Talking About Ritual Magick

This is part four of a series of articles that will demonstrate the results that I encountered many years ago when I sought to invoke and contact the spirits of the Nephilim, namely the four greater chiefs of that body. I use the term Nephilim to describe the fallen angels of the Sons of God who came down to earth to mate with the “daughters of men” as well as their offspring, who were considered giants (men or women of renown). From these spirits I received a body of lore and a perspective on Enochian magick that is completely unprecedented. I would like to share with my readers some of the lore that I received from these entities and to demonstrate that the Nephilim are indeed highly important to the Enochian system of magick. I will follow up the third article with a fourth that will reveal the results of the invocation of Turiel.

Notes from the Invocation of Turiel

This invocation was mysterious as it was brief, since the manifestation of Turiel was very subtle and little verbal information was received. It was performed on November 28, 1992. However, the effect of the rite produced a number of bodily sensations (but none of them were uncomfortable) that precipitated a deep fugue state consisting of personal reflection and self insight. This invocation was experienced at a very deep internal level, and will produce more insights and ideas that will surface at undetermined intervals (weeks, months, or perhaps even years) after the initial working. The notes below represents the essence of what was communicated to me by the spirit. However, that communication was not verbal, but related in dreams, sensations and insights.

A Question of Balance and Magical Partnership

The true alignment to the gods, its mysteries and secrets, lay within the essence of the joining of a priestess and a priest. It can’t be discovered without first having a partner. Yet to you is given all of the hints and important elements, the ritual patterns and information necessary to reveal the secret knowledge. What mystery remains to be discovered is how to cultivate a suitable partner, and this, too, will be known in time.

An important question (and not to be omitted) is whether she will want to work the magickal and liturgical rites with you. Will she assist you in your spiritual and magical quest? During the times when the spirit of your magical genius is upon you, only those who agree to work these newly constructed rites will ultimately be relevant. The rest will all fall away as if they were illusions instead of real people. This represents a great test for any woman who would seek your favor. It is a challenge to be undertaken or discarded, and if it is undertaken, then it must be sustainable. A failure of either type (discarding a challenge or giving it up after a short duration) signifies an obvious unworthiness and incompatibility - with no blame to any parties. Know this, and more importantly, understand it. The times of great power shall conjure a partner (or not), yet beware of other times when distractions shall take you off of your spiritual and magical course. Don’t trust or believe in flattery or false promises, since these are motivated by delusion and fantasy. Only actions count in these situations, and observable long term commitments, the rest is just empty words. (Remember this lesson well in the future years, or you shall discover the bitterness and unhappiness of having a bad relationship with a woman.)

[This seemed to be a warning to me, but it actually had a greater subtlety than I realized. It really goes both ways, which is the importance of finding a committed partner and also giving her the space and respect for her to find her own voice in her role within the work. The fact that I was not able to secure such a relationship until many years later was perhaps a testament to the fact that I didn’t understand or fully realize this warning.]

Once these two conditions are met, then the third test is whether you will choose her, and thereby take the initiative. The time of establishing a working partner is thus established. The union must be both physical and spiritual in order to be fulfilling on all levels of your being. This is what you should seek for in your hunt for a mate, all other avenues are illusory.

Ritual Comments

The invocation of Turiel was begun during the hour of Jupiter, when the Moon was in the Sign of Aquarius, two days before the First Quarter, on Saturday, November 28, 1992. The rite began at 10:40 PM EST, and was completed at 1:48 AM, the next day. The exteriorization occurred (via the solar gate) at Tuesday evening, on December 1.

Frater Barrabbas

Recently, there has been some discussion on the blogosphere regarding the importance of intention and will, or perhaps more accurately, the inflation of the importance of these elements. While will-power (initiative) and intention do play important parts in the performance of basic rites within the discipline of ritual magick, they are (of course) not exclusively important. These two elements are part of an overall package, and unless the whole package is known and understood, then all sorts of silly ideas about ritual magick can be entertained by the beginner.

In my previous two books, “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick” and Mastering the “Art of Ritual Magick,” I believe that I have defined these elements but not in a concise manner. Going over what I wrote years ago has prompted me to revisit these basic concepts and attempt to write about them in a much clearer manner than I had previously in these books. I guess you could say that my thoughts, perceptions and my ability to write has improved to the point where I believe that I can now write a better and clearer set of definitions about the basic elements of ritual magick.

How I define intention and will-power regarding ritual magick is to understand them as important parts of the very beginning foundation of any kind of rite to make a change occur in material reality. Intention is important because it represents the plan for making something happen (although it is not yet implemented) and the will, as will-power, representing the desire and discipline to make something happen. Yet these two elements don’t trump the others and are seldom useful or constructive by themselves. In other words, I have never believed that intention alone can cause something to happen, and that will-power by itself can’t accomplish any kind of important achievement. There has to be a coordination between several elements and it’s important to know what they are and how to define them.

The key-stone to functioning as a successful ritual magician is to be empowered, and what I am referring to here is “self-empowerment.” So you might ask what is self-empowerment? It’s certainly a phrase that gets used a lot if you read books on magic, pop psychology and self-help. It is the opposite of helplessness, which is the usual state of being that most humans encounter at some point in their lives (often, but not always, at the moment of their death), and some people never seem to get beyond this state once their desires are thwarted. If we examine the definition of empowerment then I believe we will find the clues to understanding self-empowerment and how it relates to the practices of the ritual magician.

Looking up the word “empowerment” in the dictionary reveals to us that it has the meaning “to enable, to make able, give power, means, competence, ability, to authorize.” Power itself (in this context) means to do something, to act, to accomplish or achieve. In the context of ritual magick, empowerment cannot be given to someone. It must be earned by experience and personal achievement over time, and that’s why it’s called self-empowerment. A teacher can teach someone how to perform ritual magick, but the student must master the art by themselves and learn to be competent and have the assurance to succeed at gaining their magical goals. That can only be accomplished over time (usually years) and through many experiences (including failures as well as successes). Yet it is only the successes that build up personal magical empowerment, and that’s why a magician will focus on them rather than the failures; since the successes are what have given him the empowerment and certainty to continue the quest, and ultimately, to complete the great work itself.

Where self-empowerment is the key-stone, then discipline is the foundation. In order to be competent at something, one must practice in a periodic and regular manner. A ritual magician uses the cycles of the moon and the sun to partition her world and to fill a practical discipline with daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal rites and exercises. An old saying amply reflects this kind of activity - “Live by the Sun, love by the Moon.” What a discipline should contain varies from magician to magician, but it should have regular meditation sessions and periodic rites of spiritual alignment, including and particularly, godhead assumption. Based on the Lunation cycle, the magician should also regularly practice magical workings. The more experience that a magician has, then (hopefully) the greater will be her self-empowerment. These two elements work together, of course.

Within the foundation of the repertoire of practices of the ritual magician is the ability to achieve a form of ultra-conscious ecstasy. There are a number of different methods for achieving this state, and these can be facilitated singularly or in combination using breath control, trance, dance, mantra chanting, sacramental drug usage, sacred sexuality, bondage and discipline, or any other mechanism that achieves ecstasy. It is said that in magick, ecstasy is the key, and that is quite true; but ecstasy is used to push one’s self into the highest states of consciousness as well as exeriorizing or projecting magical power into the mundane sphere. The thing that all of these forms have in common is that they are achieved through the process of resonance. I define resonance as an iterative process that increases in frequency and amplitude until a climax is achieved. Even if a magician uses sacramental drugs, she must engage in some kind of iterative process to push the altered state into its highest expression.

All spell work begins in the same place, which is a desire or a need for something fueled by the imagination. From this the magician puts together an intention, which is a kind of plan of action. A wise plan for a specific end always has a greater overall plan behind it, so that is how the intention and purpose work together to forge a magical working. The intention is a kind of rationale for the desire and fantasy based result, which I call the objective, and it can be established by affirmations and self-promotion that engage one’s self-empowerment. However, if the intention does nothing more than this and there are no corresponding actions, then the intention will likely produce nothing. What makes the intention a truly powerful magical element is the joining of desire, affirmation, imagination, self-promotion, with actions, both magical and mundane. The most important thing that I stated about an intention is that it is a plan, and a plan should have magical actions and also mundane actions. It is also important to schedule your working for an auspicious time (phases of the moon) and determine deadlines for the results to appear, since this defines the proposed working within the boundaries of limits and forces one to take the initiative.

One further step in building up the intention is to translate the objective into a symbolic formulation. The easiest way to do this is to craft a sigil, but there are other attributes that one can use as well. For instance, often it is good to classify the objective in regards to an element or one of the seven planets, and then to find other attributes to identify the objective, such as color, perfume, incense, associated godhead, angelic or goetic spirit, etc. A sigil can additionally represent any of these attributes, such as the color of the ink or paint, the medium upon which it is inscribed (stone, parchment, wood, metallic disk, gemstone, etc.), and then blessed and charged with an incense, perfume and in the name of some aspect of Deity. I believe that translating an objective into a sigil is a very important stage in any kind of ritual magical working. Even if you are using a sigil or a character to help summon a spirit, adding a sigil for the objective to that the sigil of the spirit can further help to determine that goal in a symbolic manner. Minus a sigil, a magician then has to create a construct consisting of the attributes associated with the working, and often these are collected together and placed in a cache or medicine bag. I prefer to use a sigil to translate an objective into a symbolic form. You can find a whole article dedicated to sigil magic here.

Why is this item so important, you ask? Why must we symbolize the objective of a spell in some manner? There are two reasons. The first is to make it into the physical link for the spell, and the second is that it can be more easily acted upon during the symbolic manipulation phase of the spell. A physical link is a handy and succinct representation of the spell’s objective, and it becomes the magical carrier for the spell itself. A physical link is the bridge between the world of spirit and the mundane sphere, so it has an important task of representing the objective within the spirit world itself.

Once these elements have been defined, we can move on to discussing the magical actions, or what would be called a working or an overall spell. A ritual magical working consists of two parts, which is the focusing of emotional forces and symbolic manipulation. It doesn’t mater if the magician is using the energy model or the spirit model; both models use these two elements equally. These actions are performed within sacred space and through a proper altered state of consciousness as established by a meditation session. As part of the self-empowerment, the magician may also employ a personalized attribute of deity within the working, such as that which is acquired through a godhead assumption. The more that a magician can do to bolster his own sense of self through a magically induced spiritual alignment then the outcome will be more potent. It is good to have the Gods on your side when performing a magical operation to acquire something.

So, the elements that have already been determined for a working before the working is actually commenced are those that involve the self and space (various preparations), alignment (god head attribution and/or assumption), defining and building the physical link, and establishing the intention and clarifying the objective. Additionally, the magician should have performed divination on the objective to determine its probability and explore the various associated mundane steps. Ethical considerations should also be weighed (during the divination process), and the magician should feel fully justified in performing the working. The timing of the working and choosing an auspicious date to perform the working is also determined well before the working is to be performed.

Preparations regarding the self are forms of purification and meditation used to transition the mind from the mundane to the spirit world. Also, the space where the working is to be performed is also purified and made sacred, thereby taking it out of the mundane context. A circle can be used to establish a boundary line, and the area within the circle is sacralized with incense, soft illumination, conducive music, and aspurged with either lustral water (salt water) or florida water (water and perfume). Drawing the circle and establishing the cardinal directions are performed by the magician to establish a complete world within the domain of spirit. All of these preparations are performed in a thorough and methodical manner, leading the magician up to that moment where the magical operation will be performed.

As I stated previously, the actual magical working consists of the focusing of emotional forces and symbolic manipulation, in that order. The first step is to harness the passion and emotions that are the driver of the magical and mundane intention. If a magician feels ambiguous or lacks passion about a proposed magical objective, then whatever is done will be weak and likely ineffective. Conversely, the greater the passion that a magician feels about an objective, then the potential for success is greater. Passion is an emotional energy, and establishing a base of this kind of energy will help charge and empower the working. While it is not singularly important that the energy be given any kind of definition (some still think energy is just energy), I believe that defining and articulating the energy makes it more precise and capable of driving the process. The easiest way to define the energy is to use an invoking pentagram of a specific element, and to set these to the four cardinal points and then draw them to the center of the circle through a spiraling circumambulation (from the outer periphery to the center of the circle - a deosil spiral) .

Symbolic manipulation is where the magician uses tools and symbols to express a symbolic meaning or ideation within sacred space. Of course, setting or consecrating a magic circle and performing various other rites with tools, drawn devices (lines of force, circles, spirals, triangles, pentagrams, hexagrams, etc.), intoning incantations and words of power, and using various visualization techniques are all a form of symbolic manipulation. Aside from assisting in defining the base energy of the working, the operation of symbolic manipulation that is critical to a simple spell is joining the physical link to the raised energy (called empowering the link), and thus when the energy is so imprinted, to perform an exteriorization rite (thereby projecting the power to the actual objective outside of the circle).

Empowering the link is where the charged and consecrated sigil is brought into the center of the circle at that point where the power is fixed, and then an association is made between the sigil and the latent energy. At this phase of the spell the magician can visualize the objective and also the intention, including all of the mundane actions, and focus that into the power using his hands or tools. The accumulated magical power, which is the emotional passion associated with the desire for the objective, has now been imprinted with a clear intention and objective, and it is ready for exteriorization.

An exteriorization is achieved through resonance, and this can be accomplished through several different mechanisms. This could also be when the magician employs some form of ecstasy as a method of exteriorizing the collected and imprinted energy. I often use a widdershins spiral and a simple chant, and as I proceed from the center to the out periphery of the circle, I can feel the intensity and the stress of pushing the power increase with every step. Even the chant speeds up and increases in volume as I get ever closer to the outer circle. I plan this spiral so that I will only transcribe the circle three times, and at the end, I will project the power out of the circle with every bit of energy that I have. Sometimes the exteriorization is so potent that it causes me to fall to my knees in exhaustion.

As you can see in the example above, I have used the energy model to describe a simple spell. A magician could also use the evocation of a spirit (typically an elemental, planetary or goetic spirit) to achieve a material goal. In that situation the whole working would be orientated to performing the evocation, and then the intention of the working would be presented to the spirit to achieve, often with some kind of exchange. To perform this kind of working, the magician would have to be proficient with evocation, and that would represent a kind of working that would be somewhat more complex than what I have presented here. However, the use of a sigil that would symbolize the intention and the objective would still be fashioned, and this would presented or imprinted on the character, tool or sigil used to evoke the spirit.

The various stages that I presented above is called the master pattern of ritual magick, and there are seven of these stages. The master pattern consists of the elements of self, space, power, alignment, empowering the link, exteriorization and divination. You can find an article in my repertoire that amply covers each of these elements. As for divination, I am a firm believer that divination should be performed both before and after a working to ensure that the magician is fully informed at all points during the working. You can find an article outlining the master pattern of ritual magick here. I have also discussed these concepts more thoroughly in the article about sacred geometry in the energy theory of ritual magick, and you can find that article here.

To recap what has been discussed in this article, I have proposed the following nine elements as important attributes that are found in a simple energy based working or spell as practiced in ritual magick. These nine elements are:

Self-empowerment and discipline - the competence to perform the working
Intention - plan, including magical and mundane actions
Initiative or will-power - desire to take action
Emotions, desires, imagination, passion - the basic magical power
Objective - goal
Physical Link - symbolized translation of intention and objective
Symbolic manipulation - magical and symbolic actions (performed in sacred space)
Altered states of consciousness and sacred space
Timing - an auspicious time for the working

As you can see, it takes a number of elements, an overall structure and emotional passion to achieve a goal through the art of ritual magick. Not one of these elements is exclusively important, although some of the elements might be either omitted or glossed over without destroying the effectiveness of the overall working. However, I believe that part of the discipline of ritual magick is to thoroughly develop and work each of these elements, since the more that is put into a magical working the better will be its potential outcome.

Frater Barrabbas

As a magician I am often asked if we actually live in a world that is morally and spiritually dangerous. Certainly, the world at large can be a physically dangerous place and there is no lack of tragedy and calamity in the world. If you happen to have the misfortune of living in a dangerous part of the world, most of the tragedy consists of human perpetuated acts of malice and mayhem. There is also nature herself who visits catastrophes on the earth from time to time, and the frequencies of these phenomena will likely increase as a result of climate change and other factors. However, the real question is whether or not there is a supernatural force of evil that is behind all of these tragic occurrences. Is there a Devil who is the great mediator of the forces of evil that prey on human weaknesses and promotes the destruction of mankind? Or perhaps it is the actions of a morally ambiguous Deity that gives out mercy and severity in a seemingly quixotic mixture of good and evil?

Those who believe in an active mythic war between the forces of good arrayed against the forces of evil see the world and its populace as a kind of titanic battleground between benefic angels and hostile demons, and that even natural disasters are painted with this kind of dualistic gloom. In the Bible, the Deity itself has purportedly engaged in mass destruction and the wanton killing of sinners and innocents alike (although non-believers, however innocent, are shown to be justified killings), and all of this has been noted as the actions of a just and righteous godhead. Who are we to judge such actions, as the God of the Monotheists moves in such mysterious ways? Even so, as a pagan man, I find all of this speculation to be irrelevant, overly simplified and even troubling. It could even represent a kind of mental illness called global paranoia if it is allowed to achieve extreme levels of expression.

As a pagan, I reject that the world is polarized between the forces of good and evil and that there is a supernatural basis to evil operating in the world. I have been keenly observing the behavior of humanity for the duration of my adult life and I have steeped myself in a broad study of history. It would seem to me that the real evil in the world is perpetuated by individuals or groups of human beings and not some overarching force of evil. While I might believe in intermediaries called daemones, I don’t believe in the Devil and hostile demonic forces. Others might indulge in this Manichean belief system and to them it is a reality, but it is not a universal reality, and that is my whole point. I believe that there is a sane way to deal with both the secular world and the occult world of spiritual consciousness and disembodied beings without bringing into the equation the mental venom of perpetual duality. There are hazards aplenty to be found in the Spirit World, and I have experienced many of them at first hand. Yet hazards are not the same as a unified force of evil.

If there isn’t a universal reality consisting of the supernatural elements of good and evil warring against each other, then what about the concept of white magic and black magic? Is there such a thing? Having recently written about the basic elements of ritual magick, it would seem that what colors a magical working is the intention. If the intention is to hurt or coerce someone, then, depending on the context, the magic produced in such an effort could be considered ethically negative. Of course, then we get into the whole highly complicated discussion about ethics in the use of magic, and that is not the theme that I am following here in this article. It is a topic to be discussed (or avoided) in a future article. So, if there isn’t a universal evil being, and magic is neither black nor white, then what about black magicians and black lodges? This is a favorite topic of a number of authors, some deployed as fictional tropes, others as talking points about the ethical shape of the occult world. I suspect, based on my own experiences, that it is best to keep these concepts within the domain of fiction where they belong.

This also brings us to the topic of magical or psychic attacks, often perpetuated by individuals who would be considered “black” magicians. Every now and again, I will get an email from someone who is claiming to be under attack, whether magically or via some superhuman psychic agency. Are there “black” lodges out there training individuals to be “black” magicians who excel at fomenting magical or psychic attacks on helpless individuals? While it might be a good fictional theme is it actually true or real? I have to admit that I am quite skeptical, so my answer is a qualified “no.” Anyone who has read a book on magical self-defense or personal protection might think that the world is filled with magical malefactors and lodges to support them, and that the moment someone begins to learn magic they have effectively placed a target on themselves for all the evil magicians to see. This is particularly true with Dion Fortune’s book “Psychic Self-Defense” where she talks about magical and psychic predators and even the existence of black lodges. An uncritical reading of her book could lead individuals to all sorts of erroneous ideas, and often when someone either sends me an email or talks to me about being magically attacked, this book is used as a reference and a tool for validating it.

As a magician who has practiced magick for nearly four decades and who, for the most part, has been around and met many magicians and other occultists, one thing that I can say for certain is that magical and psychic attacks can and do occur. However, they are more rare and isolated instances rather than common and often occurring ones. Of course, if you are talking about the Voudoun or Palo/Santeria communities, there are probably more actual occurrences of such phenomena; but if you are talking about the Wiccan and Pagan community, they are probably more rare. Why is this so? Because in order for a successful magical or psychic attack to occur, it has to be performed by someone who is competent and capable of doing such an act, and I might add, getting away with it. Believe it or not, this is a tall order, especially in the Wiccan and Pagan communities. Keep in mind that someone who would be competent in a fee-for-service kind of magical working would be able to be employed for many purposes, not just performing negative (retributive) magic. A dedicated black magician is likely more a myth than a reality, and even more so would be a collective of black magicians. Could you really imagine a group of egotistical evil magicians being able to function as a group, conducting their work in a civil manner and following specified by-laws? I can’t, and the thought is actually quite amusing if it wasn’t so completely ridiculous.

Many individuals in the Pagan and Wiccan community struggle to perform simple rituals and some eschew even a basic practice of magic altogether. There is also a lack of training materials or an effective collection of spells for malefic rites (but no small number of books on the subject), and not a lot of competence, either. Additionally, there are individuals who are capable of affecting or impacting someone in an indirect manner without having any knowledge of magic. Sales people, seducers and con artists use these skills every day, not to mention bullies, thugs, spouse abusers and even sovereign nations. The threat of doing something will often be just as effective as the actual act, so innuendo and implied actions could be considered a form of indirect coercion, even though they are not to be considered any kind of malefic magic.

Negative magic has a number of rules to be followed just as positive magic or magic in general. One of the most basic rules is that the targeted person must be informed in some manner that they are being attacked, and the magician often finds an ingenious way of leaving a subtle but unambiguous calling card. (I call that the “gloating gotcha.”) Also, the effects of being magically attacked are usually unambiguous. There are ways to determine if one is being attacked as there are ways of deflecting it. Any attempt at blocking or deflecting a curse or attack will at least have some success, showing that the source is indeed external. Still, sometimes instead of being attacked from without an individual can experience something like an attack from within, and that is where we leave the domain of magic entirely behind and enter into the domain of mental illness and/or internal process-based issues.

I can at least speak from experience about magical attacks because in the long course of my magical career I have been magically attacked. In all cases it was from someone with whom I was intimately familiar. There are usually implied threats or some kind of innuendo or calling card left behind, and it often manifests with a clear sense of where the attack has come from. Simple exercises can deflect it, even partially, or a recourse to one’s spiritual alignment can often completely silence it, at least momentarily. The most effective curse deployed uses a person’s sense of guilt or culpability as a means of establishing a pervasive link, so a curse sent against someone who is a sociopath or one who is totally devoid of conscience or empathy (or who believes that they are without blame) will obviously fail. It is also true that someone who has studiously made himself immune to psychic or magical attack will have little that can be targeted for such a purpose.

Truly, the most vulnerable type of person is one who feels guilty or is very empathically susceptible, or a combination of both. Natural psychics often ward themselves when dealing with the general public during readings, and I have even met a few psychologists who have admitted to learning to be completely detached from their patients. (One psychologist friend of mine burned Epsom salts in her consulting room after each consultation.) Even so, the most susceptible person can block or deflect a magical attack, and they can therefore determine the nature of it and even its source.

A curse is always a two-way street, since it requires the link between target and source to be in effect as long as the curse is being used to subjugate the victim. Perhaps the smartest curse (and the least effective) is what I call the “hit and run exercise,” which amounts to putting a curse on someone and then quickly breaking the link. If such a vehicle finds a potent vulnerability then it could conceivably continue to work even after the link is broken. Yet finding this kind of severe vulnerability in a person that could either harm or even kill them would be quite a feat in itself. People are not without natural defenses and internal stabilizing mechanisms, so very few individuals are that fragile or liable for self-destruction. Therefore a hit and run exercise will more often cause some minor mischief, if it is, indeed, effective at all. A serious magical attack relies on retaining the link between the magician and victim, even if malefic spirits are conjured and used to carry it out.

How can a person tell if they are being attacked by an external agency? As I have stated earlier, because it can be deflected in some manner or form. Victims will sense an external “alien” source to themseves that will urge them to some kind of behavior that is against their desires or interests, but a simple warding rite will cause it to diminish somewhat or cease altogether. I call this a “curse flickering effect” and it indicates an outside source.

A sure sign that the attack is coming from within is when any protective action has no effect at all. After all, how can we protect ourselves from our own internal minds? An internal attack is a sign that some issue or internal process has been triggered and empowered, and now represents a potential internal threat or even an overall crisis. This is a sign that what is occurring represents some variety of mental illness, whether it is just annoying at the very least or life threatening at the very worst. Now it is important, in my opinion, for everyone to understand that mental illness is not a stigma nor a sign of some internal flaw. No one is perfect and no one is immune to the debilitating effects of mental illness - it can strike down anyone. Some of us are perhaps more susceptible to certain kinds of mental illness either due to genetics or bodily chemistry, but as many as one in three experience some degree and variety of mental illness in a lifetime. We should see it as a disease rather than some kind of personal defect, and it is, unfortunately, not uncommon.

The most important thing that you can do if you believe that you are under a magical attack is to try to be dispassionate and think about what is happening to you in an objective manner. You can also get a friend or a family member to act as an objective outsider and listen to you describe what you are going through. Finding an objective and rational base is an important first step to thwarting a curse. Once you have achieved that, then you can try some simple warding exercises, protection spells or get some basic spiritual help from a professional member of one’s clergy. If any of these actions gains you some relief from the experience, then what you are experiencing is undoubtably a magical attack. Doing more of these kinds of exercises will gain you more relief and perhaps even a solution.

Still, to stop the attack cold, you should identify the “alien” source in your head and its directives, and then locate that place of guilt or susceptibility within you that it is targeting. You can then either mask or eliminate it, thereby depriving the curse of an access point. Once this is done, then the curse will be automatically deactivated. You can also employ someone who is an expert at magical counter measures to do this operation for you, if such a person is available. However, an external attack can be deflected and the link broken, and once that happens, the curse is thwarted. Any residual energy typically goes back to the originator from whence it came, forcing the aggressor magician to hastily break the link or deal with the consequences of a malefic blow-back. Even so, when mental illness strikes there is little that can be done other than seek professional help. If you think that you have been magically attacked and you seem immune to any kind of counteraction then you are suffering from an internal attack. Hopefully, such a test will help you to objectify it and allow you to see the nature and source of your problem.

Most of the people that have either emailed me or talked to me about being magically attacked were actually experiencing some kind of internal attack. The source and cause of such attacks are numerous and since I am not a professional counselor, psychologist or psychiatrist, I am powerless to do anything but help the person objectify what is happening to them. If the source isn’t external nor magical, then I am helpless to do anything about it.

One last thing to consider is the nature of the attack and its power. If the attack seems to be perpetrated by someone who would have to be wielding the powers of a spiritual master, then it is more likely that the attack is actually internal. There are limits to what any practical magician can do to someone, just short of putting a powerful drug or poison into their food or drink. If what you are experiencing would seem to indicate someone who is able to live inside of your head (and know every thought that you have had, or any dream that you might have dreamed) as well as living his own head, then you are likely also experiencing an internal attack (and not a magical one).

I have been involved in magic for many years and I have yet to meet anyone who has that degree of psychic power. It might even be impossible for someone to consciously live in their own head and in the head of someone else. If it’s not impossible then I would assume that with such great powers would also be a towering spiritual love, an infinite compassion for all beings and the ethical desire to allow others to find their own way however faulty or fruitless. I just don’t believe that there is such a thing as a spiritual master who is completely evil, nor do I believe in a lodge of assembled magical malefactors. Myths have their purpose, but that purpose is not to hide or mask the true nature of everything.

The world as we know it is one that is morally and spiritually grey. There is no battle between good and evil spirits, and human nature is often corrupted with greed, avarice, mendacity, and driven by an egotistic lust for power. Human beings are flawed, and so, too, their endeavors will be flawed. Human nature can also display great transcendent virtues, so life in this material world is a mixed bag of virtue, talents, achievements, incompetence and moral failings. There is stark clarity, murky duplicity, and everything in between; but “sometimes, my dear, a cigar is just a cigar.”

Frater Barrabbas

Through the agency of my magical workings dating back to the early 1990's, I had been told by the same spirits that Dee and Kelly talked to centuries before that the teachings of Enochian magick were the work of the fallen spirits, known as the Watchers, or Sons of the Gods, but also as the Nephilim. I admit that I have been intrigued by what I read in the Old Testament book of Genesis, chapter 6, verses 1 through 4 since I was a young man. These mythic occurrences supposedly happened contemporaneously with the patriarch Enoch, as attested to in the book “Enoch 1,” and so any occult lore attached to that patriarch, such as the Enochian system of magick, would also have to be associated obliquely with the Nephilim. At least that is my opinion on the subject. That I also found this to be true when I sought and successfully reworked the original Enochian sessions (in my own magical methodology) was also a revelation to me, but unfortunately, one that I alone seem to bear.

Let’s move forward from whether or not Enochian magick and the patriarch Enoch have anything to do with each other (even though John Dee seemed to think so) or with the Nephilim and instead examine the implications that might arise if they are indeed connected. We can put aside the general skepticism because Dee and Kelly never mentioned them in all of their diary writings and visions. The purists would say that if nothing is to be found in the extant writings of Dee or in any of his diaries, then there is little or any real substance to make a conjecture. You can indulge me with some “what if” type fantasy and we can get past this purist loggerhead to arrive at a place of pure speculation just to see what it might look like.

The source of all of this wonder is to be found in the Genesis verses, 1 through 4, throwing away verse 3 as not really belonging to the overall narrative. Since I have a working knowledge of Biblical Hebrew, I can assist us in really examining these strange and archaic verses from the original script. What I have found is quite interesting and it is a subject for a lot of theorizing. Even so, what I end up wondering about is speculating whether spirits can mate with women and produce offspring. I know that it sounds quite strange or even absurd to think about something like that in this post modern age; but there are many references in many pagan religions to sons of the gods and I often wonder if they were really the offspring of deities or just mythic tales.

My question is this: “How, then, are such progeny conceived from something that would otherwise appear to be disembodied consciousness?” Perhaps I could put it bit more succinctly, “How can something that doesn’t have a material body impregnate a physical woman?” If we read the old texts or study the pagan myths such occurrences weren’t too abnormal. There were many sons and daughters of the gods in times when mortals and immortals supposedly lived in proximity together. Only in modern times have such occurrences become just children’s stories, except perhaps for the Christian Son of God, who was born of a virgin by the miraculous powers of the supposedly One True God.

In Christian theology that occurrence of a Son of God was the only valid one, but the old myths are populated with the offspring of the gods. Certainly, one cannot admit the possibility of one without also admitting the possibility of the others. Since I am not a Christian then somehow I need to explain how this might have occurred and perhaps even answer the question of whether it could happen again. Are there sons and daughters of the gods in our post modern world? Maybe it just depends on how we define what a son or daughter of a god would be.

Then there is the question of how such a tale of fallen angels taking human wives would be possible or is it just a strange myth. Do we take such tales as these in a literal fashion, maybe substituting the angel, god or spirit with an alien extraterrestrial? While this might be a plausible idea to some, it is not one that I personally entertain. So we shall leave the stories of ET astronauts coming to earth to fiddle with human genes and slum around with hominid women to other pundits and their causes.

What I want to do is to interpret the myths and stories about the sons of the gods in a more occultic and less materialistic manner, which is how I generally interpret all myths and stories from our early past. I believe that such material is to be treated as allegory instead of the literal truth. I will leave the more literal interpretation of the Bible to those fundamentalists who seem to be so daunted by subtlety and confused by allegory in their rampant pursuit of the simple truth. In my opinion there is no simple truth to be found in all of the sacred writings penned by human beings - it is all complex, multilayered and suffused with allegory.

Now that I have established the foundation for how we will examine these odd Biblical verses, we can proceed to the real meat of this article, which is the textual analysis. I will try to be succinct and not get into too much detail, which would probably only interest the linguists amongst my readers.

Here are the relevant passages from the Jerusalem Bible, Genesis chapter 6, verses 1 through 4:

“When men had begun to be plentiful on the earth, and daughters had been born to them, the sons of God, looking at the daughters of men, saw they were pleasing, so they married as many as they choose. Yahweh said, ‘My spirit must not forever be disgraced in man, for he is but flesh; his life shall last no more than a hundred and twenty years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth at that time (and even afterward) when the sons of God resorted to the daughters of man, and had children by them. These are the heros of days gone by, the famous men.”

Chapter 6, verse 1 and 2 talk about how mankind had become numerous on the face of the earth and that they had also given birth to daughters. The verb ChLL (to be common, to profane) which is used in this sentence would seem to indicate that humanity had become common or had profaned the earth in great multitudes (like cockroaches). It is quite odd that this verse mentions that daughters were born to mankind only when they had became numerous, but then again Biblical scholars have said that this entire section is both odd, linguistically peculiar and likely added out of context from another source.

Then the second verse reveals that the sons of God (literally, sons of the Elohim) saw that these daughters were beautiful, and they took to themselves the elected ones from the many that they chose. That is how the actual text reads, and there is no mention of wives or marriage, just a selection of those who were so appointed. This was not a random selecting either, since those who were chosen (Hebrew nasim - root SVM - “appointed”) were given a special honor, being therefore superior in some manner to the others. The story or sentiments about those elected daughters of man were never told nor were they even named. Still, they were very special, since through them a dynasty was born.

As I said previously, we can throw out verse 3 since it discusses that Yahweh didn’t want his spirit (breath) to be forever trapped in men. To enforce this decision, he has decided to limit the number of years that any man could live to just 120. Prior to this edict, men were living to be quite old (in excess of 400 years, with Methuselah topping in at 900 years). What this is actually saying is that the mythic age of humanity was nearly lapsed, therefore, Yahweh would limit the life span of men so that it would be more in line with the potential life span we know now. The mythic life span, seldom actually achieved, was probably an even 1,000 years. Because all of these verses should be examined as allegory instead of the literal truth, it would seem that this verse reveals an incremental milestone that marks off the golden age of early humanity in the Garden of Eden and afterwards, and the post flood humanity that exclusively descended from the lineage of Noah. After that event, human beings lived much shorter lives and Yahweh seemed pleased with the overall effect. He also appeared to be pleased that the chaotic life forms that had existed before the flood were now effaced from the earth.

After passing over the discarded third verse, we pick up with the fourth verse that begins with the statement that the Nephilim existed in the earth in those ancient times, and even afterwards (after the flood?). Then it says that when the Sons of the Gods came into the daughters of men and begat children, these scion were the great ones (haggivorim - GBR - great), who from these ancient times, were “men of the name” (anshe ha-shem). I guess it could be said that “resorted to” is a more tactful way of saying having intercourse with, and the Biblical verse in Hebrew is more graphic than that bit of politeness. The children were said to be men of the name, which generally means to be famous, to have a name that is remembered in history, to be someone of great importance. I prefer a more esoteric interpretation for the phrase men of the name - they were sorcerers, men who knew the words of power. The term “great ones” applied to them could also be interpreted as “giants, ” which is one definition of the odd word “Nephilim.” This brings us to an interesting subject of discussion.

The word Nephilim has the colloquial meaning of “giants” even though the Hebrew and Aramaic root is NPhL, which means to fall. Thus, giants must somehow be equated to “fallen ones,” and perhaps the ancient mythology of the Jews believed that all larger than typical individuals (giants) were actually either fallen angels or the children of fallen angels. The verse also indicates that the Nephilim were in the land both before and after the event of the birth of the children of the Sons of the Gods, and perhaps it also indicates that giants continued to appear after the flood, since there is a whole folklore associated with them including that Goliath the Philistine (of David and Goliath fame) was one of them.

So, it would seem that both the fallen angels (who would have to assume a material form) as well as their offspring were larger than the average person living in the ancient world of myth and legend, and they would have been spiritually fallen as well as being great men (and sorcerers). Of course, being considered a “great” man could represent far more than just physical stature, such as prowess as a warrior or even intelligence. The Sons of the Gods who fell to earth and took to themselves human mates also taught humanity the sciences of metals, writing, adornment, cosmetics, architecture, astronomy, agriculture, irrigation and animal husbandry and many other important lore - all of them consisting of the basic set of tools needed to build a civilization.

This is the story as told by the book of Enoch, and additionally, humanity learned the arts of magick and sorcery from these angelic beings. They were, of course, cursed and condemned by Yahweh for their Promethian gifts to humanity, but that is likely just the party line, and an absurd one as well. Since they were Sons of the Elohim (and not Yahweh), then they would not have been under the authority of anyone but the primary pantheon of Semitic Gods (El and Asherah). This sounds a lot more like how humanity got its various civilizing skills through the beauty, artifice and sensual wiles of a number of elected women who thereby enchanted and seduced a lusty group of demi-gods and thus benefitted all of humanity.

How this myth is interpreted by modern Jewish scholars is also quite interesting. According to my handy Wikipedia (if we can trust that source), it would seem that theologians quite early on rejected the notion that there were any such fallen angels, and that the Biblical verses are to be interpreted as a quixotic reference to foreign princes marrying commoners for reasons of lust instead of duty. It would seem that such individuals had a more perfect physical lineage, and these goatish young men were sullying and diluting that lineage by cavorting with low-life women. This, of course, was likely something that Jewish scholars could appreciate in the late middle ages. However, I find this argument kind of weak and unsatisfying, but you can read the reference article by examining this Wikipedia link.

“Traditionalists and philosophers of Judaism in the Middle Ages typically practiced rational theology. They rejected any belief in rebel or fallen angels since evil was considered abstract. Rabbinic sources, most notably the Targum, state that the ‘sons of God’ who married the daughters of men were merely human beings of exalted social station. They have also been considered as pagan royalty or members of nobility who, out of lust, married women from the general population. Other variations of this interpretation define these ‘sons of God’ as tyrannical Ancient Near Eastern kings who were honored as divine rulers, engaging in polygamous behavior. No matter the variation in views, the primary concept by Jewish rationalists is that the ‘sons of God’ were of human origin.”

If I have (more or less) rejected all of these various explanations as being intriguing but not quite satisfying, then the onus is upon me to come up with an alternative explanation. How can fallen angels mate with human women to produce children who are preternatural and godlike in their abilities. This explanation would also apply to the children of the various pagan gods and goddesses as well as the Christian Son of God, although I suspect that Christians would be automatically against any answer that varied from orthodox theology. What is my glib answer to this perplexing question? I guess the answer has to be tackled in regards to whom one would consider to be a son or daughter of a god or goddess.

In my opinion it is obviously a deliberate magical operation involving specially consecrated individuals who have assumed a godhead and then proceed to perform the great rite with a suitable partner, often consecrated in the same manner. Special sexual rites have been a part of ancient religions for a long time, and the typical offspring from such sacred rites would be considered the children of the god or goddess of the rite from which they were conceived. This is not something that would be that difficult to conceptualize, and certainly such rites were a part of the most ancient pagan roots of the Hebrew religion. The giants are just men and women who were considered to have sacral parents, and so they were deemed special, and perhaps even the leaders of a dynasty (or a cult following), so they were famous individuals associated with the gods as their parents. Through magic the mythic stories were blended into the fabric of a cultic theme, obscuring it but also celebrating it.

Even as recent of an historical figure such as Gaius Julius Caesar, the greatest First Man of Rome, included in his family lineage the Goddess Venus. His family of the Julians were the children of the Gods, and considering his achievements, who are we to argue with him. Other great men in antiquity have claimed similar divine family origins (Alexander the Great, etc.), and the further the stories go back in time, the more family trees were affected with an infusion of divinity.

With this motif firmly in mind, it is quite possible for anyone who has the knowledge and ability to make a magical child whether in a physical body or as a simulacrum. It is all part of the art of ritual magick, albeit a highly advanced methodology. Additionally, it is possible to infuse oneself with the numinous spiritual glamor and intelligence of a godhead, and this is achieved over a long period of cultic service, godhead assumptions and internal identifications.

The barrier between human and godhead has never been insurmountable except in the minds of those so afflicted to believe it so. Pagans, even modern pagans, should know that we can experience the Gods first hand through special surrogates. It is therefore possible for anyone of us to be able to live and be like the gods, even for a brief moment. How much easier is it to be adopted by a god and made part of its greater family and fortune. The doorway to divinity is always open, all we need to do is to assay it and find our way through its inner labyrinth of mysteries, and that is one of the tasks of the Great Work.

What I learned so many years ago from the various spirits associated with the Enochian system of magick, including those of the Nephilim, is that there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained through intercourse with the entities of the spirit world. Talking and walking with the spirits is an age old practice, and one that the shaman of old mastered in the ages even before antiquity. If John Dee acquired the knowledge of the Enochian system of magic through the artifice of his wisdom and the keen psychic abilities of his seer, Edward Kelly, then we, too, have that option and ability to acquire and add to the lore that is already known. If we seek out knowledge that is as yet unknown to us, then perhaps as we acquire it, we shall be like the giants of mythic times, realizing the legacy of the Nephilim in the post modern age.

Frater Barrabbas

For many years now I have been a lineage head and an elder of my specific branch and line of Alexandrian witchcraft. This role has given me quite a bit of latitude in developing and establishing a set of witchcraft lore that I felt was true to spirit of what my old coven had been attempting to forge all those years ago when I was under the leadership of Christopher and Alexandria, our coven leaders. Of course, as the story goes, these two individuals left witchcraft and paganism to become leaders of an ersatz fundamentalism and to pen a notorious book (“Wicca: Satan’s Little White Lie” by Bill Schnoebelen), which left me as the defacto head of that initiatic line. Some have commented that such a schism would (or should) have nullified my line altogether, and others have said that what I have as a tradition is of questionable value, considering what my teachers later achieved.

As a result, my line has the dubious distinction of being not only considered fraudulent, but all my practices and opinions are also said to be spurious and automatically disqualified. I have certainly annoyed some individuals with my overly liberal viewpoints and my belief that witchcraft has a long period of change and development ahead of it before it can become a truly deep and profound spiritual path. Those who seek a comfortable orthodoxy and stasis within witchcraft are actually doing that tradition far more harm than good. Thus I am perceived as a gad-fly to traditionalists, or worse, as a borderline apostate.

However, I have always made the point that we shouldn’t be isolated practitioners and that we should receive, from time to time, some kind of peer review from others who are qualified to make a proper judgement of our work. This kind of objective examination should apply to everything that a witch or pagan believes or does in their practice and within their spiritual discipline. I have found such a one to examine my work as a witch and a lineage holder, and perhaps this opinion, which I intend to share with my readers, will at least silence the pundits who think that I have produced a variant of Alexandrian witchcraft that is spurious, deviant and invalid.

Over the years I had assembled, refined and produced a written document containing not only my biography, but also the specific additions and refinements I found necessary to run a well established coven and lineage. This document is extremely confidential, and I only share it with individuals who are part of my line, which until recently, has been those women and men (via an acting High Priestess) who were initiated into my line. I am proud of what I have been able to assemble, and all of the rituals included have been used and refined over many years. I can’t discuss any of the contents of this document, but if someone were to judge my work and my line, this document would be the source for that examination.

Recently, I have been in communication with an individual who would be considered the actual head of my overall lineage, although he is no longer practicing the craft. I shared my lineage document with him and requested his opinion and input about what I had established as my particular line and its associated practices. I got his permission to share with my readers his judgement on my work, although he has asked to remain anonymous and wished to be referred to by his old craft name “Summanus.” Here is what he had to say about my lineage document.

“I very much enjoyed your account, especially the way in which you’ve fleshed out the bare bones of the original Alexandrian BoS - that has always needed to be done. The very paucity of the initial material (‘is this all there is?’) naturally spurred a great many initiates wanting something more than initiations and short seasonal rites to try their hand at extended development - Alex included - which generally had regrettable results, as they usually left the original Wiccan spirit behind and flew off into ever more complex and idiosyncratic fantasies.

You have done an admirable job of keeping to the script and reinforcing the tropes that attracted people to Wicca in the first place, while offering what appears to be a far more multifaceted ritual system for those initiates that desire that sort of thing. I also found your occult life trajectory interesting and familiar as well - the fixed reality of nearly everyone’s esoteric career are the occurrence of internecine disputes, group founding and dissolution (coagula and solve?), disappointment and re-energizing, but many drop out.. without achieving what you have done - congratulations!”

Summanus 08/08/2013

As you can see by the above comments, my lineage document and work has been validated by someone who has the knowledge, objectivity, and experience to properly judge me. Hopefully, his comments will put to rest any opinions, whether within my line or outside of it, that I have somehow egregiously deviated from the foundation of my tradition. While I have built up an entire system of magic from that foundation, my Book of Shadows and my lineage document are what I pass on to others who initiate into my line. I have faithfully kept all of this material properly accounted for and distinguished from the basic Alexandrian tradition and the elements that were added to it. That is all that I am expected to do, and that knowledge is passed on to those who I choose to initiate (or those who are initiated by High Priestesses in my line). What I don’t do, nor do I advocate for others to do, is to just stop there and merely perform the same rites and the same workings year in and year out. I have a foundational tradition, but what I normally do is well above and beyond it, even though it is the point of origin for everything that I do today.

Wicca vs. Witchcraft

This brings me to my second topic as I think about witchcraft, and that is the troubling split between the craft part of witchcraft and Wicca as a pagan based religion. Witchcraft is a tradition consisting of techniques and methods of working magic as well as an immersion within the modern revival of paganism. Some might link up the magical practices of bush-craft or cunning craft with that of modern witchcraft, and they wouldn’t be wrong to do so. What saddens me is to encounter those who are adherents of Wicca who eschew any form of magic. I was taught that in order to be a witch you had to practice witchcraft, and that meant that you had to know and practice magic. To me, Wicca is just a variety of witchcraft, yet without the practice of magic, it becomes something of a milk-toast or watered down version of a harmless neopagan religion. If you consider yourself a witch, then you need to know and practice witchcraft magic - it’s as simple as that.

As you might know from what I have written in the past, I believe that a witch is someone who is both an adherent of modern paganism (Wicca) and also a knowledgeable practitioner of ritual magick. I am not talking about ceremonial magick, of course, although that could be part of what one might know or even practice. I am talking about both high and low magic that is based on the foundation of modern paganism and the crafty part of witchcraft. Low magic is aptly represented these days by hoodoo, which I find acceptable as long as the more obvious Christian elements are removed or better yet, replaced with pagan deities. Earthy witchcraft practitioners would include the Gods in their magical workings, even though some forms of Hoodoo don’t involve any religious elements at all, or do so in a very oblique manner. Followers of Wicca have the dispensation to produce charged items and certain sacraments, and these can be powerfully employed in a very effective form of low magic.

Gardner, in his fictional work, “High Magic’s Aid” gives the witch the all important role and function of being the wielder of a consecrated blade, and it is to be assumed from that story that witches could consecrate other items as well to be used in a high magic working. We can assume that opinion is what Gardner held regarding Wicca and high magic. Grimoires from the Renaissance and later periods directed the magician to get his vestments and tools consecrated by an ordained priest, but of course, such an individual would hardly engage in performing such a dubious without asking a lot of questions. A witch, on the other hand (if we use this logic) would have no such qualms, being herself a practitioner of low or earth-based magic. According to the logic presented by Gardner, a witch would be in the perfect position to master high magic as well as perform low magic.

Now, when I differentiate between low and high magic, I make no condescending judgement upon what I define as low or earth-based magic while behaving like a snob and elevating what I call high magic. If a witch is not disposed toward high magic and doesn’t want to engage in conjurations or walking the “other” world, then that is quite acceptable and completely within the domain of what I call witchcraft. Obviously, high magic is a special calling, requiring a certain proclivity for complexity and a more intensive regimen and discipline. Even so, a witch who is an exclusive practitioner of low magic should be able to perform various types of elemental magic (not to be confused with the four elemental creatures) as well as generating a planetary or Deity-blessed talisman. Modern witches should know how to perform these two operations and also how to create and employ sigils. These types of magic are fairly simple and fundamental to any magical practice, high or low. Yet I am amazed at how many adherents of witchcraft don’t know how to perform these tasks, or even worse, feel that such forms of magic are somehow harmful or bad.

As I have said, if you call yourself a witch, then you should be able to formulate and practice magic as your form of “witchcraft.” Otherwise, you are just a harmless neopagan trying very hard (and failing) to be acceptable to your Christian neighbors. There are a lot of materials available for any witch who aspires to be proficient with witchcraft, and in fact you can find many of those techniques discussed on this blog at various times in the past.

My particular proclivity is to help witches master a form of high ritual magick that is based on the way that they learned to perform magic when going through their initial training. The system of ritual magick that I developed is particularly relevant to either witchcraft or magical forms of neopaganism. The two books that I have written on ritual magick represent a specific system that uses the witchcraft magic circle as its base, and therefore performs all of the operations using a technique of immersion. This means that the witch is not shielded from the various conjurations that he or she might perform because everything that is done is accomplished within the magic circle. What is outside of the circle is part of the mundane or profane world, and yet what is within the circle is part of the domain of spirits, ancestors and deities. All that protects a witch performing these kinds of workings is her own special and individual alignment to her personal Godhead, to which she has assumed and internalized as part of the basic regimen of magical preparation. She performs this work as a temporary representative of the Goddess, and so whatever spirits she evokes will comply with her desires and perceive her as a greater authority over them - and for that moment, so she is.

I have written a number of articles in the past that talk about this methodology, and I would like renew my readers acquaintance with them so that my perspective regarding high ritual magick is made abundantly clear. As witches we are the receivers of the legacy of sorcery and forms of conjuration and necromancy. We are the walkers between worlds, and so we should also be the mediators of Gods, spirits and ancestors. To start off this review of my past articles, let us first examine the difference between ceremonial magic (Golden Dawn) and witchcraft high magic, and you can find that article here. Then we should examine how I define immersion when I talk about witches performing high magic, and you can find that article here. Then I have a couple of articles that examine the basic theories of magic, particularly the energy theory of magic, which is most apt for witchcraft high magical workings, and you can find those two articles here and here. I would also like to share my thoughts about practical magic in an article here, and then examine the nature of pagan deity, here. These articles were written back in 2009 and many of my readers will probably have missed out on the useful material that they contain, since looking for them can be a frustrating hit or miss process.

This is a theme that I am pursuing in my present series of articles, so you should stay aware of my newest postings. I also regret that I haven’t been posting as frequently as I have done in the past, but I have been grappling with my regular job and trying (successfully, so far) to reinvent myself, and I have also been having issues with sleeping again. I will probably have to go to a sleep clinic in the near future to resolve this malady, since it has become obvious to me that getting a good night’s sleep is valuable for having the focus and energy to do lots of other things. Hopefully, I will be able to resolve this problem soon.

Enjoy the review articles and hopefully I will have more interesting things to share with you in the future.

Frater Barrabbas

We, the people of this planet Earth, have come to a nexus point between two futures, and depending on how we deal with the current issues and crises that face us, we will either give to our children’s children a world of catastrophic collapse or a brave new world beyond anyone’s imaginings today. There is no middle ground in these two options, and I will try explain why I think that this is the troubling truth. Pessimists and smart gambling types would bet that we will collectively fail, since the odds of a para-utopia occurring in the future are not very good. Even so, it is a race between the exponential forces of technological development versus the age old dilemmas of destruction, the veritable Four Horses of the Apocalypse. Although in a less mythical and more scientific perspective, these five horses would be succinctly labeled as the principle causes for the collapse of civilizations. It has happened before and it could very likely happen again. The outcome of this titanic struggle is in our collective hands today, to shape a future full of brilliant promise or to forsake our progeny and banish them to a world bereft of civilization altogether.

How I came to believe in such a stark differential between possible futures is that I happened to stumble onto a book recently written by an archaeologist named Ian Morris, and that book is entitled “Why the West Rules - For Now.” The subtitle, though, really caught my attention and drew me to purchase it, and I spent a couple of weeks reading it in the month of August. The subtitle is “The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future.” You have to admit that such a subtitle is quite compelling, if indeed the book delivers what it promises to the erstwhile reader. And, indeed, it does satisfy and amaze the reader, even those who are critical academics and reviewers. They had a fair amount of praise for this bold and visionary work, and there were very few detractors.

My current opinion about the stark differences between two futures has been stated quite clearly and adroitly by Professor Morris in his book, so I will direct you to the picture and the paragraph of text at the top of this article. It is, by the way, a quotation from his book. I happened to see that image posted on someone’s Face Book page, and I must declare that it really lured me in to check out that book. I thought that it might answer some questions that I have been puzzling over, and indeed it did and more. Therefore, I highly recommend this book, and you can find it here on Amazon dot com (or your local book store).

You see, I have been befuddled the last couple of years by all of the doomsayers who have been predicting the immanent fall of our civilization, such as the writings of John Michael Greer (see The Archdruid Report). I don’t take what he has written at all lightly, and neither should any of my readers. His hypothesis, drawn from the opinions of a body of scholars and scientists, that we had achieved peak oil production in 2005 is a fact, and since that time there will be less and less oil being extracted from the earth. As the reserves of the more easily extracted oil dwindle, it will make the search and the associated expense for extracting fossil fuels that much more desperate and dear. In time all reserves will eventually fail. Thus, we will run out of oil sooner rather than later.

Sustainable methods of energy collection (as they are now known) can never fill the void of the glut of oil, gas and coal that has fueled our industrial revolution, and at the end of that epoch, we will certainly experience some kind of profound change. Mr. Greer is discounting that there will be any kind of technological breakthrough that might save our world, so according to him and others of his persuasion, we are in fact already witnessing a long and slow collapse of our current civilization, based as it is on fossil fuels. That is a fact, unless something else happens, maybe even something wonderful, magical, or even more terrifying than a collapse. Alternatives to Mr. Greer’s vision of the collapse of our civilization are actually not just wishful thinking as he has maintained.

I believe that it is disproportionately blind to totally discount technology when prognosticating about the future. Even more troubling is the fact that most soothsayers of the future, both positive and negative, have been proven in error to a lesser or greater degree. The problem with all of this projecting into the future is that there are too many variables to account for, and even something inconsequential today could have a profound effect tomorrow. Additionally, if we were in some kind of slow overall decline of civilization wouldn’t our vaunted scientific and technological progress also be slowing down? That is the question that I have been thinking about, since it seems just too simple and easy to declare that our current civilization, like all previous ones, will fall at some point. That we have passed the apogee of our ascent back in the 20th century and are now in decline should be apparent, but it’s just not that simple.

If anything, what seems to be occurring in our world today is that technological change and new discoveries are occurring at an even faster pace then ever before. It isn’t hard to speculate that if that pace continues unaltered or unaffected that it will open new horizons undreamed of by modern man, that is, if we don’t implode or succumb to the diseases that have brought down previous civilizations. We, as a world civilization, are unique because modern technology has completely saturated nearly every corner of our world. Therefore, a collapse would have to be a world transforming catastrophe in order to reduce the world back to a pre-industrial stage.

So, this is what has bothered me about the Peak Oil doomsayers, and finally, I have found a scholar and an author who has given me what I believe is the complete and balanced answer. As a civilization, we are in deep trouble facing nearly insurmountable crises, but we are also at the threshold of something absolutely incredible. There are two possible future paths, and if we can collectively respond to the challenges of the near term, then the greater challenges can be met with a technology that would seem to be like magic to us today. We are only talking about the next 50 years as this potential becomes revealed, or not. Thinking about the possibilities really takes my breath away for a moment, knowing that we are all living in the most interesting times for the entire history of humankind. I may live to see only the barest dawn of this brave new world, but the next generation (the aptly named “millennials”) will plot the course that will lead humanity to either perdition or revelation. The only question is whether or not we will have enough fossil fuels to get us to the next stage. That is the big question, that and whether we will collectively commit suicide due to the inherent greed and stupidity that is humanity’s lot.

This brings me to Ian Morris’ book “Why the West Rules - For Now.” In his book, Professor Morris lays down his basic premise of how to quantitatively measure levels of development at various intervals, from just before the last ice age to the present time, a period of 14,000 years. He has taken four categories and has carefully graded them for this very long interval. Early estimates are admittedly pretty rough (he has compared them to “chainsaw” sculptures) compared to later periods where more information is available. His four categories are energy capture and consumption, organizational capacity (literally the population of the largest cities), the capacity to make war and information technology. In addition, he has effectively shown that through most of this long interval, the West was favored over the East merely due to geography, the biology of plants and animals, and to a lesser extent, sociology. His basic idea is that all of the data that he has collected unequivocally shows that large groups of human beings are pretty much the same everywhere. (There is no basis for genetic or cultural superiority for either the dominance of the West or the East.) He also believes that the fundamental human nature is greedy, lazy and fearful. That people are just looking for easier, more profitable and safer ways to do things, even though they rarely know the impact of what it is that they are doing.

Agricultural based civilizations are limited in how far they can advance within the four areas of developmental measurement mainly because of the physical limitations of their ability to collect and consume energy. If the collective amount of energy is limited to fire, wind, manpower, and animal power, then there is a hard ceiling to the level of development that can be achieved. The early agricultural civilizations had a ceiling of around 24 points, and this was only broken when regional areas developed centralized city-states that could acquire and organize the land, animals and people of ever larger geographic areas. Then a new ceiling for such empire development was pushed to around 43 points, which the Roman empire and the Song Dynasty (in China) were unable to break.

Held to a stasis of development, these empires over time underwent a certain degree of collapse fostered by the age old calamity that kills off all empires - climate change, disease and mass migrations, to name three of them. Yet the collapse in Mediterranean Europe was far more severe and lasted far longer than the collapse in China. This is also the period when the East began to outstrip the West in development, and it maintained this dominance for over a thousand years. The West took many centuries to recover from the collapse of the Roman Empire, and even then the East reigned supreme until the advent of the industrial revolution. What spurred China on past the 43 point ceiling during this period was the creation of a great canal that connected the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, allowing for an even more direct connection uniting the southern and northern kingdoms. This advancement was absent in the West until later in the Renaissance, when sail-powered ships began to forge the great western trade routes that opened up the Americas to conquest. Marginal states that had previously existed near the Atlantic ocean instead of the Mediterranean were favored by this monumental event.

Even so, empires have ascended into prominence and then experienced a collapse. What usually caused these empires to fail was a combination of catastrophic events, and these Morris called the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, or actually, five. These five horsemen were the collective effects of climate change, famine, disease, mass migration, and the resultant collapse of state government. Obviously, an empire or civilization that is lower on the development scale tends to be less resilient than one that is higher, but that is not always the case. It was a combination of all five that felled the Roman empire, but the Song dynasty was able to recover faster because there wasn’t as much chaos associated with mass migration.

The West and East became evenly matched just before the industrial revolution occurred, and there was only a slightly better chance that the West would outstrip the East if things continued based on an agricultural type of technology. Yet once the industrial revolution occurred in the West, and the whole basis of energy shifted dramatically to fossil fuels, beginning with wood and steam power, then proceeding to coal and then petroleum based fuels, the pace of change made a complete mockery of everything that had preceded it for five millennia. Starting in the 100 - 200 points area of development just before the industrial revolution, the Western level of development in just 250 years achieved the daunting and mind blowing level of 1,000 points by the year 2000 CE.

Professor Morris has plotted this curve of development, beginning in 12,000 BCE to the year 2000 CE, and that diagram shows the astonishing level of development that occurred, particularly starting in the 19th century. It is, in fact, an exponential curve and the pace of development since 2000 CE has not in any way slowed down or diminished. It has, in fact, steadily and exponentially increased and continues to do so today. If that exponential curve continues as it has since the 1800's, then according to Morris’s calculations, our level of development by 2103 will achieve a score of 5,000 points. So we will have progressed 4,000 points in just a mere 103 years. In terms of energy capture and consumption, Morris’ calculations show that each member of the burgeoning human race will be consuming something in the area of 1.3 million kilocalories per day! The largest cities could have an excess of 140 million inhabitants each.

The difference between a civilization at the level of development of 100 points and one operating at 1,000 points is quite dramatic, but think how dramatic the differences would be between our civilization now and one operating at 5,000 points! It is staggering and almost unbelievable, but not impossible. Morris has pointed out that there isn’t enough oil, gas, coal and uranium in the whole world to supply the power consumption that such a colossus of a civilization would require. However, there might very well be other sources of power that we either don’t know about yet or have only begun to investigate now. Certainly, if we learned to harness the full power of the Sun’s energy cascading and buffeting our planet every day or the radioactive furnace of the Earth’s core, there might be more than enough energy to fuel a juggernaut civilization registering at 5,000 points. There are many possibilities to consider, and the only factor is that we are seeing a limitation of time to fully exploit them. However, the amazing thing to consider is that the amount of time it takes from scientific discovery to engineering marvel has become a much shorter period as well, and it is likely that it will take even less time in the future.

Can this amazing revelation actually be our future? Will we change the complete nature of what it is to be human exiting in a technological world in a scant 100 years? Even if the pace slackens somewhat, the momentum may very well carry us to that brave new world even if things are slowing down, or for that matter, breaking down. We may find ourselves at the very edge of collapse when just enough technological advances have occurred simultaneously to rapidly change the entire world equation and transform the crises that we were facing into minor adjustments.

Technological advances create nearly as many problems as they fix, but progress is something tangible that can be measured in a scientific manner. By taking the long view, as Morris has done, it allows us to view history in a more powerful manner, realizing that the exponential curve of development kicked in many decades ago, and we are now moving at an irrepressible speed. Is it a fast streak to our destiny or to a catastrophic failure? Few can really predict the future accurately by examining the past, because we are already well within completely undiscovered country. An exponential ascending curve of growth can be followed by an exponential curve of decay, but such a downward curve in our present world situation would likely cause a cataclysm and wipe out most of humanity on the entire planet. This, too, would happen in a short span of time. If we fall, it won’t be a slow decline, it will be more like a world apocalypse.

Morris talks about a science fiction story that he read as a kid written by Isaac Azimov. The story is called “Nightfall,” which is about a planet that circles four stars and where true darkness is only experienced once every 5,000 years. The human inhabitants of that planet have gathered enough archaeological evidence to realize that every time it becomes true night on that planet, the world civilizations, such as they are, completely collapse in that short stygian interval. Morris likens our present predicament as to having to deal with all of the issues that might produce a planet wide Nightfall type of catastrophe. He also talks about Ray Kurzweil’s theory of the Singularity, which is an event where progress becomes truly exponential. He quotes Kurzweil as saying that a Singularity is “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep.. that technology appears to be expanding at infinite speed.” That would be a good representation of what Morris has shown as one of our possible futures if development continues at the present pace.

If you consider the implications that there are a large number of scientific research efforts going on today in areas that are just in their infancy, and that any of them or all of them could radically change the world that we live in, then this represents a counter balance to the doomsayers. The scientific areas of quantum computing and artificial intelligence, computer to human interfaces, nano-technology, robotics, genetic manipulation, fusion energy, and the constant breakthroughs in the areas of sustainable energy capture and use, and many others that I have absolutely no clue are taking place, could reasonably change the world as we know it, and do so rapidly and thoroughly. I won’t even mention that the more critical scientific examination of the world’s problems are vastly underfunded and under-staffed because human governments have not yet seen their critical importance. A Manhattan Project style of a government funded and organized project formed to solve the fusion energy dilemma or any other major issue would produce results even more quickly than what is now occurring. I believe that we shouldn’t write off either technology or human ingenuity when attempting to project the future. There are many tricks up humanity’s sleeve, and the final card in this game hasn’t even yet been dealt, let alone played.

As an occultist, I have always been interested in looking into the far future to try to see what might be the fate of the human race long after I am dead. In my early years I used a number of techniques to assist me in seeing far into the future, as if to test my psychic abilities to the maximum degree. What I saw was both a utopia and a dystopia, and that double vision was some cause of concern. Later on I rationalized it as the fear of what the future might hold, and that such extremes were less likely to actually occur. Now, in the beginning of my autumn years, I believe that what I saw so many years ago during my youth was the true fork in the road for humanity’s future. There are in reality two potential futures, but only one will be the final outcome. The odds are probably against a positive outcome, and it is more likely that the future world will be a quixotic place where the few scant surviving members of the human race will live in a primitive paleolithic world surrounded by the massive ruins of a profligate advanced civilization whose mountainous debris will hide constant dangers, horrors and death for those brave (or stupid) enough to scavenge through them. I, for one, don’t subscribe to this scenario, and I have a better science fiction story to propose as a possible outcome for our future, and that would be Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End.”

You see, I am afflicted with a boundless optimism, and I believe, perhaps foolishly, that humanity will manage to reach the Singularity of the exponential developmental curve at the last hour possible. Humanity will wait until dire necessity forces them to make radical changes and adjustments, and then they will do so with an alarming speed and purpose. The many promising arenas of scientific and technological discovery will all collectively deliver the final push that humanity needs to achieve a miraculous and profound transformation of itself, its work and the planet at large. Humanity itself will be redefined and reformulated in a fashion that we couldn’t even begin to understand. We might even, at that moment, receive ambassadorial visitors from the far flung stars and galaxies who might assist us in making this final change. Certainly, when we become ourselves a star-faring people, we will find those who also made it to the Singularity.

History as we know and understand it at that moment will end, and technology will appear to be more like invisible magic rather than encased in material gadgetry. When I saw my vision of the utopian future so many years ago, what I saw was that the human race would split into two groups: those who would leave the Earth and be a star-faring populace and those few who would stay behind and steward the planet. The planetary stewards would labor over the centuries to remove all traces of the scars of the ascent of the human race and repopulate the planet with the countless organisms and creatures that were made extinct by human neglect and waste. In that time, there would be only a few small cities on the planet, and the rest of the world would be restored back to its original state, some million years before humanity even existed. Once their work was done, they would await the return of the star-faring race to take them to their final destiny.

And what, do you ask, would be that final destiny? Humanity would become something else entirely, and not at all human as we would define it, since there would be a complete fusion between human, machine, artificial intelligence, all supported by massive biological and genetic alterations that would astonish and maybe even repel us today. Humanity would become one massive sentient being of energy, completely unified in its multiplicity, since the container of consciousness itself would have become a repository for all of the diversity of the human spirit. Such a brave new world it would be, indeed, perhaps as frightening to us today as it is astonishing. Even so, I end this article with a prayer for the future. May our future progeny inherit both the planet restored and the vast and distant stars and galaxies, and all of this in the most constructive and peaceful manner possible. May we also end once and for all the reign of the five horses of the apocalypse and discover our transcendent future.

Frater Barrabbas

The classic Tarot that occultists know and use, and that the Golden Dawn lionized, has mythic elements in it that make it possible to compare it to other unrelated systems. If it were not for the mythic and archetypal flavor of the twenty-two Tarot trumps then occultists, like me, couldn’t compare it to the Qabalah or the literary Hero’s Journey. In fact, if we examine the Tarot at the time of its genesis in the very early renaissance period of Italy, there appears to be very little of the iconic Tarot trumps operating in those versions. A case in point is to examine the Visconti-Sfortza Tarot deck, which seems to lack some of the dark themes and striking mythic and archetypal elements that make the modern Tarot so compelling.

As I examined the earliest versions of the Tarot that reside in various collections but have been displayed in books and even card sets, it seems to me that the Tarot was made more for entertainment than for any kind of divination. Indeed, historical references to the Tarot being used as a system of divination doesn’t appear until the late 18th century, where it quickly became an important tool within French occult social circles. Later on it was promoted by occultists such as Eliphas Levi and Papus, and because of their writings it was realized and incorporated into the Golden Dawn corpus. Prior to that time, it would seem that the Tarot, along with the older Naibs (numbered cards) and Court cards of the 52/56 card deck, was reserved for gambling and gaming.

So, one might ask, when did the Tarot trumps acquire their more esoteric and iconic nature? Was it something that happened in the mid 19th century? Was the Tarot mutated to fit the ideals of French occultists or did it naturally and gradually occur with a Tarot version already well established? This is an important question, since if the emergence of the occult Tarot was fostered by a later version, then one could easily state that the Qabalistic associations and other comparisons were intended all along when the occult Tarot was formulated. It would be an unremarkable situation where the tail wagged the dog instead of the other way around. I felt compelled to know this answer, and even though I was well steeped in the history of the Tarot, I believed that I should probably carefully examine the historical record to verify that the occult Tarot was either a late invention or an amazing discovery. I later found out that the answer was far more complicated than I had at first thought.

What I found in my search is that the occult Tarot had actually existed for quite some time, and in fact, it became the model for the modern Tarot promoted and embellished by the Golden Dawn. That powerful prototype had all of the essential elements needed to formulate a Qabalistic comparison as well as an association with the literary Hero’s Cycle. The mystery Tarot deck, known as the Marseilles Tarot, was one that I had known about since I was a teenager, but I had avoided using or even scrutinizing it because it was crude, plain and inelegant when compared to the wide array of modern Tarot decks then available. I suspect that many have dismissed this Tarot deck because of its lack of aesthetics, but the Marseilles Tarot has a long history and in fact, it was the lone Tarot design that kept Europe interested in it long after the other Italian prototypes had passed into disuse. Allow me to explain.

The actual history of the Marseilles Tarot is, for the most part, unknown. Some have speculated that the game of tarocchi found its way into France from northern Italy after French troops (under Louis XI) had successfully invaded and taken over the duchy of Milan and the town of Piedmont in 1499. The prototype for the French version of the Tarot deck would have likely been found in the design and execution of the Visconti-Sforza deck (painted by Bonifacio Bembo), which had been commissioned some 40 years before the French ousted the Sforza family from it’s dukedom in Milan. There is a miniature version of the Visconti-Sforza deck (found today in the Bibliotheque Nationale) that was reputed to be in the possession of either Charles VI of France (1363 - 1422) or one of his heirs, and supposedly attributed to Gringonneur, an artist in that court, but it is actually Italian in origin and execution, and likely not older than the Visconti-Sforza prototype.

However, the Marseilles deck was quite different in tone and in the presentation of its themes. It was also more complete, since it included the more problematic trump cards of the Tower (House of God) and the Devil. While some might argue that the original Italian decks would have had these cards included, there is no actual proof that they actually existed; no decks have been found with these cards depicted. Also, other trumps reveal controversial elements, such as the Popess (legendary Pope Joan) and the unnumbered and unnamed Death or Grim Reaper card. Still, enough of the iconography existed in the original 15th century Italian version to build a more dark, dramatic and mythical collection of Tarot trumps.

Yet it wasn’t until much later in the 16th century that the first known version of the Marseilles Tarot was mass produced. It was printed in 1557 by Catelin Geofroy in Lyon, but it was likely that the model for that printing had already existed in France for some time, although no hand painted version of this deck has ever been found. We can only speculate that some brilliant individual, or perhaps a group of individuals, produced the design that appeared in the printed edition. I believe that the design of the Marseilles Tarot was the work of a single genius who incorporated features and ideas from many obscure and now unknown sources. Perhaps there were some influences from the middle east as well as heretical insights that helped to forge the design of these cards. Even so, the Tarot in France was nearly nonexistent until it was mass produced on card stock. The Marseilles Tarot deck has a very dim and mysterious origin that defies attempts to unlock its secrets even in the present time, but its impact has been universally noted by scholars and occultists.

During its long history, this version of the tarot wasn’t even called the Marseilles Tarot, and once it appeared in Lyon, it was produced elsewhere as well. (In the late 19th century, this Tarot deck was mass produced in Marseilles, which had become a center for such manufacturing, so it was then called the Marseilles Tarot.) Even so, this printing had the important effect of making the game of tarocchi popular again and spreading it throughout Europe. While historical documents indicated that card decks were used for gaming by both the aristocracy and the emerging middle class, there was no historical proof that anyone was using these decks of cards for any other purpose, such as divination or occult speculation. However, just because there isn’t any historical documentation doesn’t mean that playing cards weren’t used for divination until the late 18th century.

Since dice and coins, as well as other common things could and likely were used for divination purposes, it was also likely that playing cards were also so used, although in an informal manner. The mythic quality of the Tarot cards and the ability to produce a random drawing of a card would have been too compelling to pass up a chance to entertain or even inform the average intelligent person who owned or had access to a deck. What I believe is that people who had access to cards used them for a number of informal purposes, such as drawing lots, determining individual luck, and perhaps even testing one’s intuitive abilities. Even so, it wasn’t until nearly the end of the 18th century that the Tarot began to be formally perceived as something far beyond a game of chance, fortune or entertainment. That change of perspective had likely been building for many decades, and it might have even had an informal underground consisting of various individuals who saw in the mythic themes and curious icons of the Tarot an esoteric system. France was where the Marseilles Tarot had its origin, so it naturally became the place where the occult Tarot was formally introduced, scrutinized and became a part of modern European occultism.

The first person to write about using Tarot cards for divinatory purposes and to propose occult correspondences for them was the self-styled savant, Etteilla (Jean Baptiste Alliette, 1738 - 1791), who popularized Tarot divination and even produced his own variant of the Tarot. Etteilla was quickly followed by Court de Gebelin (Antoine Court, 1719 - 1784), whose massive book “Le Mond primitif” proposed that the Tarot was actually an elaborate occult system of teachings whose roots went all the way back to ancient Egypt. He was the one who gave the Tarot the sensational name of the “Book of Thoth.” He also developed an elaborate symbolic system for deciphering the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, although this theory was proved to be mere fantasy a few decades later when Champion successfully deciphered and demonstrated that the hieroglyphs were not symbolic amalgams but an actual writing system. Still, Court de Gebelin had a powerful influence on French occultism and the popular belief in the antiquity of the Tarot, which fueled the imaginations of later occultists, such as Eliphas Levi and Papus, both of whom believed that the Tarot was a strategic addition to Qabalistic lore.

The writings of both Eliphas Levi and Papus (Gerard Encausse) caught the imagination of S. L. MacGregor Mathers and other founding members of the Golden Dawn, and they also incorporated the Tarot into the Qabalah and made it an important part of their occult lore. Cartomancy as a form of divination as well as attributing the Tarot trumps to symbolic and archetypal images of the twenty-two paths of the Tree of Life was brought into the mainstream of occult practices and beliefs by the Golden Dawn. Several members of that body went on to produce their own versions of the Tarot, which ultimately spawned the myriad of other Tarot variations and designs that exist today.

Perhaps the most compelling version of the Tarot that I encountered as a young witch, ritual magician and occultist was when the deck designed by Aleister Crowley and executed by Lady Frieda Harris was first mass-published by Llewellyn in the 1970's. I still have a copy of that original Tarot deck and it had a powerful influence on me. It was from Crowley’s Thoth Tarot deck that I got my inspiration for linking the literary Hero’s Journey to the Tarot after reading and studying Joseph Campbell’s book “Hero with a Thousand Faces.” I noticed that the stages of the Hero’s Journey, including the Cosmogonic cycle, added up to the iconic number 22. This was the same number as the Trumps of the Tarot, and thinking that this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, I sought to make a careful examination of each stage in the Hero’s cycle and try to find a Tarot trump card that matched it. This, I found, was an easy task, but it had more to do with the nature of the Thoth Tarot deck than with the Tarot as a whole.

In my current inventory of Tarot decks I have the Marseilles Tarot, the Renaissance Tarot (which compares favorably to the early Italian decks), the Waite-Rider-Coleman Smith Tarot, and the Thoth Tarot, plus many others. I decided to test my hypothesis about the mythic and iconic nature of the Tarot, from the Renaissance to the modern era, and witness the change and transformation that the Tarot had undergone. I split out the trumps from each deck and sorted them into the order associated with the Hero’s journey. I then laid down each card in that pattern from each of these decks, with the cards from different decks arrayed below each other so I could look down at a specific stage and see all of the different cards and how they matched up to that stage in the Hero’s journey. It was an interesting moment when all of these decks were so arrayed, and I could easily see the changes that had occurred over time. What was most striking to me was that there was an easily identifiable continuity between the Marseilles deck and the more modern decks. However, the modern decks seemed to incorporate more mythic and occult elements, and the Thoth tarot deck was the most mythic and iconic of them all. (So there was, indeed, a process of change that had occurred, but it wasn’t a complete re-invention.)

For my test I particularly focused on two points in the Hero’s Journey, which were the two thresholds of the underworld. There was the entrance and the exit, and I also decided to include the hero’s encounter with the guardian of the threshold. I felt that these important iconic stages should be represented by the symbology of the associated trump cards. In the beginning of his journey, the hero encounters the guardian of the threshold and must undergo the first of many ordeals in order to proceed beyond the warded gateway into the underworld. In some cases the guardian is shown to be frightening and awe inspiring, but within an occult attribution, that terrible guardian becomes transformed into something more of a stern teacher and judge. The tarot trump that I associated with this stage is the Hermit. Once past the guardian, the hero enters into the underworld, symbolized by the belly of whale, the cave of mysteries, or other such places. I chose the trump the Tower for this stage, and it is also curiously known as the House of God. The exit gateway, which could be considered the same doorway as the entrance but with a different perspective, is known in the Hero’s Journey as the Rescue from Without, representing the fact that to leave the underworld with the prize of the boon (as the sacred knowledge) required an extraordinary effort, often aided by outside influences. I attributed the trump of the Moon to this stage.

So, we have the Hermit and the Tower on one end of the cycle of the hero, and the Moon on the other. Do the characteristics of these three trumps align with the associated stages of the Hero’s Journey? If we confine our examination to just the Renaissance Tarot, the answer would probably be in the negative. The Moon has romantic associations and the Tower is something more like the moral implications of the biblical Tower of Babel. The Hermit is just a representation of the natural Christian order to be found outside of the Church. However, broadening my examination by including the Marseilles deck and then extending that to the Waite and Crowley decks, I could see that the mythic qualities of the Hero’s Journey appeared to focus into brilliant clarity. It is perhaps less clear with the Marseilles deck, but even so, the Moon trump has the frightening and malefic content associated with the underworld gateway and the progress that the hero must make to escape it. The Hermit is shrouded in darkness and holds aloft a lantern, and the Tower is destroyed by thunderbolts, flinging its inhabitants from off its ramparts. When we look at Crowley’s depictions of these trumps, it becomes even more clear that there is a match between these points in the Hero’s Journey and the archetypes of the associated tarot trump cards.

It’s pretty obvious to me that the Marseilles Tarot was the source and the model for the modern decks, but the Thoth Tarot deck had pushed the envelope and entered into a world fully inhabited by myth and allegory. It would seem that Aleister Crowley had a deep understanding of world mythology and an intuitive sense of the mythic progression of the iconic and heroic individual. What he imbedded into his tarot design was later assembled and written into Joseph Campbell’s master work, “Hero with a Thousand Faces,” and it seems clear to me that they both drew from the same sources but used that knowledge for altogether different reasons. Crowley produced his greatest work, the book and the tarot deck that he named the “Book of Thoth,” a few years before his death. In his book he factually states that the Tarot trumps, although attributed by the Qabalah, astrology and to a lesser extent, alchemy, also had numerous layers of myths and legends pervading them.

“Such truth accordingly appears to the vulgar as fable, parable, legend, even creed. In the case of this comprehensive symbol of The Fool, there are, within actual knowledge, several quite distinct traditions, very clear; and historically, very important. These must be considered separately in order to understand the single doctrine from which all sprang.” - Aleister Crowley, "Book of Thoth", p. 56

Compare Crowley’s statement to what Joseph Campbell wrote a few years later:

“Throughout the inhabited world in all times and under every circumstance, the myths of man have flourished; and they have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of activities of the human body and mind. It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.” Joseph Campbell, "Hero with a Thousand Faces", p.8

While they are talking about the same thing from two different perspectives, where Crowley devalues myth as a vulgarized greater occult truth and Campbell sees the continuity of myth as an indicator of its universal truth, both sought to engage world mythology to complete the understanding of their respective topics. Yet it would seem that the underlying doctrine that Crowley discusses is actually a sign-post or indicator of something deeper and more profoundly universal. The underlying great truth is actually the universality of myth and its power within the mind of humanity; from the very dawn of consciousness to our modern times. So it would seem that as the Tarot trumps are invested with more mythological images and themes, the greater their overall power will be on the human mind.

And what is the overall pattern that these mythological images and themes appear to express within the Tarot? It is the pattern of the lesser and greater cycles of consciousness. The lesser cycle is the transformation of the individual human into that of a god or hero, and the greater cycle is the creation and destruction of the domain or world of consciousness itself. These cycles have their origin in the circadian rhythm of wakefulness and sleeping/dreaming that have been the foundation of life on this planet, along with its diurnal cycle of light and darkness, day and night, the phases of the moon and the seasons of the sun. This cycle has been imprinted into our genetic structure since the beginning of complex life on this planet, and it also acts as the basic pattern of consciousness, myth and meaning for all human life. Is it then such a wonder if the basic overall pattern of the archetypal Tarot trumps also assumes this lesser and greater cycle?

These two cycles are not actually to be found in the ascending and descending pathways of the Twenty-two Paths of the Tree of Life, since the pathways represent a kind of one-way deliberative path, either up or down. The Hero’s Cycle and the Cosmogonic Cycle represent processes that return onto themselves; where the ending blends into the beginning, being therefore a circular cycle, or even a spiral. Traveling this cycle to its end is never the penultimate achievement, it is merely the entrance into yet another state or beginning, whether higher or lower is dependent on the nature of regression or progression. Even the creation and destruction of the universal world of consciousness is nothing more than part of a never ending cycle of creation, destruction, and creation again.

The ancients understood this type of cyclic repetition and saw it everywhere, despite the fact that modern history and science perceives an opposite linear progression, which oddly can also be found in the Qabalistic pathways. Both perspectives represent the greater truth; but regarding the cycles of growth, ascendency, decline and death, or sleep and wakefulness, or the passage of the lunar and solar cycles, there is a poignant truth to the archetypal cycle of the hero. That truth is in the nature of individual transformation and the transformation of the world of consciousness. It is the veritable iconic cycle of initiation, and it represents the archetypal patterns whereby consciousness is expanded and individuals realize their own godhead.

Therefore, locked within the tarot trumps are the archetypes and symbology of the cycle of initiation. To unlock these symbolic themes, one must first array the trumps in the proper order contained within the Hero’s Journey (17 stages) and the Cosmogonic cycle (5 stages). To employ these symbolic themes, one must write them into a powerful ritual of initiation that would also include the vision of the greater cycle of conscious evolution. A ritual magician who has such a ritualized tool in his or her possession is the true master of ascension and archetypal progression. This tool can be utilized with all twenty-two stages or by just using the descending or Western gateway and ascending or Eastern gateway ritual structures. Even so, it adds a powerful environment to any kind of working, particularly one where the magician seeks to enter into the underworld of the domain of the unconscious and therein gain access to the spirits that haunt that place.

To merge the mythic archetypes of the Hero’s Journey with the trumps of the Tarot gives the practicing ritual magician an indispensable tool. Whether or not there is any historical or traditional precedence for this joining does not in any way either deflect or negate the power of this association. In the same manner that the Tarot trumps were attributed to the Twenty-two Paths of the Tree of Life in the 19th century without any prior precedence or traditional doctrine, I have made the correspondence of the Tarot trumps to the Hero’s Journey. I have found that association to be so useful and meaningful that I could easily imagine that it was a natural fit, if I didn’t know as much as I do about the history of the Tarot.

What this means is that there is more to the traditions of occultism and ritual magick than merely accepting and using what is already available, whether by published material or initiatory doctrine. I believe that it is just as important, perhaps even more important, to experiment and create new associations and systems through insights and inspiration as it is to preserve and protect existing occult traditions. Nothing has remained the same throughout the long centuries, so there is no precedent against creating new ways and new traditions. All new ideas are subject to the opinions and judgment of one’s peers, and in this way are traditions expanded and evolved, or bad ideas summarily rejected.

Frater Barrabbas

This month I got my statement from Llewellyn Worldwide about my book published by them this year entitled “Magical Qabalah For Beginners” and I was happy to note that in the last six months, from January through June 2013, my book sold 752 copies, both paper and electronic. That’s more books sold in six months than I have sold since my first book was published in May 2007. It may not seem like a lot of books, and certainly the royalties from those sales don’t amount to much money, but it is a good sign. Perhaps as one of my young associates has told me about this book that it will become more popular over time, becoming one of the “must read” books if one is at all interested in the Qabalah. It also means that I might have a decent chance of publishing future books either with Llewellyn or some other top occult publisher.

I also haven’t given up on the idea of self-publishing some of the documents and rituals associated with the Order of the Gnostic Star, since that would at least help individuals to master the art of ritual magick outside of the Golden Dawn dominated structures and discipline. Wiccan and Pagans would find the methodologies that I have developed to practice magick far more sympathetic to their existing methods of working magick than adopting a Golden Dawn based one, or attempting to activate one of the hoary old Christian grimoires from the late renaissance. Of course, that's just my opinion.

As the author of “Magical Qabalah for Beginners” I can say that the book is quite comprehensive. If you purchased this book and used it to adopt a system of Qabalistic magick for yourself, you wouldn’t really need to buy another book in order to fully activate that system. The book covers all of the basic areas of both theory and practice, and even delves into some rather complex and advanced topics. I don’t know of very many beginner books that examine the nature of the Qliphoth, discuss in detail the history and evolution of the Qabalah, or for that matter, give the student a series of rituals to perform all of the basic operations in that discipline.

So, yes, this book is comprehensive and I would highly recommend it, particularly those who are religiously pagan and not very knowledgeable of the Qabalah. My approach was crafted for those who find the typical Abrahamic religious bias of occultism and magick to be troubling or just a complete altogether turn-off. Since Greek (and pagan) Neoplatonism and Neopythagoreanism are to be found in the modern Qabalah, along with a mixture of Jewish Gnosticism, it can be used by Wiccans and Pagans without causing them any amount of cultural dissonance or attempting to employ obviously clashing religious paradigms. I believe that the Qabalah is for everyone who is dedicated to the Western Mystery tradition, and that would include all of the newly developed religions of the Neopagan diaspora. So, if you haven’t already purchased a copy of this book, please pick up a copy. It is quite inexpensive, being around $10 to $12, depending on where you buy it. I believe that it is a worthy acquisition, and it is easy to read.

Anyway, now that I have happily learned about how well my new book is selling, I guess that brings up the question, am I becoming an evil BNP, BNM, BNW or a BNA? These are acronyms coined by Morgan Drake Eckstein in his blog that mean “Big Name Pagan”, “Big Name Magician”, “Big Name Witch” or “Big Name Author.” Of course, there are good members of this crowd, but also a lot of bad members. Considering my very modest success at book selling, or that I was turned down this year regarding four interesting possible lectures at Pantheacon, or that I am mostly pretty obscure according to the latest google search, I would have to say that I am still “small potatoes.”

I don’t have the name recognition of a Donald Michael Kraig or a Lon Milo Duquette. In fact, I haven’t even figured out what I would like to teach classes about, or how to even locally market myself. A couple of years ago I had all of this completely worked out, but now those ideas don’t seem particularly relevant or interesting. I have been pretty busy with my regular day job, doing my usual reading and research, practicing occasional magical ordeals and battling with my health problems. There is nothing seriously physically wrong with me so far, but my sleeping disorder and the cataract surgery that I needed to have last November (to keep me from going blind in one eye) have really kicked my butt for most of the year. I hope to remedy all of these petty maladies and get back into working some more heavy magical workings, writing and researching, particularly now that winter is already returning to the northern tundra states. Maybe I will even figure out what I want to present to the public. Well, maybe.

It has been a year of changes, self-doubts and self-questioning for sure, and I don’t believe that I have reached an end to this internal inquiry. So, with all that weighing me down, I sincerely doubt that I will ever get a “big head” and start to believe my own PR. In fact, right now, I don’t even have any PR to promote to others let alone misguidedly believe in myself. This process of self-questioning, and the fact that I have too many close obnoxious friends who will happily tell me their scathing opinions about me if I start getting too big for my britches, will ensure that I remain fairly humble and knocked down-to-earth for years to come.

There’s nothing like a big dose of reality to make anyone see their own flaws and follies if they are the least bit perceptive and open. The only way anyone could worship themselves and believe completely in their own PR is if they lived in a bubble that excluded any contrary opinions, perspectives, philosophies or comments. My friends and my lady have made certain that I am not allowed the indulgence of such a bubble, so I doubt that success or fame will change who I am, that is, if anything like that happens to me. I suspect that misbegotten fame in the pagan and occult communities has to be relentlessly sought at the expense of everything else, and I just don’t have the interest nor the inclination to be that way. I am more interested in openly sharing my ideas with other folks, even if they don’t believe in the same ideals or philosophies that I believe in.

As I manage to pull together future books and somehow, amidst all of the other things I am trying to do, get them into print, I think that I will be just too busy with life to bother with any kind of celebrity mind-set. So to answer the question, I doubt greatly if I will ever succumb to being an evil or even a good BNP, a BNW, a BNM or a BNA - it just isn’t in my blood to pursue this kind of facade. And that, I remark, is said through the disguise of my pen-name.

Frater Barrabbas

There has been some buzz in the blogsphere lately about whether there is an historical basis to the person of Jesus, or whether it is OK to practice magic and also be a Christian in good standing. I have already written up an article about my opinion about the historical foundation of Christianity, which seemed to offend some people. If you really want to read or examine it, you can find it here. I think that whatever opinion people have, whether adherents or outsiders, the historical Jesus Christ is not particularly important when compared to the legendary or mythical Jesus Christ. In fact, believers will believe in the their creed and what it means to them regardless of what anyone thinks or says. I leave the various sectarian discussions of Christianity and what it all means to those who are invested in this religion, since I don’t consider myself either an adherent or an apologist for that creed. My approach to Christianity is based on being an outsider and discussing its various tenets in the manner of comparative religious anthropology. I have no affinity for the individual named Jesus Christ nor any sympathy for any form of Christianity. I am a Witch and a Pagan, and that is who and what I am.

Some have written that they are attracted to the saints and employ them in their magical workings. I have no interest in any of the saints, apostles, martyrs, Mary mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalen, or any other aspect or facet of Christianity. I do very much like the artwork and music that Christianity has inspired over the centuries, and I also engage in the Christian holiday of Christmas to some extent; but I don’t attend any church services or any church based exhibitions or entertainments. I am, as I have said, outside and pretty much indifferent to Christianity. I honor those who are believers and adherents of that faith, but then I pretty much offer that kind of respect to anyone who is religious, regardless of their creed. While I may have appropriated the ritual structures of the old Catholic Mass and the Benediction rite, what I perform is completely rewritten and aligned to an altogether pagan pantheon. Even my occultism and my Qabalah are pagan based, and Christian or Jewish religious paradigms are foreign and unacceptable to me, or at least as far as I can determine. I was born in a Christian society and live in a Christian dominated culture, but I am not a practicing Christian nor a believer. When I have endeavored to perform a magical ritual that has Christian elements in it, I rewrite it so that my own creed is represented instead.

Do I believe that someone can practice magic and still be a good Christian? Absolutely, and this is really an absurd question, since nearly all of the renaissance grimoires are Christian based. These books obviously were written by Christians and practiced by Christians, so that seems like a logical assumption to me. It is true that certain Christian church institutions have promoted an anti-magic and anti-occult bias, but then again, it is questionable as to how strictly such prohibitions are enforced today. Certainly any Catholic who admitted in the confessional to practicing rituals to invoke angels and demons would likely face some serious penance and have to prove contrition to their respective parish priest. Some other sects are also steadfastly against any form of occultism, divination or magic, but I would assume that such adherents wouldn’t bother practicing these kinds of rites anyway. I also believe that you don’t have to be a member of a church to be a Christian, and that forms of esoteric Christianity would not only allow but might even encourage certain kinds of religious based occult workings and research.

However, if we consider the ministry of Jesus Christ and what he supposedly said in the gospels, all sins are forgiven except for one, which is the sin against the Holy Spirit. If working magic or occultism were considered a sin against the Holy Spirit, then no matter what any Christian did, being a magician and an occultist would be against the basic theological premise of Christianity. It would be, in a word, forbidden. Luckily, magic and occultism are not considered unforgivable sins and thereby, a sin against the Holy Spirit. This is probably why there were so many grimoires and other manuscripts and books printed on the subject of magic and occultism by Christians, because technically, they weren’t really considered intrinsically sinful. There might have been prohibitions against magic and occultism, but they could be forgiven, that is, if one sought repentance.

It was only during the reformation that individuals were persecuted for practicing magic, occultism or even science because of the religious insecurity vested in both the Protestant and the Catholic churches. After those times, such prohibitions were not taken very seriously by the mainstream churches, and even today, such activities will be problematic in only the more orthodox institutions of Christianity, such as in the various groups practicing Christian Fundamentalism. Even so, it might be nice idea to quickly examine what a sin against the Holy Spirit actually is, and how such a judgement could indict apostates such as myself, but only if Christianity is the One and True Religion of World. Since I don’t believe that to be true, let us continue with this analysis anyway.

There are a couple of important passages in the New Testament where Jesus talks about the forgiving of sins, and also about the kind of sin that can never be forgiven - a sin against the Holy Spirit. We can easily find these quotes in the Gospels and they discuss what is an unforgivable sin.

We have the passage in Matthew, 12.30 - 32:

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy. But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

And also the passage in Luke, 12.8-10:

“I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”

These two passages are pretty much analogous, but they don’t really explain what sinning against the Holy Spirit actually consists of. For a more detailed definition, we have to delve into Catholic teachings, Protestant teachings, and even what Mormonism has to say about this topic.

In Roman Catholicism, a sin against the Holy Spirit is defined roughly as despair, presumption, envy, impenitence, and obstinacy. Basically, it is a condition where someone abrogates to themselves what is the provenance of God. To think that one's malice is unforgivable, or to think that one has achieved forgiveness while doing nothing, or to envy another’s spiritual good, and to just be persistently obstinate about one’s errors or sins is defined as sinning against the Holy Spirit.

In Protestant Christianity there is less of a possibility of forgiveness than in Catholicism, but still, sinning against the Holy Spirit is defined as being an apostate. Apostasy is defined as the situation where one who has been shown or schooled in the truth of Jesus Christ and rejects what has been seen and experienced. This is the same definition as found in Mormonism, too. Still, practicing magic and occultism doesn’t appear to be an unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit as long as one remains a Christian having the proper faith or practicing good works, depending on one’s specific sect.

However, being born and raised in a nominally Christian family and society and then rejecting that supposed universal truth to be a pagan or a witch would be considered an apostasy and a sin against the Holy Spirit. So, that means that Christians practicing magic and occultism are forgiven of their sins (if their particular sect has declared that such activity is sinful), but switching religions to practice magic and occultism can’t be forgiven. What that theological point declares is that I have supposedly sinned against the Holy Spirit because I have rejected Christianity, the religion of my birth. I was never confirmed into any church, but I was certainly baptized, so I am one of the many who are unforgiven, that is, if I lend any credence to Christian theology.

Anyway, that means is that I am a wicked and evil person and if you want to stay on the good side of the Holy Spirit you shouldn’t read my blog or have anything to do with me! I am beyond hope or help, at least according to basic Christian theology. That I also see the Holy Spirit as feminine makes me even worse of a sinner and an apostate, and that I call upon that Spirit in my rites is a profound blasphemy. However, I feel that I am a good pagan and a witch and I follow my own conscience as far as ethics are concerned. I am not a Christian, and I don’t feel any guilt or any remorse, nor do I even believe in the concept of “sin” as it is defined in the Abrahamic religious creeds. I am outside of that world, so I don’t need to repent or be forgiven! I have a strong alignment with the Goddesses and Gods of my particular creed, and that’s all that I need to do to live a truly pagan spiritual life. Since I believe strongly that there isn’t any universal religion or a single monotheistic deity, nor for that matter, a single spiritual truth that everyone is a part of whether they believe it or not, then I am on safe ground.

I also found it interesting that one of the greatest proponents of ceremonial magic, Henry Cornelius Agrippa, recanted all of his occult works and confessed his sins before his death. He died a good Catholic Christian, and his greatest achievement, the three Books of Occult Philosophy, were essentially disowned by him. Maybe that might be a revealing event as far as being a Christian and a magician is concerned, but somehow, I doubt it.

Frater Barrabbas

I really don’t care what anyone else thinks, but I have always found Aleister Crowley to be a truly great and profound writer about magick and other occult topics. His prose is actually quite satisfying to read, and to me he is concise and very logical. Even his most abstruse and difficult works are capable of being understood by the average intelligent person. Whatever his lifestyle was like, his reputation or the kind of person that he was makes little difference today, because what we have to judge him by are his written works, rites and his Thoth Tarot deck.

Already, Aleister Crowley is fading into legend. So it is nearly impossible for anyone to be able to present a proper biography about him, although several authors have made the attempt. Even though his history is quite copious when compared to Mathers, so many of his contemporaries had a very different perspective or opinion about him. Some hated him, some worshiped him, and many vilified him, and yet others saw him as either a writer, poet or an adventurer without any unusual attributes. (For instance, there was a lengthy article about Aleister Crowley in the Atlanta Journal Constitution during the early 1930's that discussed his world travels, mountain climbing exploits and literary skills (poetry), but didn’t mention anything about his occult practices.) There has also been a lot of misinformation spread about Crowley, so much so that very little of the legendary data about him can even be trusted. Really, all we have are his works, and that, in my opinion, is worth far more than what most of us have achieved in a lifetime.

I have to sheepishly admit that I couldn’t hold a candle to Crowley’s brilliance and masterly writing talents. The only literary area that I am not greatly impressed with is his poetry, most of which was rather competently mediocre, but even within that media, he has a number of poems that rival the masters. To this day, I still like pulling out one of his books that I first read years ago and start to read it anew. It amazes me that I still find new insights and information even after reading the same book, ritual or chapter for the umpteenth time. That shows just how deep Crowley was, and also how brilliant. What is more amazing than the writings of Crowley are many of his later disciples, from Frater Achad, Israel Regardie (albeit, reluctantly), Kenneth Grant to Lon Milo Duquette, Jake Stratton Kent and David Shoemaker. No other magical tradition has spawned so many brilliant occultists and magicians, in my humble opinion. (They make my own tradition look quite hollow and empty.)

However, when it comes to engaging with the spiritual system of Thelema then I have to part company with the tradition that Crowley inaugurated. You see, I am a big fan of Aleister Crowley’s writings, but I am not much of a Thelemite. I like the first chapter of the Book of the Law (Liber Al vel Legis), but the other two chapters are not very compelling. I also don’t find a lot of spiritual value for myself personally in the religious aspects of Thelema, even though I do find it more meaningful than most other spiritual systems.

When it comes to spirituality, I am a true witch because I just can’t find greater meaning for myself than having a direct experience with the domain of Spirit. Religious institutions based on sacred writings (or “spirituality by the book”) are not very attractive to me, perhaps because of my need to see and experience everything myself. Thelema doesn’t abrogate personal gnosis like some religious creeds do, in fact it encourages it. Still, I feel that once something is written down, even if it is as brilliant as the Book of the Law, it is open to critique. I find myself cherry picking the parts I agree with and mentally arguing with the parts I don’t agree with while reading. I just can’t accept sacred writing as some kind of absolute truth because I think that spiritual truth is relative, and human linguistics is an imperfect science. I also don’t believe that sacred writings are written or dictated by deities or spiritual avatars; they are written by people, inspired perhaps, but still human.

I have been a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, or O.T.O., and I have enjoyed the initiations and the companionship of other magicians in that organization. (I am no longer an active member in that order, for reasons stated above.) I have also had the unfortunate experience to meet some really obnoxious and jaded asshats, but overall, most of the Thelemites that I have met are very smart, talented, creative magicians and occultists. In fact, I could say that I prefer their company over the company of many other occultists simply because I feel that I have more in common with them. What I don’t have and can’t share in is the religious dimension of Thelema, and that is my loss. It certainly doesn’t reflect on Thelema or Thelemites if I am unable to see the Book of the Law as the premier sacred writ or Aleister Crowley as the prophet of the New Aeon. I just don’t believe that, so I would be a very poor Thelemite indeed.

I draw my perspectives from my own experiences, and I have found over the years that Thelema, as nominally defined as the True Will, is just one of four very important sacramental systems. I have written all of this into the rites of the Gnostic Tetra-sacramentary of the Order of the Gnostic Star, but I have left a lot of room for other members to draw their own conclusions. In that ritual context, Thelema is joined with Agape, Thanatos, and Eros as the four powers of Gnosis. While Thelema is the True Will, Agape is Platonic Love, Thanatos is Spiritual Transformation and Eros is Sexual Vitality. I believe that a balanced system of magick should have all four gnostic sacramental systems represented equally. In fact, I actually have in my ritual repertoire a Mass rite for each of these four systems.

Of course, when all four sacramental systems are joined together, they produce a fifth, which is symbolized by the Star, or STELLA, the unique essence of Spirit. Thus, the Order of the Gnostic Star acts as a keyword phrase and an emblem for the tetra-sacramentary as it is resolved within the Star of Gnosis. However, for Thelema, just as for the other three sacramental systems, words fail to encapsulate the true meaning of this specific current of gnosis. Thus, a Book of the Law would be too limiting to a greater understanding of Thelema (in my opinion), and this why I have problems with it.

In my opinion, each and every person must apprehend their own gnosis within each of the four sacramental systems. I have found that a lot of Crowley’s rites and even some of his occult poetry have helped me to acquire my personal gnostic experience of Thelema, and for that boon, I am grateful and I owe him a debt of gratitude. However, I am not bound to Crowley’s view of Thelema, and I have other insights that would be considered outside of the classical perspective of that creed. Few understood the profoundly gnostic and magical dimensions of Thelema as well as Crowley did, but to rely solely on what he wrote is to come up short, in my opinion.

It is for this reason that I honor Aleister Crowley, but I am not a Thelemite in the classical definition of that term. I feel an affinity to Thelema and Thelemites, but to me it is just one of four different sacramental systems and not the exclusive answer. For that answer, I have had to move beyond words and rites, and enter into the domain of pure Spirit. In that ecstatic void of unified consciousness, I have experienced many things and I have found them to be the core of what I know as truth. Yet I had to be fully immersed in that world and momentarily oblivious to the affectations of mind and body. I believe firmly that each and every one of us should approach our magical spirituality in the same manner, deeply, independently and through intense personal experience. Everything else is just other people’s opinions and thoughts, with or without any relevance or shades of truth to the individual seeker.

Frater Barrabbas

Someone didn’t particularly care for the article“Thoughts About Christianity” which I recently wrote. She didn’t leave any comments on my blog article, but gave me quite an earful on my Face Book page. She also didn’t like the fact that I disagreed with her statements criticizing my article, and even though I was also doing my day job, she insisted that I engage in some kind of dialogue with her about her opinions. I really don’t have a lot of time to engage in long conversations on the internet and I avoid it where possible. I figure that if someone wants to comment on my article they can leave a comment through the online blog. This person, whose name was Susan, appears to be retired (according to her FB page data) and probably has a lot more free time than I do. So, I decided to air her comments on a blog article and respond to them when I had the requisite amount of time. She does make some valid points, even though the tone of her arguments are the kind of whining “both sides do it” sort of logic that sets my teeth on edge.

First of all, she said that I seemed to be bashing Christianity or somehow being insulting to Christians by writing a culturally opposing perspective regarding what I think is the blatant sectarianism found in aspects of Christianity. Let’s keep in mind the fact that the culture of this country is Christian dominated. If you want a definition of vested privilege, then being white, male and Christian, not to mention wealthy, are four parts of the overall equation. Those of us who are not Christian get to deal with public perceptions and media exploitation that are quite overall negative and even at times, nasty. If you are a Jew, then you’re a greedy, grasping Christ-killer. If you are a Muslim, then you’re a terrorist. If you are Mormon, then you are a cultist. If you are an atheist, then you are a secular oppressor of good Christians. And if you are a witch or a pagan, then you are a Satanist, child molester, ritual murderer, drug dealer, and whatever else is foul and evil. Granted, there are many Christians who are religiously tolerant and they might even be in the majority. As I said in my article, I respect anyone’s religious activities and beliefs so long as they don’t impinge on my own rights. What I have a problem with are those sectarians who believe that their religious beliefs and practices are the only true ones, and the rest are either due to tragic ignorance or diabolical instigation.

Does it seem that I have a chip on my shoulder or that I am somehow biased and poisoned regarding the faith of Christianity? Well, I have had to deal with quite a lot of cognitive dissonance in my career as a witch and a pagan. I have been preached at, called names, temporarily held against my will while others fervently prayed over me, and even threatened by supposedly good and faithful Christians. Perhaps they were just doing their religious duty as they saw it, but as long as they interfered with my right to worship, then they were decidedly and completely in the wrong. Even the couple who initiated me into witchcraft, Bill and Sharon Schnoebelen, became fundamentalist preachers and Bill wrote a book entitled “Wicca: Satan’s Little White Lie” that continues to be quoted and used as evidence that witches and pagans are actually an evil cult.

All you need to do is check out Witch Hunts on WitchVox to see the list of current lecturers and authors who are telling lots of Christians that witches and pagans are evil worshipers of Satan. I even have the misfortune of living in the congressional district represented by Congresswoman Michelle Bachman and I have to deal with her embarrassing rants about paganism and the evils of witchcraft. Others might find her to be a champion of Christian virtues while others just laugh at her idiotic statements. I don’t find her funny at all. Instead, I find her sentiments to be a chilling reminder that our religious freedoms cannot be taken for granted.

This is a cultural battle and instead of being too generous to other side (or turning the other cheek) we should at least stand up for our own rights and beliefs. We shouldn’t be idle when others are actively defaming us. Other faiths respond to bigoted attacks and so should we. We don’t seek to proselytize or convert others to our faith, we just want to be allowed to worship in peace and security. That doesn’t seem to be much to ask for in our so-called free society, but it can’t be depended on or maintained unless we are vigilant against those who might try to take our religious freedoms away from us. This is a real social issue in our post-modern times and to ignore it or pretend that there is equality, by saying that both sides do it, is terribly misinformed.

So, Susan starts out accusing me of being one of many who are hurling insults and bashing the other side without any significant point being made. In fact, she felt that my article was, for the most part, irrelevant and pointless.

“Christians bashing Pagans, Pagans bashing Christians. Each scorns the other for limitless reasons. And though I am not on the proverbial fence [whatever that means], I am weary of the contrasts and comparisons, insults, and rhetoric hurled at different belief systems.”

My only issue with Christianity, or for that matter, any religion, is when it promotes itself as the exclusive truth. A Monotheistic Deity is universal, and that means that it excludes all other Deities. It also paints atheism as a rejection of that truth. When I meet Christians, particularly Esoteric Christians, I have no problem with them or their faith. They don’t judge me or consider me an infidel. I see them as pleasant religious people engaging with their faith, and how they worship is no concern of mine. Of course, if they make it a point to defame members of my religion, then I have a problem, and all it really takes is to just ignorantly deny the validity of what I believe. Certainly, I don’t deny the validity of what anyone else believes, even if they happen to be an atheist and don’t believe in any religious creed whatsoever - it is their right to do so.

“Although I enjoy educational discussion, I prefer to not impugn either faiths to explain my understanding of what it means to be the creature that I am.”

Not only was my previous article educational, but it didn’t impugn Christianity. It only decried sectarianism. That was the whole point of the article! Obviously, it was something that Susan missed when she read it. Some people pretend to be neutral and fair, while I don’t see any need to disguise what I believe for the sake of appearances.

“The question of magic and Christians enjoying elaborate displays of its practice is not a subject important enough to address, however, those people who choose to worship as they will, ‘an it do no harm’, are considered, according to the Apostle Paul, ‘a law unto themselves’.”

The actual quote that Susan took from the New Testament was from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, chapter 2, verse 14 through 16. Quoting it in full gives that phrase which she used a much better context.

“For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

When you examine the entire passage then it becomes more problematical. Paul isn’t excusing people who work magic as long as they are not harming others, or who choose to worship differently than others. They all get judged in the same manner when the end-times are nigh. Additionally, the term “Gentiles” that he uses was actually about non-Jewish pagans who were ignorant of Christ, and anyone in our epoch who is or once was a Christian doesn’t at all count as a “Gentile.” Susan quoted this biblical passage out of its very important context, naturally.

Perhaps a clearer quotation from that same work would be from Chapter 2, verses 11 and 12: “For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;”

This statement is obviously highly sectarian. It doesn’t matter if one is a Christian or a pagan, all will get judged in the same manner by the same universal God. Of course, I would reject such an idea since I strongly believe that it doesn’t apply to me. Even so, there’s lots of sectarian opinions in that epistle (just as there are in other books of the New Testament). Quoting from it is a real problem if you are not a follower of the One True Religion.

While Susan might state that the question of whether Christians can legally work magic within the tenets of Christianity is irrelevant; it was a topic that others in the blogosphere commented on recently. I was just adding my opinion to that of others.

“Belief in the Holy Spirit is a bit tricky. My personal belief is we are all connected by a spirit which lies dormant in some while others have a personal relationship with this masculine/feminine phenomenon known as spirit or spirits, however you please. This unforgivable sin against such spirit is ambiguous in the various scriptures as they are written, but to not acknowledge the devine [sic] in one’s self would be death, bodily and spiritually. Either way, a mortal infraction.”

While I might agree somewhat with Susan’s statement that everyone is connected to each other and everything else in the world (including animals, plants and rocks, etc.), those who don’t believe in anything spiritual are not spiritually or bodily dead. That is absurd, and it does show an unwitting contempt for those who don’t believe in religion. It is better to state something as part of one’s experience and to leave it at that, instead of implying that others are not as “enlightened” who don’t also believe it to be true. Therefore, it can’t be a “mortal infraction” unless there is a universal truth or sectarian premise that is actually valid. I know quite a number of atheists and they are often more thoughtful and ethical than those who are supposedly governed by their religion. Thus, the concept of Spirit must have a very wide definition, much wider than anyone currently knows.

I admit that I responded to her critique with a certain brevity and then informed her that I disagreed with her opinion. At that moment, I just didn’t have any time to elaborate all of my points. Susan responded with a certain umbrage at my supposed unwillingness to have a dialogue with her. It was kind of like a temper tantrum. Here’s what she wrote in reply.

“Are you often misinterpreted, sir? According to you, your last article ruffled a few Christians.”

My last article, written some years ago, floated the idea that the historical Christ was a myth and that there wasn’t any actual evidence that he existed. I still think that this is a valid point, and I backed it up with the scholarly work that I found online written by another author. I have since let this whole matter drop because I can’t prove it to be a fact. (Scholars have pretty much dismissed this line of reasoning, but I still have my suspicions.) Anyway, a couple of people strongly objected to it and left their comments on the blog article.

“And throughout this article, I detected a certain amount of sarcasm veiled in defensive passivity.”

I’ve never considered myself as “passive” anything. I think if you read the article you will find that I am quite passionately and aggressively against sectarianism. And for good reasons, too.

“Perhaps some residual resentment for those who read your previous article. But your paper, 'Thoughts About Christianity', was a bit scathing.”

Scathing, if one is an ardent sectarian, but to an Esoteric Christian, probably not at all critical. And resentment, how can I be resentful with comments posted about an article written over three years ago? Holding a grudge that long takes way too much energy. I have better things to do.

“Read it again and you'll see it. I meant no personal disrespect; just an observation on the intensity of your convictions, and a contribution of my take on Jesus' meaning of the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.”

The tone of Susan’s comments are actually scathing and harsh towards me and maybe even a bit passive-aggressive, too. (She does mean to be disrespectful, but she doesn’t want to be responsible for appearing to be so.) I don’t see an open and objective examination of my written article, just a bunch of complaints and groundless criticism. I do have a certain passion in my convictions, but then again, I have often been complimented for that. I also found very little of substance in Susan’s rebuttal about the definition of a sin against the Holy Spirit. I believe that I captured it quite well in my article by stating that it is most aptly used as a judgement against apostasy. Of course, Susan has to round out her umbrage with a final insult, and I quote it in full.

“If you are a sinner and should be shunned by the Christians for your beliefs, perhaps they should choose different reading material, or, you could hand them the first stone.”

I am already shunned by sectarian Christians for my beliefs and practices, as I have previously stated. I also doubt that anyone who is sectarian will bother to read my article, but you never know. I wrote this article for witches and pagans to demonstrate to them the inherent hypocrisy that it is alright to practice magic and occultism if you are a Christian, but it is not OK to switch religions and then practice occultism and magick. Or for that matter, to practice occultism and magick as a pagan or witch in a Christian society supposedly surrounded by the truth.

As for handing them the first stone to clobber me with, I won’t give any sectarian the opportunity to do so. I am also not bound by any ethical rules that says I shouldn’t either defend or avenge myself on someone who threatens me or my loved ones. I am a full fledged witch in that regard, and I don’t have a problem with working malefic magic on someone when it is justified. I hope that revelation doesn’t shock anyone (especially Susan), but then again, welcome to the real world. There are a lot of ugly, brutal and evil people in the world, and I would hopefully keep them from storming the gateway of my home and world. There are also a lot of good people, too, but I don’t need to protect myself from them. (At least, I hope I don’t.)

Think my viewpoint is too extreme or prejudiced? Just to give you an idea of how crazy right-wing fundamentalists are, how about examining this recent quote from the spokesperson of the American Family Association.

“Upset that the AFA was included on an Army training session’s list of hate groups, AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer on Friday charged that the Armed Forces will use ‘lethal force’ against Christians and Tea Party activists, and may even ‘surround’ the hotel hosting next year’s Values Voter Summit.

‘The military is being conditioned to use weapons on the American Family Association. The soldiers are being conditioned in their brains to think of evangelicals, Tea Partyers, the American Family Association and the Family Research Council as domestic enemies that may have to be neutralized by lethal force,’ Fischer maintained. ‘The people you got to watch out for, you may have to turn your tanks on, are American Family Association.’”

Based on the above rhetoric, it is quite likely that a few of these inflamed Christian sectarians might actually start some kind of armed insurrection in the not too distant future. Those who are Pagan and Wiccan authors would be easy and tempting targets, indeed.

Nuff said about this issue.

Frater Barrabbas

Autumn is my favorite time of the year without a doubt. I may have grown very partial to late spring because of the harshness and the length of winter up here in the tundra, but I have always felt my best in the autumn. It’s almost as though the cooling off of the days, the smell of wood smoke and the barrage of colors registering from golden yellow, orange, red to brown, truly inspires me. What I am not crazy about are the hunters shooting off their shot guns at the water fowl in the shallow lakes that surround our house. They typically start shooting just before dawn, so it can be a rude awakening for those unaccustomed to hearing gun shots in the early morning hours. Also, there is no gradual drop in temperatures living up here, since winter comes quickly and without much in the way of an announcement. We have already had a bit of snow on the ground, and with the freezing weather now in play, it’s only a matter of days before our first really big snow storm changes the autumn fully into winter.

Speaking of rude awakenings, I am still battling my problem with sleeping. I have eliminated my habit of reading in bed before sleeping and moved the alarm clock out of my view (off of the night stand) to make that part of my bedroom darker and better for sleeping. No more eying the clock at odd hours of the night or morning. I have also tried to eliminate any and all distractions to preparing for bed, and with this single minded approach I have had some success. I have some good nights intermixed with bad nights, but overall, I am still suffering from some amount of sleep deprivation, and this is a problem. I going to have to elevate my response so that I might overcome this issue, and that means seeing a pulmonologist and visiting a sleep clinic.

What seems to be happening to me is that I dream far too much, my sleep has too little non-REM sleep or deep sleep, and that I often wake up after five or six hours of sleep and then have difficulties getting back to sleep again. It is a real physically debilitating ordeal for me, and one that I have taken very seriously. It’s only a matter of time before the cause is identified and then the solution will be applied. I have checked out the various sleep web pages and I have followed nearly of what they have suggested. I am temporarily taking Abien, and that seems to allow me maintain my sleep uninterrupted, but it is likely that I have some kind of sleep apnea. I think its time to apply a more intensive regimen under a doctor’s supervision, of course. I hope to have all of this resolved before December arrives.

Until such a time, I must defer to my health issues and not focus as much as I have on my writing. Thus, there will be a hiatus of a few to perhaps several weeks without any blog articles. I apologize for the lapse, but it is necessary, considering the dire nature of the health issues that I face. If I can lick these issues, then I will be able to ease back into writing my usual interesting and informative articles (as I have done previously) for my public to read and enjoy. I would also like to mention that there are a lot of articles in the archives already, and it isn’t too difficult to use the topic index on the left had side of the blog web page below all of the other displays and blog based data. Check out some of the older articles and I am sure you will find some real gems there.

Hope you all had a wonderful Samhain and Thanksgiving, and with a bit of luck and insight, I will return soon to the blogosphere.

Frater Barrabbas

It’s been many weeks since the last time I wrote anything to my blog. The truth is I have been fighting against a very terrible malady. That malady that I have been fighting is the inability to sleep normally like ordinary people do. It has taken me from October until now to be able to sleep normally with assistance. I am now using a CPAP machine to help me breathe normally at night when I sleep. For those who have never suffered insomnia or sleep apnea, I have to tell you getting a full night’s sleep is extremely important. My struggle against insomnia also included a struggle against Ambien dependency. I was taking Ambien for 47 nights straight before finally deciding that I had to stop taking it altogether. During that period of time, I got to experience some of the more nasty side effects associated with that drug. So, I experienced night sweats, anxiety attacks, hallucinations, nausea, and vertigo. I functioned as if in a cloud, not being able to focus on anything that was outside of my periphery. I even experienced forgetfulness, absentmindedness, demented imaginings and all sorts of dark fantasies. It was somewhat horrific when that happened, and thankfully, it was brief and I was able to pull myself out of it by the strength of my will. I am certain that it would have gotten much worse if I had continued taking Ambien, although I would have run out of my prescription well before then.

I went through two weeks of withdrawing from Ambien and now I’m no longer taking the drug. This change has made me feel so much better about everything. I’ve read all sorts of horror stories on the Internet about the drug Ambien, it’s pernicious powers of dependency, addiction, the particular gruesome withdrawal side-effects, and I now know that they are not exaggerated. Our culture seems to be obsessed with the use and sales of illegal drugs, but very little is said about the effects and use of pharmaceutical drugs that are prescribed by doctors. This whole process that I’ve experienced has been quite an ordeal, and one that I don’t want to repeat. As I become accustomed to the CPAP machine I will begin to experience normal sleep cycles without any other aid. I am happy to report that I have achieved that goal.

Good health is very important for anyone, especially occultists. If you are waylaid by sickness or poor health, how can you ever focus on spiritual things and the subtleties of the occult world? And I might add, that good health is not something that you can take for granted. When we are young, most of us experience good health throughout our 20s, 30s and even into our 40s. Yet it is foolish to take good health for granted at any point in our lives. This state of solid physical health must be maintained, especially when we get older. I have stated in previous writings that being in a state of good health is an important foundation for the practice of magic. It’s pretty hard to work magic if you are distracted by poor health or your vitality is sapped by disease and physical stress. I have acknowledged this lesson and I realize that I must work ever harder in order to maintain a modicum of good health. To tell you the truth, this is my most difficult occult ordeal. If I want my life to have value and to be enriched in my autumn years then I’m going to have to regularly work out, stay active, diet and eat sensibly, or face a painful and disease ridden old age. The key here is to have quality life in your autumn years, yet so many of us are sadly kept from that goal.

From time to time I have seen news statements, messages, and various Facebook feeds announcing yet another occult luminary or important pagan founder succumbing to bad health and even death. There was a time when many of these folks were young and in their 20s, and the movements they were a part of were also young. We all assumed that life was good and that we and our movements would last forever. We thought we were immortal and above and beyond the cares and concerns of old age and declining health. Perhaps some of our numbers were culled by accidents or mishaps, or even the tragedy of excessive drug use or alcoholism. These things happened to other people that we may have known or not known, so they were easy to ignore or to forget. And now that we are getting older we realize that we are not immortal and that how we have lived our lives will certainly help to determine how it ends. Now we know that we are not immortal and that all of us will someday die. Some of us will die a lot sooner, and some of us are actually quite sick and dying right now.

All of these thoughts about mortality and death seemed to be very much a part of my spiritual process in the last few months, and I even began to think about the end of my life. I had performed some divination and knew that I wasn’t going to die, of course. Yet the topic of death had quite a powerful impact upon my mind. Maybe, this was an important wake-up call for me to pay attention to so that I might live a little longer and better.

While undergoing the most extreme and dark parts of this ordeal I was also reading about the ancient Egyptian book, the Amduat, which is all about the nocturnal cycle of the god Re as he makes passage through the underworld from the setting of the sun to the dawn of the next day. The ancient Egyptians believed that the sun passed under the earth during the night. The sun god rode in his solar boat through the 12 gates and was assisted by many gods and the blessed dead to achieve his victorious daily emergence from the Gateway of Dawn. This daily cycle of the sun god was actually an important part of the ancient Egyptian funerary rites and represented the cosmogonic cycle in which the pharaoh played a very important part. This cosmogonic cycle was also analogous to the cycle of the hero and the cycle of initiation. Since five stages are associated with the cosmogonic cycle in the hero’s journey, there are only 17 stages that actually involve the full transformation of the hero. If we were to amplify those five stages to 12, then we would have an approximation to the Egyptian cosmogonic cycle. So, I have been focusing on each hour or stage of this cycle as I have been undergoing my recovery from sleep deprivation. It has been a very interesting synchronicity to assist my struggles to fully recover while reading this book.

There were times when I was reading this story of the sun god’s passage through the underworld as a meditation piece just before I went to bed that I imagined myself on the solar boat with the sun god, helping him to fight the forces of darkness. The whole process seemed like an analogy for my struggle to become well. Because sleep, dreams and death seem so connected in our minds and in our culture this mystic underworld journey seemed most appropriate to me. I could also consider this entire process to be transformative, representing for me not only a healing journey but also a kind of initiation. Now that I’m on the mend I’m quite certain that what I have gone through has been an initiation and a powerful spiritual awakening.

The book that I was reading was written by Andreas Schweizer and it has the title “The Sungod’s Journey Through the Netherworld: Reading the Ancient Egyptian Amduat.” I liked reading this book because the author really got deeply into the psychological impact of the underworld journey. Mr. Schweizer is something of a Jungian psychoanalyst so his interpretation of the Amduat is very much influenced by the teachings and writings of Carl Jung. If you are not into Carl Jung then the constant references to the collective unconscious would probably be quite annoying. Yet I found it quite helpful and insightful because I believe that the writings and teachings of Carl Jung are very important for occultists and practicing ritual magicians. You might disagree, but that is my opinion and I stand by it. Even though neurologists have pretty much debunked the concept of a collective unconscious, there still appears to be something about a cultural collective that has a powerful influence on those individuals living through it. I think the final word about the cultural collective, conscious or unconscious, has still to be written. I also believe that science will probably discover not only a psychic but perhaps even a neurological basis to the collective unconscious.

So, I’ve returned to the blog world and this is my first article in quite some time. I don’t know how frequent I will be posting new articles since the demands of my job, my health, and my relationship will take precedence over my writing, at least for the time being. I have quite a huge backlog of articles to write since there is been so much that has been going on in the electronic occult community that I would like to comment on and put forth my opinion. Some of these discussions may be a bit old, but that won’t stop me from writing about them. I hope to have an article written perhaps once a week or maybe once every two weeks. I’ll see how things work out and you will surely know the results.

Frater Barrabbas

Recently I’ve had a very unpleasant experience arguing with an occult pundit (Nick Farrell) who basically called me a naïve fool because I honor my spiritual ancestors and treat them as heroes. Because I celebrate and honor my spiritual ancestors and treat them with a certain amount of reverence I am considered a dupe and a fool. The reason for this criticism, of course, is because I happen to revere such individuals as Alex Sanders, Gerald Gardner, Aleister Crowley, MacGregor Mathers, or any other number of occult founders and trail Blazers. I take an uncritical and positive outlook on these individuals because they have had such an impact upon my own workings and study. Maybe that’s being naïve and stupid, since in our current time it’s so trendy to be cynical, negative and disparaging of the occult luminaries of the past. I have been called a pathetic hero worshiper and that makes me the worst possible judge of anyone’s character, especially those who have been dead nigh these many years. Yes, I admit it, I’m rightfully found guilty of hero worshiping, but I think that I have an important reason for taking this stand.

It’s not as if I haven’t read about these individuals and know all too well that they were human beings with human failings and flaws. I have also talked to individuals who personally knew Alex Sanders and the consensus is that he was quite a disreputable character. There seems to be no lack of stories about things that Alex did that were notorious and completely over-the-top. It seems that everybody has an opinion about Alex who knew him, and most of those opinions tend towards the negative. There are some people still living today who absolutely despise Alex and have few or even no fond memories of him whatsoever. Someone once told me that Alex was the kind of man who hated to work and so chose a life that was materially precarious when all he had to do was keep a regular job, and that would have made his life and the lives of those he supported more stable.

So, Alex Sanders was something of a gold brick. He was also reputed to be a great storyteller (another way of saying "liar") and had to be the focus of attention at all times. He invited the press and even the police to his very public gatherings in order to garner as much publicity as possible. That’s hardly the kind of stellar image that one would consider either heroic or worthy of emulation. Even so, Alex was a trailblazer and started his own tradition. He was an avid experimenter and tried to mix all sorts of different occult disciplines together into a workable whole. His tradition invited many different and divergent people together under one large tradition. Many of the first gay and lesbian witches that I met years ago were Alexandrian, and this was also true of the first African American and handicapped members. Alexandrian Witchcraft was the “big tent” tradition, and this was before other traditions appeared that catered to specific social collectives, such as the Dianic tradition. Perhaps we can turn a blind eye to his various flaws and bad behavior if we focus instead on what he contributed to the pagan and witchcraft movements. The world needed Alex Sanders, warts, obnoxious behavior and all.

What then is a hero? How do we define what a hero is in our culture today? Is Superman or Mighty Mouse good examples of the iconic hero? What about the antiheroes that are found in Marvel comics? Are they to be considered heroes as well? I found myself pondering the definition of a hero, but then I remembered that a good place to find that definition clearly established would be reading what the author Joseph Campbell had to say about it. Joseph Campbell says, “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than one’s self.” Well, that seems simple enough, but does that fit the heroism of being a spiritual founder? Additionally, Joseph Campbell says that a hero brings back a “boon” to his community. Basically, Mr. Campbell is referring to the hero’s journey, and the object of that journey is to return something back from the underworld into the world of light. The hero also manifests a steadfast virtue in what they have contributed to their community, despite all of their flaws. According to Campbell, heroes are indeed flawed because they are so human. They are, in word, us. A cartoon hero on the other hand often lacks the kind of humanity necessary as the foundation of being a hero. Despite being flawed, the hero becomes a role model that inspires the rest of us to be better than we thought we could be. A hero is also inspired by an “inner calling.”

I believe that if we take what Joseph Campbell has defined regarding a hero, we can easily apply that definition to individuals such as Alex Sanders, Crowley, and Mathers - not to mention Gardner and many others. As heroes we would expect them to be terribly flawed on the one hand, but also inspiring and the bringer of a profound new way of thinking or practicing occultism on the other. All of these founders had that in common with each other, and all of them were egregiously flawed. To accept their gifts while repudiating their characters or disparaging them could be construed as being highly ungenerous, if not cynically and selfishly motivated. We all owe these founders a certain amount of respect and consideration because we have accepted their gifts and use them in our work; since to behave otherwise is to show oneself as greedy, power-hungry and soulless. I am not advocating that we turn a blind eye to the flaws and imperfections that were so highly on display by these founders, but instead we should really focus on the gifts that they bestowed us. All I am saying is that you can appreciate the history without having to assassinate the character of those trailblazers who came before us. After all is said and done, their gifts were certainly important to us occultists.

Because I’m an Alexandrian witch, then Alex Sanders is one of my spiritual ancestors. Since I also work the Golden Dawn system of magick, at least in part, then MacGregor Mathers would be considered one of my spiritual ancestors. I have to also include Alister Crowley as one of my spiritual ancestors because I have benefitted greatly from reading his work and I was also a member of the O.T.O. Gerald Gardner would be yet another spiritual ancestor in my witchcraft and magical lineage. There are probably many others as well, but that’s the group of ancestors that I’m willing to talk about. So, these four individuals who are founders of their respective traditions make up part of the overall lineage that I have followed as both a witch and a ritual magician. As representatives of the various streams that make up the current of spirituality and magick that I follow, I believe it is important to venerate the memory of these individuals because as magical heroes they have given the world great gifts, and I happen to use those gifts.

We, as ritual magicians, do not stand alone or in isolation. Our practices, whether or not we have been inventive and creative, have come down to us from the work of many other hands across the centuries. This is the whole basis to the perennial philosophy, and while we may add a greater or lesser share to this knowledge, we have received what our spiritual ancestors have passed on to us. Therefore, lineages are important and represent the combined streams that seamlessly joined together to formulate the work and practice of each initiated ritual magician. Our lineages are not exclusive to those founders whose tradition we were initiated into, since each and everyone of us has borrowed extensively from other sources. We are, in a word, a melange or mixture of many different traditions and strains.

To give respect and veneration to the founders of our tradition and practices, we receive from them empowerment, since this opens and establishes the connection between us and them. While this might function as an egregore of a tradition, it is not limited to that vehicle, but could represent the single contribution of some brilliant luminary in the past. Therefore, to use the gifts of our spiritual and magical founders is to be empowered by them. And if we are to retain a certain amount of grace and positive intent in our practices it is important for us to not only acknowledge them, but also to venerate them. This means not just respecting them and their gifts, but also giving them offerings and periodic acknowledgment. This is a Pagan thing to do, to honor our ancestors, both those that are genetic as well as those who represent the lineage of traditions and ideas that we follow. We act this way to retain a certain amount of honor for ourselves and for our work. Just as we give offerings to our genetic ancestors in order to function as modern pagans, we should also give offerings to our spiritual ancestors as well. We do this despite their history and notoriety as flawed human beings who had many failings and even engaged in disreputable activities. This is not white washing or wishful thinking, or even a terrible naïveté; it is a pagan way of honoring those who came before us. It is also how we honor the gifts that they courageously sought and achieved for our benefit.

Now, when we consider everything that I have written up to this point, you can see the ideas that I am promoting and even celebrating as a witch, ritual magician, initiate and adept. I believe that being faithful to the founder and the trailblazer of one’s spiritual lineage is an important part of being an adept. It is not naïve nor foolish to venerate one’s spiritual ancestors, just as it isn’t foolish or naïve to venerate one’s genetic ancestors. It is part of being a pagan and a magician, and so in this context to behave and comport oneself in this manner is honorable and generous. After all, wouldn’t I want people to behave in a respectful fashion to me after I have gone to great lengths to give them the lore that I have labored upon for so many years? Do I want people to disparage me for my all too human failings and personal flaws while at the same time greedily using my ideas and writings for their personal betterment? I believe that that is the real issue regarding the honoring and veneration of spiritual ancestors. How would you like to be treated disparagingly by posterity in the future when you are unable to defend yourself, and even worse, when those same people are still using your ideas and rituals?

While it is so trendy and cool to be cynical, disparaging and cleverly negative to anyone who is a founder or trailblazer, or even someone who could be considered a magical hero, I think that it is despicable and deplorable behavior which only serves to define someone who is actually bankrupt of any original ideas and morally a scoundrel. This might sound like harsh criticism, but I see it as a powerful antidote to the popular sentiment of iconoclastic thinking that seems to be the trend in postmodern occultism today. I stand against that kind of thinking, which I suppose makes me something of counter force in popular thought. Then again, I think that I have good reason for acting and believing as I do because I have found that the popular consensus contradicts both good Pagan theology as well as good magical practice.

Frater Barrabbas

July has now arrived, and we have entered what is known up here as full summer. I am often amazed at how fast the earth recovers from its wintry sleep and manifests into a full blown green soaked fertile landscape. It was a mere ten days that our world went from the browns and greys of post winter into the verdant landscape that now confronts my eyes. The nearly instantaneous transformation is almost like magic. Nature has now become mild and verdant, and it is a time to rejoice and engage in summer type activities. How unfortunate that the very beginning of this time I was still afflicted by the after-effects of my serious bronchitis infection. I saw nature transform, but I was not able to engage in much outdoor activity. The garden was neglected and so was every other feature of our outdoor world attached to the land that I supposedly own and maintain.

After several weeks I can now say that my cough is nearly gone. I occasionally cough from time to time, but I am not afflicted by the breathlessness that impacted my ability to even have a lengthy conversation for the past month. I hope to make for lost time the days and weeks ahead, since the warm summer days are in short supply up here in the great Midwestern tundra.

Needless to say, despite my chronic cough, I was able to perform well enough to participate in a digitally captured interview with Eric Koetting. I have found him to be quite brilliant and creative within his own magical path and established tradition, which I might add, is quite different from my own, but with many points in common. Both Eric and myself are more or less self-made men in regards to our occult knowledge and evocation practices. I will speak more about this in a future article, since I am planning to review two of his books.

If you are interesting in viewing this interview, you will have to sign up for Koetting’s “Interviews with a Magus,” and it does cost $19.97 monthly, with the first month free. However, the collection of interviews that Mr. Koetting has assembled is quite impressive and I believe that the money being charged for this service is well worth it. I have listened to this interview and I have found it to be quite interesting and engaging, representing a distillation of what I have learned and experienced over the last 40 years. Eric is also quite erudite and insightful himself, and his additions and comments in the interview are also very revealing and interesting. So, if you are interested in this interview (and the others that are contained therein), you can find the portal for signing up here.

To quote Mr. Koetting from his advertising for the “Interviews with a Magus:”

“To help aspiring magicians get access to these advanced rituals, unprecedented success stories, and cutting edge theories, I decided to start up my ‘Interviews With A Magus’ interview series. It's my way to showcase and debut all these innovative and controversial breakthoughs, many of which directly challenge the status quo of the occult.”

Secret Chiefs and Occult Spies

There has been quite a blow up recently in the blogosphere between David Griffin and his organization, and that of his GD opponents, with Nick Farrell as the apparent spokesperson for that faction. Nick Farrell threw down the gauntlet by declaring that if the “Secret Chiefs” truly exist, that they present themselves to him personally and prove, once and for all, that they are the defacto third order of the Golden Dawn. I don’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity of Nick’s demands or to feel sorry for his utter lack of subtlety and tact. Remarkable men and women are rare and often obscure, but they don’t come when we demand their presence. If someone demanded my presence in an unwarranted manner, I can tell you quite concisely how I would respond. I’d tell them to "piss off," that is, if I even bothered to respond at all.

Conversely, David Griffin has shown (here) that Nick Farrell has been engaged in a secret mission to rewrite Golden Dawn history in the Wikkipedia article for the history of that order, based, of course, on his recent self-published pulp books about Mathers. I have reviewed his poorly written and researched tomes in this blog, but it doesn’t really surprise me that he is attempting to rewrite the publicly online history concerning the order. What does surprise me is his rather highhanded failed attempts to coerce the editors of Wikkipedia into following his propaganda. They have rescinded his edits, but he has continued to reapply them, sort of like the endless argument between indifferent children. (Ain’t so, ‘tis too.) He is also using a laughably silly logon called “Magus007" to pursue this revisionist activity, much to the chagrin of the editors who know that his sources are highly suspect.

So, Nick Farrell wants to slyly pretend that he is an occult version of the fictitious spy, 007, a.k.a., James Bond. He also wants the secret chiefs to reveal themselves to him according to his deadline and prove that their bonafide as the head of the GD and A+O is valid and authentic. I wonder what kind of fantasy world Mr. Farrell lives in? He seems more egotistical and fantasy based than what he has accused Mathers of being in his books. Maybe Nick Farrell is the real “King Over the Water” and that we can dismiss him and his silly capers as being nothing more than the hijinks of a fatuous and immature clown. Maybe someday he will either write something uniquely interesting in a book or reveal a good practical technique on his blog - I would welcome such activity. However, I leave his current ranting and bloviating to the judgment of his ultimate Golden Dawn peers and future posterity, since I believe that initiates in the decades ahead will either judge him to be the incompetent hatchet man for an odious cabal or they’ll not remember him at all.

One of the points that I have made in previous articles in this blog is that there have been, are and always will be remarkable men and women in the western occult tradition. Mostly these individuals are singular, insular and rare; and those who gain a certain notoriety are shown to be both remarkable and also, I might add, flawed. All human beings are flawed and imperfect, but then again to expect perfection from human nature is not only erroneous but it seems to defy the whole purpose of nature. Secret chiefs are not supermen, immortals, Arhats or avatars - they are human beings subject to the laws of nature like everyone else. They might have insights that allow them a greater degree of vitality, longevity or spiritual wisdom than the average person, or they might even be bereft of all benefits except their own unique virtues and abilities.

Nature is not perfect, ergo, human beings are not perfect. However, if a small group of unknown remarkable men came together to form a group, and their occult background was Masonic and Rosicrucian, and they kept that group going for a couple of centuries, adding new members and losing others to the scourge of time, would that not be a good representation of the vaunted third order? It would just be a group of remarkable men who had achieved self-mastery in their lifetime, and that would also mean that they, as individuals and a group, weren’t perfect. (This also means that they wouldn’t be immortal nor have Godlike powers.) What this signifies is that you can be a master and also be vulnerable to the same vices and frailties as all human beings.

Additionally, something that gets lost in these never ending arguments about secret chiefs is that it’s important to separate an individual’s spiritual and magical process from the actual social phenomenon of meeting a remarkable man or woman. Often, our spiritual and magical process psychically informs us when we are about to meet someone very important or discover a crucial piece of our individual puzzle. We can talk about dreams, astral presences, intuitions or profound omens; but these are always events experienced when immersed in our process.

When our spiritual and magical process merges with an actual physical meeting with someone quite remarkable, then the encounter is colored by a profound sense of a life-altering significance. We could easily conflate the omens and astral encounters with the real meeting because all of these events are experienced through our own personal spiritual and magical process. That is how I believe Mathers saw and experienced his encounters with the secret chiefs, and we today have to realize that all of this was perceived and experienced by him through the process of his long spiritual and magical journey. We can either accept it or deny it, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was one of the most authentic things (as well as mysterious) that Mathers underwent in his occult career.

The irony is that in order to actively use the lore of the Golden Dawn and profess to be a magician operating under that tradition, one would expect that individual to also accept and believe that Mathers had some kind of profound occult contact which allowed him to develop this unique system of magick. Even if you dismiss the entire history of the GD order (and its leaders) and just practice the rituals (i.e., do the work), you are in effect validating those remarkable men and women who developed this lore, particularly Mathers. As far as I can see, there’s really no way around this conundrum if you consider yourself to be a magician of the Golden Dawn tradition. This is why I find it so strange that Mr. Farrell has spent so much of his time and resources trying to prove that Mathers was some kind of failed lunatic. I would equate this effort with someone attempting to pull up the rug that they are simultaneously standing upon; an act of sheer stupidity and self-inflicted injury.

Anyway, I am certain that this sad and idiotic travesty will continue to embroil the GD community for many years to come. It reminds me of something that I learned long ago when I was an adolescent boy. When you are growing up, there’s always some kid who has the best and most expensive toys. He’s that fair-haired kid that the teachers love and the other kids despise. You can either hate him for his good fortune or you can coddle up to him to see if you can get a chance to play with those exceptional toys. A third path is to just admire him for his good fortune and to note that despite being blessed with favor and fortune, he is also generous and kind to everyone, at least at first. Continued hostility can also shape and change a person, making them guarded and even a bit suspicious.

I think that David Griffin is that fair-haired boy of good fortune, and we can either love him or despise him for what he has achieved. I chose to reserve judgment until I had a chance to meet him, and after meeting him, I realized that he was a good egg. If only others would be so open minded and not condemn someone that they don’t even know. However, in the age of the internet, it’s just too easy to use the protected insulation of the remote blog article or email to castigate someone who you imagine that you hate, and all without much consequence. Additionally, it is hard to properly impart humor, sarcasm or lampooning into one’s writing and not have it taken wrongly by some readers.

This is why I react dispassionately to things that I read on the internet. I might criticize what someone has written or be aghast at how they are behaving, but I try not to engage in ad hominem attacks. It’s too easy to respond emotionally to what someone has written and much harder to respond dispassionately. This is why I feel that the impersonal quality of the internet is a poor place to judge what someone is really like. I might not agree with what someone has written, but I have to use caution in order to not personally criticize them for their seemingly bad behavior. What this means is that I could easily have a beer or a glass of wine with Nick Farrell in a public social setting without feeling the compunction of tossing my drink into his face. I might ask him why he acts like an arrogant boor on the internet, but I will at least give him the benefit of the doubt, at first. However, once I meet someone in the flesh, then I can adequately judge as to whether I personally like them or not. And, I might add, I have the right to my own opinions, just like everyone else.

Anyway, there seems to be a real cold war between the two factions of the Golden Dawn, and it is apparent that the side opposed to David Griffin is actively and stealthily attempting to steal away initiates and whole groups, not to mention convince everyone that they are the only legitimate branch of the GD. I find that kind of behavior despicable and it doesn’t make me feel inclined to either listen to their diatribes or engage in a dialog with them. In fact, they don’t even seem to be behaving like adepts at all. If only that faction would just leave the HOGD and the A+O organizations alone and allow them to prosper or fail by their own merits. I guess that would be asking for too much, which I find quite sad and tragic.

I think that only time will be show which faction represents the true and authentic version of the Golden Dawn. Will it be the one that emphasizes an exoteric and reconstructed version, or the one that is an active esoteric tradition with a legitimate connection to a third order and who is revealing ever new and startling occult practices and lore? Someday, that answer will be known, but I have my suspicions as to which one it will be.

Frater Barrabbas

A savvy and intelligent occultist and ritual magician would never attempt to rewrite scientific knowledge nor would he or she attempt to prove that religious doctrine is somehow objectively scientific. A wise occultist knows that there are very important boundaries between what science has determined and what religion has determined. Magick, as a practical spiritual discipline, occupies that nether region or undefined domain that lies somewhere in between science and religion. A smart ritual magician wouldn’t make assumptions that oppose scientific thought, such as denying physical evolution or climate change on one hand, nor would he or she deny that religions are based on subjective spiritual truths that can’t be proven or measured, only experienced.

As I have maintained previously in my articles and in my books, science has its domain and religion has yet another domain entirely. Perhaps they might intersect here and there, but they remain exclusive to the objective and subjective worlds in which they occur. Where problems arise is when science denies the possibility of subjective spiritual truths or when religion attempts to make its tenets objective or as absolute truths. Sacred writ is allegorical and based on subjective spiritual truths and science is governed by the scientific method. One perspective cannot over-rule the other, and they should, therefore, live happily side by side. This is especially true when you consider that science has done a pretty good job in defining the objective physical world, and religion has been good (more or less) at defining the subjective spiritual reality. Yet we live in a secular society so that our very freedoms to believe, worship or practice our faith as we choose is not dictated by the government. So, living in a secular nation, using the fruits of technology as driven by science, and choosing to believe and practice our spiritual faith in whatever manner we choose is the foundation for a diverse, harmonious and democratic society.

Unfortunately, we human beings live in a world of consciousness that intersects all of these realities, and at times, due to the nature of our subjective experience, they can seem to blend or merge into each other, even they are and should remain distinct. While dreams, imagination and intuition play very important roles in both religion and magick (and I might add, even science), they need to be disciplined so that they won’t lead us to make erroneous assumptions about ourselves and the world that we live in. Magick, much more so than religion, can be a great source of personal and subjective misinformation, especially when we take those experiences that we had while undergoing conscious transformation out of the context of our subjective experience. Even if other individuals who were either with us when we underwent this magical experience or who performed the same rite at a different time might make what is experienced by the individual more objective if it is corroborated by a group, it doesn’t make it an objective physical fact that can be tested by the scientific method. This particular issue with the nature of subjectivity represents one of the critical areas where magick can cause delusions or supply us with erroneous assumptions.

Problems arise when someone takes religious doctrines (or occult tenets) and attempts to understand them as an objective physical reality, or correspondingly when science attempts to explain away or deride the paradoxes and inexplicable events that lie within the subjective experience of the observer. What we get when these domain boundary incursions occur is either pseudo-science, aggressive atheism or religious literalism, all of which are fraught with erroneous assumptions and overly simplistic explanations. As magicians who work with the shadowy fringes between the objective physical world and the subjective spiritual world it is our responsibility to carefully judge and understand the basis ofo both worlds. Simply put, it means that we should not attempt to overly objectify our subjective occult experiences, since in doing so we will open the door to personal delusion and adopt a propensity for mythic thinking. We should also be able to recognize hyperbole when it emerges in the declarations of scientists, religious leaders or particularly other occultists.

We saw this contrast between world views on display when Bill Nye recently debated physical evolution vs. creationism with Ken Ham, who happens to own and operate the Creationist Museum in Petersburg, KY. To declare that the world is not older than 6,000 years based on the chronology of the Old Testament Bible is to open oneself to ridicule and derision, since there are trees alive today that have been measured as being older than 6,000 years. Even Pat Robertson, who has publically maintained some pretty ridiculous notions rejects “Young Earth Creationism,” saying that it gives secularists and atheists grounds to ridicule and reject Protestant Christian theology. What wasn’t in evidence at the time of this debate was a corresponding agreement in either Catholic or Jewish circles, who seem to have an altogether different perspective for interpreting their sacred literature. I never heard of any Jewish Rabbi or Catholic theologian argue for interpreting the Bible literally, and I think that this is a key point that they seem to understand and that fundamentalist Christians don’t, and these different groups are reading the same texts!

In my opinion, and it would seem that it is an accepted fact in many religious organizations, sacred writ consists of allegories disguised as spiritual truths, but these truths were never meant to contradict or replace the theories as generated from the scientific method. To force these religious truths into direct contradiction of established scientific theories is to foster a kind of pseudo-science that is more mythic than factual. That is how I would classify such hypotheses as Creationism or Intelligent Design. Correspondingly, there has lately been a lot of public buzz about a new hypothesis called Biocentrism that attempts to explain away the possibility of an objective physical world governed by the objective although relative phenomena of space and time. What might not seem obvious to the layperson is that Biocentrism, Creationism and Intelligent Design are all unprovable religious-based doctrines, as we shall see.

When unqualified individuals attempt to re-explain or abrogate scientific theories without any evidence or for that matter, any counter theory, it ends up promoting the worst kind of pseudo-science. This is the crux of the problem facing our post-modern age. We seem to be haunted by the profound absolutist beliefs and propositions of our pre-scientific past and are unable or unwilling to embrace what modern science has been able to aptly prove. While it is true that we don’t have all of the answers and that the scientific community continues to mature and develop its understanding along with the tools they use to demonstrate and prove their scientific hypotheses, there is more than enough of a foundation to be able to determine the boundary between the objective and subject worlds.

I believe that it is important for occultists and ritual magicians to understand this important boundary between the objective and subjective domains of their experiential worlds and to ensure that their beliefs and perspectives are scientifically “neutral.” What occultists and ritual magicians want to avoid is attempting to reinvent the metaphorical wheel when the “wheel” has been so well established and is an integral part of the world that we live in. To attempt such an exercise in futility is to invite ridicule and mockery from those not so aligned to occult and metaphysical truths. Let’s face the reality that someone else’s hypocrisy or hyperbole is quite amusing to us, but it isn’t so amusing when we are the butt of the same kinds of jokes. If we proceed in a manner that respects the accepted theories of science and the also the tenets of religion and occultism, and thereby avoid making unwarranted claims on the objective world, then we will experience our occultism and magical phenomena in a sane and rational manner. What we experience subjectively must be kept within its individual context, but it still should be subject to the scrutiny of peer review. Such a regimen is not only optimal, but it should be pursued in exclusion to other more dubious approaches.

This brings me to the topic of my article, and that is to deliver some ponted opinions about Biocentrism. There’s an old adage that if something sounds too good to be true then it probably isn’t true. This could be an important truism as to why Biocentrism has become popular amongst New Age types but is not accepted by the scientific community. When the biggest name of those either agreeing with or promoting your scientific counter-theory is Depak Chopra, then your hypothesis is already in trouble. I say this without any disrespect to Depak Chopra, whose writings I have found interesting and useful. However, he is hardly the objective judge of a new approach to interpreting Quantum Mechanics, which, by the way, has spawned a lot of hopeful imaginings from occultists and metaphysicians who have grasped onto an overly-simplified version of this discipline in order to explain metaphysical or spiritual phenomena. Still, I digress from the topic. I have read the book“Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe” written by Robert Lanza, MD with Bob Berman, and I must admit that it did indeed intrigue me at first.

Biocentrism is a hypothesis that defines the material world as having arisen due to the impact of consciousness acting as the “observer” so that the universe, which was in an indeterminate state of probability, became resolved into a material universe predisposed to supporting life. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog in order to explain what might otherwise be a minor paradox. Thus, Robert Lanza has reversed the basic scientific assumption that living conscious beings evolved out of an essentially lifeless and soul-less material universe. Those who are occult students will immediately see that this is the Mind Before Matter perspective that has been prevalent in occult metaphysics and is a staple of the religious theology of the west.

So, according to Dr. Lanza’s hypothesis, consciousness was the driver for the materialization of the universe. This would mean that this field of consciousness would have had to exist, or perhaps pre-exist, from the very beginning of the universe. It would almost seem that Dr. Lanza is proposing some kind of intelligent design by an unknown conscious entity or by a field of unified consciousness, but he doesn’t quite go that far. Instead, he just doesn’t define what that disembodied consciousness actually is. In fact, he fails altogether to define what consciousness is, and this is a subtle but fatal flaw in his entire hypothesis. At least in the occult metaphysics of the Mind Before Matter theme, the mind that existed prior to the manifestation of the universe is obviously either a Deity or represented by the Neoplatonic definition of the One.

I admit that I was intrigued by Lanza’s speculation since it turns our notions about the nature of the universe and the power of human subjectivity into the reverse of what scientists have been saying since the 19th century. Such a hypothesis, if it were true, would put the subjective mind into the driver’s seat for all material creation, and that would shine a whole new light on such occult practices as magick. After getting excited by this new perspective, I decided that the prudent thing for me to do was to browse the web and read what other scientists thought of his hypothesis. What I found is that the scientific community has flatly rejected what Dr. Lanza has written, and I might add, for some really good reasons.

This debate between the New Age proponents of Biocentrism and the adherents of accepted physical sciences, such as those who are on the cutting edge of Quantum Mechanics, reminded me of the debate about physical evolution between Nye and Ham. While Dr. Lanza does at least understand the science of Quantum Mechanics from the perspective of the layman, he is not an accredited physicist. He is, in fact, a medical researcher/engineer of some renown. However, despite his disdain of New Age fads and beliefs (as stated clearly in his book), Lanza has become something of a darling amongst the New Age populous, and his ideas about Biocentrism are already being mutated to propose concepts and ideas that he never states in his book. You can find a website here that pretty much demonstrates what his backers think and how they are using Quantum Mechanics to bolster all kinds of metaphysical truths. There is even a video on that web page that has captured Lanza’s basic public presentation of Biocentrism, just in case you want to get the gist of his hypothesis without having to read his book.

Unavoidably, the scientific community has also responded to Biocentrism, and I might add, they have more or less excoriated his hypothesis quite completely. It would seem that Dr. Lanza’s popular book has taken some basic Quantum Mechanics experiments and given them an interpretation that they were never intended to support. You can find a good critique of Robert Lanza’s Biocentrism, and also Depak Chopra, in an interesting website managed by Indian scientists (Nimukta) who know all too well the metaphysical sources of this hypothesis. As I have stated previously, the argument about a conscious universe is a staple of the occult Mind Before Matter perspective, and it is a tenet that has not been scientifically proven so far. In fact, the scientific evidence still supports the Matter Before Mind perspective, and I doubt that will change in the future no matter what shape or form science takes. As occultists, we can appreciate the scientific perspective on this issue, and we can also see the spiritual truth associated with the occult and metaphysical perspective. Both represent the greater truths about the universe and the nature of the human spirit, yet one is materially objective and the other is spiritually subjective.

Some of Dr. Lanza’s seven principles of Biocentrism are very popular and in evidence today amongst those who are engaged in occultism and magick. Lon Milo Duquette has stated that the reality of occultism is all in our minds, it’s just that our minds are a lot bigger than we think. This might presuppose that Mr. Duquette is aware of Dr. Lanza’s hypothesis, but the similarity is rather compelling whatever the truth. However, the fifth principle for Biocentrism is the main argument, and in it you can see an interesting bias appear. That principle is basically stated as, “The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The ‘universe’ is simply the complete spatiotemporal logic of the self.” Lanza’s premise that “life creates the universe, not the other way around” is pretty much taken from the annals of ancient metaphysics and western occultism in general. It is also the underlying theme for most religious cosmogony, and it is the crux of the debate between Creationism and Evolution. We can find it variously promoted in the New Thought religious paradigms of the turn of the 20th century, and it is also evident in the New Age.

Robert Lanza has come up with this startling perspective because he has followed the Quantum Mechanics maxim that it is the power of the observer who determines what is perceived when performing and measuring the results of the behavior of sub-atomic particles. In other words, Dr. Lanza is interpreting this classical QM theory that all matter requires a conscious observer in order to collapse the probability field and determine an outcome. Of course if we take this to its ultimate conclusion, then we would expect the mind to formulate all reality and that physical reality doesn’t really exist. It reminds me of the New Age maxim that we make our own reality, although the opposite is a more powerful but obvious truth - that reality shapes and makes us who we are. The error in this logic is that the physical world does have an objective and verifiable quality despite the fact that how we perceive it is derived from our sense organs.

For instance, light still has objective and measurable qualities that determine the spectrum of colors that we observe, since these are represented by different wave lengths as detected by the nerve cells in our eyes and processed by our brains. (We don’t just make up the colors in our head as an interpreting factor.) This is also true about time and space, while they might be relative, they are still an objective fact. Our minds are indeed powerful, but they are bounded and limited by physical laws that uniformly affect all of us. If this were not true, then our world would be run by mentally projected magical powers and not by technology that is based on physical laws.

Robert Lanza has made pronouncements that have overly simplified and distorted the actual science of Quantum Mechanics. He disregards the most important question that his hypothesis leaves unanswered, namely, if conscious life shaped the universe then why is the origin of life quite recent compared to the relative age of the universe. Consciousness is localized to living beings with a brain yet somehow it is expanded to encapsulate cultures and languages, thus making it a shared phenomenon. This is part of the mystery of consciousness that has yet to be tackled in a satisfactory manner by scientists. Then there is the question, is consciousness energy, and if so, what kind of energy? While energy itself might be indestructible, the death of the brain causes all body-centered consciousness to cease. Consciousness seems to be beyond and prior to the material brain (according to metaphysicians), but there is no objective truth, so far, that would lead scientists to presume that this is indeed a fact. Dr. Lanza’s hypothesis also says that space and time aren’t objectively real, but in fact they are real, just not absolute. In this, I believe that science has the better explanations, even though there are still some questions not yet answered.

We can see Biocentrism (like other creationist based beliefs) functioning as a typical domain distortion between a religious based philosophy and empirical science, and as such, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Occult philosophy declares the principle that the Mind originated before Matter, and Science has declared the opposite theory, that Matter precipitated Mind. Both perspectives present an element of truth, but the context for either one is completely different. One is a materialistic and objective perspective, and the other is a spiritual and metaphysical perspective. Thus, both are true as long as they retain their appropriate boundaries. It is foolish for occultists to meddle with science and engage in pseudo science, and it’s probably foolish for scientists to attempt to define or debunk spiritual beliefs based on physical laws.

A quote from the website Nirmukta seems to define the nature of the problem of Biocentrism and why it is a seductive but erroneous proposition. According to the latest cutting edge scientific perspective on Quantum Mechanics, the nature of the “observer” has been redefined in a significant way, and there is experimental evidence to back up that hypothesis.

“A different resolution to the problem of interfacing the microscopic quantum description of reality with macroscopic classical reality is offered by what has been called ‘quantum Darwinism.’ This formalism does not require the existence of an observer as a witness of what occurs in the universe. Instead, the environment is the witness. A selective witness at that, rather like natural selection in Darwin’s theory of evolution. The environment determines which quantum properties are the fittest to survive (and be observed, for example, by humans). Many copies of the fitter quantum property get created in the entire environment (‘redundancy’). When humans make a measurement, there is a much greater chance that they would all observe and measure the fittest solution of the Schrödinger equation, to the exclusion (or near exclusion) of other possible outcomes of the measurement experiment.”

This new hypothesis in QM pretty much destroy’s Lanza’s hypothesis since the environment itself can be the witness, and also that there are multiple copies of the quantum property and the “fittest” is the one that gets measured. So it would appear that consciousness (i.e., a direct observer) is not required to collapse a probability field into an observable material manifestation. After fully examining what the scientists had to say, I found that the hypothesis that they provided which debunks Biocentrism is far more interesting and compelling. I have always found science to be intriguing and fascinating because it establishes the nature of the objective universe that I live in. I also know that science is limited in what it can study and prove, and I am at peace and comfortable with the ambiguities, the realm of the unknown, the mysteries of mind and spirit as well as the established scientific facts.

Will science ever be able to define consciousness or determine the nature of the human soul? While the nature of the physical phenomenon of consciousness that is associated with the human brain is something that can be measured and could be experimentally proven, I suspect that the human soul and even the nature of Spirit itself will be far beyond the boundaries of science, at least for the foreseeable future.

Frater Barrabbas

Here is a topic that I often get people asking me questions about, and I am usually reluctant to discuss it. Since this topic is so often asked, I have decided to weigh in and give my readers my perspective on this kind of magic.

Love magic is typically considered one of the main elements of “low magic,” right up there in importance to money magic, magical healing and magical retaliation, or getting justice through backhanded mechanisms. I don’t usually write about love magic because I have found it to be not particularly useful or efficacious, particularly if it is targeted on a specific person. My opinion is essentially that if you want to really mess up a potential relationship possibility, then by all means, use love magic on your desired target. Of course, there are ethical considerations as to whether or not you are justified in performing such magic, but I have found that those who do it are so obsessed with their targets that such considerations don’t even register.

In my opinion, projecting your will upon another and dressing it up with spirits, energy, sigils, dolls, pictures, ancestors and even some hoodoo based alchemy in order to target an innocent person so that they would love and desire you against their will could be considered highly negative magic, since the intent is obviously to dominate someone’s will. I have often thought that the next best thing to outright cursing someone is casting a love spell on them, particularly if they are not in the least bit attracted or interested in the perpetrator.

If you work such a magical operation and it’s successful then you have overturned someone’s will in an obviously deceitful and disreputable manner just to satisfy your fancy. Do you think that all is fair in love and war? Well, think again! If that were true then date rape and other forms of sexual assault would be legal and even encouraged. It would also be quite acceptable if the potential victim struck back and murdered their assailant. If love is your object then it hardly helps you if you are engaged in a veritable war with those whom you would shower with your affections. Love is one thing, and dominance is altogether another thing. It is important to be clear about your intentions and what you want to accomplish, since if your objective is confused then all else is even more murky.

Magic always has some basic ground rules that are practical and even obvious. A completely non-magical and practical approach to achieving a relationship should follow some basic steps, and no amount of magic can make them happen if there isn’t a mutual interest between the two parties. What I have found is that magic often makes these stages either more difficult or more complicated then they already are. Also, many people have the belief that magic will somehow make something that is highly improbable or impossible happen, as if it were a miracle.

Here are the practical steps, and I think that just about everyone knows this on some level. If you love someone, then that love must be perceived by the other person and returned in some fashion if anything is going to develop. The whole process of courting a potential lover is getting that exchange to occur. This is called mutual attraction, and if it doesn’t exist or even have the potential for existing, then forget about anything further happening. Thus getting your beloved’s attention so that they will focus on you is the first important step. However, that is just the beginning. You have to somehow appeal to what that other person desires in some manner (or stumble upon it by accident), so changing and augmenting how you look, act and even smell is important. I might also add that people who are considered naturally attractive usually have more confidence in their ability to attract others to them. The rest of us who are not so endowed must make the best of what we have. Yet certainly attractive clothes and an attractive style can make up for what one lacks in stature, physique and appearance - at least to a point.

There also has to be a social connection between you and the other person, and you have to have something in common with them. At some point if this process is going to be successful, then you have to access and gain an intimate social contact with them, and it has to be situations that are periodically repeated (like dating). Obviously, courting in our post-modern world, despite how fast everything happens around us, still takes time and patience, but seduction can happen very quickly. This is true even though a successful sexual encounter doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be a romantic relationship as well. Relationships between people are quite complex and also quite fluid, and anything can happen to either enhance the connection or destroy it completely. The most important consideration is that you can’t control everything that happens, and as they say, sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you.

I think that the most difficult and problematic aspect of looking for love has to do with the fact that unlike many other things in our lives, we can’t really control other people. We can try, but it eventually fails, even for the most sophisticated of manipulators. This is also why I believe that working love magic on someone is so difficult, since it is a form of continuous domination. For example, you have forced someone to love and desire you who wouldn’t normally be so disposed, and as the enchanter, you have to always be glamorous, mysterious (or at least your underhanded intentions have to be invisible), and you have to always be engaged with feeding that love spell so it can be maintained. It’s a lot like pretending to be someone you aren’t and somehow over time, keeping up the pretense.

When the truth is discovered by the victim of such magic (and it usually does happen at some point), then the perpetrator of that magic experiences a full and complete reversal or backlash. The ensorcelled individual suddenly realizes that their lover is a fraud and not at all attractive or even interesting, and this makes them not only enraged by the deceit but also repulsed by the one who has been deceiving them. It’s doubtful that such a catastrophe could ever be mitigated, and usually it represents a profound end to such a relationship. It is, in a word, an emotional train wreck, and worse, it often attracts a lot of public attention. The victim usually is not content to just slip away, they also have to let everyone they know that they have been deceived and outrageously defrauded, thereby justifying why they spent any time with that disreputable scam artist they have so recently dumped. Besides, the victim’s friends were probably wondering about that as well. This kind of occurrence happens even without magic, and to outsiders it is highly amusing. It’s also the kind of situation that is used in romantic comedies. Yet in real life, it represents a terrible tragedy without a happy ending that is best avoided by being honest.

That’s why I think that working love magic on a specific person is not only unethical, but it is also fraught with possible failure. We can embellish ourselves to a point so we can be seen as attractive, but in the end, we have to be who we are, and that includes our flaws and unattractive qualities, too. It’s something that is unavoidable - we just are who are and nothing more. Pushing the envelop on this stark reality is to perpetrate a fraud, and if a relationship is to emerge from an initial infatuation, then it must be followed by honesty and integrity.

Another thing that typically happens when someone tries to cast a love spell is that they haven’t made certain that all of the practical steps that could potentially build up a relationship have been done first. In other words, there isn’t an established link and social process for a relationship to occur. They might be lazy or just confused, or they might think that the other person is the perfect match for them, as if willed by fate itself. Thus they will believe that the potential for love is mutual when it actually isn’t mutual at all. Then to confound matters they’ll work a love spell hoping that whatever shortcomings are in play (if they are even aware of them) they will somehow achieve their desired outcome. The psychic energy that they are projecting won’t be able to reach the target because there isn’t any link, but that magic will have to go somewhere, and it does. What happens is that the love spell rebounds back onto the perpetrator and causes them to become obsessed with the object of their desire. They have managed to merely ensorcell themselves, and then their odd, creepy behavior will completely turn off the person that they are unwittingly stalking. In my experience, this is usually what happens when someone attempts to cast a love spell.

In my humble opinion, working a love spell on a specific person is really a bad idea. I always try to talk someone out of this kind of approach if they happen to tell to me about it. Usually, I only hear about the failure and the collateral damage, and it elicits from me a typical face-palm kind of response. Yet human nature is what it is, and the question remains, what can a person do to magically help them attract a lover and build a rewarding relationship? My response is always the same - make yourself desirable and lovable, and then let nature take its course. Make certain that you have a wide social network of people that you actually visit and spend time with, and learn to be open, kind and compassionate to others. You can help yourself by being presentable and attractive in your chosen social network, and also by learning to listen and empathize with others. Where magic comes into play is to address any internal issues that you might have that would obstruct or keep you from having a relationship.

You should also do this simple and practical exercise. Ask yourself these questions and make certain that you get clear answers. Are you open and available for a relationship right now? Are your expectations too high or do you judge others too harshly before even knowing them? Have you cleared yourself of all of your previous emotional baggage or relationship histories. If you are pining for someone with whom you once had a relationship or if you are seeking someone who would never want to have a relationship with you then you will have to eliminate this obstacle before you will be able to find someone. These considerations are so practical and basic to human relationships that they don’t require any kind of occult interpretation or intrusion.

Finally, I would like to say forget about finding your soulmate or that pre-destined love that you have been looking for your whole life! Besides, soulmates aren’t discovered, they are made over time with a lot of hard work and effort. If you can eliminate these erroneous romantic ideals from your head and be open to any possibility, then you won’t be disappointed. Perhaps the most important bit of advice that I could ever give any magician who is seeking a lover is actually quite simple. Do you want to work magic to get a lover? Then work that magic on yourself! In other words, use your magic to discover the lover within you and then you will find a corresponding lover in the material world. It’s really that simple, even though it took me decades to truly realize it.

Frater Barrabbas

Magicians are often not very politically motivated since they have their feet in both the physical world and the spirit world, and attempting to manage both can be an arduous challenge at the very least. This might not be true of all magicians, but it is probably true of many of them, and this includes me. However, sometimes I find that I do stir from my self-absorbed catalepsy of occult ruminations and take a hard look at the world around me. I have to say that I often don’t like what I see going on in the US, or for that matter the world. It might even make me want to disengage and go back to my little private world. Yet sometimes I just have to express my outrage at the mendacity, moral myopia and ethical dyslexia that seems to be shaping our collective future from behind the scenes, that is, unless the common people wake up and realize that they are being slowly and certainly enslaved by greedy corporations and the wealthy power-elite.

The middle class of this country is being rapidly eroded and weakened to the point where it might even disappear. Even though I have a good paying job, I still don’t have the purchasing power that my father had when he was my age. This is the first time since the end of the depression where the sons and daughters of working class families have achieved less than their parents. I cannot even begin to talk about some of these changes because they are so sufficiently complex, subtle, long-term and so overwhelmingly ubiquitous. Most of these changes do not bode well for the middle class.

Pensions, which once were the financial foundation ensuring that those who had retired would be guaranteed to have something to live on, have become nearly extinct, and corporate sponsored healthcare benefits are merely insurance policies against catastrophic illness, if even that. Our much ballyhooed 401K retirement investment accounts, which were supposed to replace pensions, were not the protected assets steadfastly accumulating for our day of retirement. Once pensions became market driven retirement “investments,” they became nothing more than ready cash for the ultra-wealthy Wall Street power brokers to use in their greedy manipulations of the market. The debacle of the 2008 real-estate bubble collapse caused trillions of dollars to evaporate from those investment portfolios, leaving the common masses with little or nothing. The bankers were bailed out by the government and never prosecuted, and we, the little people, were screwed out of our retirement investments. Many of us will not be able to retire until we are older than 65. I am not planning on retiring until I am at least 70 in the hopes that I can regain what I lost and keep myself out of poverty when I am no longer employable. As a contrast, my father retired early when he was just 60, and is still living comfortably off of his pensions and retirement accounts. (I will turn 60 next year, and I am far from being able to retire.)

What many of us younger folk have forgotten is that what built the middle class and empowered people of modest means were a combination of the unions spearheading the labor movement along with a government that was friendly and aligned with them. This relationship was cemented in the FDR administration during the great depression, and it was that relationship (via The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938) which gave the workers a five day, 40 hour work week, paid vacation, overtime pay, pensions, health benefits, and most importantly, a living wage. When I was a child, the unions were considered the “good guys” who kept corporations from rolling over and dominating the working class. Sometimes the unions seemed too powerful and a few of them became quite corrupt, having been infiltrated by organized crime syndicates. Yet despite these problems, the unions were once so important that both the Democrats and the Republicans courted them and sought their help in electing their anointed politicians.

Now in the 21st century, unions are steadfastly declining, and so, I might add, is the ability of the working class to negotiate with large corporations. I might also add that whole job categories that were invented after WWII have been able to omit any union representation. This is particularly true of the IT profession, where whole companies could exist without any union representation whatsoever. It may have seemed superfluous during the boom years of the 1990's when IT pay advanced more rapidly than nearly any other job class, but that boom ended later in the next decade when whole company departments were off-shored to China and India. Suddenly, scores of IT professionals became part of the hosts of the chronically underemployed, and those who were lucky, sufficiently advanced in their career or too invested in business processes to be off-shored managed to survive. Would unions have made a difference in what happened? Probably not, but the unions of the 1950's and 1960's would have been able to beat back the trend. Unions today have been successfully reduced in power, prestige and have lost many of their allies in government.

Corporations are responsible for the demise of the unions, that is, corporations and their bought and paid-for allies in both the national and local governments. Some States in the US have enacted “right to work” laws that have helped corporations destroy unions and keep non-union factories and businesses from forming them. They are using propaganda, fear of job loss, or sometimes just simply off-shoring an entire manufacturing plant to Asia where the labor is cheap and unions non-existent. Corporations have rigged the economic system so that they receive massive subsidies, legalized tax evasion schemes and even compelled their labor force to augment their earnings with food stamps and Medicaid. They have also made it more difficult for individuals of modest means to join their ranks. The great upward mobility of the 1950's through the 1980's has essentially ended. Some might still make it, but only at the behest and inclusion by the corporate power-brokers. The rest of us are locked into a system that keeps us from ever being able to better ourselves. We are blocked from attending the prestigious high-priced universities and colleges because of the crushing debt that achieving these higher degrees now entail. The various avenues of mobility that once existed no longer exist. We live in a time that is differentiated by the consolidation of the “haves” at the expense of the “have nots.” Correspondingly, income inequality is now at an all time high not seen since the late 19th century.

Do you think that I am making all of this up just to attack free market capitalism and thereby show my socialist underpinnings? Just read this article, part of which I have quoted here, and see the evidence that large corporations are gaming the system and engorging themselves on government subsidies. They, instead of the poor, are the real welfare queens. You can find that article here.

“Good Jobs First shows that the world’s largest companies aren’t models of self-sufficiency and unbridled capitalism. To the contrary, they’re propped up by billions of dollars in welfare payments from state and local governments.

Such subsidies might be a bit more defensible if they were being doled out in a way that promoted upstart entrepreneurialism. But as the study also shows, a full ‘three-quarters of all the economic development dollars awarded and disclosed by state and local governments have gone to just 965 large corporations’—not to the small businesses and startups that politicians so often pretend to care about.

In dollar figures, that’s a whopping $110 billion going to big companies. Fortune 500 firms alone receive more than 16,000 subsidies at a total cost of $63 billion.”

Mitt Romney told a heckler back in the 2012 presidential election that corporations were people, and the US Supreme court seems to agree with that sentiment. The implications of that cultural shift are pretty easy to understand if we think about them long enough. We are becoming a nation where the corporations rule and we, the people, are made powerless and disenfranchised. One billionaire recently suggested that the ultra-rich should be given more than one vote commensurate with their wealth. Maybe some day the wealthy elite will decide that democracy is too messy and unpredictable, and that laws, policies and decisions that affect the local as well as the national arena should be made by the ultra-rich and the corporations, and not the common people. If you listen to what some of the wealthy plutocrats are saying as well as what the corporate backed politicians of the Republican party (and even some of the Democrats) are promoting then it doesn’t seem far-fetched that a corporatist take-over of this country is not only possible, but is, in fact, already occurring.

One of my favorite TV shows is playing around with this idea. It’s called “Continuum” and even though it is basically a low budget science fiction series, it has some pretty interesting ideas. Here are a couple of quotations taken from Wikipedia that give an overview and an outline to the basic plot of this series.

“The series centers on the conflict between a group of rebels from the year 2077 who time-travel to Vancouver, BC, in 2012, and a police officer [Kiera Cameron] who accidentally accompanies them. In spite of being many years early, the rebel group decides to continue its violent campaign to stop corporations of the future from replacing governments, while the police officer endeavours [sic] to stop them without revealing to anyone that she and the rebels are from the future.”

“Every episode begins with the plot of the show narrated by a voiceover from the point of view of Kiera Cameron.

‘2077. My time, my city, my family. When terrorists killed thousands of innocents, they were condemned to die. They had other plans. A time travel device sent us all back 65 years. I want to get home but I can't be sure what I will return to if history is changed. Their plan, to corrupt and control the present in order to win the future. What they didn't plan on was me!’

City Protective Services (CPS) law enforcement officer Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) lives a quiet, normal life with her husband and son in 2077-era Vancouver. Under the corporatocratic and oligarchic dystopia of the North American Union and its ‘Corporate Congress’, life goes on in apparent freedom under a technologically advanced high-surveillance police state.

When a group of anarcho-socialist self-proclaimed freedom fighters known as ‘Liber8' escape execution by fleeing to the year 2012, Kiera is involuntarily transported with them into the past. Joining with Detective Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster) and the Vancouver Police Department, and enlisting the help of teen computer genius Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen), Kiera works to track down and thwart Edouard Kagame (Tony Amendola) and his followers in the present day while concealing her identity as a time-traveller from the future.

Kagame and the members of Liber8 plot to alter the past to avert the rise of what they see as a dictatorial and Orwellian corporate regime to be stopped at all costs. Meanwhile, Kiera learns that Alec is none other than Alec Sadler, future corporate mogul and head of SadTech, one of the mega-corporations that dominate the world in 2077.

Fighting to return home to her family, Kiera finds that her presence in 2012, and that of the members of Liber8, may be no accident at all.”

The really odd thing about this series is that the character Kiera is initially shown as being the typical good cop fighting despicable and evil terrorist bad guys. However, as the series moves along, it becomes clear that the future world that Kiera is fighting to preserve is really a terrible corporatist dystopia, where the working class has been completely absorbed and enslaved by corporations that hold absolute power. It is an artificial world where consumerism is captivated and kept solidly in place while the disempowered common working classes are forced to stay in line by an overpowering police state. Does this seem like a far-fetched science fiction fantasy or does it seem like a warning of what might happen in the next century? If we give up our rights for security and a piece of the economic pie then the future will be a lot like the TV show “Continuum,” but probably even darker.

Even though an occultist and a ritual magician has to balance two worlds against each other, and often seems to be absorbed in arcane studies and practices, it is important to also be aware of what is going on in the world. It is important for the erstwhile occultist to never give up his or her rights and privileges that made the middle class a great power in this country in the first place. Whatever you do in your studies and practices, make certain that you also stay tuned to what is going on around you and also vote in every election. Keep engaged with the world around you. Remember that even one vote might make the difference between a positive future outcome and one that is doomed. Otherwise, why would the rich and powerful be so adverse to any form of democracy? Because it is our one last power that we can collectively use to shape our own future.

Frater Barrabbas

I wrote this article in early March when it was still unseasonably cold outside. Although things have changed somewhat, the issues that I faced then are still very much active today. Therefore, I thought that I would share this writing as the Vernal Equinox has arrived. Winters are harsh up here in the Midwest tundra, and this winter was more harsh than typical. It makes me long for warmer climates and less hostile weather.

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried."

Richard III - William Shakespeare

Another day of sub zero cold, snow, ice and just miserable freezing weather. When the sun shines, it is too cold to even go outside and observe the day without being heavily bundled up and wearing a ski mask. We are teased once in a while with a slight thaw, only to be hit a day or two later with what the weather geeks call a polar vortex. One scientist has hypothesized that extreme weather is caused by warmer than usual air displacing the frigid air currents over the pole and pushing them further south, thereby causing the jet stream to loop north and south instead of maintaining a northerly transit over the North American continent. Some might joke that what we have here is more like global cooling than global warming, but it is in fact warmer air currents in the poles that are causing the shifts of extremely cold weather. Alaska is having a very warm winter and the Midwestern Great Lakes looks like a scene from the last glacier. Extreme weather will continue to become more extreme, and everywhere in North America is being afflicted by it. There is no refuge except in the southern most states and the Carribean. So, here we are, getting punished by one of the worst winters in recorded history, and all I can do is just endure it and hope for an early spring. I stay indoors as often as possible, and I don’t travel much, becoming even more isolated in my household hermitage. If I am grateful for one thing, it is that I don’t have to commute to work in the hostile frigid weather.

You have probably noticed that I am not writing as much as I used to. Articles are being posted perhaps once or twice a month. The reason why is that I am avalanched with work from my day job, and by the time I finish up the day, my brain feels like mush. Since part of what I do all day long is to write up responses for business bids from the various States, I am engaged in writing a lot. I am also writing UNIX scripts, SQL scripts and performing various other system analyses. I am in a world of work, and besides that and my ever important relationship with my lady, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to do everything that I want to do. I haven’t been doing much with my spiritual studies and practices other than the rudimentary meditations and minor offerings in my temple. There are no big workings planned because there is so little time to plan and perform them.

While it is true that I am in a bit of a rut that I need to climb out of, I haven’t had the inspiration or been able to build the initiative to do so. Winter has not only frozen the land that I live in, but it has also frozen my spirit and brought all spiritual and magical progress to a standstill. Perhaps there is hope since I am now starting to write articles for my blog, and I am starting to look over my notes and attempting to jump start my research projects. I have cleaned up my temple area and have organized it, but as of yet, little has been done in that space. I have made some plans to perform some workings in the near future, but we will see what happens. The harsh winter is having a paralyzing impact on me, and I need to break the spell that it has cast over me.

Even though I am doing quite well in all of the areas of my life that really count for a lot, such as my career and my relationship, I am still dissatisfied with my lack of initiative and achievements in the spiritual and magical areas of my life. I have book projects just sitting around and not being worked on yet and I have to do something about that stasis which seems to be pervading my work. I can blame it on the winter, and perhaps it is having more of an affect on me than I realize, but still, there really are no excuses. I just need to focus and get moving again. And so, I keep promising myself that I will endeavor to persevere, whatever that means. Hopefully I will be able to break through this frozen and static period of my spiritual and magical life, but I believe that things are only going to get more busy at my job. I knew that this day was coming when my job would once again take up the lion’s share of my time and efforts, but I seem ill prepared to deal with it.

Sometimes I envy those who are singularly dedicated to their art of magic and who can spend whatever time is needed in order to teach, write books and practice magic without any interruptions or distractions like having to make a living. Maybe someday I will have this kind of freedom, perhaps when I finally retire, but until then I can sense that my career is about to really take off and engulf me with a massive workload. If my company wins this project that I have been working on, helping them to build up technical responses and exhaustively answer questions for the State, then I will get my wish and be made part of the team working on a long term project. This large-scale project will fully engage and challenge me on all levels. It will be exciting and challenging to work on this project, and the company will earn quite a large amount of money for achieving it (and so will the team members). But I believe that my occult studies and practices will correspondingly suffer, since they will have to be put on the back burner while I toil away at my job.

Luckily, I happen to love the work that I do, but there is more to life than work, or so I am told. All I know is that I must push forward and take whatever opportunities come my way. Unlike some people my age, I don’t want to loose my job and become underemployed doing something for a living that I hate . It is my burden and my good fortune to have to spend the majority of my time working at my job, which is probably what many other people go through each and every work day. I should be grateful for having such a demanding and rewarding job, but sometime I would rather play the flute, work magick, read and research new ideas and concepts and not have to deal with the everyday stresses of an IT type career. Of course, when payday comes around every two weeks, I forget about what I would rather do and instead feel relieved that I can pay all of the bills and have a little left over. I am lucky to have this well paying gig, and I know it, but still, the winter goes on day by day, and I wonder what other possibilities there might be for me to have my cake and eat it too.

*****

Spring is coming, and the first thaw has already reduced the amount of snow on the ground, although it has snowed again since and carpeted the ground with white just as it was beginning to look like some kind of transition in the earth was really happening. I have sensed a number of changes already occurring, and I know that this year will be quite different than any other year. I don’t exactly know why, but I sense that changes (and I might add, good changes for me and those close to me) are immanent. I want very much to get really deep into my magical work, and I hope that one of the changes that will occur is that I will get this sorely needed opportunity soon. As the Vernal Equinox is nigh upon us, I am hoping that I will be able to once again re-engage with my magick and spiritual discipline. Sometimes life just becomes so busy that everything else takes a back seat until that busy time has passed. I understand this fact, and it is one of the issues that any magician who has to work a regular job, keep house and manage a relationship will have to resolve in order to have the time to have a spiritual life.

Frater Barrabbas

One of the things that really bothers me about the culture I live in is that so many people actually believe what they see in action, drama or horror movies is somehow true. This is especially a problem when it comes to encounters with spirits. These rather highly graphic and CGI enhanced images shape people’s expectations and how they perceive entities within the domain of spirit. The typical person that I have met doesn’t quite believe in God or necessarily goes to church regularly, but they do indeed believe in malevolent spirits, demons and perhaps even the Devil himself. How odd it is that someone could believe in spiritual evil but not believe in spiritual good, or in some kind of Deity. How indeed can one exist without the other?

I guess the perpetrator of all these strange assumptions and beliefs is Hollywood, which has produced a lot of horror and suspenseful movies about the Devil, demons and other evil entities. These themes have found their way into other media, too, such as video games, D&D, novels and anime. Don’t get me wrong, I love to be entertained by these various media, but I don’t allow such tropes to influence how I see the spiritual world. Coincidentally, these various movies and media have focused very little on the opposite forces of good, and the spiritual or magical power used to generate positive effects that would counter negative threats. That makes the threats seem overwhelming, and the means allotted to mere humanity to fight against them seem weak at best, or pathetic at worst. It all appears rather pessimistic to me, but then again, I just enjoy the stories and don’t try to use them to either explain occult truths or allow them to bleed into my perceptions of the real world.

Of course, as a Witch and a Pagan, I don’t subscribe to any kind of spiritually polarized or dualistic world view where the forces of good and light are arrayed against the forces of darkness and evil. In my opinion the world is quite neutral and so are the spirits that populate it. This is hardly the dramatic stuff of evil pitted against good as employed in Christianity, Islam, and to a lesser extent, Judaism. Yet you would think that people (of the Abrahamic faiths) who have been taught at least something in their respective places of worship would subscribe to the view that evil can be successfully combated by good. I suspect that cynicism is also playing a part, since the rich and powerful in our culture often seem to get away with committing heinous crimes while the lowly slob usually ends up heavily penalized. Add together the unhealthy qualities of political cynicism, post-modern Hollywood induced superstition, various conspiracy theories and a moderate disbelief in an active force for good and you have the special toxic cocktail of ignorance made to order for the rationally handicapped people of our post-modern age. I am glad that I am not one of those individuals so afflicted by our post-modern malaise (or so I think).

Needless to say, the three basic questions that everyone who would actually like to engage with spirits and spiritual beings without being paralyzed with fear are: how do we experience them, what do they look like, and in what world do they exist. I would like to take a moment to answer each of these questions separately and hopefully that will make things a lot more clear. These are good questions to consider whether one is an experienced magician, a beginner or someone not even trained in the magical arts.

How Do We Experience Spirits?

First and foremost, spirits are all around us and live in a domain that is coexistent and contiguous with our own. However, despite that proximity, nearly everyone can’t see them without some kind of special conditioning. A few rare individuals don’t need any preparation to see spirits, but they are usually highly gifted psychics, spiritual or magical masters, or acute psychotics. The rest of us, and that also includes myself, must perform specific meditations and trance techniques in order to shift our conscious mental states so we can perceive spiritual beings and even get a glimpse of their world. The necessity of acquiring a powerful altered state of consciousness in order to see spirits indicates that there is an excellent barrier between the domain of spirit and our mundane domain. It means that I can focus on something like my mundane job without being distracted or disturbed by some spiritual entity that, for whatever reason, wants my attention. It doesn’t mean that I am completely insensitive, but it does demonstrate that I can focus on mundane things unless something really critical or important enters my field of awareness.

Therefore, I can’t even imagine what it’s like for someone whose psychic sensitivities are always turned on. It must be highly distracting or perhaps even maddening if one weren’t able to turn it off and focus on other things. I have compartmentalized my world so that there is a time and a place for spiritual and magical workings, and there is a time and a place to function in the mundane sphere as well. The two typically don’t intersect, but when they do, there’s usually a very compelling reason for it. This allows me to function in both worlds without being overwhelmed by the differentiation or adversely afflicted by otherwise unseen forces and beings.

Why do I need to adopt a rigorous altered state of consciousness in order to perceive and communicate with spirits? The answer is quite simple. Spirits, if they have a material substance at all, are extremely subtle and not part of our normal perceptions of sight, hearing, smelling and touching. My theory is that spirits exist as beings embodied in pure consciousness, therefore, they don’t have any kind of physical body or at least none that we could scientifically measure. That means that spirits don’t occupy space and time the way that we do. They live in world that is also purely within consciousness, and that world is populated with all sorts of mythical creatures, deities and ghosts as well. I will talk more about this world when I answer the question about where spirits reside; but for this particular question, I can say that spirits are so subtle and nearly invisible to our senses that almost everyone will neither be able to sense or perceive them without aid.

The most sensitive and untrained psychic might feel a chill or sense something unusual when encountering a spirit, but otherwise, the rest of humanity walks around the common topography of their lives without sensing any spirits whatsoever. What most people believe about spirits and then when they claim to have encountered them are perhaps based on an almost imperceptible sensation that is amplified greatly by their imaginations. And that imperceptible sensation could be triggered by a natural phenomenon. Often our imaginations make up for what we really can’t see or perceive, and that makes many supposed supernatural experiences nothing more than just spurious interpretations of naturally occurring phenomena. It doesn’t mean that spiritual phenomena are non-existent, only that they exist in a highly rarefied world that is mostly imperceptible. It also means that human nature dislikes any kind of unknown or vague occurrence, and so it fills in the blanks making use of our a volatile imagination and our hardwired flight or fight instincts.

If what I am claiming seems to question or even invalidate what people typically declare as the basis of their beliefs in the supernatural and their encounters with spirits then why do I and most other occultists need to adopt an altered state of consciousness in order to be able to perceive and encounter spirits? Wouldn’t a naked perception of a spirit experienced by someone completely skeptical or untrained indicate that such a spirit has a physical reality that can be filmed, videotaped, or otherwise measured or captured using scientific tools? Even the most audacious reality TV show that claims to hunt and capture ghostly activity often comes up with nothing more than ultra-subtle evidence that could be just as readily interpreted as the results of a natural phenomenon. The extremely faint whisper, the bizarre reflection of light or even the strange air temperature fluctuation cannot be used to prove conclusively that ghosts exist as objective physical entities.

So, it would seem that very subtle cues are being interpreted by individuals who don’t have the training and experience to know a real manifestation from one that is spurious. Even the expert psychic or a trained occultist isn’t infallible when supposedly encountering spirits. Everything that is experienced regarding spirits and their domain must be rationally evaluated and examined in order to determine if it is real, and then, relevant. Even some of my experiences with spirits have proven to be valid occurrences but spurious because what was revealed by them was nonsense. This happens more often with earth-based spirits (like the spirits of the dead) rather than more evolved and intelligent beings. We must, as occultists, carefully examine and qualify any and all spiritual encounters to make certain that they are real, meaningful and significant.

After many decades of practice and engaging with spirits I might be able to easily slip into the altered state of consciousness needed to sense them without the lengthy or arduous process of meditation and trance induction, but often what I sense under these conditions is very subtle and indeterminate. Only when I perform the classic methodologies used to achieve the correct mental state, and confined in the sacred space of a temple or grove, will I be able to “see” and “hear” spirits without any doubt or the need to aggressively question and rationalize what I have perceived. What that means is that an impromptu adoption of this mental state outside of sacred space can cause me to misinterpret what I am sensing almost as readily as it does to the untrained. It means that even I am susceptible to the same subtle cues and sensations that might give other people the “creepy” feeling that something spiritual is active when in fact it is only a natural occurrence.

Let me give you an example from one of my many experiences over the decades with spirits. I was visiting two old cities in the southeast, namely Charleston and Savanah, some years ago and when I was wandering with the rest of the tourists around the old brick docks of the port of Savanah, I sensed something disturbing despite all of the distractions and people, sights and sounds. I felt sensations of fear, sadness, pain, anger and bitter remorse. It was just a feeling that came and went, and I couldn’t figure out why I felt those emotions, since they are not typical for me to experience. My lady and I went on the obligatory ghost tours in both of these towns, but all of the supposed tours visited the graveyards and antique homes of white people. Wouldn’t such a place be haunted by the ghosts of all of the slaves that lived and died in that place as well?

I briefly wondered about that and then forgot about it. Later on when we visited Tybee Island, we talked with a person who was studying to be a root doctor and he said that the old parts of Savanah were full of the ghosts of slaves, and that the ghost tours of white-only locations was a sham. I then remembered my strange emotions and sensations and told him about them, He concurred that I was probably picking up on the many ghosts of slaves who built the old town and the port area of Savanah, often suffering and even dying while they labored. The old town was built by the sweat, blood, tears and bitter suffering of black slaves, and it is likely that a real psychic would be able to sense that perturbation in a much more pronounced manner than that of the white privileged owners who gained immense wealth from their efforts. Did I sense the ghosts of departed slaves who were earth bound and seeking some kind of peaceful release denied to them over the centuries? I believe that I did sense them, but I have no concrete proof. I only had the brief sensations that seemed not have any kind of origin within me as a type of subject verification.

How does one assume the proper altered mental state to sense spirits and the spirit world? It is done through a medium level trance state inducted from a deep meditative state. The simplest method for assuming a trance state is to stare at a fixed point for a period of time, such as a Yantra, diagram, wall painting or anything that is stationary or cyclically oscillating. Thus, a revolving light or shining object can also be used. The subject performs this type of trance induction once a deep meditative state has been achieved after performing many minutes of assana, breath-control and mantram vibrations. You can find these techniques in many books on meditation and trance, or you can fully read chapter two of part two (starting at page 204) in my book “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick.” The assumption of a moderate trance state is the foundational state that I use to sense and perceive spirits and their world.

What Do Spirits Look Like?

Here is where the imagination comes into play, since without it, the many spectacular visions of angels, demons, ghoulish ghosts and other kinds of spirits would be subtle and unremarkable occurrences. What this means is that without any embellishment of the mind a spirit will look like a transparent egg-shaped sphere of light. The color of that light varies, of course, depending on the quality and vibrational rate of the spirit’s conscious being; but this is hardly the stuff of myth or imagination. However, a spirit, when it is perceived and encountered by a human being, can and does assume different shapes in accordance with the expectations and the imagination of the seer. In other words, a spirit can project an image of itself in a completely imaginary form within the mind of the seer, and it can also speak and produce other phenomena (music, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, etc.), but all within the mind of the seer. This means that what is perceived by the observer can’t be captured by a video camera or other measuring device, since it is not an objective, physical reality. Not only can the observer sense the spirit, but also a good seer can see the world (or the specific occult symbolic context) in which the spirit resides.

An effective seer experiences a spirit as a fully immersed occurrence, which includes that specific entity and its domain. All sorts of visionary imaginings are triggered when encountering a spirit, and often powerful visions occur as well. If we expect to see a terrible and grotesque entity stinking of sulphur and brimstone when evoking a demon then that is what we will experience. Since magical practitioners of different spiritual persuasions experience the evocation of a spirit differently, and sometimes even radically different, then we can rationally assume that our expectations play a powerful role in what we experience. This is yet another indicator that spirits are not physical beings like us simply because of the variety of impressions and experiences that many magicians have had when evoking them.

It might even be said that magicians experience something unique when evoking spirits, and that no two such experiences of the same spirit are identical. Spirits reside entirely within the fields of consciousness so they can be perceived in a myriad of imaginary forms. I would suspect that even the egg-shaped point of light is imaginary, except that it has the precedence of accepted modern occultism to back it up.

So, what does a spirit look like to the apparent seer? It looks like whatever they think it should look like. That would at least inform the would-be magician to be quite clear and also careful with his or her expectations when planning an evocation. It wouldn’t do to get the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man when attempting to invoke the spirit of a demon or a revered spiritual ancestor.

In What World Do Spirits Reside?

As I have said, the domain of spirits is all around us and contiguous with our own world, except that we can’t normally see or perceive them, or for that matter, their world. Since I have proposed that spirits reside in a world that exists entirely within the domain of consciousness, then all we need to do in order to see them is to change our conscious state using some ecstatic technique. This is also how one would enter into their domain, and that ecstatic technique has been part of the magician’s repertoire since the days of the shaman.

Because the domain of spirit is entirely within consciousness, it has a completely symbolic quality to it. Basically, the spirit world, which I might add is contiguous with our own world, has three basic levels, and each level is populated by different kinds of spirits. These three worlds are also found in classical shamanism and therefore, represent a kind of fundamental representation of the human experience of consciousness itself. These worlds are the heavens, the underworld and the surface world (where we reside). Spanning these three worlds is a device that connects them, which could be seen as a tree, ladder, pole or stang, or similar bridging mechanism. Let’s quickly examine each of these worlds and speculate about the kinds of spirits to be found in each.

Spirits of the Heavens

This is the place of stars and planets as well as the celestial Gods of the sun, moon, wind, clouds and storms. It is also the place of winged spirits who appear as birds or even angels. When considering the three worlds of spirit we should keep in mind that it is all based on symbology that has only a small bearing on the real objective world. This view is based on our subjective experiences of the world and the inner psychic structures that these experiences create.

Even though science has explained all of the natural phenomena seen in the sky during the day and night, our subjective and mythic experiences are still real and valid, based as they are on our collective perceptions, beliefs and culturally determined conscious topography. We can still think about the “Man in the Moon” even though it is deemed by science to be an impossibility, it has stubbornly resisted scientific explanations and retained its mythic value in our culture. The same is true about the apparent constellations of stars, whose outlines represent merely our subjective perception and interpretation of stars and galaxies from our earthly vantage point. The spirits of the heavens have a more macrocosmic perspective, and so they are remote from the events and occurrence of human activity, of course, with exception of those who function as messengers or intermediaries.

Ritual magicians are interested in the spirits of the sky because of their ability to see things from a lofty vantage point, and they often are able to give excellent long term oracles and also understand the world from the vantage point of the cosmogonic cycle. What they are not particularly good at is giving concise oracles about individuals and short-term events, since that is something that a remote viewing would be unable to discern clearly.

Spirits of the Underworld

This is the place of darkness that lies under the surface of the earth, and so it symbolically represents all of the things associated with that domain. The spirits of this place are subject to the chthonic deities of the underworld and their intermediaries. The underworld is the place of our departed ancestors, both genetic and spiritual. Anyone who is dead and not trapped on the surface world is to be found in the underworld. However, the underworld is not confined to just a repository of death, darkness, coldness and things inimical to life. Indeed, the underworld is also the place of fertility, birth, a reservoir of the life-force, underground aquifers, streams and even rivers, as well as the treasures of gold, silver, gem stones and other precious or semi precious stones and metals. The underworld is also the well of souls to be born and the potential of everything that is manifested into physical form. Underground localities, such as caves, gorges, or man-made barrows and graveyards can represent symbolic and actual entrances to the underworld, but to engage with the spirits of the underworld only requires the right mental state and the ability to enter into the domain of darkness, death and rebirth.

As you can imagine, the spirits of the underworld are more intimate and relevant to our surface world than the spirits and deities that reside in the sky. If you want to acquire a material thing or objective, then the spirits of the underworld will be much more helpful and immediate in their aid than will the spirits in the sky. This is because the underworld is the true repository of everything material, including life itself, and it the place where everything that lives, returns. It is also the place where a ritual magician would go to learn about his or her specific destiny or about a short-term possibility. Oracles involving the dead and chthonic deities are often very specific and unambiguous, but they are less capable of perceiving the long term or the greater destiny of a people or a nation.

Spirits of the Surface World

The surface world is filled with spirits as well, and these are often associated with a specific places or geographic features. A large and unique looking tree, a lake, stream or river, hill or mountain, forest, fields, giant rocks - anything peculiar or interesting. It can be man-made, such as sacred locations (churches, temples, ancient ruins) or even villages, cities, town or massive urban locations, or it can a pristine natural and inaccessible location.

Spirits are everywhere in the surface world (and so are deities, yet not as populous), but they are mostly invisible to humans. Even so, it is easier to engage with spirits in remote locations than in the middle of large city, for the obvious reasons of distractions, noise and people. However, I have experienced spirits in a city late at night when distractions are at a minimum, and it was just as thrilling (and unnerving) as the same kind of experience in a natural setting. The spirits in such locations are quite different, since the location and the geographic context does have some influence on how such spirits appear and function, although the imagination does the real embelishing. There are also wandering ghosts on the surface world who have not found their peaceful place of repose (although they are more rare than some people would believe), and there are swarming numbers of entities that are associated with the confluence of geographic features, ley-lines and other kinds of grids, both natural and man-made.

Therefore, it is just as possible for a city shaman to engage with distorted human-created paramentals in an urban setting as it is for a hedge-witch to engage with nature spirits or to walk the ghost roads of the ancestors in some remote location. Either approach is similarly valid, and it represents the fact that spirits are uniformly everywhere. All we need to do is to develop the methods and techniques of being able to see and engage them. Out of that experience comes the structures and systems of the occult and the spirit matrices of practical ritual magick.

What this article informs us is that spirits are everywhere, and that they can assume a shape based on our expectations and beliefs. However, spirits are nearly impossible for most people to see, experience or in any wise engage; so for most of humanity they are the stuff of myth, media and religious belief and not particularly real. Only the preternatural psychic, trained occultist or acute psychotic can see and engage with spirits, and of these, only the first two are likely seeing what is really there.

Frater Barrabbas

Invocation of the Spirits of the Nephilim part 4

Basic Elements of Ritual Magick

A World Polarized by Light and Darkness

Children of the Gods and Enochian Magick

Further Thoughts About Witchcraft

A Tale of Two Futures

Tarot Evolution - Marseilles Tarot Trumps

Am I Becoming a BNM, BNW or BNP?

Thoughts About Christianity

Thoughts About Thelema and Other Musings

A Few More Thoughts About Christianity

Autumn Celebrations Before Winter

Coming Forth from Darkness

Spiritual Ancestors as Heroes

Summer Time and Various Thoughts

Science, Religion and Magick

Thoughts About Love Spells

A Corporate Dystopia Clouds Our Future

Winter of My Discontent

Hollywood Drama and Real Spirit Encounters