silence is always sexy

[blame Ruth for this]

So, no posts from me for a while. “Why’s that?,” you ask. “And what’s the deal with this calling yourself ‘The Greatest Adept Of Our Time’?”

Sensible questions. The last one is easy: it’s a reference to Lon DuQuette sorry, “Lamed ben Clifford” and Chicken Qabalah, specifically the prefatory remarks by Mr. Orpheus. If you didn’t remember it, I’ll wait until you go skim through your copy on the shelf. Go on, I’ll still be here drinking this fine coffee from Joplin’s Java.

Since you read that, you now know how I found myself as of 25 January 2013. The magick in question comes from the remaking of myself as an act of will. Or Will. Definitely not Wilting. Compare to imagery of shamanic dismemberment by the spirits that he later befriends as his Allies and the initiatory message of the Tomb in certain WMT rituals.

That requires a bit of acceptance of where I started out with this. This isn’t just “Oh, I’m bored with myself. Time to put on yet another mask.” remaking myself. No. This is about radical overhauling of the thing that animates this meat suit. And the meat suit as well. And all of the stuff/junk around the meat suit as well.

As of 1 January 2013, I was unemployed (close to unemployable), weighing around 360 pounds (just under 165kg for those metric folks and 26 stone for the others) and totally inactive, pretty much totally isolated and wanting to stay that way, sliding into an obsessive fugue where all my world revolved around being online and watching TV on the computer. That was my life.

It sucked ass.

What’s a wizard to do when he finds himself in a situation that sucks ass? If he is a magician, he changes that. The quicker, the better.

Here’s what I’m doing:

• Continuing Education classes and borrowed computer time to knock some of the rust off of my graphics and software skills. Photoshop hasn’t changed that much since I walked away from it in favor of GIMP, but it has changed. Same with the decline of Quark in favor of InDesign. Must. practice. more.
• Exercise and change my eating patterns. I hate cooking for one, so I don’t cook so much these days. Lots and lots of salad and simple veggie things tends to be my menu. When I upgraded my lake, I also gained a gym membership subsidized by Waukegan Township. And no car means I take the bus, the train, and walk a lot. Here, there are things to walk to. Namely, a very cool little coffeehouse* that is partially a music store (racks of guitars, a concert grand, and 2 salon pianos) with decent folk running it and an enjoyment of diverse cultures…
• Volunteering. Passing out food to hungry people is usually a good idea. In this case, I’m meeting my neighbors and interacting with actual people rather than their virtual bits on the monitor.
• Seeing a doctor. Like many guys, I’m guilty of ignoring my health until things go massively wrong. In my case, having triple digit diastolic blood pressure counts as massively wrong. Same with all of those idiopathic aches and pains that keep me wanting to lie down and not leave the couch. Those needed to be addressed as well. In this case, a tiny daily amount of fluoxetine and amitriptyline helps those not be an issue.
• Getting offline. I have a hard limit of 4 hours a day to do what needs doing online. One hour gets spent on socializing – Facebook, blogging, chat, etc. The rest are spent looking for a job or doing small freelance projects to pay for incidentals. Like this very tasty coffee…

When you don’t see me, it’s not a matter of going to grow. It’s not a matter of time or how I feel.

I’m throwing off the shadow of a better man now…

What? You expected me not to break out a Sisters or Neubauten reference when I have the opportunity?

* Yes, I’m plugging them. The joint reminds me a lot of the idealism of Lockerbie and Fletcher Place. Unlike popular writers and TV personalities of note**, my plugging of them won’t kill the place by making it a tourist trap. It will, however, attract like-minded co-conspirators who will likely add their unique flavors to the booyah*** of the place.

** This one’s for Ruth: you say you like my writing style. That’s cool. It’s not really all my own, however. Like all good chefs, I rip off other people and do my best to understand what They did and then put my own stamp on it. Sir Isaac Newton (not my former cat of the same name, but the higher primate that was the source) said something about seeing further only because he was standing on the shoulders of giants. For my personal journaling style here on the CoP, that means Anthony Bourdain, Richard Bachman (not King. NEVER Stephen King.), Molly Peacock, and Etheridge Knight have my size 13′s digging in to their trapezius muscles in disturbing ways that should only be familiar to regulars at the Club Sasaboo…

*** Y’know – booyah.

Tree of Life for Diviners (QBLh on One Foot)

some rhythmajik experiments

Because enlightenment without dancing is enlightenment not worth having.

An Enochian WaKaNaBa

I don’t think that the arrangement of the Angelical orthography in Dee’s spirit diaries is entirely accidental. The three rows of seven letters (with one alternate form) can be combined with the 7 Greek vowels to indicate which vowel can be considered the “default” for that letter.

• Pa, Tal, and Pal match with A and sound like Ba, Ma, and Cha
• Veh, Gon, and Med match with E and sound like Kee (“key”), Iee, and Oee
• Ged, Nah, and Don match with Ê and sound like Geh, Heh, and Reh
• Gal, Ur, and Ceph match with I and sound like Di (“dye”), Li (“lie”), and Zi
• Or, Mals, and Van match with O and sound like Fo, Po, and Vo
• Un, Ger, and Fam match with U and sound like Au, Qu, and Su
• Graph, Drux, and Gisg match with Ô and sound like Eo, No, and To

Obviously, received pronunciation of words trumps this system. It makes an interesting counterpoint when using individual letters as letters, such as when using Lon DuQuette’s “table chant.” As part of the process of opening a working with the Enochian system, he chants the lettered border of the Holy Table 7 times as the names of the Angelical letters. For the first side of the table, he chants “Pa Med Fam Med Drux Fam Fam Ur Ged Graph Drux Med Graph Graph Med Med Or Med Gal Ged Ged Drux.” Using this idea, the chant could be said as BaOeeSu OeeNoSu SuLiGeh EoNoOee Eo EoOeeOee FoOeeDi GehGehNo (Baoisu Oinosu Sulige ‘Onoi ‘O ‘Ooioi Fooidy Gegeno, for a more “Englished” way of looking at that string of Too Many Vowels). Or each “lap” of the table, the letters are matched with a fixed vowel and each recitation is “sung” up one note on the scale attributed to the vowel. That first Pa would be sung as Ba on an E, while the fourth time through would be Bi (“buy/bye”) on an A.

This also implies that Counting Wells and other NAEQ techniques can be used with other Angelical linguistic tools. As such, we have the beginnings of an “Enochian Qabalah” that transcends simple numerology.

Apocalyptica

21 December 2012 04:00CST

It’s a little over an hour before the end of the world, and I’m wearing shirt sleeves and a tie that can only be described as cupric oxide, standing barefoot on the floor of Parsons Crater on the dark side of the Moon. I look up and see the stars and I’m stunned by how bright it all is. I’m always stunned by how bright the “dark side” actually is, how blind you have to be to even think of it as the “dark side,” that everything is surrounded by light once you get outside the atmosphere.

OPARMGT stands next to me, looking as much like a human-shaped fractal as ever. He points at the smoky white tendrils extending from Earth, past us to the stars. The strings begin to vibrate, softly stirring the silica under my feet. The sound produced is familiar yet hard to place at first. I start to speak, and OPARMGT puts a “finger” to his “lips” much as we’d gesture silence. The sound grows louder, resonates deeper. Rocks begin to rise along with us, floating a few inches above the ground. I finally recognize the music I’m hearing: it’s that multi-layered opening chord from “A Hard Day’s Night.” In full cosmic surround sound.
“Your friend, he knows how to make a strong entrance.” It’s hard to describe something as “a fractal of a smile,” but that’s what it was.
“That he does. Time to get started.”
“No, time to get back. The start/stop is only a limit you put on the work you’ve always been doing and always will be doing. It’s blind of you to see it any other way.” If a human-shaped fractal can give a knowing grin, this was it.

8 December 2012, 03:03

I wake up with a strong smell of baking bread around me. It’s a cue that my perceptions are colored by memories, a leftover from the dreams I was having. I’m not fully awake yet, so I don’t bother putting on my glasses. I know I’m still technically asleep, yet I’m aware that I’m conscious enough to hold a conversation with whatever woke me up to this state. Deep breath, look around me in the dream, check my totem.
I’m in an old apartment I used to live in back in Saint Paul*, in the studio room. On the easel is a very failed painting that is in vivid colors. Obviously, I’m meant to focus on this… and I see that it isn’t as failed as I’d first thought it was. It was still a clumsy composition and the strokes were still hesitant and nervous, but the cloud-like imagery of connections made more sense. Not that they were clouds as set things on their own, but that they were streaks coalescing into threads. Tendrils. Ropes.

21 December 2012 05:04 CST

All of the Calls have been sung and the rings of the magic circle I’m standing in are positively glowing. Where they had risen up around me like tiers of seats in a stadium, they’ve now fallen below and form a mountain with the circle at the summit. I can see those star tendrils much clearer from here now. Where at first I’d thought them to be connected to places, I can see that they’re attached to people. Hundreds of thousands of people, twisted around as they leave the surface into the 91 ropes I’d seen before. And each of those people are connected to others. Some who are also part of the star tendrils, but most who aren’t. The whole thing is vibrating wildly, deafening. It’s not the well-tuned a chord as before. This is noise for the sake of noise, slowly entraining to the same harmonic series. Slowly being the key word – I have to deliberately focus on helping tune the sound in order to bear it.
And blindingly obvious metaphor is blindingly obvious.

13 December 2012, 10:00

I’ve just finished typing up a loose script for myself for the “End of the World Working,” and I’m feeling the usual shift/split in consciousness I normally get when I write things in Enochian. This feels a bit off, like something is trying to push back through to me to tell me something. This isn’t the time or place, so I stop it. More accurately, I tell it to stop and it does. At that point I feel very aware of the weather outside, how positively New England it feels. Deep breath, center myself, come fully back into the room. Shut the door, close the windows.
I am here now. Shut everything off. Leave it off. At least for a few days.

My uncle’s funeral, in the parking lot. In the 1990s*

“You’re still seeing?”
“Yeah. Still kind of crappy at actionable details, but yeah.”
“I’ve never understood why you punish yourself like that. You can shut it off. So just shut everything off. Use your head instead of third-eyeing your way through things. You’re smart enough, you should know better by now.”
“Well, you taught me that my head is a very big place.”
“It is a very big place. But you don’t have to make it a scary place.”
“…”
“Exactly.”

*Details omitted to protect the innocent and less-guilty.

A Typhonian “Genii of Set” Meditation

1. Seated in your temple or shrine room, in the middle of a “Typhonian Circle” created by your tarot cards [see "Temple Layout"], or in any place where you can maintain relaxed, uninterrupted concentration, establish a breathing rhythm:
   1. Visualize prana, the life force in the atmosphere around you, as brilliant blue dancing points of light. Focus on your breathing. Inhale to a count of four, visualizing as you do so that you are inhaling this vibrant life energy into your body. Suspend your breath for a count of 4, as consciousness expands, relaxing into the moment. Then exhale to a count of 8, as any accumulated tension dissolves, and drains from the body into the earth.
   2. Continue inhaling and exhaling, eyes opened and aware of the general area about three feet in front you, but without any deliberate focus. By drawing on peripheral vision, you will begin to see and experience the surrounding ocean of vibrating life energy in which we constantly swim, and from which we derive our being.
   3. As the rhythm becomes established, with each breath move deeper and deeper into a meditative state; with each exhalation, consciousness calms, becoming lucid and clear. With each inhalation, visualize that prana is inhaled into the solar plexus; with each exhalation, visualize that this energy of prana is distributed to every organ, muscle, nerve, cell, and atom of your being.Continue inhaling prana and exhaling, distributing prana throughout the body until you feel invigorated, strengthened, and relaxed, with every nerve stimulated, tingling, and alive, your body charged with vital energy.
   4. Inhale prana as before, and exhale, but visualize that you are breathing, not through your nose or mouth, but inhaling and exhaling each breath through the bones of your legs, continuing to “inhale” and “exhale” through the bones of your legs until the physical sensation comes through.
   5. Inhale prana and exhale as if you are breathing through the bones of your arms.
   6. Inhale and exhale prana as if you are breathing through the top of your skull, continuing until your mind expands, and opens to the Universe.
   7. Inhale and exhale prana as if breathing through the pores of your skin, continuing in this way until your body feels cleansed, and light, entirely alive and open to sensation.
   8. Sweep prana from head to toe with each breath. Inhale, and feel prana rise up through your body, traveling from the base of your spine to the very top of your skull. Exhale; feeling the prana sweep back down from your head to the base of your spine. Continue, reversing the energy current up and down your spine with each breath, until your whole body becomes charged with energy and light.
   9. As if breathing through the seven vital centers each in turn, inhale, drawing power from the earth; then exhale, causing each center to awaken and vibrate with living light.
2. Continue the rhythm of the breathing. Inhale; drawing energy from deep within the earth, the seething core of molten rock, the stones as old as time, the fertile soil, black and rich — the source of our being, nurturing, and inexhaustible — our atavistic animal roots, reaching deep into the body of the earth.
3. Drawing power up from the earth through the body, inhale as if breathing through the center of the base of the spine — Muladhara chakra — and exhale, envisioning a blood-red square, the color of the root of life itself. Continue to inhale, drawing power from the earth, and exhale, attuning consciousness to the many smells around you. Are they pleasant or unpleasant? What emotions are evoked? What memories? Imagine the smell of roses; now imagine the odor of white sandalwood incense.
4. Drawing power up from the earth through the body, inhale through the center of the reproductive region — Svadhisthana Chakra — and exhale, envisioning a downward pointing triangle, the purple of imagination and desire, which becomes brighter, more tangible with each breath. Continuing to inhale and exhale, notice whether there is any particular taste in your mouth. Is it pleasant or unpleasant? Imagine the taste of pure, cool water.
5. Drawing power up from the earth through the body, inhale through the center of the solar plexus — Manipura Chakra — and exhale, envisioning a deep green circular disk. Continuing to inhale and exhale, notice what is available to your field of vision. What emotions are evoked by what you see? Imagine the image of one deeply loved; look into their eyes.
6. Drawing power from the earth up through the body, inhale through the center of the heart — Anahata Chakra — and exhale, envisioning a golden, equal-armed cross; and feel your heart expand with love. Continue, inhaling and exhaling, noticing any sensations on the skin — such as clothing, carpet, temperature, and so on. Imagine the feel of silk against your cheek; now imagine the feeling of a warm gentle breeze. Imagine the feeling of touching the fingertips of your best friend.
7. Drawing power from the earth up through the body, inhale through the center of the throat — Vishudda Chakra — and exhale, envisioning a mauve crescent, with horns pointing upward. Continuing to inhale and exhale, notice what sounds are around you. Imagine the sound of the voice of one you deeply love; feel the power of your voice as you whisper to yourself your true name.
8. Drawing power from the earth up through the body, inhale through the center of the forehead between the brows — Ajna Chakra, the third eye — and exhale, envisioning the six-pointed white star of second sight. Continuing to inhale and exhale, notice any thoughts that may arise in consciousness. Are they positive or negative? Encouraging or critical? Imagine a rainbow against bright blue cloudless skies.
9. Drawing power from the earth up through the body, inhale through the center of the cranial suture at the top of the head — Sahasrara Chakra — and exhale, envisioning with each breath the image of the thousand petalled lotus of enlightenment. With each inhalation, feel energy sweeping up and out through the top of the head like the branches of a tree; with each exhalation, feel this energy sweeping down and around you to create the brilliant blue of our protective aura. Inhaling and exhaling, see the bright blue flames of the circle that encloses us within this sacred space — a circle that becomes brighter, and more vital with each breath.
10. Resting in communion with the Angel of your Higher Self, inhale through the globe of brilliant white light that rests above the crown of the head, drawing light and energy from the Stars above, the source of inspiration, and of spiritual sustenance — the seeding of our race. Now exhale through every pore, envisioning the interconnected points of singing light that cover our bodies like a net or web of light. These are the vibrating nadis of the subtle body, pricklings of light that are the kalas of the stars as they rain down from transplutonian dimensions. Feel their fireworks as they impinge upon your body, and see the universe alive with whirling, pulsing many-colored lights.
11. Continuing to inhale and exhale, see the vision of the Great Old Ones, who “came from the other side of the sea” of interstellar space. They are timeless travelers, the Mu, the Moa, the ancient Lemurians: They are the gods who are ever-returning, spiralling from past and future into the eternally unfolding present now.
    1. Moving the breath and energy back down the tree, drawing light down from the stars, inhale through the third eye, — the twin-petalled lotus at the center of the brow — and exhale, as your inward-looking eye gazes upon the reflection of the Moon on still, dark water, and consciousness moves forward into darkness, as oil rainbows spread their patterns upon the mirrored surface of still waters, creating arabesques of iridescent light. Opening this center brings the power to enter the Dream Time; the power to leave the body at Will. And here is power to utter the “birth words” of a Master of the Temple.
    2. Drawing light down from the stars, inhale through the throat area — Knot of Shiva/ Daäth the entrance to “Universe B” via the Tunnels of Set — and exhale, as the conscious mind falls backward into dark-starred Chaos. Inhale, drawing light down from the stars, and exhale, as the mind further sinks into the backbrain Labyrinth where images are formed, numinous and primitive. Time is suspended as the mind moves to the brink of the black abyss where nerves crisscross: left-brain to right body, right-brain to left — the “decussation of the pyramids” — where reality lurks as an unspeakable world of unthinkable possibility.
    3. Here is The Winged Serpent, the Androgyne-Gyander; combined male-female/ and female-male within one’s own body of light. Opening this center brings the power of the voltigeurs, of the leapers between dimensions from world to world at the back of the Tree of Life. Here lies the power of the shaman, the power of shape- shifting, the power of cosmic transmutation of the primal cell. Here too is knowledge of past-present-future as existent in the Now.
    4. Drawing light down from the stars, inhale through the compassionate heart —Tipareth — and exhale, touching emptiness within, for the reality of Self is nothing more than an Ego-less Void between the Worlds, “for there is no god where I am”. Continuing to inhale and exhale, see the vision of the Black Snake devouring the eclipsed Sun. Opening this center brings the power of invisibility; and the power of entering another’s body, heart, and mind.
    5. Drawing light down from the stars, inhale through the diaphragm — Veil of Paroketh — Knot of Vishnu, and exhale, feeling the terrible hunger of “The Howler in the Waste”; hear the bestial speech which is its pained, inarticulate expression. Continuing to inhale and exhale, see the vision of the Black Hole of interstellar space, of matter collapsed upon itself by the power of internal attraction, “for my left hand has crushed an Universe, and nought remains.” Opening this center brings the power of speech in silence; the power of invisibility; and the power of the shroud.
    6. Drawing light down from the stars, inhale through the navel — Yesod— connection with the source of life, and with all the richness which animates earthly existence, and exhale, feeling within the body The Primal Soup as it moves and froths; feeling the “juiciness” of life, experiencing the sensuousness inherent in all that flows: emotions, rivers, blood. Continuing to inhale and exhale, see the vision of the overhung, prolific swamp, with dark, enticing waters of illusion that teem with impossible varieties of life. Opening this center brings powers of fascination and enchantment, of imagination kindled by desire; and the power to create one’s personal universe — be it Heaven, or, be it Hell.
    7. Drawing light down from the stars, inhale through the “Center” 2 inches below the navel — The Knot of Brahma — and exhale, connecting with a sense of personal power; as tentacles of light radiating from the Center attach themselves to objects of attention and desire; and “see” yourself and others as glowing luminous eggs of pulsing light. Continuing to inhale and exhale, see the entire universe as a web of “infinitely corroding light,” with each interconnected node an energy vortex of sentience, throbbing with the rhythm of life. Opening this center brings the power of the drummer, as Keeper and Creator of Time.
    8. Drawing light down from the stars, inhale through the que — Malkuth — the tail, and exhale, feeling the Silver Rain of Nuit fall upon us from the stars; feeling the fluids of the sexual kalas as they pour forth from the enraptured body bathed in light. Continuing to inhale and exhale, see the vision of the staff with skull on top — the empty mind.
12. Opening this center brings the power of tantric energy exchange; the power of distilling the transforming elixir. Here too is the power of consciously entering the dance of sex-birth-death-bliss. Inhale, raising kundalini up the spine; and exhale, allowing consciousness to pour out through the top of the skull into the exploding universe, the ever-expanding shower of stars.
13. Rest in Stillness. Silence. Peace. Inhale; placing hands upon the floor, and exhale all you have collected back into the all-accepting body of the Earth.

The Wile E. Coyote Magical Metaphor

I love my friends. They give me such good ideas…

I poked my friend Rufus Opus for finally reading the Law of Thelema in a non-canonical way with a reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Moloch then countered with Looney Tunes as a reference to magical culture at large.

My response: “@Looney Tunes: consider the metaphor of Wile E. Coyote (that is ‘crafty’ ‘tutelary trickster,’ a title often ascribed to magi) and his perpetual pursuit of the Roadrunner. What better image is there for the pursuit of finding your True Will on Earth?”

It goes further: Coyote ignores all of the rest of the desert, all other food sources, all other things in favor of the Roadrunner. While that speaks favorably to dedication and fervent passion for the Attainment, it’s often shown that the desiring of his heart is actually to eat and end his hunger. His obsession with what he thinks he wants blinds him to the reality of the blessings of the world around him. His ego-based vision of the Attainment prevents true Attainment.

All those Acme (“The highest point, as of achievement or development: reached the acme of her career,” American Heritage Dictionary) gadgets that he buys to pursue his goal of catching his Roadrunner? Utterly futile.

All of his well-drawn plans? Utterly futile.

Everything he does? Utterly futile.

… because the Roadrunner is not his True Will. It’s someone else’s – it’s just not his.

If he gives up on his illusions, he will achieve. If he doesn’t, we continue to laugh at his foolishness while eating cereal and wearing our footie pajamas.

I love my friends. They help me stay in the right places when I really need it.

The End of the World Angelical Working – an exercise in ritual design

It’s the end of the world as we know it… Time to do some magic.

In this case, I’m being utterly  and totally un-original. I want to participate in Lon Milo DuQuette‘s End of the World Working. I really do. I highly recommend his classes – he excels at making extremely complex ideas actionable, not just accessible. It is almost impossible to be an Armchair Magician in his presence.

Unfortunately, I don’t have $45 (much less $45 to spend on a workshop), I’m not sure my internet connection is fast enough to work with the system without causing lag on everyone else, and the devices I’d prefer to use as a backup would melt under the demands of the work. I also prefer working with Tabula Recensa and within a slightly different magical framework than Lon uses.

But I’m a magician. I solve problems. This is definitely a problem that’s solvable. So let’s reverse engineer this puppy…

The plan is to open the 30 Aethyrs of the Enochian system in ascending order (numerically descending). Doing this in one fell swoop is intended to “raise the vibration” of the planet. This happens because each of the Aethyrs is composed/rooted in 3 (in one instance, 4) Governors that are linked to specific regions of the world. As each of these are “opened,” that part of the world becomes “partakers of undefiled knowledge.”  Ambitious, but soundly reasoned within the magical thinking of the fundamentals of the system. Combined with having a few hundred people participating at the same time, yeah… stuff’s going to change.

The scheduling of this is designed to have the recitations of the 30 Calls end just before the Winter Solstice at 11:11AM GMT. The EotWW website lists a rough agenda of the working beginning at 10:00AM GMT. So, just over an hour for the Work. That’s a pretty fast pace, with a magical marathon as the course. Not impossible, but definitely difficult.

Putting that together with my preferred magical framework, I now have a plan and a schedule. In general, my format goes like this:

1. Preparations, Purifications, & Protections
2. Antaryaga (internal worship)
3. Bahiryaga (external worship)

So that means that I need to do all of my usual self-care lifeskills stuff, followed by ritual purifications of self and space, and establishment of any guardians or guides I feel necessary for the work at hand. The “internal worship” is better known in WMT as “assumption of the godform,” in this case My HGA. The last section is the actual magical evocation proper: the recitation of the calls. Afterwards, it’s personal decompression time – there’s no closing banishing, as this is intended as an ongoing set of changes.

Breaking down from that bird’s eye view, I now have manageable chunks to build. So I do my usual morning ablutions and physiologically necessary duties, followed by my usual morning waking rituals. Once those are done, I need to do my usual ritual cleansing: a handwashing and recitation of Dee’s “Prayer for Wisdom” (from Primus, modified for personal beliefs). Then I begin Point-Zone Breath to define a personal space and warm up my diaphragm. As the prayer contains all the “protections” needed and appropriate, nothing else is necessary in this portion of the ritual. I end with a Dedication of Merit, with personal belief-appropriate names replacing Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

The next phase is a bit more personal: I simply invoke my HGA in the manner established previously. If I hadn’t, I could use more traditional forms of “invoking” rituals – the most appropriate for my script are in Denning & Phillips’ Mysteria Magica. A more  NLP-based version of the Assumption is “Circle of Excellence,” which works… but clashes in tone unless adopting a psychological model of the magic at hand. Once that’s stabilized, I can move on to actual Calling process. And I need to have that done before 10:00AM GMT.

Which is 4:00AM local time. Which means I need to start around 3:00AM.

That’s damn early.

So I put together a script for my ritual text, so that I don’t need to do any correlation between different books or screens. I’m using a frame based on the one in Mysteria Magica: before Calling Aethyrs, open with Second Call (both because that’s the framework they use and because we’re looking for an objective change in the external world, rather than just internal and subjective changes in consciousness (First Call, which was what Crowley used and received The Vision & the Voice as a result)). I’ve modified the Calls to include the Aethyr name, it’s epithets, the Governors of earth, the names of their Ministers, their epithets, and their sigils to trace while caling them (from Liber Scientae). I’ll then recite each call in succession and end… just before the exact Winter Solstice, just like Lon’s Working.

Given the hours, I’ll likely stay up all night and then go to bed afterwards (if I can) and let the “answers come in dreams,” as the song goes. I might not. But I need to make sure I’m on Lon’s timetable, in at least a rough sense, during the work.

And I can participate in my own way and assist in the work. Win for ghetto-tastic magical hackery! Mwa ha ha ha!!!

You want to participate in this as well? First, if you can do Lon’s class, you should – it’s worth it.

If not, I have  here a slightly more “vanilla” and Dee-pure script than my personalized one that I’ll be using. It’s the same thing, but with fewer extra dance steps thrown in for good measure (no Ministers, the LS epithets as opposed to the Aurum Solis ones, no presigillia, none of the opening prayers).

However, if you download it, you are committing yourself to doing 2 things:

1. Performing the ritual, at least to the extent of reading through it according to the schedule. Reading aloud preferred, but that can be a serious strain if you’ve not practiced speaking for an hour straight. If you’re just reading along and not speaking the words, the Angelical PDF is preferable – the words have power, just in the act of being seen intentionally.
2. Doing charity work during 2013. Not giving money to charity, but actually giving of your time and energy to help people who can’t do anything to benefit you.

Ideally, you’ll print out the document, draw the Governors’ sigils next to their names on each Call’s page, and stick it in a binder of some sort so you can just turn to the right page at the right time in the ritual. That way, it’s become your script and your work with it. If you’d prefer to use a  different set of names (such as using Names from the first Great Table presented to Dee & Kelley, or a different organization of the directional tablets), a Word file is attached as well.

• TheEndofTheWorldWorking (PDF, Latin orthography)
• TheEndofTheWorldWorking_Angelical (PDF, Angelical orthography)
• TheEndofTheWorldWorking (.docx)

Share your results and visionary experiences in the comments.

Point-Zone Breath

I’ve done shared this so many times that I forgot to check if I put it up here on the WP iteration of CoP. Hurrrrrrr….

It’s actually a  ridiculously  simple bit of pranayama that goes well with lots of other things, mostly because it’s so simple.

1. Imagine a circle around yourself, about the span of your spread arms.
2. Sit or stand in the center of that circle, whatever’s comfortable and appropriate for the situation.
3. Fill your lungs completely, with a slow, even inhalation. As you inhale, allow your attention to expand to fill the circle.
4. As you exhale, slowly, evenly, and completely, allow your attention to contract to a single point in the center of your chest.
5. Continue until you know that the circle-zone and focal point are established.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. I told you it was simple…

So lets hack it!

That point you contract your breath-attention to… it doesn’t have to be in the center of your chest. Bring it up to your throat or down to the small of your back. Breathe out of your chakras and various acupuncture meridians. Move that point-attention around your entire body. Split your attention between multiple points simultaneously. You could even conceivably move the breath concentration point outside your body.

The inhalation-circle doesn’t have to be limited to armspan. In fact, establishing and practicing larger circles can create useful operant field zones (thus, the name point-zone). What’s especially interesting is that potentially there’s no limit to the size of the operant field – you just stretch your attention with each breath until it includes whatever you want to include. A nice side effect is that whatever you inhale is also part of the point-concentration on the following exhalation – if I breathe in the devotional elements of my altar, I concentrate them into the point I’m breathing into.

In workshops where I discuss magical swordplay, I’m often using Thibault’s definition of the fencing defensive circle as a working zone. As I move, I breathe and the zone moves with me. As my opponent moves, their natural breath also creates a field that intersects with my field. If I pay attention to the interference pattern formed, I can see where they’re going and what they’re likely to do and therefore act on it. I can “feel” where they’re thinking and act on it appropriately. If I push energy out of my blade, I can leverage that knowledge to push them in the same way you push someone in aikido – they’re not expecting to be assisted in their action, and that often throws their action against them. Fun stuff.

The simplicity and lack of dogma makes it easy to drop into other workings, even if they  don’t seem to be workings at all. What say I’m setting up a “Circle of Excellence” NLP pattern for a client. Once we’ve established the model-totems on the edge of the zone, I can have the client breathe them in more with every breath. Once that basic pattern has become integrated, it’s as much a part of them as breathing. Deepening/recalling the state is simply a matter of reminding them to breathe…

This is also the foundation of the Simplest Banishing Ritual Ever (SBRE): establish the point-zone as “solid” to you. On the next inhalation, take an extra deep breath and release that breath with a powerful, explosive breath that blows out anything undesirable from the zone. You can choose to use a working-appropriate “word of power” in this context if you’d like, but the breath alone is sufficient.

Planetary Hand Nyasa

Kara (hand) nyasa is a technique which can be used alongside other nyasa sequences. It enlivens the hands before beginning longer sequences of nyasa – as these sequences are themselves are carried out using the hands – and directs attentions towards the function and role of the hands both in the ritual to follow, and, by inference, in everyday life. The hand is one of our five karmadriyas (instruments of actions) and paying attention to how we use them in everyday life – to explore, manipulate, signal, comfort and so forth – can be very fruitful.

The following hand nyasa is for use within the Body Yantra ritual, and the rituals of the subsidiary planetary shaktis. It is a way of “condensing” the complex symbolism of the body yantra into a simple ritual sequence, and giving expression to this before beginning the rite itself.

1. Begin by directing attention towards the hands for a few moments.
2. Touch each finger of your right hand with the fingers of the left and say “Om, obeisance to [name of shakti] in the [name of finger]”. Direct attention to the sensation of touching as you do so. As you touch each finger/area of the hand, visualise, as you see fit, the appropriate shakti/colour/plantary sigil.
   • Forefinger: Pita Devi (Mercury)
   • Middle finger: Rakta Devi (Mars)
   • Ring finger: Harina Devi (Venus)
   • Little finger: Malini Devi (Jupiter)
   • Do the same with your left hand in the following sequence:
   • Forefinger: Nila Shakti (Pluto)
   • Middle finger: Aruna Shakti (Neptune)
   • Ring finger: Karbura Devi (Uranus)
   • Little finger: Asita Shakti (Saturn)
3. Touch your right thumb, visualise and make obeisance to Iccha Sakti (Will).
4. Touch your left thumb, visualise and make obeisance to Jnana Shakti (Knowledge).
5. Touch the two thumbs together visualise and make obeisance to Kriya Shakti (Action).
6. Touch the right palm, visualise a sun and make obeisance to Shiva.
7. Touching the left palm, visualise a moon and make obeisance to Shakti.
8. Co-join the hands and interlink the fingers. Visualise Shiva-Shakti co-joined and the cosmos coming into being from their union.