Getting a P.O. box. Finding our first speakers - a friend and member named Sue contacted and secured her friend (and mentor) Star Hawk to be the first main speaker. We then opted to ask and acquire Isaac Bonewitz as the second main speaker. Isaac was living in the KC area on a temporary basis, so he was pretty easy to recruit. In order to get seed money to finance this operations we had a number of raffles and even hosted a Beltain gathering.

Some disasters - a huge rain storm on Friday night that nearly blew down the main tent (where the vendors and staff held court). The young man in charge of security went on a weekend long drunken binge, so he was not available to handle any security concerns. The person in charge of the feast decided to bail less than two weeks before the festival, so the rest of us had to pull together a menu and prepare it for the gathering (everyone had a hand in it). The food was actually pretty good, but much of it was contained in large black garbage bags and other impromptu containers.

It was blistering hot, but the muddy lake more than made up for it. However, Camp Hammond was really a large field with little or no shelter, and the shower facilities were very poor (one or two functioning outside showers). We relied on a handful of Porta-potties, which became fecund by the end of the event. It was a great first attempt at a festival, with over 275 attendees. ”

So after the minor disasters and also the successes, we planned for the next HPF gathering to occur in 1987. We changed the date to Memorial Day weekend and also the site location, and began a tradition that has been successfully occurring every year since. It was one of the cool things that I did for myself and the community, and it was one of the legacies that I (and others) left behind for others to help deploy or to happily attend.

Back to my story; there was a time during that interlude between the spring of 1986 and the late winter of 1987, when I spent several months living with a man (named Bill) who had recruited me to develop a PC based application. It was a software system for insurance companies to enter their annual statement information, print it out for publication, and even electronically submit it to the National Association where I had previously worked. During that time I was more focused on my career than on my occult activities, since my boss was also my roommate, and he, being a conservative business man, wouldn’t have understood what I was doing or why. We were the oddest of roommates, where he wore suits and drove around in a Cadillac, I wore jeans and drove around in a subcompact. He was a moderate Republican and admired Ronald Reagan, and I was a left-wing Democrat. There was also around ten years between us, and I am certain that Bill found me just as odd and strange as I found him. But I also liked him and gave his project my maximum effort; but after while, my enthusiasm failed, then Bill finally asked me to go find a job, and then to move away when I could.

Our business venture had seemed plagued by problems and minor catastrophes, and Bill lost the bulk of his fortune attempting to prop up the business. In the end, we both lost interest in attempting to make the business work and complete the software development, so I had to find another job. Then a few weeks later, I moved out of our shared home and into an apartment flat with two other young men, one of whom was eager to help me to house a magickal group based on the Order group that was forming around me.

That man was a newly found friend named Mark. I was rescued from my difficult situation by Mark, who had also been seeking to be a member of the Order, and we found a nice two story duplex to house our temple. I lived on the bottom floor, which had its own small bathroom and closet style bedroom, but the larger room was where the temple was to be established. The doorway was plugged up with a piece of foam, and therefore, was hermetically sealed from the rest of the flat. Once it was fully furnished, it was truly a grand temple. I used it to perform a lot of personal magick there, as well as group magick with the temple organization. We lived there from 1987 to 1989, when he suddenly decided to move to California to try his luck at being a clay animator. He also told me at the time of our parting that although he had tried to believe in and experience the magick that we performed, he just couldn’t understand or believe that it was real. Of course, this was after we had lived together for almost two years, so it did come as quite a surprise. I suspect that his strident atheistic father (who detested me and my practices) had something to do with Mark’s obvious change of heart, but I never took him to task for that admission. I thanked him for our time together and we went on our separate paths. To this day, I have never heard anything from him since that time.

Getting slightly ahead of myself, I need to relate what happened with this marvelous occult group that formed around me. The actual history of how the Order got its start is an interesting one, and I have told before, but let me re-relate it with more details for your reading pleasure.

(To be continued..)

Frater Barrabbas

An Excellent Hallows 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I just wanted to thank everyone for their warm wishes and kind words regarding the passing of my mother on November 1. I took a week off from writing because I wanted some time reassess my life, but also because I was very busy with a lot of mundane things, such as work, business travel and feting guests from out of town.

It was a truly wonderful weekend for me and my lady, and one that I shall remember for some time. Not only did the presentation La Balle de la Danse Macabre turn out really well, but I had two good friends from out of town who also visited and took part in the presentation. We were gifted by the appearances of Frater Arjuna and Soror Rekhetra, and their company was well received and enjoyed. For those of you who might not know, I have known Frater Arjuna for many years, and he was one of the original members of the Isis-Sophia lodge in Kansas City, founded back in 1986. Frater Arjuna is still active in the Order, and in fact, he and I were for a while, the only active members left from what had once been a nice group of people. Soror Rekhetra is also a good friend and has done a fair amount of the artwork used by the Order to illustrate some of the more unusual ritual devices and other interesting diagrams. She is also one of my faithful students and a steadfast personal friend and spiritual ally. Both of these good friends are particularly important to my work, and I must confess, that they have, from time to time, been instrumental in aiding me in objectifying my thoughts and practices.

I must also mention my lady, Soror Grace, who was a great help to me during the tight weekend schedule, and who was the photographer and helped with the setup and break down of the lighting system that added tremendously to the ambience of the underworld. I truly cherish her as an able helpmate, muse, friend, peer and lover. I am blessed to have such a wonderful woman in my life, after all of the difficulties that I have had during the last few decades in finding someone to love and with whom to have a relationship. Spending quality time with her and my friends over the weekend makes me realize just how precious friends and lovers are in the life of an initiate, which can be typically a lonely and solitary existence.

The presentation and event turned out to be remarkably good as well. The acting ability of Steve Posch was fantastic, and he made a really incredible le Roi Morte. With his make-up fully applied, and ratty tuxedo coat and golden crown, he was arguably the Lord of Death in all his fearsome glory. The same could be said of the blue-skinned character Checher de la Morte (Seeker of Death), played by the artist and theater impresario, Paul Rucker. Paul also did the make up for Steve and others. The other characters were also brilliantly made up and played, especially the grand dame who played Madame de la Morte. There were a few glitches in the design and execution of the presentation, but overall, it went extremely well, and I was quite pleased with the results. Time was the great limiting factor, and the thin resources available were pushed to the very limits of practical allotment. Yet it was memorable and had quite an impact on me and everyone who either took a part in it, or who attended.

I guess you could say that sometimes real life has a way of following the currents of magick and mystery that one unwittingly projects into the world through an artistic presentation like the La Balle de la Danse Macabre. On November 1st in the evening, my mother passed away, so my presentation perhaps was a way to celebrate and also mourn her passing. She had been living nearly a vegetative state for the last couple of years in a nursing home, so it was a merciful and much needed passing on her part. I had also been mourning her passing out of my life ever since I last saw her in April of the previous year; but the long distance and a very busy life-style kept me from getting to see her again. I do regret that I didn’t get a chance to see her before she died, but my memory of her as a caring and compassionate mother will never die in my mind. In my heart she is still alive, and youthful in her middle years - as it should be.

The following weekend we were visited by two of my oldest friends from Milwaukee, Keith and Anita, and we had a truly wonderful time with them as well, culminating in a feast day on Sunday where two of the stars of the presentation also showed up. Keith and Anita are witches in the very old style that is beyond any tradition with its degrees and dogma. They are also culinary epicures, so we had some very interesting meals. I engaged in some very foundational discussions with Keith, seeking to bridge our differences in our perspectives and build on our mutual agreements. Because I respect Keith and value his opinions, I always find myself thinking about our discussions long after our visit is over.

One thing that we discussed, that has also been going around my mind lately, is that we each have within us a conceptual map of the Spirit world lying dormant in our deep minds. We might not be aware of what it is or that it has any kind of formulation, but when we work methods of mysticism or magick, that map comes out and determines what we experience in regards to our contacts with the Spirit world. This can account for the different experiences that individuals might have when even working with the same magickal system or grimoire. While some might experience demons as evil spirits, others might experience something that is more ambiguous or even reversed in a kind of antinomian perspective. I have written about this phenomenon previously and it has changed my opinion about the nature of spirits in a generalized manner. No longer can I take the word of the grimoires, theologians or various occult pundits. If I use a matrix to define the table of spirits, giving each one a specific definition, then that matrix will be the foundation for what I will experience, even if that foundation allows for quite a bit of variation in experience between operators.

What this means is that our interpretation of the Spirit world is based on something that already exists within us, waiting to be released. All it needs is a proper stimulus to trigger a full and comprehensive experience of that “map” actualized into our conscious beings. The map can have some considerable variances between individuals who have different predisposed beliefs and spiritual practices. A Christian magician will experience something quite different than a pagan or Thelemic magician, and a Theosophist would experience something entirely different. This map is not a static thing either, since it can change and evolve over time as a person’s beliefs and practices are evolved through their experiences.

Our ever present source for this map is based on our geographic location, our generational affiliation and our life experiences. If a culture develops certain ambiguities or uncertainties that impact religious organizations, forcing them to be either more liberal or conservative, that will certainly have quite an impact on what an individual will experience when they begin to perform ritual or ceremonial magick. The stuff of our culture (including all of the elements of pop culture and urban legends) is the ultimate source for all systems of magick, even if they are derived from apparent traditional sources. What is important to any budding magician is to somehow trigger that internal map and cause it to become exteriorized or projected into the magician’s conscious reality. Ecstasy helps, but it can’t be the sole source of that stimulus that triggers the map.

Chaos magickal methodology stipulates that what really stimulates a operating magician is the use of something unusual, sinister or even completely alien. Instead, I would say that novelty helps, but pure occult techniques and practices associated with a deep spiritual encounter would appear to cause this trigger to be activated. Using something deeply significant and meaningful would also be very helpful. Somehow, though, many years ago, I activated the trigger of my inner map of the world of Spirit, and once that happened, I was able to experience phenomenon that could be loosely defined as paranormal, perhaps even supernatural. Prior to that eventful (but barely remembered time), I only was able to sense or taste various vague impressions of that domain. I knew what I was looking for intuitively, but I couldn’t articulate what it was until it manifested to me in all of its wonder and terrible glory. Something blasted through those doors or perception, I believe that I recall what it was.

After thinking about it for a while, I have decided that the most powerful thing that had happened to me, which opened the doors to the spirit world for me, was when I ingested over a thousand micrograms of LSD-25 when I was a mere teenager of 15 years. I had only recently experienced alcohol, but had never gotten high on Pot or any other mild hallucinogenic. The results of that terrible and amazingly long arduous trip completely and irreparably changed my perception of reality and made the world of Spirit suddenly and easily accessible to me. I was, in a word, never the same after that event. I know that somehow that would make my long tenure as an occultist, witch and ritual magician somehow suspect or even detract from whatever I have previously written. I insist that I am not addicted to drugs nor was I ever predisposed to take drugs instead of adopting a spiritual discipline. The context of the times when this event occurred was a time when many young people were experimenting with drugs, occultism, magick, paganism and witchcraft. It’s just that event, which happened so many years ago, that triggered my internal map of the world of Spirit, even though it wasn’t something that I had planned or even guessed might happen. In fact, I was completely oblivious and naive about any consequences for my actions. I was just a young fool, but in some manner, wisely foolish. However, I would never advise anyone to do as I did, and in fact, I would request that anyone who sought to take any variety of powerful hallucinogens to carefully think about what they were about to do before committing to any action. I survived my experience, but it could have turned out bad for me as well. It’s the kind of gamble that I wouldn’t think of doing in my middle years.

My inner map was exteriorized on that summer day way back in 1970, and I was never the same carefree and oblivious youth ever again. I lost some of my innocence, and I acquired from it the knowledge of a kind of brave new world. Yet for me, it was not a world of fear or paranoia ruled by forces of evil and good, instead it was a complex world of forces and intelligences that could guide, help, aid, or even destroy me. Madness was always a potential possibility, but I was buoyed by a powerful optimism and a spiritual love whose source is a mystery to me even in this late time of my life. Perhaps it was intrinsic to my nature, or maybe it was due to the unfailing love and acceptance that I have always felt emanating from my mother. It might also be true that now that she has passed this world and into the next, I might discover the answer to this riddle.

Frater Barrabbas

Brief Sabbatical from Writing

noreply@blogger.com (Frater.Barrabbas) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:39:00 +0000

To all my readers, I regret that I have not been writing much as of late. Life and its complexities has intervened to interrupt my typical regimen. It has been the happenstance of both happy events and also one that is very sad. The happy events have been the hosting of some of my closest friends over the last two weekends. However, on the first day of November, which is All Saints Day, my mother passed away from this world to the next. She was a very gentle and compassionate soul who taught me how not to judge people before knowing them. Her influence in my life had been very subtle but also very powerful. Perhaps one could say that my tacit love and respect for this woman had something to do with my search for a religion that would venerate and love the divine feminine. Although she has been in a nursing home for the last two years and under hospice palliative care, and has been unresponsive and barely conscious during much of that time, her passing has had its impact on me, even though I had already accepted her immanent passing as a likely occurrence. This is the sad event that I am dealing with, even though I am surrounded by friends who love and care about me.

Samhain was a wonderful experience for me. The presentation was performed better than I had hoped, and it was well attended. I was thrilled by the acting of the main members of the cast, and the attendees came dressed up and made up to look like the dead. There were a lot of made up skull faces, pale skin and hallow eyes absorbing all that happened. The dance portion was successful (even the children got involved) and the feast was well received. Even though we only had two and a half hours to finish all of the acts of this presentation, including the feast, we managed to complete it on time, and there were enough hands to straighten and tidy things up at the end. The critique of the rite that happened the next had a number of attendees and the negative criticism was light (some basic logistics) and the praise was heavy. I was delighted with the whole process and grateful for everyone who contributed to making this one of the best public rituals that I have ever developed, written and conducted. The brightness of that moment has not been dimmed by the death of my mother, and perhaps the one event presaged the other. In a sense, perhaps, I have acknowledged her passing with the presentation of a rite that glorifies living and honors death.

With all of these events unfolding and taking up so much of my time, I will likely not post very many articles in the next couple of weeks. I have many outlines and ideas for writing future blog articles, but I will just need some time to get all of the important mundane things in my life squared away. So please stay tuned to this blog and I promise you that there will be some very interesting articles coming later this month and throughout the winter. I am grateful for your reading and responses to my past articles. I hope that everyone had a great and wonderful Samhain, and that winter doesn’t come too early so that the fall may more gently descend into the coming months of darkness, cold and the soft covering of snow and ice.

Frater Barrabbas