Melbournostika!

LIBER KKK TRAINING

2009-10-28T04:10:00.000-07:00

THE IDEA

I was walking through Frankston with two of my good magician-friends, Fraters Moss and Koslov, when we got talking about magic and how one is to learn magic. There are plenty of ‘training manuals’ to the occult world - Condensed Chaos, Modern Magick, Inner Temple of Witchcraft, Golden Dawn, etc, being the best among them.

Each of these guides has a fundamental problem (some would say strength): that is, they train you in a full tradition. If you follow Regardie’s The Golden Dawn faithfully you’ll become adept in Golden Dawn ceremonial magic, for example. Condensed Chaos is more like a guide then a tradition-manual, but suffers from similar issues.

The great thing about magical practice these days is that while the older paths are definitely important to study, many of us have the freedom and creativity to craft our own. This is the core of Chaos Magic.

There is one training manual that is different, however. It is structured enough to guide one through becoming a full magician while also being highly general and useful on its own merits - the awfully titled Liber KKK (that’s Liber Kaos Keraunos Kybernetos, not Klu Klux Klan).

Written by Peter J. Carroll (of Liber Null & Psychonaut fame), a founding father of Chaos Magic, a magician dedicated to the Liber KKK will find that he is creating all of his own rituals - except perhaps the banishing - and integrating within everything he feels comfortable with.

It is ultimately up to them to hammer out their own path.

Carroll gives tasks, and the magician is to attempt them repeatedly until they feel comfortable with their results. I came up with the idea of running through the first part of the guide - there are five, as detailed below - with a few mates, including the delicious Soror Twist, and it grew from there.

The idea is for a group of us to finish the first rung of the course in three months, with myself (and maybe - maybe - Soror Twist) as a guide.

Upon completion, perhaps I will print off some certificates with NOW YOU ARE FINALLY READY TO DEFEAT VOLDEMORT scrawled upon them - perhaps I will not. It will be irrelevant. You will have spent a small portion of your life living as a crazy bastard magician, and the experience will be equal parts weird, exciting, difficult and rewarding.

If you need assistance, or wish to officially join up, please email me at natfrobinson@gmail.com or leave a comment here.

Liber KKK can be found in full at:

http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/liberkkk.html

WHEN WE START

The official start is on November 11th.

Yes, this is exam time for many people.

Yes, this is half-way through Nanowrimo - an event I will be participating in.

Yes, this is really soon.

The reasons for this date are a little esoteric. Firstly, it is just after the pagan holiday of Beltane (in the Southern Hemisphere) - a time for new beginnings. Liber KKK, it is advised, should be begun on auspicious or important dates - and that certainly qualifies. Secondly, November is the eleventh month of the year, and we start on the eleventh because eleven, in Western numerology, is the number of magicians and achieving the impossible.

This year, the eleventh of the eleventh is on Wednesday - Woten’s Day - which belongs and is named after the Norse deity Odin, god of magic, poetry, and victory, among other things. We will be beginning in 2009, of course - 2 + 9 is the number 11 once again, and nine is the number before the Earthly Malkuth of Ten: one step above the mundane. Two is the number of dualities, very important in magic.

And so forth.

The course will take three months, and finish roughly on the twelfth of February 2010. This is actually a rather short time allocated for the first rung of KKK – most certainly not enough to cover it all fully. The magician is encouraged to return for a few months after to tie any loose strings, redeem any failures, and to continue exploring the first step.

Two weeks are allocated to each of the five tasks in the first rung, with two weeks left spare for holidays (like, perhaps, Christmas), exams, etc. We will all be doing the tasks at roughly the same time, however - I encourage everyone to keep pace with me.

Here are the rough, explicit dates (without the two weeks) for each of the tasks:

CONJURATION ONE - SORCERY EVOCATION - 11/11/2009 - 2/12/2009
CONJURATION TWO - SORCERY DIVINATION - 3/12/2009 - 17/12/2009
CONJURATION THREE - SORCERY ENCHANTMENT - 18/12/2009 - 1/1/2010
CONJURATION FOUR - SORCERY INVOCATION - 2/1/2010 - 16/1/2010
CONJURATION FIVE - SORCERY ILLUMINATION - 17/1/10010 - 31/1/2010

So thirteen days after that until the finish date for tying up loose ends, typing the magical diary, whatever.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

This seems like a lot - eleven things! - but most of aren’t compulsory. The list is worth keeping in mind, though.

(1) You will need the will, determination, endurance and creativity of a magician. Don’t come into this for a laugh, or thinking you will fail. Failure in the mind begets failure in the world. Come in willing to work, willing to learn, willing to become a better magician. I can’t force you to do the work, and I don’t care enough to force you anyway. If it’s attention you want, any magician worth their salt could easily forge a magical diary. But, to quote your favourite bastard mathematics teacher, this course is only for you. If you’re going to do it, fucking do it!

(2) You will need a copy of Liber KKK for reference. Here is that link again: http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/liberkkk.html. If you have a copy of Liber Kaos, there’s a copy in the back of that. If you don’t, I suggest you print it out. Read it fully, even though the first part is the only one we’ll be using.

(3) You will need a solid banishing ritual. Preferably either the Gnostic Banishing Ritual - found at http://www.templex.org/libchaos/gnostic_banishing_ritual.htm - or the decidedly more difficult, orthodox (and rewarding, perhaps) Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram – found at http://www.kheper.net/topics/Hermeticism/LBR.htm. Most magicians already have a banishing ritual under their belt. It is standard magical practice, and vitally important - banishing rituals are needed, in my opinion, before and after all magical acts. If you don’t know one already, pick up the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual and practice it daily before the 11th of November. Trust me - you’ll need it.

(4) You will need a Magical Diary. This is the item where on records their magical rituals, successes, thoughts, failures, ideas and other meanderings... vitally important for this course, as you’ll need to consult your past in order to notify your future. In addition, it is common practice among magicians, and for good reason - cultivating this oft-neglected habit is a very good idea. Write it in the medium you are comfortable. I prefer a personal, simple notebook - but it can be a Word document, a blog, whatever. Just have it well dated and make sure it’s thorough. We’ll share them around afterward and be envious of each others amazing results. It does not have to be written in code or the ancient language of the Angels, unless this helps.

(5) It is advised that you also invest in a Dream Diary. It should probably be something physical - a notebook - next to your bed, or under your pillow, where you can record the dreams of the night before. It is often important to the magical practice. Not as necessary as the Magical Diary, but you’ll want one. The Magical Diary can be the same notebook as the Dream Diary, but make sure both are clearly marked (different colour pens?) and that it is easily accessible once you’ve woken up. Dreams often disappear minutes after them occurring, much to the sorcerer’s disgust...

(6) As mentioned within Liber KKK itself, it is desirable that you have your own temple, your own personal space, for attempting the work. However, with Christmas, New Year’s Eve, a certain magician’s birthday and everything else…... this is highly unlikely. Thus, be flexible - the real trick is daily practice, regardless of where you are. Work in the world. Don’t give up because your privacy is cramped. Excuse yourself for a second... but don’t give up. Wasted days are, after all, wasted days.

(7) That said - you may want to erect an altar to a certain deity before the work begins, especially if your work is more pagan in nature. Do it now. If it assists your magic, do it now. Don’t wait until the start. Begin the preliminary work!

(8) Pick up a meditative practice of one variety or another. I suggest Buddhist zazen, or the work in Liber MMM (within Liber Null, found at ). Simply sit and try and still your thoughts. If you practice yoga, well... keep practicing it. Zazen is ridiculously easy - sit, staring at a blank wall, for ten to twenty minutes a day. That’s it. It’s hard, but it’ll help order your mind.

(9) You might want to do some occult shopping. Pick up some incense, candles, salt, chalk and whatever else you feel you might need. May I suggest spending a day wandering around searching for a magical dagger? Find something that resonates with you on a deep level, and remember not to haggle. A magical dagger’s invaluable in drawing pentagrams and all of that. You might want a chalice, or any number of things. Buy them or craft them now.

(10) Even though one of the magical tasks is to craft your own system of divination, I suggest buying a tarot deck or crafting a set of runes and start practicing with them now. Divination is the skill you’re cultivating, as well as the reading of signs. Not necessary, but very useful. Astrology isn’t worth it - not random enough, so it’s not real divination and more a magical art in itself.

(11) If you’re new to the magical thing, and haven’t already, add me to MSN messenger at natfrobinson@hotmail.com, or grab my email at natfrobinson@gmail.com. I’m more than happy to answer any questions you have, and give the best advice I can.

THE GUIDE

Liber KKK is split into five sections: Sorcery, Shamanic Magic, Ritual Magic, Astral Magic and High Magic. We will only be attempting the first rung - Sorcery. If this is a resounding success, maybe sometime next year we’ll attempt Shamanic... and the magician is encouraged, once he has completed Sorcery to his own immaculate satisfaction, to continue on.

It is important that some aspect of magic exists every day within your life - that you’ve recorded a dream, performed a banishing, or done something regarding the task. It is acceptable for the magician to write ‘No magical operation today,’ in his magical diary, but only rarely. Roughly two weeks ‘free time’ is given for this purpose. Even something small - such as meditation or a banishing - is acceptable. It’s about routine.

As said, we’ll only be doing Sorcery. According to Liber KKK, Sorcery:

"Is simple magic which depends on the occult connections which exist
between physical phenomena. Sorcery is a mechanical art which does not require the
theory that connection exist between the mind of the operator and the target.

Any effects arising from such a connection can, however, be regarded as an added bonus. Working on the sorcery level the magician creates artifacts, tools and instruments which interact magically with the physical world and which can be used again in more subtle ways on the other levels. The sorcery level work should be performed thoroughly, for simple as its practices seem they are the foundation on which the higher level work rests."

There we are.

Sorcery might be the most basic level of magic, but it is in no means simple. It requires creativity, patience, and a truly magical mindset to accomplish - as Carroll notes, the core skills of magic. It isn’t about the theory. Seriously, don’t worry about the theory. If you need it - you might - make it up. You can reevaluate your opinions later.

You’re looking for results. That’s it. Make stuff, get magic. That is the aim of Sorcery, and exactly what you’ll be wanting. Don’t cut corners. You’re making tools that should assist you all through your magical practice - they aren’t mere trinkets.

Liber KKK also states:

"It is no accident that sorcery techniques often resemble certain childhood behavior patterns. Children often have a natural familiarity with the simple principles of magic even if they lack the persistence or encouragement to make them work. The adult magician is seeking to regain that childlike sense of imagination, fluidity and wishful thinking, and turn it into something of real power."

Keep that in mind. A lot of this will seem like wishful thinking and childish nonsense... and that’s exactly what you want. Don’t worry about feeling silly. Ever see those self-pronounced High Priests of the Sacred Craft of the Goddess (or a similar creature)? Don’t they look fucking ridiculous in their ceremonial robes?

Sure, they might be wankers who know nothing about magic... but at least a small handful of these individuals are real, mighty witches in their own right. They don’t care what they look like, because they know the magic is there.

It’s really straightforward. You’re nurturing the magical mindset with these tasks, gathering the tools for your further practice. It won’t be easy, but it will be rewarding in the basest sense: you will end up owning magical art. You’ll have five distinct magical items that you’ve created yourself and can show off to your horrified Christian friends.

But let’s look at the tasks in detail. First up is CONJURATION ONE - SORCERY EVOCATION - which we will begin on the eleventh of November and finish, roughly, on second of December.

Liber KKK explains what it wants us to do in CONJURATION ONE:

"The magician creates with his own hands a physical representation of a fetish entity by carving, molding or assembly. Its functions are in general to attract success, to protect by repelling misfortune and to act as a reservoir of power for the magician. It is usually shaped to resemble some kind of actual living being or chimerical being whose form suggests its function. If it is vaguely humanoid in shape it is known as a Homunculus.

It may be made to contain parts of the magician's body or be anointed with blood or sexual fluids. The magician treats the fetish as a living being, speaking his will to it, commanding it to exert its influence in his favor and carrying it on his person when on critical errands. Some magicians
prefer to make two fetishes, one to implement will, the other to bring knowledge and
information."

This is really straightforward. It is very important that you make the thing with your own hands, but the parts themselves don’t need to be crafted by the magician - you could create your fetish out of chicken wire, or blutac, or whatever you can find. You are an artist, here.

Give your spirit a name and a personality. Treat it as if it is actually a very real, very powerful manifestation of the creature. Treat it with respect. When you close your eyes, you should have a strong image of what your spirit looks like outside of the fetish. It is a good idea to anoint it with the fluids, as that creates a highly personal tie between the magician and the spirit.

If you have time, try and create two, but one may very well take up the full two weeks. Perhaps try linking sacred words to the being, or tie it to an existing mythology.

Any questions regarding this task - feel free to comment below, as usual. This applies for all the tasks.

CONJURATION TWO - SORCERY DIVINATION - which we shall attempt at roughly the third of December, finishing at the seventeenth of that month, shall be detailed now. According to Liber KKK:

"The magician prepares a simple model of the universe for use as a divinatory tool. A set of Rune Sticks or Rune Stones is most excellent for this purpose. Occidental geomancy sticks provide a somewhat simpler model whilst the systems of Tarot or I Ching can prove too complex for later work on the Shamanic levels unless abbreviated in some way.

The magician should perform divination both for general trends and for answer to specific questions. The element of the divinatory tool should be treated as having a fairly direct relationship to the parts of reality they represent and the procedures of sorting should be regarded as a mirror of the process by which reality takes its decisions. Divinatory activity should be pitched at a frequency and complexity which allows answers to be remembered. It is preferable to divine for phenomena which are likely to confirm or negate the divination within a relatively short time period."

The important things to keep in mind here is the random aspect of the divining tool and the complexity of said tool. It shouldn’t be so simple that only very limited amount of results can be conjured; it shouldn’t be as complex as the crazy Tarot. You should be able to read plenty of meaning from it, but not drown in symbols.

As noted, runes are perfect for this. I am considering designing a set of thirty or so simple cards for shuffling and divining. Keep it simple and efficient. Build your own divination methods.

You may want to assign a spirit to the divination tool, and anoint it with your fluids etc. This is a possibility, but isn’t necessary. It’s about results, here, and you already did the spirit act with CONJURATION ONE. If you feel compelled to, do it. An ‘awakening’ ritual might be suggested, though, for meshing the tools together.

On to CONJURATION THREE - SORCERY ENCHANTMENT - which’ll begin on the eighteenth of December and continue, roughly, to the first of January - Liber KKK continues:

"For the work of the third conjuration the magician may need to prepare or acquire a variety of instruments, but chief amongst these should be a single special tool or magical weapon, for enchantment. A small pointed wand or a knife are especially convenient. This special instrument or weapon can also be usefully employed to trace the pentagrams in the Gnostic Banishing Ritual.

A fist sized piece of modeling clay or other plastic material may be the only other instrument required. To perform Sorcery Enchantment the magician makes physical representations of his will and desire. Where possible the magical weapon should be used to help make or manipulate these representations. The magician should perform one or several conjuration’s of this type per week. As always he should aim to influence events before nature has made her mind up, and he should not put too great a strain on nature by conjuring for highly improbable events."

This is where that magical dagger comes in handy. There’s really not much else to it besides the fact that perhaps the magician should strive to do two or three of these a week. The manipulations themselves should be rather small, as noted.

If you don’t already have a magical knife or weapon, spend a week securing it and then spend two weeks manipulating the enchantment. Their use is really quite invaluable.

CONJURATION FOUR - SORCERY INVOCATION - beginning on the second of January and continuing to the sixteenth of that month:

"The aim of the fourth conjuration is to create radical changes in behavior by temporarily altering the environment. There is no limit to the variation of experience the magician may wish to arrange for himself.

He might, for example, after some careful background research, depart in disguise to some strange place and play out a completely new social role. Alternatively, he may wish to equip his temple and himself in such a way that he experiences being an ancient Egyptian god for a time. In Sorcery Invocation the magician tests to the limit his ability to create arbitrary change by modifying his environment and his behavior."

If you’re modifying the self in any ritualistic way, or invoking any deity, banishing rituals are a must. You should have been practicing it as often as possible, but - I cannot stress this enough - YOU NEED TO BANISH BEFORE AND AFTER THE RITUAL. When letting magical forces play with your psyche - more then they typically do - the changes can be terrifyingly powerful.

You’re not a perfect magician. Regardless of how much effort you put into getting the Invocation right, things will always slip through that you didn’t mean. This is magic. You need to exorcise the unwanted aspects before they cause any meaningful harm. Banish before and after an Invocation.

In addition, Invocation isn’t a one-off thing. It requires dedication and hard work to receive true results - it is, in effect, the filtering and evolution of your psyche. As Robert Anton Wilson points out, just as ‘repeat often’ is the mantra of advertising, and ‘reinforce often’ the key philosophy of psychiatry, thus Eliphas Levi’s ‘INVOKE OFTEN’ is central to magical practice.

The changes will seem slow at first, but they will come. Live a year as a penniless university student slash THOR, THE GOD OF THUNDER and you will start to find that the distinction between the two begins to change. Continue doing it, and doing it right, and the results will be obvious.

In addition, while ancient deities are fine, it is typical Chaos Magic to invoke all manner of creatures, from comic book characters to gods of your own devising. Don’t limit your creativity. Choose what best appeals to you. Want to be more like Edward from a certain best-selling series of vampire novels? Go ahead. Nothing’s stopping you except, perhaps, for what little dignity remains.

Learn everything you can about your chosen being. Whatever you do, regardless of your actual action, try to imagine what your invoked creature would do. Read everything you can about them. Figure out all the occult symbolism and correlations. Synchronicities will abound. Record them.

There’s a lot more to this - but much of the fun is figuring it yourself. Don’t hesitate to shoot me any of your questions, however.

Finally, onto CONJURATION FIVE - SORCERY ILLUMINATION - from the seventeenth to the thirty-first of January:

"In works of Illumination the magician aims for self improvement in some precisely defined and specific way. Grandiose plans for spiritual enlightenment should be abandoned in favor of identifying and overcoming the more obvious weaknesses and increasing existing strengths. For the work of Illumination the magician makes or acquires some object to represent his quest as a whole.

This objects is technically known as a "lamp" although it may take the form of anything from a ring to a mandala. The "lamp" is used as a basis over which to proclaim various oaths and resolutions. Such oaths and resolutions may also be marked onto the design of the lamp. The magician may need to perform various supplementary acts of invocation, enchantment, divination and even evocation to make progress with the work of illumination. It is not unusual for the magician to destroy and rebuild the lamp during the work of illumination."

This is the last task, and possibly the hardest. There’s nothing I can really say except that you will need to put your heart and soul into this conjuration - if you haven’t already, give this one everything you’ve got.

It will, as mentioned, likely involve invocation, enchantment, divination, evocation... every skill you’ve harnessed so far. Don’t feel glum if you don’t get amazing results in the two weeks given. It should take a few months at least.

So that’s essentially it. It’s advised, but not necessary, to do something magical every day, even if it just a divination reading or some meditation. You pass if you attempt each of the five tasks and glean some success (and if you’re doing it properly you will) - the only way you can fail is if you don’t throw in your all.

Good luck to everyone, and I wish you all the greatest success.

RESOURCES

(A list of resources which will assist you throughout the task - check them out for yourself)

http://www.chaosmatrix.org/
http://www.evocationmagic.com/forum/
http://liminalnation.org/
http://www.occultcorpus.com/forum/
http://www.english.grimoar.cz/
http://philhine.org.uk/index.html
http://hermetic.com/
http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showthread.php?t=350

House Magic

2009-09-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

I can only describe it as a family tragedy: something that splits my immediate family down the middle, alienates us from one another, ruins us financially.. something horrifying in the most mundane of ways. As if to say, "This is life, buddy. Grow up. Get used to it. Shit like this happens to people every day - and most have it worse."

Which is true, yes, but doesn't go very far towards making me feel better. Actually, when I see my friends go through worse situations within the very same week, it makes me feel worse. I was very close to having an emotional breakdown. I was even closer to becoming a schizophrenic-paranoid and believing the universe conspired against everyone and everything - including my dear mother. It was very tempting to stop writing and magicking and interacting for a long time, until my life sorted stuff out..

But it doesn't do that, does it? So I found myself, only three days after, sitting on my rug, praying to Papa Legba, Loa of Doorways, Dogs, and Filthy Old Men. I'm not particularly religious, and Vodoun (voodoo to those of you with middle-class Caucasian tendencies) is a reasonably new addition to my magical repertoire. Still, practical experience - and three intensive years of experimentation and attempts to rid myself of that Ceremonialist-bias - has proven that while some things are better done with practical sorcery, a lot can be said for simple faith and reverence towards a deity.

That night, I was mixing both. Legba-worship and real estate witchcraft.. the family needed a new house. We'd found the perfect one - six bedrooms, amenities nearby, loads of public transport, a beach, enough room, safe area. We'd applied, of course, but with Mum's credit rating (negative is an apt euphemism) and other complications chances were we weren't going to get the house.

But we needed it.

Hence the magic. Couldn't hurt.

I considered asking my magical friends to help out - Sr. Twist, Nikki, Anthony, Logobouros, Ian, Fr. Koslov - but it was urgent and personal. I didn't want to bother the others with my own problems, so I decided to go it solo. Desperation and blind need and the mysterious famed Nathaniel Robinson luck would have to suffice.

I spent twenty-five minutes doing zazen. To clear the mind a little, focus my determination. Zazen hurts like hell. I have close to zero flexibility in my legs and the wind is too damn cold, but the pain makes it worthwhile. It helps a little. Oh, how I'd kill for a little ancient Buddhist monk to stand nearby and beat my with a bamboo stick every time I shifted position.

After that was the banishing. Standard fare. Then I sat on my mat and prayed to Legba. I thought my typical crude thoughts: "If we get the house, I'll buy a dog. If we get the house, I'll buy you a bottle of rum. If we get the house, I'll buy you some new cigars. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

The response was ambivalence. After a small while, I shrugged and begun the sorcery.

I had six pins - each colour-coded and ritually named a member of my family - and I declared them once more the relations they were meant to represent. I had earlier printed out a copy of the house we wanted, and stuck the pins in the rough area of where we'd planned for each of us to sleep. I declared the house ours. I called mostly on Legba, but also on Lonansi, Venus, and Jupiter. A few power words. Some sigilry.

I'd also printed out a copy of our current house, and I burnt it, taking the ashes and placing them within a glass vial (bought at a wedding shop - they're used in bombardiers, apparently). I thanked the spirits of the house for keeping us, but I declared their work and our connections to the house ceased. Then I once again begged the spirits of the new house to have us.

I snuck outside, smashing the vial at the nearest crossroads, declaring the ritual to Legba thrice. I banished again.. and the ritual was over. No lengthy qabalistic incantations, no naked dancing, nothing of the sort. Simple, to the point. And that was that. I went to bed.

Two days later, Mum got the call: we'd gotten the house. It seemed a miracle. Sure, there were still dozens of shit things going on in our life, but we'd got the house. Signing the lease, the real estate agent told me how lucky we were. We'd beaten a large handful of applicants, apparently.

"I might have to start believing in that witchcraft crap," said Mum.

So now I'm moving. Everything's packed, in boxes - my magical artifacts and supplies have their own consecrated box, of course. I've bound my protective servitors within two similar glass vials, and I'll be taking them by hand - don't want to break those. The servitors weren't so happy when I informed them that they were to go into storage for a little bit, but I don't want to just leave them lying about the place.

Soon, we'll have a new place, with fresh warding that needs to be doing and all the preliminary cleansing.. but we'll get to that next week, when we make the physical move.

What is the sound of one magician clapping?

2009-07-28T05:06:00.001-07:00

I stare at the wall, and I am assured the wall is staring back.

This is the third consecutive night, and it's getting hard. Sitting cross-legged has never been comfortable for me, but I can't imagine a better position. The wall is blank and uninviting. The wind is cold - I am doing this outside, crazy bastard monk style - but the stinging seems almost rewarding. Pain is not boring. Pain is never dull.

Soror Twist lent me Hardcore Zen, by Brad Warner, and it filled me with an enthusiasm for most things Buddhist and all things Zen - specifically, zazen, which is the art of sitting still and straight while staring at the wall. I started with ten minutes, but now I'm up to fifteen and it's agony.

Why am I doing this? Two main reasons, besides my long love affair with Buddhist thought, spring to mind.

Because Hardcore Zen is a fucking brilliant book. Seriously. Go and buy or lend or steal a copy. It's the first book - the first of anything, really - that's convinced me that Zen is a separate art to Buddhism. I guess I should apologize to Frater Lindenmayer for my whole, "Zen is Buddhism you're so full of crap" speech. For the record, you were right.

Because I failed abysmally at the stillness exercises within Liber MMM, and I'm not that great at meditation (and my astral work, as I've come to realize, can only be described as 'fuck all', but we'll get to that). I want to succeed at something that can still the mind through more ascetic means. I need to be able to get that no-thought going so that I can advance in my magical studies, and I think zazen is the way to go.

But it's hard. God, is it hard.

I don't doubt for a second that zazen will help my magical practice, but.. staring at a wall for twenty minutes isn't easy. There's no real sense of reward, either. I finish staring at the wall, and my accomplishment is this: I've just spent twenty minutes staring at the wall. You don't get the rush of doing a daily banishing ritual. As far as I can tell, there isn't even a sense of peace that comes with it, at least not yet.. I feel good for just succeeding. I hope that is enough.

Zazen is the only mystical art I know that seems both highly overrated and highly underrated at the same time. Overrated in the sense that nothing amazing will happen (and, Warner has told me, I shouldn't even expect anything amazing to occur) and underrated in the sense that I'm surprised it hasn't become a core part of Western ceremonial thinking. We've stolen enough from the Asian esoteric arts over the years.. why not zazen?

Zazen seems perfectly suited to Qabala work and magical training in general. The thought of it scares the hell out of me, because I'm both entirely sure what to expect and completely unsure what to expect at the same time. I am, to put it simply, unsure about the whole thing - but I will continue.

This week is zazen week, I think, and hopefully next week will be too.

Beginners Magic: A Guide

2009-06-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

(Correspondence with the fabulous Miss Twist, whose magical site you can find here, in regards to magic and mysticism and things.)

Magic, then.

New, are you? Don't know Crowley from Carroll? Couldn't tell me the difference between a pentagram and a pentacle, but too afraid to ask? Unsure as to whether or not 'demons' and 'gods' are just simple words for complex psychological processes, or exactly what you think they mean? What's a grimoire?

You just don't know, do you?

Well, guess what. We don't want you here. Fuck off. Go take of football or a community art class or something simple. If you don't already know, we're most certainly not going to tell you, so just give up and piss right off.

...

That is, in a nutshell, the typical reaction most occult communities have to novice magicians. It is a threatening and elitist environment where the youth of new ideas is shunned, not nurtured. Advanced magicians, you'd think, are much too important for silly things like teaching and giving advice. They had to learn from dusty old books and word of mouth, so why shouldn't everyone else?

This, in reality, is the first initiation. Figure out where to start practicing magic, and how to do it without burning your fingers off. Books can be good, but how many actually teach proper - by my lofty standards, anyway - magic? Not a lot. A handful. There are thousands of '101 White Witch Spells for Fortune, Success and Happiness' out there, but that's not what you need. You don't need one hundred and one spells. You need to learn how to craft your own, how to project them into the world, how to succeed as a magician and an occultist.

Most books, then, are out. But not all of them. A few extremely good ones have been published, and luckily enough these are relatively easy to get a hold of. For general background information on various occult practices, allow me to suggest Richard Cavendish's superb (if limited, it was written before the occult revival of the sixties) The Black Arts. If you're interested in the simple core mechanics of magic, take Peter Carroll's Liber Null and Psychonaut. For an easy introduction into Chaos Magic, you can't beat Phil Hine's Condensed Chaos, though if you want to go for a more ceremonial bent I can't recommend Donald Kraig's Modern Magick highly enough.

That's four books. Pretty easy, right? Not a lot. And you don't have to buy all of them, or any of them, if you don't want. Online, Grant Morrison's great introduction to sorcery, Pop! Magic, can be viewed freely. Phile Hine also has the free Oven-ready Chaos available for download.

(Don't bother trying to study any of Crowley's work. A lot of what he did was good, but more of it was crap, and he wrote in an amazingly obtuse fashion. The only one I can honestly recommend to a novice is Magick Without Tears, which I would recommend reading. You can study Crowley when you master the basics.)

Fuck everyone else. Help is good, yes, and you can't beat a good online community's shared wisdom. The problem is.. most occult communities out there are shit. If you really, really want to have a stab out of it, Liminal Nation
is the only place I'd honestly suggest to go and have a look at. There are others, I suppose, but it's really not worth the strife. That cliche, in the Conan movies and whatnot, that sorcerers are power-mad beings? It's true in a lot of cases. Most magicians will either want to fuck you or fuck with you, and neither will do you much good. As your studies advance in magic, you'll find like-minded people to work with.

Paths? Traditions? Styles? Oh, there are plenty. I'm a practitioner of Chaos Magick, which essentially means that I choose to drop and keep as I see fit the traditional trappings of sorcery, adding my own when I need to. Chaos Magick is more of a meta-tradition that places emphasis on exploring and messing around with the other traditions. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life. There are others: Thelemic, Crowley's complex and religious-orientated magical system, for one; Pagan, another religious-focused one which really depends on what deity you worship (I don't know enough about this aspect of the craft to comment further, sorry); Enochian, which is scary and complex and batshit crazy with maths and things. There are lots of choices. I deal mostly with Ceremonial stuff - demon-summoning, elemental manipulation, etc. - and it's a little scary but a deeply rewarding path.

Right. Now onto the stuff you should be doing in addition to following the guidelines of those texts. Firstly, it's vital that you master a banishing technique. Most people would suggest you'd try and master the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), as it's been the standard for a hundred years, but it's a very complicated one to begin with. It also suffers from the fact that it's heavily Judaic-Christian, and if you're not a Jew or a Christian you probably won't appreciate the imagery as much as you could. I'd suggest the Gnostic Pentagram Ritual (GPR), which uses simple imagery and a generic mantra set. not tied to any faith. I personally use the GPR on a daily basis. The purpose of a banishing is so that you can cleanse yourself, earth yourself, and ward yourself from all the nasty stuff magic attracts.

Pagans and Wiccans have different ways of banishing things, but I'm not entirely sure what exactly those ways are, and so I'm not going to comment on them. Hell, I'm not even sure who to direct you to for advice in this matter, but the one person that springs to mind is the lovely Charlie Twist. She's very knowledgeable and good with beginners, so if you're leaning towards a more pagan-y wiccan-y style, send her a message on her magic blog here.

Okay. Do the banishing as often as you can. You'll start to remember it quickly. Don't worry if you're horrible to begin with - everyone is. After that, you're going to want to pick up a random system of divination. You want it random so that you can learn how to meta-divine - how to divine with anything, spoons or bottle caps or whatever - and I'd suggest picking up the Tarot for this purpose. Go with the Rider-Waite deck, or with anything based in the Golden Dawn system (78 cards, 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana, coins/cups/wands/swords, most decks are based in the GD system), simply because the symbolism found within these decks becomes more relevant the more you study the occult. You might want to check out the I Ching or the Runes as well.

Divine for your friends and family. Read as many times as you can. You'll start to get a solid feel for your system, and you'll find that you're having some amazing successes. Remember, though: divination isn't fortune-telling. It doesn't really concern itself about the future; it deals with the present, with projected futures and remembered pasts. It will tell you more about yourself and your surroundings then you ever guessed at, but it's difficult to coax a Tarot deck into giving you the numbers for next week's lottery.

Work with divination and banishing for a small while and then give sigils a shot. Sigils are powerful symbols which capture the will and send it flying into the universe. Sigils are many a magician's first 'real' magical work; the first time they truly feel like they're affecting the universe with their will. There is a great guide for making sigils in the Pop! Magic guide above, as well as in Liber Null and Oven-Ready Chaos. There is a good guide here, too. Practice sigils often. You'll be amazed at your results; nothing will prove to you more that magic is real and that it truly works.

Once you've begun to understand divination, sigils and banishing, you should be well on your way to becoming a full-fledged practicing magician. If you picked up any of those books, they'll tell you where to go on from here; the websites, too, will. The only further advice that I will give you is, if you haven't already, take up a creative art; writing is good, and so is painting and drawing. Music, too, if you're composing. Creativity is the true essence of magic; freedom of thought is the vital force behind both.

Keep a magical diary. Many magicians will stress the importance of this. Record when and what you do, magically; record your moods and your readings; record your feelings of deja vu and synchronicity; record your dreams and desires. Draw sigils. Write in it daily.

Don't be scared to play around with magic. A general rule of thumb: when you're good enough to seriously endanger yourself using magic, you'll be good enough to stop it. You will, however, almost undoubtedly unclog all of the psychic shit that's been hiding in your brain, and you'll suffer more astral grazes than you'd care to admit. Don't worry about it. It's all part of the fun. It's like anything; people get hurt skateboarding all the time, right?

Practice magic as often as you can.

Good luck. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to send me an email at natfrobinson@gmail.com.

- Nathaniel Robinson / Frater Victatio

Ahahaha

2009-06-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested, I have a new blog for creative writing and stuff. It can be found here and is more like an online notepad than anything, but give it a look if you're curious.

This blog will not slow down (anymore than it already has) or die; The Pen and Paper is only there so I can have a place to dump my writing, which I write regardless anyway.

The Twist: Custom Divinatory Decks

2009-06-08T02:35:00.000-07:00

(Another correspondence post with the literally enchanting Miss Twist.You might read her stuff here
, if you had any sense: it's like internet gold!)

The pack resembles, very loosely, the conventional Tarot pack; the cards are the same size, the card stock is just as sturdy, the images just as esoteric. The backs of the cars are blank black. This is the strange beast known as the NATHANIEL FRANCIS ROBINSON WONDER PACK, designed to bring out the bizarre diviner within.

There are three sets of arcana in the deck: the Sorcerer's Arcana, which consists of ten cards, the Rigid Arcana, which consists of twenty-three, and the Flowing Arcana, which consists of thirty-four. Together there are sixty-four cards. The deck is tied to the sixty-four hexagrams of the I-Ching, but not in a way that you'd expect.

Draw the cards yourselves, using your own wacked symbolism, or work with a partner. Creation is the greatest form of divination.

THE SORCERER'S ARCANA

The first ten cards - the Sorcerer's Arcana - depict ten archetypal magicians of the Universe keyed in with famed sorcerers and the ten mystical sephiroth of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. These ten cards might be seen to represent a magician's career, or individual aspects of a person's life, or anything at all. Two Sorcerer's Arcana mean a crossroads; three mean that the deck wasn't shuffled properly.

1. The first card is YOU ARE THAT YOU ARE, and represents the all-powerful Ipsissimus within every pathetic try-hard goth. It is tied with the sphere of Kether, and is the ultimate potential within every individual. It is a timeless - aeonless - creature, the culmination of every great magical theory and every brilliant mathematical formula. There will be a chance at finding one's true potential, or a glimpse of it; the very glimpse is enough for most people to truly become happy in their lives.

2. The second card is MERLINUS AMBROSIUS, and represents the power of stories as the fuel that drives mankind. It is the energy on which the motor of humanity runs, and is tied with Binah. It is forever mutable - forever changing - and the magician of whom it is named after is more fiction than truth himself - or is it the other way around? It is the duality of good and evil; two concepts which shape mankind eternally. This card represents a powerful motivation, an irrepressible current, that drives the individual towards their destiny.

3. The third card is THE WICKEDEST MAN IN THE WORLD, and represents the power of action. It is the motor of humanity. It is Chokmah, and represents things as they are objectively - ultimately unknowable. Good and evil are the same face of the same coin, and humanity will never know the other face. It is about cleverness; the essence of magic, being good at everything you try, sucking in new experiences. It is named after the most debated magician in history, the greatest black sorcerer and purest white witch, who was ultimately neither and both. It represents decisiveness and conscious working towards change for the better.

4. The fourth card is THE KING WITH A CROWN OF THORNS, and represents kindness and action without a cause; the Tao. It represents Chesed, and in a lesser capacity actions with cause - revolutions, the fury of thorns, being among them. It is named after a magician considered by most to be a messiah, or a liar; it might be proposed that he is both. He is the first, regardless. This card represents sacrifice, completely random coincidences - that are actually just that, coincidences, and nothing more - and charity.

5. The fifth card is THE ADVERSARY IN LIGHT, and represents judgment, punishment, concealment and the sacred. The sacred is most traditionally hidden; our greatest adversaries are ourselves. Is it a coincidence that the greatest enemy of Christianity is an angel? Or that it's greatest saviour was crowned with a ring of thorns? This card is Gevurah. Our friends punish us and our enemies reward us. It is the nature of the world. This card represents the duality in all things, and should be seen more as a brother to the fourth card than an opposite.

6. The sixth card is THE LAUGHING PHOENIX, and represents synchronicity, spirituality, kindness, rebirth, and the center of all things. Some might claim it represents Jesus Christ, or Ra, or the Buddha, while others may align it to many other deities; it is the deity within the deity, the Russian doll of apotheostic dreams. Simply being the greatest isn't great, however; one must understand why they are great, and that is the truest failing of THE LAUGHING PHOENIX who cackles when it dies and sobs quietly when it is reborn. This card is Tiphereth the weak and mighty.

7. The seventh card is THE PREACHER OF WEALTH, and represents personal loyalty, leadership, the conclusion of goals, and powerful causes. The Preacher is a powerful figure who shares wisdom only when his flock is ready for it; he is the dispenser of spiritual wealth. This card is Netzach, and understands that all groups cannot succeed without the power of a good leader - nevertheless, most groups die due to the failings of the one chosen for the role. The Preacher, unlike his brother Shaman, does not need to create and destroy to find wisdom; he only needs to accept the gifts that come naturally to him.

8. The eighth card is THE BLASTED SHAMAN, and represents loyalty, group passions, seeing through on your goals, and hard work. The Tower might not like it, but the Shaman is not the Tower and the Shaman seeks to be burnt so that he might learn from it. The Blasted Shaman learns so that he can help his community, and his community are rarely thankful for it. It is tied with Hod; the Shaman thinks, and understands, and learns. A good deed is his own reward - knowledge is just another benefit. While the Shaman may lose his life to his cause, he is also the only one who truly understands how the universe is broken down.

9. The ninth card is THE CAT WHO WAS NOT KILLED BY CURIOSITY, and is the pillar on which the entire Sorcerer's Arcana stands. It stands for options, for adventure, for a fresh chance at learning; it is the card that best represents the fallacy that is, "Curiousity killed the cat." It represents strange thoughts and valid pseudosciences, and psychology; it is Yesod, and the initiation that all magicians must undertake before becoming either the Shaman or the Preacher - here they decide whether they are talented or merely skilled, and here the walls of reality crumble.

10. The tenth card is ME WHO AM I AS, and represents you as you are: nothing. You are a collection of adjectives, a molecule in the structure of the universe - an unthinking being who has tricked himself into thinking that you are more than you are. This card is Malkuth, and represents the truth, both the most powerful and deadliest tool mankind's sorcerers have. It is the beginning of a new, foolish journey.

THE RIGID ARCANA

There are twenty-three Rigid Arcana, representing the twenty-three mystic principles you will never understand. No description is given here; they should be interpreted by the diviner. Think about what they mean. These cards do not move within a person's life; they might be considered core aspects of their existence, or simply obstacles that will not go away.

11. THE NUMBER ELEVEN
12. LANGUAGE
13. TRAFFIC LIGHTS
14. BOOKS
15. INCENSE
16. LOGIC
17. EARS
18. MIRROR
19. ROPE
20. SWASTIKA
21. FEET
22. PHILOSOPHY
23. BIRD
24. NOSE
25. AUTOMOBILE
26. SALT
27. COMPUTER
28. FIRE
29. BOTTLE
30. EYES
31. MATHEMATICS
32. HANDS
33. TONGUE

The Flowing Arcana

The Flowing Arcana represents events that are happening, but will move on. It is like water, and it is not unusual for one reading to have many Flowing Arcana. The Arcana should be named after events; not events that will actually happen, but events that represent events that represent changes in consciousness that are represented by a deck of cards. Feel free to add or subtract Flowing Arcana as you please; it is best if you design your own.

34. YOU WILL BE BEATEN SAVAGELY TO DEATH
35. THE TRUTH IS NOT OUT THERE
36. YOU WILL WRITE A NOVEL
37. YOU HAVE NO LOGICAL REASON TO BELIEVE IN A DEITY
38. LSD WILL TRY YOU
39. YOUR CHILD IS ABDUCTED BY A STRANGE BEARDED MAN
40. GO SEE A MOVIE
41. YOU WILL SUCCEED
42. YOU WILL TAKE UP THE LEFT-HAND SCARF
43. YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE UNATTRACTIVE
44. YUO RAE DYLSEXIC
45. SOMEONE LOVES YOU
46. YOU ARE FATED TO NEVER WIN A GAME OF MONOPOLY
47. YOU WILL BE SUCKED INTO A BIZARRE CONSPIRACY
48. YOU WILL TAKE UP THE RIGHT-HAND LAUGH
49. YOU WILL WIN THE LOTTERY BUT LOSE THE TICKET
50. YOU ARE A WALKING PARADOX
51. YOU THINK YOU ARE SO CLEVER
52. HAVE YOU DONE SOMETHING NEW TO YOUR HAIR
53. NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU
54. YOU'RE ACTUALLY VERY FUNNY
55. YOU WILL LEAVE YOUR LOVER
56. YOU SHOULD LEARN GRAMMAR
57. YOU READ A GOOD PIECE OF FICTION
58. NO ONE LIKES YOUR FIANCEE
59. YOU HAVE WASTED YOUR LIFE
60. YOU WILL DISCOVER HORRORS BENEATH THE FATHOMLESS SEA
61. YOU WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO TRAVEL THROUGH TIME
62. YOU WILL CONSIDER DABBLING IN WITCHCRAFT
63. YOU WILL EAT SUSHI FOR DINNER
64. YOU WILL NEVER BE AS GREAT AS YOUR FATHER WAS

Conclusion

So there you have it: the NATHANIEL FRANCIS ROBINSON WONDER PACK for you to make at home. Good luck and stay jolly.

- Frater Victatio / Nathaniel Robinson

Twisties: Destruction

2009-05-09T00:46:00.000-07:00

(Being the fourth in an ongoing correspondence with the amazingly awesome Miss Twist, whose blog you can find here. This one is a little different. Last night I summoned SITRI, a demon prince from the Goetia book of demons, into my shed. I then asked him for advice on what to write for the blog. He did not explode my head. Yet. Here it is, anyway, transcribed from twenty four - one note was emitted - sheets of paper. It might not make some sense. I may upload the original sheets, with diagrams and all - I spent a lot of time drawing. I don't know. Enjoy.)

1. I destroy.

2. I destroy NOW.

3. I stand here with SITRI, prince bound in tin, manifest in a human's body and a leopard's head. He is my shed. He screams, sometimes, and sometimes he laughs; he is a prince of fire and force, not unlike Horus. He makes women lust for men, and men lust for women, and may allow them to appear naked; but this is not why he is here. He is here to talk to me about destruction.

4. And SITRI has something to say: an epiphany. Time is now. Destruction is now. The past cannot be touched, the future will always remain the future. There is no tranquility in the past, and the future can never be anything but an uncertain haze. Go far enough, and the past becomes an uncertain haze; looped, edited, cut-up - we are the directors of the past, and some of us cannot make good films.

5. SHEMHAMPHORASH.

6. Wood feeds fire. Fire makes ash. Earth gives birth to metal. Metal holds water. Water feeds wood.

7. Wood separates earth. Earth muddies water. Water destroys fire. Fire melts metal. Metal hacks wood.

8. This is the Five Movements of the I Ching. Creation is a circle, destruction is a star. Destruction is a star. Every man and woman is a star. This is the perfect model of the magician. Protect yourself with creation: art, music, literature, neophilia. Out of death comes rebirth. None of us are Buddha. With death comes criticism, skepticism, anxiety. Use them. Use the fear. It is no coincidence that the Five Movements form the pentagram of the sorcerer. Art is better with fear; music is better with pain; literature is better with anxiety.

9. I stand near the flames as the spirit burns. The sigil may have worked too well. The flames flicker. Richard pours more Zippo fluid on it. He claims to see the light blue of my Lesser Banishing of the Pentagram. I don't disbelieve him. Richard pours more Zippo on it. The sigil will not burn. Have you ever heard an elemental scream? The fire rises, rises, rises, rises, rises. It takes six hours for the sigil to burn. I bury it. Earth consumes fire, and earth holds air.

10. I stand near the flames as the spirit burns. My own: dead weight. Dead Waite. Thank you, Al. The cards take a long time to burn. Not six hours. But a long time. Thank you, Al. The Waite Tarot burns, and I dance about it. I have a new Tarot deck now. The Thoth. It is everything everyone ever wanted in a Tarot deck. Everything! Everything!

11. Oh, you bastard.

12. A first initiation destroys nothing. It creates a membership: the League of Logobouros, Frater, Medical Doctor. A second creates nothing: I am a faithful servant of Chiwall. Chi - vital force. Wall - the blocking of that force. Anything less would be black magic. Anything more, I think, would be black magic. Oh no. I don't like black magic. Don't let me do black magic, mum.

13. A third initiation fucks everything. I am three hours late. One o'clock in the morning late. Avoiding all calls. Off the train. And then he hits me. He slaps me in the face. I am mugged by God. Or the closest thing to God. There are no Fifth Degree Adepts with me now. No smiling Logobouros to buy me a drink and ask if he can fuck my girlfriend. He cannot fuck my girlfriend. An initiation - the world crashes, reboots, crashes again. I wake up - now three and a half hours late. I was mugged, I say. I am taken to the police station. I tell them I was mugged.

14. I can enter churches. I can enter graveyards. I can enter that scary place in between the park and the public school, where it is dark and the kid was killed. I cannot enter the building where I do university. I am stopped flat.

15. I cry. She cries. I am a failure. She is boring. I will always be a failure. She is not pretty. We are both imperfect. Flawed creations. But I love her. Really. I do. And I think she loves me. We fight, though, when we should fuck. So I think that is the problem. But she is pretty and not boring.

16. I am still a failure.

17. A caution.

18. A magician is constantly destroying and creating. Reinventing themselves. Creating the persona. I am only personae. What else is there for a dictionary of characters? Perfect! A perfect chaos magician! Brilliant! Shut the fuck up. How can it be brilliant? If the Abyss was brilliant it wouldn't be called the Abyss! It would be called, say, "The Sun", or the "Brilliant Abyss", or the "Holy Guardian Angel". Where is my angel? The operation fails. Shut the fuck up.

19. We are in a recession. The recession is not our fault. Not really - it is, yes, ours, and the banks, and the government's, it is everyone's fault (but not really ours specifically). The bushfires are the the government. We are in a depression. The bushfires were set up by the government. Sure, one or two were natural, but the government played the rest. So we could stimulate the economy. Coincidence? No coincidences. Coles has a Friday All Profits Go To The Appeal Day. So does Safeway. Donate at the shops! Easy! And buy something as well! It cheapens death. The government planned it. People died so our economy would live. And I have friends who lost everything in the fire. It wasn't a conspiracy. How could it have been? Who stages a mass firestorm? I am a fool. Sitri is a fool. Sitri is not a fool. I also believe in UFO's and Bigfoot. No I don't. I haven't seen a UFO.

20. Every July I fall in love. And I cannot kill myself. That which kills me makes me stronger, and I crave destruction.

21. I haven't showed up for two months.

22. I don't write enough. I just don't. I procrastinate. A blog is not writing. I am a failure. Time to be destroyed.

23. ABRAHADABRA.

Caught in a Twist-er: Five Books That Influenced Me

2009-04-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

(Part the Third of an ongoing correspondence between myself and the confidently salacious Miss Twist, this one dealing with a lighter issue: five books that affected our magic - or us, though it's arguably the same thing.)

The Alchemist, by Paul Coelho. I know this is one of those best-selling New Age type books, but it really is everything a spiritual allegory should be. It follows the journey of a young Spanish shepherd in his quest to find the Egyptian Pyramids and the treasure they contain. Along the way he experiences prophetic dreams, and is given wise advice. As he travels from Spain to Africa and then to Egypt, he meets wise women, thieves, humble workers, and the Biblical King of Salem, Melchizedek. He finally encounters the Alchemist himself in an Egyptian Oasis-settlement, and the Alchemist teaches him the true language of the world: the language of the "Personal Legend".

Each individual person has a "Personal Legend", the story explains, and this is the dream they must follow. It was the shepherd's dream to see the pyramids and find treasure, and he can only be truly happy if he is doing that thing. The dream of writers is to write; it is mentioned throughout the story that it is the Personal Legend of many Muslims to visit Mecca before they die. If you follow your Personal Legend, the universe conspires to help you on your quest, and you will attain peace, happiness and fulfillment.

I originally picked the book up because of my love of alchemical texts, and I'd heard that the book was a best-seller. I held off for a little because I was weary of the thing: I expected it to be another useless book like "The Secret", but when I saw it for four dollars at my local second-hand bookshop I decided to pick it up regardless. While it contained less alchemical references than I would normally have liked, it struck me as a powerful metaphor for inner alchemical transmutation - the best I have ever read. The story itself is amazing, and quite short - I read it in a few hours. The Alchemist is pure, honest, and filled with wisdom. It is the one "New Age" book that does not deserve to be kept on the New Age rack: it is much too good for that.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Words alone fail to describe this trilogy. I count it as one book because the entire thing is collected and reads just like one book: the 'three volumes' are just three parts to a whole, instead of one book and two sequels.

Like I said: I cannot describe this book. Any description I give it would be ultimately unable to do it any justice. Nevertheless, I will try. Take the greatest conspiracy theories of the past thousand years and put them in a blender. Add the mystery surrounding John Dillinger, a hundred pages of raw smut, the esoteric I Ching, the secrets at the heart of Atlantis, the 1960's hippie movement and the 1950's beat movement, as much 1960's rock-and-roll as you can fit in, a giant yellow submarine, the dread writings of H.P. Lovecraft, and the Apocalyptic writings of William S. Burroughs. Blend until you cannot tell one from the other.

Pour the concoction into a long, distorted, multicolored glass. Then add the extensive and often self-contradictory mythology of the Discordian movement. Then add some more. Then some more. Add a few drops of Crowley, the Golden Dawn, and the A.A. - remember, Crowley is strong, so a few drops is enough to colour the entire drink. Garnish with as much LSD as you can find, and a pinch of insane numerology.

This book made Chaos Magic cool, and it was written before Chaos Magic was even invented. It's aim was to give Discordianism a strong mythology, and it more than certainly does that. At over a thousand pages long, some might find it hard to swallow, and it is definitely a 'love-it/hate-it' book: some people find it nothing more than trash posing as literature, some find it to be the greatest book they've ever read, and some find it to be an absurd mixture of both. It is, however, always thought-provoking and more complicated than any one person can hope to swallow; I've read it three times now and it never becomes any less psychadelic.

Nevertheless, it is easily my favourite book of all time. It has the added bonus of being an earlier work of Robert Anton Wilson, who is in my opinion the greatest philosopher and occultist of this modern age.

John Constantine, Hellblazer, Alan Moore (creator), Mike Carey, Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, etc. John Constantine is part-conman, part-magus, and he has been a constant source of inspiration towards my magical craft. A fictional character originally created by Alan Moore (of Watchmen and V For Vendetta fame), John Constantine relies on his wits more than his magic; he is a powerful trickster figure in his own right, and has been around the pop culture sphere since the late nineteen eighties.

I suppose the comic book series, which is still ongoing, influenced me in such a huge way because I used to invoke John close to daily. I mean, I wanted to channel the abilities of Constantine - the crazy good luck, the biting wit, the vast cleverness - from the very start of my magical practice, and I began by courting the deities Loki, the Norse trickster, and Anansi, the African spider-trickster (which, perhaps, explains my apparent destiny to always be around the spider-folk). When I decided to form Loki and Anansi into one being - Lonansi - I also decided to cut the bullshit and just invoke John himself.

I became cleverer. I bought a trench-coat. I developed a desire for booze and cigarettes that I still can't shake (though don't tell Mum!). My hair seemed to get blonder, my accent seemed to obtain a British twang, and I began calling people "love", and "mate". I slowly developed a reputation as a scary man, and as someone who has connections everywhere. I still get comments from some people, in some situations, that I look like him a little.

Then, one day, I just stopped invoking. I'm not sure why, though I don't feel any enmity towards the character himself. I still love the comic. I don't know.. maybe I looked into the character deep enough to realise that he really isn't what I want to be.

(Oh, and I own a copy of the Vertigo Tarot Set, with John as the Fool, and I've never felt so close to a deck before. The readings really seem to ring true with me. I wasn't expecting that... I was going to own the deck as a novelty only, but not only does the imagery strike me as deep and profound, the cards themselves seem to enjoy being read.)

The Black Arts, Richard Cavendish. This was the first "real" book on magic that I ever read, a handful of years ago, and I am still struck by how great this book is. I've bought three copies of this book in my lifetime, and given two of them to good friends, and while it lacks in the technical "do this to get this" department, the book still serves as a compendium of mystical information. It was, for a long time, my first reference on the Goetia, Devil-worship, witchcraft, the Qabala, numerology and the Tarot.

I'd always been interested in books of mythology and magic, but I consider "The Black Arts" to be the first one to actually influence me; I cannot recommend it enough. It will not make you a magician, per se, but it WILL give you the required background knowledge to allow you to pick and choose your magical system, as well as forming some knowledge around most of the others. It's only problem is that it was written in about 1960; while this gives it a wealth of information regarding the Golden Dawn and the magical revival of the early twentieth century, it is understandably lacking in references to Chaos Magic or any of the more modern paths out there. It still reads beautifully, though, and it should be picked up and read by everyone looking into the magical arts.

Pop! Magic, Grant Morrison. If the Black Arts gave me the theory and the lust to get into modern sorcery, Pop! Magic was one of the books that gave me the tools. (The others being "The Lesser Key of Solomon the King," which I didn't add simply because while it influenced my magic as a whole it hasn't left too big a mark on me overall, and "Condensed Chaos", by Phil Hine, which Charlie Twist chose so ..)

Pop! Magic is simple, it's free - you can get it here - and it's to the point. It's only a few pages long, but it taught me most of the magical lessons that have shaped me into what I am today, specifically: fake it until you make it and magic is a lifestyle. I'd been treating magic like an elaborate game, but it isn't when you get down to it; it's a way of life, as reflected by our societies throughout the ages, and you need to live that life if you want any chance to succeed.

On the flipside, however, simply pretending I was a great magician made me learn more about the art then I'd realised, and I woke up one day, jumped out of bed and shouted, "I'm a magician!" It all made sense: the psychonautica stuff, the codes, all of it. It was a good feeling - one of the best feelings in my life. Quite unlike my proper initiation, actually, which I might talk about in next week's correspondence: destruction and magic.

Until then, see you later
N.F. Robinson / Frater Victatio

Magic with a Twist: Living Environments

2009-04-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

(The second post made with the enigmatically attractive Miss Twist, sorceress, regarding the often-lauded art of magic.)

I live in a tin shed.

When I tell people that I usually get one of two reactions: the first is the simple, though a little edgy, "Why?" and the second is the vaguely envious, "Awesome!" It really depends on who the individual is in question, because living in a tin shed has both upsides and downsides to the extreme.

This topic is about my living environment and how it affects my magical work. My living environment is a reasonably unique one, and it affects how I do magic very strongly. My tin shed, needless to say, is not insulated; while I have a heater and a fan, these often don't help against the terrible temperatures which abound in nature.

I prefer to do magic naked. There's a fact you probably didn't need to know about me. Failing that, shirtless and barefoot with jeans works fine. Sometimes, however, it's too damn cold to do any magic - especially during winter and at night. Most of my sorcery goes on between the hours of midnight and five AM, and usually I'm not so fond of testicular frostbite, so when I do magic it has to be at least kind of warm. This is a downside.

In summer, in contrast, it's mostly fine - I can do magic at night without a problem in most cases. I generally don't get to sleep past nine AM in the morning, though, because the tin heats up incredibly quickly - when you've only had two or so hours of sleep this starts to be a problem. Also, on 40 Degrees Celsius days, a handful even hotter, candles melt. This is not good, especially when said candles were given as a devotional gift to say, one of the prime Loa spirits.

But there are advantages to living out in this shed. My mother knows very well just what I am - a FILTHY, DEVIL-WORSHIPING SORCERER WITH A PENCHANT FOR STRANGE THINGS - and she accepts it well enough, which is why she decided to lock me outside of the house and offer me the tin shed. I get a lot of privacy, though - as anyone who's ever lived in a home with six other people (seven, including the cat) might tell you, privacy is worth more than gold in that situation. Before I moved into the shed I was sneaking outside at four in the morning to do my rituals. This is a much more satisfactory arrangement. When one's been up for 100+ hours - while fasting - so that one can evoke a certain spirit at a certain special date and it suddenly pisses down raining one is generally not impressed.

So I have the privacy, and now I can keep all of my magical items on display without my impressionable brothers poking around with them. That was one of the catches, I guess, of practicing magic within my family's home - that my four year old brother would wait until he was, say, fourteen or fifteen before deciding to dabble in the dark arts. Four is far too young to be making pacts with the Ancient Ones was the reasoning.

My floor is made of concrete. This is good, because when I can get over my crippling phobia regarding the stuff, chalk is great for drawing seals and sigils and what have you on the floor. It's fun, it's traditional, and it gives the whole thing a sense of weight that is so important in ceremonial magic. I put a rug down - a lovely thing that my good friend Rick gave me - when I'm doing deity stuff, as I'm generally kneeling and that's not a great feeling on concrete.

I've been working more and more with The Lesser Key of Solomon the King, which is a nice, traditional spirit work involving the binding and banishing of demons and the like. Each set of demons is associated with a certain metal, according to what sort of spirit they are and what rank they have in hell. Those sealed in tin are associated with Mars and are thus the princes and prelates of Hell - these are the ones I've been working with lately.

VASSAGO, who comes in the form of an old man of good nature, is handy for finding lost things and giving visions of the future and past. SITRI, with a leopard's head and the wings of a gryphon, has power over lust and love. IPOS, the angel with a lion's head, makes men witty and bold and has knowledge of all things past, present, and future. GAAP typically comes in the form of a man, makes men ignorant as well as knowledgeable in philosophy and liberal sciences, can cause love or hate, knows all things of the past or future, can take the sorcerer to certain realms and can destroy the familiars of other magicians. STOLOS comes as a raven and can teach the arts of herbology, geology, and astronomy. Et cetera, et cetera.

These are the spirits which I've been working with. There are a handful more, but I grew tired of listing them. I only evoke those associated with tin - the others go all funny. They either don't appear, or they appear twisted and their messages are garbled. Almost like a kind of magical static. Only the tinned demons show up clear and fine. For work with the other spirits, I go outside.

I've chalked in a few protective wards on the tin, which is good, because on normal plaster walls I wouldn't be able to do that so easily. I've also been pondering for more than a while the logistics of summoning a demon prince and binding it into my shed. I don't know what would happen, but it would be pretty cool to find out.

My room is a mess. For all of my ceremonial magic and occult writing, I am after all a chaos magician and I can't keep a room tidy. Books stacked as high as they will go, clean clothes about the place, candles dripping, a mixture of salt, ash, and dust on the floor, paper everywhere, electrical cords resembling a certain ageless squid god devouring half of my room... a perpetually unmade bed tops all of this off.

This affects my magic in that I generally have to clean up my room every week for one working or another, because the spirits don't like the mess. It's generally more polite to clean up when you've invited guests over, after all. So I do that. But the mess always comes back.

The room is filled with spiders. Filled with arachnids of all shapes and sizes. They don't bother me, and usually keep to themselves, but I've heard that they're story-telling creatures (which makes sense) and Papa Legba has remarked about them on several occasions, asking me not to kill his brothers and sisters. Papa Legba isn't a spider-spirit, so at the time I was confused, but he is the Loa of gateways and I soon saw that the spider-web is one of the most intricate gateways of all. I haven't squashed a spider in a few months, and when my girlfriend squeals and begs me to kill one I simply place it outside and apologize to it for the inconvenience. They rarely come out from their hiding places though, except when it's just them and I - we have a sort of agreement, I think. I often joke that I'm leasing the hidden places of my room to them, at which my mother and girlfriend - arachnaphobic ladies both - laugh nervously.

So there we are. That's my living space in a nutshell. It's not great, it's not flashy, but it works - and it leaves a solid mark on the magic I do.

Twist and Shake: Rain and Magic

2009-04-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

(This is the start of what will, I hope, become a long and inspiring dialogue involving myself and the always lovely Miss Twist. She has posted the first reply to the topic, Rain and Magic, and it now falls to me to post the second. You may see the first one here.)

(Again: tonight has been a night of, uh, Erisian intent. A lot of Golden Apple magic happened earlier this evening, so this post may seem either a little more laid back than normal or it might just not make any sense.)

Rain.

A few years back, when I was young and knew nothing about magic, I had a great time telling everyone I was an occultist and that I knew everything about magic and strangeness and the esoteric and so on. Fake it until you make it was my motto, as prescribed by Grant Morrison, and I sure did make it in the end.

I didn't know much, but there was one thing I've always known, a core elemental truth within my magical work: the power of rain. I would bumble my way through some magic, usually for a very impressed (read: gullible) friend, and sometimes something would happen, sometimes it wouldn't.

But there was one thing I was always very sure of: the power of rain. I am a firm believer in the idea that magic, once created, does not just go off and do its thing. Rather, the spell lies dormant for a small while, until the universe is too busy doing other things to notice that you've broken a handful of its so-called rules. I guess it's the sneaky chaos mage within me coming out at last.

So we trick the universe into exempting us from the rules. Of course, once it's been tricked it is expected that the universe sit up and say, "Good game, sir. I have been bested once again," to which the magician replies, "Ah, and a good game to you; you will get me next time, of that I am sure," and the two laugh and drink cherry brandy and discuss the finer things, the previous sleight forever forgotten.

I am reminded quite frequently that life is not a steampunk rendition of The Great Gatsby, and to them I say, "I do not care." The magic works for me. But what is my point?

My point is, there are times that are good for doing magic. These are usually times of change, of a fresh start. For example, a lot of magic - pagan, ceremonial, chaos, the lot - is done at dawn and dusk. The rising of the sun at dawn is a powerful symbol that runs right through the gamut of occult systems, especially Thelema and Qabala. It is a good time for oaths of self-reflections. Dusk is just as good, for a much different purpose - at twilight, it is said that the barrier between the worlds of spirit and flesh weaken significantly, and magic is easier to cast upon the world. Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth believe eleven at night, being the twenty-third hour - and twenty-three is a number sacred to all practitioners of Chaos Magic and Erisian Sorcery - is the prime time for sigil-work and magic.

These are the times where the universe is too busy with other things to notice what you're doing. Or, as the wise Frater L.B.S. is often caught saying, "eleven o'clock is when I stab reality in the back, piss on its grave, and go on to fuck it's girlfriend." But L.B.S. is an Erisian jester-magician and I'm not entirely sure he can read, let alone work magic, but his opinion is still valid.

Rain, then, rain: rain doesn't happen often enough. Not here, in Melbourne, or in many places around Australia these days. Rain doesn't happen once a day, every day, like dusk or dawn or the twenty-third hour. It happens when it happens. And, as the illustrious Ms. Twist (sorceress) mentioned, it makes things new. It washes away. It is a fresh chance, a time of change.

The more powerful the storm, the better the magic. That's what I think. Rain, thunder, lightning, but especially rain - when it comes, the magic happens. I told my school-friends that the magic would only truly start happening after it rained, and when it did rain, and the magic did happen, it caught us all within it's wonder.

So rain has always been a good time for my magic. Rain has always made me feel better about life, too. It is a nice thing.

There are other magical points to be made, though, and I'll make one of them: rain brings water. Australia doesn't have much water. Not enough, anyway, to sustain us forever. And with all our crazy science, we can't make it rain and we're having a hard time getting the rain back. Rain happens when it happens. It is an independent beast, a deity in it's own right, with it's own personality and sense of will. It is a magical thing, this Rain, and we should treat it with a little more respect.

In conclusion:

G.P.: -Is Eris true?
M2:+Everything is true.
G.P.: -Even false things?
M2:+Even false things are true.
G.P.: -How can that be?
M2:+I don't know, man, I didn't do it.

Nathaniel F. Robinson / Frater Victatio

Quote of the Day

2009-03-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

"It starts to look as if, yeah, science is the offspring of magic, but science has kind of grown up, and being a rather snotty, ungrateful child, it’s now embarrassed by its parent, because Magic just sits there in the corner drawing shapes in the air, muttering incantations and dribbling into his beard. I think that Science, if it could, would like to have Magic placed in a mental home somewhere, or a retirement home, where it wouldn’t be so much of an embarrassment. Now, as is often the case with children who rebel against their parents, the older you get the more you find yourself turning into your parent... "

- Amusing words from Alan Moore, author of V for Vendetta/Watchmen/Promethea/League of Extraordinary Gentleman/etc., comics genius and kabbalistic magician

So what do you think?

2009-03-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

A large thanks to the always-lovely Sheray White for the sexy new site image. At least, I think it was done by Sheray White. I haven't actually spoken to her about it, but I can't imagine anyone else figuring out my passwords, and I don't remember ever being able to photoshop something that awesome.

Regardless, I think it looks great. So thanks, Sheray.

Well, I might be crazy..

2009-03-24T05:14:00.001-07:00

I've started to seriously consider writing my own short booklet on how to do magic, the Frater Victatio way. There are several reasons for this, but the most important one is that I've apparently amassed enough occult wisdom to begin teaching several others. Even though I am currently initiating around five people into occultism and magic, in my short few years practicing magic I've taught about twelve. Most of them went on to drop the subject, keeping an interest but slipping out of practice. Two or three remain practitioners, and are getting better each time I see them.

This isn't a product of my pathological need to horde followers. This is simply me trying to help. I write this blog, and people read it, and then they ask me about magic and ask what it would take for them to give it a shot. I tell them it's surprisingly easy but will still take a fair amount of effort and hard work... and they smile, ask for guidance, and begin practicing.

This is all well and good, but I've started to refine my own system of magic, and the exercises I give to those wanting them are basically the same in nature. Logistically, it would be much easier for me to write all of these down instead of just repeating myself.

I've also began to quietly cultivate a distaste for the current Chaos Magic scene... I feel that the bridge between so-called Ceremonial magical practices and Pagan magical practices is way too wide, and that there are plenty to learn from both. And, all things considered, there's really not much here for the 'casual' Chaos Magic crowd, or those who practice but don't have the time to join up to an established order. There's the IOT, sure, but they're not the easiest to get a membership with. The BOTA are too limited in their magical views, and the OTO seem to suffer from the same problem in a different way.

So I'd also set up a semi-online mystical order, where membership is available to everyone who wants to send, say, apply online for membership (or maybe send five-dollars to seal the deal, receiving a laminated membership card back or something). There'd be a website, and it would have a forum dedicated to Australian magic.

The style itself would have a huge focus on creativity - on the act of creation. There would be studies on magical names and their use as hyper-sigils, alphabets of desire, free-divining and other such things. Besides that, it would be mandatory for members to begin working with either a deity in the pagan sense, or a spirit in the ceremonial.

Those are my ideas so far. They're not very concrete, but I'd like to hear thoughts, criticisms, and cries of enthusiasm from people.

Drats and Curses!

2009-03-09T02:08:00.000-07:00

DRATS AND CURSES!

Cursing and curses: one of those topics that splits the occult community straight down the middle, often in the ugliest fashion. The 'black magician' claims that it's the right of the strong to rule over the weak, and that any enemy of the magician should be destroyed in the most thorough manner possible. The 'white magician' claims that to use magic in such a way would be to corrupt all of the inner wisdom gained from the mysteries over the years, not to mention the karmic/rule of three/what have you/ feedback that may come of it.

Then the black magician laughs and the white magician bathes in her own good karma.

A lot of magicians - myself included - could be more accurately described as 'grey', and that only confuses matters further. Contrary to popular belief, one does not have to be a 'good' a 'bad' sorcerer to practice magic. There are many magicians - myself included - who practice both the loving, more spiritual aspects of the craft, as well as the more destructive, shadowy aspects. They're both part of a big whole, and to ignore each side would be doing a disservice to yourself and to the magical art.

But that's just my personal spin on things. I know many magicians who shun the darker side (typically Wiccans and the more pagan-y folk), and many magicians who shun the light side (mostly Satanists and Thelemites who haven't quite gathered what Thelema was about, yet.)

But I'm not going to spend this article talking to you about the social aspects of magic. This is about curses, and my thoughts on them. As a quick definition - for any of those who haven't gathered - cursing is the magical art of hurling destruction or debilitation at one's foes. Harming another through magic, essentially.

THE LAW OF THREE AND OTHER REASONS NOT TO CURSE

The Law of Three (Three-Fold Law, Law of Returns) is a metaphysical law that originated with Wicca, but has filtered down into the general white witchy scene. It states that all energy sent out into the universe returns three-fold. So, if you bless someone, expect three times the goodness in your life; likewise, if you place a curse, expect three times the badness.

This has never held much stock with me - mostly because I'm not Wiccan, and mostly because I find it much easier to prescribe to the equilibrium view of magic. The equilibrium view dictates that everything balances out in the end - the universe will always strive to return to a state of equilibrium. Essentially magical karma. Do not tinker with black magic because it will swing back to hit you on the arse.

That makes a little more sense to me, but still remains a flawed because I only feel a philosophical attraction to it; in my actual practice, the equilibrium model only seems to work in regards to the learning of magic. That is, work hard and you will get good results. I generally associate the negative affects I've experienced with cursing with other things - I'll explain that below.

ENERGY

When I was little younger and a little bit power-mad on the whole magic thing, I cursed quite a lot. Amusingly enough, I easily had the most success with curses. While many other rituals seemed very hit and miss, my work with curses almost always bore fruit. Now that my studies into magic have matured considerably, this makes sense; a basic Qabalistic rule of thumb is that the more emotion you put into something, the more likely you're going to get it through natural means.

(Some argue that the Chaos Magic idea, 'Lust of Success' - that one subconsciously wishes to fail and thus the forgetfulness of whatever it is you want to achieve is often brought up to 'counter' this rule. This is so that the levels of consciousness lower than the subconscious, the levels that interact with reality, can fully receive the intent without it being weakened by the subconscious. Unfortunately, the theory only holds water with sigils - in an actual ritualized setting, it is often impossible to forget the experiences one has had. In the cases of invocation and evocation, not only is this completely impossible, it is also undesirable.)

A curse using sorcery won't work if you just kind-of-maybe-sorta want it to work. You have to fill yourself with all the emotions society doesn't like; generally hate and the intent to utterly destroy. Work yourself up as far as you can go. Think the nastiest, most vile thoughts you can think of. Smash things. Scream your rage. Build up the mental energy to tear your enemy to shreds; weep tears of anger.

In Chinese esoteric terms, build the Yang until there is no sense of Yin left. Build the nasty thoughts until you reach a moment of complete and utter oneness - become one with destruction. This is gnosis, the part where you should let it all go.. at that moment, destroy or harm whatever sympathetic link you have to represent your enemy.

SYMPATHETICS

The most commonly known sympathetic link used in cursing is the voodoo doll. Regardless of whether or not the use of dolls in modern or historical voodoo actually occurred is beside the point; the general idea is a perfect one. A powerful law (not just a rule) is that things are connected by their physical nature - if something looks like something else, they are invisibly connected. This is known as sympathetic magic, and the idea grew into the medical Doctrine of Signatures.

While this law isn't just used in cursing, I believe it to be an especially important aspect of destructive magic. Typically when I curse - I do it much less frequently these days, which is probably good - I create a cloth doll in the likeness of the image of an individual, or grab a photo. The cloth is usually boiled and consecrated before I create the likeness, simply to remove any magical imprints. Then I attach a hair or something that belonged to the individual I am wanting to curse, and draw similar features. The hair is to more powerfully link the thing with it's likeness. With the photo I only consecrate it, as the boiling warps the image, and add the hair.

THE ACT

Then it's a matter of further creating a powerful link with the individual. I banish beforehand, as with most acts of heavier magic, and then claim over and over that the doll/photo IS the individual - they're not only linked, but one. This becomes a mantra, and I typically do that until I know the link has been secured.

I then verbalize my intent, saying it aloud, and asking the Powers that Be to help me control such a powerful force. Sometimes I invoke Mars for a small while, or a similar deity. Sigils of destruction are charged and then burnt, the ashes smeared all over the doll/photo. Then I work myself up to a powerful rage, finally dousing the cloth in flammable fluid (usually that zippo stuff) and setting it alight.

Throughout all of this, I visualize the individual falling into harm through a thousand different ways; disease, falling under a bus, setting themselves alight, going bankrupt, being brutally beaten. As my anger builds, the visualizations generally become clearer and more brutal. I burn heavy incense, and a lot of dried sage.

Then I laugh, banish, and go and have a nap for a few hours. The process is extremely exhausting.

SUCCESSES AND DANGERS

I once cursed a person for stealing from me; they became violently ill for the next two weeks, virtually unable to get out of bed. However, the stolen items were never recovered. I may very well have caused two lovers to break up, bringing out the worst in one of them to the point where the other couldn't stand them. This didn't give me much satisfaction, as the other was a good friend of mine. Another simply had their wallet stolen. Another had their end of year VCE ENTER score completely shot, by virtue of failing four of their exams.

These are all counted as 'successes' - but the problems I faced with them were never fully resolved. It only served to cause harm to them and those around them. This is something you should consider before placing a curse on someone; do you just want to seek revenge, or fix whatever is causing you to curse them in the first place?

While I have only been struck back by the 'equalizing' nature of the universe once - since I have cursed six or seven times, it's not really enough to completely sell me on the theory. A person became violently ill, and as soon as they recovered I was hit with a very similar virus. I most certainly regretted the action.

Remember the nature of sympathetic links; whatever can be done to them can, in most cases, be done to you. If you cast magic on another it's reasonably safe to assume that there is another link created between the two of you, and that magical forces are just as easily sent back. Be careful about that - even the subconscious stuff may jump at you.

Finally, as I advanced in my magical studies I became a little wiser as to it's applications. Not only does cursing seem like a bad idea by the standards of most of the occult community, I'm beginning to agree with Soror Twist's view that if you wouldn't physically assault someone you shouldn't curse them. There is also a dangerous psychological affect that I've found with cursing; the more that you give in to emotions such as extreme rage, the easier it is to find yourself in those emotions. I found myself getting angrier more often, more easily than before, slipping quickly down the paths that I had carved in the cursing. Furthermore, I only noticed this when someone commented on it, and I was forced to take several steps in neutralizing this - primarily the invocation and illumination of a loving, forgiving deity.

OTHER WAYS

There are naturally several other ways to cause someone harm through magical means. One is to create a servitor designed to harry such an individual. Another way might be evoke a being from a grimoire such as The Lesser Key of Solomon and to ask that being to attack your enemy, while a more insidious way might be to send them sigils of destruction through the post. There are many other options, but they're probably not as effective and, in the case of the evocations (and especially the servitor!) would take a lot more energy.

IN CONCLUSION

These are my thoughts on the morally ambiguous art of cursing. I am preparing myself to be flamed, naturally, but my thoughts are my thoughts and nothing more. Hopefully I'm a little wiser now, and I often feel guilt at what I've caused through my magic. I take no responsibility for whatever anyone attempts with my own methods of cursing; your own fuck-ups are just that, your own. Feel free to post any thoughts, questions, comments, or to viciously abuse me in the comments thread - I probably deserve it.

- N. F. Robinson / Frater Victatio

Guest Post: Acid

2009-03-01T03:38:00.000-08:00

[An article written for me by a good friend. To protect anonymity, we won't mention their name, but I'd like to thank them formally here. The article is a trip report detailing the bizarre affects that LSD had on the writer, and a concise explanation of Ego Death, which relates particularly well to the subject of this blog.]

Substance: Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25 (LSD)
Form: Blotter (oral)
Dose: 2 (very strong) blotters/tabs, estimate at ~200-250ug each

The experience I last had with LSD-25 will probably be one of my last experiences with it. I may have one or two trips in my life to equal its impact, but I think they will be with a substance other than Hoffmann’s child. But it is finally, after all these weeks; I can say that I feel like me again. I am re-built, so to speak.
Those two blotters were by far the ‘roughest’ I have ever tripped on - and not just because of the higher than expected dose - which I would estimate at twice what I usually get from the same source. The tearing down of my ego, the emotional and mental destruction was more than harsh. Previously, I had experienced such phenomena in a much cleaner fashion, a ‘pure’ sense of convalescing the ego. This was something else entirely. This was a brutal murder, being ripped limb from bloodied limb. This hurt.
Below is my account of the experience.

T+00:00
At about 3:00pm, a friend - henceforth known as M - and I went into the city to get munchies for the trip and then just pass the time until a reasonable hour for dropping the acid was reached. At around 4:30pm we caught the tram out of the city. On this tram ride, I removed my two blotters from the foil they were in and placed them under my tongue.

T+00:15
After 15 minutes or so, we got off the tram at a rather large park filled with trees - where we planned to trip - after getting a phone call from another friend, J. At this time, M put his blotter into his mouth. After walking through the park and to a nearby railway station, waited for J’s train.

T+00:45
By this time I was experiencing rather prominent OEV’s - I’d begun to have fractal patterns across my vision and my depth perception was rather out. Subsequently, the ground began to breathe, swirl around and then melt into me. I was beginning to trip. Waiting for J’s train was breathtaking at the least, watching the trees in my vision begin to disassemble themselves then put themselves back together in a way which was just a little more beautiful than usual before my legs melded into the heaving sea of asphalt which I was standing on. As he stepped off the train onto the platform, J’s grinning face couldn’t help but remind me of a laughing clown. I knew at this point that this going to be a balls-deep trip.

T+00:50
On the way back to the park we received a phone call from another friend, R, informing us that we were to meet him in Epping. Just lovely. During the walk to the train station I began to feel paranoia. Surely the people we were passing noticed that the ground was wobbly? The train ride was just as bad. The leering faces of commuters in our carriage stared at me with accusing and menacing vice. They had to know I was tripping. They had to. Actually, on consulting my friends a few days later, people were neither staring at me nor had any probable reason to think that I was tripping. Still, in the present, they knew what I was on, when I’d taken it, my name, my date of birth, and they had just called the police. Yeah, paranoia. From there, a ‘bad trip’ began.

T+01:25
Half an hour of sitting still and mentally freaking out later, the train reached the end of the line. We’re here. Right. Where is here? Look! There’s R! How did R get here? Apparently we were now hungry (it being around dinner time, but one tends to not need/forget to eat while tripping), so M and R led us to Hungry Jack’s, home of the deliciously greasy hamburger known as a "whopper", the only problem being I can’t seem to understand how to get there. Where is it we’re going? Up the hill... but that slope is both up and down...

T+01:45
By this time disassociation was setting in to the point where J was pretty much watching my every move so that I wasn’t hit by a car or some other large metal object moving at high speeds. To me, they were merely moving points of light, dancing towards me then away, taking shape of cars for a fleeting second before moving to carriers of light. I had no idea where I was other than that I was standing in what appeared to be a path made of ethereal barbed wire, and that my friends and I were wading through which should have required protective clothing with ease.

T+02:00
M and I waited for the others to order our food at a table to avoid suspicion from any staff or people who might be in close proximity. Shit. Paranoia again. Fuck stop looking at me you insects. Eventually, R and J got to our table with the food, but by this time the whole concept of ingesting foreign matter seemed so absurd that halfway through my meal, I could eat no more.

T+02:00 and onwards
By now, I had no grasp of time. It was well and truly dark, allowing bizarre hallucinations to form from the shadows cast by streetlights. After narrowly missing a bus, R decided that it would be easiest to take a short cut to H’s house, so off we went down streets which while sober I would have recognised, but in my current state couldn’t tell from any others. The only problem here is that R, whose "shortcut" it was, got lost. Naturally I was the only one who may have known where we were, but in my current state, It seemed to me that we were going down the same street which kept turning into itself in a manner not dissimilar to fractals, on and on for (what seemed like) days and days. Looking back upon the route which we must have taken, we went past several paddocks which at the time had the semblance of houses.

I’m not quite clear what happened then, but I think we met another friend - I can’t remember who - at a park, and I recall being asked to roll a joint, which I failed horribly at, before seeing R smoke it and then moving towards H’s house. About halfway there, it hit. I’d dropped behind as we walked through one of the many corridors of grass which stab through the area, and just stopped. What am I doing. Finish my education. Then what. Get a job. Then what. Have a family. Then what. Grow old and retire. Then what. Slowly, I was sinking into a thought loop which was placing greater and greater emphasis on my unimportance to the universe. I was merely becoming one of uncounted billions of complex structures of atoms. Just another little piece of every ‘thing’. Then I merged with it. Boom.

Ego Death is... well there are really no words to describe it. ‘You’ does not exist. Nothing does. And at the same time, nothing doesn’t exist. Though I would not call them the same, it is in some ways similar to what Nat calls "gnosis", and what the Buddhists call nirvana. It is the void. It is one of the most existentially questioning powers. It is wonderful, it is painful, and it is.

It’s what, when, why, who, with and how I and many other psychonauts are. And it’s also something which I think every conscious being should experience, though not necessarily through the use of psychoactive substances. A poet named Dylan Thomas once said "after the first death, there is no other", something I hold to be true. The state of ego death literally destroys and kills oneself, and when the ashes are rebuilt they become something mentally stronger, something just that little bit more fearless, something that little bit more Zen.

And so, fourteen hours after ingesting two blotters of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25, still falling back through my mind on the train ride home, I smiled. While like any other drug, acid can be used for the sole purpose of getting high and having fun. However, as a psychedelic it also has the power to make you or break you. To me, it’s done both. This trip in particular has shown me so much more about myself than I thought possible.

Recorded Occult Bestiality

2009-02-25T22:35:00.001-08:00

Recorded Occult Bestiality

It’s no big secret that I’ve been trying to get the intelligently charming Nick Lindenmayer to write something for this blog. Lindenmayer is a philosopher, a Satanist, an existentialist, a debater, a powerfully political man and a /4/chan deviant.
It’s that last category which poses the problem of convincing him to write something for Melbournostika. When I asked him to write me something, he said sure, on one condition. Naturally, I agreed to the condition, which was this: that I write a blog post on hamster pornography’s application in modern occultism.
So this is a joke, of sorts, and not a very funny one at that; but I suppose it also stands as a lesson that anything, no matter how ridiculous, can have applications in magic. This is chaos magic at its finest, I fear.

Pornography

Dictionary.com defines pornography as "obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit."
Pornography, as accepted as it might be in modern society, still remains a powerful taboo. It’s a seedy activity, something most people keep to themselves. It just isn’t polite to declare to the world that you masturbate twice a day to hotchicksnodicks.com.
It’s obscene. It’s not for the children to play with. In this case, it shares a lot with the traditional ideas associated with sorcery. Magic was secret, and a little out there. If you walked out onto the streets and declared yourself a powerful wizard, you might get similar stares as the man declaring himself a fan of girl on girl action.
Western society generally dictates that conventional science is the only available option for those willing to explore reality. Philosophy is also acceptable, sure, but it’s a little flaky; there are no real results achieved by sitting around and discussing the nature of the world.
Magic, then, is right out. It’s only compatible will the more fringe (or least understood) of sciences; specifically, quantum mechanics. And society loves its Newtonian physics just as much as it loves its Aristotelian philosophy. There’s just no objective proof that magic works... it’s all subjective, and for everything that does seem to objectively work there are a thousand theories for how it could be something else.
Magic isn’t as fashionable as it once was. Pornography’s never been fashionable. The Church and most of society despise both pornographers and magicians, and for good reason; they don’t want us influencing their kids. We bring fraud, and the pornographers bring obscenity.
As much as the links between magic and pornography may be weak at best, the most important link is taboo. Both are forbidden by our culture at large.

Specifics: Bestiality

Magic is widely believed to involve the sacrifice of goats/children or the prevalence of great orgies and illegal narcotics. While most of this is bullshit, some of it - the focus on sex and drugs - is quite often not. For this, regardless of whether or not magic works, occult practices get a bad name.
Pornography can be pulled off reasonably tastefully, if your tastes are quite liberal. There is, unfortunately, a much more disturbing side to porn than anything that most magical orders could create... the degradation of woman, for example, or the stuff involving large amounts of body fluids or strange props. Some of it most people just don’t have the stomach for.
Bestiality - the sexual union of a human and an animal - is typically one of those things most people would rather avoid. It’s also illegal, if not to watch, then to partake in - I would argue, as would many others, that it’s animal abuse. I haven’t watched any bestiality porn to write this article, but tried thinking as open-mindedly as I could.
The union of man and beast is quite a common enough symbol in most occult studies. It is meant to represent our more civilized sides coming into conflict with our bestial natures - our instincts, passions, and darker sides. This union is represented by the Tarot card XV The Devil, often represented by the Templar idol Baphomat/Pan.
But sex with animals is not the esoteric union that most occult practices would encourage, but rather the exoteric union... the carnal knowledge instead of the spiritual. It is the Earthly acquisition of such knowledge, and may be considered to have less value. Some schools would argue that you need to understand the obvious facts regarding such a powerful ideal before even attempting to gain knowledge regarding the more subtle wisdoms. I’m not really in a position to judge.

To End

I’m not really comfortable writing any more, and I’ve covered around five hundred words on the topic anyway. The two most important aspects of recorded occult bestiality - the taboo associated with pornography and the union of man and beast - have been covered lightly, and I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to give.
Are you happy now, Mr. Lindenmayer?

Excerpts from the Magical Diary: January

2009-01-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

(Snippets from my magical diary, 2nd of January to 26th of January)

Dreams/03 - Oh fuck the spiders are coming oh fuck the spiders are coming oh fuck the spiders are coming OH FUCK THE SPIDERS ARE COMING. For some reason, that's all I can remember of my dreams last night. I'm a little unnerved, actually. I wish Freud would come and tell me that I'm lusting over my mother or something, because that's a lot less scary than those spiders...

Progress/06 - I think I'm finally getting the hang of astral travel, maybe. I either had an incredibly vivid lucid dream or I finally cracked it.

Progress/08 - Woohoo! Volume I of the magical diary is now one week old. Seven entries ... now I've just got to keep going, day after day, for the rest of my magical life. And they wonder why madness is so dangerous to magicians.

Re-read/08 - Liber Null and Psychonaut. Peter J. Carroll is at once a lunatic, a hypocrite, the most arrogant man I've read and a genius. I guess in this business you can be all four at once. I also re-read Liber Kaos, NOT SKIPPING THE HARD PARTS ON QUANTUM PHYSICS. The physics seem shaky, and I don't trust Carroll. As usual, the rest of the book is brilliant, but wow - the man is a prick.

Dreams/09 - I dreamt that I murdered a man. Still not sure if it was a nightmare.

Syncronicity/Omens/11 - I re-re-read the part of Liber Kaos that discusses Aeonics on the train, just because I thought I didn't get it. After reading the diagram, I looked up from the book to see tire-marks on the road next to Murumbeena station. They were like waves... almost the perfect figure to represent the duel-current Aeon, identical to the book. It was a weird experience.

Memories/11 - I did not want to forget the time, just a week or so before now , that I did Tarot for Auntie Tash. It was stunningly accurate. After the reading she got pale and locked herself in the bathroom... 'bad auras come from that deck', she said, 'and I don't like it...' She's crazy, but probably shouldn't write it off completely. Using the bastard deck after all.

Oh.../11 - Bastard deck: Crowley's Thoth Tarot. It's a fitting description. I just hope it didn't hear me say that...

Thought/12 - Have to post more on Liminal Nation. Strange compulsion.

Compulsion/17 - I have to start Voudu, soon. I just have to. It's nothing logical... just need to do it. I can feel it. It's a weird feeling, this sense of urgency.

Talked/17 - Spoke to Shea. Apparently I've already mentioned how I wanted to start doing Voudu. She suggests Legba... I don't have much choice, but he seems like an awesome Loa anyway.

Yeah.../17 - We can't all start with Baron Samedi, I suppose.

Dreams/19 - I think I've dreamt about Legba before. I think. We played cards and smoked cigars. He was black and old. Can't remember much else, damn it, but I know it's him.

Weird/20 - A sweet taste in my mouth, and I can smell cigarette smoke wherever I go. Strange.

Alter/22 - I bought candles for the alter. On special, too; black and red.

Hah!/22 - I've convinced Troy to draw me a minor hypersigil. Told him it was for protective purposes. Not a lie.

Alter/23 - Fuck.. Legba's traditional colour is white, not black. I am an idiot. Will buy more candles when time allows.

Omen/23 -Gonzo wants to summon up Samedi. Sent me a text today. Weird.. don't know whether to accept. Would Samedi like to be treated like some party trick?

Synchronicity/24 - Found three sets of keys today, just lying around the yard. Don't belong to my family... later, I learn that they're a symbol of Legba. On the alter they go.

Compulsion/24 - I feel compelled to do a set of divination cards for Legba. He feels special.

"... And Frater Victatio Courts Papa Legba", by Troy Callahan

2009-01-21T07:16:00.000-08:00

(A lovely gift from my good friend Troy Callahan, 3rd-7th Degree Adept of Chiwall, to declare my intent regarding my planned attempts to catch the attention and kindness of Papa Legba. Thanks again, Troy!)

(More info on the Papa Legba planning next post, I promise; for now just enjoy the art. That's me with the knife, by the way)

(That's why I love him; in the future I've lost weight!)

(Feel free to click on the image to enlarge it. Why wouldn't you?)

Quote of the Day

2009-01-18T02:09:00.001-08:00

There is the story of the American in the train who saw another American carrying a basket of unusual shape. His curiosity mastered him, and he leant across and said: "Say, stranger, what you got in that bag?"

The other, lantern-jawed and taciturn, replied: "mongoose". The first man was rather baffled, as he had never heard of a mongoose. After a pause he pursued, at the risk of a rebuff: "But say, what is a Mongoose?"

"Mongoose eats snakes", replied the other. This was another poser, but he pursued: "What in hell do you want a Mongoose for?" "Well, you see", said the second man (in a confidential whisper) "my brother sees snakes".

The first man was more puzzled than ever; but after a long think, he continued rather pathetically: "But say, them ain't real snakes".

"Sure", said the man with the basket, "but this Mongoose ain't real either".

- Re-reading Aleister Crowley's "Magick in Theory and Practice", I am once again struck by the wealth of occult wisdom in that story alone.

Talisman for a Friend

2009-01-16T03:06:00.000-08:00

I recently had a chance to catch up with my good friend and fellow chaos magician Kirril Koslov. Kirril has only been actively pursuing his interest in the occult for a month or so, and so I guess I'm kind of teaching him how to become a magician. By teaching, of course, I'm giving him a lot of advice, loaning him a lot of books, and not really giving him anything specific (besides sigils, meditation, and Tarot) to do.

I am, all things considered, an absolutely useless teacher, but I truly believe that he will learn faster and have more fun studying on his own - developing his own individual ideas, theories, and interests - than if I tried to force techniques on him. Nevertheless, I'm still very willing to throw advice his way at every opportunity, and I would be the first person to help him out if he ever needed it. While I doubt that magicians in this day and age need teaching, I'm certain they should have guidance.

Recently, it seemed like he was having a bit of trouble with a malicious spirit. My main role, lately, seems to be that of a shaman - a walker between worlds, authority on spirits, someone who deals with the supernatural beings that plague our life. Certainly, my interests and training are based around that aspect of the occult; understanding, contacting, and commanding the secret things of this world is my prime interest. I'm only starting to fully realise what that means - how to develop full relationships with these things.

Kirril was panicking a little, I think - or maybe he was just confused with what he should be doing. Regardless, I offered a few solutions. One was a spell to confuse the spirit. The other, more sensible approach, was to do a Tarot reading to divine the spirit's nature. From this we found that it was an Earth elemental - quite blatantly - and that it did not react well with change. This made sense concerning it's anger and where it was found - in the area where Kirril works, where the money is. Everything seemed fine.

We wandered outside, and Kirril - who seems to be an honest-to-God genuine sensitive - started feeling harassed. I gave him my talisman candle, designed to ward away nasty spirits (the power involved in associating with a candle as a talisman seemed to god-damn obvious I don't know why I haven't heard of it being tried before), and he seemed fine. I figure he was just picking up on some of the animosity my two protective spirits, Mun and Hum, have towards outsiders. Working with them later, that seemed like just the case.

Still, to help Kirril out, I decided to make him a simple talisman for dealing with tricky spirits. The difference between talismans and amulets, I think - and I may be wrong - is that while amulets are general protective items, talismans serve a specific purpose. Amulets are passive - they react to certain occult forces. Talismans are active, in so far as they need to be used to be effective.

I had a handful of bombardiers from my uncle's wedding, just lying around unused - basically glass vials with sand inside of them and a few other nice things. I emptied one of them, figuring that something taken from a wedding would be powerful protective magic in of itself. I threw everything out but the sand. The sand, to me, not only corresponded with the Earth elemental - who I specifically wanted to protect Kirril from - but of the beach. The beach acts as the border between one world (land) and the next (ocean), and was an apt symbol for the world of us and the spirits.

With the sand I mixed salt. I use salt in most of my rituals. It is a preservative, and as most spirits are creatures of change, salt works as a good way to banish them or to protect one's self from them. I threw in some blue-tack - to keep Kirril together no matter what happened - and a bit of his hair, for that personal sympathetic link.

I got Kirril to make a sigil - IT IS MY WILL TO SUFFER NO HARM, or, IT IS MY WILL TO BE PROTECTED, or something else that I can't remember - and I smiled when I realised his style of drawing sigils is wildly different to mine. We burnt the sigil, put the ash in with the rest. I threw some wax in from my protective candle - the idea being that it would lend the talisman that little bit of power to get it going. Something borrowed. I threw a little bit of dirt in, to ground everything and to further attune it to the Earth.

We burned the inside of the vial - the fire, or passion, of Kirril being an ethereal quality which I wanted to capture - and I drew a ring in red paint around the top. This was to signify the basic binding circle of magic, to keep all of the eclectic elements together. I bottled the vial up, drew a pentagram on the cork - it just seemed right - and wrote his full name and certain protective names of God (taken, naturally, from the Qabala) upon the bottle.

I then tried - though how successful I was I still don't know - to infuse the thing with some of my own energy, while attuning it to that of Kirril's. It felt right. I gave the vial to Kirril, told him to grab some of the powder and throw it if he felt in trouble - that would activate the talisman, banish whatever forces were about him - but not to open it unless he actually wished to throw the powder.

I actually quite enjoy this eclectic type of low magic. It's a very rewarding experience, and I've never had a true failure. Some talismans or amulets are more powerful than others, but that's to be expected. It's a nice change from the long and convoluted evocations I'm accustomed to.

I hope the powder helps Kirril in some way, however small. Reading his latest blog post, it seems like he's formed a friendship with the elemental, and that makes me glad. Only Kirril, I suppose, can tell me whether I've done well or not.

Friends

2009-01-15T01:44:00.000-08:00

I have a handful of friends who aren't very nice people. In reality, calling them 'friends' at all is a bit of a push, but the truth is that at one stage I was quite fond of them. When I first really began practicing the occult arts they were very impressed with the thought that one of their friends might just be a real-world wizard, and so they begged me to teach them what I knew.

I didn't know much, but I was pretty talented and I threw a whole lot of books at them and told them to read. They didn't exactly succeed at the literacy thing, but they picked up a few other techniques easily enough; sigils, dream-work, meditation, Tarot, and luck manipulation (my speciality). Beginner's stuff, but enough to keep them busy.

Like the most determined of leeches, however, once I tried to cut them off from my life they latched on to my other friends with moderate success, and continue to practice their limited form of magic. They don't seem to want to improve, innovate or read, and are still quite wowed at the success they find with sigils. I'm just happy they're happy, but the fact remains that at their core they're very nasty beings.

So I see them again at a social gathering a few days ago. I catch them red-handed saying nasty, bitchy things about my girlfriend; stuff that has no real worth as an attack but pisses me off all the same. To them, I was still Man of the Mystic Mysteries - a guru of sorts, because to anyone standing absolutely still someone moving at a steady pace, however slow, seems quick - and I got quite angry.

It's time, I thought, to try a standard Nathaniel Robinson bluff.

"What the hell did you say about Sheray?" I cried, my voice shaking with anger.

"Oh, uh, Nat!" they replied, "Well, ah, nothing, really, not much, not your Sheray..."

"I gave you that magic. I put a lot of effort in teaching you that magic. Lots of power, in effort. Sympathetically, very powerful stuff. You know, I can take that magic away just as easy as I gave it to you."

"No! No, you can't! That's - that's impossible!"

I raised an eyebrow, and their cocky smiles disappeared.

"Consider it gone, then," I said, slowly, and - still quite angry - try and hurl as much energy towards them. Not destructive, exactly, but obstructive; energy to block, to stop, to slow down.

I left the party feeling much better. Now I've been told that they've had no luck with the Tarot, and their sigils seem to have stopped working. Meditation and dream-work are still fine, but most of their magic has ran dry.

What do you know? I figure most of it's just psycho-somatic - if that term can be used in this situation - but I still feel like I had some real results. I don't know whether it was a curse or just a bluff, but even now, it makes me smile. Who needs remorse?

X-Post: Know They Enemy - Fundementalism

2009-01-03T21:00:00.001-08:00

There is a powerful and dangerous idea among the ‘elite’, scientific intellectuals. It is by no means a new idea, having been around for quite a long while, and it is this: That most (or all) of the problems in the world have been caused by religion – or superstitious beliefs – in one form or another.
That’s the great thing about prejudice, isn’t it? You can form great judgments without first getting all of the facts. As we shall soon discover, getting all the facts is a very difficult process – some might say impossible – and that’s why certain individuals find prejudiced ideas so useful.
We know of countless wars that have been waged in the name of one religion or another. According to history – which is not in itself completely infallible – these wars happen all the time. According to the news, these wars are happening right now. You can be sure they’ll continue to happen in the future.
Now, here’s the problem as it affects our society. Religion and philosophy, despite making great advances in our time, cannot possibly keep up with the scientific revelations that occur every decade. They are simply no longer fashionable - in our culture, the things that move the fastest survive, and science most certainly moves the fastest.
Science is valuable. There are tangible benefits to supporting science. My enmity is not reserved for science, though – in and of itself I have no problems with science or its advancements. I’m weary of science, I’m paranoid of science, but I bear it no immediate ill will.
I bear fundamentalism ill will. Alas, most scientists these days are also powerful fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is, as I define it, the holding on to ideas until it serves to actually hamper intellectual growth. When a new, better idea is developed, the fundamentalist spits on it and cries heresy.
As most people around here know, I’m a self-professed magician. Not a stage magician, mind you, but someone who believer’s an individual’s will can strongly affect reality. This is, to most, crazy-talk; it’s up there with UFOlogy and ESP-research to most men of science. It simply does not warrant investigation.
That’s a problem. Not the fact that they don’t believe I’m right – that’s a normal, expected reaction – but that they’re not prepared to test that theory out. “It’s impossible!” they cry, when I talk to them of witchcraft and the latent psychic abilities within the individual human being.
Science does not work that way. Science understands that the laws it establishes are not really eternal, unbreakable laws: they cannot be absolute ideas, in a Platonic sense, because certain absolute ideas since that time have already been broken. We do not accumulate scientific theories until we have collected them all and reach enlightenment about everything in the universe; we collect and revise, add the good and subtract the bad.
To claim something is impossible is a powerful statement to make. In order to make it, you have to show that you know everything that is and is not possible. This is illogical. In a time where our understanding of the world is being shaken every decade, to say that we know everything is a monumentally stupid thing to say. If science, our dear friend, has proven anything, it is this: that nothing can be considered entirely impossible.
“Ah,” but some men of science will reply, “But magic and ESP and UFOlogy and paranormal events defy common sense!”
It’s often said that common sense is not all that common. There is a damn good reason for this. It is detrimental to the evolution of mankind as a whole. Still, common sense is a little too common among the intellectual elite for my liking.
Common sense is not what we need: what we need is a healthy agnosticism towards everything in this world. A weary, sceptical approach is prime – not the immediate shutting-down of all new ideas, not this common sense. Einstein’s theories attacked the common sense of physicists at that time; Galileo’s astronomical findings attacked the common sense of those who knew that the Earth wasn’t moving; Darwin’s theories of evolution attacked the common sense of those who knew they weren’t primates.
As it has also been pointed out numerous times before, common sense and logic are not purely objective things. How could they be? There is no ‘true’ objectivism; at least, not as true as we would like to think. While there may be objective truths, the problem is that when they are deciphered by an individual the individual’s subjective thoughts get in the way.
This is called a reality-tunnel; our sphere of beliefs. Reality-tunnels, in and of themselves, are fine – but we have to understand that there will always be more to the world than to what our reality tunnel tells us. Our paradigms should be used until they are useless, in which case a better model should be found.
Ultimately, every individual’s reality-tunnel is flawed. Our beliefs are always going to be influenced by (a) the beliefs of those around us and (b) our previous beliefs. Let’s look at a typical Marxist socialist, for example. A typical Marxist shows typical rage towards those who do not agree with their ideals – capitalists, in other words. Any who do not support their cause are evil scum, and should be destroyed.
However, a Marxist also has to somehow come to terms with the belief, eschewed by Marx himself, of economic determinism; that capitalism will fall, communism (or socialism) will rise, and we will enter a utopia world. Every man and woman has his place – either as a capitalist or a revolutionary – but it ultimately doesn’t matter, because socialism will win in the end.
Ultimately: it’s not the fault of the capitalists. It is their place to fall – someone has to do it! The two ideas would clash within the reality-tunnel of an established Marxist more than they would realise, I should think, at least subconsciously. The Marxist sphere of belief is flawed.
There’s a reason we do not talk about truth in things such as mathematics, the ‘pure’ science: we talk about validity. How valid is this idea, now? It may not be true, but it can most certainly be valid for our purposes, and in this case mathematics got things right.
After all, there’s more than one type of self-consistent algebra and more than one type of geometry. We use the different types as we need to. One type is only better than the other in that it is more useful – not, as some would believe, because it is more right. All of them are wrong.
We’re quite honestly working with dodgy models of thought that only work in certain situations, and we have the nerve to cheerfully proclaim what ‘is’ and what ‘is not’? They’re useful, yes, but the idea that they are right is a powerful misconception. There are no eternal truths that we know of – there is no pure reason.
We see something occur, some event in space-time, and some (but not all) of that energy hits us. We process the energy, and then the neurological processes subtract and add things to what we ‘saw’. The important thing is that we could not possibly have experienced the entire event, so how can we fully judge it?
“This is an apple” then equals the much more correct “this seems like an apple to me”. Now, if we all had reasoning like that – if we all had the gall to admit that our spheres of thought may be incorrect – how many atrocities would have occurred this century?
Hitler: “The Jews are evil filth” sounds a lot worse than “the Jewish people seem like evil filth to me”. Bush: “The war in Iraq is fully justified” would be much better as “the war in Iraq seems fully justified to me”.
Religion doesn’t cause all the wars and terror in this world – neither does science. A greater, darker force – a force that encompasses the two of them – is the problem humanity needs to overcome before things get better. Sheer-minded fundamentalism is the enemy. Since we cannot possibly get all of the facts, we must admit that we’re all prejudiced in one way or another; but come on, can’t we just admit that?
Thoughts?

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T05:41:00.001-08:00

(Merry Christmas to all. Here's some poorly written poetry I just wrote, just about occultists and Christmas. It was written at 1 AM, on Christmas day, in ten minutes. Yes, I know, I pretty much made your day, eh?)

We've argued what's wrong, we've argued what's right,
But today we shall stop, and we'll unite for the fight,
Witches and witches, sorcerers and magicians, we're stunned at the sight;
A ridiculous thing, this menace of neon lights!
For now is the anniversary of Jesus the Christ.

Occultists do squabble, occultists do clash,
But there is one enemy we'd all just love to smash,
Christianity, the oppressor, this tremendous social gash,
Society kept it's slave, bound by Christ's whip, lash by bloody lash,
Until we finally give in, stop caring, burn and crash.

At least, that's what many of us would want you to know,
Ultimately, it's safe to say our attacks on Christianity are pretty low,
We've got a lot to say, the magicians, but not exactly much to show,
And besides, we're not exactly in a position to throw any blows.

We're open-minded, liberated, completely free;
So why can't us magic types ever really see?
Hatred breeds more hatred, lies more lies, it's not so easy;
Sooner than later, we'll be bound by our own wicked decree,
Turn on each other, man beats woman, she beats he,
Look at us! Christians can do magic, too: look at bloody Dee!

Do me a favour this Christmas, just reed before you leer,
Regardless of religion, or whatever you hold dear,
Do not give the Christians anything else to fear;
It's holidays! Smile a little bit, give a gift, show some fucking cheer!

On Elementals

2008-12-18T06:30:00.000-08:00

Elementals are usually considered a branch of spirit that correspond to one of the four traditional elements; air, earth, fire and water. Despite being perhaps one of the more sacred beings a magician can ever interact with, due to their close association to the building blocks of magic that most of us take for granted, they are often treated with little respect.

'Mischievous, minor, brutish spirits' seem to be the most common definition currently, especially within the Qabalistic/Alchemical/Ceremonial paradigm that I mostly practice within. They are considered the lowest eschalons of the spirit world. The pagans and Wiccans have a much better idea, openly inviting them into their life (not, I repeat, not forcing them) and treating them with as much respect as one would treat a favourite deity.

Here's a lesson I learnt a short while ago - sure, the elementals may be the minor spirits, the brutish ones, but remember one thing; you're only a mortal. You can't so easily control matter as they do. You can't as easily manipulate chance. It takes a long period of study and practice before you can even begin to rival the power they have in their domain. Do not think of them as minor! If anything, you are the minor one!

After a three week long extended exorcism of an Air elemental, where I threatened and pleaded and pushed and pulled, trying to get 'this goddamned whore of an elemental out of a friend's house, I finally learned the lesson. I forced it to manifest, I bound it to sigils (which I then burned, scattering the ashes), I banished and consecrated and banished again...

Finally, the elemental left. However, afterwards, I experienced;

-Nuasea and lightheadedness; I passed out on the stairs a short while after the exorcism after
-A slower reaction time
-Slight hallucinations
-A habit for losing things, especially money, which I never do
-Bad luck in all matters concerning gambling and risks
-Powerful writer's block
-A larger case of insomnia
-Odd voices on the edge of my hearing
-Lightbulbs explode if I was near them too long
-Strange mood swings
-The kicker: As I was cutting up vegetables I felt perfectly in control, and then suddenly a pushing motion and I cut my hand up something shocking. Was that a cackle afterwards?

Fuck it, I thought. Fuck this and fuck ceremonial magic and fuck elementals and fuck it all. I'm just going to give in.

I could semi-remember the sigil I'd bound the spirit to, and the name I'd given it, and I worked up a quick but potent ritual, in offering to the elemental. I bought it a packet of cigarattes, a lot of incense, and burned my mathematics text book for it. I burned the incense, invited the spirit to join me, and bought some bread rolls and chicken - enough for two - which I 'ate' with it. I spent about three hours out in my back yard, freezing my balls off, but at the end I felt all the better for it. I'd apologized, made amends, and left the meal, the cigarettes and the rest of the book out on my alter.

Now I can write again, my hand feels fine, I'm not seeing or hearing things and I can sleep again. Nothing electrical has exploded in my presence so far, and neither have I lost anything. I feel forgiven.

The lesson: Yes, even if you're some bad-arse Chaos Magician, you're not on the top of the food chain. Just like anything, in order to get good at this magic thing you've got to do some arse-kissing, even when you don't want to, and you've got to show respect to those who deserve to be respected.

Also, to paraphrase Crowley: don't fuck with the elementals!

A Proclamation

2008-12-18T02:33:00.000-08:00

Kirril Koslov, otherwise known as Naithan Briffa.

Being recently awakened to Chaos Magic, I can safely say it has already had a major posotive impact on my life, and the way I view all things in life.
I've taken a peculiar interest in the essence of Chaos itself, chance. I've quickly developed a set of rules in which I can use chance as a magical medium,
yet do so safely.

These are my overall guidelines by which I now stand;

-All people are equal, do not judge unduely, for we were all chosen by Chaos.
-If you are to use chance as a magical medium, obey the commands layed upon you, for this is how Chaos works.
-All experiences are spawned of Chaos, take none for granted, and do not hold to any greatly, for Chaos is constant, and changing.
-Wish the blessings of Chaos upon all, for all people deserve the blessings of Chaos.

Some would say I treat Chaos as a god, deity, or some form of otherwise godlike entity, but this is not true. I view Chaos as a life force, similair to
Mother Nature. I have developed these guidelines in order to try and bring about a peaceful nature, not only to myself, but to all, because if we truely
believe in the power of Chaos magic, then for every bad experience there will be a good, for every death a life, so on and so forth, and to ultimately
benefit from the blessings of the Chaos that surrounds us we must be aligned as a person.

I wish to soon start delving heavily in Pendulum Magic, and practicing some Spiritual Communication with Nathaniel.
I look forward to writing more about how I am developing as a Chaos Magician.

Chaos bless you,
Kirril.

Books Need to be Read

2008-12-17T23:54:00.000-08:00

BOOKS THAT NEED TO BE READ

(A list of books that I think everyone should read at least once in their life; guaranteed to lead to dangerous amounts of open-mindedness and general knowledge in regards to living life and belief)

(Also: Most of the books are described extremely vaguely, and make glaring generalities; this is because I can't possibly devote an essay to each book, and sacrifices need to be made. Only the information that is vital to anyone interested in the text is presented)

(Also also: Part Two, or OCCULTISM, is coming up shortly, and after that Part Three, or ATHEISM)

RELIGION

THE BOOK OF MORMON, Joseph Smith Jr. I suggest the Book of Mormon as if you can get past the ridicule generally associated with the Church of Latter Day Saints movement and the archaic writing style, it is a highly fascinating read. Pay especial attention to several ideas: that God is an extraterrestrial being, that any individual can - given enough effort - achieve not only enlightenment but apotheosis, that certain exiled tribes from Jerusalem ended up in South America, and of the importance of ancient astronauts. Make sure you're familiar with the Bible first, however.

THE BIBLE, QU'RAN, TORAH, various. A must for anyone, I would say. If you are not already Islamic or Jewish, I would suggest beginning with the Bible, as the stories may be easier to swallow for your typical Western agnostic-atheist reader. Make sure you read all three though - while there are huge similarities between the three, they differ in many more ways. For example, the Qu'ran is more of a guiding text than a narrative, and the Bible places a large influence of the teachings of Jesus Christ both in the New Testament and, retrospectively, in the Tanakh or Old Testament. The Torah, while considered a corruption of Allah's word by the Islamic faith, is still the central text of Judaism and is worth a look in especial detail. It contains no major differences to the Christian Old Testament, but deserves a seperate read in a seperate context. I would also suggest buying the King James copy of the Bible, as it contains several key apocryphal texts that are rather illuminating; specifically, the Book of Enoch, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Wisdom, Esdras, Burach, Susanna, and Susanna.

THE SATANIC BIBLE, Anton Szandor LaVey. While I refuse to acknowledge this as the ultimate humanist book (as many Satanists do), I will admit that it is a finely crafted tome that raises many good points. It is not a religious text; it is more a guidebook, a philosophy, for living your life Satanically. That usually involves not taking shit from people, saving love for those who deserve it, and being the biggest bastard in a jungle full of bastards. It also pushes free will and choice. It is highly anti-Christian, as you'd imagine, but uses the hatred more as a tool - a metaphore - than as an actual basic conceit. For this purpose it's worth a look at, at least.

THE BOOK OF THE LAW, Aleister Crowley. A good read, more like a puzzle than anything... a little hard for those to digest if they're not heavily into Qabala or Thelemic mysticism. The only reason this is in RELIGION and not OCCULT is because it serves as the primary holy text for the Ordo Templi Orientis and the Thelemites. Still, if you want to read a stunningly beautiful, amazingly cryptic, relatively modern (and short!) book, this is a good place to start.

DIANETICS, L. Ron Hubbard. More a book on alternate psychology than a holy text, Dianetics is a huge book that serves as the center stone for the Church of Scientology. Thoughts on Scientology aside, the book itself was written before the Church came to be, and the text I've read doesn't mention the Church at all. However, apparently some copies of Dianetics have been edited to include Scientologist teachings. I would suggest seeking a pre-edited copy of the book. Regardless, it's highly, highly fascinating stuff.

NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY, ????. The best introduction to Gnosticism, this set of books (also known as the Gnostic Gospels) are the earliest written Gnostic-Christian texts around. It includes the fabulous Gospel of Thomas, which you'll have to read to believe, and some early information on key gnostic ideas such as the existence of God/The Demiurge/Archons, Aeons, Gnosis, and Jesus as the Pinnacle of an Aeon. A tough read, and easy to get lost in (the translation from Coptic makes little sense to someone not used to, well, the structure of Coptic) but it's well worth the effort.

Quote of the Day

2008-12-09T02:05:00.000-08:00

"Also, we did some Tarot readings. 90% of what Nat read from my cards, other people I know's cards and Kath's cards was very true...and it got me thinking...maybe magic is logical? Nah. But it was all a bit fun. It's as fun as it's irrational. Case closed."

-Reuben VB, maybe as close as I've ever gotten to proving to him that this stuff works, and most certainly the most open-minded I've seem him on the subject
(also: I really do love him)

The 'Magical Massage'

2008-12-09T01:31:00.000-08:00

THE 'MAGICAL MASSAGE'

Rather recently, I had an opportunity to attempt a 'magical massage' on Kathleen and Reuben, two of my good friends. I'd learnt the technique earlier this year, and only now I realise that it remains a rather unorthodox magical technique.

We were on the topic of massages in general, and Reuben explained to us what he knew about Shiatsu and pressure points. He gave several massages. I casually mentioned that I knew how to give a magical massage, and that was no lie; Frater L. B. had gone through the process with me several times. I did not mention what was involved, only casually linking the practice with Reiki and Chakra manipulation.

(That was a lie, but a small one; it was simply so that I could give them something to relate it to, in the hope that they'd have heard of either practice. While the goals are similar, the methods are quite different, but we'll get to that later.)

The basic theory behind the massage is that the body has several points where energy is stored before it flows through the body, roughly corresponding with the emotions and vices held within said body. Substance abuse (including alcohol), gambling, and lying tend to block these points; emotions are naturally bottled there.

The aim of the magical masseuse is to fully unblock these points - which exist in the lower spin, upper spine, shoulder blades, etc. - and then to ease the energy from them, allowing it to flow into the body slowly as not to cause damage. The metaphorical kundilini work is used, and the practice is a acasual blend of Qabalistic methods, Indian chakra work and Reiki energy manipulation.

There is one element of the magic that will forever remain controversial, however; the practice dictates that the points can only be unblocked by powerful meditation - and only over a long period of time and by one's self - or, alternatively, by a high level of pleasure/pain. This is usually applied by heating a knife by fire and pressing it against the flesh.

You keep doing that, using ice to ease the pain, while allowing the patient to go through several vizualisation techniques. The patient may do many things - they may scream profanity, they may not be able to stop laughing, they may weep or lay quite still. You keep going until you find the points, unblock them, and allow the energy to flow.

I was taught this technique by experiencing it for the most part; Frater L.B. (who really needs his own blog, damn it) lay me down, and proceeded to beat and burn the living Christ out of me. Afterwards I could barely walk, but couldn't stop crying about a handful of things I felt quite guilty about, and after that I felt like a million bucks. I was on a supreme high for weeks, and fixed most of the past mistakes that I'd made. I felt great.

I came back to Frater L.B. two more times for the method until I asked if he could teach it to me properly, and it is only now that I am shocked - this is the first and still the only energy manipulation technqiue that I have ever bothered to learn. Furthermore, I've become quite good at it.

Now, receptions to this technique were varied. Reuben believed that it made him feel better, but attacked the process on his blog, so I guess he wasn't that impressed. He experienced no emotional disturbance, but also refused to take the pain as it came (which is ultimately no problem as I am not a sadist, but I think it hampered the process a little). Kathleen, on the other hand, experienced all of the desired affects, but came out with a few scorch marks. She was impressed, though.

Oh well: thought I'd just share the process, throw it up for everyone to pull to pieces. I know the pain/burning thing won't go down well for many, but I suppose I've just got a pretty open mind (or I really am a closet sadist when it comes to these things).

- N.F. Robinson

LIBER SPUUN

2008-11-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

(This is my first actual magical text, written under my mystical pseudonym, Frater Victatio. No, I can't tell you what it means. Basically this is an attempt to tell the reader how to use spoons in magic - especially divination.

It is important to note that this is a comedic work. I chose to hide the truth within the text from the uninitiated under the twin veils of comedy and irony. You may find it funny. You may not. It does not really matter, I suppose, but give it a look anyway.)

LIBER SPUUN

GRADE B

Frater Victatio

INTRODUCTION

In the Western world, there are primarily three types of eating utensils (also known as cutlery, or silverware). These consist of the fork, used to lift food to the mouth and with several tines at its head; the knife, a cutting implement that should be known to all; and finally the spoon, with a shallow bowl at the end of its handle. Eastern audiences typically use chopsticks to eat, though spoons and forks are becoming more prevalent. This work is concerned solely with the spoon.

The culinary uses of the spoon are well known – the eating of ice-cream, soup, apple pie, jelly, and many more dishes besides are quite frequently attended to by this most humble of instruments. The divinatory and magickal properties of the spoon, however, are much less known. This text describes these magickal properties, of which those divinatory are most profound.

The spoon is can be made out of wood, metal or plastic. They may be used in the act of eating, but are also commonly used to measure and to stir. Spoons are quite ancient instruments – preserved spoons, thousands of years old, have been found in Greece; spoons have been referenced in several early Indian holy texts.

But, like all things magical and mystical, the spoon was first used in Ancient Egypt. There is no hard evidence, even in these enlightened times, to prove this as a fact; while it is certain that spoons were used in Ancient Egypt, the exact dates of the usage are not known. Alas, such is the state of modern science.

Where modern science has failed, modern magic has not. It is a cold hard fact that all of the most powerful magickal and divinatory tools originated in Ancient Egypt, only to be invigorated with fresh ideas by the Jewish mystics and turned into something breathtakingly beautiful. So dictates Aleister Crowley.

Just like the fabled Tarot, the spoon rose from Egypt, through the lands of Israel, to forever be immortalized in Western society. That is all you need to know about the spoon to begin performing magickal operations with it, though ambitious adepts are encouraged to research further into the history of the spoon.

THE SPUUN

There are spoons for eating, there are spoons for measuring, and there are spoons for magick. Keep the three separate. It is not right for one to eat with the same utensil one calls the divine with, lest the divine be accidentally called within one’s mouth; oral sex with YHVH is never a fun activity, save under the proper circumstances, and those are rare enough.

Thus we will make a distinction between normal spoons, simply called ‘spoons’, and the magickal spoons ‘spuuns’. No longer use a spoon for measuring; it is not befitting of a ceremonial magician. Use a cup. Also, do not confuse the spooning involving magick with the spooning involving a lover; that is a heinous crime. You are cuddling at all times, never ‘spooning’ - even if both souls are completely nude. The path to becoming a ceremonial magician starts with getting your terminology rite.

Spuuns are also spelled as such to break free of the rigours involved with common language. Much as magick must be spelt with a ‘k’ and kaos without a ‘c’ or an ‘h’, spuuns must be spelt with ‘uu’. This is a mysterious thing, but very important to magicians, and if you do not already know this – or if you spell chaos or magic conventionally – you are not fit to work the magickal operations involving the spuun.

Do not serve anything except magick with your spuun. That includes soup, medicines, and ice-cream. Spuuns may not be used in mixing, nor shall they be used as a musical instrument. Neither teaspoons nor souvenir spoons may be used in magick. One may not bend one’s spuun using the powers of one’s mind.

Spuuns must be made out of the purest silver. Silver shows that the soul is pure, and that the magician is completely ready for the magickal operation ahead. Silver is also attributed to the feminine, and if one cares for their spuun one shall find that one’s spuun also cares for them. Silver is attributed to the moon in conventional astrology, and the moon represents the feeling of the individual – this makes the spuun a perfect instrument for divining, scrying and the like.

Spuuns may be of any size larger than a teaspoon. Remember – it is not the size of the spuun that counts, it is the way you use it. One may pleasure the universe with a small spuun as well as a large spuun, if one is skilled enough.

Spuuns are best forged by the magician himself; if this is not possible, they may be bought, but not haggled for. Pay the full price, as expensive as silver may be. Real magick does not come cheap!

Fifteen spuuns must be made. Five are made for the conventional elements; ten for the conventional Sephirot of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Once made, you may inscribe each spoon with the traditional sign of each Sephirot or element. Keep each spoon wrapped in a napkin of its corresponding colour - brown for Earth, red for Fire, gold for Spirit, et cetera – and then wrap all of the spoons in a pure white cloth, representing the loving embrace of the decidedly Caucasian YHVH.

Clean the spoons in water daily, even if they have not been used, and before and after each magickal ritual.

At parties, if properly sanctified spuuns cannot be found, it is acceptable to grab a handful of spuuns for use in divination. Magick, after all, is perfect suited towards party tricks.

THE SPUUN AND PROTECTION

One may additionally forge a spuun in the metal of one’s choice for use in protection against malignant magicks and deadly devils. A lamen of the magician may be engraved on the bowl of the spuun, or the Seal of Solomon, or any protective sigil.

A hole is drilled at the top of the handle of the spuun, and then the spoon may be worn using any conventional string or thread.

THE SPUUN AND RELIGION

Once the magick of the spuun has been proven to the magician, they may wish to engage in worship of the spuun. They may wish to revel in the divine nature of the spuun, proclaiming it to be the lesser aspect of YHVH.

This must be true, but remember; everything, in one form or another, is a lesser form of YHVH! He is eternal, and having created us out of nothing, everything must be part of Him. Everything, including those who do not worship Him, is part of Him. Do not make the mistake of thinking otherwise, lest you forever suffer in the cold stomach of the demon Ammit!

One may wish to worship the spuun, or use it any religious practices the magician may have; but this is not befitting of the spuun, as the spuun is much too humble. The spuun is happy to protect, to divine, and to be used in operations of magick.

THE SPUUN AND MAGICK

The spuun is the ultimate magickal tool. It is the union of the wand and the cup – the wand as the handle, and the cup as the shallow bowl. Forever united, the powerful duality of this universe is asserted, and thus magickal energies are prone to being channeled by the spuun. As a hermaphroditic tool, it is all sexes and none, and thus above all others. In unity there is strength.

The spuun is thus associated with the gods Baphomet and Pan, and these two deities shine their blessings upon their favoured instrument. The spuun is best represented by the Tarot card XV, or the Devil. The nature of the Devil directly contradicts the pure, silver nature of the spuun – but contradictions occur throughout everything, and paradoxes are a natural part of magick. Do not worry unduly.

The shallow bowl also represents a distorted, but unbroken, circle. The circle is a symbol of oneness – the Ouroborous, or serpent, devouring its own tail. All may be achieved or held by the power of the spuun – it is a potent magickal circle in its own right. The normal spuun is a little small to function as a protective or evocative circle, but there is no reason why a gargantuan spuun of about ten meters may not be made and inscribed with magical wards.

The circle, however, is more like an oval. This means that the spirits summoned within will also be twisted and bitter, and thus dangerous to the unprepared sorcerer. That is not a problem for the real ceremonial magician, however – the Goetia contains seventy-two said beings, and magicians have been working with them for hundreds of years. Bravery is important in magick. Be a man.

Luckily, the spuun’s bowl is just that – a bowl. It dips. It is essentially a magickal black hole, one that the spirit cannot ever hope to escape. It is good for capturing spirits within, though in order to let them out again the entire spoon must be melted down and reformed.

The spuun may be used in scrying. In this case, though the spuun is made of the finest silver, paint it black. Stare within the spuun until you finally see a vision or an image or some grit or something, and then claim that you are a master of scrying arts.

The spuun may be made into a talisman, using the creation methods listed above and the traditional enchanting methods as provided by the holy Qabala. The spoon may not be used in alchemical work. That would surely involve stirring of the pot (unless it is an act of sexual alchemy, in which it would definitely involve stirring the pot).

If a magickal spell involving the spuun fails, then the tides were surely working against you in this operation; do not worry unduly. If, however, you succeed, brag about your success for the next two weeks and demand all your mates buy you a beer. After all, magick is thirsty work.

THE SPUUN AND DIVINATION

The spuun’s most sacred purpose is that of divination. It is a holy instrument in which the most powerful of messages may be obtained. It is in many ways more profound – and more difficult to use – than the traditional methods of geomancy and cartomancy.

Below is an example method of one form of divination using the spuuns. The eager adept is encouraged to design his own system. If it seems rather simple on the surface, that is because the dear reader does not have the qualities to become a magician and has thus forfeit any right to any opinion whatsoever.

THE INVOCATION

The magician gathers his spuuns, unwrapping them from their divine cloth and then, in turn, their sacred handkerchiefs. Take your time unwrapping them. Magick is not to be rushed.

Remove the ten Sephirot spuuns, keeping the remaining five spuuns within.

Place your two hands over the spuuns, as if one were feeling the magickal heat radiating from them, and make the sign of the Enterer. If you do not know what the sign of the Enterer is, I am not going to tell you. After the sign is made, speak:

“O mighty Spuun, who hath seen all that is past and all that is future, who now sees all that is the eternal now, I call upon your supreme gift! As the messenger of Baphomet and Pan, do I invoke thee! Come to me! Awaken!”

Say that a few times, loudly, and the spuuns will surely wake up. They are incredibly light sleepers. But do not worry – the spuuns do not get grumpy.

THE ASSOCIATION

If the reading is for yourself, hold your hands out again, make the sign of the Enterer, and say your full name – both magickal and mundane – above them. This is to symbolically link you both. While saying your name, concentrate hard on the matters you are asking for clarification on. If it is for another, say their name.

Declare the elements of the five remaining spuuns, and then associate them with certain divinatory duties:

“This is Fire, the burning Passion, and it is to show me the Distant Past. This is Water, the cool Change, and it is to show me the Past coming in to the Present. This is Spirit, which rests within All, and it is to show me the immediate Present. This is Air, the sharp Intellect, and it is to show me the Present coming in to the Future. This is Earth, the solid Wealth, and it is to show me the Distant Future. These are the five elements, and they are forever bound to this plane.”

THE WRAP

Wrap the five spuuns in the white cloth they are kept in, and shake them until they feel ready to be read. While doing so, chant the Invocation.

If you are reading for another, simply get them to shake the spuuns until they feel they are ready to be read.

THE READING

Uncover the spuuns, making sure they are before you. Close your eyes – this is important because the skeptics do not like a cheat. One by one, beginning with the Distant Past at your left, flip the spuuns with slight force, allowing them to fall wherever YHVH may deem it right.

Once all the spuuns are flipped, read the spuuns. Believe it or not, even with no practical guide this should still take less effort than scrying. There are several things to remember:

1. If a spuun is face up it represents an outer influence, things that exist in the material world. If a spuun lies face down it represents an inner influence, usually within the person being read.

2. If a spuun’s head lies upwards, the influence is positive. If the spuun’s head lies downwards, the influence is negative. If a spoon lies sideways, it could go either way.

3. One spuun in the middle of the other means a crossroads in the person’s life. Two spuun’s together shows the emergence of a close friend or a lover. (If one spoon is up, and one is down, this is bad). An unusual symmetry between the spoons shows a stable life, while a scattering shows a large change.

4. Use your imagination. Most magicians pride themselves on their imagination. Just go with the flow. Take your time, and try and figure out what the image means to you. Don’t worry about actual meanings – this is just a guide. The spuuns will provide the answer, don’t worry about that, you just do the reading.

5. If the spuuns burst into flame, horribly scarring your physical form and quite possibly killing you, the spuuns were not ready to answer at this time.

After a working, successful or otherwise, make sure to thank the spuuns, wash them, thank them again, wrap them, thank them again and then put them back to bed.

The Gospel of Nathaniel

2008-11-27T18:36:00.000-08:00

THE GOSPEL OF NATHANIEL
ANOTHER (YES, ANOTHER) TESTAMENT OF JESUS CHRIST

1:1: The beginning of the gospel of Reuben the Christ, who is a lower aspect of Jesus the Christ;
1:2: As had been claimed by the prophets Manousopolozekial and Kanelopozekial, and many more besides, so too did the formal come to pass within the wilderness of Hawthorne. Behold, I send my message towards thou, shall it prepare the way before Reuben the Christ.
1:3: Before, however, a party of two reached the apostle Kathleen's abode - for in these enlightened times even a woman may be an apostle, yes, it is true - and it was there that a certain holy party was gathered.
1:4: And Kathleen the Meek was there, bearing wine and gin and vodka and ouzo and rum and midori, and many more besides. She was to be baptized in a pool of liquor. And Reuben a Theist was there, bearing ill-informed arguments and shallow criticism. He was to be baptized in a pool of ignorance.
1:5: But does not Jesus the First say, "The ignorant of God, the atheist, the vermin - are not all these one and the same? Are these filthy animals not given a place in heaven?" And the answer was a strong no, but that was not to the point. For Reuben a Theist was a powerful exception.
1:6: And Jess the Tall was there, not tall in height but in mental prowess. She was not to be baptized for reasons unimportant to this holy text. And I was there, Nathaniel the Crazed, and I came bearing pants four sizes too small and enough luggage to keep every child in India occupied. I was to be baptized in a shower of flashy clothes and cheap ties. And Sheray the Nice was there, and she was nice, and her name cannot be soiled because she might read this. She was baptized with niceness.
1:7: And so people were dressed, and the men looked awkward and the women looked stunning. And let it be known that stunning is a compliment, and not meant literally; their garbs did not stun into submission. And photos, too, were taken. Soon our righteous steed was prepared. And it was time to go to the formal within our strange land-leviathan of yellow and white steel.

2:1: And so we entered in the formal, in the name of God and of Northcote, and I was stopped at the door by the prophet Manosopolozekial. And he asked, Nathaniel! How are you? Where is your ticket, mate?
2:2: And I replied, My ticket is all dealt with, for I spoke with the dark prophet Hill, please let me inside, and where the hell is the cloak room?
2:3: And he spoke, I don't know, ask one of the staff members, they may helped you, and your girlfriend looks stunning, by the way. And I asked him whether or not that was a compliment; for I knew from personal experience that, when angry, Sheray the Nice may stun with her will alone.
2:4: And so our stuff was cloaked, and we wandered into the main forum. It was here that I encountered Jake who Hips and Hops, Suzanne of Goth, Alberto with Fine Hair, Rob of Paed a Phael, Daniel the Descriptionless, and Nick the 99.5, and Oskar who loathes Alchemists, and Carlo with the Voice, and many more besides.
2:5: And Jess of Kaalli was also there, but they shall not be described, just as one should not describe Sha'itan or Centrelink, lest one draw their infernal gaze. For I have been Told not to mention them, on penalty of death for crimes blasphemous and heretical, and shrugging I must concede.
2:6: And so it was that many friends were greeted, and some not-so friends, and soon the entree was served. There was a choice of warm chicken salad or the most obscure of Italian dishes. And I was given the Italian dish, and Sheray the salad. And she was not pleased.
2:7: And so we swapped. And I was given the salad. And looking upon the salad, I was not pleased. But it did not matter. The Divine came upon me, and I was seized in mocking rapture. For the salad consisted of two strips of chicken and three little salad leaves dripped in a little sauce. And it was pathetic, but I ate it anyway, laughing.
2:8: And so Kathleen the Meek did not want her strange Italian dish, and I could not blame her, for I took her dish and ate it myself.

3:1: And so the lights went out, as if snuffed by a heavenly breeze, and there was much speculation. For it was time to dance. And I could not dance, and still cannot, but I was lucky; for Reuben a Theist and Oskar who Loathes Alchemists could not dance either. They were worse even than me.
3:2: But it does not matter - with dancing that bad, there is no distinction, only 'shit'. Reuben and Oskar and I were the same. For did Jesus not say, "Guys, girls like men who can dance!"
3:3: We danced, and there were no notable events until the next meal, which was slightly more satisfying. And it was chicken and vegetables or beef and vegetables - that was all - if that was not pleasing they also served an interesting rice dish. If that, too, was not pleasing, the punishment was death.
3:4: Our table, besides consisting of the aforementioned party, had several other guests. Meagan the Sweet sat to my left, and beyond her Bronwyn of Pen Dulam. And I shall speak no more of Bronwyn; that, too, may get me in trouble.
3:5: And beyond Bronwyn there was Callum the Gunslinger, and beyond him Tom the Sax and Charlotte the Vocals.
3:6: And so I was presented with an opportunity to show my unique talents. For Charlotte the Vocals was fascinated in my ability over in the field of occultism, blasphemous as it is against the Lord.
3:7: Let it be known that by that point, I was not a servant of God nor of Reuben the Christ. I was a sinner and I can only hope to repent my crimes, consisting of; sexual acts before marriage, heretical thought, witchcraft, perverting the law, et cetera. Black magic was my greatest sin and my greatest pleasure, and the arts of divination and demonology were known well to me.
3:8: Reuben the Christ had told me the error of my ways before, but I did not listen to him; I needed proof that his way was right. It had to be shown to me, for I was not a faithful man.
3:9: Using simple table spoons, I divined the present and future problems of young Charlotte the Vocals with alarming success. Such is the deadly allure of Shai'tan.

4:1: And then it was revealed that Reuben a Theist was Jewish; for he told us this himself. He said, I am a child of Israel! I am one of God's children! I am his sacred messenger, his second child!
4:2: But it is not God as you know it. God, for me, is in mathematics and in physics - in reason and in logic. That is the truest form of Jehovah. Jesus was a powerful al-chemist - his power was in science!
4:3: Hah! snorted Oskar who Loathes Alchemists.
4:4: And Reuben continued, For what you are doing, Nathaniel, is a sin against the Lord. For he rejects all forms of pseudo-science, and that includes witchcraft and socialism. His way is in logic. In reason.
4:5: What do you know of reason? My grandfather wrote a book! asked Oskar, and he was ignored.
4:6: And I did not believe Reuben. And I did mock him, the messiah, the Christ. I mocked and I laughed. And he continued to argue his point. For he said that I should consult his holy book of the law for guidance, and I did not believe him.
4:7: And we all laughed at him, because that is how you treat the clinically insane.

5:1: And Reuben said, Well fuck you all, you are not logical creatures.
5:2: And so he waved his hand and my coca-colour turned into wine, reverting back to it's original state as it hit my mouth. And I was amazed.
5:3: And so Reuben told us there would be a desert, claiming that God had told him thus, and I did not believe him for he held not instruments of divination. Lo! There was desert! Chocolate cake or cheesecake, just as Reuben had predicted!
5:4: And Reuben looked upon Jess the Tall, and he saw one of his own; and so he claimed her, calling her Jewish. For it was not obvious in the slightest. And she said, Yes! Yes! I am a Jew! And I was amazed.
5:5: And I suffered from a minor form of blindness - needing seeing-glasses to function - and he placed his hand on my shoulder and I could see once more.
5:6: And Reuben smiled, and the miracles continued. Finally, the roof was torn asunder, and angels of reason and light descended upon us, blowing their trumpets with much vigour. It was a holy sight. As they blew, the angels spoke.
5:7: Children! they cried, Reuben the Christ has called us! For he is the messiah, nothing more, nothing less! He is the son of God! Listen to him!
5:8: And the angels disappeared, and I was still amazed, but remained unconvinced.
5:9: And then Reuben argued with me. The problems with public transport, why the Greens should win parliament, homosexual rights, the merits of a Theism. And all were discussed.
5:10: And Reuben's arguments, which were usually a little lopsided, made perfect sense. For they agreed completely with me. And I was amazed, for he was not very good at the argument thing. Truly it was a time of miracles!

6:1: And the formal was nice, if over-rated and over-priced, but a good time was had.
6:2: Thus ends the first gospel of Nathaniel.

Netsigil for Twist

2008-11-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

AIN SOPH

SHAI MAK KAY

DESCENDING IN THE NAME OF: CHESED, ELOHIM, YHVH, ALDABOATH, TETRAGRAMMATON, ZEUS, AI, TZADKIEL, GEDULAH AND THE CHASHMALIM WHO ARE LEGION AMONGST LEGIONS, BRILLIANCE AGAINST THE BRILLIANT SUN, INTHENAME, IN THE NAME, I N T H E N A M E

IN THE NAME OF GUANSHI'YIN

C H A E S E D
C H E S E D
C E S E D
C E S D
C S D
C D
C

T
T W S T
W S T
S T
T

M R C Y
L K A
F A E
S H Y I H
L O I S
H Y I I N
C

A S I Y A H
A S I Y H
A S Y H
A S Y
S Y
S

S B
G U U N
U U
N N

C H A R L I E T W I S T
C H A R L I T W I S T
C A R L I T W I S T
C R L I T W I S T
C R L I T W S T
C L I T S T
C I T T
C T T
C. T.

ASCENDING IN THE NAME OF: SHEA, LOUISE, MCKAY, CHARLIE, TWIST, AUGOEIDES AND THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL, HER, I, ME, INTHENAME, IN THE NAME, I N T H E N A M E ...

IN THE NAME OF SUCCESS

EN EF RUB INN SAHN

THE SELF

FUCK MAGIC

2008-11-26T06:42:00.000-08:00

Kind of.

Getting pretty good offers to edit a collection of essays regarding the practice of magic, alchemy, Qabala, etc. The catch is I have to find the essays myself, edit them myself, do the introduction myself, et cetera...

This is a test, in other words. So - if you think you know enough about writing/theology/science/philosophy to argue either for or against the practice and use of magic, then please send something my way. I'm already looking for other people to submit to the blog, because I am both lazy/busy and eager for fresh ideas, and a part of being published in FUCK MAGIC is that it will first have to be published online.

That means you lose First Publishing rights, which is important if you want to publish the article elsewhere. The internet is generally just as valid a medium for publishing as anywhere else, so there's the catch. If you want to submit something but you don't want it in the blog, that may be cool, if it's very good - part of judging how well an essay goes is it's reaction.

If you don't want it in the book but you just want it on the blog, send it anyway, that's better than fine. I'm looking for things more specific and interesting than 'Magic doesn't work because..'. Of course, if you argue well and I think the article warrants publication, then it may just pass, but I'd like a wider range; I know a friend is thinking of breaking down and heavily criticising the Alchemists and belief in alchemy. That's great.

I'm looking for articles both for an against magic. It can be for/against a certain tradition of magic, or in general. Essays can be as long as you want, but 5-6000 is a good start. Shorter is great, longer is only good if it's interesting.

I think that's it. Oh, and the title is FUCK MAGIC: Melbournostika Reports, though I don't really like the subtitle and so I'm trying to convince the powers to be to drop it. FUCK MAGIC has a very Warren Ellis feel to it, which is good.

Anyway, send everything to natfrobinson@gmail.com.

Cheers
N.F. Robinson

Quote of the Day

2008-11-24T05:17:00.000-08:00

"Nat, if shit like that exists and this shit works, then you are the better man. Well, it's true. If such horrors exist, and you have the tools to stop them, you are awesome."

- Anthony Moss on scanning through my books on black magic and the Qabala, kind of missing the point but I love the quote anyway

More on OZ

2008-11-24T00:36:00.000-08:00

(Interestingly, I found this on LIMINAL NATION, quite possibly the best online occult community I have ever seen. Worth saying thanks to Twist again, simply because she introduced me to the place. The actual thread, which didn't go very far, is here, but I think the most interesting aspects are the alchemical/elemental correspondences, the overlying themes, and the fact that Baum was interested - and even wrote a little bit on - the occult. These are things I've overlooked. As of now, I'm re-reading The Wizard of Oz, and I've just gone and bought a handful of the Baum sequals. This stuff is gold.

May interact with OZ again tomorrow or sometime this week, but I need to run myself at least fourty eight hours without sleep or food before I can get myself really in the mood. What I'm asking now, is - has anyone else read any of the original, canonical Oz books (i.e., not Wicked)? Does anyone have an thoughts? Does anyone have any suggestions for what I should talk to OZ about, or ask? At the moment I'm working on creating an evocatory system based on the Goetia for summoning the Great Wizard.

Enjoy.)

Everybody thinks they know The Wizard of Oz. It's one of the most beloved musicals of all time, and Judy Garland made herself an icon singing "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow" and clicking her ruby slippers together. The thing is, none of that's in the book.

Published in 1900, the book was one of the most popular things ever written in America, spawning 13 sequels written by Baum, and a total of 40 books regarded as canon (Baum died after his 14th Oz book). The Oz stories are profoundly strange, with certain themes repeated over and over - primarily inanimate things coming to life (from scarecrows and saw-horses to little china people and a variety of mechanical men), frauds that are secretly true (there's actually a creature called a Hum-Bug in the later books) and people questing after things they've got all along.

Especially in the first book, everything has a certain air of significance. It all feels like symbols or allegories for something else, something that children wouldn't necessarily get. That first book has been famously analyzed as a political allegory for the Populist movement, including the move away from the gold standard (the yellow brick road is traversed using silver shoes), the financial empowerment of agricultural concerns (the Scarecrow is made King of Emerald City) and a few other things. Artist W.W. Denslow was a close collaborator with Baum and a political cartoonist, so this reading isn't entirely unreasonable and is remarkably consistent.

But there are other things that make tiny bells ring.

For example, the Scarecrow makes repeated reference to his vulnerability to fire, while the Tin Woodman keeps running into trouble with water - and they're each obsessed with obtaining intellectual power (brains!) or emotional capability (heart!). In a way, they're opposites - the Scarecrow spontaneously came to life as he was assembled by a farmer, while the Tin Woodman used to be a regular flesh and blood man, but kept losing body parts while working too hard to please a fickle lover. There seems to be some kind of moral there that's completely absent from the movie. More elemental symbolism: Dorothy descends from the air, the Lion emerges out of the shadows of a dark forest (and his first adventure involves climbing up from a deep abyss).

In the book, Oz is divided into four color-coded sections, with Dorothy traveling from the East to the Center, then into the West and back. The path in and out of Oz is traveled by rising through the air, not by walking in any particular direction. A map of the country looks something like a medicine wheel.

The famous scene in the poppy fields also plays out completely differently in the text than the film, with Dorothy and the Lion succumbing to the toxic flowers, leaving the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow to save the day. They manage to carry Dorothy out, but the Lion is rescued by a vast nation of mice (he later comes to rule a beast-filled forest to the south). There's no influence from witches wicked or good, only negotiations with the environment using whatever influences aren't neutralized by things as they are.

When the party reach Emerald City, each sees the Wizard differently - and the Wizard seems to have gotten these manifestations mixed up for each character: (from wikipedia) To Dorothy, the Wizard is a giant head; the Scarecrow sees a beautiful woman; the Tin Woodman sees a ravenous beast; the Cowardly Lion sees a ball of fire. Each member would be terrified by (or desirous of) one of the other apparitions.

The party's network of desire (I want to be brave!) and antipathy (Don't want to be gentle!) has some people seeing the Asian Five Element system, but I'm not so sure - I think it's all based around alchemical connections between the four elements. They seek out each other, transform each other, purify each other.

Has anyone else with more knowledge than me spent any time in Oz? Could Baum have been using any of this symbolism consciously? And are there other levels I'm missing?

Magical Activism

2008-11-20T23:44:00.000-08:00

MAGICAL ACTIVISM

Recently, I stumbled upon this idea, and it struck me with an incessant curiosity that I still cannot fully get satiate. The basic idea of magical activism is exactly what the name implies; the use of magic to make your activism more effective.

Even though I myself am a pretty piss-poor activist - and I'm sure some who know me would agree - I do sympathise quite strongly with the plight of the activist, and I consider it an inherently magical act in itself.

Activism serves two important roles that are important to the art of magic. Firstly, you're cutting yourself off from the mainstream, an core part of magic in general and especially in Chaos Magic; you're saying a huge fuck you to the corporations, fuck you to general consensus, fuck you to capitalism, fuck you to the law, because what you're doing is right and no one can tell you otherwise.

This is exactly what magic, in all of it's forms, is about. The ancient Elysian mystics said, "Fuck you, Greek city-states, religion is higher than politics." The early alchemists said, "Fuck you, conventional if crude science, we think there's something in this whole chemistry thing." The renaissance magicians said, "Fuck you, Catholicism, and fuck you, Protestantism. We've got our own Christianity." It's all about fucking the system, replacing it with your own, and then owning it. That sacred action of refusing to comply with bullshit anti-environmental laws and the like is just as good as anything else.

(I've said fuck too much already in this article, damn it...)

Secondly, activism unites members of it's 'circle' with common ideologies and goals. The importance of groups cannot be exaggerated, I believe, and this is coming from one who prefers solo work. That sense of community, of purpose, of belonging... it is a powerful and deeply profound thing, and I doubt that many bonds are stronger than the bonds of people doing what they think is right to change the world.

Because that's what magic is, isn't it? To actively attempt to create change by the fusion of will and action... whether it's changing reality, society, or politics, it's all basically the same. Activism is, in many cases, even more powerful than occultism. I would argue that protesting against the oppressive nature of our capitalistic governments AND the physical goons that manifest because of that is far harder to deal with than the Goetiac BAEL, First King of the East and Commander of Sixty Six Legions of invisible spirits who Like To Devour The Souls of Men. BAEL, for example, does not carry a gun.

Now, magical activism isn't all that common. As far as I can tell, the term was invented by Starhawk (the lovely lady above), who is a Reclaimist witch (Reclaimism being a form of Neo-paganism that she herself founded) and teacher of non-violent opposition. She seems to be the only one who uses the term, though I am surprised that only a few Earth pagans/wiccans - besides the Reclaimists, who push environmental activism - actually give a shit about their 'Sacred Mother Earth'. For a spiritual belief system that places huge emphasis on reconnecting with nature, very few are actually willing to put their fists where their words are and actually fight for what they believe. It's good to see someone recognised this problem, well, thirty years ago and has dedicated her life to fixing it.

Anyway. I was lucky enough to find one of Starhawk's magical activist training guides online, and found it to be a very interesting read. Check it out. There's some great ideas there. Grounding, working with elementals, energy spiralling, banishing... it's all pretty serious stuff, and all of it is solid magical theory. It should all work, and I love how it fuses modern magical practices with a strong social and environmental ethic.

What I love is how outdated this "Magic only affects the ethereal and the invisible nature of the universe" paradigm is becoming. I mean, it has served us well for thousands of years, since the first shamans screamed at the gods. Now we're realising magic is more than that; magic is the manipulation of thought with the understanding that thought governs reality. Magic encompasses belief, religion, quantum physics, mathematics, culture, mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, symbology, semiotics, and much more.

This is partly due to the highly influential writings of Robert Anton Wilson, author of Prometheus Rising (a book which is legally available for free here and that everyone should read before they die). He is not even a practicing magician, but instead a 'highly open-minded skeptic' who doubts everything and is ready to accept anything as the highest truth. He coined the term 'ontological terrorism', a vicious attack against people's conventional belief systems - not criticising them but simply opening new avenues so that the current systems cannot function - and has made a living out of it. This man is one of the true grandfathers of modern magic, and I believe a heavy mixture of ontological terrorism and magical activism is the right way to go in changing the world - if you can change what they believe, then you've already won, right?

I once had a conversation with a good friend of mine, a passionate socialist, where I was discussing how some of my magical peers were into using magic to affect social change. SOCIALIST REVOLUTION is typed in capitals because of the important associated with the idea, and my use of it is in no way ironic.

"Ridiculous!" she scoffed. "If people want a SOCIALIST REVOLUTION then they must fight for it! They must struggle! They must march, and protest, and burn capitalism to the ground!"

"Surely, if it's the results that count..." I semi-countered.

"Ah, but that's just it. There will be no results - no SOCIALIST REVOLUTION - unless people stop talking about it and actually do something about it. Magic has no place in creating a SOCIALIST REVOLUTION."

Well, then I agreed with her. But after reading some of what Starhawk has written, I would beg to differ - magic has its place in every attempt at changing the world.

N.F. ROBINSON

This Cheered Me Up

2008-11-07T03:20:00.001-08:00

A Short Break

2008-11-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

(Can't be arsed posting about the occult at the moment - my sabbatical continues, and my books were all stolen - so I thought I'd give you something just a little bit different. Some short fiction I wrote in about ten minutes. I'm especially wanting criticism, as it's for a competition, so shoot any my way):-

The atmosphere within our revelry-craft was light, jazzy, and quite a bit classy. This fitted nicely with the avant-garde atmosphere of the place below and the space above; those Jovian reds spinning their webs of oxygen and methane, water and nitrogen, smoothness and tact... twirling, gaseous vortices on an alien world, whirling as I whirled, an alien figure in the spacious dance-room...

I was a newcomer, not only to the party, but to the species itself. Brought up on fiery Io, I was truly extraterrestrial, a living testament to both the failure of the International Terra- and Bio-forming Convention and the greed of man. The courteous son of a well-mannered miner, and a native of a moon whose sole interest to humanity was its rich mineral veins - I was considered to be entertainment first, guide second and individual last.

The woman who had chosen me as her plaything for the evening - no lady and barely more than a girl-child – asks me many questions, the last of them being, “So, sah, do yjoo wenna dance?”

The accent is difficult to understand, but I accept, and dance we did, flying across the floor, Jupiter dancing in line beneath us. Above us, certain death in a powerful vacuum, a sudden bout of barotraumatic stress and the cold, harsh oblivion... below us, the artificial warmth of the yellow-skewed planet, Jupiter’s sweet hypoxemic embrace. Here, of course, the shallow, underdeveloped atmosphere of the party, the powerful nothings that my madam was whispering into my ears...

I cannot not decide which one I would prefer.

Religious Experiences

2008-10-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Religious Experiences

Religious experiences are rare, these days. They have the potential to completely change an individuals life. I would argue that by definition they must change said individual's life, or at least the way they think, which may add up to the same thing.

I argue that a 'religious experience', communion with the divine, is one of the greatest altered states that exist. This is, undoubtedly, looking at it from a psychological viewpoint of magic. If contacting God, or the Gods in many cases, is even possible - and I believe that it is - than, even if we ignore the world-shattering communion with the divine, a powerful psychological process occurs.

Magic, in many ways, is the self-inducement of this religious state. The direct re-programming of the way we think and feel is just one aspect of magic - some would say the only aspect, but I disagree - and it is undoubtedly one of the most important. Gnosis, loosely translated, means 'knowledge of God'.

The psychologist William James described four individual types of religious experience in his works; transient, the temporary experience, ineffable, which cannot be adequetly put into words, noetic, in which knowledge is attained, and passive, which occur seemingly at random.

These seem to be the most useful definitions for our purposes. They account for the experience of gnosis (transient and ineffable), prophetic visions (passive and noetic), workings with spirits (transient and noetic), etc.

There is a certain degree of science in this. Neurotheology and transpersonal psychology are two fields of science that deal directly with the religious states, and some genetecists believe the protein VMAT2 - which is heritarily linked to genes - exists to induce these states. Thus, some are more doomed to experience these states and become wandering mystics than others.

In the fields of Psychology, both Freud and Jung - Jung especially - stated that the mystical state both exists and can, via certain means, be induced. (Carl Jung also had strong beliefs in astrology, alchemy, oneiromancy and synchronicity; he firmly believed that these, too, existed. He may be considered biased.)

Carl Jung believed quite the opposite of the theories heard today. Through the abuse of certain narcotics - alcohol, marijuana, opium, LSD - and then the sudden withdrawal, this experience may be obtained. As the body, mind and soul experience a state of agony, true perception is achieved. This is a theory taken from the ancient Islamic alchemists, who experienced even more powerful visions once they stopped smoking hashish, and Carl Jung admits that he was inspired by the alchemical texts.

The novelist Phillip K. Dick strongly believed this theory. After being addicted to a combination of heroin, alcohol, powerful amphetamines and marijuana for most of his life, the sudden severence of his association with the drugs almost killed him. During the most painful experiences of his withdrawal, however, he experienced the series of cutting visions that he would name the "2-3-74 Event" (named after the date he first experiened it). This led to him writing his own holy book, Exegesis. He also experienced several paranormal events (besides the visions), including past-life regressions and xenoglossical feats. Very shortly after, he was back on the drugs, and to his glee the visions did not stop.

The common assumption now is that the heavy intaking of hallucinogenic entheogens, or their deriviates, triggers these events. This may be true - I've never tried it. Entheogens are a long-used tool by shamans in contacting the spirit worlds - a practice common globally - and so I assume some validity on that part. (The question than becomes - is Shamanic magic real magic? Is it less/more potent than our magic? It's certainly nothing like Western ceremonial magic, and has little in common with Eastern magic... some would say that it is a precursor to both, and this certainly seems possible. There are certain similarities - unfortunately, however, I think that is a post for another time.)

Chemognosis is a practice unique to the Chaos Magic tradition that involves the use of drugs in the magical arts. I've met only one and a half people who've ever claimed to practice this (the half being someone who's been permanently institutionalized due to brain damage caused by the drugs), and success seems reasonable. It's easy to take a handful of LSD and experiencing visions, but as Peter Caroll states, "with Chemognosis it's about filtering the mystical and the arbitrary", and that seems to be completely accurate. Anyone can hallucinate; magicians know that the more powerful visions are the hardest to access. Such potent drugs are too clumsy for most magicians these days.

Chaos Magic states that all magic involves an altered conscious of one way or another; and the most powerful of those is gnosis. Gnosis can be achieved through pain, whirling, meditation, chanting, tantric sex, fasting... all of these are also methods to inducing these religious states. Many magicians assume that gnosis is the only religious state that counts; I strongly disagree.

This post has gotten long enough. What I really wanted to speak about was my own mystical experience - or, rather, my experience of Ego Death - another religious state which I've affectionately called hyper-gnosis - and the affects it had on my way of thinking, as well as it's magical applications.

Until then,
N. F. Robinson

.. Oh My God

2008-10-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

Either this guy is the messiah, or he's batshit crazy insane. Either way, when I say this on Warren Ellis' fine blog, I couldn't help but nick it.

Shut the Fuck Up, by Dr. Toussaint

2008-10-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

(Found this gem on Chaoism, by a certain Dr. Toussaint. Besides being a beautiful piece of writing - as vulgar as it is - what strikes me is the author's statement that 0.001% of magicians are actually doing magic.

This question is for the masses, though the atheists may not need to answer - do you agree with this statement? If not, why not? Can you give me a rough estimate as to how many you think are doing real magic? Can you?

By this guys reasoning, I am one of those sad nutcases baking cakes for the Gods. So is every 'magician' I know - Satanist, Wiccan, Pagan, Chaote or otherwise. I am no Supreme Magus of the First Degree, no Master Ipsissimus, though I'm working on getting there. In fact, the only person I do know who would (maybe) count is Frater Logobouros, and only because he's a Adept (Second Degree) with the Illuminates of Thanateros (or maybe the Pact, I'm told I often confuse those two). I don't even know that guy's real name.

What do you think?

I don't know if I agree with it, but it was wonderfully written, and seems to be the most concise summation of Chaos Magic around):-

Welcome to the 0.001%.
If you are actually doing real, effective Magic, that’s the percentage of the population you belong to, and even that is a generous estimate. The other 99.999% belongs to the crystal wavers, the wankers who read quarter of a book and claim to know everything, all the sad cases baking cakes for the Goddess… and everyone else who has never known the smell of real Magic.

You know what I’m talking about. The moment when something that is you but is so much more than you connects with the whole fucking universe and makes shit happen. When there’s a smell of burning metal and every cell is pulsing with the raw energy that shaped the stars. If you don’t know that, fuck off. Now. Seriously. Fuck off and don’t come back until you do know, or I’ve got no reason to talk to you.

So, here you are. Now what are you going to do?

I’ll tell you. You are going to shut the fuck up.

Got a burning urge to let the rest of the world know what you’re on about? What for? Who are you trying to impress?

Want to look cool in a club by dropping dark hints that you’re a Chaos Mage? Fuck off, wanker. Get back to other 99.999%, because that’s where you belong.

Want to look worthy to someone who might actually be a Chaos Mage? Nobody likes a try-hard. Buy them a drink, then fuck off.

Want to put the fear into the general public? Why? They’re already more afraid than you know, and you don’t even make the list of things to be afraid of.

Fuck off. Go and swear in front of some pensioners, because it’s just the same. All you are doing is boosting your own feeble ego. If you still need to do that, fuck off and do some gaming, or get a coke habit.

There’s an old saying in Magic…

Yeah, I know. Tradition. Yawn. Ho-hum. Actually, it was a bit of a rule…

Rules? What the fuck? We’re Chaos Magicians, man! We don’t have rules!

No? It’s not all ancient bullshit. Things don’t get said for centuries unless there’s something useful in them. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: “To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent”. That’s the guts of Magic.

The first three pretty much speak for themselves. You wouldn’t have got this far if you didn’t have some clue what they mean. But how about the keeping silent part?

If you go around making a big noise about something 99.999% of the world doesn’t understand, you are asking for a world of hurt. Simple as that. You know how humans get. They fear what they don’t understand, blah blah blah… that’s why we have police and anti-terrorist legislation and fundamentalist religion.

If you still have something to prove, you’re in the wrong game. It’s your ego, that’s all. Oh, and guess what? Nobody gives a fuck about that.

You’re in the top 0.001%. That ought to be enough. So take the win… and shut the fuck up.

Nepalese Goddess.. or child abuse?

2008-10-25T05:36:00.000-07:00

You be the judge.

(From Yahoo!News):-

KATMANDU, Nepal – Hindu and Buddhist priests chanted sacred hymns and cascaded flowers and grains of rice over a 3-year-old girl who was appointed a living goddess in Nepal on Tuesday.

Wrapped in red silk and adorned with red flowers in her hair, Matani Shakya received approval from the priests and President Ram Baran Yadav in a centuries-old tradition with deep ties to Nepal's monarchy, which was abolished in May.

The new "kumari" or living goddess, was carried from her parents' home to an ancient palatial temple in the heart of the Nepali capital, Katmandu, where she will live until she reaches puberty and loses her divine status.

She will be worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists as an incarnation of the powerful Hindu deity Taleju.

A panel of judges conducted a series of ancient ceremonies to select the goddess from several 2- to 4-year-old girls who are all members of the impoverished Shakya goldsmith caste.

The judges read the candidates' horoscopes and check each one for physical imperfections. The living goddess must have perfect hair, eyes, teeth and skin with no scars, and should not be afraid of the dark.

As a final test, the living goddess must spend a night alone in a room among the heads of ritually slaughtered goats and buffaloes without showing fear.

Having passed all the tests, the child will stay in almost complete isolation at the temple, and will be allowed to return to her family only at the onset of menstruation when a new goddess will be named to replace her.

"I feel a bit sad, but since my child has become a living goddess I feel proud," said her father Pratap Man Shakya.

During her time as a goddess, she will always wear red, pin up her hair in topknots, and have a "third eye" painted on her forehead.

Devotees touch the girls' feet with their foreheads, the highest sign of respect among Hindus in Nepal. During religious festivals the goddesses are wheeled around on a chariot pulled by devotees.

Critics say the tradition violates both international and Nepalese laws on child rights. The girls often struggle to readjust to normal lives after they return home.

Nepalese folklore holds that men who marry a former kumari will die young, and so many girls remain unmarried and face a life of hardship.

What do you think? I'm really quite torn on this. Part of me says, "Well.. it's a cultural difference.." but the other part yells, "It's child abuse, you fool!" I'm really quite lost.

N.F. Robinson

Fucking Qabala..

2008-10-24T05:01:00.000-07:00

FUCKING QABALA..

Q: What's the difference between a Roman Catholic and a Chaos Magician?
A: When a Chaos Magician masturbates, other people go blind.

Firstly, sorry for the twenty days without a single post. Real life caught up with me, and then our internet got disconnected. Not the greatest month.

On the good side of things, though, my dabbling in the occult has gotten pretty interesting. Through a friend, I met a few members of the Builders of the Adytum mystery school, which I'd heard of but never really interacted with. After my troubles with the Melbourne Temple of Sath Xepher - a tiny (less than a dozen members, based only in Melbourne) Chaos Magic-influenced schism from the Temple of Set, which is in turn an occult schism from the atheistic Church of Satan - I was leery of working with members of another occult order.

I met Alexandra and Matthew with my friend for coffee and a quick browse of the Theosophical Bookshop (which is seriously like Borders but for magicians). We discussed the Qabala, Aleister Crowley, the
Death of the Chaos Magic movement. They expressed particular interest with my advances in Personomancy, which my friend had raved to them about, but I told them it wasn't really going very far. I'd tried some experiments, I said, but the results were either not very good or way too good for me to ever really use in good conscious. It smacked of black magic, I told them, and I didn't want to even think about controlling another's actions.

They were still interested, and I mentioned that I'd tried a fullblown Goetia-style evocation of a famous actor, with pretty good results. Alexandra asked me if the whole thing was Goetia-based. I told her that it basically was entirely Goetia-based, with a little bit of freeform magic thrown in.

Of course, the conversation veered back towards the Qabala. The stuff is like crack-cocaine for mystics, I swear. We kept talking and talking, and I was told about how the Kundilini Chakras and the Qabalistic Sephirot are very similar, in regards to sex magic; this seemed pretty wild for the two Qabalists, but it was fascinating nevertheless.

We decided to do a ritual together. They were interested in Chaos Magic - despite Matthew telling me that the movement died out with the eighties, to which I told him that Chaos Magic wasn't a movemenent, it was a category of movements, or failing that, a state of mind - and I have always been interested in polishing up my hardcore ceremonial magic.

(Oops! Did I write that? Did I dare write that? Magic, REAL MAGIC - Golden Dawn/Qabala magic - spelt without the K? What a fool I am! Everyone knows that while Chaos Magic isn't a real magical pursuit, so it's okay for a Chaos Magician to spell it however the hell he likes, when we're talking about the other magic it has to be spelt 'magick'... Christ, in retrospect, we weren't getting off to a good start, but I ignored Matthew's lecture on why I should spell magic properly, and I ignored his insistence that I wasn't a real magician until I learned that the correct spelling for magic was M A G I C K - but, me being a friendly guy, I let them get away with it.

Wow, they're going to be pissed off when they read this and find how I spell Qabala... truth be told, I just like the simple spelling and the Q, but it'll drive them mental. I guess it's supposed to be Kaballah or something, but I'm pretty sure Hebrew's impossible to translate perfectly to English anyway.

Wow.. hard to believe I'm still bitter, even now. The guy practically called me a tourist occultist just a few moments after he praised Melbournostika..)

Anyway. We managed a ritual, kind of. I mean, they wanted to see a Pagan invocation, and we decided that I'd call up my deity, Lonansi - half Loki, half Anansi, all trickster-deity - and work with him to grant us good financial luck for the future. This was all fine and good, until my friend mentioned exactly what Lonansi was; a made-up god.

The conversation went something like this:

ALEXANDRA: Yeah.. I mean.. I was under the impression that Chaos Magick was about spontaneous magic, like faith healing, and tapping into the chaos of the whole world to do that..
ME: Not quite. Whatever works, we say, works. I wasn't happy with just one trickster god, and I didn't really want to throw myself towards two, so I created another one. Anansi's a favourite, and I like the mythology associated with Loki, so...
FRIEND: Yes, it actually works. Well, too - it's pretty cool.
ALEXANDRA: Ah, so not a joke.
ME: .. no.
ALEXANDRA: Ah. Oh. I get it, now. Ah. Aren't we in for a treat.

Yes, we were getting off to a great start. They then decided that no magic was good magic unless it had some Qabalistic signifigance, and so they informed me that we'd have to do some Tree of Life stuff with it. I said that was fine - I really wasn't fussed, I was comfortable with the Tree of Life, and I thought I could add in the symbolism of the African Tree-spirits and the Slavic Yggdrasil. It was all swell.

We got to my friend's place, and I did a Tarot reading to see how the ritual would go. The cards were maddeningly vague. Matthew told me we'd be starting with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, a old-school banishing which I've never really liked or practiced. That had great results.

ME, in unision with the others: Ateh... Malkuth... Veh Gevurah...
(I notice Alexandra and Matthew looking at me) ... Veh Gedulah... Leh Olahm... Amen...
ALEXANDRA: Okay... let's try that again.
FRIEND: What? What, right now? We still have to invoke the Archangels... (which was true, we were only about half way through the banishing..)
ALEXANDRA: Look, Nat, you're a really nice guy..
ME: Uh.
MATTHEW: You haven't been doing this long, have you?
ME: Sorry?
MATTHEW: Occultism, I mean.
ME: Um. Not too long.. a few years.
ALEXANDRA: Wow.
FRIEND: I think he knows that. Let's just continue.
ME, in unison with the others, a little nervous around these nutcase Qabalists: Yahd... Hey... Vau... Hay...
MATTHEW: No offense, Nat, but these are the NAMES OF GOD.
FRIEND: What? He knows that. It's pretty obvious.
MATTHEW: Yes, but he's pronouncing them wrong.
ME: I'm pronouncing the UNPRONOUNCABLE NAMES OF GOD wrongly?
ALEXANDRA: Not that, but you have to vibrate the names.
(Vibrating is a magical vocal technique. It allows words to be powerfully spoken in harmony with the universe, so that they vibrate at the same frequency and thus have a powerful link. A standard technique, pretty easy to learn, though almost impossible to describe. )
ME: I was vibrating the names.
MATTHEW: No, you weren't. Not properly.
ME: What the hell, 'not properly'? I was vibrating fine! I felt everything quake! I felt it!
MATTHEW: Yeah, but.. I didn't.
ME: ... let's just continue.

We got to invoking the Archangels, after I insisted we start again - a broken ritual isn't very good - and I actually FORGOT the first one. Total mental blank. The stress of dealing with these people.. After that, I decided to give up and go home. Fuck that shit.

--

Anyway, after that I bought Modern Magick, by Donald Michael Kraig. It's basically eleven lessons in ceremonial magic and the Qabala, and I figure in a few months I'll go and JOIN the Builders of Adytum, and ruin the fucks from the inside. Most of the stuff I already know, but it's a great book, and I can't recommend it highly enough. The excercises are helping my visualization techniques, too, always one of my weaker areas.

Anyway. Just a funny - I guess - little story.

See you later,
N.F. Robinson

Why I The Occult Community 1#

2008-10-03T01:45:00.000-07:00

(Selections from the post, "Looking for a Girlfriend", at the Occult Forums):-

master blackwood began: My name is Grand Master Blackwood.

I am the Leader of the Temples of Satan.

I own business and my own house. Very successful.

I am big boned and slightly over wate; but not fat.

I am gifted with the power to see great visions and speak to Satan regularly.

I have many a magickal powers.

I am looking for a girlfrend please write me at my yahoo address on my profile.

I am not gay, but from time to time, I enjoy the comapany of men. But just to talk in private. If you are a man and would like to talk in private with me please also write me.

Thank you.

Blackwood

This is great, and it only gets better. Spelling mistakes aside, let's continue.

astralmagickcraft replied: "I have many a magickal powers." And no a grammer skills?

to which blackwood, scary satanist that he is, said:
* Grammar is spelled with an "-AR" my dear.
How does that foot taste in your mouth?

Grand Magister Blackwood
Temples of Satan

That started a huge amount of fighting and bickering between a large amount of people, including individuals that had never heard of Blackwood, or his 'Temples of Satan', and found it difficult to believe that he was Satan's best friend.

To begin with, however, the replies were simply sarcastic:

rend sever, who as far as I can tell is a real Satanist, said: I'm afraid I must tell you, there are no girls on the internet. It's a myth, kind of like the Republican heart or the Democrat spine.

frankyboy said:
why don't you ask Satan since you speak with him regularly to give you one of his daughters?

Well, that started it. The idea that the chosen High Priest of Satan ('Chosen by whom?' 'By Satan, of course!') would need to post on an online occult forums, with no matchmaking services at all, is ridiculous. But we'll continue.

venefica offered:

You can join my harem. I am also looking for more cute occultists to add to my ever growing collection of magickal hunks.

to which blackwood replied: I have morels. I am a Conservative Republican. I must turn your request for me to join your herem. My heart shall belong only to one woman. Sad but true, only one lucky girl in this world will have my body. Maybe you can hook me up with one, whose is able to see the beauty inside me?
I have a car. Its a Cadillac. I shop at Big and Tall. I am 6 feet and 2 inches. I love pumpkin pie.

this was funny, though vindictus:

Mwahaha, dont you realize? He's a republican satanist because he preaches fundamentalist SATANIST values! [as opposed to fundamentalist christian ones]

Some people got nasty really quickly.

someone said: WTF is this shit?

to which LoD replied: Ave. It is a, albeit correct or incorrect, reaction to the fact that an obvious spammer and troll is left to do his business on this forum without intervention. It is a reaction to someone who carries on proclaiming his vision and insulting those who do not adhere to following him as master in not too uncertain terms. It is... in fact... frustration based upon the fact that one single idiot can come here and derail any intelligent communication on certain forums by posting totally ludicrous and inane comments...

There, got that off my chest. And I apologize if my reactions to this person in question may have irritated others. If that may be the fact, I shall just need to keep quiet and watch such persons freely fucking up the forum... so be it.

blackwood: * the word is "insane" you left out the S. Most of the people in the other forums adore me quite frankly? You fake Satanists must have a stick stuck up your asses or something? Infact; people thank me for talking to them just two forums up, when I taught a seeker how to talk with spirits like me. Just because you silly pseusos don't like me, doesn't mean the rest of the forum doesn't either. Twats.

yoshiaki corrected him: in·ane /ɪˈneɪn/ [i-neyn]
–adjective
1. lacking sense, significance, or ideas; silly: inane questions.
2. empty; void.
–noun
3. something that is empty or void, esp. the void of infinite space.

blackwood:
well thank you miss webster dictionary. Anyone can wiki that. Do oyu see what control I have over you to make you serve me and look definitions up for me? That is why their is a Grand in front of Magister in my name Blackwood. Just don't fight it, I'm irrisitible.

Grand Magister Blackwood

----

This shit went on four nine pages, and shows no signs of slowing down. For whatever reason, the moderators don't seem to want to lock the thing, but as I was reading this I was reminded of why I'm not part of any real online occult community. A quarter of posters can't spell, a quarter have never tried a spell in their life, a quarter believe themselves to be the messiah in one form or another.. and that leaves the normal(ish), honest(ish) rest of us.

If you want a good laugh, check the thread out (click the big letters at the top saying 'Looking for a Girlfriend'), or maybe the entire forum. There are a lot of topics like this. The problem with magic is that we all think we're right, and we all believe everyone else to be wrong.

For the record, two occult forums that I am impressed with are Barbelith Underground and Occult Corpus, though they're both a little slow.

Ahahahah..
N.F. Robinson

Christ the Magician?

2008-10-02T06:10:00.000-07:00

CHRIST THE MAGICIAN?

(Snatched from msnbc.com, specifically at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26972493/):-

A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found a bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could be the world's first known reference to Christ.

If the word "Christ" refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world.

The full engraving on the bowl reads, "DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS," which has been interpreted by the excavation team to mean either, "by Christ the magician" or, "the magician by Christ."

---

Having read the full article, my thoughts are pretty torn on this. Firstly, if the information in this article is accurate, then this is an amazing find for archaeology. While there are many more religions out there besides Christianity/Judaism/Islam, there can be no denying the powerful effect these faiths have had on civilisation as a whole.

Jesus Christ is an enigmatic, powerful figure in many belief systems, and to have him referenced as early as the first century AD is pretty damn cool.

But, from what I gather, the vase doesn't exactly claim that it is Jesus Christ. Etymology is a magician's best friend; the word 'Christ' comes from the Greek 'Khristos', which translates to the 'Anointed'. It is perfectly possible that the corruption of the word was referring to another individual, not the Jesus himself. It was a reasonably common term for any Greek/Alexandrian prophet or soothsayer to use when referencing themselves.

There are many other interpretations of the words - the most obvious being that Jesus Christ himself is the magician in question. As the article explains, Christ's miracles would have been common knowledge at that time in Alexandria (where the cup was found). The cup seems to be the same type used in Egyptian shamanistic rituals; a form of divination. While it could be that the cup refers to Christ as a magician, possibly even invoking his name as a form of protection, I personally believe it to more likely that the thing refers to whatever magician used the cup as a form of self-empowerment.

There's always the logical possibility presented in the article that it was referring to the Greek 'Chrestos', and not Christ. It seems like a little bit of an anti-climax, but it's possible.

Perhaps we'll never know what the cup means, but it's still a great find, and a fascinating article.

Ghost Busting

2008-09-19T23:58:00.000-07:00

GHOST BUSTING

If you haven't yet seen the amazingly funny Ghostbusters, go watch it now. Yes - now. Why are you still here? Go. We'll wait.

Welcome back. Now you may have a vague idea of what we're going to be talking about. Now, yes, I know it was a great film - funny, all of that - but now I want you to shut up and listen. I'm going to be teaching something I'm not particularly good at.

Perhaps the most well-known paranormal figure is the television psychic, but the ghost hunter isn't very far behind. Unlike television psychics, Satanists, magicians, or scientologists, ghost hunters don't seem to be under the same sort of scrutiny. The Church doesn't actively hate them, and most atheists tend to aim for easier targets. They're still generally considered frauds by the Australian Skeptic Organization, of course - who isn't? - but the ASO generally consider anything or anyone that won't have sexual intercourse with them while dressed in a skimpy little lab coat and screaming 'WHO IS THE SCIENCE BITCH WHO IS THE SCIENCE BITCH' to be a fraud.

Wow, that sounded bitter, didn't it?

Anyway, the fact is they're harder to target than television psychics or Satanists or magicians. Unlike television psychics or magicians, most don't claim to have any power over the supernatural. Unlike scientologists or satanists or magicians, they generally don't believe in a spastic worldview that involves sacrifing goats and worshipping household objects (magic!), sacrificing goats (satanism!) or calling down extraterrestrial household objects from the planet Kolob who demand sacrificial goats (scientology!). Many believe in the supernatural - ghosts, spirits, all of that - but then again, so do most people today.

They're less crazy, in other words. Or at least as less crazy as normal society judges them.

Ghost hunting is just as valid a form of occultism as magic or psychic development. That is, you can make just as much money from ghost hunting then from Tarot readings, blessings, seances or faith healings.

Is it a fraud, though?

I don't believe so. Sighting's of ghosts and sprits wildly outnumber that of UFO's and Elvis, and I've had the privelage to go on a single ghost-hunt myself. It was an exhilerating experience. Belief in spirits and ghosts has been prelevant since the very beginning of history, and even in these ages of science and rationality the belief still holds strong.

A lot of it's superstition, but there's enough of the real stuff out there to keep any hunter on their toes. It's a lot more fun than trying to hunt vampires, and you're considerably less fucked if you actually find what you're looking for.

The general consensus is that 'ghost' activity falls into four broad categories, but this changes depending on who you ask.

1. BULLSHIT. The first category is the simplest, and that is HOAX. Whoever's claiming to experience the ghost activity is simply bullshitting, for whatever reason. There are no hard and fast rules regarding telling a HOAX from a real activity, though there are certain ways to draw suspicions. Look for the real fear in the eyes of those that claim they're being terrorized - interview each individual involved and make sure their stories are straight. Bring a skeptic and a magician and an empath along if you can (see below) and have both check things out. If you're not doing the hunt as a favour, or as business, then the only way to check is to use the special talents of your team members or just to have a look around.

2. PSYCHIC BULLSHIT. The second category is a little more difficult, and often has the signs of a real haunting - it is POLTERGEIST. The theory basically goes like this: every individual has psychic potential, and most individuals have it without even realising it. This stands to reason. I'm rather skeptical of psychic phenomena - I consider telepathy, visions, Tarot, clairvoyance, etc. to be part of the 'magic' shtick in most cases - this rings true. Chaos magicicians know firsthand that insanity can have profound effects on the 'real' world, so it's important to make sure that anyone involved in the haunting is completely sane and normal, or at least as sane as normal as they can be while haunted (by modern standards). Check into whether or not they've got a history of magic, mental illness, whatever. It'd also be good to bring a skeptic/empath along, or maybe a psychologist. Remember, if they're sick that doesn't mean they're making it up. They might be, but it may just as easily NOT be a haunting, but simply a psychic problem. In that case, you're no longer needed.

3. REAL BULLSHIT. If it's an actual haunting, then it falls under the HAUNTING category. Once again, a magician/psychic might help you here. If the magnetic readings are off the roof, and the people involved don't seem to be liars, then you're probably right to go. In that case, everything's (relatively) normal and you can continue with the experience. Always remember, however, that it could just be a really good hoax. Be careful, too, because the worse case scenario could occur.

4. REALLY REAL BULLSHIT. This is the worse case scenario - that the stuff isn't a haunting, but something WORSE. I've never heard of this happening, but everyone considers it a distinct possibility; magic gets involved. There's something in the house or area, but it isn't a ghost; it's an actual spirit. Something from folklore, maybe, or something powerful enough to be too dangerous to mess with. In this case, bail. It might be good to bless the house, then burn it down, and salt the earth beneath it, but that may not be necessary. If you feel like you can't handle the hunt, just quit while you're ahead. Magicians are usually good for this, since they're used to weird shit happening beyond their control. Alsoit may be a good idea to bring a skeptic, because if their smug grin turns into an expression of silent terror than you know something's wrong.

Hoaxes are dissapointing, but they're often a lot better than the psychic interference or the really, really bad option. A haunting's what you're aiming for, but ghost hunting's like a box of chocolates; for each good chocolate in the box, there are three or four fruit-mint or nogat or mango flavours. No one wants a dodgy chocolate, so be careful before you put it into your mouth.

Haunted

There are really three types of haunted area. They're rather simple and straight forward, and depending on what area you're investigating you may want to plan differently.

1. HISTORICAL HAUNTING. The historical haunting is just that; a spot with a history. Any place where there's been rumours, or a long history, of hauntings fall under this category. This is probably the best place to investigate hauntings; just to see what all the fuss is about. Of course, no one is going to pay you for it (you may even be trespassing), but you can investigate firsthand all the rumours concerning the place.

2. THEMATICAL HAUNTING. This is perhaps the dodgiest category - it basically involves turning up to a place that SEEMS like it might be haunted and investigating it. The advantages usually involve the area being easier to access, but the disadvantages mean there are no real facts to go on - pre-investigation is vital. Don't feel too dejected if you don't find anything.

3. BUSINESS HAUNTING. This is a haunting investigated for money, or because someone you know claims their house is haunted; you have nothing to go on but their word. This can have big advantages, because if you do find something it'll be fresh and exciting, but it can also easily be a fraud or SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY (Christ, capital letters are scary). Of course, it might be a hoax, but that doesn't make much sense if they're the ones giving you money.

Remember: investigation and preparation is the key. Before you go to attempt any ghost-hunt, make sure you're as ready as you could ever be. Investigate the area as fully as possible; the town, local myths and legends, the history of the building itself, and the history of the family or whoever's lived in the family.

Interview, interview, interview. Ask as many questions as you can think of - specifically regarding mental health and any attempts at witchcraft and the like. Get as many testimonies as you can - record their stories, figure it all out.

Figure out whether or not there is a history of crime or violence in the area you're investigating. I can't stress this enough - FIGURE OUT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Get a magician in their to use a dowsing rod, Tarot, or whatever method they choose to check the place out. Double up by getting a psychic to check the place for negative or strange forces.

You might not trust the psychic or magician - that's fine. Even if you don't believe in magic or psionic practices, get their opinions anyway, and write them down - it'll be good to check them out later, though these people will probably be part of your later team. If that's the case, it'll be doubly good to have them remember exactly what they felt.

That brings me to the next, and arguably second most-important (after research) factor; building the team.

Assembling Your Team

A good friend of mine - the guy who took me on my only succesful ghost-hunt - gave me one piece of advice regarding ghost hunting: don't go alone. Unless you can simultaneously perform the functions of geologist, magician, psychic, skeptic, priest, etc., it really isn't a good idea.

Also, if you get in trouble, there'll be no one to help you. Not just spritually; it's dark, and if you trip over and break your leg no one can help you out.

While going alone is risky, going in too big a group is just as bad. You don't want to be so large as to distract you from the actual hunt; four or five might be pushing it. It's probably best that you have at least an amiable relationship with the other team members - spend time going to the pub before, becoming friends. You don't want to be complete strangers, and you don't want to despise the people you're working with. If you truly dislike someone on the team, drop out. If you suffer from depression or a mental illness - and it could make the hunt suffer - it's probably best you're not there. Skeptics, with their absurd view that science will one day make the cosmos truly understanable (AND THEY WILL FINALLY BE FREE OF THE SHACKLES OF RELIGION!) are the only crazies you want - they're useful crazies.

There is a mistake made very commonly when creating a ghost-busting team. Typically, each group only gathers members of the same niche - magicians gather magicians to banish the evil within a house, psychics gather psychics to contact the dead en masse, skeptics gather skeptics to prove everyone wrong (ignoring evidence to the contrary), enthusiasts gather enthusiasts to prove everyone right (often ignoring evidence to the contrary), hobbyists who get other ghost-busting hobbyists and underestimate how serious it can get...

Don't get caught in that trap. Diversity is more a strength than weakness. The more viewpoints, the more differences, the better.

Here are the various types of people you'll want on your team. It's a good idea for each member to double- or triple- up on each responsibility, since one of each would be too cumbersome. These are simply aspects of a team.

Leader/Talker. The leader's job is to organize and manage the group. Ultimately, the leader should be able to react well under pressure, and be an organized individual. The leader should be the bond that keeps everyone together, should keep spirits high, and should understand everyone else's role in the group perfectly. The leader is a necessity, and should be unbiased in their views; only have a magician/psychic/priest/skeptic in that position if you think they can handle criticism and different ideas fairly.

- The Talker talks. Usually the Leader, it is the talker's job to be nice to everyone, to listen to their fears, and to generally boost morale. The talker should also be able to lie quickly an efficiently (especially if you're not meant to be in the building you're investigating), and should make sure everyone has ID on them just incase the police show up.

Technician. The technician understands how all the electrical equipment works. Usually a seperate individual from the cameraperson, the technician handles the radio, tape recorder, flashlight, EMFreader/compass, thermometer, reading devices, etc. The technician should also double as a first-aid, just in case accidents occur. It is basically the technicians job to run the tape recorder, check the EMFreader, and make sure everyone has radios/walkie talkies and fashlights. They also carry all the heavy stuff, and should also know how to work the camera (if needed, teaching the actual cameraperson), but should be someone seperate - the EMFreader and tape recorder should take all of their time. Another necessity.

Skeptic/Scientist. Some say the skeptic isn't needed in a haunting; I disagree. Someone who disbelieves in all forms of paranormal activity is incredibly handy, as long as they aren't obnoxious about it. You need someone to carefully point out that it all could just be coincedence, pareidolia, psychological affirmation or just the shadows. The skeptic also has to be a bastard, pointing out flaws or contradictions within an account or the possibility that it's all a hoax. The skeptic should also, however, be kind towards the beliefs of others; someone who always insults the practices of the psychic/magician/priest/enthusiast is NOT suitable. If they can't say anything nice, they should be silent.

- The scientist knows science, but often isn't there during the investigation itself (unless they are also the skeptic). They aren't the most vital member of a team, but sometimes it's good to have someone who can check for unique geological signs, or whatever else it is sciencey-types do.

Magician/Psychic/Hypnotist/Priest. Ideally, a team would have one of each of these, but in reality that is rarely possible. Where the hell does the normal individual find a priest, magician, psychic, and hypnotist willing to work together, let alone on a ghost hunt? Nearly impossible. Ultimately, the really useful members are a magician and a psychic.

- The magician is your versatility. Most magicians worth their salt can banish spiritual presences (important when you want to get rid of a ghost), cast divinations (important for figuring out if anything's there), enter trance states (important for contacting the dead, automatic writing, etc.), employ synchronicity to help aid the hunt, can bind spirits to their will, can enter the astral plane (seeing things that aren't so obvious and acting as a pseudo-ghost), and can often bless just as good as a priest. They also act as good mythologists (see below), and many are also 'trained' in the psychic arts.

- - Psychics (or spiritualists) are potent in themselves, and having both a psychic and a magician is highly recommended. Psychics can often 'see' or 'hear' the dead, and that can be helpful - but most importantly is the psychic's ability of empathy. Empaths can sense feelings in the room, such as anger or loneliness, and this is a very unique tool. That power to sense empathy is a powerful one, and on the one ghost hunt I went on the psychic was a lot more help than the magician. While he couldn't speak to the dead, he often felt a fluctuation of emotions in certain rooms, and we knew that was where we had to start looking.

- - - Priests can often be covered by the magician's role. The priest gives a blessing before and after an investigation, traditionally. The priest may have holy water, and spirits seem averse to sacred symbology. Demonology - a branch of sorcery occasionally practiced by more liberal Christians - is helpful for binding and banishing spirits, but I think the priest is more important for morale; a magician can do all of those things, and more. It gives people a sense of purpose, and a sense that no matter how scared they're feeling, things'll be okay.

- - - - Some ghost hunting teams use hypnotists. It's rare, but it can be helpful. Occasionally sufferers of esoterrorism - being attacked by ghosts, or something to that degree - share symptons of UFO abductees; missing time, vague memories, etc. The hypnotist may be able to uncover whatever's going on in the victim's mind. Hypnotism may also be used to enter a trance state, such as the magical technique.

Recorder. The recorder/scribe's job is to take notes, memorize everything that's going on, and sort through all the video footage and tape recordings afterwards. Their job is to make sense of all the creepy stuff that happened the night before. Getting it down isn't a fun job, but it's vital.

Historian/Mythologist. The Historian is the person who'll figure out the history of a place, askthe right questions, and do all the right research. They, along with the scientist, will be the go-to person for information. They should spend the week beforehand figuring out exactly what's been going on in the past few hundred years (or more even) around the area.
- The mythologist usually doubles as a magician, knowing the myuthology of the area (being deeply intimate with Aborigine beliefs in Australia).

Enthusiast. The enthusiast is there to, well, keep the enthusiasm flowing. They know everything that can be known about hauntings, including all of the signs and portents, and it's their desire to investigate that rejuvinates everyone else; they work as an anti-skeptic, some may say.

Cameraperson. The cameraperson both takes photographs of everything, no matter how trivial, that they find, as well as live footage. This is a very important job - the photographs show a lot of the hard evidence. It's the cameraperson's job to look through the photos after, throw out the bad ones, and search from secondary evidence.

Tools of the Trade

In this modern age, we are gifted with a wide assortment of tools to assist our hunts.

1. One of the most important pieces of equipment is the humble Electromagnetic Field Reader, or EMFreader. Basically, the reader reads the intensity of electromagnetics within an area, typically associated with a haunting. They're rather easy to use, and a compass often works just as well, though the results are harder to track.

2. Cameras are also a must. Film onto tape, and make sure you don't use a very expensive camera - there is a tendency for any sophisticated electronic device to explode around paranormal activity. A flash photography camera is also a must.

3. Watches are important, both analogue and digital, to check for 'missing time'. Flashlights are also a must, as are warm clothes.

4. Thermometers are good, because a spike in temperature (usually dropping) often signifies ghostly activity.

5. Tape recorders are extremely important. Bring several, and place them in each room running for a few hours. Review later - often you can catch ghostly whispers on the tapes.

6. Candles and salt are good for magicians, but also have another purpose; spirits don't seem to like salt, which acts as a kind of ward against them, and candles are handy for when you run out of batteries in the torches.

7. Motion detectors are also great for recording invisible movements.

8. Some believe that spirits are associated with an abundence of carbon monoxide, radiation, subtle vibrations, or negative irons; an air quality moniter, geiger counter, ion meter, or infrasound monitor might be useful.

9. Finally, in more spacious areas walkie talkies may be needed. Radios are sometimes good for getting ghost-messages through the static, but that doesn't occur very often.

Results

You'll want to go ghost hunting at night, simply because of the powerful symbolic connotations of the underworld and nighttime. Make sure all electric objects in the area, save torches and small objects, are switched off; these can mess with the electromagnetic field reader.

Go, set up as many tape recorders as you can, and take as many photos as you can. Be respectful, and don't rush it. Allow the magician/psychic to do their thing, to 'read' each room.

Take your time. Spend a few nights in the home, if you must. Ghosts, by nature, are fickle and aloof; give them the chance to realise you're no real threat.

If you need to banish a spirit, which is rare, a magician or psychic will come in handy; magician's can forcibly banish the things, while psychics often 'lead them to the other side'. Besides what you actually experience at the haunted site - and this will always vary - it is important to check the tape recordings, photographs, and footage.

Look for things like white noise - the voices of the dead, apparently - on the tape, while on camera you're looking orbs and ectoplasm, which manifest as white balls of light or strange misty objects. Both are, apparently, easily debunked in many cases, but like all things in many they cannot. I believe the first-hand experience of a ghost hunt is much better than sifting through the evidence afterwards, but some images and recordings are truly amazing.

Anyway - anyone up for a ghost hunt?

(Thanks to Rick the Vic for all his help with the ghost-info).

N.F. Robinson
----

FURTHER READING:

Ghost Stop - For buying all your paranormal needs, apparently.

Ghost Hunting - This should be every ghost-hunter's bible.

Ghost Hunting 101 - Good, practical, to the point information.

Haunted - The website of possibly the best-known hunter in Melbourne, and also the owner of the prestigious Haunted Bookshop.

The Skeptics Speak About Ghost Hunting - Hey, they're skeptics.

The Ghosthunters Toolbox - This is a good guide to equipment.

WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY

2008-09-17T05:55:00.000-07:00

From the Belfast Telegraph:-

A gang of alleged Satanist cannibals has been accused of dismembering and eating four Russian teenagers in a series of gruesome cult killings.

The remains of a 16-year-old boy and three girls aged 16 and 17 were discovered in a pit near the home of the alleged ringleader in the Yaroslavl region.

The remains of a rat tied to an upturned cross marked the spot where they had been murdered. The eight suspected killers told police that they stabbed their victims 666 times, in line with Satanic ritual, before cooking parts of their flesh to eat. Investigators found tufts of hair from the teenagers in the ashes of a fire.

Varya Kuzmina, Anya Gorokhova, Olga Pukhova and Andrei Sorokin were allegedly lured to their deaths in the woods after being plied with alcohol in a cemetery close to the home of the accused gang leader, Nikolai Ogolobyak. They were apparently singled out because they were fans of Goth music and fashion. One of the girls was said to have had a document entitled '101 rules of Satanism'.

The gang allegedly told police that their newest member, a 19-year-old university student, was coated in the blood of their victims as an initiation rite.

So, what's the secret of magic?

2008-09-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

Magic is just thinking for yourself.

What Magic Is To Me

2008-09-10T03:15:00.000-07:00

WHAT MAGIC IS TO ME

There are two components to my magical thought - the thought associated with Religion (the religious aspect of my magic) and of Practice (well, the practical side).

With Religion, my belief is best summed up in this little story:

Once there was a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Scientist who all went to study an elephant. But they were all blind. They could not see the elephant, so they felt for it with their hands. The Christian feels the elephant's trunk and says, the elephant is long and strong. The Buddhist touches the elephant's leg and says, the elephant is wide and big. The Scientist grabs the elephant's tail and says, the elephant is short and hairy.

So which is true? Is the elephant long and strong, wide and big, or short and hairy. All of these things are true. The difference is that the Buddhist, the Scientists, and the Christian were each only studying a small part of what makes up the elephant.

Every religion has elements of truth and fiction. Every religion is both right and wrong. Scientology, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Shinto... they're all valid, often for different reasons. They all contain truths.

Even atheism is perfectly valid (though I much prefer nihilism). Every belief is a true belief; in the words of Hassan I Sabbah, "All is true, and everything is permitted". Atheism succeeds in giving an objective viewpoint to the world, and a powerful understanding of how that world works. It fails because of the dogma it so often pretends to despise.

As for practice, well, I believe that will can cause change. Pretty standard magical stuff - if your will is refined enough, you can change yourself, and if you can change yourself you can change the world. Magic is both perception and change - because, ultimately, how we percieve the world IS our reality. I do not believe there is a true, objective reality.

You can change the world through magic. How you understand the world assists with this - beliefs, languages, numbers, all of that helps. You need to understand yourself, and how you think, in order to do magic. You need to be open to new ideas - not just the ideas that are forced upon you, but the ideas that are freely given to you, and the ideas that are your own.

OTHER NEWS

Last night I got mugged, so I've been a little fragile today. He took my wallet and phone, but luckily the thief dropped my property once he realised that they were both worthless. My SIM card hasn't been returned, though, so don't bother calling me.

(Yes, yes, FUCKING PAKENHAM).

As for the lovely people at CERN, and the machine that may destroy the universe; ah, good on them. Chances that they'll create a string of resonances that in turn creates a black hole and devours everything in site are slim, of course.

Still, good to see people are taking risks. I heard that there was something like $20 billion spent on the project, whi9ch angered me at first - so much else could be done with the money - but hell, where else do you think it would go? If we weren't throwing it away into these scientific advancements, we'd be using it to wage wars and do the other, silly, selfish things we are so good at doing. Hopefully we'll actually get some results from this thing.

No Black Holes Yet
N.F. Robinson

Oooooooh

2008-09-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me well know that I am an avid collector of Tarot decks. Recently, however, I heard they were re-releasing the Vertigo Tarot. These cards are based on the Vertigo line of comics (which has always been my favourite - stuff like John Constantine, Doom Patrol, Sandman, The Invisibles..), and since I am also a huge collector of those comics I couldn't help but place lots of money down on a set.

Chances are, the set will be snatched up before it hits the stores - I've been told pre-orders are going through the roof - and with truly stunning art by Dave McKean (some sort of God of Art, I think), I'm glad I had the foresight to order two months ahead. This deck was, after all, originally released ten years ago - and this is the first reprint since then.

This has been big on my list of decks to buy - up there with the Quantum Tarot. I've always been a sucker for the spooky decks - my favourite, so far, was the Gothic 'Archeon' deck, and at the moment I use Crowley's Thoth deck - which, as the Right-Hand Pathers tell me at every possible moment, is the deck used most often in dark magic.

Honestly, I never thought I'd see the Vertigo Tarot on sale ever again - and it comes not only with the explanatory book, but with a special edition silver carry-bag! Oh, I'm in heaven..

But I'm rambling. I'll show pictures now... or try to, anyway. They can all be found at this lovely site, for those who are interested.

See, if everyone was like this, I'd love the world

2008-09-04T02:59:00.000-07:00

Trains and Gnosis

2008-09-03T02:08:00.000-07:00

TRAINS AND GNOSIS

To get to and from school every day, like millions of other people, I catch public transport. This is nothing odd or exciting; neither is the fact that I spend, on average, two and a half hours on the train each trip. That gives me a lot of spare time - to sleep, to study, to read, whatever.

Coming back the other night, I had nothing to read (having just finished and lent my novel), couldn't be bothered studying, and didn't have the heaviness of mind for sleep. I could, of course, have sat there quietly and twiddled my thumbs, looking at the magnificently beautiful wasteland that the Pakenham line crosses, pleasantly ignoring the drunkard to my left and the paint-sniffing twelve year-olds behind me...

Instead, on an impulsive whim, I tried some magic. Trains are incredibly magical things anyway; the arcane bloodline of Melbourne, connecting everything, it's pulse, with the City Loop as its heart... if you think of the tracks as one thing, instead of many connected things, it is an entity that covers a large span of Victoria; from Ballarat to Pakenham to Northcote, it's all one. I was thinking about this as I trained home - it all has a powerful link. I was then thng about the frustration trains bring, how they're always late or cancelled, the horrors that seem to occur at train stations, people and vehicles getting hit, etc., and I concluded that these things can be bad, too. Of course, abandoned train stations - such as the one between Narre Warren and Hallam station - seem very magical, lost places, the ideal terrain for any transport-based magic because it has that element of risk and abandonment.

I haven't acted on this, yet. What I did do was achieve gnosis - and fire a succesful sigil - during my trip. In moments of intense boredom - for example, during a dry lecture that you have to pay attention to, while doodling a sigil - it is possible to achieve that no-mind state so coveted by mystics.

This technique was simple: basically, while waiting for the train, I constructed a sigil. My intent was: 'It is my will to meet an old friend who I'd be happy to see'. I would try and still all of my thoughts while the train was moving, and when we stopped I visualized the sigil. By the end of the trip I could feel the climax coming, and the sigil was bright and clear in my mind.

Today I bumped into Anthony, an old schoolfriend of mine, in the city. That was rare, because by all rights he should have been eighty kilometres out of the city. It may have been coincedence, of course, but I think it worked.

Ah, just a rambling.

N.F. Robinson

Personomancy: The Magic of People

2008-08-26T21:22:00.000-07:00

Personomancy: The Magic of People

All things considered, magic isn't the easiest life-path in the world to follow. There's all the practice, that nagging feeling - we all get it, at times - that you're only fooling yourself, and most of your friends and family (maybe even those that are also magicians, if you're unlucky) generally think that you're either a fake or crazy.

Aleister Crowley once said that "Magic is for ALL." He may have been right, but some people have serious doubts; Phile Hine replied maybe 60 years later (in Condensed Chaos) with, "Few people seem to consider that [Crowley] was possibly overstating the case."

But this isn't a rant about amateur sorcerers, or the fallacies inherent in Crowley's work, or why Phil Hine is an amazing magician; this post is about other non-magical people. I'll be running through some archetypes of people you may or may not recognize - depending on the company you keep, but these people are universal archetypes - and explain how they might think and react to the practice of magic, and how even that .
Then, we'll discuss magical applications of these people. Yes, I know, manipulating people for magical gain is bad (and all of that jazz), but you can't tell me it doesn't interest you even a little bit. Personomancy: The Magic of People. There's magic here, alright, not all of it black. Let's dive into it.

Theory - a mainly Psychological Approach

As magicians, we manipulate our will to cause change in the universe. We do this via two one major medium, in-betweens that allow our will to translate the message and enact such a change; symbol.

[OR, IN QABALISTIC TERMS:
Will = Father.
Symbol = Mother.
Will + Symbol = Magic = Son.
Will + Symbol = Magic = Belief = Daughter.]

Think about it, just for a minute. It makes sense.

We create, encode, and then burn and forget sigils as an effective and economic way of doing magic; but sigils are quite blatantly just obscured, subjective symbols to our unconscious will. In this case, symbols act as a filter between the will and the universe.

The Tarot, I Ching, and Runes are full of hidden symbolism. The Tarot, with its fantastic (quite literally) art, has had thousands of books written about it; the Runes, whichever set, seem to strike a primordial chord with many; the I Ching has led an entire nation for thousands of years, and so the symbols within the hexagrams are quite deeply rooted.

The old magical law, 'As Above, As Below', is in powerful effect. Everything that happens in the heavens, must happen on Earth; Macrocosm and Microcosm. Man is but a smaller image of God. That's the basic idea behind Astrology. But in the case of divination, it seems that symbol acts as the in-between, as the buffer that allows the links to be fully understood.

Obviously, then there's Gods. But, really, what is a God? Just a huge symbol. More accurately, a collection of powerful symbols. When you're invoking a god, or evoking a spirit, you've been granted access to these powerful beings thanks to their powerful symbolism.

Through symbols, the magician can master magic.

This approach also applies to Personomancy. Treat people as if they were powerful entities in their own right; as if they were just a collection of symbols. Begin thinking of yourself as a symbol. Start asking yourself questions about people and yourself. Record their weight, height, hair colour, hair length, eye colour, notable jewelry, piercings, moods, favourite colours, musical choice, etc.

Everything will have a correspondence. Feel obliged to make a correspondence up on the spot if you need to. Use your intuition - map people, all of it. Keep a notebook, with all these details and names. Draw up sigils for these people, and allow them to see their sigil on a daily basis.

(Books such as Crowley's 777 and the like can help, but you're probably your own best guide. Remember, of course, that Personomancy isn't an excuse for racial discrimination or the like; it's for working with people in a magical context.)

Start turning the people around you into gods. The eventual effect of this is of amazing synchronicity; coincidences will stack up, you'll begin feeling a lot surer of what's occurring in whatever social circle you belong to, and the links are powerful enough for more advanced magic. The end result is such a powerful connection to these people will allow you to manipulate them by simply manifesting your will; they will be like clay in your hands.

Be warned, though - while hands can shape clay, clay can also shape hands, and you may be more affected by this magic than you realize. You will get closer to people than most people could imagine.

Archetypes

These are people who are specific enough to have symbols attributed to them, but they will only fit specific cases; start building your on set of archetypes. Start building, in your Personomancy diary, a list of all the archetypes; opinion's important, as it makes a usually objective idea subjective, and better magically.

Here's a depressing example, entirely fictional, just to get you thinking;

The Fictionaut
The Fictionaut is someone who lives their life more in fantasy than in reality. They are often borderline (or well over the borderline) suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, and the Disorder manifests in a fictional character who the person believes to be real - to a point. They allow their desires and their insecurities to dominate them, using this fictional construct as a shield; for a fictional construct cannot betray, it cannot harm, and it cannot cheat the Fictionaut.
The Fictionaut themselves are often a fragile, pathetic being with very little friends, talents, or direction in life. They hold onto whatever identity they have, even going so far as to fight for it if they believe another is taking their identity away; if, for example, they are transgendered, they will show hostility to other transgendered people, simply because this thing is so important to them. Their sexual orientation cannot betray them. It cannot love them, either, but that doesn't stop the Fictionaut from trying.
They are at both extremely open and extremely weary of anyone who wishes to befriend them. They will accept offers of friendship with open arms (often instigating a pact of friendship, so that her 'friends' can never leave her) but say nasty things and spread rumours behind said friends' backs.
This is because of their misconception that by betraying their friends - those friends who may bring nasty betrayels anyway, so no real loss - they can buy more influence with other friends. Naturally, this is never the case, but you can't blame her for trying; she doesn't have much else to live for.
The Fictionaut can work well in magic, because they have such a powerful weakness of character; as far as humans go, they're worthless sacks of shit. They spend half their time 'invoking' a fictional deity anyway; it should be easy enough to rest control.

----

I'm going to think about this more. Maybe more tomorrow; maybe.

Just a crazy idea I had
N.F. Robinson

Bibliomancy

2008-08-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

Bibliomancy

I like books. I like books a lot - I read profusely, and I have acquired a large collection of fiction and non-fiction over the years. Two bookcases, six drawers, three garbage bags and the entire space under my bed (and around my desk, at the foot of my bed, and littered across my floor) have been devoted to these tomes.

A few people have commented that perhaps my fascination with books and writing is border-line obsession; I easily spend three quarters of all the money I earn on books. Recently, a friend asked me if I'd ever tried bibliomancy; I told him I hadn't, not really. The idea had never occurred to me.

Curious and thirsty for a new magical experiment, I decided to do some research.

Background and Divinatory Uses

Bibliomancy is the use of books in magic. It generally refers to Christian mystics using the King James Bible (or the Islamic Mystics using the Koran, the Jewish Mystics using the Torah, et cetera) as a form of divination; a prayer would be said over the book, and then a random page and passage would be found. This passage would give a divinatory message.

Bibliomancers have gone even further in recent times - picking a random title from a library, then a page, then a passage. Technically, the I Ching is a form of bibliomancy; casting sticks to decide on a page of the Chinese Book of Changes. Tarot is also, albeit rarely, referred to as bibliomacy; the difference being that the Tarot cards are pages unbound.

Bibliomancy has many other names - Rhapsodomancy, referring more specifically the act of 'casting' versus like you would the runes, or Stichomancy (literally 'reading from the lines'), which refers more to the general art of books in magic; Bibliomancy refers to the use of sacred books. It is believed the practice is ancient Roman in origin, and I haven't heard of anything that would convince me otherwise.

So, now I'm interested. I know the basics of using books as a divinatory tool - anyone can do it, really, which is the beauty of it, I guess - and I've had quite a lot of success so far. I was worried about versus that make no sense in the context of my question, but that hasn't really happened yet. Lucky coincedence? Maybe.

Fictional Invocation

I was fooling around with some more esoteric approaches to bibliomancy. Naturally, there was the Wizard of OZ working that I attempted a while back, which probably counts. Perhaps, if there'd been a much larger focus on passages from Baum's Wizard of Oz, it could be out of the realm of basic Chaos Magic and into the fields of Bibliomancy. I think I may focus more on that aspect next time I work with OZ.

Wards and Protection

The same friend that recommended bibliomancy to me offered to attempt to magically attack me; the idea was that I could the greatest rip pages out from a book that I really love, and use them as a measure of protection (like many Jewish and Christian mystics have advocated with the Old Testement). I told him I'd think about it - I'm still rather uncomfortable with destroying or tarnishing books.

The theory is sound, though. Tomes like the Bible - where so much faith is thrown into a book, prayers said over it, etc. - could easily work as a protective talisman. The same could be said of any sacred book, really, as long as enough magical power is invested in the thing; there are hundreds of cases throughout history.

Binding and Banishing

I was reminded of an interesting story about Aleister Crowley; once, during an evocation that went batshit insane, he read from a book of his own poetry - and it worked well enough to bind the entity he'd summoned. Now, some people believe Crowley was full of shit, and most occultists (including myself, at this present time) believe that it was the intonation and pitch that Crowley used that did the trick. But what if it was Crowley's on will manifested within the book that bound the entity? In that case, it was powerful bibliomancy - an interesting theory, to be sure.

Gnosis via Anathema

I know that if I consciously burn a book - especially a book I admire and love - my whole being will be torn. It'll be anathema, a powerful drive for gnosis - I would throw myself into detestation, and then revel in the blasphemy, building each up until they're both at a terrible crescendo.

There is power in the taboo, especially in illogical taboos. Books are just paper - and we burn paper readily enough, when we light our cigarettes and throw newspaper into our fires. I think it rests with the casting aside of creativity - a powerful force in magic. Showing such disregard for a person's work seems to be the height of decadence, to me.

Black Magic

Of course, black magic could be pretty easily used with books - if you can borrow a book from someone you despise, steal one, or gain one as a gift, it should be easy enough to use that sympathetic link as a magical oppurtunity of attack. Even if it wasn't once theirs, if it is a book they love the magic should work just the same as the universe figures the links out; if they've written the book themselves, or it's a biography of them, even better.

Hyper-Sigils and Servitors

Well, creating a fictional novel as a hyper-sigil can work, too. A hyper-sigil is a work of fiction that doubles as a magical sigil, creating magical change throughout the life of the magician/author. I've never attempted a hyper-sigil before, but I'd be game enough to try once I ground myself in this occult stuff a bit more. A prime example of a hyper-sigil is The Invisibles, by Grant Morrison.

Once the hyper-sigil has been created, why not use your very own work as a divination tool? Surely it would work a hell of a lot better than someone else's 'sacred' texts, as the work already resonates with you.

In creating an altar for a servitor, why not take snippets from newspaper articles or novels that sums up the entity well? If, for example, you have a goddess of empowerment, why not use some text from a book of women's liberation?

Hell - why not create an altar of books? If you have a servitor that helps you study or write or whatever, I could think of nothing more fitting. Even using novels in banishings, as the four cardinal points, seems intriguing enough.

Imagine evoking Harry Potter (West), Lord of the Rings (East), Catch-22 (North) and On the Road (South) as a protective sphere?

It's just so crazy it might just work.

Bohohoho
N.F. Robinson

Sexuality and Magic

2008-08-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

Sexuality and Magic

Magic is often linked with sex, especially in these modern times; the two have often been mixed, often with very good results. Magic has many similarities with sexuality, of course. Both have been a taboo topic in many cultures - and still remain taboo - especially in religions such as Christianity. You can only get better at magic and sex by practice; books may get you horny for it, but that's it; you can only get better by doing.

("Talking to someone about magic who isn't a magician is like talking to a virgin about sex," Phil Hine one said, "They can imagine it, but never truly get it.")

Lastly, both are incredibly enjoyable acts, especially if you know what you're doing - or if you're with someone who does. This article will deal with two seperate issues - sex magic itself (what it is, how to do it, and why it's here), and gender and sexuality issues in magic.

Sex Magic

Sex magic is, funnily enough, the use of sexual activities in a magical context. The major theory behind sex magic states that the sexual energy of a human is the most powerful energy it contains, and by manipulating this energy normal reality may be transcended. This includes using the orgasm as an easy and fast way to achieve gnosis (for that moment of no-thought in orgasm is a powerful gnostic force), the manipulation of powerful dualities (male and female in most cases: see below), and the use of the sexual energy for high magical purposes (often not involving orgasm).

While you'll be hard pressed to find any magicians who discount the power of sex magic, the general consensus of Melbourne's occult community is that it's overrated. You don't see any magicians who specialize in sex magic, for example. This view is a very recent development, however; many mystical orders have based their teachings (at least partially) upon sex magic, such as the Ordo Temple Orientis (O.T.O.), who claimed that their sex magic unlocked all the secrets of all the magical traditions in all the known universe. The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, also an influential magical organization, came to the same conclusions; both drew their ideas from the revolutionary sexual-magic ideas of Paschal Beverly Randolph, who was apparently on to something.

Naturally, Aleister Crowley then came along a few years later and revolutionized the field of sexual magic (just like he revolutionized almost every other aspect of magical theory). Born just after the fall of the Victorian Era, he delighted in shocking the prudish British standards of the time by publically advocating sex magic; specifically masturbation and homosexuality.

Crowley, who was a prominent member of the O.T.O., placed a huge emphasis on sex as the supreme magical power. One of Crowley's most famous magical works, the evocation of the demon Choronzon (who is 333) first involved poweful sexual intercourse with his lover, Victor Neuberg. Considering how much light was shed on the crossing of the Abyss - one of the very most important magical works - during that working, Crowley considered the initial sex magic a very deep success.

Crowley also created the Gnostic Mass, a prime teaching in the O.T.O., which was symbolic of the sexual act. Crowley also wrote extensively about the worship of a Scarlet Woman; also known as the Great Whore Babalon, the Woman is a supreme goddess of sexuality and sexual impulse. Many of Crowley's students also advanced the state of sex magic - notably Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard (the failed occultist shmuck who had more talent for manipulating people then magic; yes, the founder of Scientology). These two attempted to create the incarnation of Babalon - a Scarlet Woman who would be a supreme sexual partner and experienced sexual sorceress, and in the process possibly bring about the apocalypse. In Revalations, the Bible describes Babalon as, "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlot and Abominations of the Earth...drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."

Regardless of whether or not they succeeded - they believed they did, but Crowley himself disagreed ("I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts," he once said regarding the pair's experiments) - the fascination with sex magic still lingers to this day.

The modern Tarot deck (well... Crowley's Thoth, at least) seems to have been doused in sex; this is not a bad thing, but a natural understanding of the universe. The High Priestess II is representative of the 'great mystery'; that is, the folds of the female vagina. The Moon XVIII is representative of the menstrual fluids of the female, and the Tower XVI is representative of the male genatalia. The Lovers VI refers moreso to the reconciliation of the opposites, but the element of sexuality is still there. Lust XIII, in the Thoth deck, represents Babalon and the Scarlet Woman riding the Beast of the Apocalypse. Naturally, wands and swords represent the masculine forces of fire and air, while disks and cups represnt the feminine forces of earth and water.

Masculinity is often considered a creative force in occultism, while feminine forces are receptive. The female reacts to the male. This is, at first, a seemingly sexist approach; but in most occult traditions refers more to the fertilization of conception more than anything, and does not hold females in anything less than a sacred light. The male ejaculates, and fertilizes the egg. The magician is male, regardless of gender - he or she expends their will upon the world. When a magician reaches apotheosis, however - either in tune with the universe, or having blazed their own path upon it - a magician (like the universe) is truly considered female, as they can react to their fullest ability regardless of the circumstance.

If anything, the female is regarded as more powerful than the male. All those fertility cults, and the worship of potent Godesses, sprung up for a good reason. The Magus I in the Tarot deck comes force as the creative force; the High Priestess II receives, showing the male only the mysteries he deserves to see.

An exception to this statement applies; the Christian Church has had a long and established habit of demonizing things, and women are no exception. Building on Pythagoras's theory of mystical numbers - in which he describes the numbers as magical beings in themselves - they believed that 2 (the number of the woman) is also the number of the devil, as are all even numbers which do not align with God. Modern Qabala has been affected by this demonization to some extent - luckily, the number six (the most important number of all) is still considered to Qabalists the sacred number of Beauty. A total usurption, it would seem, is not possible. 6 is also a female number; or, more accurately, the number of 3 (divine male) multiplied by 2 (divine female) - however, it still falls under the jurisdiction of the female, showing that the universe will always rule over man, no matter how much magic they know. Six is also 2 + 4 = the number of fertility and creation, respectfully.

(1+5 = 6 is a common male equation used by homosexual Qabalists - it represents the First Divine Man meeting the First Mortal Man in sexual union, and is considered a feminine aspect because it is more about receiving the love of a higher being/lover than giving it.)

The Great Rite of Wicca is often considered a powerful act of sex magic, regardless of whether or not sex is actually involved. In Eastern occult traditions, Tantra reigns supreme in field of sexual magic. In more traditional tantric practices, sexual and menstrual fluids are often to the deities as sacrifices (this practice continues in other traditions; ejaculation/the nectar of the woman is often a powerful sacrifice for a spirit or servitor). Tantric techniques are often used to control sexual endurance, mentally monitor the level of pleasure being received, or, in the case of the man - in potent cases - to experience orgasm without ejaculation. But these are all simple tricks compared to the most important Tantric technique.

Tantric texts explain that there are three prime reasons for having sex; procreation, pleasure, and liberation. Liberation is what most mystics and occultists are interested in - using sex as a medium to interact with the cosmos. After purification rituals, the lovers unite in a static embrace (unfortunately, this ritual seems to be usable only to the male/female lovers; I'm sure a queer variant exists, I just can't find one). There energies intermingle and balance, and the kundalini (snake) energy of each participent rises - finally, a powerful and lengthy gnosis-orgasm is achieved, where the lovers are one with the universe.

(The Tantric dorje - a wand-like instrument - represents the male force, and is a powerful instrument in Tantric sex-magic. A bell is held in the other hand, representing the female force. Often, in homosexual rituals, two dorje's or two bells are used; from what I have heard, they work exceedingly well).

Sexual activities are also important in Chaos Magic; the breaking of taboos is powerful - sleeping with a member of the same sex if you're heterosexual, or vice versa if you're homosexual, or cheating on your partner all works. It may not seem ethical to you - and I know I will never have to nerve to try it - but that magic is powerful. Orgasm is also powerful, since it gives a limited gnostic trance - those few seconds seem like you are contacting the cosmos itself, and so masturbation and sex is often used for firing sigils or crafting servitors.

Even more experimental techniques are being devised; of particular interest to me are the studies in BDSM magic. The idea of sacred prostitute-magicians, or purely sex deities, has also been tossed around. There have also been several recent discussions on the varied uses of bodily fluids in magic. Sex magic is still quite powerful, and still quite mysterious to most magicians.

Sexuality

(Note: For ease of reference, when I say 'homosexuals' or 'homosexuality' I mean the entire community, including lesbians, gays, etc.)

Sexuality is fascinating within the magical community. On one hand, homosexuality and bisexuality is quite openly accepted, even admired; after all, the Christian Church (among others) lumps homosexuals in with the witches and the money lenders. We also like to consider ourselves 'open-minded' - a prerequisite to most occult studies is being open to new ideas, and accepting of radical thoughts.

Unfortunately, homophobia creeps in just as it creeps into every other facet of society. This is, to an extent, simply a problem concerning magicians bearing the typical mindset of their times, and projecting it in their writings and magic; if they're talented enough, those thoughts will bounce to all students studying their magical system. A prime example of this is the work of Samael Aun Weor, a powerful influence on sex magic in general who often took an occult take on Karl Marx's opinion that homosexuality is a sign of the hedonistic materialism in society. He was born in 1917, and his writings are popular enough to filter to many young magicians, who take his words as gospel.

Another reason for the homophobia rampant in occultism is the magician's love of dualism. War and peace, chaos and order, fire and water, swords and disks, laughter and seriousness.. and male and female. Many magicians take this as a sign - citing the Tarot cups/wands and swords/disks approach - that heterosexuality is the only serious sexual path a magician can take. Homosexuality only breaks this divine union, they reason - but most seasoned occultists only laugh bitterly and explain that masculinity and femininity are just PRINCIPLES, and it doesn't matter whether or not two males are having sex; the point is that masculine meets feminine.

Of course, the most common reason is simple ignorance. I know a handful of Temple of Set Satanists who despise homosexuals; I can only imagine it's simple uninformed homophobia which fuels this. Whenever I remind them that Sodom and Gamorrah went to hell long before they ever will, I get really nasty words thrown at me. One even had the tact to tell me that God secretly loved homosexuals. Naturally, I agreed with him, saying that God probably loved everyone. The guy threatened to break my neck.

In Chaos Magic, a universal law is: Nothing is true, Everything is permitted. This adequately describes the Chaote approach; if it works for you, great! That doesn't just apply in magic - it applies in everyday life. If you're homosexual or bisexual, that's better than fine - as long as you're comfortable, you're already true to yourself, and that's fine.

Remember, Aleister Crowley was very bisexual. He had many male lovers - and many female lovers - and has admitted that he always preffered the male lovers. Aleister Crowley is the most-loved man in modern magic, even by the homophobes who conveniantly ignored his sexuality. Is not Aleister Crowley's own mystical religion, Thelema, accepting of all sexualities? After all, it's prime commandments are 'Do as thou Wilt', and 'Love is the Law, Love under will'. Be true to yourself; love only as you can.

Two more quotes from Crowley on sexuality;

"The battle will rage most fiercely around the question of sex... Mankind must learn that the sexual instinct is in its true nature ennobling. The shocking evils which we all deplore are principally due to the perversion produced by suppressions. The feeling that it is shameful and the sense of sin cause concealment, which is ignoble, and internal conflict which creates distortion, neurosis, and ends in explosion. We deliberately produce an abscess, and wonder why it is full of pus, why it hurts, why it bursts in stench and corruption..."

"The Book of the Law solves the sexual problem completely. Each individual has an absolute right to satisfy his sexual instinct as is physiologically proper for him. The one injunction is to treat all such acts as sacraments. One should not eat as the brutes, but in order to enable one to do one's will. The same applies to sex. We must use every faculty to further the one object of our existence."

To all those old-school ceremonial magicians tell me that homosexuality is a sin, and Aleister Crowley should have written more about how homosexuals can't do magic, I say this: ACTUALLY READ SOME CROWLEY, YOU FUCKING HACK!

Look at Phil Hine - with Peter Carroll and Ray Sherwyn, easily the most influential writer on Chaos Magic, is openly bisexual and has written many inspirational articles on sodomy and sorcery. This guy is amazing, an esoteric rennaisance man, and he does magic better than most. Why should his sexuality matter?

Take a glance at the Ordo Templi Orientis (their sign shown) - a powerful mystical society in its own right, and besides the Golden Dawn one of the best known, still quite active today. Three of it's advancement degrees require acts of sex magic to be ranked as a higher magus. They are as thus:-

VIII°: masturbatory or autosexual magical techniques were taught, referred as the Lesser Work of Sol
IX°: heterosexual magical techniques were taught
XI°: anal intercourse techniques as sexual and magical were taught

The Eighth Degree is often done with other magicians of the same sex; taking that into consideration, it can easily be considered a homosexual rite. Interesting to note that while the Ninth Degree is heterosexual, the Eleventh Degree is homosexual; not limited to males, either, as female participants are encouraged to use dildos and the like. Homosexual magic is placed in higher esteem than heterosexual magic.

It's a sad sight to see magical circles these days. Most are either completely heterosexual, or completely homosexual, and while that's all fine and dandy, I wish we could mix it up a bit. These aren't exclusive clubs; the right to enter a magical circle should be based on attitude and aptitude, and sexuality shouldn't come into it. Unfortunately, I've met many occultist's who've been barred or thrown out of a group after their sexuality is found out. One of the worse cases of this was spearheaded by the leader of a large Wiccan occult organisation: here's the petition against his purging of homosexuals from his (quite famous) organization.

There are thousands of arguments explaining why homosexuality or heterosexuality are right, and they're both wrong. In the end, every man and woman is a star - regardless of sexuality - and should be free to choose both their own magical practices and their own sexual preference.

I'll leave you with a group of quotes taken from occultforums.com, as compiled by Phil Hine and Paul McAndrew. Nothing cheers me up more than homophobic comments from respected occultists, let me tell you (damn, I need a sarcasm font).

Laugh well and laugh often
N.F. Robinson

Compiled by Phil Hine & Paul McAndrew

"What people have to remember is that Wicca; man and woman, God and Goddess is a fertility cult - a heterosexual fertility cult."

Wiccan author Keith Morgan, interviewed at Autumn Link-Up '08

"The Wiccan cult stands for fertility and re-creation and not the sexual union between two 'spiritual' members of the same sex as some groups like to believe."

Kevin Carlyon, Hastings & St. Leonards Observer, 1985.

"Thus the blasphemy of the homosexual formula, for it denies Babalon and breeds devils in chaos."

Kenneth Grant, Nightside of Eden.

"The (Hornsea) Group ... considers that any genuinely contacted fraternity could not countenance working with sexual deviants of any sort. The reasons for this should be obvious to any trained occultist."

"...you can't work magic with a homosexual. Homosexuals just can't create a current."

Quotes from Tanya Luhrmann's 'Persuasions of the Witches' Craft'

"Homosexuals are not human"

Nicholas Tereshencko, in a letter to the Lamp of Thoth

"Blockages in the mulahadra chakra can lead to child abuse, sodomy and rape."

remark by a teacher of a 'Gnostic Study Group' in Leeds, 1991.

"Anyone who is bisexual or homosexual cannot advance spiritually."

remark by Wiccan High Priestess, 1985.

"Homosexuals cannot be true witches...we want no kinks in our circle."

quoted from a wiccan magazine, exact source unknown.

"...when homosexuality is not 'natural' or else cannot be explained in terms of incomplete, inborn forms of sexual development, it must have the character of a deviation, vice or a perversion."

Julius Evola "The Metaphysics of Sex."

"Homosexuals are simply fighting against their Karma - the homosexual man simply has more 'feminine' energy in his 'lower self'. The Lesbian simply has more 'masculinity' in her lower self."

The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness.

"The homosexual male does not imitate the female adult when he 'camps' but the female child his mother played to him. Maturer aspects of adult love are often missing, and the homosexual couple finds difficulty in making an alliance of the sort that deepens with time."

Jean Wedloff, The Continuum Concept

"Women are by nature Yin (passive, soft, centrifugal). When they become too Yang by taking too much Yang food - the become miserable...they devote themselves to animal pets, or they turn homosexual. Their life is miserable because it violates all natural laws.
...the homosexual and the asexual person are the most pitiful of all - and the literature of the West is littered with their monstrosities ... sexual abnormality can be cured in time by strict adherence to the macrobiotic regime."

Sakurazawa Ngoiti, Macrobiotics.

"Homosexual freedom can be associated with the decline of Greece. from the first Century onward, homosexuality flourished in Rome; male prostitution developed to an extraordinary extent and another great empire fell."

"An active, aggressive male homosexual is in a great position of responsibility. By practising oral or anal sex with his male lover, he transmits his karma as well as his hormones & vitality. The links in a chain of destiny are established and invariably passed on to others ... Homosexual men transform one another psychically but pay the price of complex metaphysical entanglements."

"Surely it is time for homosexuals themselves to wake up to the reality of their situation and seek solutions to their problems, rather than campaigning for more acceptance of homosexuality. Eastern techniques offer practical techniques for overcoming the wiles of destiny."

Nik Douglas & Penny Slinger, Sexual Secrets.

The Models of Magic

2008-08-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

The Models of Magic

More hard information today - I realised it'd be harder to begin explaining my more experimental magical theories without at least giving some form of explanation.

As has been explained previously - sort of - a Chaos Magician has to be able to manipulate and shift his or her own beliefs at will. This is more generally known as a 'paradigm shift', and often involves showing faith in fictional deities, dissimilating belief structures, experiencing paganism one week and Christianity the next... in that manipulation is freedom, and in freedom is power - the power to conjure truthfully to yourself.

But - often - more than shifting religious or theosophical beliefs is needed. Sometimes you need to shift the way you think about magic; not your perception of how gods and spirits work, but how magic runs as a whole.

As a culture's general magical paradigm shifts, so do their approach towards magic, and so more are being developed in recent times. A magician must never restrict themselves to just one model; something will eventually come up that shatters their belief in that model, and then it will be useless. They are effective tools to understanding magic - but that is all. They should be cast aside and brought up just as easy as any other belief system, which poses difficulties for many sorcerers (including myself).

Here follows an explanation of the several 'models' of magic, and my personal thoughts regarding each.

The Meta-Model

This is really only added here for completion's sake; it is the 'model' described above. This model allows a magician to pick and choose whatever model best suits his purpose at the time.

I extensively use this model, just as many other Chaos Magicians do. It's the most flexible approach, though not exactly a model within itself; it's more of a tool to using the models.

The Spirit Model

This is allegedly the most ancient form of magical model, though some believe that it came about around the same time as the Energy Model. The Spirit Model basically implies the existence of an 'otherworld' - Hell, Heaven, Elysian Fields, etc. - and that a dedicated shaman can travel between the worlds, start building maps and relationships, and summon and speak to entities from the said otherworld.

All magic is just the invisible actions of these entities. I usually work within this mode, calling down the spirits and devils and gods, and it gets me very good results. It's what I'm most comfortable with, and often times I have difficulty leaving this state - I usually have to first shift to the Energy Model, and then shift again to another.

(Interestingly enough, the German word for witch, 'Hexe', derives from the Old High German 'hagazussa', meaning 'fence rider'. The magician using this model rides the fence between worlds; bringing treasures from the otherworld to the material world, and vice versa.)

The Energy Model

The Energy Model is similar to the Spirit Model, but except of spirits and an otherworld, subtle - but powerful - magical forces run throughout the world for the magician to manipulate. By drawing this energy, redirecting it, and twisting it to their will, the magician does magic.

This is evident in many more of the 'scientific' occult theories; the Vril theory of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (and later the Nazis), the ley/dragon lines, Eliphas Levi's Astral Light, most of the Eastern Occult traditions, etc. It also makes sense in conjunction with the general occult idea that certain places are more or less holy/sacred then others, as that energy can be built up or divided. Typically, megalithic structures - such as Stonehenge - are the focus points for these lines.

This is also the natural step from the Spirit Model. It's not so hard to imagine that 'spirits' are just manifestations of energy sufficiently twisted by the magician's will. This is the easiest jump for me to make from the Spirit Model, and I usually swap my views between the two.

The Psychological Model

Chaos Magic owes a lot to the Psychological Model of magic, as popularized by Sigmund Freud. It doesn't exactly state how magic works, but that it all boils down to humanity's uncontrollable unconsciounce.

If programmed properly, the subconsciounce will manipulate reality for you. At one end of this spectrum, as practiced by the Chaos Magicians, this is only one truth of many; sigils seem to work on this theory (creating a magical glyph, planting it in the subconscious, forgetting about it and letting it work). On the other far end, La Veyan Satanist's don't particularly believe in magic, but the psychological effects of ritual and invocation; they use rituals and whatnot in a purely psychological context.

Most magicians rest somewhere between the two. It's hard to discount the Psychological Model because it makes the most sense with the information we have; but I do not believe that Psychology answers everything. I used to subscribe to this theory, and it broke when I (believe) I first contacted another independent spirit.

It still makes me uncomfortable, and while I agree that the model has its uses, you wouldn't catch me advocating it unless I had no other choice.

Other Models

Recently, two other lesser models have appeared - or possibly to aspects of the same model. The Cybernetic Model basically proposes that the universe is a giant computer, and we're the programmers; our 'magic' simply sends tiny amounts of data to the universe and when it registers we have our magic.

The Information Model teaches that the universe is filled with 'blank' energy. It must be fed energy - from the world's population, via the laws of nature and physics - in order to be rewritten and no longer blank. As such, if the entire world stopped believing in gravity, levitation wouldn't just be possible; it would be a little too easy. A magician manipulates this model with the force of their will, once again rewriting the universe.

---

And so, that's basically it. There are weirder theories out there, but these are the five most common. The Psychological, Energy, and Spirit models basically shaped all modern occult thought - most current traditions depend on a combination of all three to work.

What do you think? What's the most plausible? Do you have another theory?

Hohohohoho
N.F. Robinson

Why Magic Is Full of Shit

2008-08-20T02:31:00.000-07:00

Why Magic is Full of Shit

Today I caught the train home from school. It's something I do, well, every day. It's a very long trip - if I leave at 3:20 PM, I can usually count on getting home roughly three hours later, once I catch the bus and everything.

That doesn't really matters. What matters is that I spend a lot of time on public transport, and I often speak to a lot of interesting people. Today I met - only for a few minutes, she only approached me as I started getting closer to home - a young Christian woman.

She wasn't attractive - she had that pallid look of a one-time subtance abuser - but she was nice enough, and she talked to me about Hell and repenting and Jesus. I listened.

She told me that she'd seen people healed - broken bones mended in a minute - by the power of Jesus. She told me that she'd seen people risen from the dead. She told me that it was all possible, and that she often spoke to Jesus. She told me that Jesus got her a home. She told me that her church - the Miracle Christian Center - saved her life and got her off drugs.

Now, from the way she was wording it, I'd imagined she'd slipped from being a drug-abuser to an unwitting cultist - or that she was treating Jesus like some servitor. But it didn't bother me. I explained that I wasn't really interested in Christianity. I told her, quite honestly, that I'd gotten into black magic and that was that. I could never leave.

She tried to tell me that I would go to Hell, and I agreed with her; I probably would, if it existed. Then she spat at me. Sadly, I shuffled over to the busstop, sitting down to read my book. The experience depressed me.

Belief

Honestly, her being part of a cult didn't depress me - and I had no real evidence that it WAS a cult. That was just a subjective experience. What upsetted me was that she so callously spat at my beliefs, even though I secretly admired her faith.

Magic is not science. You cannot be a purely objective occultist. Most of what's happening happens within your own head. As a magician, you shape your own beliefs and cast them aside when they no longer work for you. As a sorcerer, you experience things that no one else could experience.

Magic is subjective; it is an art form. To an atheist, magic doesn't exist, and so for that atheist magic does not exist. It's as simple as that. This woman believed her faith could raise the dead - she'd believed she'd seen it happen - and I had to believe her. I believe in magic, and it works.

Magic's there, but it works in metaphore and in language. Grimoire - a book of magical lore - is a corruption of 'grammar', and the etymology of 'spells' should be rather self-explanatory. Language is the most powerful tool we have - that's why we call to the gods with our words and our chants.

'What you don't know can't hurt you' - I take more stock in that then most people. It makes sense, at least in magic. While you may experience possession, or ghosts, or psychic phenomena - and not believe - it is a rare occurence.

Science

You need to know magic to possibly experience it. Everything else, if you don't, is coincedence. Many magicians believe that the recently discovered (I think) dark matter is just magic, holding everything together. It makes a certain amount of sense.

Look at Chaos Magic. What inspired the Chaos Magic movement? Yes, Austin Osman Spare. Yes, LSD and all of that. Yes, the idea that a hierarchial magic system only holds us back.

But the one thing that allowed it to happen was Quantum Physics. Thank you, Faraday, thank you, Einstein. Your revolutionary 'Fuck you, authority!' brand of science gave me what I believe!

The links between magic and science are many, but since I barely study the sciences, I cannot be a reliable guide in this topic. I have a few insights, however; what happens when an atom reaches zero within a billionth?

The answer is that an atom goes into a state that mimics exactly what Eastern Mystics (and Crowley) have been talking about for years. An atom either enters a complete void - apotheosis via the Right Path - or into a period of eternal flux - apotheosis via the Left Path. Bhuddism predicted that it would be replicated in nature, what was divine in man...

As above, so below. One of the ancient principles of magic; man is but a tiny cosmos. "Every man and woman is a star," as Aleister Crowley said. That's the rule behind Astrology, which - whether you'd like to admit it or not - shaped most of modern Qabalistic magic, which in turn shaped Western magical thought. If the man is unbalanced, the earth is in unbalanced. If the earth is unbalanced, the cosmos is unbalanced; man is but his own god.

Links between science and magic are many; I don't understand what half of my books on magic are telling me. Probability manipulation, dark matter, mathematics - hyper-numerology - it's all so complicated these days. Oh, how I long for more simple times, when my only worry was the Church, and I could invoke demons without a logical thought save my own!

Like art, since humans can't relate completely subjectively to another, we prefer to go to the other extreme; enter the art critic. We approach magic like it is a science - and in many cases this is the only way to advance, because we need to share our findings. We need to act as one - a macrocosm of microcosms - in order for magic to really succeed.

Science is just as false as magic. It's purely objective - male - which is bad. Magic is purely subjective - female - which is just as bad. Only when they can both unite, that's when the real progress begins. To be a succesful scientist you have to admit that you don't know what's going on. The same process is in magic.

An aside: science is, apparently, logical. It admits that it's very possibly wrong in all accounts; but why can't it accept the possibility of magic? Just the possibility. They don't have to agree that it exists, just on the possibility. Keep their minds open. If they don't, their 'enlightened' thoughts are just as chained as any other's. Many scientists - rational, dedicated men - were also occultists. Look at Jack Parsons. Yes, the guy that allowed space-travel to occur with his innovative rockets. Before every test, Parsons would invoke the Greek god pan in a long and complicated ritual.

Without Parsons - possibly without Pan - we wouldn't have space travel, or we wouldn't have had it so fast. This is the same Parsons who got together with Aleister Crowley and did a working to try and force the Americans into World War Two; thirty-two hours later, Pearl Harbour was bombed, and soon after came Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Pretty amazing coincedence. Horrible, horrible coincedence; but amazing, nevertheless.

But we must never forget that magic is subjective. If you want it, you'll find it. If you don't, you won't. I many of my skeptical friends to suspend their disbelief, allow themselves to listen to the world. It's out there, but you have to need it.

And if you have it, you have to understand it. If you've been shown magic, and you accept it, then you have to understand. At least give it a shot. Because if you don't, that very real abyss between reason and unreason may swallow you whole.

As a magician we must remain skeptical. We must have a scientist's mind, if not a scientist's understanding. We don't believe without all reason; we don't have faith. We have a different worldview, we try the esoteric arts, and we keep what works. What doesn't work, we study, and try and figure out why.

We don't have the luxery of unequivical belief - most of our theories are contradictory, and this often gives rise to hideous arguments between occultists. But we aren't united in our belief; we're united in our desire to know. The word 'occult' means hidden; and we investigate just that.

That's the difference between a miracle healer and a magician. Our belief, our will in the divine, fuels both of our abilities; but it is just that belief which seperates us. So don't lump us in with the crazies. We're just as educated - if not more so, you've gotta read to be a good magician - then you are. Some respect, please, even if you think we're full of shit.

We believe, sure - but only if we have reason to.

Shamhamforash,
N.F. Robinson

Friends and Family

2008-08-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

Friends and Family

Let's look at a different side of magic today.

Typically, when I bring up the idea of a magical community, people come to certain conclusions, dependent on their current understanding, of what I mean:-

a) Secret societies - the Freemasons, Order of Thanoteros, Temple of Set, Neo-Nazis, Argentum Astrum, Rosicrucians, Ordo Templi Orientis, Golden Dawn, Theosophical Society, et cetera - all bickering and fighting a magical turfwar. Intrigue and murder abounds. You're no magician if you're not part of some shadowy conspiracy.

b) Fairies, magical colleges, ghosts, Hogwarts, the odd dragon - no, I don't think I'll continue.

c) A loose collection of individual sorcerers and shadowy fraternities, all interacting nervously around each other and trying not to step on any toes; meeting up at punk concerts, or to do drugs, or whatever.

d) A religious community, mostly Wiccan, who are nice in their own way but a little strange.

e) Card-shufflers and charlatans, doing tricks and keeping secrets. It's all mirrors and smoke. They spend their time pulling things out of people's ears.

Now, these are all different, though they have certain similarities. Mostly, Melbourne's occult community is a a combination of C) and D); B) is ridiculous, A) was probably more accurate close to a hundred years ago, E) is an irrelevant misconception.

Mostly, we're a pseudo-religious community, filled with pagans and wiccans and satanists (oh my!). There are lots of individuals, a handful of smaller societies, none of them particularly large. Faces are eventually memorized, people get known. It's small, nice, but a little edgy; a community, but only because no other real definition can apply.

This isn't what I wanted to talk about, honestly. What I wanted to talk about were two very specific things; non-magician friends (if you have them) and family.

Friends

Now, the one thing that shocked me about my non-magician friends was that most were quite into it. Originally, as with meeting anyone, I kept my occult studies to myself; I wear as little black as possible, don't have any piercings or tattooes, generally wear t-shirts and jeans... I don't look like a typical sorcerer is what I'm getting at.

This was last year. I'd dabbled a lot with magic - Chaos, Thelema, Ceremonial, some Pagan - and was now getting pretty heavy with the divination stuff. I mastered runes easily enough, but the Tarot was a fair challenge; I brought the deck to school and offered to do readings for people.

And - the cat was let out of the bag. Suddenly I had people swarming all over me. I helped out with some minor occult problems, spoke openly and honestly about most things, and was generally known as a magic man. Whenever it came to me proving my powers, I usually passed with exceptional results.

As I said, that was the general attitude, and I had no problem with it. Eventually, people started wanting me to use my magic for petty purposes, and I began to refuse. Some people were alienated, some were fine with it - no problems.

Then, a girl asked me to teach her magic - or maybe I offered? I think she asked. I complied, and realised how hard teaching magic is. You have to read a lot, and know yourself fully. I failed spectacularly at the teaching thing, and she still knows very little.

Occasionally friends test me. I once had a close friend of mine give me a ring, and asked me to read the enrgies from it - psychometry. I was to read the thing, and deduct who gave the ring to him. At that point - and even now, honestly - I knew nothing about psychometric techniques. Psionics is still lost on me; I like the ritual, the dogma, and being psychic doesn't sit well with me.

I failed there, naturally. Honestly, I didn't bother even trying to succeed; maybe I could have, but what was the point?

I'm occasionally asked to do a seance by my friends. Sometimes I even agree. I usually use a Ouija board - easy enough to make - with lots of symbology ripped from my various occult books and whatnot to set the mood.

I learnt a powerful lesson when I was younger and fucking around with magic. Most times, unless you're with a group of actual goddamn magicians, you really don't want to accomplish an actual seance. You don't want to summon a Qlippothic wraith, or your dead grandmother. It's never much fun, it's always really scary and never really worth it..

So, I make stuff up.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. Here's one of the secrets of magic; it all works, but mostly the wrong way. If you want something done, make sure you do it yourself. I created a powerful servitor, Lesthemenes, who is my trickster spirit. These seances involve me summoning the spirit, shaking stuff up, burning the carpet (in the last 'seance'), possessing my un-magical friends, making knives heat up, chilling out the room, exploding candles, and all of that.

I've done enough false seances/Invocations of Satan, to power-up Les well and proper. He has his own personality now, and he seems to admire the magical likes of Loki and Set. He's nice enough, though, loyal - though many times he gets out of hand. Burning the carpet to ashes was one instance, as was the occasional really creepy possession. Typically, the more you interact a servitor - the more you 'feed' them with faith and work - the more they'll grow.

When people ask me for a seance they don't REALLY want to speak to the dead. They just want some eery magical action, and if I can be bothered I'm usually glad enough to fuck them up good and proper!

I guess the point I'm making, with friends, is that I was surprised at how many of them (want to) believe. They're happy to listen to me, to ask questions, to nod quietly when they don't understand. If they're genuine enough - nice enough people - I'm happy to go out of my way to give them what they want, such as with Kaite.

Family

Ah, this is where things start to change. One of my brothers thinks I'm a hack, is a strong atheist, and a right prick. The other brother's have no idea. Mum has the faintest idea - this is the woman who taught me how to control my self-Oneiromancy, for fucks sake! - but is uncomfortable with all the invocations and evocations and whatnot. She prefers to believe I'm full of shit, which is fair enough considering her own occult experiences. Dad's just like atheist-brother. My grandmother - who I've never met - was apparently a sex-and-drugs magician, always fucking and getting high, and my grandfather's a Freemason (which may have nothing to do with anything, but...)

None of this really bothers me, however. What bothers me is the issue of my girlfriend.

Now, I love my girlfriend to pieces - we've been dating for a very long while - and I'm pretty sure she feels the same way about me. I'd like to marry this girl, have children, settle down, et cetera. Very un-chaos magical of me.

Problem is, she's a powerful agnostic. You know those people who have a fair idea of what they believe, but won't commit because they don't want to be tied down to a religion? Lazy believers? It's a little like that.

She believes - to a point - in magic. She knows that my Tarot-reading skills are sharp (I did a reading that predicted me acting like a dick and really emotionally hurting her, which happened, and didn't quite help), but all the gods and goddesses and daggers she doesn't like.

She's scared of magic. It scares the hell out of her. Originally, for the first few years of us dating, I was happy for her to be completely unknowledgable towards it. Sometimes I'd just call her in the middle of the night, desperate to hear her voice after a particularly terrifying working. Sometimes I'd just cry, and she'd comfort me, and then there'd be an awkward silence when I lied to her about why I was upset. She knew I was lying, but was wise enough to ignore it.

Now, of course, I yearn for her to become interested in magic - I want someone I can tell ALL the secrets to. Honestly, she'd make a shit magician, but I just want to talk about the concepts with her, and inform her without her getting scared. I share every aspect of my life with her besides the magic; it seems like she doesn't know the half of who I am, and she doesn't.

If this does work out, and we DO have kids and move in together, what then? I would want a ritual room/study for all my occult stuff, and she tells me she's uncomfortable with that. I don't want to bring up atheist children, or children who don't know; I want children who are bright, magically in touch, able to learn all the wisdom I have wasted so much time finding.

Well... it's not a huge problem. I'm not unhappy with my relationship, you understand. It's just, even as I work as a kind of community shaman, doing magic for people, magic is still a lonely path. There are other magicians, but most of them are secretive and edgy; for good reason.

Ah, I don't know. Opinions on the children thing? Opinions on anything, my friends?

Laughing
N.F. Robinson