The Subtle Fire

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Twice a year I am supposed to report to my supervising bishop regarding what I have been up to. This year, he asked me, “What additional work, if any, did you do this semester in order to develop your proficiency in the Gnostic Mass?”

Mom, I forget if I gave you my blog. Please skip this one.

I realize I am now in the awkward position of explaining to a man I have never met a set of practices regarding erotic energy. I am hoping that by writing a public blogpost I will be able to give the practice up to community for discussion and keep myself accountable for describing this without being crass. Tau Pythagoras is a very nice man who lets me run half feral through Pennsylvania and Ohio. Let’s not ruin a functional supervisory relationship.

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Why no Qabala?

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Okay so I think it’s high time I had an explanation written down of why I don’t use Hermetic Qabala, and why I think we should all give a good hard long think to the issue.

If you want a tl;dr or an audio version, What Magic is This? has opinions pretty similar to my own. If you want a present day Jewish Leftist opinion on the issues of antisemitism in the occult, here is a zine. If you need a 101 on the history of anti-Semitism, start here. 

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Babalon Rosary

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The rosary I use has 7 sets of 7 mater beads. Here are the prayers I use.

Creed: Use the creed from the Gnostic Mass

Mater

Glory unto the Scarlet Woman, Babalon,
that rideth upon the Beast.
Beautiful art thou,
for thou hast given thyself to everything that liveth
and are called Understanding.
We seek you. We revile you. We praise you,
so that we attain the Sacrament of the Graal
in the Chapel of Abominations.
Amen

Pater

Holy art thou, Chaos, all contradictions in terms
that art not shaken in the earthquakes, nor in the thunders!
For you hath created the universe and overthrown it,
that you might take your pleasure thereupon.
Surely thou art bound unto and broken upon the wheel;
yet hast thou uncovered the nakedness of the Holy One.
And this is the stone of the philosophers,
the elixir of life distilled from the blood of the saints,
and the red powder that is the grinding-up of the bones of Choronzon.
Amen

Glory Be

Glory be to Nuit, Hadit, and Ra Hoor Kuit
as it was in the Beginning, is now, and ever shall be
world without end.
Amen

-or-

Glory be to Creator, the Teachers, and the Holy Spirit
as it was in the Beginning, is now, and ever shall be
world without end.
Amen

Hail Holy Queen: Use the Priestess’ speech from the Gnostic Mass “For to love me…”

Jailbreaking the Devil

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Christians are monotheist. Every primordial force in the world they attribute to Creator. Creator may have a council, may have angels who do their jobs, and saints that bend their ear to the needs of humans, but ultimately Creator has all the power.

Being a polytheist, I believe that the fundemental forces of the world are in constant relation to each other, Creator being the origin of them all. Conflict, reconciliation, and peace come and go between them and humanity in the dance of life in the universe. My particular flavor of polytheism also relates deities back to parts of physical reality. Creator is best expressed as the void darkness between the stars, hence why I call Creator Ineffable Night. The Holy Spirit is a storm god. Jesus is plants. I could go on.

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ADHD Report: The Planner Problem

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I have ADHD. I was diagnosed in middle school and in denial until last year, when I began to flip back and forth for a while. Hopefully, the denial is over. There were two big reasons why I couldn’t accept that I have ADHD. First, people said that when I was annoying them to try and get me to stop. Second, the ADHD online community is unhelpful for the kind of ADHD that I have.

So I’m going to start posting about my own coping mechanisms, starting with my planners.

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Liber Capra

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What follows is my personal method of doing ritual to contact angels and demons. It is a way, not the way. I hope you can glean some useful ideas from it and that we might be able to compare and contract our practices.

This method has worked for contacting: Stolas, Vepar, Jehoel, Gabriel, Abraxas, Phenex, and Zadkiel. This method was not adequate to contact Astaroth, though I may simply need a more comfortable space based on her feedback.

All prayers in quotes are approximations as I tend to make use of extemporaneous speech within particular formulas.

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Updates

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Just popping in with a few updates.

I was interviewed twice. You can see links on my about page under my bio. I was interviewed by a community of pagans centered in Michigan but with an international reach. I can’t thank them enough for supporting me in my work. They’ve been curious and understanding of my links with Folk Catholicism.

I think the one regret I have is that we spent a lot of time talking about issues in the OTO, and I didn’t emphasize enough that we as Thelemites are actively working to change the issues. We are wrestling with these questions. I found out recently USGL is working on diversity modules to help educate and start discussions so people can suggest policy changes with basic respect for others behind them.

On my ko-fi, I will start releasing monthly astrology forecasts. I will try and release them on the last quarter Moon so you can spend a week preparing for whatever good magical dates are coming up. The first one will come out on May 22.

My second book, a Marian Grimoire, will hopefully be ready for its first beta-testers soon. I got thrown for a loop because I found a couple books that are doing the same thing I am doing but from a different perspective. So, rather than thinking of myself as a pioneer, I am one of multiple people seeing a void and filling it. That’s a relief, actually, because it means future practitioners will have multiple solid options to choose from.

The other roadblock I am having is with the ritual knife and whether or not to consecrate it to Saturn. I have to try a few things to see what will work.

Hopefully I will have something for you all soon.

Jailbreaking Demons

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Thanks to Laura for editing. The featured image is Stolas from an old printing of The Infernal Dictionary by Jacques Collin de Plancy.

This essay is part of a longer series on Jailbreaking Catholicism. Here is a list of previous essays. Essentially, each essay looks at some spirits in Folk Catholicism and the Grimoire traditions and asks, “How would a leftish animist polytheist relate to these beings?”

Why Jailbreaking?

Jailbreaking the Saints

Jailbreaking the Angels

Jailbreaking the Cardinal Demons

I am not yet entirely sure how, but I know it can be done. You can form an internally consistent and complete cosmology of relating to these various spirits that is animistic, polytheist, and leftish politically. You do not have to look at this large body of lore and practice from a dogmatic lens. You can look at it with similar tools as we use to look at Pre-Christian practices.

This essay is about demons. My current belief is that demons are animistic spirits of the Earth. They are a subset of angels, but we relate to them differently because we live on the same planet. We are not limited to the traditional method of binding them and forcing them to do as we wish. We can negotiate with them from a place of mutual respect.

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Dreamwork 101

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Usually when I write a blog post I have consumed a lot of media on the topic and can cite sources. This time, I am just sharing my own experience. Do with this what you will.

What is a Dream?

When you sleep, you have different sleep phases. Rapid Eye Movement sleep, or REM, is the phase of sleep we call dreaming. If you are the kind of person to sleep for 8+ hours, you will cycle through this phase 2-3 time per night. During REM, your brain is firing off a lot of signals but the singals that move your body have been shut off. That way you don’t flail around in your bed while dreaming of running away from a giant bee.

My goals as a dreamer are

  1. to remember some of my dreams
  2. to interpret the dream
  3. to minimize the number of nightmares and sleep disturbances

I am not interested in total control over my dream space. I actually had a dream in high school where I negotiated with my dreamspace. I get to control my dream body, I surrender control of my environment. It has worked well so far, allowing me to shapeshift and fight back against threats in my dreams on several occasions.

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LBRP – An Experiment with the Form

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Variants on the LBRP abound. It’s honestly one of the best places to start editing your own spin onto the practice, becuase it is a good circle casting, an elemental attunment, and a reaffirmation of your personal cosmology. So here is mine. The directions will no make sense unless you are familiar with the LBRP, so here are a few links to videos that can teach you the base. You should also do the base version at least once to feel the energy move. The newer you are to energy movements, the more times you should try the base version and versins written by expereinced practicioners before making changes. Just like cooking.

Credit to my partner Pidge Fletching for writing the Witch’s Cross.

Psychopomp Productions

Damien Echols

Witch’s Cross

  •  Draw energy from Star Goddess into the head, down through your core into your pelvic bowl, then pull up from the earth into your pelvic bowl. “By the sovreignity of our bodies,”
  •  Draw from the core line into the right shoulder, then across to the left shoulder. “and the wisdom and pleasure of our ancestors,”
  •  Place your hands in a position of prayer or ressurection. “and the witch in the middle, so mote it be.”

Elements

  •  Face east, draw a pentacle in the air, and then push energy out to the eastern edge of your working area. Tone, “Air is sacred.”
  •  Make the sign of silence with a small stemp of the dominant foot.
  •  Draw a line from east to south. Draw a pentacle, and then push energy out to the southern edge of the working area. Tone, “Fire is sacred.”
  •  Make the sign of silence with a small stemp of the dominant foot.
  •  Draw a line from south to west. Draw a pentacle, and then push energy out to the western edge of the working area. Tone, “Water is sacred.”
  •  Make the sign of silence with a small stemp of the dominant foot.
  •  Draw a line from west to north. Draw a pentacle, and then push energy out to the northern edge of the working area. Tone, “Earth is sacred.”
  •  Make the sign of silence with a small stemp of the dominant foot.
  •  Draw a line from north to east.

Cardinal Demons

  •  Facing east, imagine a winged serpent. “Before me,” then tone, “Oriens.”
  •  Still facing east, imagine a lion behind you. “Behind me,” then tone, “Paimon.”
  •  Still facing east, imagine a large dark bird, “To my right,” then tone, “Amaymon.”
  •  Still facing east, imagine a bear to your left. “To my left,” then tone, “Egyn”

Benediction

“We are now between the worlds, and what happens between the worlds changes all the worlds.”

Witch’s Cross Reprise

 – Repeat as before.