Attempting to Fix A Major Feed Issue

For some reason, one of my original three posts for the site, Eris Enlightenment, something I first posted here 4 1/2 years ago, is showing up at the top of every feed. And for some reason everybody wants to comment on it.

I don’t know how this happened. I was updating categories for different posts and I updated that post, but I did the same for about fifty others and this is the only one that has an issue.

This is causing me to have a lot of traffic problems. A lot of sites that send me traffic list my most recent post and how long ago it was made. This not only puts me at the bottom of those lists, but makes it look like I haven’t updated in four years.

Hopefully this post will fix some of the feed problems so people know my site is currently being updated. Unfortunately this means that my fae helper spell post probably won’t get as much exposure as it would have if it were allowed to stay at the top of my feed a little longer.

And if you see the Eris post in your feed, it’s over 4 years old.

Magick 101: Element Theory

Note: I’m tired right now and I may not have expressed myself as clearly as possible, especially near the end. If I have time later this week I may revise this article to make it clearer. In the mean time though feel free to read what I have, but do so at your own risk. It is a complicated subject, so feel free to ask questions if there is something specific that I can clarify.

Because I’m currently working on individual articles dealing with the various elemental tools, I thought I’d take some time to go over element theory, in other words what are they and where do they come from. Element theory is one of the key concepts in magical understanding, especially in regard to Ceremonial Magick and its derivatives, like Paganism. There is no practical information in this article. I’m using the term element as an adjective as opposed to elemental because elemental theory could also imply theories surrounding the magical use of Elementals, which are naturally occurring entities which may also be evoked. Still the information here is very basic foundationary information, and it’s important if you want to understand spell work, ritual, or the creation of the universe.

First the basic stuff. We have five elements. Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, and a fifth element referred to as Akasha, Void, or Spirit. This article will refer to it as Spirit since this is the standard in Western Magick. Spirit would be the equivalent to what magicians commonly refer to today as energy. It is a force in the universe which cannot be seen or measured with conventional methods, but nonetheless can be manipulated and quantified.

Now it’s important to remember that when we say fire, or water, or air, or earth, or spirit, these are physical things which we symbolically associate with the actual element. The elements exist at every point in the universe. The universe is often split into several planes of existence. We have the physical plane, which is represented in the Kabalah by the bottom four Sepiroth. This is the only place in the universe (outside the Qlippoth), where fire, water, air, earth, and energy actually exist. All of these things are physical manifestations, and the first physical manifestations occur in the seventh sepiroth, Netzach. Prior to this, we have the mental planes, composed of the middle triad in the Kabalah. Here everything exists as thoughts, ideas, and intelligences, yet the mental planes are also where these things are created. Beyond the mental plane we have the first triad, and that which exists here are often called abstracts or ideals. There are no physicalities and there are no thoughts here, there isn’t even space. There are two things that need to be said to describe the first triad, there is existence there, and everything exists as acts. As it is the thoughts and ideas and eventually intelligences that make up parts of the mental planes, it is action, the doing, that makes up the first triad. It’s hard to understand because when we think of an action, we think that someone or something is doing that action, yet in the first triad there is no physicality and there is no intelligence, so there is nothing there to actually take an action. The act defines itself.

Now, getting back to the point, fire, water, air, earth, and energy cannot exist at any point beyond the physical planes, because they are physicalities. Yet the elements exist on every plane. So when we talk about, say, the element of fire, we aren’t actually speaking about actual fire. Fire is something we’ve found in the physical world which, based on its form and how it acts, we feel is a good representation of one of the five elements. There is no word in any language spoken on Earth that describes the element of fire. Even if we made up a new word, say we called it fluffenfuf, we still would not have words in the English language to adequately define the new word it. It’s a common habit in magick, and with dealing with interworld beings that may know completely foreign concepts created in languages from other worlds, that if we don’t have a word for something, we substitute a word we do have that is used to describe something like it.

So now that we’ve discussed what the elements are not, what exactly are they? A lot of people describe the elements as the basic building blocks of the universe. When we break things down, within the universe, into smaller and smaller parts, eventually we reach the smallest parts that make it up, and these ‘smallest’ parts are the five elements. They are, in a lot of ways, to magical theory what atoms are to science. But we also know, in regards to science, that if we look deeper we can break atoms down into protons, neutrons, and electrons. And likewise we can break the elements down into their basic parts. There are actually five basic building blocks that precede the five elements, and these are creation, division, singularity, duality, and triplicity. These five things are the only five things that exist prior to the existence of the elements, and so they are the only five things in all the universe not made up of the elements. In the same way that a proton is not made up of atoms, creation is not made up of the five elements.

So how did we get the elements? Everything in the universe is a direct extension of what came before it. To make a new thing we can combine two or more existing things, or we can divide an existing thing into two or more parts, or we can do a combination of dividing and combining various things. The point is, nothing is ever completely new. New things are created in the universe using the various parts that are already available. Since the divine spark the universe has become a varied and complex place, yet there is still no sixth element, and there never will be, because we cannot have a completely new thing. Everything needs a precedence.

There are two exceptions to this rule. Two things in the universe occurred without prior precedence. In many systems these two acts are considered the beginning of the universe. This is not however the true beginning of the universe. This is just the place that we are labeling the beginning because we need a place to start are exploration at in order to get anywhere, and because we can’t find the true beginning.

Anyways, two things happened without precedence, a thing created itself, then it divided into two parts. We call this thing which created itself the divine spark. It is the very first thing to appear in the universe, and it is from the divine spark (and its division) that all things spring forth. In Kabalism it is defined as Kether. Remember the divine spark occurs at Kether, Kether exists in the first triad, and all things in the first triad are actions. So what is the divine spark? It is the act of creating itself. If you think about that too hard, your brain may explode. It created itself and what it is (and what it created) is the act of creating itself :)

So the divine spark creates itself. There we have the first part, creation. After it creates itself, it is the only thing in creation. There is just one thing in all of creation, and it is different and separate from what came before, so now we also have singularity. So the divine spark exists, and anything that exists has to have a definition. It can be defined through everything else that also exists in the universe. Right now all that exists in the universe is the divine spark since it was created without precedence. We can say that the divine spark is itself (everything that exists in the universe), and it is not what isn’t the divine spark (Nothing or that which doesn’t exist).

But wait, now we have two things that exist in our universe. You have the divine spark, and you have that which is not the divine spark, the nothing. But the divine spark ‘is’ the entirety of the universe. It is the all. The existence of the divine spark doesn’t just define itself, it also defines what it is not, the nothing is nothing more than everything the divine spark isn’t. What I’m getting at is the divine spark is the all of the universe, which encompasses both what defines it in the positive (what it is) and what defines it in the negative (what it is not). This create a contradiction. The divine spark cannot logically be both what it is and what it isn’t. So what has to happen in order to solve the contradiction is the divine spark has to divide into two pieces. Going back to kabalistic representations Kether divides into two parts, Chockmah which is the purity of being when the divine spark existed alone, and Binah which is self-awareness through duality and thus represents the first corruption of purity and singularity. The actual first division itself is Thaumial, the highest sphere in the qlippoth.

Now we have the divine spark, which is the act of creating itself. It needs to be defined by what it is and what it isn’t. In order to do this, it divides. Some people may think the two aspects of the division solve the problem. Now Binah is Binah and not Chockmah, and Chockmah is Chockmah and not Binah, and Kether is Binah and Chockmah. But this isn’t the case. Chockmah and Binah existing isn’t what solves the problem. The division itself solves the problem. It is something which creation isn’t. Kether is not Thaumial. The divine spark is not the first division. In fact it is the duality that exists between Kether and Thaumial that is the precedence for the duality of Chockmah and Binah which occur after the division. The precedence for the purity of being of Chockmah is from the divine spark existing by itself, and the precedence for the self awareness via duality of Binah is from Kether existing along with Thaumial.

As a side note I’d like to say something about Binah that proves an earlier point. Binah is the definition of self by comparing yourself to what you are not. It can be seen as the first instance of knowledge – knowledge of self which is acquired through a comparison to what you are not. It is the corruption of purity, because it is based on there being something else in the universe besides oneself. Remember only acts can exist in the first triad. Binah is the act of definition. But definition implies knowledge, so now we have the existence of knowledge. Knowledge is an abstract thing. It’s not quite an idea, but its definitely not an act. It can however exist in the first triad, but only in particular parts of Binah. But knowledge presents problems. Now there’s something that must be known. So it must have a duality. There must be knowledge which is true and knowledge which is not true. Now we have truth, and truth is most definitely an idea. Not only that, you have self definition. Self definition leads directly into an idea. So do we have ideas in Binah, and thus in the first triad? No we do not. But ideas are occurring as the natural eventual conclusion to the act of Binah, so what happens to them? They begin to form the fourth Sepiroth, and thus the beginning of the third triad, the mental planes. Think of this process as a sentence. You begin speaking a sentence which forms Binah, but by the time you reach the conclusion of the sentence, you’re already forming the fourth Sepiroth, Chesed. Note that the middle triad is created as a direct result of the creation of the first triad, it is its eventual conclusion. It is also made up of the things which came into being in the first triad, going back to the earlier rule in the universe nothing (except our two exceptions) are created without precedence.

Now, going back to more relevant discussions, as we’ve said the first division occurs as a direct result of self creation. There for we could say that even the first division has precedence. It is a direct result of self creation, in the same way singularity is a direct result of self creation. Because of this it’s common say that there is one thing which started everything else, there was one event which occurred without precedence. But then why do I specifically say two events occurred without precedence? By my own logic either one event occurred without precedence, self creation, and division, singularity, duality, and triplicity followed as a byproduct, or I throw out the byproduct angle and just go with precedence, in which case five events occurred. But I’ll go back to my original statement, two things occur without precedence in the universe, creation and division.

The idea that creation came first and everything else is a byproduct of that creation is a matter of perspective. The idea that creation was first makes sense to us because we exist in the Sepiroth, which naturally flow from the act of self-creation. We have a perspective that is tainted by our location, and also by something akin to nationalism which sees are current location, the Sepiroth, as naturally superior and better than its counterpart, the Qlippoth. If we were, however, incarnated on the Qlippoth and trying to figure out these same ideas there, we would come to the conclusion that the first thing which occurred was the first division, and self creation occurred as a result of this division. The first division coming into being is what creates the act of self creation, and then it goes on from there. The thing is, it’s late right now, and thinking about this stuff from a Sepirothic perspective is making my head spin. Thinking about it from a Qlippothic perspective will no doubt cause my head to explode. In fact I can feel it about to burst right now. There are of course answers, and if you want to meditate on this and figure it out, it can be done. I’m just not figuring out how to put those answers into words right now. I will say that Qlippothic perspectives are interesting things to have if you can handle them.

Okay, so now we have four things. The divine spark (creation), the divine spark existing alone (singularity), the first division (division), and the existence of creation and division (duality). So where does triplicity come from? Well what was there prior to the divine spark? You could say nothing, but that would be wrong. In order for there to be a nothing there would have to be a something, and something is the divine spark, and that didn’t exist prior to the divine spark coming into existence. So what was there?

I don’t have that answer. I never talked with anyone or anything that claimed to have it. It’s possible some people, or some things have figured it out, but either they can’t remember it or can’t communicate it, at least in regards to our level of existence. So I don’t know what was there, but I know, through logic, something came before creation and division. This something is a third thing. We have creation, division, and what came before creation and division. A triplicity. We now have our five building blocks.

Note, we now have five things. That is everything we have. That is the most we can count to. Five. We have five elements. We don’t have six elements because we can’t count to six yet, and everything must have a precedence. Once we have five elements though we can count to ten. This is important to note because the universe didn’t pick the number of elements through some arbitrary method. It simply took the largest number it could, thus doubling what we had to work with, and making the entirety of the universe far more complex.

So how long did all of this stuff take to happen, from the time of the divine spark up until the creation of the elements? Billions of years, seven days, mere seconds? All of these answers are wrong. All of these things happen before time coming into existence. So does that mean it all happen at once? No, it didn’t. In order for everything to have happened at once, time must exist, or at least the concept of it must exist. All of this stuff happened/is happening/happens. If Kether divides into Chockmah and Binah, shouldn’t Kether cease to exist? If that were true Kether would exist prior to the division, and not exist after the division, but in order for that to happen, time would have to exist. So even though Chockmah and Binah exist as the division of Kether, Kether also still exists, because there was no time when this happened and time still doesn’t exist where it happened. So at any moment, this division has occurred, it has not yet occurred, and it is currently occurring.

Now we have five elements that can be defined by these five things. First we have singularity. Each element is a separate individual thing. Notice they just aren’t one big group called the elements. Next we have duality. We can say that fire isn’t water, spirit, earth, or air. We can also split the elements into two separate groups. We refer to these groups as masculine and feminine, but remember the ideas of gender and masculinity and femininity haven’t yet been created. These are later creations that we use to try to describe the elements. We group them as such: Group A (Masculine Elements) consists of Spirit, Fire, and Air; Group B (Feminine Elements) consist of Spirit, Water, and Earth. We can also use duality to create opposite elements. Fire is opposite Water. Air is Opposite Earth.

We also have creation and division. So some elements are creationary (Fire and Water), and some are divisionary (Air and Earth). Fire and Water join together in union (the creation), and the end result is Air and Earth (the division).

We also split the elements into three groups. The divine element (Spirit), the creationary elements (Fire and Water) and the divisionary elements (Air and Earth). Fire and Water, and thus Air and Earth, are created by Spirit, and the union of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth together creates Spirit, so in a sense spirit creates itself, giving it a connection to the divine spark and the divine element.

So a short review thus far:

Spirit = Masculine and Feminine groups, creationary and divisionary, divine group.
Fire = Masculine group, creationary, creationary group.
Water = Feminine group, creationary, creationary group.
Air = Masculine group, divisionary, divisionary group.
Earth = Feminine group, divisionary, divisionary group.

Now remember that all of these elements exist in the first triad. Only acts can exist in the first triad. So we know the five elements must be actions. So what actions are they?

Spirit = The all of the universe (the act of not existing).
Fire = The act of creation.
Water = The act of division.
Air = The act of action.
Earth = The act of existence.

But it gets a little bit more complicated. Fire is the act of creation, and so it is also the act of destruction. Remember the divine spark created itself, and whatever came before currently is not anymore, so creation is also destruction. Meanwhile when you divide something you can also now combine it back together, so the act of division also brings about the act of union, so both division and union are water.

Also take these numbers; 1.Spirit, 2. Fire, 3. Water, 4. Air, and 5. Earth. Compare the element to the number it is assigned. Compare it to the Sepiroth that is also assigned to that number. You’ll notice some interesting things. Such as water, which represents division, is number three, which is the same as Binah, which deals with duality. Air meanwhile is four, and air is generally associated with thoughts and ideas, and the fourth Sepiroth is the first Sepiroth of the mental planes.

So why is Spirit non-existence? Spirit represents all things in the universe put together. What happens when you put everything together? You no longer have a duality. There is no self-definition. We’re heading back to the universe encompassing both what it is and what it is not. We’ve gone backwards. We no longer have existence. We now have what came before the divine spark. This is best described as non-existence, since it was what was before existence.

Anyways, now we have our five little building blocks. And we pretty much build everything else out of those five things, along with the five pieces we used to build those (creation, division, singularity, duality, and triplicity). As we start building we notice a few things. First off, everything in the universe, beyond those ten things, contain all five elements to various degrees. Secondly that most everything in the universe contains more of some elements, and less of others. In practice we tend to define things by the element which has the greatest concentration. There are some rare exceptions where we feel the need to define something by two or more elements because of an equal or near equal concentration. Also although it may be possible to define very complicated things, like people, as a single element, you’ll also notice that these things may have many varied aspects, and these aspects may be defined as different elements.

It’s important to note that when we say things are made up of the five elements to various degrees, we don’t just mean physical things and living things. We also mean thoughts and ideas. We mean abstracts like philosophies and religions. We mean completely imaginary things which don’t exist. We mean concepts like the economy. We mean actions like punching or thinking. Pretty much anything in all of the universe, besides the original ten building blocks, is made up of the elements. Remember there is nothing without precedence, so everything comes forth from the divine spark/first division. A few steps up from that are the elements.

A brief summary of some of the things the elements encompass:

Spirit: Associated with the divine, sacred acts, magick, and that which came before the divine spark. It is the element of the highest spiritual attainment. It is both active and passive. It represents all things, and also nothing.

Fire: Generally associated with passion in all of its forms. Fire comes on as strong and as forceful as it can, it burns like passion burns within you, and it eventually gives every bit of itself to reach its goal. It encompasses passion in the form of lust, and also passion in the form of creative endeavors, such as the fine arts, and also being passionate about specific things. It is associated with creation (by oneself) and destruction. It is also associated with absolute spiritual truth and the divine light of spiritual truth. It is associated with the day and is the great exposer. It is associated with the beginning of the first triad. Fire is an active force, being active by the very nature of its existing. It is the only element which does not have a passive form (if fire is not active, it cannot exist).

Water: Water is generally associated with emotions, love, relationships, and unions. It is considered flexible and adaptive and ever changing, and it is often associated with the future because of this. Water is also associated with the power of creation through union. It is associated with the night, and along with that the great mysteries and everything that is hidden. Water is associated with the end of the first triad (Binah). Water is a passive force, passive because it meets the demands of its environment.

Air: Air is largely associated with the mind. It has strong connections to intelligence, thought, ideas, imagination, and imaginary things. It is also the element associated with action and doing. It is adaptive and flexible like water, but remains an active force like fire. Unlike fire though air has a passive form. It is associated with the present, and also with the dawn (being associated with beginnings). Air is associated with the mental planes, especially the fourth Sepiroth.

Earth: Earth is stagnant and endures. It is usually associated with physical things and the physical plane. Because of this it also represents things like wealth and money and that which is completely practical and mundane. It also is associated with things that are immortal and forever. Earth is the only element which does not have an active form. Earth is associated with the tenth Sepiroth Malkuth (and due to its nature, also Yesod). Because Earth is stagnant and unchanging, it is associated with the past which is writ in stone. Earth is also associated with the dusk, being associated with endings.

The above brief summary of the elements is my attempt to define five things which are so abstract as to be undefinable in English. Even if I did have the words, each element has an infinite number of definitions and associations, meaning it would be impossible for me to list them all even if I spent eternity doing nothing but that. As a practitioner, you shouldn’t be dependent on a list for your elemental associations (especially because a complete list would be impossible). It’s better to have a deep understanding of the elements, to the degree that you can figure out the elemental associations of things as needed. It’s a good exercise to get into the habit of thinking about things in terms of what elements they are. What element defines your computer? The processor inside your computer? The font on the computer screen? The electricity flowing through the power cable? The emotions you’re currently feeling as you read this? So on and so forth. This is a simple thing that can easily be done as you go about your day. After a while though, you’ll start to come to a deep understanding of the different elements and how they work, and you’ll also, through practice, learn how to figure out elemental associations.

Getting Added to my Blogroll and RSS Feed News

No magick here, just blog news.

First off, I just found out what a feed was and how to use it. I’m now using a blog reader and this will hopefully help me keep up with my blogs better. I’ve also added the feed link in my sidebar, but firefox also has it in the bar too, so I don’t know if that will help anyone.

Secondly I’d like to talk about my blogroll and the blogs I read. If anyone has a blog they think should be listed there, send me a link. In fact, this post would be a good place to leave a comment about your blog. Especially give me a shout out if you’re linking to me, I usually like to return links.

I do have a few rules though surrounding the blogs I’ll link to. Pretty much I’m looking for blogs that are related to metaphysics, magick, and spirituality in anyway (regardless of specific belief systems or the exact focus of the blog). Blogs that at least sometimes have actual techniques, exercises, and rituals posted are of especial interest to me.

However from now on I am no longer linking to blogs which don’t have  a blogroll of their own (I don’t have to be on the blogroll, I just have to see it exists), and I urge other bloggers to do the same. I keep a blogroll as a service to my readers to inform them of sites I find interesting, and also to help promote those sites which I find interesting and think should have more readers. If a blog author doesn’t want to link to other blogs and support the spiritual/magical blogging community, that’s fine, but I don’t think they should be reaping the benefits of being part of the community.

Beyond that I won’t link to sites that are hateful towards any particular religion or race, to sites that only or usually post non-original material (be it other bloggers’ posts or public domain works), and to sites where the general tone is typically negative, angst-ridden, immature, or filled with self-pity.

I’m not too keen on Pagan or Magick news sites, although I do make exceptions (The Wild Hunt seems like an interesting site, and Augoeides is not only a good news site, but offers much more), mainly because I really don’t care about what’s going on. And I’m staying completely away from political sites. I’m not much into politics, and my political views lean quite a bit to the right in most cases, in stark contrast to the majority of the metaphysical community. Personal diaries of practitioners which are bereft any magical value really don’t interest me either.

Finally I definitely will not link to sites which are anti-magick, anti-spiritual, or anti-metaphysical. This includes Atheist sites, and a lot of the sites that deal with parapsychology, demonology, and ghost hunting. I will not link to commercial blogs that are designed only to sell a product (even if you pay me). If you are a sufficient dumb-ass, I also won’t link to you. Usually this is fine, but there’s a point where your dumb-assery will have a negative effect on me through association.

One other thing to note, I don’t add blogs when they are very new with only a few posts. From my experiences more often than not the blog ends up just being abandoned within a week or two of me adding it.

Glossary Up.

I’ve just added a new page, a glossary of magical terms and religions. This is meant as a quick reference for anyone learning about magic, and to give definitions for some of the more obscure terms that may appear on my blog. I’ve limited the entries to just enough information to clearly define each term.

Please let me know of anything I may have missed, or any terms which you’d like to see in the glossary (I know I’m constantly realizing I’ve missed terms) or any information I may have wrong. This post is a good place to post suggestion. Please note the following rules I’ve followed in regard to entries:

1. I’m not adding names of individuals, that would take a list several times larger.

2. For the same reason I’m not adding books, the Necronomicon (which is a fictional book) and the I Ching (which is a divantory system too) are exceptions to this rule.

3. I’ve tried to limit groups to only those groups that are very large or have had a strong influence.

4. As for religions and spiritual movements, I’ve tried to list all of the major ones I know about which are closely related to practical magic, except for the Judeo-Christian religions which should be obvious.

5. I’ve listed religions, like Ariosophy, which have espoused views of racial supremacy, but only in cases where they have been metaphysical groups that happened to be racist, not in cases where the group was simply a religion built around racism. I’ve also have only done this to provide complete information about influential religions and in no way promote these groups.

6. I’ve refrained from listing obvious terms that no one would need a definition for like sword or wand.

Crowley Tarot Deck – Yet Another Update

This pretty much just officially confirms what I suspected in the earlier posts. I got an email from AGM today (the publishers of the tarot) stating that Crowley’s deck is being reprinted right now and will be available shortly, and that US games is still the US distributer.

Waite and Crowley: BFF

What follows is mental masturbation devoid spiritual value. Proceed at your own risk.

Waite Vs Crowley is the Nintendo Vs Sega rivalry of the magickal world. It’s the most well-known, most participated in debate, and a classic that will never die. Even today, these two men both being dead for over a half-century, one only has to spend a bit of time on the Internet to see Waite fans talking smack about Crowley, and Crowley fans talking smack about Waite. These men have become opposing icons of the magickal world, the wise old school occultist vs the sexy bad boy of magick. Unfortunately its all a lie.

Let’s begin by deconstructing the two reasons why these men would have a rivalry to begin with (and we’ll get to the rest later on). The first reason being, and the least complicated of the two, that they were possessed of two very different views on spirituality and magick. These two western ceremonial magicians who were both greatly influenced by the Golden Dawn and the works of Eliphas Levi, who were both well read literary men, and who both valued tarot enough to create their own decks (with some surprising similarities). I could go on, but all I get are similarities. One of the major differences listed is the fact that Crowley published secret information where as Waite believed in keeping it secret. But Waite published secret information when it pleased him to do so (the strength-justice switch of the Golden Dawn for example), where as Crowley created secret information for the eyes of the highest levels of the OTO only (and the OTO still practices this secrecy today). Furthermore the written works of both men are definitely valuable works created by adepts, and neither one, being at the level they were, could truthfully deny the value of the other’s work. Ultimately one can only surmise that these two men were not possessed of very different views on spirituality and magick, in fact they had strikingly similar views on spirituality and magick.

Secondly there’s the belief that this mutual hatred stems from the fact that Waite was part of one of several factions within the Golden Dawn that wished to change its direction, where as Crowley was a loyalist to Mathers, and that Crowley had played a central role in the ultimate demise of the Golden Dawn, something Waite wouldn’t forgive him for.

Let’s start with the idea that Crowley was a loyalist to Mathers. This is generally gathered from Crowley’s own statements about his history with the Golden Dawn, however this history has been disputed by some, particularly that Crowley achieved the 5=6 adept grade, which Crowley claimed was bestowed upon him personally by Mathers in a secret ceremony. There is evidence that Crowley received the 5=6 material from a friend, and that he never surpassed 4=7. Crowley’s own accounts also show that he felt that Mathers and the Golden Dawn had cheated him out of his money, that the secret information was not what was neither secret nor what he was initially promised, and he had a very bitter and public rivalry with Mathers until the later’s death, both publishing the secret Golden Dawn material developed by Mathers and publicly claiming Mathers had engaged in psionic vampirism against him. Although Waite was definitely opposed to Mathers in the end, Crowley seems to be in the same boat with him. Shortly after the original Golden Dawn resolved both men went on to form their own splinter groups, Crowley forming the A.A. and Waite taking over the Isis-Urania temple. Loyalists to Mathers were men like Edward Berridge and J.W. Innes-Brodie who were part of the reconstructed Alpha et Omega, not Crowley who seems to have jumped ship with most everyone else.

As for Crowley being a central figure in the dissolution of the Golden Dawn, I’m sure Crowley liked what this “fact” did for his rep, but ultimately there isn’t much support for this idea either. The Golden Dawn lasted for fourteen years, a very long time for a group of its type, and in that time it had grown to several hundred members with several different temples, all with their own leaders. The group had become large and bloated, the two remaining of the three founding members were at odds with each other, they had been disowned by their German superiors, and their leader had relocated to Paris while the bulk of the organization was in England and being led by others. Factions were forming against Mathers, and that the group had to change was inevitable prior to Crowley joining (which occurred very late in the Golden Dawn’s life-cycle).

Even if Crowley was responsible for the death of the Golden Dawn though, this isn’t something that should have bothered Waite one bit. He was, after all, one of the folks that wanted to change the current direction of the group. Ultimately the dissolution of the Golden Dawn ended with Waite wrestling complete control over Isis-Urania, the group’s original temple, from Brodie-Innes, which Waite held for over a decade before he ran it into the ground on his own.

So if the two didn’t have a reason to fight, what would they get out of a rivalry. To begin to answer that, one has to look at how traditionally, and to a large part even today, magickal information is gathered. When someone is reading a book concerning ceremonial magick, sometimes other books or magicians are named. For instance when Waite references Papus and the Tarot of the Bohemians in the PKT. The reader is then aware of another author or book to look for, and in this way the author recommends other books to the reader by pointing them out. It isn’t coincidence that nearly every book listed in the bibliography to Waite’s extraordinarily popular PKT are considered important and influential books on tarot, even if he did kind of pan them.

The problem is, there’s no such thing as bad press. Although a book Waite says is devoid any value obviously won’t send as many seekers as one he highly praises, he’ll still send more people towards it than if he outright refuses to mention it. So if you know what you’re doing, as Waite did, you never mention a name or book title of someone you despise. We actually see this with Paul Foster Case, a former Alpha et Omega member and anti-enochian magician that actually did dislike Crowley and his works. When Case goes off on Crowley, which he does, he never mentions him by name. If you’re familiar with Crowley already, you’ll probably get everything Case is trying to say, and maybe be deterred from him. If you’re not familiar with Crowley though, you’ll have no idea what Case is talking about, and so he isn’t leading you to him.

Waite and Crowley, however, were both very willing to specifically name the other. And their insults only go to grow each others reputations in a positive way. Every time Waite talks about Crowley he paints him as the magickal rebel, the guy who will let loose the great secrets without requiring years of dedication and the guy that will give away the powerful and, let’s face it, sexy magick that other people guard. Meanwhile Crowley paints Waite as an old school occultist that won’t give up on antiquated traditions, but this of course makes Waite out to be a wise old man with access to powerful information that he’s guarding.

Notice how both men also refrain from ever delivering a killing blow. Waite could have done tremendous damage to Crowley’s organizations had he simply shouted about the sexual practices, particularly homosexuality, present in Crowley’s system, something that would have been clearly discernible by examining just Crowley’s published works. Waite meanwhile was a notorious plagiarizer, and although Crowley may not have known about more obscure sources like the Sola-Busca tarot or the Book of Days, he definitely knew about some of the sources, like Waite lifting the design of the devil card from Levi. Had Crowley exposed Waite, he would have seriously knocked down Waite’s credibility and perceived value.

Also keep in mind both men were notorious liars. Many of the facts Crowley claims to have happened in his life are easily disproven with historical evidence. Meanwhile Waite outright lies at times, such as his belief that there was no connection between Kabbala and tarot (this when his own tarot deck has definite Kabbalistic influences). Neither man could really be trusted, and both are probably amused to no end that they managed to trick so many people for so long with a made up rivalry that did nothing but benefit both men.

Site Update

It’s been months since I last posted anything. Part of that just has to do with real life keeping me busy. Part of that is because my spirituality has taken a very inward focus lately, which leaves me with very little to contribute to the general community. And part of it is because I want to get more practical information on the site, but I’ve been too lazy to actually get any of that together.

I’m going to try to get a series of articles together about different types of creatures and common characteristics of them and how exactly their logic works, and also how to correctly identify their otherkin counterparts. I’m thinking of doing one on elves and one on fae creatures, and possibly doing one on angels and one on dragons. These are all things that I’ve dealt with extensively in the past and have a fairly good understanding of, and at the same time most of them are very misrepresented in popular culture.

But if anyone was wondering, yes I’m still here and taking care of this blog, and if anyone has any ideas of what they’d like me to go into drop me a line or comment somewhere, I’m a little lost on post ideas right now.

How to Summon Baal, or Anything Else, Quick and Dirty Like.

Note: Despite its age, this post still gets some reads every now and then. This was originally meant as a quick post that I copied and pasted from a response I made on a forum. I’ve since written a post which better explains the operation and how it works, Contacting the Divine. If you want the operation (which I recommend, it’s some of the strongest magic you can do) take a look at that post instead. If you’re looking for a method of evocation (which this isn’t), here’s my personal method that I developed. You may also want to read this post and this one.

I posted this on another forum to a fellow who was asking for a method to summon Baal. My reply isn’t specific to Baal and I thought this might be useful to some so I’m reposting it here.

1. Research what it is you want to summon. In the case of Baal, the name can refer to numerous things, including several deities, so you need to figure out exactly what Baal you want to summon, and then you need to get an idea of how Baal is seen, what people generally think about him, and what he’s probably like. So long as it’s something that is popular or common internet searches will probably turn up enough information for the summoning. Be sure to check out encyclopedia mythica and wikipedia, although not always accurate they can still have a lot of information to help you out.

2. Find a statue or image of what you want to summon, and if you can’t find that then try for a symbol associated with it. Spiritual depictions are usually better than artistic depictions, but in any case go with the depiction that you feel most closely resembles what you’re trying to summon. If you have no other alternative you can make your own depiction.

3. Remove any barriers, wards, ect. that you may have around the general area that you’ll be doing the summoning (most likely your home). This includes personal wards and barriers, ones that are anchored to objects (be aware of certain things that may be decoration but are used for protection because they may have become active and can effect the summoning. This includes gargoyle statues and depictions of pentagrams), and ones that may have been put up by others.

4. Take down your shields and natural defenses. Any type of defense can hinder the summoning.

5. Make sure you aren’t in any kind of circle. Make sure there are no seals or sigils in the area since these may have an unknown effect. Refrain from doing any pre-ritual type ritual including asking for protection from anything. We don’t want to be putting up new barriers.

6. Now take your depiction of what you want to summon (in this case Baal), and place it somewhere (such as on a table or a night stand). You can just leave a picture on your computer screen if you want, that works too. Or you can print out a picture and put it in a frame and then place it on a table (the later method will generally bring better results). Now you need to activate this as an alter, in this case to Baal. Unless you want to develop a very strong relationship with Baal, this will probably just be a makeshift alter that we will take down after the summoning.

7. Now that the alter is ready non-aggressively direct energy towards the depiction of Baal with the intent that this energy is to be received directly by Baal. Make sure your defenses and your shields are down and, if he chooses to, Baal will also be able to direct his energy towards you. With a little practice you should be able to figure out how to bury thoughts into the energy in order to communicate, and you’ll be able to receive thoughts in the same manner.

8. Whether or not Baal responds you should also make it clear that he has an invitation to appear in your house and that you wish for him to come.

9. Have fun with your summoning adventures.

Direct Link to Book and Promises of Pictures

Know first off that it’s a miracle that I even manage to upload posts at all. I have no clue what I’m doing or how this blog thing really works.

That being said, I’ve managed to semi-master the art of uploading stuff. Right now the most current PDF of my book is available for download via this site. This is the book as it currently appears on Lulu, minus the covers. This is the fourth revision (which fixes some spelling errors, notably a typo of ore for or and some confusion with the words affect and effect).

I’m also going to try to get pictures attached to posts.

Let Us Bring Some Evil Into This World (A Call to End Inaction)

Within the realm of my blog, my book, when I speak with people, when I write people through email, I’ve been rather free about the magickal information I give out. I am very much aware of the danger this information can pose to the practitioner if it’s put to use. I’ve been hurt badly in the past, and I’m no doubt at least partly responsible for injuries that have occurred to others. Still, I continue, and will continue, as I have been, offering what information I have to anyone who truly wants to learn.

There is a disgusting trend that has emerged where information is being hidden away in fear that it may be used in such a way that the practitioner is hurt. Books are being burned or otherwise taken off the market, stores refuse to carry certain titles and authors, people are being told not to read certain works because of the ideas discussed within them, and some are asking, or even demanding, that people stop teaching spellwork, astral projection, channeling, mediumship, and the like to just anyone. Meanwhile practitioners are being urged not to practice. They are being told that they aren’t strong enough or learned enough yet to protect themselves if they chose to utilize magick. In some instances practitioners are being urged to give up magick completely as it’s far too dangerous to ever be used and instead to just be a part of a neopagan religion.

Change is upon us. If you can tap the energy of this place, the vast ocean of energy that exists around us, and fall into it, and follow it a bit into the future you’ll notice that it starts to twist and turn, that it’s twisting and turning right now. We’re heading towards an apocalypse of sort, this world is going through a great change. I can feel it, my teacher felt it, my peers feel it, and almost a hundred years ago Allister Crowley felt it. This isn’t something new.

A lot of people like to talk about this change. I’ve become certain that most can’t feel it, they’re just repeating what they’ve heard from others. They have no understanding of it. A common belief is that, once this change occurs, the veils will break and we’ll all be blessed with magickal and psychic powers. Another belief is that this effect is generational, we won’t gain these powers, but our children or grandchildren or whenever this happens will be born with it.

The truth is this change isn’t something that’s going to happen. It’s happening right now, and it’s been happening for some time. Those waiting to just wake up with their magick powers one day should give up now. It isn’t happening. No new power is coming into this world. The power has always been there, and it will always be there. Having power is a matter of grasping that power which has always been there to be grasped. What has changed is an increase in opportunity.

In the 19th century Levi’s works were only available to those who could speak French. In the early 20th century translations started appearing, but these translations along with their French counterparts were still difficult to find and treasured among those who owned them. By the 1970s increased interest in the metaphysical and cheaper printing techniques meant that Levi’s works were now more widely available, assuming you knew who he was and knew of a place that sold good occult books or a good mail order company. Today Levi’s works can be found at the local bookstore, they can easily be downloaded online, and even if you don’t know who he is typing magick into a search engine along with a week studying online should lead you to him.

Nearly all of the most famous magickal and spiritual works are available online. Every year more works are translated and better translations appear (compare Mather’s Sepher Yetzirah to Kaplan’s superior translation). Finding the exact book you want isn’t much harder than typing the name into an Amazon or Ebay search, or asking your local bookstore to order it. Meanwhile inventions like the Internet, HTML, and cheaper and more efficient POD techniques make publishing and distributing ideas, techniques, theories, and teachings easier.

Right now it is easier for a neophyte to find the information they need to begin solitary practice or work towards initiation than it has been in thousands of years. It is taking less and less work to find the necessary information, and more and more the information is simply presenting itself to people, no work required. And the situation is only going to get better, or worse depending on your perspective of it. No one is going to be gifted with magickal powers. Rather we’re being gifted with a better opportunity to acquire those powers.

This world is in the process of shifting. It’s moving towards some unforeseeable end, and currently it’s ripe to be influenced. I’ve seen factions of otherworldly beings forming. They’re parties that have an interest in where this world is heading and the final outcome of these events. They will take what they can by influence and they will take what they can by force. Wars will be fought between these powers that be, actually the battles have already started, and in the end their strength will determine the fate of this world.

Humanity has been castrated and robbed of the right to determine its own destiny. They’ve taken from us our gods and angels and heroes and villains and demons and old ones, the very things that were meant to show us what we could aspire to become.

And now the world shifts, and the power long ago taken from us is offered to us again. Some believe that we’re destroying this world, that we are a parasite to it, and that it seeks to expel us. This world clings to us and I hear it pleading with us to realize our potential and again become masters of our destiny and determine this world’s fate.

We are among the elite, and we are growing. We are those that have chosen not to cower behind a higher force, but rather to throw ourselves into the universe allowing our strength, our talent, our merits, and our character to lead us to our salvation, or our damnation. We are supposed to be the strong and the powerful who walk the path to enlightenment unhindered by fear, not the cautiously weak who chose ignorance out of fear.

A time will come when these battles come near to an end, and they will have taken what can be taken by influence, and they will have taken what can be taken by force, and the victor will determine what fate befalls all of humanity, and the only hope humanity will have to determine its own fate will be to prove themselves stronger and uninfluenced and take back by force what is rightfully theres.

Inside each of us is the potential to achieve power beyond that of even the gods. Those incarnate here have a greater right to determine the fate of this world than any other entity, and with that right comes the power to claim and defend it if we chose to.

This world does not need caution. It does not need fear. This world needs strength, and it needs practitioners that are practicing and growing in power so that they may face what is yet to come against them.

Power can only be achieved through experience. Risk is an essential element of progress. Read books. Read everything. Don’t be swayed from a particular author because they have been labeled as evil or dangerous. Look at their ideas and determine for yourself their validity. And cast spells, astral project, summon things, channel, in other words practice magick. Get into fights and mix it up with entities. Yes, all of this is dangerous. Do it anyways. Don’t wait to do things because you doubt your abilities. Your abilities will only grow through experience, and doing things now is the only way to grow your abilities. Time spent waiting for your abilities to develop from an armchair will only be time wasted.

We need to walk our paths fearlessly. We need to allow ourselves to grow spiritually. We need to have confidence in our abilities and faith not in higher powers but in our own power to protect ourselves and find salvation.

When we see ourselves as weak, we become mastered by our own limitation. When we believe that we our strong, strength tends to manifest within us.

The true master teaches empowerment, not subjugation. The true master preaches of the strength of his disciples, not their weaknesses. The true master sees himself not as having ascended to a point above others, but of having reached a higher point that others will hopefully exceed.