Seneca said of the festival:

“It is now the month of December, when the greatest part of the city is in a bustle. Loose reins are given to public dissipation; everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparations, as if there were some real difference between the days devoted to Saturn and those for transacting business. ... Were you here, I would willingly confer with you as to the plan of our conduct; whether we should eve in our usual way, or, to avoid singularity, both take a better supper and throw off the toga.”

All this jolly ruckus, of course, triggered Romans of a more Saturnian disposition, who despised the chaos and retreated to their chambers or the countryside to escape the cheer. Seems like nothing much has changed in the last few thousand years!

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There was a time long ago, when The Backstreet Boys topped the charts, and spiky frosted tips were the norm, and dare I say, encouraged.

Yes, I’m talking about the early 2000s.

It was a confusing time of dial-up modems, Britney, and 800 x 600 monitor resolutions. For those of us who reached our formative years during that period, it was also a time straddling the pre- and post-Internet world that exposed us millennials to page after page of animated GIFs and midi files.

Nestled amongst the nauseating flashing pixels, one could find the remains of a variety of delightful strangeness: the Church of the SubGenius1, TOPY, Deoxy, and the Zine movement all revealed a world much different (and more interesting) than the one your regular working-class parents lived in. For the weird kids, it was like a gift from the gods to discover that there were other people out there who didn’t just settle for a life of endless mindless consumption and lack of fulfillment.

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Sadly, by the end of that decade, many of these groups had fizzled out as the internet moved to a walled garden model, with just a few platforms snapping up all the user-generated content with the aim of monetizing it. They were successful, and not long after, the internet transitioned into a space largely filled with content curated or outright created by marketing firms for the benefit of metrics, and commented on by paid-for botnets. The internet was dead.

High Weirdness: A very brief introduction

The term High Weirdness was popularized in Ivan Stang's 1988 book High Weirdness by Mail, which was essentially a directory of fringe publications on topics like UFOs, drug culture, extreme religion, far-left and right politics, and conspiracy forums.

Since then, High Weirdness has come to include various subjects that fall outside the mainstream cultural paradigm, usually referring to work by authors such as Philip K. Dick and Robert Anton Wilson, and the works of various occult and fringe authors. All of these groups had one thing in common: they shrugged the cultural status quo in favor of the creation of artifacts, writings, and performances that often embodied the uncomfortable in hopes that the rest of us would see things in a slightly different light. Because these irreverent artifacts are often created by people outside the mainstream narrative framework who reject the current systems, High Weirdness is often decentralized and distributed, open source, mystical, and anti-capitalist.

High Weirdness, at its core, is a subversive contrasting agent to the mainstream.

The exuberant digital flowering of anti-establishment sentiment in the 1980s and 90s, and to a smaller extent the early 2000s, was just the most recent revival of an energetic current that started during a time and in a place that was also marked by rapid technological and social upheaval, the Belle Époque era of 1880s France.

Joan was quizzical, studied ‘pataphysical

On a Parisian winter day in December of 1896, a crowd gathered in front of the ornate facade of the Théâtre de Paris to wait for the premiere of a new satirical play, Ubu Roi. Amongst the waiting crowd of patrons was poet and Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn member William Butler Yeats, along with French man of letters Catulle Mendès, future Nobel prize winner André Gide, artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and philosopher-poet Paul Valéry. As the crowd shuffled in and settled into their seats, the curtain drew back to reveal a comically grotesque figure surrounded by cartoonish abstract scenery. The figure proceeded to yell what was essentially a mix of the French words for “shit” and “fuck” to the audience.

Merdre indeed.

The play that followed was a mockery of authority that did not follow conventional storytelling in any sense. The crowd rioted. Literally.

French anarchist and art critic Félix Fénéon wrote in his review of the play:

“Never has a theatrical performance produced such a din... shrieks, whistles, the most varied protests.”

Which is the 1890s way of saying people fucking hated it, and they made that hatred immediately known. With their fists.

Between the alleged fist-fights and the screaming crowd, something magical had taken place. A play, written by 23-year-old Alfred Jarry, making fun of the establishment, had sparked the beginning of a totally different way of thinking about the world. It was the advent of Modernism, opening the door for movements like Dadaism and Surrealism that were soon to follow.

Alfred Jarry, as a person, was annoying. He spoke in frustrating absurdity and adopted a nasally, high-pitched speaking voice that others found incredibly abrasive. He once painted his face green and rode through the streets on his bicycle in honor of his muse, absinthe. His tiny apartment which was subdivided horizontally rather than vertically (guests had to crouch to fit, Jarry was quite short and barely stand) was filled with empty bottles, guns, and books. Contemporary intellectual and writer André Gide wrote of Jarry:

“He refused to live in the world as others did; he transformed it according to his whims. Reality was an insult to him.”

Part of this transformation of reality for Jarry was the invention of the science of ‘pataphysics. Jarry mandated that the word always have an apostrophe before the letter “p”, denoting the word as being a contraction of the Greek phrase “τὰ ἐπὶ τὰ μεταφυσικά (tà epì tà metaphusiká) meaning that which is above metaphysics. It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. According to one of over 100 official definitions of the science, 'pataphysics deals with “the laws which govern exceptions and will explain the universe supplementary to this one.” In ‘pataphysics, every event in the universe is accepted as an extraordinary event. Although Jarry passed away in 1907 at the age of 34, ‘pataphysics went on to be a major influence in music, cinema, and literature that continues into the modern era.

Jarry’s 'pataphysics and the artistic output of his Symbolist contemporaries at the turn of the century are best understood as a rebellion against a time period where most visual and written works of art were largely based on realism. The Symbolists sought to create an alternative narrative that centered on the internal, dreamlike wellspring of thought and emotion during a time when rapid advances in science were solidifying a rigid view of the world. Only once this step had been taken could Surrealism, Cubism, Dada, and the psychedelic consciousness exploration movements of the latter half of the 20th century follow.

A Sensation of Wrongness

To see the through-line between Ubu Roi and High Weirdness by Mail, we must examine the definition of the Weird.

To quote Mark Fisher2, weirdness:

involves a sensation of wrongness: a weird entity or object is so strange that it makes us feel that it should not exist, or at least it should not exist here. Yet if the entity or object is here, then the categories which we have up until now used to make sense of the world cannot be valid. The weird thing is not wrong, after all: it is our conceptions that must be inadequate.

High Weirdness, then, is the employment of drawing attention to this wrongness for the betterment of society, or at least of the removal of the more unsavory bits. It’s no surprise then that weirdness as a cultural tool seems to pop into the mainstream during times of social and economic distress. All expressions of high weirdness are means to an end, a way of breaking the reality tunnel so that new structures can replace those that are no longer serving humanity.

In many ways, to willingly engage in High Weirdness is to embrace a more authentic view of reality, one that many people look away from to avoid uncomfortable introspection or the need to engage with difficult topics. It is a multiplicity of unapproved thought-forms, modes of being, alternate states of consciousness, and artistic expression that is at best frowned upon and at worst outright banned by the establishment and authoritarian governments. Why? Because the control structures can only function if you don’t look away from the approved reality tunnel.

While it seems that the current iteration of the internet is dead or dying and cannot be relied upon for free expression, and apathy towards the rapidly evaporating freedom from surveillance and state-sponsored conformity is at an all-time high, we must hope that it is merely setting the stage for a return of high weirdness.

I think it has already begun.

I’ll leave you with this quote by Philip K. Dick:

The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.

If you want to further explore the convergence of societal change, art, and the conditions that gave rise to authoritarianism in pre-WWII Germany, click the button below to check out the newest episode of Dispatches From Post-Reality.

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Learn from history, or you are doomed to repeat it. But some events may be impossible to avoid as momentous forces converge upon a single point in time with leaders wholly unequipped to handle them. For this episode, the bois take a trek through history and visit the Weimar Republic, a bureaucratic state whose inadequacies would reverberate for decades to come. They educate themselves on the culture, economy, and people of 1920s Germany so that they can glean insight into how modern-day events may unfold. So, are we on the precipice of going down the same road, or can we swerve onto the historical off-ramp and avoid ruin? Only time will tell.

A lot has happened in my personal life over the last few months.

I quit my longtime design job and went solo after almost 2 decades there. The creative industry is in a hard spot right now, and the writing is on the wall for how AI will change the landscape of art and design. Spoiler alert, it’s going to lead to the enshittification of anything design touches. And that’s a lot of things. It’s a needless pivot deeper into the territory of greed and profit driven by clueless middle managers trying to cull staff salaries from the budget, etc.

The place I was working was the same as every other mid-sized company, haphazardly run by owners who had a laughably poor understanding of how their own business worked. The rumors of downsizing the art department to send work overseas were becoming less of rumors and more of a reality. So I jumped ship before I got the inevitable pink slip. There were astrological and logistical reasons that made it a good time for me to do so.

I’ll admit I’m still getting used to the feeling of not going to work. It is weird to wake up each morning and not have to bolster your psyche to make it through the gauntlet of pretending to care about other people’s profits, toxic co-worker gossip, and the existential dread of watching the minutes click by as you sit there doing nothing but fulfilling someone’s power fantasies of “work” for work’s sake. Anyone who punches in 8 to 5 will tell you that it sucks your soul away, in what feels like a very literal sense. I’m now in the process of rebuilding my selfhood outside the context of work. It’s a little like retiring and a little like figuring out what to do after you just graduated from high school.

In the creative fields, you expend your energy and imagination for the benefit of a company that profits greatly from your contributions, much more so than you as an employee ever will. I personally created hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars of wealth for the owners of the company I worked for, while being paid much less than the national average for that role. It’s a kind of labor that is often taken advantage of because it’s driven by passion. While I’m sure there are passionate accountants out there, very few people dream of calculating numbers from a young age. No shade if you are one of those weirdos, the world needs all types!

Children who grow up with a natural inclination for creativity find that their skills are quickly captured in the name of capitalism upon reaching adulthood. I remember coming up with the coolest drawings as a kid and being inspired almost constantly by everything I came across. Later, as an adult working a creative job, I was reduced to copying someone else’s creativity as quickly as I could so I could move on to the next job, rinse and repeat. Nothing was inspiring because I didn’t have time to deeply think or feel about anything I was doing in the workplace.

Curiosity and a drive to create are inherent in most people (at least before it’s stifled by society), and I would argue is an aspect of humanity that has been drained away for the benefit of shareholders, when it is intended to bring beauty and healing to our families and communities instead. If we look at creative energy as we would any other type of energy, what happens when it’s captured and dispersed before it ever makes any type of change or contribution in the world? It’s like damming a river and redirecting all that kinetic energy to power something that makes the world actively worse, not better. Not only does the energy go towards something it wasn’t intended for, the downstream environment is also no longer nourished and dries up.

I believe our society is operating at a creative deficit. The calories, vitamins, and trace minerals provided by the imaginal skills are being starved from our culture on a grand scale, being replaced with the empty nutrients of “content” created by machines1 for the masses.

Our communities need actual healers, artists, and writers. We need plant workers, yoga teachers, and creators of all kinds. Look around or talk to basically anyone and it becomes apparent that these skills are in dire need. Capitalism, as it stands now, makes it incredibly difficult for the village artist or the neighborhood herbalist to keep the lights on. Those who have to work other jobs find the energy that was meant to be shared with others is captured and dispersed before it ever makes a difference. Those who strike out on their own find that once money is the impetus for sharing these skills with others, the necessary relationship with the community is subject to a power dynamic that stands in the way of nourishing the future. In other words, the system is fucked from both sides. Money is the problem.2

Obviously, there are so many things that would have to change in order to revamp the creative/community relationship, but I wanted to put these thoughts out there in the spirit of resistance. If you are going to work each day and feeling this way, you are not alone. If you have some ineffable need to create or do something, you are not alone. Even small gestures of nourishment to improve your community go a long way towards breaking the dam and releasing the waters back where they belong.

Go out and make something beautiful. I plan to.

Hey magical folks, I’m Nox Fortuna. Thank you for joining me on this 67,000mph ride through the cosmos. I’m talking about astrology, magick, the occult, weird stuff, high strangeness and occasional pop culture reviews. Join me each week for conversations on these topics and general camaraderie. Now, on to the show!

O thou of Twilight Path!
Let us dance within the halls
Of uncertainty 

From the well of the unknown
Let us draw forth the waters
That dissolve the boundaries
Set upon us as fixed stars in the night.

For truly-

Night and day are lies
Truth and falsehood are lies
Strength and weakness are lies
Earth, Fire, Water, and Air are lies

There is only that
Which is
(not)

-------------------

Faded impressions, distant sounds
Passing into awareness
Fighting to be among the real
Twisting milliseconds screaming

Cacophony

-----------

I am (not)
You are (not)

I look into the black and
Nothing.
Then:
Little points of light slide
Towards awareness.

We (are)

------------

Infinity, longing to be realized
Speaks to us through the
Passage of days

Life, flaring into awareness
Makes itself known through the
Movement of breath

The Self, seeking
Finds Understanding in the
Tension of truth and falsehood

---------

That which you are
Cannot be

A snake twined upon itself

Within every error
A million million truths
Spiral into infinity 

Hey magical folks, I’m Nox Fortuna. Thank you for joining me on this 67,000mph ride through the cosmos. I’m talking about astrology, magick, the occult, weird stuff, high strangeness and occasional pop culture reviews. Join me each week for conversations on these topics and general camaraderie. Now, on to the show!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what defines living a magical life. Fitting today’s newsletter goes out on the day of the Sun, in the hour of Mercury on a Mercury cazimi.

Some days I don’t feel very magical at all. Some days I eat takeout and play Balatro for hours. I don’t feel that my wizard level diminishes on these days. So clearly, we shouldn’t classify ourselves based on the number of tarot cards we sling, or how many incense sticks we burned that day.

I think it helps to feel around the edges of what we think magick is. So, let’s start this with a series of questions:

• Is magick natural or supernatural?

• Is it different from regular old mundane forms of action?

• Does magick happen in the past, present, or future? Or somewhere outside of time?

• What does magical influence act on? What does it act with?

Does a Magician, in the broadest occult sense of the word, do anything at all outside the realm of natural cause and effect? Or do they take note of the currents of causality that exist in the world around them and act accordingly? Do they simply do nothing and let the wheel revolve around them?

To me, being a magician is a tapping in, a listening, and breathing with the universe. Your mileage may vary. It should, really.

A lot of fancy words have been written in the last several centuries about will and force (capitalize those words if you like), hierarchies, and domination of one being over another, but to me, they have always seemed to stem from a wrong way of thinking about magic and the world we share with all the visible and invisible forces around us. We are the many and the one, the individual and the all.

Everything is. Therein lies the mystery. That’s the fun of it. If we solved the mystery we’d be quite bored, wouldn’t we?

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The joy is in the dance, not getting to the end of the dance, to paraphrase Alan Watts.

I’m pretty horrible at dancing but it’s a metaphor I think we can all understand. Here’s another one - magic is the song we sing along with the universe. Ceremony and ritual are the solo guitar riffs where we take the spotlight for a little bit, but it’s all part of the larger song.

You already know everything you need to know just by being a person in this world. The sunlight on the grass in the morning can teach you more than any guru ever could. The sound of the wind in the trees knows more about magic than I do.

Today I want to talk about some ideas from a man who thought he knew a lot about magic. Maybe he did have some good ideas but I’m sure we should all take it with a grain or several of salt.

Liber B vel Magi is a holy book of Thelema. The text is considered Class “A”, which, according to the Thelemic convention, “consists of books of which may be changed not so much as the style of a letter: that is, they represent the utterance of an Adept entirely beyond the criticism of even the Visible Head of the Organization.” In Liber 207: A Syllabus of the Official Instructions of the A∴A∴, it states:

LIBER I. LIBER B VEL MAGI. This is an account of the Grade of Magus, the highest grade which it is ever possible to manifest in any way whatever upon this plane. Or so it is said by the Masters of the Temple.

Not much has come down to us about the actual writing of this book. It seems to have been written in 1911, and it’s fairly short, at 23 lines. The structure of the document follows the typical numbered verse layout of many of Crowley’s other libri.

Crowley loved to start his writings by following the format of the Tree of Life. Usually, this begins not at Kether or the first sphere, but with the three veils of negative existence. Because of this, the text begins with verse 00. Apparently, 000 is super extra nothing, thus is the part of the text that doesn’t even really exist except in the silence of the moment before you begin reading it. Clever, huh? In 00. he states:

00. One is the Magus; twain His forces; four His weapons. These are the Seven Spirits of Unrighteousness; seven vultures of evil. Thus is the art and craft of the Magus but glamour. How shall He destroy Himself?

We see that using this particular map of what it is to be a Magus, there are specific attributes that are fundamental to a Magician. One is the Magus, but twain are his forces. The Magician sees and uses duality as forces and vehicles for their will, but knows that duality is only a construct that makes it easier to understand and move around in the universe.

The four weapons, of course, are the wand, the cup, the sword, and the pentacle representing the elemental aspects of the universe. Notice this is a rung lower down than the two forces mentioned before. Together, these are referred to as the Seven Spirits of Unrighteousness and labeled evil. Remember that we are still in the negative, where all things and ideas exist in a form that includes their opposite without any sort of duality or contradiction but doesn’t even exist yet at all really. They are the first swirling of nonexistence without form. Within this nonexistence we also find the ultimate goal stated plainly and the true quest of the Magician: How shall He destroy Himself?

Moving on to verse 0. we see:

0. Yet the Magus hath power upon the Mother both directly and through Love. And the Magus is Love, and bindeth together That and This in his conjuration.

Here is the first mention of the Mother. Usually, when Crowley capitalizes something, it’s a clue that there is a deeper meaning. Here, he is referencing the first He ה of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, the Primal Mother that corresponds to the third sphere of Binah on the Tree of Life. This and That are references to the internal and the external, the subjective and the objective.

In a way, the Magus is setting themselves up as the masculine/active force present in the Tetragrammaton, associated with the Father as yod י and the Son as the vav ו. The masculine force represents the active aspect of reality, whereas the so-called feminine represents the passive aspect. These terms are unnecessarily gendered, but we are working with a system that sprung out of the early 20th century, so please insert passive/active where applicable.

The Magus has power on the Mother directly and through Love. Love here specifically means the combination of opposites to create unity. Remember how the Magus is One, so connecting the Magus with Love is kind of just stating the same thing again to drive home the point. The Magician is a unifying force, and through this force, they are able to wield the Will to act upon the creative and manifesting aspect of the Mother.

Finally, we’ve reached the point of departure from nonexistence to existence itself as we go from verse 0. to verse 1.

1. In the beginning doth the Magus speak Truth, and send forth Illusion and Falsehood to enslave the soul. Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption.

Crowley said the magus speaks Truth and Falsehood, illustrating the fact that anything we think, say, or believe is both true and false simultaneously in a fundamental sense. After all, how can a human describe the primal nature of anything from her limited standpoint down on Malkuth? Continuing on:

2. By His Wisdom made He the Worlds; the Word that is God is none other than He.
3. How then shall He end His speech with Silence? For He is Speech.
4. He is the First and the Last. How shall He cease to number Himself?

Wisdom is the title of the second sphere, Chokmah, which neatly ties into the numerology of it being the second verse.

Prompted by the odd wording and sentence structure, what if we don’t take it at the face value reading? Just for fun, let’s parse it a bit differently by reading “He” as the letter He ה, the 5th Hebrew character.

I’ll swap out the word He for ה and add some notations to make it a bit easier to understand. Let’s take another look at the passage again starting with verse 2:

By His Wisdom (Chokmah) made ה the Worlds (the Tree of Life and its constituent spheres); / the Word that is God is none other than ה. / How then shall ה end His (the Magician’s) speech with Silence? / For ה is Speech.

He is the Hebrew letter that has the gematria value of 5. The actual spelling of the letter He is הה. If we put 2 of them together, we would have two 5’s which of course add up to 10 indicating totality or wholeness (as in the totality of the 10 spheres on the Tree of Life). This corresponds to the idea of the Worlds in the verse. If you put the two 5’s side by side we get the number 55. Five is the number of Force and Will, so we can connect those ideas as fundamental to what the letter ה symbolizes. He is also the sound of breath and represents the vivifying life force.

If we take a closer look at the number 55, we find that the god name Ab Aima also has the value of 55. Ab Aima means Father and Mother and is somewhat key in understanding what Crowley is trying to say about the powers of the magus. According to the entry for the number 55 in Sepher Sapphires Volume 1:

55: Ab Aima, Father-Mother. Combines the titles of Chokmah and Binah which intimates that in Malkuth is the balanced manifestation of the male potency of wisdom and the female potency of understanding. Symbolized by the central figure in Key 21 (the tarot card), The World.

The very first words, “By His Wisdom” allude to the forces of the Father in Chokmah and connect that to the power of the Magus. As mentioned earlier, Wisdom is one of the titles of the sphere of Chokmah. Here the Magus is invoking the active energy of Chokmah and the manifesting powers of Binah symbolized by the letter He.

Next, we have “made ה the Worlds.” Reading into the symbolism, we could say that by Force and Will (He), the Magus harnesses the potential energy of the universe to manifest the Worlds. Notice here that the World gets a capital W and is plural. This implies that it’s not just the mundane matter around us, but our spiritual and internal world as well, and that there is more than one possible.

The next part reiterates this by saying “The Word that is God is none other than ה.”

Crowley talks about words a lot, but when he capitalizes it, he means something more occult and philosophical. An example of this would be the Word of the Aeon, a word that is meant to embody, define, and symbolize an entire aeon of time. So, this isn’t your regular word but something that has the power to create, define, and symbolize on a higher level.

The capital B Breath is used to create the capital W Worlds. This is the Breath that the letter He symbolizes, imbued with Force and Will. It’s the breath of universal life that vivifies each and everything in the universe.

So far in the story, we have the Magus (that’s you) using the active aspect of universal energy and then manifesting. We have established the dynamic flow of active and passive powers in creation and have called it Speech using the Breath as a universal vivifying principal.

What comes next is very interesting. The Word that is God is none other than He. Could this mean that the Word, the letter He, the Breath of Force, and Will and God are all something like each other, in a fundamental way?

Verse 3 continues:

How then shall He end His speech with Silence? For He is Speech.

We’ve already established the nature of He in this context, but now we’ve introduced the word Silence as well. You’d think that silence would be the exact opposite of speech, right? Of course, speech ends with silence, if you stop talking. Let’s take a look at the special version of Speech since it’s capitalized. If we look at it through the lens of gematria, we find that the word for Speech is דומה, and its value is 55. By this, we can see that even though speech and silence are opposite, they are metaphysically equivalent. The next verse says:

He is the First and the Last. How shall He cease to number Himself?

The phrase First and the Last indicates a totality, a whole. Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Remember that the spelling of He is הה, which has a value of 10, the same as the number of spheres on the Tree of Life. How then shall the totality cease to number the Magus? What do we even do with this number soup?

We destroy it.

That was the goal stated right at the beginning of the document. To destroy something, you annihilate it with its opposite1. I strongly suspect that this whole He/ה thing has been a wordplay to get us to think about the active form of the Magus and the passive creative form of the letter ה as being two sides of the same coin that work in tandem to do magick, to create the World.

The text of Liber B vel Magi goes on for many more lines, but I won’t belabor the point I’ve already made. You can read it for yourself and expound further on the general concept. I think the important thing is that we are doing magick by taking part in the world. We are integrating events and experiences and transmuting them into creative actions to shape and create the world around us.

Further reading:

Liber B vel Magi text.

IAO131’s very in-depth breakdown of Liber B.

Hello reader, thank you for ending up on my newsletter. I truly appreciate you! Since you made it this far and must have some passing interest in all things odd, I want to introduce you to a new podcast called Dispatches from Post-Reality. There’s a discord, too! Yes, I am in the Discord. I am creating the art for the show episode covers and social media posts. It touches on some of the same esoteric subject matter you’ve come to love from this newsletter but with a decidedly funnier and much more casual tone.

When I started this substack back in February of 2021, I was guided only by a vague impulse to write down my experiences and thoughts, without much of a plan. The muses had prompted me to do something, but they left it up to me as to what that something looked like.

Writing is hard. The Devil’s Dispatch languished for a while, years in fact. I wrote here and there but so many other things presented themselves to be done, leaving me little time to write. I kept it alive in my mind, though. Even through doubts that I had picked a dumb name for it!

But here I am again. For me, writing is an act of resistance. It’s a way to meet the times as they are and co-create something better than what we have at the moment. At least that’s what I’d like to think.

Today I want to take a moment to celebrate and reflect on the fact that 200 of you decided to subscribe to the Devil’s Dispatch, and how much that means to me. I appreciate every one of you that have decided to come along with me on this journey.

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I’m sitting here at my day job, looking out the window on a barren parking lot, mulling over current events. I suspect many of you are also at your various jobs when these words find you, looking out onto the same sky as I am. We are connected outside of time and space, in the eternal moment when I am writing this and you are reading it.

Writing is a form of magick. Reading is a form of magick.

The act of communicating falls under the domain of Mercury, but I would argue that writing is very Solar. You must have a clear point of view and a well-defined sense of direction. You must shed light on whatever topic falls to your pen to illuminate for your readers. In a way, writing is a form of leadership, paving a path filled with words for some unknown person to follow after.

In Qabalah, The letter Resh ר has the value of 200. It is a solar number, fiery in nature, symbolic of the Sun. On the Tree of Life, it connects the spheres of Hod and Yesod. The word Resh means “head” connecting it to consciousness and the pineal gland.

In Sepher Sapphires under the entry for the number 200, the author writes:

As 2 multiplied by a hundred, Resh represents the totality of the Universe, of interstellar space, of the myriads of stars and all the planets; all is conditioning of life and the life of conditioning. This is a great cosmic dwelling of life, which retains life manifested in accordance with its capacity (200). It includes the totality of nature, all existence: the myriads and myriads of water-drops, of blades of grass, of living cells, and the infinite myriads of elements living in the elements of algae.

Other words with the numeration of 200 evoke ideas like magic, divination, bone and body, and wings. These ideas illuminate the Solar gateway between the microcosm and the macrocosm. It is a highway leading straight into our heart centers. Things that fall under the domain of the Sun have to do with the connection between the head and the heart. Healing often works best if the two things are in accord, divination is the bringing forth of heart knowledge to a place where the head can understand and utilize it. It’s no surprise these two things fall under the domain of Solar gods like the Olympian Apollo.

The way things seem to be going, we are going to need a lot of heart knowledge to get through these dire times. The Golden Dawn title of the Sun card of the tarot is the Lord of the Fire of the World. The heart is a beacon and a bonfire. It knows what to do and calls for us to follow that knowledge and do something with it. It is with the fires of the heart that we stoke the engines of manifestation.

The tragedy of the LA fires fresh in our minds warns us that fire can be destructive, too. That’s why we have to do the work to make sure the heartfire we nurture is beneficial to ourselves and to our communities, or else it will corrupt us and the worlds we create. The result of feeding the heart-fire hate and ignorance is paraded in front of us daily on the news, and we don’t need a reminder of where that road goes.

I’ll leave you with this poem from The Book of Thoth:

Give forth thy light to all without doubt;
the clouds and shadows are no matter for thee.
Make Speech and Silence, Energy and Stillness,
twin forms of thy play.

This Substack is my flashlight so I can find the others in the darkness. Together, we can manifest a dawn our hearts know is possible.

Hello reader, thank you for ending up on my newsletter. I truly appreciate you! Since you made it this far and must have some passing interest in all things odd, I want to introduce you to a new podcast called Dispatches from Post-Reality. There’s a discord, too! Yes, I am in the Discord. I am creating the art for the show episode covers and social media posts. It touches on some of the same esoteric subject matter you’ve come to love from this newsletter but with a decidedly funnier and much more casual tone.

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I think it’s probably a good time to think about the collapse of the current narrative structure we’ve been operating under for the last decade or so, especially in light of this week’s inauguration shenanigans. On March 30th Neptune will move into the spicy sign of Aries for the first time since the 1860s, bringing a drastic plot change to the overarching narrative we’ve been operating under for the last 14 years.

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Neptune

On the autumnal equinox of 1846, anticipation filled the air at the Berlin Observatory. While Uranus had been discovered 65 years earlier, unexplained irregularities in its orbit suggested the presence of another, more distant planet. Unlike Uranus, Neptune is too dim to be seen with the naked eye. Its discovery required mathematical predictions to guide telescopic observation. In the early hours of September 24, 1846, Johann Gottfried Galle became the first person to observe this hypothetical planet and recognize it as such. His work was guided by the calculations of French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier. Together, they confirmed the existence of Neptune, the 8th and outermost planet in our solar system.

When Galle laid eyes on Neptune the night of its discovery, the planet was conjunct Saturn at 25° of Aquarius in the bounds of Saturn.

Interestingly, Neptune was observed at several earlier points in history but was never recognized as a planet. While attempting to observe Jupiter on a cold winter night on December 28, 1612, Galileo Galilei spied another star in the viewfinder of his telescope. On that night Neptune was within 12’ of an exact conjunct with Jupiter at 26° of Virgo. Neptune had just stationed retrograde that day and appeared stationary over the next few nights, leading Galileo to record it as a fixed star.

Like Uranus, Neptune falls into the subclass of planets called ice giants. Winds of over 1200 mph and a surface temperature of -353 Fahrenheit make Neptune an especially inhospitable planet (to us, anyway). Because of the immense pressures and chemical makeup of Neptune, it is hypothesized that diamonds form in the atmosphere and rain from the sky forming diamond-burgs.1

Astrology

Back on earth, diamonds hold a high position of importance, going back to at least 500 BCE. During the Roman Empire, diamond jewelry was a symbol of wealth and power2. Not much has changed since then.

Diamonds are a useful analogy for the astrological action of Neptune. Like the glittering stone, Neptune speaks to us of beauty, glamor, mystery, fashion, and appearances. Neptune transmits, refracts, and reflects the light, transmuting the grand narrative waveforms into cultural particles of individual meaning. It is not what the thing is, but what it appears to be.

Thus, the Spectacle3 belongs to Neptune.

We live in the Spectacle, and so the outline of our lives are easily defined by it. French philosopher and Situationist Guy Debord describes the Spectacle as the idea that “all that once was directly lived has become mere representation.” The dark alchemical transformation of “the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing” is particularly Neptunian in nature. Neptune is not the thing in the Saturnian material sense, but the image of the thing abstracted and separated from its objective reality.

The Spectacle then, being divorced from any rational objectivity takes on an ephemeral nature, defining the zeitgeist. It is no surprise that Neptune takes about 14 years to move from one zodiac sign to another and that popular fads of spirituality, fashion, social movements, music, and art last roughly as long.

Neptune in Pisces reflected a Spectacle that was defined largely by ideas of compassion, understanding, saviorism, and empathy. While much work was sincerely undertaken to bring Piscean virtues of equality and inclusion to society, much emphasis was also put on the appearance of being seen to do this work. Performative acts done for the Spectacle are part and parcel of Neptunian energetic expression. Pronoun buttons, Black Lives Matter t-shirts, and celebrity fundraisers all fall into this category4.

The Neptunian narrative in Aries will not be focused on empathy, inclusion, or justice. Piscean notions of the highest good will starkly contrast with the Martian energy of burn and conquer. We can already start to see the edges of that phase shift coming into focus.

To look back in history to the last time Neptune was in Aries we must look to April of 1861 when Neptune brought war with it as it ingressed into Aries hours after the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter. This was the opening act of the American Civil War. Neptune entering Aries was not the precipitating factor for war but reflected the enthusiasm to undertake war as a society. The appeal of bloody heroism and acts of violence for (perceived) honor and glory starkly contrasts with the previous Piscean narrative paradigm. Glorification of war and violence, hero worship and veneration of Martian themes are all aspects of Neptune in Aries narratives.

The Spectacle centers your attention on a given narrative and its action is seductive. There are elements of peer pressure, enforcement of societal norms, and often government coercion that serve to enforce your attention and adherence to the narrative. Narratives often have motives and agendas that seek to mold you into the perfect believer, consumer, soldier, or factory worker.

Praxis

How do we escape the narrative wheel of samsara that is the society of the Spectacle? Do what thou wilt isn’t usually very compatible with overt coercion by societal pressures, and rarely aligns with the quest to know yourself on a higher level.

The first order of importance is to be aware of the planetary reality tunnel that’s changing, what it’s been doing, and what it’s going to be doing. Planets are always changing signs, mundane events are always happening and life goes on so this isn’t a one-off task. As magical folk, it’s our work to navigate through the terrain without succumbing to outside impulses, so that we can know our actions are coming from within and not from outside coercion. It may be helpful to ask yourself the following questions on a daily basis:

• Who benefits from this narrative? Social media and news are manipulation platforms owned by billionaires. They are not acting in your best interest.

• Who is behind this idea? See the point above.

• What do I invest my energy into? Divination helps here. Your energy is finite, don’t waste it on ragebait manipulation events and social engineering attempts.

• Why do I like/dislike this person/movement/idea? Again, who benefits from this?

• When is it best to keep silent?

It’s easier than ever for popular culture to be manipulated through various means, especially with the advent of AI that is being used for evil. You will need to guard yourself more than ever from falling into whatever flavor of the day distraction pops up, so you can be vigilant for times when it truly is important to act decisively. Divination, sigil work, and hexagram rituals5 will help in guarding yourself against the influence of the prevailing energies. Be safe out there.

Further Study

Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson (pdf)

The Hexagram Rituals

The Society of the Spectacle explained by Tom Nicholas (video)

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Hello reader, thank you for ending up on my newsletter. I truly appreciate you! Since you made it this far and must have some passing interest in all things odd, I want to introduce you to a new podcast called Dispatches from Post-Reality. I am creating the art for the show episode covers and social media posts. It touches on some of the same esoteric subject matter you’ve come to love from this newsletter but with a decidedly funnier and much more casual tone.

The latest episode explores 13-month lunar calendars, the Galactic tones, and the quest for extra holidays.

There are few places that are simultaneously more pleasant and delightful, or more alien or hostile to us than the water. Spend time in a turbulent ocean, or a rushing river, and it becomes quite apparent that we aren’t built to abide there. Evolution crafted us for entirely different environmental conditions. Yet, we require water. It is necessary for all life on this planet (that we know of). It gave birth to us, and we cannot stray far from it’s influence if we want to survive.

Thales of Miletus1 saw water as the fundamental principle from which everything in the kosmos arose. For him, water was transformative. Visiting Egypt, he experienced the Nile river flood cycle that brought fecundity to the desert. The water transformed the land and gave rise to the abundance that the Egyptians relied on. Yet, the aftermath of Hurricane Helene brought down mass destruction on Appalachia last year, and throughout history floods and storms have been said to symbolize a deity’s wrath.

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We can gain a lot of insight about the element of water by inspecting its attributes. Water is essential to life. It is a substance into which many elements can dissolve. It has the ability to reflect and refract light. Magically speaking, water is often associated with emotion, and in the tarot it is the suit of Cups. מ, Mem, one of the three mother letters of the Hebrew alphabet, is attributed to the trump the Hanged Man. Like the number of days of the Biblical flood, Mem is given the number 40 in gematria2. The letter is shaped like a womb, and has connotations of motherhood and creativity.

How do we bring this assorted set of correspondences into something real, and actionable? Here in the almost-apocalypse, we need real, tangible things that will allow us to navigate the road ahead in the best way we can. We need tools for our toolbox that will actually work for us, not just sit there lonely and collecting dust.

In the Golden Dawn and other derived traditions, the Cup is one of the four elemental weapons (or symbolic tools) of the magician, along with the Wand (Fire), the Pentacle (Earth) and the Sword (Air). Collectively they make up a large part of our magical toolbox because they are the heavy hitters. Most problems, goals and issues broadly fall under one of these elemental headings. The Cup holds water and symbolizes the infinite plane extending in all directions with no boundaries. It is the counterpoint to the fiery Wand that is a rigid point extending infinitely along a line with no end. The Cup is the Holy Grail, the Moon, the ultimate form of receptivity.

Water is known for it’s ability to acheive equalibrium in whatever vessel holds it. The Cup symbolizes the physical and spiritual vessel we cultivate in order to contain the divine Waters. If our vessel is cracked, lopsided or has holes in it, the Waters will flow out as soon as they are poured in. If our cup has no depth, there is very little Water that can be held.

Our emotional states are a barometer of our inner equalibrium. Turbulent emotions rarely signal a harmonious and stable interior life. As magical people, we seek an interior state that is conducive to empowering our magical Will, because otherwise we are either too unfocused to do much of anything —our energy is spread out and diluted, or we are too focused but in the wrong direction. Either side of this coin is not ideal for spiritual work. In bodily terms, stress and anxiety go hand-in-hand with inflammation, making it extremely difficult to cultivate an ideal body state for good health. Often (in myself, at least) all these things are tied together in one big loop of stress responses that make it really hard to work objectively towards my goals.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of building up excess fire (read: anxious) energy and causing an unbalanced state that leads to problems regarding things that fall under the domain of Water. It’s pratically a side effect of existing in the late-stage capitalist landscape we must navigate. You may make it work for some time, but eventually the lack of balance will lead to the aformentioned stress loop that seems to result in all kinds of negative health symptoms. There’s a reason it’s called burnout. This is when we need to take out our toolbox and navigate to the Cup.

In Liber 4 Part 23, Aleister Crowley writes of the Cup:

Thus, ultimately, as the wand is a binding and a limitation, so is the Cup an expansion — into the Infinite. And this is the danger of the Cup; it must necessarily be open to all, and yet if anything is put into it which is out of proportion, unbalanced, or impure, it takes hurt.

And here again we find difficulty with our thoughts. The grossness and stupidity of “simple impressions” cloud the waters; “emotions” trouble it; “perceptions” are still far from the perfect purity of truth; they cause reflections; while the “tendencies” alter the refractive index, and break up the light. Even “consciousness” itself is that which distinguishes between the lower and the higher, the waters which are below the firmament from the waters which are above the firmament, that appalling stage in the great curse of creation.

Since at the best this water is but a reflection, how tremendously important it becomes that it should be still! If the cup is shaken the light will be broken up.

And in an earlier passage:

As the Magick Wand is the Will, the Wisdom, the Word of the Magician, so is the Magick Cup his Understanding.

Crowley uses the word Understanding here specifically to reference the sphere of Binah, the third sphere on the Tree of Life. Understanding is the translation of the word Binah into English. Binah is spelled בינה and has a gematria value of 67.

It’s worth quoting a large passage from Sepher Sapphires Volume 14 on the entry for the number 67:

The fundamental meaning of Binah is the power of separation, the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, and the power to adapt means to ends. Thus it is the mental ability to distinguish one thing from another which is the basis for understanding.

Binah is both the dark sterile Mother, Ama, and Aima, the bright pregnant Mother. This aspect of Reality is the matrix of all possible specialized forms of expression. Ama represents this aspect of Being prior to the beginning of a cycle of the Life-power's self-manifestation. Aima is the fertile womb from which flow forth all forms made manifest during such a cycle of the Life-power's self-expression.

One of the keys to working with the energy of Binah is discernment. Understanding as a concept requires you to be able to discern one thing from another. If you don’t have a grasp of what you are encountering then you are unable to meet it with any type of flexibility or strategy and so cannot incorporate it into your larger energetic field in any meaningful way. On a deeper level, the act of creation is the ultimate form of discerment. To individuate is to seperate one thing from the totality of other things that it isn’t.

In practical terms, being able to discern what energy goes into your Cup and what shouldn’t is a life skill that is worth developing. Leveling up your Cup to be able to hold a variety of types of experiences is also worth while. The better your Cup is at holding various experiences and ideas, the less the “shakable” you are.

The nature of life is flux, it is a very rare life indeed that goes by without disturbances. Cheating the system by only feeding into your Cup the same curated experience every day is hardly enlightening by any stretch. Because of the varied experiences any person might encounter during their life, the Moon is an energetic pair with the Cup. Part of the dance is being able to change steps when needed, to be fixed is to the dancer’s detriment. The Moon is always changing in light, sometimes dark, sometimes full, but never the same from day to day. Just as the Cup recieves and reflects the divine light, the Moon recieves and reflects the light of the Sun. It is probably fruitful to draw further parallels between the two. That, dear reader, I’ll leave to you for further exploration.

Hello reader, thank you for ending up on my newsletter. I truly appreciate you! Since you made it this far and must have some passing interest in all things odd, I want to introduce you to a new podcast called Dispatches from Post-Reality. I am creating the art for the show episode covers and social media posts. It touches on some of the same esoteric subject matter you’ve come to love from this newsletter but with a decidedly funnier and much more casual tone. Check it out!

Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth. -William Blake

There’s a test going around on the internet that claims to let you know where you draw the line on a spectrum of blue to green compared to other people. Some people see much bluer green, and some see more green blues. The dividing line, it turns out, is much more arbitrary than it would seem.

I remember wondering as a kid whether the color I see and call blue is the same as what someone else sees and calls blue. This test plays with that idea, but might there be an even more fundamental difference? What if my brain interprets color totally differently from yours? What if the only thing really preserved is the relationship between the colors and their relative relationships to each other? There really wouldn’t be any way to know for sure, because as long as the color I see that is associated with the sky is blue and so is yours, we can all communicate clearly about the set of colors we all call blue. But in the interior space where our inner selves dwell, your actual blue might look like my purple or red instead.

So, how do we know what’s truly real? Do we follow the white rabbit like Neo in the Matrix? What if it turns out the rabbit isn’t real either?

Historically speaking, humans have responded to this question in two ways —Dualism and Non-Dualism.

It Takes Two: Dualism

If you’ve ever felt that there is someplace out there where there is a deity or power in a higher realm watching over or interacting with us down here, congratulations, you’ve won dualism! Dualism is the viewpoint that our reality consists of two distinct parts that are separated from each other. Generally, these two parts are considered to be some form of spiritual existence and some form of material existence. Examples are Christianity and Gnosticism, where you have a higher spiritual realm where God or the Archons are, and then our corrupted material realm. The two realms and ideas are separated. Dualism will often set up oppositional forces like good and bad, spiritual or material, light and dark. Dualistic thought often considers the spirit to be imprisoned in the body and seeks its release as the only way to ascend back to the higher spiritual realm.

Plato writing in his work Phaedro says:

The lovers of knowledge are conscious that their souls, when philosophy receives them, are simply fastened and glued to their bodies: the soul is only able to view existence through the bars of a prison, and not in her own nature; she is wallowing in the mire of all ignorance

Philip K. Dick’s Black Iron Prison is another incarnation of the same idea.

In Gnostic dualism, nothing we experience in our material bodies or by way of our senses can be real because the reality we are immersed in is a flawed, corrupted construct that obscures and separates us from the reality that is the pure spiritual realm where the divinity exists.

There are many flavors of dualism, including more modern interpretations like Cartesian dualism. However, they all operate on the idea that our senses cannot be trusted, because either the source of information is incorrect, or our interpretation of the information is flawed and cannot be relied upon.

Chase the White Rabbit: Non-Dualism

Non-dualism takes the opposite tack and puts forward the idea that it is the perception of separation that is the illusion. Everything is just one big super-thing, and it just seems like we are separate because of our flawed perception of division. Many Eastern religions operate in this sphere of thought.

From the Buddhist Heart Sutra1:

Here then,
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form.
Form is only emptiness,
Emptiness only forms.

Feeling, thought, and choice,
Consciousness itself,
Are the same as this.

Much like dualism, though, non-dualistic thought considers the input of the senses to also be flawed but for different reasons. Sensory perceptions are the reason why we perceive ourselves as separate in the first place. Instead of relying on our senses, we must come to realize that we are part of everything around us.

In other words That Thou Art, as the priest says in the Gnostic Mass:

O secret of secrets that art hidden in the being of all that lives, not Thee do we adore, for that which adoreth is also Thou. Thou art That, and That am I.

Part of the journey of a non-dualistic worldview is to find ways to thwart Maya and awaken to the truth that transcends dualistic thinking. There is no spoon.

The I in the Triangle: Dual-Aspect Monism

It’s easy for magicians to see both dualistic and non-dualistic points of view. Both worldviews can serve us at different times, but neither seems to serve in all cases. I still need to go grocery shopping and pay my bills, which unfortunately seem to act as separate concepts from myself. My employer doesn’t accept Maya as a reason for being late to work.

As magically operant people, we have (probably) accepted that there is a lot of illusion of separation going on down here in Malkuth2, but objects and things functionally act as if they are distinct from our person. We perceive them with our senses, but our senses are simply signals processed by our brains, filtered by who knows what meat algorithms to create what we perceive as reality. Our world seems to operate as if dualism and non-dualism are real.

Enter a third way: dual-aspect monism.

Dual-aspect monism originated in the 17th century with Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who proposed that mind and body are aspects of a third underlying thing he called Deus sive Natura, “God or Nature.” Philosophers Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer elaborated on this idea. However, it wasn’t until the advent of the quantum age of physics that dual-aspect monism found a scientific rationale to help give context to this third other realm.

In what must be the coolest team-up in history, psychologist Carl Gustav Jung and quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli came up with the Jung-Pauli Conjecture to explain the problem of mind/matter duality in a way that incorporates a psychophysically neutral reality underlying both mental and physical phenomena. This third underlying realm is the fundamental realm from which both physical and mental phenomena arise. It essentially unifies the mind/matter problem by describing a framework where they both arise that incorporates both ideas. Events or phenomena in this realm have not yet differentiated into aspects of mind or matter. In other words, phenomena existing in this state have the potential to become either physical or mental. It is only in the decomposition, or differentiation, from this realm that objects become one or the other.

The action of decomposition is one of going from unity to multiplicity. However, this is not a destructive transformation. Just like a prism breaking down white light into its constituent parts, decomposition simply reveals parts that were already inherent in the whole. The parts become explicate upon their decomposition, but they were already enfolded in the whole to begin with.

Not only do these undifferentiated phenomena have the potential to become anything, they also exist outside of space or time because those ideas are inherently tied to the physical realm, which has not yet been differentiated. In essence, they are pre-temporal and pre-spatial.

One can make comparisons between the psychophysically neutral realm and the zero-point field.3

The psychophysically neutral realm is populated by the idea of archetypes. Here archetypes are not static, but dynamic organizing principles. They are holistic gestalts of meaning, such as the idea of the Hero or the Magician. This serves to explain why synchronicity can occur because once an archetype is activated it can decompose into both material and mental occurrences. The reason archetypes are not static monoliths is because of another function of the conjecture: backreaction.

Backreaction refers to the ability of phenomena, once differentiated and manifested, to have a reciprocal influence on the psychophysically neutral realm and perhaps even reshape the original archetype itself. Because the archetype lies beyond temporal considerations, the effect can be non-linear.

An example: A person begins to explore their artistic ability, activating the archetype of the Creator. This activation of the archetype in the psychophysically neutral realm gives rise to physical phenomena such as finding the right books for learning to sculpt and meeting an artist who becomes a mentor. It also brings about mental changes, such as seeing the world in a different way and noticing details about the environment, such as light and shadow. Perhaps these things result in synchronicities, like receiving a magazine about sculpture by mistake or noticing a flyer for beginner sculpture classes at your local community center. Because it’s a two-way street, a backreaction happens, transforming the archetype of the Creator. Perhaps the archetype persists, and this person becomes a famous artist, perhaps it fades away, and the person simply explores a new hobby for a while before moving on to something else.

Another example, as I was reading some text about doomsday prophets, my husband started randomly singing the gospel song “Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.” To me personally, the idea and the song are connected, what makes them meaningful is their temporal coincidence. I think many reading this will find themselves to have been micro-engaged in this way, leading to brief but meaningful synchronicities that have no real connection to anything other than themselves. Simultaneous manifestation of physical and mental phenomena like reading a word just as it was said aloud seems to be common amongst the magically inclined4.

Central to quantum physics and the Pauli-Jung conjecture is the idea that the observer is key to determining the outcome of any observable phenomena. The observer takes an active role and is the initiator of the backreaction effect. In a way, the observer is a co-creator and mediator between the psychophysically neutral realm and the mental and material events that transpire. Even the seemingly random synchronicities mentioned require the observer to be the mediator between both occurrences to give them meaning.

If you are magically minded, this whole conjecture might be getting your gears turning concerning how magic might work in this context. The average person might not be aware of archetypes in any context, nor of their role as observer and mediator between what transpires and the backreaction that feeds back into the archetype itself. What about the magician who can knowingly feed the chosen archetype they wish to work with with deliberate backreactions? Might this be the mechanism through which ritual, sigil, and all other sorts of magical actions work? Do egregores, spirits, and thought forms live in the psychophysically neutral realm? There are a lot of possibilities to explore using this framework.

Hello reader, thank you for ending up on my newsletter. I truly appreciate you! Since you made it this far and must have some passing interest in all things odd, I want to introduce you to a new podcast called Dispatches from Post-Reality. I am creating the art for the show episode covers and social media posts. It touches on some of the same esoteric subject matter you’ve come to love from this newsletter but with a decidedly funnier and much more casual tone. Check it out!

Tonight the Sun and Moon oppose each other at 25° Virgo and Pisces respectively, darkening the full moon in a partial lunar eclipse. The maximum eclipse1 will occur around 10:45 pm EDT.

Like many things in life, eclipses happen in cycles. These cycles are tied to the movement of the north and south nodes of the moon. The nodes are always 180° opposite from each other in the chart. They signify the places where the Sun’s ecliptic intersects with the orbit of the Moon. When the Sun and Moon make conjunctions or oppositions at those places, it results in an eclipse.

The movement of the nodes is what we call retrograde2, or backward relative to the typical motion the planets (usually) follow3. They will retrograde through pairs of signs, taking about 18 months to move through each sign fully. The nodes take 18.6 years to move through the entire zodiac. That means the nodes will visit the same pair of signs about every 9 years.

During that 18-ish month period, the eclipses will always happen in the pair of signs where the nodes are. However, when the nodes begin to shift closer to the earlier degrees of their current sign, eclipses can happen in the next sign pair. This is because there is about an 18° orb on either side of the nodes where eclipses can take place. For tonight’s eclipse, the nodes are at 6° of Aries/Libra, but the opposition of the Sun and Moon are at 25° of Pisces/Virgo. Because it is only 11° away from the nodes, the eclipse will still take place even though it’s in another sign from the nodes themselves.

This “out of sign” eclipse is a preview for the next cycle that will kick off officially in March of 2025. The last time Virgo/Pisces was activated in an eclipse cycle started in September 2015 and lasted until February 2017. Likely, whatever themes arose during that time will rhyme with whatever is coming next.

The moon's north node is also known as Rahu in Vedic astrology. Rahu is the head of the dragon and is always hungry. The north node can symbolize excess and increase. The south node is the tail of the dragon, or Ketu, and symbolizes decrease and detachment. There is also a karmic element, with the north node being what we are moving towards and the south node what we are leaving behind.

The south node is moving into Virgo, the mutable Earth sign ruled by the airy Mercury. As such, we will see the energy of Virgo working toward stripping away processes and cycles. We may feel drawn to pull away from what is unnecessary and figure out how to minimize efficiently. Pisces, on the other hand, is mutable water ruled by expansive Jupiter. Here, we will find the north node, signifying increase and excess. Pisces is a vast ocean with everchanging currents. Thanks to the influence of Jupiter4, there is a spiritual quality to Pisces, but one that is open-ended and intuitive. We may find ourselves overly spiritualizing everything, much to the annoyance of our friends.

When we examine any sign axis in our charts, we look at the duality of two ideals. Virgo and Pisces represent the spectrum between logic and intuition, between the condensed point and the infinite plane. Eclipses call us to reexamine how these energies play out in our lives and if they are working for us or not. Sometimes, what isn’t working needs to change. It is important to the functioning of any organism to clean out and break down the old unused structures of our lives so that new, better ones can be built. There is merit in sticking to tried and true conventions, but sometimes what life requires of us is to strike out into unknown territory and build a new map.

Eclipse Horoscopes

Each person’s chart will be unique, and a lot will be determined by the planets in each sign and where the ruling planets lie. No section of the chart or situation can be looked at in isolation, but there may be general themes that will be common to everyone with a similar rising sign and house placement. If you know your birth time, then locate what houses Virgo and Pisces are for you.5 If you don’t know your birth time (and so you don’t know your house placements), think about the last Virgo/Pisces eclipse season and any big shifts that happened for you then, and locate the houses that best match what you experienced during that time.

1st House/7th House

This season is going to be up close and personal for you. It’s all about the relationship with yourself, and with others. Neptune is in Pisces as well, adding a dreamy and nebulous quality to the whole situation. Like ocean currents, relationships may ebb and flow or may suck you out into a wild and intense rip current. You may be pushed to dissolve restrictions you’ve put on yourself or others, or you may need to draw some much-needed boundaries. Decide how you want to navigate these waters.

2nd House/8th House

The 2nd/8th house axis deals with your resources and where they come from. You may be feeling oppressed or restricted financially. It may seem that you are casting about in an endless ocean with no clear path in sight, and the current plan isn’t working. Now is the time to put your creative powers and intuition to work. Income opportunities may come from unexpected places. Be open to unconventional ways of taking in resources. Don’t neglect the treasures you find in the tide pools and secret coves but be sure they are useful. Take what you need and leave the rest to the gulls.

3rd House/9th House

Themes of fact versus belief may need to be reevaluated during this eclipse season. Intuitive ways of knowing may be more useful than rote fact and logic. Old and outdated thought structures may need to be washed away now so that new thought forms can be built. The 3rd and 9th houses also rule travel, both near and far. You may find yourself on distant shores far from home, or you may feel the need to stick to your home waters. What is important is to examine your deeply held metaphysics on how and why you travel through this life.

4th House/10th House

This eclipse season is going to put the focus on what is most visible about yourself and what you keep hidden and private. It may be that you will need to release and let go of the structures you’ve built to protect your most vulnerable self. How do you transform the inner into the outer and make it work for you in a positive way? On the flip side, how do you process something intensely public in a balanced and positive way? There may be parts of yourself that could stand to be relaxed a bit to allow yourself the grace to assimilate these experiences.

5th House/11th House

Pleasure and friendship are themes for this axis of your chart. You may find yourself mingling and mixing even more than before as boundaries and limits dissolve. Be wary of dissolving them too much or in ways you aren’t comfortable with. It is one thing to be in the ocean with friends but quite another to be swimming with sharks. Build up your social muscle to identify between the sharks and the friends.

6th House/12th House

It is important to be gentle to yourself and allow any rest or healing you need during this period. If that means retreating to quiet waters or taking more time for self-care, let that be your medicine. Focus less on analyzing yourself and more on intuitively feeling what you need during this time. The overbearing voice in your head is rarely helpful, so don’t let it take the rudder when it is not needed.

As with any upcoming period of change, I would recommend divination and meditation for a more intimate understanding of what types of energies will be popping up for you as an individual. Once you get a handle on what you are dealing with, consider astrological remediation, mindfulness, and magick where necessary to help facilitate what changes are needed. Rahu and Ketu —the head and tail of the dragon, represent change. Change can be chaotic and feel scary. Sometimes it is scary. There is a reason the edges of the map were marked with sea monsters. Even so, think of the adventure that lies beyond what is currently on your map.

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Hello reader, thank you for ending up on my newsletter. I truly appreciate you! Since you made it this far and must have some passing interest in all things odd, I want to introduce you to a new podcast called Dispatches from Post-Reality. I am creating the art for the show episode covers and social media posts. It touches on some of the same esoteric subject matter you’ve come to love from this newsletter but with a decidedly funnier and much more casual tone. Check it out!

Have you ever pulled a tarot card and you really just didn’t understand what it was trying to tell you? And then the card keeps popping up, over and over again just to confound you even more? For me that card is the 3 of Wands —the Lord of Virtue. I’ve read the descriptions of the card from multiple sources, I know what it means, but I never really got what it was trying to say, if that makes sense. When it popped up I just felt some vague sense of duty maybe? A call to be a good example? I wasn’t sure.

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I’m an audiobook person. I have a lot of time at work where I’m mostly on autopilot and that leaves me with the ability to listen to something without too much interruption. Naturally, I blow through audiobooks and podcasts so I’m always looking for the next thing for my ears to consume. This week I’m listening to How to be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Shur. If you’ve ever watched The Good Place, he’s the guy who created that show. As you’d expect coming from a pretty funny guy, the title is tongue-in-cheek and quite entertaining for a book on ethics. The book opens with the all important question: is it ok to just punch your friend in the face? To answer that important question, the author jumps into exploring Aristotle’s concept of virtue ethics.

Aristotle’s theory of virtue ethics comes from one of his numerous works, Nicomachean Ethics. According to Aristotle, virtues are habits or dispositions a person may possess that when cultivated in the right amount will lead to eudaimonia1, or flourishing. According to this model, flourishing is the ultimate goal or telos2 of being a human. The actual Greek word he uses for the idea of virtue is aretē or excellence. So in practice, virtue is more of a verb than a noun. It’s something you do, that you cultivate by repetition and habit. Moreover, it’s something you have to have just the right amount of. Excesses and deficits turn into vices, not virtues.

There are a lot of different virtues, like courage, truthfulness, generosity, and magnificence. Wittiness is actually one of the O.G. key virtues Aristotle lists as important in human flourishing. Wittiness, according to him is the golden mean between buffoonery and boorishness. If you are the class clown, or you kill every vibe you come across then it’s safe to say you’ve moved from virtue to vice in this category.

When I heard this description of virtue explained in the Aristotelian context, I immediately understood what the 3 of Wands card meant. It often came up for me in spreads to do with situations at work, and now I know the card was recommending that I conduct myself with just the right amount of whatever was needed at the time. Not too much, but not too little either. Not only must you invest the right amount of energy into that thing, but you must also cultivate the habit of doing so. It’s an ongoing effort.

If we pop the hood open on the 3 of wands, we find that it is the card of the exalted Sun in Aries. Most decks have this card decorated in fiery shades of red and orange. Ptolemy writes in the Tetrabiblos:

The Sun has its exaltation in the sign of Aries because this is the point at which the day and night become equal, signifying the beginning of the solar year and the renewal of life. This is when the Sun’s power is most visible and its effects most beneficial, as the balance of light and dark reflects the harmony of its rule.3

The symbolism here perfectly embodies the idea of virtue being the balance between two extreme points. The Sun at the spring equinox gives an equal amount of light and dark. In essence, it is right at the center of two extremes of the winter and summer solstices. Of course, the fall equinox would also fulfill that requirement, but the amount of darkness begins to increase in the fall and so is less ‘positive’ in those terms.

The card is also of the suit of Wands, symbolizing the energy of Fire and Will. It is an act of Will to cultivate virtue, and it is the Will that is served by the acquisition of virtue. When driven by excesses and vice4, we are easily manipulated by outside influences. We become tools of a Will that is not our own.

It’s easy to see how a lack of virtue in the common citizen is a win for the nefarious forces in our society. The more people operating from a place of vice and unbalance, the easier it is to push a view on them, sell them something, or get them to go along with unjust actions. Unbalanced states are powerful levers for unscrupulous people to take advantage of. As magicians, we need to be aware of these factors and defend against manipulation just as we would any other magical threat.

The Lord of Virtue has a lot to teach us about how to live in our current moment. By cultivating virtue ourselves and teaching our young ones to build that habit, we increase resistance to the manipulations of corrupt politicians and those who would bend us to their will. It makes us better magically operant people and better humans.

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Hello reader, thank you for ending up on my newsletter. I truly appreciate you! Since you made it this far and must have some passing interest in all things odd, I want to introduce you to a new podcast called Dispatches from Post-Reality. I am creating the art for the show episode covers and social media posts. It touches on some of the same esoteric subject matter you’ve come to love from this newsletter but with a decidedly funnier and much more casual tone. Check it out!

It's a subtle occasion when the seasons start to turn in Florida. The heat and humidity stretch to the point that it feels like we only have two seasons, hot and slightly less hot. One must be acutely tuned to the slightest nuances in weather to feel the morning that is just a few degrees cooler than the past week, or that breeze that somehow has the smallest hint of future frosts. In north Florida, we won’t get truly cooler weather until late October if we’re lucky, but the stage is beginning to be set now as the sun moves steadily through Virgo on its way to the Autumnal Equinox.

I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t feel the magical current in the turning of the seasons. We moderns are somewhat divorced from the necessity of heeding the signs nature gives us to sow and reap, but beyond that, there is an undeniable energy that prompts a restlessness for the next thing that arises within us too. A turning, a pivot towards the darkness of winter and towards the new green things that spring after.

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Seasons are patterns. Humans are professional pattern finders. We like to see them everywhere and our brains are constantly comparing and contrasting everything to see if it fits within the nice boxes patterns provide for us. The concept of a pattern implies that things and ideas follow a certain sameness, but we must not harden our thoughts and experiences into the stiffness of a pattern at the expense of extinguishing the uniqueness each moment can hold. To mistake sympathy for sameness reduces our agency. It flattens out our cultural expressions as a society, reducing culture to constant repetitions of the same ideas over and over again with no increase in novelty. Hollywood’s infinite string of reboots and sequels are an example of this.

If you’ve ever played with divination you know that predictions often have a strange way of fulfilling themselves in the most unexpected but accurate ways. We carefully search the patterns to find meaning, but the cards resist. A Death card pulled in the morning turns out to predict being stuck in traffic behind a funeral procession. A challenging Mars transit to your first house might just be a bad haircut. We simply cannot determine ahead of time the strange ways the energies will often fulfill their meta-narratives while preserving the uniqueness of the experience.

Viewed a certain way, we could understand this to be the dynamic of play between the One and the Many. This multiplicity is perhaps why the domain of magic is often attributed to the fleet feet of Mercury, or the Moon and her many changing faces. The same, but different, and infinitely so. Patterns often rhyme but are rarely exact copies of a set experience.

Last week Mars moved into Cancer and will be there until November 3 when it moves into Leo. In a move ripe with potential symbolism (if you are an American, at least), Mars will retrograde back into Cancer on January 6th of 2025 and will retrograde back to 17° Cancer before pivoting and going back into Leo on April 19. The months ahead will undoubtedly be colored by quite a lot of Mars in Cancer.

Mars is in its fall in the sign of Cancer. According to an ancient Hellenistic source, the Michigan Papyrus, when a planet is in its fall, it is considered to be imprisoned:

In these signs the stars have their own powers and are vigorous. And nature assigned them thrones and prisons; their thrones the signs upon which they are exalted and have royal power and prisons wherein they are depressed and oppose their own powers.

Depending on the house that the sign of Cancer occupies in your natal chart, you may have felt dramatic and sudden effects from this ingress. This last week was hell at work for me, and it highlighted how my work situation is acting as an imprisoning factor in a lot of ways in my personal life. The sign of Cancer for me is the 6th house of work, routine, and health. I have a lot of introspection to do in that department in the weeks ahead.

As I have written before, Mars in Cancer holds space for the opportunity to slay whatever internal emotional blockages are holding you hostage so that you can come fully into your power. Be careful though, and tread thoughtfully so as to keep the energies from overwhelming you or burning your own fingers in the process.

To me, this feels like a season of change. The meta-narrative pattern is set by the space weather, but our individual experiences may play out in a myriad of ways. We may move with it, or struggle against it. We may use divination to shine light and help guide us towards our best future. Or we may simply go on, as we always do —discovering and acting on each moment as it comes. There is no right or wrong way.

A Mars in Cancer Divination

I’m using tarot, but I think this method could be adapted to whatever you like so long as you can fit your technique to the questions. Well, probably only just runes, but your mileage may vary. Shoot for the moon they say.

The purpose of this divination is to survey the battlefield and devise a strategy to go forward through this Mars in Cancer season, but it could be applied to any situation where you are unsure of how to proceed towards a goal. The spread itself is inspired by lunar-martial energies. There are nine cards, the number of the Moon and its sphere Yesod mirroring the lunar cycle. However, the metaphor is purely Martial. Shuffle the deck as you see fit and then lay out 9 cards as shown below:

Card 1 - The Enemy: Corresponding to the new Moon, this card shows what you are up against. Perhaps it is known, or perhaps it is hidden. Either way, this is the obstacle in your path.

Card 2 - The Call: It is not enough to have an abstract enemy out there somewhere, there must also be something to rouse the warrior to battle. What is calling you to action?

Card 3 - The Weapon: What do you bring to battle? Is it your wits, your compassion, or something else?

Card 4 - The Ally: Who helps you along the way?

Card 5 - The Battle: A full moon is an opposition of the Lunar and the Solar. Internal and external. What happens when you face your foe?

Card 6 - The Turning Point: In every battle the scales begin to tip one way or another. What signifies the turn towards victory?

Card 7 - Victory: What brings you to victory? And what does it look like?

Card 8 - The Journey Home: The battle is over and won, but now begins the journey home. Our hero is changed. Who is it that now walks the road home?

Card 9 - What is Left Behind: What is left behind on the battlefield in the dark of the moon?

Some Housekeeping

I know it’s been a while since I last posted. Thank you to all those who have subscribed recently just on faith that I’d post again after several years.

Additionally, you may be interested in a new podcast called Dispatches from Post-Reality. I am creating the art for the show episode covers and social media posts. It touches on some of the same esoteric subject matter you’ve come to love from this newsletter but with a decidedly funnier and much more casual tone. Check it out!

I’ve been wanting to write this for a while, but sometimes the words need to stew in your mind for a while before taking shape into something coherent.

By the way, I apologize for the long hiatus. Honestly, it’s hard to think of something original to write every week, or even every month sometimes. That’s not really my style anyway. I’m not going to write something for the sake of delivering content on a timely schedule. I think that there’s enough of that in the world these days and honestly let’s just say it isn’t leading to the betterment of society. So, you can expect newsletters from me when I have something to say, no more and no less.

Also, I wanted to thank the new subscribers that have joined recently. I appreciate every one of you.

On the long drive back from my sister’s house after Thanksgiving, we ended up driving past a business with a prominently hung banner saying “Heroes Work Here.” It’s a common enough sight in these times but somehow it stirred up something my brain wouldn’t let go of. I was struck by the disconnect between the message and the meaning. The word hero has a certain meaning: it is a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. I am sure that the people working at this job have a whole range of characteristics, some noble and some probably not. In any case, they are more than likely just struggling to pay bills and get by like the rest of us.

I’m fascinated by the use of words and how they shape our perception. By using a word like hero, companies are trying to control the narrative to their benefit. In other words, they are trying to create change according to their will. We all know at this point that businesses are desperately trying to keep employees working through sometimes unsafe conditions have resorted to this type of manipulation. A banner extolling the virtues of the workforce might cost a couple of hundred bucks, much cheaper than increasing compensation or doing anything meaningful. In 2021 we are all jaded to this type of treatment. Not only are we bombarded with meaningless platitudes from our jobs but we hear it on the news and from people in positions of authority and power.

In magical practice, we often rely on the meaning of words to impart specific energies into our rituals and other workings. The Sanskrit mantra is a prime example of certain words and syllables conveying specific energy into our work. In the western tradition, we have various names of angels and intelligences, prayers, and calls. Everywhere we turn, we find a link between words, meaning, and power. If we call on the power of Jupiter, we know what that energy generally entails. If we get something icy and restrictive, we know something must be amiss.

Going back to the hero example, what happens when we use a word with an explicit meaning in a context in which it doesn’t belong? Say, for instance, the word hero evokes the energy of someone like Hercules, a mythic hero of ancient Greek legend. Does using it in the wrong context degrade the power it holds? This type of word meaning scramble is used everywhere. How many packaged items have you seen with the words “all-natural” emblazoned on the box? If everything stems from nature anyway, what does that even mean? Asbestos is technically all natural but that doesn’t make it good for you.

Words occupy a liminal space, being both real and unreal. This quality makes them the ultimate tool of the magus. They are can be both the weapon and the defense. The question is, do words exist without the human intellect that pronounces them? More abstractly, do ideas exist without a mind to think them?

As it is said in Liber B vel Magi:

In the beginning doth the Magus speak Truth, and send forth Illusion and Falsehood to enslave the soul. Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption. By His Wisdom made He the Worlds; the Word that is God is none other than He. How then shall He end His speech with Silence? For He is Speech.

By using words to interface between the macrocosmic universal and the microcosmic human mind, there is a lot that is lost in translation. The word can not 100% replicate the thing as it is. In a way, this is just a restating of the idea that the map is not the territory. There is already significant noise in the signal by the very nature of our interpretation of it. When bad actors further degrade the signal, we slide towards information entropy.

Living in the alphabet soup version of meaning can be draining. When extreme adjectives are invoked for mediocrity, it’s hard to feel much but indifference in almost every situation. We are led to believe going to work to pay our bills is akin to the trials of Hercules, why does every day feel so empty and devoid of meaning? If this box of cereal is all-natural why does it taste like cardboard? We are told over and over that everything is the biggest, best, and most amazing, no matter what it is. Generally, it’s less than average at best. When we are immersed in this type of environment it’s hard to have the energy to combat it. Sure you can turn off the TV, but you can’t avoid every single instance. We are bombarded with it everywhere we turn, even at the gas pump. In this situation, words are intended as weapons against us.

Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption.

The thing is, words aren’t real but they do partially describe a portion of reality. The fact they can only ever partially describe the Truth is where the falsehood and illusions part comes in. Every word we speak is both false and true. Sometimes the falsehood is quite clear, as with our hero example and our all-natural cereal. In our mundane lives, the manipulation we are all subjected to constantly muddies the waters of meaning, but it does serve to remind us that in a way all words serve to enslave the soul. While that is probably more dramatic than need be (we are talking about something Crowley wrote so it kind of comes with the territory), but that doesn’t negate its value as a good maxim to keep in mind.

So what do we do? How do we end our speech with silence when we are surrounded by speech? What is even Silence with a capital S, anyway?

One of the entries for Silence in Liber 500 is דומה, dumah, with the value of 55. Dumah means silence or stillness, but figuratively also means like the dead who dwell in silence. In fact, the same word with different pointing is the name of the angel of the dead. The number 55 is also the mystic number of the sphere of Malkuth, as it is the sum of the numbers from 1-10. Additionally, if we add 5+5 we also get 10, the number of Malkuth. Clearly, there is something very Malkuth-y about the idea of Silence.

Malkuth is the lowest sphere on the Tree of Life, and it is the place where all the energies of the higher spheres converge. The element represented by Malkuth is Earth. Our material bodies exist here on Malkuth along with everything they can interact with physically. I would even speculate that words only have meaning in Malkuth since it is our physical existence that necessitates the translation of ideas into discrete units of meaning our meat brains can grasp. Recognizing that fact we realize that the problem and the solution are one and the same. We can’t avoid being subject to words, but we can realize they are an artifact of our material existence, and by doing that we take away their power. Not only do we take their power, but we also empower them by virtue of the same mechanism. The speech and the silence are two sides of the same coin. The difference is up us.

“The Word that is God is none other than He”

Praxis

Create or select a mantra that will help you see through false words and detect their true intentions. When you are at the grocery store, repeat it silently to yourself. Does it have any effect on what you buy?

Practice empowering words in your daily life. Treat it like a consecration. Imagine you are creating a whole microcosm connected to each word that you choose to empower. If you pick something like the word “read,” imagine knowledge being funneled into your mind, your intellect becoming stronger and more agile. Imagine your worldview expanding, becoming a more well-rounded person, etc. You may choose to embody it with art or song. Have fun with it. When you are done, you have a personalized, consecrated word of power for your use.

Did you make it here from Reddit, Twitter, or Instagram? Do you like this kind of content? I would be absolutely thrilled if you would subscribe to this newsletter, so I can feel better about not just talking to myself. I aim to publish about once a week, depending on what I have to say. Many thanks!

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Sitting here at my desk, slightly chilly under the unnatural spectrum of florescent lights and the indistinct hum of office hardware, I am experiencing a deep melancholy. Maybe melancholy isn’t the right descriptor, because typically melancholy stems from an unknown cause. In my specific case, the cause is quite clear: wasting away in the capitalist grind until I retire after my best years are over is setting quite a mood.

Dear reader, are you also feeling that mood?

It’s easy to feel helpless, especially in the current climate where it seems our choices are rather limited. Bills need to be paid, and it’s quite hard to enjoy life much without the basic necessities, which of course cost money. If you are living in America, like me, you are probably quite aware that the basic human necessities are currently an all-you-can-eat buffet for corporations to profit off your bodily requirements.

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This isn’t really an essay on the evils of capitalism, at least not directly. Instead, I want to take a more practical approach for the office occultist, that of resistance from within the system. How do we take back our hours spent at a desk and reclaim our agency? How do we re-enchant our working hours?

Preliminaries

Many of us take for granted that things just “are the way they are” and there is nothing that can be done to change it. This is an attitude encouraged by capitalists to foster complacency. Why bother trying to change anything when it’s not going to have any effect on the future? Despite seeming hopeless on the surface, there have actually been many improvements to the lives of the working class that have been made over the last century1, and while the plight of workers has stagnated in the last few decades, workers are starting to reclaim their leverage as Covid workforce shortages have created employers desperate to find employees at almost any cost.

As folk of magical persuasion, we are used to working within systems, but not engaging with or embracing the dogma of that system at the cellular level (looking at the chaos wizards out there). We get in, do what we need to do, and then get out. That’s what we aim to do here. Very few of us can leave the system, but that doesn’t mean we have to embrace it utterly as the one true way. Maintaining spiritual agency is key to navigating the capitalist wasteland.

The jig is up when it comes to the workforce placidly accepting 40 (or often many more) hours per week of labor in order to attempt to make ends meet. The 40-hour workweek was predicated on a single-income household where women were expected to do the household chores and childcare while the husband was away at work. Times have changed since then, and now we have exponentially less time to undertake basic household maintenance, care for our children or cook dinner after working all day. While we still need to pay the bills, fewer and fewer people are happy about the prospect of wasting the best years of their life behind a desk or on a production floor and then scrambling with what little free time they have left to just keep the house up. Magically speaking, the glamor is fading, and fading fast. The premise of capitalism rests on the exploitation of our time and energy to produce wealth, literally to work is to become the capital of a capitalist (hint: if you have no capital, you are not a capitalist but instead a cog in that system). When we are squeezed and stretched in many directions, the idea of being the capital in the capitalist system doesn’t sit well with many of us.

It helps that society’s sentiment towards work is changing on a large scale. Not only does this provide a bit of comfort that we aren’t walking this road alone, but it also provides energy to put towards future resistance work. The changing collective unconscious2 is both an indicator of current sentiment and a reservoir for moving the zeitgeist forward. Before we can resist in ways small and big, we must mentally reject that the shape of our lives must be described by capitalist ideas.

Practical Magick

One of these ideas is that our worth is linked to hours worked. In this view, the implication is that creativity and leisure are therefore worthless unless they are done in the service of making money. We have been inundated in our personal lives by constant prompts to only do things that will make us money in one way or another. We see this doctrine manifested in the employee who brags about working long hours with little sleep or the person who proudly responds to an email at 9 pm. These days, the doctrine of monetization often manifests as “entrepreneurial spirit” or the ever-present side hustle. For people who have fully embraced this idea, no aspect of life isn’t an opportunity to make money. Unfortunately, this is how we’ve ended up with coin-operated water fountains and for-profit healthcare. It’s unsurprising that American capitalism ultimately evolved to its current manifestation, given the puritan worldview that it grew from. If idleness was the domain of the devil, the only way to godliness was to work. Clearly, this is an idea that was readily embraced by the so-called job creators.

Our first act of resistance will be to reject this doctrine. To reclaim our minutes and seconds as belonging to us, not to a dollar value, is to allow us time to embody our purest unmitigated Self. If it is possible, do so during work hours. Write, draw and research at your desk. If your work situation is such that you cannot risk being caught not doing work, make sure to give yourself ample time at home to do whatever you please. Additionally, make yourself unavailable during non-work hours. Enchant profusely towards this aim if the mundane methods aren’t an option for you.

You might notice that I rarely go into detail on the nitty-gritty of how to enchant for something. Mainly, this is because I believe that the methods don’t matter in achieving your magical work. In short, it all works. I do, however, want to bring your attention in this case to working with Hermes/Mercury. As the god of liars, tricksters, and thieves as well as commerce, working with Mercury might provide some interesting opportunities for making space for non-work activities while at work. For a deeper dive into working with Hermes/Mercury, check out my previous article here.

We could learn a thing or two by imitating Hermes at work. Hermes is clever, and we must be too so that we can navigate through the wasteland without losing ourselves or our source of income. We will be required to wear many masks, present many identities. As Aleister Crowley said, change equals stability3.

Water Cooler Divination

Our second act of resistance is to flip the power dynamic and make work work for us. We can do this in part by taking the opportunity to sharpen our magical skills while we are at work since we have to be there anyway. There are tons of small and big opportunities to practice in the workplace, with a bit of ingenuity.

One of the easiest magical practices to undertake at work is divination. If you have the type of job where you can scribble, Geomancy4 is an incredibly practical and quick way to use divination in places where you can’t access your phone, but where you have pen and paper handy. I have often thrown down 4 lines of dots to create a figure that represents the energetic tone of a meeting I was stuck at. You can do it quite inconspicuously and it has the added benefit of providing some entertainment. If tarot is more your thing, there are several great phone apps that will allow you to check the cards5. Fun ways to use divination at work include the following:

• What is that secret upper management meeting really about?

• How will this secret meeting affect me?

• Why is the boss late every morning?

• Will the company go under this year?

• Should I look for another job?

• What was the real motive for the conversation I just had with Judy from HR?

Another great aspect of using divination at work is that things tend to move quickly enough that you can test your results and get a gauge for how accurate they are. I have often used horary astrology to discern the nature of an upper management meeting and then been able to judge my result that day, or the next day when an announcement was made.

Another form of resistance that you can easily adapt to workplace usage is sigil magick6. Sigils are easy to create, charge and place in prime spots on the fly. If you get caught it’s easy to pass them off as a doodle. Good usages for sigils at work are for protection from enemies, invisibility from prying managerial eyes, and enhanced compensation.

Here’s an example workday in the life of the enterprising wizard:

Our workplace wizard arrives at work exactly on time Monday morning. They don’t clock in a minute before the scheduled time. On the way to their desk, they greet their co-workers. Sitting down to start the day, they check their email and find that there is a meeting request from HR. Puzzled by this, they take the time to throw up a quick horary chart on their phone. They see that Jupiter is in the 10th house with an applying sextile from Venus in domicile, putting their mind at ease that this isn’t a meeting to worry about. They find there is enough time for a quick banishing ritual in the bathroom before the HR meeting, just in case. At 10 am they head down to the conference room and meet with HR. Apparently, they’ve been doing a great job and everyone is happy to work with them. Clearly, the sigil they created last week to increase their compensation has paid off (literally). After the meeting, they go back to their desk to finish up the work for the day. In the few hours left before quitting time, they discretely read some magical texts and start to formulate new ideas for sigils that will be launched in the coming days. At the end of the day, they draw up a quick geomancy chart to see what tomorrow holds in store. At the end of the day, they leave not a second past quitting time and go home to enjoy life to the best of their ability.

The shape that re-enchanting your specific workplace takes will vary from person to person. A factory floor job is not the same as a desk job, and so will take a bit of creative finagling to work out the best practical solution in each scenario. No matter what, the focus should be the balance between practicality and discretion. Unless it is your will to leave your current work situation, don’t do anything obvious that will get you fired. The point isn’t to lose your income, it is to take back some of your agency that is stripped away in the capitalist system that forces you to work almost all of your waking hours in order to survive.

Rewilding as Counterbalance

Are we really ok with a life hidden from the sky and sun 8 hours of every day? The idea sits uneasily with me. The artificiality of the workplace and the unnatural hierarchical and anti-human philosophies grind us down day after day. It is easy to become removed from our connection to the Earth and her cycles when we scarcely experience them. After the weekly grind, it is hard to muster the energy or time to look up and see the phase of the moon or notice the first chill air of autumn in the air.

Embracing our natural cycles and reasserting our physicality as part of the larger whole, is anathema to the capitalist cult. Nature keeps no office hours and cares not for quotas or goals. Time flows differently in the woods and the fields, the stars wheel overhead according to their own plans. We are a part of that beautiful chaos, not the world of 15 minutes breaks and mandatory overtime. To accept that as the natural order is to be cut from our true connection to the Earth and to ourselves.

The options, though, seem limited when you are forced to spend most of your hours at work. How can we rewild our life? First, become aware of the natural cycles and acknowledge the part they play. Day and night are the easiest, to begin with. Next, add in the seasonal changes, the equinoxes, and solstices. These mark the journey of the Sun in the sky over the course of the year. You may also choose to add in the Sun’s zodiacal journey and the phases of the Moon. Do what feels best for you, and don’t worry when you forget, this isn’t a competition!

In addition to marking and honoring the cycles of nature, visit wild places as often as possible. There is much to learn from observing and being a part of the natural environment. Not only is there much to learn, but it’s also actually great for your health7. Even just walking in your yard or nearby green space and seeing the plants, insects, and birds doing their thing is stress-relieving. There is also something special (but sometimes not comfortable) about being in wild spaces. It’s dirty, the temperature might not be pleasant and the humidity is sometimes unbearable, but it’s real. It’s not temperature controlled or dehumidified. Not to say there is anything wrong with those things (especially as a person living in Florida), but to think they are anything other than artificial is mistaken. Their loss in certain places would bring into sharp perspective the challenges of existing as human beings in certain climates.

To sum up, these are just a few things you can do to take back agency in a disenchanted world. They may be the whole picture or just small parts in your larger one, that is for you to decide. At whatever scale, resisting total assimilation into the corporate cult is deeply satisfying and liberating. Give it a try!

Do you have a story to share about how you’ve re-enchanted your workplace? Please comment! Remember, we are all in this together.

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Happy Sunday everyone. Last Sunday was a miss, a mix of the three-day weekend and unexpected company combined to take up all my designated writing time. Either way, this week I am back with six more links of varying interest. Enjoy!

1. Neither Gods Nor Witches Ever Went Away

On 11 September, 2021, Rhyd Wildermuth presented on paganism, animism, and climate change as part of the agora Citoyenne Sur Les Écosystemes  in the ruins of a medieval castle in the town of Esch-Sur-Sûre.

Check it out here.

2. Internet Occultists Are Trying to Change Reality With a Magickal Algorithm

The Sigil Engine adapts an ancient practice for the internet age, creating mystic symbols that true believers say can bend the universe to their will.

Read it here via Motherboard.

3. Photography: Witches as Women Empowered by the Occult

Using the rather anachronistic technique of wet plate collodion process, Rik Garrett’s photographic series envisions “a matristic, nature-based world; a female-centric, ritualistic community completely apart from the rest of society. This is a history of 'witchcraft' devoid of 'witch hunts,' a race of women who draw their energy and inspiration from the Earth itself. 

See it here.

4. Encyclopedia Of A World That Doesn’t Exist | Codex Seraphinianus

5. Islamic Finger-Snapping Demons And Other Illustrations from Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing, 1283

These illustrations of finger-snapping demons and fantastical creatures are actually pretty cute! The book was originally published in 1283 by Zakarīyā’ ibn Muḥammad al-Qazwīnī who was working in the city of Qazwīn in Persia.

See more here.

6. A Visual Reference to the Behenian Fixed Stars

Check out this handy visual graphic showing the Behenian fixed stars for use in astrology and magick.

View it here.

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Most parents will be familiar with the nightly ritual of the goodnight kiss. This ritual is of utmost importance and cannot be skipped, and sometimes must be repeated several times as a ploy to avoid bedtime. Why do we put so much importance on a brief touch of lips? A kiss goodbye can mean so much more than a parting act, a kiss o goodnight can be like a lantern to drive away the fear of darkness. We kiss for so many reasons, but each time we do, there seems to be more to it than just the physical act. This unspoken reality pervades our culture, right down to the kiss that wakes the princess from her enchanted slumber.

The earliest mention of a kiss in literature comes from Vedic texts written around 1500 BCE, describing the kiss as being like “inhaling another’s soul.” The kiss is also referenced in ancient Sumerian and Egyptian poetry, like this example from the New Kingdom period1:

Sweet, sweet, sweet as honey in my mouth, 

His kisses on my lips, my breast, my hair; 

But now my heart is as the sun-scorched South, 

Where lie the fields deserted, grey and bare. 

Come! Come! Come! And kiss me when I die, 

For life, compelling life, is in thy breath; 

And at that kiss, though in the tomb I lie, 

I will arise and break the bands of Death.

In the ancient Egyptian Book of Going Forth by Day, there are multiple references to kisses, usually kissing the earth, or kneeling. Not quite the touch of lips, but the sentiment is the same. In each case, something intangible seems to pass from one to another. Intangible though it might be, a kiss is a gesture that is filled with potency and power. Remember, Jesus was betrayed by a kiss.

It is no surprise that ancient Christianity picked up on the rich culture of kissing and incorporated it into their rituals. The Kiss of Peace or Holy Kiss is a greeting given by members of the clergy or church to each other. In Greek, it is the ἐν ἁγίω φιλήματι, en hagio philemati. In Latin, it became osculum pacis. St. Augustine mentioned the kiss in his Easter sermon, speaking of it as a sacrament:

After this, the 'Peace be with you’ is said, and the Christians embrace one another with the holy kiss. This is a sign of peace; as the lips indicate, let peace be made in your conscience, that is, when your lips draw near to those of your brother, do not let your heart withdraw from his. Hence, these are great and powerful sacraments.

The Catholic church incorporated this into its rituals and later protestant branches kept the idea but lost the lip contact. If you’ve ever been to a southern baptist church, you will be familiar with the awkward portion of the service where everyone walks around and shakes hands and hugs. As a child, nothing was weirder to me than having to shake some old man’s clammy hands for an incomprehensible reason midway through a boring sermon. Now as adults we can rest easy in the knowledge that the clammy handshake was a direct descendent of the osculum pacis.

The same church patriarchy that conceptualized osculum pacis also projected its opposite onto the alleged witches it persecuted. The osculum infame, or the shameful kiss was the kiss to the anus that marked a witch’s allegiance to the Devil. A 16th-century text remarks the following:

...and seeing that they tarried over long, he at their coming enjoyned them all to a pennance, which was, that they should kisse his buttockes, in sign of duety to him, which being put over the pulpit bare, every one did as he had enjoyned them.

Gregory IX's condemnation of heresy, Vox in Rama from 1123 gives more detail on the Devil’s Kiss:

The following rites of this pestilence are carried out: When any novice is to be received among them and enters the sect of the damned for the first time, the shape of a certain frog [or toad] appears to him. Some kiss this creature on the hind quarters and some on the mouth, they receive the tongue and saliva of the beast inside their mouths. Sometimes it appears unduly large, and sometimes equivalent to a goose or a duck, and sometimes it even assumes the size of an oven. At length, when the novice has come forward, he is met by a man of wondrous pallor, who has black eyes and is so emaciated thin that since his flesh has been wasted, seems to have remaining only skin drawn over [his] bone. The novice kisses him and feels cold, like ice, and after the kiss the memory of the Catholic faith totally disappears from his heart. Afterwards, they sit down to a meal and when they have arisen from it, the certain statue, which is usual in a sect of this kind, a black cat descends backwards, with its tail erect. First the novice, next the master, then each one of the order who are worthy and perfect, kiss the cat on its buttocks. Then each [returns] to his place and, speaking certain responses, they incline their heads toward to cat. “Forgive us!” says the master, and the one next to him repeats this, a third responding, “We know, master!” A fourth says: “And we must obey.”

The idea of cat butt was just as disgusting to people in the 1100s as it is today. Some things are universal and timeless.

Fast forward to modern times, occultist Aleister Crowley wasn’t about to leave the ritual of kissing in the hands of the Christians. In the Book of the Law, Liber AL vel Legis, the word kiss is used numerous times in the first chapter. From chapter 1, verse 14:

Above, the gemméd azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit;
She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.
The winged globe,the starry blue,
Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

The Book of the Law goes on to mention kisses six more times, for a total of seven. Seven is the number of Venus, of desire, and love. A connection there? Maybe! I’ll leave that for you dear reader to investigate.

I think ultimately, a kiss is a connection. Aleister Crowley talks about the Magical Link2 as being required for a magical working to be able to achieve its goal. It acts as a connector through which the Will of the magician flows like electricity to the end result. Whether we are aware of it or not, a kiss is exactly such a thing. I want my child to safely and happily sleep through the night, in order to work this magic I create the magical link of the goodnight kiss to see it through. A pilgrim might kiss a holy relic in an attempt to connect themselves with the spirit of a saint. Many other such examples can be easily found. It is a simple gesture, yet it can convey much. When we kiss, we make a part of ourselves available to the other in a way that is not easily matched with words.

Praxis

Become mindful every time you take part in a kiss. What is the intent behind it? What are you trying to enchant for?

Think about a magical goal you have for your next working. How could you mindfully incorporate a kiss into your ritual? Does it enhance the energy of the working? If so, in what way?

Finally, do you have a magical kiss story you’d like to share with us? Post it in the comments! Let’s learn from each other and push our magical practice forward as a community.

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The week sure does fly by, doesn’t it? It’s Sunday yet again, and I have curated six more links for your viewing pleasure! If you have any suggestions, upcoming events, or anything else of interest, drop a comment in the comment section!

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1. Lectures on Nietzsche

I’m watching a 7 part series of lectures on the philosopher Nietzsche by Professor Raymond Guess. Nietzsche had a huge impact on modern occult movements, especially the work of Aleister Crowley. The speaker is very animated and brings a lot of passion to the subject.

Give it a listen here.

2. A Maya Ritual Resurrection Scene in Broader Perspective

A fascinating look at a Maya ritual burial circa 600–650 CE in Guatemala. The figurines have an expressiveness that is both endearing and personal. Interestingly, the deceased has a deer as his guide through the underworld and ultimate resurrection.

Take a look here.

3. Necromancy Manual in the Cambridge Library - Erotic Binding Magic, Divination & Spirit Summoning

Another entry this week from the amazing YouTube channel, Esoterica. Follow along as Dr. Justin Sledge takes a look through a necromantic manual from Tudor England circa 1536-9. This handwritten book of magic contains all sorts of interesting workings, including erotic binding spells.

4. The Tower-Historical and Cultural Perspectives

The Tower card of the tarot is usually not one you want to pull, depending on the circumstance. The fantastic teacher of cartomancy and sundry, Camelia Elias, is offering the text of her workshop lecture on the Tower card that might give you another perspective on this oft-maligned card.

Get it here.

5. Cosmic Latte

Science has discovered that the overall average color of the universe is hex code #FFF8E7. Next time you invoke the universal powers that be, don’t forget your khaki-colored candles!

Order a Venti-sized universe here.

6. Getting High with the Most High: Drugs in the Bible

I saved the best for last. This lecture puts communing with God in a totally different context! Learn about the surprising number of psychoactive entheogens referenced in the Bible, as well as what really was in the anointing oil.

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It’s been a busy few weeks. It seems like as you get older, time really does fly by. Last weekend we drove from North Florida to Elkmont campground in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, and then from there over to Nashville. It was a long eight and a half hours back home, especially with two large dogs and three humans crammed into our Outback. The hectic days after coming back from vacation were mostly filled with the backlog of freelance that had built up while I was gone and a few errands.

On one of these errands, I ended up sitting outside a fairly popular ice cream store.1 It’s August in Florida, so as you might expect, the place was solidly packed. I had forgotten my mask and so was exiled to wait outside while the family ordered for me. Sitting outside by yourself with no phone bored leads to rabbit hole thoughts, and mine today was Mercury. It was a nice reprieve from the normally information-saturated way the rest of my day is normally spent. I think we all need to be alone with our thoughts every now and again.

The god Mercury rules stores, shops, and commerce in general. Etymologically, the world Mercury stems from the Latin word merx which means merchandise and the word mercari which means to trade. That’s where we get the words mercantile and merchant, along with other merc- words. The origin is probably the Proto-Indo-European2 root word merĝ, meaning boundary or border. This gives us an interesting perspective on Mercury’s other domain of rulership: Magick.

Mercury is the Roman form of the Greek god Hermes.3 The son of Zeus and Maia, Hermes was the herald of the Olympian gods, among a myriad of other duties. Hermes was said to be born in a sacred cave on the rocky slopes of Mount Kyllene in Arcadia. The seven Pleiades were also said to have been born on Mount Kyllene, the eldest of which was Hermes’s mother Maia. Greek travel writer (yes, that was a thing even then!) Pausanias wrote the following about Mount Kyllene in his second century C.E. Description of Greece:

The highest mountain in Arkadia is Kyllene, on the top of which is a dilapidated temple of Hermes Kyllenios (of Mt Kyllene). It is clear that Kyllenos, the son of Elatos, gave the mountain its name and the god his surname. In days of old, men made wooden images, so far as I have been able to discover, from the following trees ebony, cypress, cedar, oak, yew, lotus. But the image of Hermes Kyllenios is made of none of these, but of juniper wood. Its height, I conjecture, is about eight feet.

It is interesting here that he specifically mentions that the image of Hermes Kyllenios is made of juniper wood. Usually, we don’t see juniper as one of the plants attributed to Hermes, but clearly it held significance in ancient times. The Greek juniper was probably Juniperus oxycedrus, prized for its wood, and fragrant smoke. Keep that in mind for future Hermes workings. For a historical ritual that features Hermes and juniper, see the PGM4, spell IV. 2373-2440, a spell for attracting customers to your business.

Scholars are unsure of the etymological origin of the word Hermes but do agree that it is pre-Greek in origin. His cult seems to have been first established in remote areas and as such seemed to be more shamanic in nature. Perhaps this is where the chthonic aspect of Hermes comes to us from, along with his rulership of sacrificial animals and transmitter of dreams.

Much of Hermes’s rulership seems to stem from the idea of transition. Commerce is just a transition of goods and money from one party to another. Magick is a transition from one state to another. Many of Hermes’s epithets5 indicate that he stands between two places:

• Hermes Pylaios: Hermes as doorkeeper

• Hermes Strophaios: standing at the door post

• Hermes Psychopompos: conveyor or conductor of souls

• Hermes Oneiropompus: conductor of dreams

As a psychopomp, Hermes guides the soul in the transition from life to death. As transmitter of dreams, Hermes epithet was Oneiropompus. Both psychopomp and Oneiropompus share the Greek word pompḗ, which means a sending. In both cases, part of the role Hermes is playing is to send something, either dreams or souls. Because of this, you can invoke Hermes when you would like something sent. This is a simple, yet deceptively versatile mode to invoke for magical work. In addition to dreams and souls, you can ask for Hermes to send you clear information in divinatory work, or clear communication if you are about to deliver a speech. Going back to the PGM, we see that even during the harvesting of herbs, the magician invokes and takes on the aspect of Hermes while cutting the herb itself. In PGM IV. 2967-3006 we see the following part of the invocation to be said while cutting of herbs for magical purposes:

I am Hermes. I am acquiring you with Good Fortune and Good Daimon both at a propitious hour and on a propitious day that is effective for all things.

Cutting an herb or gathering a resource is transitioning it from a mundane state to a magical one, thus the reason for invoking Hermes. By embodying Hermes, our herbalist gains the authority to transfer the physical material of the plant from one state to another.

Praxis

Here is a simple charm from the PGM that gives “victory” to the wearer. You are to use a gold tablet shaped like the sun and inscribe on it the words, and then either keep it in your shoe, or put it on something in which you wish to have victory.

PGM VII. 919-24

Hermes wonderous victory charm which you are to keep in your sandals: Take a tablet gold like the sun (literally, shaped like the sun) and inscribe on it with a bronze stylus and put it on whatever you want and see what it does on a boat, on a horse, and you will be amazed.

These are the characters:

THŌOUTH, give victory, strength, influence to the wearer.

Happy day of the Sun everyone. I’m trying out a new format for some posts, in addition to the more long-ish form essays. I’m going to be curating 6 links every Sunday for your browsing pleasure. Please feel free to make suggestions for next week’s post, if you have any!

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1. Thought Forms: A Record Of Clairvoyant Investigation and the Hidden History Of Modern Art

Originally published in 1905, this occult book by Theosophical society members Anne Besant and C. W. Leadbeater documents various clairvoyant thoughtforms, auras, and energy as colorful illustrations. This hidden gem was an influence on modern artists of the period including Hilma Klint and Wassily Kandinsky.

2. Apparently God can’t hear you through your mask, claims fraudster Jim Bakker

Jim Bakker of sham spiritual infamy now claims that God can’t hear you if you are wearing a mask. I wonder if he can hear you when are wearing a ceremonial robe?

3. Watch this video of the Moon occulting Saturn.

This video has some major vibes going on.

4. An Introduction to the Greek Magical Papyri

If you aren’t familiar with this Hellenistic era collection of Greek, Egyptian and Jewish magical spells, this is a great scholarly overview.

5. In The Continuum: A Collection of Thelemic Writings

In The Continuum was a Thelemic periodical that ran from 1976 through 1996. Over 50 issues have been made available for free to download. These are a great resource for anyone exploring the Thelemic, Hermetic, or Golden Dawn paradigms.

Check it out here.

6. The Sun Enters the Sign of Virgo Today

Today marks the ingress of the Sun into the sign Virgo. For those born during this time, happy birthday! According to first-century astrologer Manillius:

The temperaments of those whose span of life she pronounces at their birth Erigone will direct to study, and she will train their minds in the learned arts. She will give not so much abundance of wealth as the impulse to investigate the causes and effects of things. On them she will confer a tongue which charms, the mastery of words, and that mental vision which can discern all things, however concealed they be by the mysterious workings of nature.

Read more about the mythology and nature of Virgo here.

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Everyone is trying to sell you something.

There are the obvious things, the things that you see ads for on TV or on a website. These are more or less clearly marked and easily ignored. Then there are the cultural norms that have a momentum of their own, often pressuring or guilting people into conformity. These are much harder to ignore, but still possible with enough determination and a healthy amount of bravery. A third category is more insidious, thought viruses that you don’t know have shaped your perceptions and actions. The thing they sell are persuasive and insidious ideas, and it’s hard to avoid what you don’t know is manipulating you.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on Reddit in the ask astrologers and occult subreddits that go approximately like this: “Can you please tell me if <insert placement> is making me <insert personality trait>?” Or, in a similar vein, “Can someone please tell me if I’m doing magick, or something else?” It seems that people have it in their heads that someone must tell them if they are doing things right or wrong, as if there is such as thing.

No blame can be dealt to the average Redditor making these posts, because the problem stems from the virus that has infiltrated the way we think of ourselves in relation to the esoteric. This particular virus has told us two things: We aren’t qualified, and we can’t tell what is magical and what is not.

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The first part of the virus tells us we aren’t qualified.

This is not exclusive to the esoteric world. The problem more or less lies in how society has been structured, especially in the western workplace. Most of us are familiar with companies that have a top down hierarchal structure that administers power and authority from above. This has conditioned many of us to look to a superior for permission to proceed, because we are told we are not qualified to do so on our own. It is no surprise that many bring this worldview into the esoteric community. We have told ourselves that we are not qualified to conduct our magical affairs with confidence, because there is some ever-shifting Ipsissimus level of wizardry we must first attain before we are somehow perfected enough. Only then, will we be capable of the real arte magick. See also: imposter syndrome.

Let’s not confuse beginner’s anxiety with what we are talking about here. There is always a learning curve to any new skill, and it is beneficial to ask questions and hear other people’s experiences when learning to do it yourself. The issue lies in the cronic lack of confidence many have with critically looking at their own work and judging for themselves if it is effective or not.

Magick, the occult and astrology are built on a foundation of texts stretching back hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. People tend to take these tomes very seriously. Without discounting their value, I’d like to propose a shift in perspective that might change minds on the reverence given to the old works.

Most extant magical, occult and astrological texts were once just someone’s magical journal. They were at one point simply one person’s record of their personal observations and ideas. That’s it.

Not to say that there isn’t value in the old books, there is. It’s putting them and their authors on a pedestal that is problematic.

The key to disengaging the first half of the virus from the machinery of our minds is to realize that Eliphas Levi was just a person doing what he thought was getting him results. Aleister Crowley was just a person writing things down that were working for him. Bonatti, Buddha and Blavatsky all shared the commonality of finding a system that worked for them and then they wrote it down. You can do that too.

Don’t worry about messing it up, saying the words wrong, or anything like that. Hell, even better to make up your own words and say them how you want.

I want to make a quick sidebar about magical systems. There is nothing inherently wrong with the choice to work within a specific system, like the Golden Dawn or Thelema or Hellenistic astrology or one of your own making. The key word is choice. A conscious and considered choice to take part in a system is different from a blind and thoughtless following of dogma of any type.

Really the only requirement for knowing if you are doing it right is, did it work? Yes or no? It doesn’t matter if it worked for Crowley, or a thousand other people before you. If it doesn’t work for you, then it doesn’t work. That’s fine. Find something that does work for you and do that. Only you are the authority on the matter. This extends to most things in life, regardless of their esoteric status, which leads me to the next point.

The second part of the virus tells us that some acts are magical, and some are not.

What makes a ritual different from reading poetry aloud? What separates burning a candle for spellwork from burning it to make your house smell nice? Is it intent? What if my house smells funny and my intent is to transform it into a house that smells pleasant?

Crowley famously defined magick as “the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.” My will is to light the candle and dispense with the bad smell!

You can be a magician and do absolutely no spellwork, no ritual and read no occult books. This is because all of the above listed are artificial constructs that gatekeep the definition of what is magick. I can make hiking a trail at my local park more magical than the most elaborate ritual ever could be. I could make the Rites of Eleusis more boring and stale than doing my taxes. The common denominator in all of this is you.

There is a Zen saying:

Who is the great master, the magician that makes the grass green?

It’s not Crowley, Levi, Regardie or anyone else you could name. It’s not your superior in whatever magical order. It’s not a YouTube guru or some dusty old long dead philosopher.

It’s you!

You are the experiencer and the experienced. When you boil it all down, that’s all there really is. There is not some imaginary border between mundane and ritual unless we say so. There are instances when it is productive to do so, but it is not the rule unless we want it to be.

This part of the virus is easy to dispense with, once we realize it is there. We are our own limit when it comes to defining magical practice. What is magical is magical, what is not is not. Sometimes the bird flying over is an omen, sometimes it isn’t. Trust yourself to know what is what.

Once we recognize these two parts of the same problem, we are able to stop it from spreading in the wild, or at the very least stop ourselves from being infected by it. There is a large segment of the magical world that has become monetized and relies on the spread of this virus to keep itself alive. Paying hundreds of dollars for special candles and trinkets falls well within this category because it relies on those who do not have enough confidence in their own skills. Even if it takes a little work, or research, or just a little bit of improvisation, your results will be just as good and your knowledge and confidence in yourself will be that much greater at the end of it. Just as there is no boundary between the mundane and the magical unless we say so, there is no mystical boundary between a regular candle and a fancy one we ordered from the internet, other than what we decide is so.

Praxis

Here is a fun one: Take a regular everyday item and impart upon it the highest magical potency you can muster. For example, if you have a stack of post-it notes on your desk at work, imagine this post-it has the supreme power to manifest into reality anything written upon it. Write your wishes on it and take note of what happens.

Here is another: If you know a ritual, perform it with an attitude of silliness. Does it still have the same effectiveness? What is the result?

Did you make it here from Reddit, Twitter or Instagram? Do you like this kind of content? I would be absolutely thrilled if you would subscribe to this newsletter, so I can feel better about not just talking to myself. I aim to publish about once a week, depending on what I have to say. Many thanks!

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