A wealth magic article, a book review, and body paint

An article on wealth and magic on Reality Sandwich I've already gotten some interesting comments on it. I hope that it gets people to think about what wealth is to them and how they manifest it. I also think there's more to explore there...I may do so in a follow up article down the line.

Review of Meta Magick: The Book of ATEM by Phil Farber

Meta-Magick is an intriguing book which presents readers with an opportunity to create not one entity, but actually a number of entities based off of principles such as attention, passion, trance, language, making, and Fitting. Additionally Farber provides 36 exercises which can be used by people to learn how to integrate these principles into their lives.

Farber also focuses on eight powers: Communication, neuroplasticity, transformation, transmission, beauty, understanding, balance, and opening. The book doesn't overtly focus on these powers much...instead the focus is more subtle. You will experience them through doing the exercises in the book, which is what the author intended.

Meta-magick definitely is not intended to be something intellectually read, so much as it is intended to be experienced and worked with. You will get a lot of leverage out of this book if you do the exercises in them. It's an excellent book to introduce people to magic, but is also good for intermediate to advanced practitioners.

5 out of 5

I did some work with body paints tonight. I find body paints to be intimate as well as beautiful. I use body paints a fair amount in my magic as a way of connecting with spirits, but also connecting with my body and its consciousness. I recommend the body paints which can be washed off with water and soap...you can find them at costume shops fairly easily.

My Magical Room

I just moved into a larger place. And one of the perks of said larger place is that I have my own room now. I like having my own space, always have and so knowing I was moving into a new place, where I could have my own room, I immediately began planning for how I could manifest that room, where I would want to put things etc. I want to eventually manifest a futon for it, as a meditation mat and also for other purposes that may occasionally arise. But even without that I have my temple. I finished putting it together tonight. Tomorrow I'll do my first working in it, to set the tone of the room for every other working that occurs there.

I did take some pictures, partially because one of my dearest friends had requested it, but also because it's novel to me that I can show people my space, and have it be my own space.

The book case altar. All of the books on it are ones I'm planning to read in the near future, or they contain exercises and experiments I want to do. Most of these books are related to current projects I'm working on.

My altar. Yes it's a table with a chess set enlayed in it. In front of it is my dagger consecrated to Babalon and a candle as well. I've also got some space/time magic tools. The stone eggs are also tools...some of the oldest ones I've had.

My musical area. I've got a sound machine, some bells, and cds of William S Burroughs spoken word. Burroughs is one of my spiritual saints and also one of the magicians I've always respected.

This is where I keep my art supplies. I consider my art to be a potent expression of my magic. I have body paints and water color paints, glue, and I need to find my pair of scissors for the collages. I have a couple of paintings, gift from friends and admirers there as well. The mirror is also there, because I consider it a doorway to art.

The north wall. I've got my painting to Babalon, Thiede, Purson, and also a scroll featuring Guan Yu on the wall. All of these are dieties/entities I work with.

The west contains a painting on the ceiling I use for journeying, my painting dedicated to love, a mask, and several other paintings, which I'm not going to speak of beyond saying they have personal meaning to me.

The South. The red mask is one I've had for a while. The painting on the left is to Xah my Genius Daemon spirit. The one on the right is personal.

The East Wall. The painting on the left contains a symbol chart for the Dehara system. The painting on the right is the phoenix. I identifiy strongly with the life-death-Rebirth cycle. Actually the tapestry in them iddle is part of that too (and would you believe I've had it for over ten years). The elephant is Ganesh. Even has a broken tusk.

So that's my magical room. Of course it won't be really magical until I do my first working in it, but I've set the atmosphere up. Lupa told me it feels comfortable in there, which is as it should be. I like a space, which is comfortable, and I generally do a fair amount of work with the energy of a room to create that sense of comfort as well.

Free Ebooks by Pascal Beverley Randolph

I've mentioned PBR before. Here's a link to some free e-books. Good opportunity to learn more about his style of magical practice.

Interview with Pagan Centered Podcast

So my interview with pagan centered podcast just came out. This interview was...well it wasn't an interview. It was a bunch of people grilling me about pop culture magic. I did my best to answer them civilly, though I lost a bit of my temper when several of them were downright insulting. I'm used to people being resistant to the concept of integrating pop culture to magic. I've certainly heard my share of critiques about it, but this interview reminded me of the pagan bunny hunter club...people who would "hunt" pagans who didn't share similar beliefs that they had. In the pagan bunny hunter club, and also in the case of the majority of the people on this podcast, what I'm struck by is the fundamentalism and close-mindedness that informs the attitudes of the people. As you'll probably hear, if you listen to this episode, the majority of the interviewers weren't really familiar with my work and didn't think it was worth their time or effort to become familiar. How that then makes them experts in critiquing said work is beyond me.

I don't expect everyone to agree with how I do magic or think it's the best way to do it. But I really dislike what I consider to be an attempt to tell someone that his or her approach is invalid, because it doesn't fit within the paradigm of someone else. You can tell me it doesn't work for you, but don't try and tell me it won't work for others or that its blasphemous. I actually ended up tailoring some of my responses to fit the perspectives these people were coming from in order to actually communicate how pop culture magic can work. That was an interesting exercise in itself, because I mainly ended up using a psychological model of magic to discuss the concepts with them. That's not necessarily the model I would always use to discuss how magic works, but it was useful in this case and it seemed to at least cause us to arrive toward an uneasy consensus.

Not the best interview I've ever had and quite honestly in some ways very discouraging to see that there is such a prevalent attitude of fundamentalism, though not too surprising either. It's fair to say that in some ways this interview is representative of some of the disillusionment I've felt in regards to the pagan/occult communities.

Space/Time Tarot/Deity experiments

I decided to do some space/time work with tarot cards after finishing A Brief hirstory of Time by Oryelle Defenstrate-Bascule. In his book he'd explain some of his own space/time tarot techniques and it reminded me of some of my experiments with space/time tarot, which I'd done a year or so back. As good as any reason to break out the cards and do some further experimentation as well as deal with a few gnawing situations in my life. As Oryelle points out and I have pointed out as well, tarot isn't just for divination. It's also for conjuration. A reading provides you more than a glimpse of the future...it also provides you an opportunity to manipulate the possibilities presented to you. I used the voyager deck to create a magical circle and an evocation triangle. The magical circle and triangle is based off the book Portable Tarot by Donald Tyson, but the technique described here is an extension of his concepts into my own style and experimentation of magic. Here's what it looks like (Note you can also click the link to see the full picture):

The aces are in the center. They form the elemental foundation. On top of them is the card, which represents my current self. My presence is the Hanged Man. The outer circle is the trumps cards used to create the magical circle or tarot temple or whatever else you want to call it.The row of cards above are trump influences I am relying on. All of them were appropriate as gateways and power providers.

The summoning Triangle is the Priestess, the Fool, and Space/Time. Normally the Hanged man would be part of the Triangle, but I replaced him with the Priestess card, thinking it appropriate, plus the Hanged man is the presence of me. The Master of Worlds is the Future self I picked for myself. I thought of going to the usual card, the Woman of Crystals aka the Gaurdian, but I realized that didn't feel right, so I randomly stirred the voyager cards until my hand came to that card, which said I am the future of you. I realize now that the Guardian card is no longer representative of me. She was the guardian of my lies, illusions, and delusions which Babalon stripped away from me this last year. The presence of the Hanged Man is that which stares into the emptiness of zero seeking answers while submitting to the suffering necessary for achieving those answers. That suffering, for me, is really the emptiness work and the work with my past, with the roots of all that has haunted me in this life. The Master of Worlds is also the Master of time, but to master anything, you have to submit to it first, surrender to the flow in order to understand the force and manifest a movement that goes in sync with others. The master has surrendered to the emptiness and so understood it. He is me after this year is finished, or at least a possible variant of me.

I did the activation of the circle as well as the invocation of the future self into my present self, asking him to guide my hands for the reading I was going to do. I evoked the spider goddess of time, Purson demon of time, and Thiede the Dehar of space/time. I also evoked Xah my Personal Daemon and fox spirit and guide. Each of these beings are essential to my mythology of time. I wanted their presence and guidance in the working I was doing, because I wasn't just doing a divinatory reading, but actually a conjuration across the silver web of time. Below is a picture of me meditating with the forces that I'm working with:

I felt my older self lay his hands into mine and I shuffled my Alchemy deck and created a reading specific to circumstances in my life, both present circumstances, but also seeking for the person(s) who are part of a very specific magical working in my life that is yet to come, which this emptiness working and the love working has been a prelude to. Below is the cards pulled for the alchemy deck (Note you can also click the link to see the entire picture):

You can see most of the cards, though one got caught in the glare of the light. The Three in One, in the center, are present situations in my life. The two cards above and below the three card spread are current potential factors I can use that also involve what it is I'm seeking for. The card to the left is the past, and aptly reflects who I was. The cards to the right is an action to take as well as the desired reality. This not justr a reading...it is actually a specific working, a conjuration of reality, which utilizes the principles of the cards to manifest specific goals. The last time I did this type of working, was for Leisa Refalo's Podcast on Tarot and the magical working I did has come to fruition and continued to manifest since then. I mention that because I want to emphasize the dynamic nature of this working. It isn't a divination...It it a conjuration of potential that is manifested into reality. It does provide necessary information for how the conjuration will manifest, while also aligning the realities into one. It's also a kind of retroactive magic, because I'm using my future self to guide my presence in manifesting this potential into specific reality.

After I did this reading, I then spent some time working with the spider goddess of time in particular. I asked her to show me how to weave webs of potential into reality. I put my hands together as if in prayer, but as I looked at my hands, I felt the Astral fingers of each hand go through the other hand, so that I held my physical fingers in prayer, but held my astral fingers in a kind of V and used both sets of hands to weave the silver strands of time into reality. She guided my weaving and as I looked into those hands, I began to see a flickering of images that represented different potential realities. I started weaving the images into the silver webs and then cast the webs into reality. The webs of time would take the images of the possible future and meld them into reality. Below is a picture of the prayer pose I was doing. Obviously you can't see the astral fingers, but it gives you an idea of what I was doing on a physical level:

When I finished with the meditation, I thinked each deity of time and then thanked my future self. I recorded the cards and the specifics of the reading in my personal journal and then undid the temple, releasing the silver webs into reality. I'll be experimenting with this technique in more depth and there will likely be an article about it in the future, but I also wanted to show a work in progress as it were as well as how I do some of my space/time magic work. This post will likely end up in my book on identity and magic, as a lot of my research and experimentation is involving a lot of space/time work. This is a small example of that work.

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Review of A Brief Hirstory of Time by Oryelle Defenstrate-Bascule

For any chronomancer out there, this book is a must read. Not only will it put you in touch with the Spider Goddess of Time, but it also demonstrates experimental magic at its finest. Oryelle presents some very intriguing concepts and ideas about time magic. I found it hard to put this book down as I was enthralled by his ideas, as well as noticing some intriguing synchronicities in our work (which isn't surprising as this seems to be common amongst Space/Time magicians), most notably the silver strands of time. Oyrelle artfully blends poetry and art into a discourse on space/time magic which is revolutionary for what it offers, namely a non-linear perspective on time as well as methods for practicing some potent space/time magic. I'll definitely be utilizing some of this techniques and experimenting with them, because I know the process described within the book works. I've already started working with the spider goddess of time and she is a very real presence. I highly recommend this book. You will get a lot out of it and also be supporting and artist and magician in his work.

5 out of 5 silver webs of time.

Magic as a process instead of a result

I read a post recently in another journal about short-lived magic. The poster was understandably a bit frustrated and even perhaps a little disillusioned because a desired result hadn't lasted as long as s/he wanted it to. Admirably enough the poster pointed to the simple fact that examining the process of how the magic worked could indicate a lot about why the results weren't as long lasting as hoped for. I've always felt that magic is a process and not a result. While results are important as indicators of the process working, they nonetheless are not the process of magic. I see a result as a sign. It indicates what direction you are going in and can indicate if the process is or isn't working. It may even indicate what specifically is not working in the process, though usually this requires some digging on the part of the magician. That digging can involve looking at what's going on in your internal landscape, or it can involve testing each part of your process and determining if you left something out of it that could be essential to it.

I've certainly had my share of magical workings that didn't quite result in what I wanted, or where it seemed like I was successful only to realize later that my success wasn't quite what I wanted. Magic is a process of trial and error, of experimenting to determine what works, while also learning what doesn't work. Mistakes are made, inevitably. What we do with those with mistakes determines if they become failures or if we learn from them.

Magic treated as a process allows one to examine it as an iterative cycle, with improvements occuring every cycle as more is learned about how to refine the process. The magician is part of the process and so inevitably the work of improvement necessarily changes the magician so that s/he becomes the person s/he wants to be. Like any process, the changes are rarely instanteous or dramatic, but they are important and tend to have a long lasting effect on the magician. Magic as a process isn't nearly as glamorous as when results are focused on, but while the results may not always be flashy, the process itself continues to hold true even as it is refined and tested by the magician.

A Book Review and some book suggestions for Energy Work

I'm starting to read Tai Chi Dynamics by Robert Chuckrow. It was a review copy sent to me by YMAA Publication Center. It does look to be an intriguing book, where the author's background as a physicist is employed to explain how Tai Chi works. I'm intrigued already and will report on it as I continue reading it.

Since I started reading this book and it deals with Chi, or energy, and also because the other night I did a couple of breathing exercises with a student which is designed to use energy in particular ways, I thought I might put up some books suggestions about energy work for those who are interested in the subject.

Embryonic Breathing by Yang Jwing-Ming: An excellent book that does a lot to explain the theory behind chinese energy work. A must read book for anyone getting involved in Taoist energy work techniques. He only presents two breathing techniques, but does an excellent job of describing the techniques.

Awaken Healing Energy Through the Tao by Mantak Chia: Chia's take on Taoist energy work, for beginners. He provides some good explanations, though he can be preachy.

Fusion of the Five Elements by Mantak Chia: Utilizes the Microcosmic circuit, but adds in some elemental correspondances for recycling negative emotions. Really useful exercise. I haven't found his later fusion books in the series as helpful, but I will work with them a while longer before passing final judgment.

Breathing, Chi, and Dissolving the Ego and The Great Stillness by B. K. Frantzis are two excellent books on energy work that focuses on dissolving internal blockages and sabotages

Real Energy By Isaac and Phaedra Bonewits: It mostly presents a theoretical consideration of different models of energy work...mostly from a western perspective.

Energy Work by Robert Bruce: Has good exercises for beginner to intermediate energy workers. Also presents some intriguing possibilities around the sense of touch.

Psychic abilities and The Psychic Self-Defense personal training manual by Marcia Pickands: Presents some good beginner exercises for energy workers

The Initiation into Hermetics by Franz Bardon: Some excellent exercises for energy work and also for honing your skills in magic in general.

Hands of Light and Light Emerging by Barbara Ann Brennan: Mainly focused on using energy work for healing both physical issues and psychological issues. Definitely worth picking up. These were the first books I read on energy work back in the nineties.

Inner Alchemy by Taylor Ellwood (Me): Focused on a physiological exploration of energy work and how it can be used for healing as well as communication with the body.

There are many more works out there. I have some I've yet to read or study, but I'll include mention of them on here, as I get to them. There is some intriguing writing in Biology and neuroscience that relates to energy work, which is also worth checking out. I might write that up sometime.

For my own efforts in energy work, I'm continuing to experiment with the emptiness meditation which focuses on the energy of emptiness as well as the feeling of it. And as always I'm continuing my own reading, research, and experimentation in a few other directions.

Review of The Magic Language of the Fourth Way by Pierre Bonnasse

I initially found this book to be really intriguing, particularly in terms of how Bonnasse presented the concept of observing the self as the self is reading. I think it’s a good point to make because people can be resistant to what is read. However, the first half of the book didn’t live up to the potential expressed in the introduction. It came off as pretentious and somewhat confusing. I’ve been told that the confusion is characteristic of Gurdjieff’s works, so I wasn’t entirely surprised to find it in a disciple’s work, but I think that confusion detracts from the overall message that the author is attempting to convey.

The latter half of the book improves when the author focuses on explaining the enneagram and concepts of language and magic and how those relate to the Gurdjieff philosophy. I particularly found the focus on vibrations to be interesting and insightful.

What might’ve helped with this book was some exercises that readers could do in order to implement the theory into action. While I found this book interesting and a somewhat decent introduction to Gurdjieff’s philosophy, I was disappointed by how confusing the book could get, as well as the occasional pretentious holier than thou attitude conveyed by the author. This book could be worth picking up if you want to learn a bit more about Gurdjieff or want to examine how language is treated in his system of philosophy.

3 out of 5

A brief note

I was recently invited to be a guest at Pete Carroll's Arcanorium College by an acquaintance on Myspace. I'm checking it out and it is interesting to see what Pete Carroll is up to. The person who invited me identified me as a chaos magician. I've been given that label a number of times and my work has been described as chaos magic as well. I want to set the record straight.

I have never considered myself, nor ever will, to be a chaos magician. While I certainly draw on the techniques and concepts espoused in chaos magic, I've also drawn on a variety of other esoteric practices that continue to inform my work to this day. Nonetheless, I don't consider myself to be a ceremonial magician, a neoshamanist, a quabbalist, or any number of other labels one could foist on me.

I recognize that it's convenient to label me as one of those labels, just as I recognize it's convenient to label my work as one of those labels. After all those labels come with ready made definitions and the ability for others to identify with my practices...

BUT...

Speaking for myself and for my work, let me tell you that if I Label myself anything, it is as an experimental magician. That's my current, that's what my work could be labeled under, and it is what I identify with. If you wish to know more about what I think that entails, I direct you to my article, The Evolution of Magic.

How to use over exposure to something to banish it

Something I've found fascinating and useful within my own life is taking a habit or desire and over exposing it to what is desired, without necessarily fulfilling or indulging the desire. Obviously this takes a lot of discipline to do, because you are battling with your impules. However, this discipline not only toughens you magically and mentally, but also allows you to learn impulse control and also helps you banish the desire at times when it may not be appropriate to indulge it. Of course there are also other ways to get around a desire for something. This Sunday I bought a game for a friend that I really want to play. That friend will pay me back, and I'll get to play the game. I've addressed the desire without having to spend money for it.

And yet, at least for me, what appeals about over exposure to a desire is the simple fact that it can teach you an excellent skill in learning to deny yourself when its necessary to do so. Here's an exercise to try.

Go to a bookstore and go to the metaphysics section. Look at all the books you want. Pick them up, touch their spines, flip them open and think of how much you want to buy those books. The exposure to that desire initially will be a siren song. Put the book(s) back down and leave the store. Go back the next day, and the day after. Initially the desire to buy the books will increase, operating on the principle that if you're exposed to something seven times you are much more likely to buy it. And yet each time you will do your best to deny yourself.

If you give in and buy the book, give it to someone else, ideally someone who lives far away so you can't borrow the book, as the idea here is to promote discipline in denying your desire so that you can banish it.

Continue going in each day or every couple of days and exposing yourself to that desire. After a while the desire to buy the book will start to diminish because you will have conditioned yourself to not give into your desire. Eventually you'll be able to look at the book without feeling desire to buy it. It will just be another meaningless object, and so you will have banished your desire, while strengthening your discipline in being able to say no to your impulses. This can then be reapplied to any magical work you do, and you will have confidence in your skill at being able to focus on what you need to accomplish without being distracted by a fleeting fancy.

The ability to deny your desire is the strength to also enjoy it when you can indulge yourself. Over stimulation leads to desensitization, but desire can still be felt and turned back on as it were when the time is right. What this exercise shows you however is how to take desire and turn it into a tool that allows you to banish it by overexposure.

My latest article on Reality Sandwich

Magic: It's more than just finding parking spaces This article reflects some of my ongoing changes in my philosophy about occult culture and the relevance of magic within it and life in general.

Critical Thinking, Intuition, Success, and Magic

I've had some really intriguing discussions lately about the role of critical thinking in magic, which consequently has also lead to discussing the concept of success and showing it, intuition and it's role in magic, and of course magic itself. Now I'm of the stance that critical thinking is an important tool in magic. This comes from my days in academia, wherein critical thinking was applied laboriously to every and all things. But from those same days, I've also seen how easily critical thinking can get abused and become something which dulls the mind and creativity of the inquirer. I saw this happen to fellow grad students and for a while had it happen to me before I decided I valued my creativity and decided to depart academia for more creative ventures. So on one hand I think critical thinking is good and on the other hand, I know all too well what happens when critical thinking becomes dogma. In fact, when it becomes dogma, it's no longer really critical thinking, so much as it is the guise of being critical thinking, with a whole of bitterness thrown in, because there's no creativity left to challenge the belief that one has to analyze everything into bits and pieces.

Critical thinking, in magic, is asking questions, of yourself, of what you're doing, and how this process is supposed to change your life. Critical thinking really works when you also add in a component of success. And what is success? Depends on the person, I suppose. For me, success is based on living a life of fulfillment and service. My success is defined by the fulfillment I obtain from it, but also the service I offer to others in the act of living. And critical thinking applies to this when I can ask myself the hard questions as to how magic enables me to achieve this feeling of success in my own life and what is the benefit of doing magic, and many other questions.

Intuition involves creativity, and learning to let go of rationality to sometimes listen to emotion, and a variety of other ways of knowing that aren't encompassed in critical thinking. Intuition is not just a kinesthetic awareness of the self, but also an awareness that extends into how we interact with the environment around us. Intuition balances critical thinking by providing us a different medium of experience. In fact, intuition is based on experience...so while critical thinking provides an intelelctual approach to magic, intuition gives us the experience to make the intellect come alive with wonder.

The Importance of Meaning

Earlier tonight I got into a discussion with one of my magical partners about meaning. I'd noted that what makes any kind of relationship important is the meaning that people invest into those relationships. This is true whether it's a relationship with another person, your spiritual beliefs, your cat or dog or rabbit, or anything else. The meaning we invest defines the relationship. The permutations and labels of the relationship come later and can't exist without the meaning. I was asked, if the context of the meaning was different, would the relationship be as important?

In this last year's work with the element of love, and even just two weeks into the emptiness working, I have learned so much about the value of meaning regardless of the context. If we attribute value to only what we want, we can miss out on what is truly important, which is being open to what we can learn from each relationship we have. This is why the saying, "love is blind" is apt, because the search for love can sometimes blind us to what we have in front of us.

Lupa, my wife, taught me a lot about meaning this last year. She helped me realize that the superficial trappings of a relationship can sometimes catch us up so much that we forget to look at the meaning we invest in the relationship. We focus instead on looking at what we don't have, without realizing that to really have anything in a relationship meaning has to be invested and earned to make the relationship really bloom.

So my answer is that while the context can certainly describe a relationship and some of the ways the meaning is expressed, the context shouldn't replace the actual meaning derived from the relationship. If something or someone is important to you, then they should be important regardless of the context. I will admit, that this understanding is something that long eluded me. It's only been over the course of this last year that I've even approached meaning in this way and I owe most of that to my wife.

And so we come to the last question, one not asked by my magical partner, but one that I've asked many times over, both to myself and to those people who I consider dear to me, though how I've asked it comes in different shapes and forms. What does meaning have to do with us, with magic, with anything?

Everything and nothing. Meaning is potential...what we do with meaning is up to us.  Meaning provides potential by providing us a vision of what we feel is important. We acknowledge this importance by saying such and such has meaning...yet for the potential of meaning to be realized, action needs to be taken. That action can be as simple as writing a letter or email, or as elaborate as a year long elemental ritual to emptiness. The potential of meaning is made by the actions you take to realize it.

Meaning what? Meaning whatever you make of it, good sir

In Loco Dei: Pathology in Western Magic

By Vince Stevens In dealing with Modern Western Magic, I and those I work with often find consistent patterns of pathology in Western Magical culture:

• Tendencies to arrogance and self-obsession among magicians.
• An inordinate focus on rebellion, rebelliousness, and distance from the dominant - or any culture.
• An unusual distance from people, processes, nature, and the world at large - a distinct sense of separation.  Magic is push-button, and people, cultures, nature, and even magic are seen as something mechanical, easily boiled down to a fw traits.

These pathologies often trouble I and those I work with in magic.  As magical pratcitioners, as much as we enjoy the activity, the pathologies in Western Magical culture prevent barriers.  Simply, when one joins a group, a list, go to an event, you worry you're going to run into what are lovingly called "the nuts" (and less lovingly called many other things.

I find no reason to think these pathologies are universal to magical and mystical practitioners.  A quick examination of practitioners of magical arts and their legends in different cultures reveals a variety of different kinds of personalities, virtues, vices, and practices.  One can find alchohol-fueled shamans, serene Buddist monks with occult abilities, compassionate Taoist sage-Immortals, and more.  There is no reason to assume the pathologies of Western Magic are universal to magical practitioners, or even have any particular utility.

Looking at these pathologies, I felt they would be best addressed.  So in my small effort to make a contribution to understanding these issues, I decided to ask - just where did these pathologies come from?  Perhaps by understanding these issues, I could do some good.

So, I started at the top.

ARROGANCE: The Christian God.

Christianity was the dominant religion of the West for centuries, and is an odd religion in many ways.  It proposes an omnipotent and omniscient deity of ultimate power that still possesses identifiable human traits of anger, love, and so forth.  Its central deity, despite his great power, allows evil and suffering to exist due to a rebellious minion, later explained as an issue of free will - which one would figure that an omnipotent being could deal with such an issue.  Attempts had to be made to reconcile a rather cruel tribal (Old Testament) deity with a later loving deity, leaving one with a loving being manipulating a messed up world and eventually condoning eternal torment for people for what would be frankly trivial actions.

The Christian God was also a distant being.  His creation was a possession of his own, as were the sentients within it.  He would regularly send disasters, plagues, and so forth upon people and countries, theological weapons of mass destruction.  He had no connection to his creation except as something separate.

However, despite his confusing nature, the Christian God was considered the leader in all things, and thus in many ways, could be taken as a role model.  His commandments were to be obeyed (even if they seemed to benefit those relaying said commandments).  His world was law, and his confusing traits were to be explained as mysteries or by theological acrobatics.

Magical practices of these times were thus limited by the strange issues of this deity: early Western-Christian magic seems to have split between "Natural Science" magic that worked with perceived neutral or divine forces, and a kind of religious magic where one used (or misused) the name of the Christian God, rituals, and so forth to achieve certain ends.  One worked within creation - or stepped into the rather large shoes of the Deity to call angels, coerce demons, and so forth.  There were exceptions (such as the mystical meditations of Honorius and of course the Cabalists.), but such two-sided magic seemed to predominate.

One never left the sphere of control of the Omnipowerful Christian God, but one could act like him.  And in this, I think the seeds of the pathologies of Western Magic were planted (as well as frankly pure social problems).  The first role model was an incomprehensible, erratic tyrant.

Of course, tyrants produce rebels . . .

REBELLION: Shout at the Devil Explaining the problems of the world in light of the hodge-podge of the Christian God proved rather difficult for people - a perfectly powerful, perfectly loving being was dealing with a supposedly imperfect creation.  Fortunately, theology provided a way with Satan, who can be thought of in many ways, but I think of him as a religious plot device.  A McGuffin with horns.

Satan is a figure somewhat less confusing than the Christian god, if only because he's somewhat simpler: a rebellious servant who decided to do his own thing and was, essentially, a professional pain-in-the neck.  You could always blame Satan.

Accusations of Satan Worship were common in Europe for hundreds of years - different sects of Christianity naturally assumed other sects were in league with the devil.  Satan was everywhere you weren't, and the explanation for all bad things.

Satan had two influences on Western Magic in my opinion: 1) First, Satan's influence on popular culture at the time led to plenty of stories of Satanism - and of course Satanic magic.  Faust may have been popular, but similar tales of deals with the devil popped up all over.  The idea of the magician as in league with dark, rebellious forces easily worked its way into popular consciousness, and affected people's expectations of magic.  Would-be magicians, frauds, novelists, and honest seekers were easily influenced - or were glad to influence others - with false grimoires and strange experiments. 2) Satan led to endless speculation, and of course, writing.  He was explored in Paradise lost.  He was written about.  He became a convenient dumping ground for people's fears.  Of course, as the human mind can't resist exploring, he was at times visualized as a hero, or turned into a counterforce to an evil false God with a nice injection of pseudo-Gnostic thought.  Perhaps the ultimate triumph of the idea of Satan were people who decided to actually go worship him, as others had been accused of doing.

However, Satan really wasn't much of a role model, except perhaps for the bacchanalian rebellion he provided against straight-laced society.  He was childishly (and suicidally) rebellious, destructive and lashing out against creation, and in general, a jerk.  He was a mirror-image to the Christian God, and he lived up to it, adding only one new trait: rebellion.

Thus the Western Magician was caught between an arrogant and bizarre god, and a romanticized but destructive rebel.  Magic itself was part of a system that usually involved coercion of beings (and a helping of whatever old pre-Christian rituals could be adapted).

DISTANCE: Blinded by Science As Western Society moved into its scientific age, a more enlightened time, the scientist took his well-deserved place in culture.  New discoveries, rational exploration, and intelligent thought became important to culture.  It's no small feat to say science is something we owe much to in Western society.

However, science still grew up in the culture of the West, and it inherited some of the pathologies.  Science could justify tribalistic identity with "scientifically justified" racism.  Science was seen as liberating us from creation and controlling it - much as the deity had.

Science in Western society, for all its gains, postulated humans distant from creation, controlling it, dominating it.  Despite evolution's reminder of our origins, people were still distant and controlling - just as the Christian God had been.  I will be fully straightforward in my biases - I think a lot of modern Western science hasn't yet transcended its cultural biases.

Unfortunately those biases came from the Western Christian concepts - and people were still following in the footsteps of the Christian God (and in a few cases, Satan's cloven hoofprints).

Science was in a way a boon to Western Magic - bringing in psychology, scientific metaphor, and cultural study.  I'd say in fact Western Magic greatly benefited from science.

However the distance rarely seemed to go away.  I've seen magic boiled down to pure, materialist psychology, fears of "scientificizing" or "psychologicizing" magic, and so on.  Magic, I think, has often suffered self-esteem issues in the West, and thus compensates not by doing its own thing, but by trying to be more like science.  There's a point when if you start being something else, you stop being what you are.

THE SUMMARY Western Magic, though making many leaps in the last decades (or century), still has its pathologies as mentioned in the introduction: Arrogance, Rebellion, and Distance.  The role models of Western culture (acknowledged and not), leave us with these traits.

However acknowledging the past lets us cope with it - and magic is after all transformational.  By acknowleding that Western Magic hasn't always had the best role models (and survived despite that), we can go about developing the future.

Randomness

The Power of being Open in Magic This is refined article of one of my previous posts, published on Right Where You are sitting Now. I expanded the concepts a bit further in it to explain how being open can actually limit the field of possibilities that are accessible.

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Who is speaking? Who is writing? Who is reading? I've been reading a book based on Gurdijeff's techniques around language and it seems he played quite a bit with concepts of self as they are expressed and perceived via language. The book is called The Magic Language of the Fourth Way by Pierre Bonnasse. I'm also reading the Apohenion by Peter Carroll, and Meta-Magick By Phil Farber, as well as Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson and The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene.

I find such a variety of reading to be very potent in how one considers his/her magical practice. We look at a variety disciplines to learn about the different perspectives for how reality manifests. We look at different magical traditions, but also other disciplines so we can understand how those disciplines inform how others consider the world. A Multi-disciplinarian approach ensures that we don't limit ourselves or get stuck in the past. It demands we look around and see what others are doing, so that we consider our practices in light of that.

When I started practicing magic at 16 (Do you know I've been practicing for half my lifetime now?) I wanted to learn everything I could about magic. Now at 32, I want to learn everything I can about everything. A generalist's approach. My friend Bill says that specialization is for insects...and I agree. Knowing a lot about one area of study can make you ill-informed and shallow about so much else. And whilst the same argument could be made that focusing on a generalist approach makes for a shallow understanding across a broad stretch of disciplines, I've found that as I learn about the different disciplines and ways of structuring life, there's a lot of cross over and connection. What's different is the discourse, the jargon, the language we use to communicate with each other.

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I'm now a teacher at the Growing Edge Institute, which is a sister site of Maybe Logic Academy. My first course will start on November 24th and it will be on Pop Culture Magic: an Exploration of 21st Century Mythology. The description for the class is below:

From the mid twentieth century to the present, pop culture has presented us a new mythology for our time and culture. While the beliefs and practices of older cultures are still viable, this class will show you how to integrate the mythology of pop culture into your occult practice. Lessons will include the following:

•    How to create a relationship with a pop culture or corporate entity and work with it for a variety of purposes, including letting it teach you a skill, navigate the dangers of the modern workplace, and modernize magical practices. •    How to incorporate pop culture into practical applications of magic, including how to use video games to do practical magic, how comicbook design can be used in magical practice, Pop Astral magic, etc. •    How pop culture is defined in pop culture magic, and how to create your own personal system of magic with pop culture. •    How to create effective collages for evoking people and situations into your life. •    How clothing, video games, and pop culture can be used to hone your invocation skills and change your identity

The ultimate goal of this course is to present you with a pop culture toolbox that you can use to integrate contemporary culture into your magical practices.

Tarot Reading Experiments

If you've read Space/Time Magic, you know that my stance on divination is that it's best not to do it to determine what might happen in the future if you do a certain act. However, I also think reading Tarot can be much more subtle, particularly when it's focused on analyzing a current situation as opposed to trying to determine a potential future. When I do tarot readings for people, I ask those people to create their own spread. My reason for doing that is simple: I think pre-defined spreads limit the possibility of interpretation and may end up creating inaccurate readings. I prefer it when my clients create their own personalized spreads. A spread is a pattern, a way of interacting with the world, and a personalized spread is more effective because it shows the client's thinking process and also helps the client understand the reading.

Another way I experiment with tarot readings is to make sure the client doesn't tell me about the question or situation. I prefer to not know because it forces me to really rely on my intuition and also is a good gauge for determining how accurate the reading is. If I don't know the question or situation, I can't read that into my interpretation...it ends up being more unbiased and consequently is more powerful and accurate...Not knowing frees the intuitive side and allows access to the super consciousness.

Over the weekend I found that my readings were very accurate. Each time my clients were amazed at how applicable the cards and interpretations were, even though I didn't know much beyond the name of the person. The real test for someone who utilizes tarot cards or other divinatory devices is a test of not knowing and relying on intuition to guide you.

Elemental Love Work month 12

I wrote this poem on Thursday, in my live journal. I'm reposting it here, because it depicts part of the conclusion to the elemental Love work. The connection is what we want silver strands that glisten by the star light, whispering promises from the vibrations of the space/time wind The core opens to reveal the secret heart of the universe a path lit up by red lines of force the flames of the fox fire beckoning, and luring on those eager hunters of desire

Hourglass eyes witness the illusion of time, The spiderweb, wet with dew, promises a non linear story Truth, truth, truth...

Whirling fan over the light, a very tired person looks up spreads his arms, and journeys into the iridescent glow of promise. I see all possibilities in the quantum sea everything could, is, was, will do, but will any of it become?

I am also Empty...Reach in and pull the last out Everything is stripped away...she took me on she gave me surfeit her hand gentle on my cheek, while the other rips everything out.

Your illusions are gone, now what?

Now what indeed. It's month 12...The end of the year long elemental love work...The end of my working with Babalon, the sacred whore, the scarlet woman, she who takes on all, but demands the sacrifice of your illusions. Babalon has thoroughly fucked me this last year. At times she had been a gentle lover, at other times a demanding bitch. One hand has caressed me as a lover, while the other has ripped my heart out. And through it all, her scarlet eyes have looked into mine, holding me steady, urging me on, demanding the best from me.

I wouldn't recommend the element of love to just anyone. I think this year's work has been by far the most intense and demanding of all my magical workings. You have to be ready to sacrifice it all on the altar of love to experience the truths you will inevitably find about yourself, and if you get anything back, count yourself blessed, and recognize you also earned it.

This last month has been one of nostalgia, regret, and healing. I remember a year ago, I remember how desperate I was, how much I knew I needed to change, my patterns of love had grown very toxic indeed. I was a toxic bloom, everything on the surface, ready to be popped. I remember meeting a priestess of Babalon, and a relationship that didn't work out and being told, "This elemental love work has left bruises on my heart, your wife's heart, and your heart. Will it be worth it?" I remember bad communication on my part, an unwillingness to really be open or intimate and my journey throughout this year to learn how to do that, how to really open up, how to be vulnerable, how to be honest despite the fear. Honesty with others, but most importantly honesty with myself about my desires, my fears, and what has motivated so many of  my choices.

I remember other situations, other people, all the lies I told to myself, ripped away. And I remember a couple nights with Lupa, where I really opened up, where I told her things I had not told her or anyone else. I remember being honest with her in a way I have never been with anyone, and despite my fears, despite the ingrained responses and reactions that said to just hold it all in, to protect myself by never saying a thing...I spoke...I told her, I laid myself out and let her see the real me. And she accepted me...she showed me LOVE, even as Babalon has Shown me LOVE.

A couple weeks ago, I felt the weight of these regrets...My mind wandered through the past year, through the lessons earned, the people touched, the bruises left, especially the bruise in myself. And I felt Babalon stir beside me. She gave me a gentle look and parted the folds of my flesh, to the heart underneath, and instead of seizing it in her hand as she often has, she gently touched it, touched the bruise of my regrets, and she said,

"It's time to let this go. You've learned what you needed to from this. Let it go, so you can move on and let other people into your life and into your love when you're ready. You've learned the lessons I needed to teach you and I will always be here to remind you of them, and also support you as you continue your journey."

And she took those regrets away...the physical pain I felt in the hollow of my chest left me.

This last Monday, I was talking with Wes Unruh about language, magic, semiotics, and we got around to talking about Babalon and male magicians. He said that he didn't think a male magician came into his full power until he'd had an encounter with Babalon. He told me of his own experiences and mentioned that for about a year after his working with Babalon ended he had focused on the element of emptiness and on rebuilding himself...and I found great comfort in this, because it's another confirmation I made the right choices, and I'm on the right path.

I was asked earlier this year, if this elemental love work would be worth the bruises, and the pain. And my answer is yes. It is worth all the pain caused, all the pain felt. It is worth the pain I caused as well as the pain I felt. It's not that I wanted to cause that pain. It's not that I felt a secret delight. No...That pain is part of the process of life, of how you learn. I made mistakes, I came face to face with the reality of the effects of those mistakes. The regret I felt for the pain I caused was something that's haunted me for this last half year. And yet, that pain, for me, for them has the potential for growth. It's what we choose to make it...and so Babalon showed me I could let go, move on, heal...

Last year, I said to Lupa, I said to others, "All of the relationships I'm in now will be changed if I do this working." And everything changed for those relationships. Every single relationship I was involved in on a romantic level is now gone, accept the relationship with my wife, which has ended up stronger than ever before because we worked through our problems with each other and came to a deeper, more intimate relationship than any I've ever had, except for one. It's taken a lot of work and honesty on our parts, but here we stand together, stronger than ever...

And that one relationship which is deeper and more intimate...that's the relationship I have with myself. This year has forced me to know myself as I never did before, and this next year will take me even further, but I'm ready for that plunge. Babalon has shown me not just the truth of LOVE, but also that of Strength. The strength to forgive, the strength to let go, the strength to love, and the strength to learn. She showed me my strength, even as she took away all the delusions I'd told myself.

Babalon told me it would get harder before it got easier, and she was right. It got really hard somedays to wake up and face the reality of my motivations, my desires, my love or lack thereof. In April, when I walked around, desperately unhappy, desperate to fill something in me and instead walked home and told Lupa about my emptiness, about how empty I sometimes feel, that's when I started to really learn from this year's elemental working...that's when I came face to face with the underlying motivation for so much of my unhealthy behaviors. That's when I realized just how much my feeling of emptiness had so often motivated my choices to try and find something to fill it, instead of choosing to feel it. And now that I know that feeling...now I'm ready to accept it, to move into it and everything it has to teach me.

On Friday, I had some of my hair cut. Babalon spoke to me in a moment of shared love and lust, in a moment of ritual, a finishing touch. That night, Lupa massaged me, talked with me, reconnected with me about our love, about what we find so important and she cut my hair, part of my payment to Babalon. Below is a poem I wrote about Friday:

"You've still got to pay up the last bit for this year of companionship I gave you" She told me.

Her long black hair framed her face, cascading down her frame, hiding her body, leaving only the oval of her face her red eyes staring into mine a doorway into the abyss an invitation into Emptiness

As we fucked with wild abandon her hands touched my long hair and she said,

"Perhaps some of this... Cut some of it for me and also for the next element Cut it as an offering when you pass through the gateway within me and within you The gateway to the heart of the universe"

As we came to crescendo, She and I, My goddess of desire, her beast to ride, I felt myself swallowed into her. She whispered,

"Conjunctio, The joining of forces Your principle joined to mine, In combination we create the alchemical wedding Your sacrifice opens the gate that your seed might be consumed and you reborn in my dark womb of Emptiness Your potential realized in the joining of everything and nothing."

Later my body massaged with hands of gentle love and care, my hair brushed out, the scissors snap some is taken away "Taking a little, so a lot can grow back, so you can realize your potential" Caressed, loved, forgiven, your hands know my body I fall into the light of the quantum sea out of reality, into everything

Everything I am falling back to potential, In her hands I lay, in her womb I will be sacrificed The gateway is open, Conjunctio achieved Emptiness beckons It's a promise of potential I'll take.

"Your last price is paid, Your coin is accepted the gate is open, fly free my love fly free

When you come back reborn anew, you will really know me and my name.

And I whisper,

"Babalon, Great goddess, Sacred whore, scarlet woman, take me, take me, take my sacrifice and show me the door to conjunctio, show me the door to emptiness zero and one, everything and none, where potential awaits to sculpt, to show, to provide the pathway to the heart of the universe to the silver webs of time, and the purple halls of space"

And she rips away from me the last shred of illusion Her hand caresses my cheek one last time, her tears touch my face, She kisses my lips one last time, to steal my last breath Great Babalon has destroyed me.

And now... I'm free to arise. Elemental Emptiness show me the way, through the door

I am here, I am there I am everywhere, everywhen, all things and none, a whisper on the wind, the caress of a hand on your chin all realities within my eyes, I am reborn into emptiness... I am reborn to realize my potential.

Today, Saturday, I finished the Love working. I went upstairs, with the painting of the seal of Babalon, The beast dagger, the candle with her visage gracing it. I lit the sacred candle in my temple. I dedicated two posters of the mythos of Babalon as told by Oryelle Defenestate-Bascule to Her. I burned a bit of my cut off hair in the flame of the candle. I cut her seal into my flesh, her name into my skin with the tip of the dagger, tracing so delicately upon my skin the imprint of this goddess...

I sang her praise, I thanked her for her gifts, and then I asked her to take me through the portal to emptiness. I fucked her one last time, giving her my seed and then I was taken in hand by the entity who represents emptiness...But that story will not be told until Tuesday, when the dedication ritual is finished.

Farewell Babalon, sacred Goddess and sacred whore, my lover and destroyer.

The lyric below is from the song Here's to You by Lisbeth Scott. I removed a couple words, that aren't relevant to me, to this year's working...but the lyrics of this song, the song itself is a fitting end to the love working and the beginning of the work on the element of Emptiness:

Here's to you... Rest forever and ever... The last and final moment is yours. Agony's your triumph.

Here's to you, Rest forever here in our hearts. The last and final moment is yours. Agony's your triumph.

A bit of political pop culture magic

I'm not really a big fan of politics, but occasionally they can be useful. Tonight I was doing some public speaking and I decided to draw on a bit of the political energy currently pervading the U.S., carefully. I thought about characteristics that people rave about in regards to both of the candidates...One is calm and collected, the other is more emotional. Without drawing on the negative attributes, I focused on the positive attributes: I wanted to be grounded, but also have passion for what I spoke about. So I visualized those particualr resonances being incorporated into my speaking from each candidate. Basically I focused on the speaking profile each candidate had, but didn't focus on the political issues. Talk went off really well, with several people interested in following up with me.

A philosophy about people and magic

One of my philosophies when it comes to interactions with people and interactions with magic is fairly similar and based on understanding that the less complicated a situation is, the easier it is to navigate the situation. This isn't to say that magic and people aren't complicated. They can both be very complicated, but a situation, a context doesn't have to be complicated and ideally if you remove what you can that could be complicating in a situation, it consequently sets a person at ease, or in the case of magic, makes it much easier to manifest. I realized sometime ago that the best approach with people is to simply put all your cards on the table and show your hand. No subtlety, no hidden agenda...just lay it all out and let the other person do the interpretation as s/he wishes. Every time I approached a situation where I didn't do this, where I didn't just lay my cards out, it always complicated matters, because even though I might have no hidden agenda, the fact that everything wasn't on the table aroused suspicion and played out the worst fears the people might have.

By choosing to play my hand, show all the cards, be transparent, it simplified the situation. On the one hand it could be argued that the other people had control of the situation by simply knowing everything I had in my hand...and yet in that openness I find comfort...I am so comfortable because everything can be seen...sure it can be interpreted and likely will be interpreted through the biases and filters people have, yet nonetheless, in that openness lies freedom...It becomes an accepted reality, and whether anything is done with that reality or not, the situation is less complicated. The person or people know what's going on and it's up to them to make a choice...and whatever response is made by those people I already know what my conscious choice will be to that response. It both opens up and limits the field of possibilities. It opens up the field of possibilities in terms of displaying the entire spectrum of choices that could be made, but it limits the field because those choices are made in response to my choice to be open. I consider this a kind of time magic, and in fact using this example above you can apply it to the practice of magic.

While magic isn't always complicated, in those situations where it could be complicated, either by working with other people or with other entities, it's again best to be transparent...The consequent acts of magic, on your part, don't contain latent possibilities which could trip up the working. you can also use this philosophy in regards to doing solo workings. By being open with yourself, you admit where there could be flaws, subconscious issues, sabotage instincts or memories. You give them expression through being open and also take away the power they would have if they were latent possibilities...You limit your own response to yourself so that you can ironically be free to make a choice in the possibilities presented to you. The process of magic becomes much simpler once this is done.

In other news, Reality Sandwich published my article on Identity and Magic

Article, Review of Magic Power Language Symbol and some thoughts on the occult culture

Taking the Path of Least Resistance in Magic has been posted by the good folks of the Right Where You are Sitting Now Podcast. I'll be writing more articles for them in the near future and look forward to continuing to work with them. I think they're a really good crew of people. Book Review Magic Power Language Symbol by Patrick Dunn

Overall, I was fairly impressed by this book. I think Dunn does an excellent job of explaining a lot of the theories behind language and magic, as well as showing how theories can be made into practice. He explores concepts of gematria, glossalia, metaphor, semiotics and much more and in the process makes all the concepts approachable and easy to understand. In fact, I think that's the strength of this book. It's written so that anyone can pick up the book, read about the concepts, and put them into practice, though at least in the case of gematria, readers will probably need to have a decent familiarity with Quabala.

I also liked his explanation of the semiotic web and the Defixio. In both cases he not only explains the theory, but also provides personal anecdotes and suggestions for how the reader can incorporate those practices into his/her work. I think his latest book is a good introduction to linguistics and magic, and he provides the reader some other works to explore once they finish his work.

I did have two minor issues which made this book a four out of five for me. The fourth appendix of the book has a bunch of practical exercises for the book. It seems odd that the exercises are placed at the end of the book, instead of incorporated into the book. I'm not sure if that a decision of the publisher or the author. The other issue is that while he does cover a lot of the connection between linguistics and magic, he doesn't cover much of the contemporary work occurring with linguistics or magic. He dedicates only a small section to the contemporary work. That said, this a good primer for linguistics and magic and how the two disciplines can be brought together. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in branching outward from more conventional approaches to magic.

Some Thoughts on Occult Culture

I was at Conflux this weekend. I had a good time, but while there I did a lot of thinking about occult culture and my own place in it. I've written in this blog, previously about my disillusionment with the occult culture, and yet I can't really say I'm disillusioned with occult culture overall. I think what it really comes down to is that I don't really feel I fit in with certain aspects of the occult culture...the aspects focused more on spectacle and image and performance. That's actually one reason I might not do Esozone again. While I'm looking forward to presenting my workshop there as well as meeting up with some people, I look at the program and I honestly wonder how much of what I'm teaching really fits with the overall theme. It's not that my work isn't focused on the other tomorrow...rather it's that I don't really relate well to the culture that has sprung up around esozone. I recognize it's occult culture of some sorts...I'm just not sure it's my occult culture.

But I've also been recognizing that there is an occult culture out there that I identify with and lately I've been starting to reach out to that occult culture. Not surprisingly who I'm reaching out to are people who have similar feelings of disenchantment with the direction occultism seems to be going in. They want something different, something more substantial, while also something that isn't so rooted in the past that it can't evolve. Lupa's suggested I try and find people I can work with who could develop some system or tradition...I don't know though...I'm mixed about that and yet I'm not...because I have a vision in mind...it just has to be with the right kind of person involved and I'm very picky with people, for a lot of reasons, which essentially boil down to being burned too many times by people I expected otherwise of. To work with someone in person would involve a lot of trust on my part (as well as theirs). Do I think it could happen? Yes...I know it can, because I actually am working with two different people closely, but it still comes down to finding the right fit, and if something actually develops in my immediate environment it will be with a small group of people initially.

And then too, I've increasingly been getting involved with other subcultures and the more time I spend in them, the more convinced I am that something really has to change with occult culture overall. It's not that these other cultures are better perse...it's just that there's something happening in them that I don't see as much in occult culture...what I see in other subcultures is less insularity, more communication and networking, more looking our for each other and supporting each other. The other day, a person who wanted to come to esozone and needed a place to crash and posted about it on an occult forum got no responses. I finally messaged her, because I really didn't want to see someone not taken care of...I wanted I suppose to reach out to this person looking for community and provide something of that to her. I suppose what I'm looking for is something of a tribe of sorts, or a system wherein we look out for each other. Lupa and I, have opened our doors a fair amount to occultists coming through Portland. I expect this will continue...I believe in hospitality, plus it's always good to get a chance to talk shop.

I have a vision of an occult culture and I think it's possible to make it real. The non-fiction line of Immanion Press is part of that vision made manifest...and it's time for more of that vision to be realized.

Explore related entries in the Library

• Aphrodite
• Pop Culture Magic 2.0: The Evolution of Pop Culture Magic
• Power Over Power With Experiment
• Pop Culture Magick: A How to Guide to Practical Pop Culture Magick

Magician's Reflection and The Pop Culture Grimoire is here!

I'm pleased to say that we now have copies of the Magician's Reflection by Bill Whitcomb and the Pop Culture Grimoire anthology, edited by Me available. If you've pre-ordered, we'll have copies out to you by Monday at the latest. Needless to say I'm very happy these books are out.