Use it or lose it

Use it or lose it. As an experimental magician, it's easy sometimes to get caught up in experimenting on something new or different, but sometimes in the desire to create something you also risk losing what you've done before. Invention is always useful, but knowing what you've done before or what others have done is equally useful. Some of my most meaningful magical experiences have involved doing daily work that is repetitious, but pays off in the long run because of the focus it provides. There's also something to be said for occasionally coming back to techniques you've developed in experimentation and using them for more than just to see if something works. I recently started creating a new web-sigil for myself because of a lot of projects that I'm working on. It's helping me clarify what I want to work on, while also directing the spiritual and other resources toward helping me accomplish those goals.

If we don't use the tools we have, we start to lose them, we forget what we have...it's easy to do, especially with so much that's around us, but it's important to make time to revisit what you have done sometimes so oyu can get fresh inspiration and also make use of those techniques that helped you in the past.

Some occult authors to look into

In my last post about Julius Evola's works, one of my commenters asked if I'd include a list of lesser known occult authors that people might consider looking into. So here's a small (and not complete) list of occult authors that I personally think people should read. Note that I'm not including Crowley's work or any work derived from Crowley, as obviously they are already very well known. I want to focus on the authors people may not know about.

So the list:

Franz Bardon. He only wrote three books on magic (not counting the fictional book Frabato the magician): Initiation into Hermetics, Evocation, and The Key to the True Quaballah. I've only read the first two at this point, but I'd suggest both as excellent books that detail how hermetics work without the usual flowery language or focus on obsfucation.

Julius Evola. He wrote a number of books, some of which were political commentaries, and some of which were occult works. His political commentaries would be far right/fascist works, which I'm sure would upset some of the more activism/leftist oriented occultists I know, but might be a good read precisely because they represent a different perspective than is usually found in occult activism. The books on magic Tantra: the Yoga of Power and Introduction to Magic are useful books to read. He does an excellent job of presenting an accurate perspective of Tantra and what I've read so far in Introduction to Magic is also an excellent work. He's written other books on the occult, some of which are in print, some of which are not. I haven't read them as yet, but most of them either focus on sex magic or hermeticism, and I'm sure are worth getting. They are on my amazon wishlist.

William G. Gray is another writer who presents some excellent works on both quabalah and ceremonial Magic. One of my favorite books is Modern Ritual Methods, but Inner Traditions of Magic is also good as is his books focused on quabalah: Ladders of Light, The Talking Tree, and Quabalistic Concepts. Recently some of his books have gone back into print, so now would be a good time to pick them up.

On a side note, Gray and Evola's works are some of the few occult works I'd consider spending money at this point, in part because what they write about are advanced concepts, and also because of the thoroughness of what they write about.

Kaostar by Francis Breakspear looks to be an intriguing work...and I'd also recommend the Art of Memetics by Edward Wilson and Wes Unruh for contemporary perspectives on magic.

To get an alternate take on demonology, check out books on Demonolatry by S. Connolly and J. Thorp They provide an alternate take which is useful to read, and will provide some intriguing perspectives in that area.

Jan Fries is an intriguing author who offers up different perspectives on chaos magic, seith workings, runic workings and even a perspective on celtic. I've read several of his works and found them to be insightful.

Dale Pendell offers a trilogy called pharmakon...not overtly occult, it still is some useful works to read.

There's more authors I could refer to...many, many different authors on a variety of topics ranging from Far Eastern energy work and mysticism to alchemy, but what I mentioned here is a good start to expanding the foundation of knowledge a person has as well as getting different perspectives on occult practices.

Explore related entries in the Library

• Ouroboros
• Egregore
• Gathering the Magic: Creating 21st Century Esoteric Groups

Revisiting well worn trails

I'm starting to read Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus by Julius Evola and the UR group. It's my first time reading this book, but not my first time reading Evola's work. I first encountered Evola's work when I read his book on Tantra: The Yoga of Power. I find Evola's writing to be intriguing, if hard to read, which is to be expected given that the original language was Italian (and thus translated into English) and it was written in the Early Twentieth century. I find it's important to acknowledge those two points, because I'm not just reading a work on magic from a different culture, but also from a different time period, and in my experience a time period has it's own culture as well, which informs the context of what is being read or worked with. I think Julius Evola is one of those magicians who often is not known about or read by many contemporary occultists, likely because many people just don't know what to read from the early to mid twentieth century beyond the usual Golden Dawn or Crowley material. So you might wonder where the title revisiting well worn trails comes from and that is due to the content of the book, which is focused on Hermeticism and western ceremonial magic.  For me, while reading this book will definitely get me in touch with some new ideas or perspectives, it's also revisiting trails I've been on before and will walk on again.

Another work I'm reading is The places that scare you by Pema Chodron, which is again a revisiting of a Buddhist perspective to a lot of the internal work I'm currently doing for myself. I have no doubt that the internal work will intersect with the work I do in the book by Evola. As above so below, as within, so without.

It's a continuing journey on well-worn trails.

Review of Green Hermeticism: Alchemy and Ecology

I found this book to be more of an intellectual/theoretical approach to Hermeticism and the green/environmental aspects of it, as opposed to a practical manual that offered thoughts on how to blend sustainability with hermetic practices. In reading most of this book and the essays in it, I'm left with the thought that it seems great that people came together and discussed these ideas, but I'm unsure what the practical implications of that discussion boil down to in terms of integrating a set of magical practices/beliefs into responsible environmental practices and policies. There were some interesting sections. I enjoyed the section on using mushrooms as a way of remediating pollutants, as well as enjoying the last chapter on the manufacturing of planetary tinctures. But I'm still left overall with a sense that while this book attempts to reveal relevant and important concepts, it gets bogged down in the academic inclination of over intellecualizing what's being discussed. In reading this book, I can't say that the connection between alchemy and ecology has been amply demonstrated. I'm also unsure as to how the authors propose to wed alchemy to ecology in a manner that is green and promotes sustainability.

2 out of 5

Methods for organizing your mind

Recently I was up in Seattle, talking with several friends and I mentioned a couple projects I was working on. One of my friends shook his head and asked me how I managed to be so prolific with how busy I am. I thought it was an interesting reaction to have, but it relates to some degree with some of the experimentation I've done in the past as well as ongoing work that focuses on multitasking in order to achieve more. I've always been a multi-tasker and also a person with a very non-linear approach to time and concepts of the self. While some people have a single track mind, my mind is always working on multiple tracks, in multiple directions, doing multiple projects. Even when it seems like I'm working on only one project, there's always other parts of me working on other projects in the background. The same applies to books I usually read five to six books at a given time, switching between each book when I ever overloaded on a particular subject, so that I can give that part of myself time to process and digest information.

I have a variety of techniques I use to help myself process and organize information. I'll share one today, which is based off of a technique from William G. Gray's books: Modern Ritual Methods and Inner Traditions of  Magic. The other techniques you'll have to wait on until I finish writing my sequel to Space/Time Magic. In MRM, Gray posits the concept that a ceremonial tool is a symbolic representation of concepts. We use the tools to symbolically access the concept or information they represent. Gray further suggests that through meditating on a particular and the symbolic associations linked to the tool, a person can imprint that information into his or her consciousness and either invoke or evoke it as needed without the presence of the physical tool. The physical tool can aide in the invocation or evocation of the information because it is a physical embodiment of that information. Gray's approaches to interacting with tools as symbolic constructs is somewhat similar to Spare's alphabet of desire. The goal, with either technique, is to create strong associations that can be drawn on to mesh the magician's identity with the information that the symbols represent.

In ITM, Gray discusses the concept of a Telesmic image. The Telesmic image is an evocation of internal resources or information. It's similar to the concept of a servitor, egregore, or a thoughtform.  It serves as a mirror or reflection of the magician, while also embodying particular aspects of the magician or embodying particular archetypes. From Gray's perspectives deities would be Telesmic Images, which have been suffused with all the information that their worshippers have provided the deity through the devotion given to it.

One of the ways I organize my mind involves the use of symbols for containing information. I can bond the symbol to an image as well, in order to create an entity which represents information or concepts of a specific type. This is useful, because I can then direct information to that construct and draw on that same information when I need access to it.

This then is one method I use for organizing my thoughts...Though I plan on going into much more depth in my sequel to STM.

Further discussions of definitions of magic

In psyche's latest post on the definitions of magic, she attempts to use Crowley's definition of magic to address arguments by a podcaster named Deo who had shared an essay on his podcast wherein he challenged the veracity of magic as a real force (Actually his essay is part of what started the initial post she wrote). As I noted in this post, Crowley's definition is not a good definition of magic, because he is sloppy in his attempts to define what magic is, and is unable to distinguish from any other discipline or approach that could be used in a similar way to explain how a person uses a process to manifest something. However Deo poses an intriguing challenge to Psyche and others in this thread on his forum. Something which is brought up is the "models of Magic" Both Deo and Psyche seem to agree that these models are most effective as understanding practical applications and possibilities of magic and magical systems as opposed to being definitive theories or explanations for how the process of magic works. I'd agree with that myself, but Deo then raises an interesting question: "Is there such a thing (ontologically/metaphysically) as magic?..Does magic deserve to be an ontological category? If not, then it's metaphysically uninteresting and a worldview that lacks it can still be a complete worldview."

Deo's question is an excellent question to ask. It highlights the problem with Crowley's definition, because Crowley's definition cannot answer or explain magic in a way that differentiates it from anything else, something which Deo aptly notes, "I don't consider magic to be 'real' as an ontological component of the universe if it merely names a style of activity irrespective of any kind of mechanism underlying its alleged efficacy" An activity is not automatically magical, simply because it is named magical. A process needs to be described that shows how magic is different from something else...in fact a good definition not only persuades someone what something ought to be, but also shows why something is different from everything else.

Instead of relying on the models of magic to answer Deo's question (I've never really used them and I have my own reasons for thinking that while they provide perspectives on practical applications, the perspectives offered are not necessarily the most efficacious), nor will I rely on an aesthetic approach to magic, because while I think making meaning is a function of magic, I don't believe it is the only function. Plus, in keeping with Deo's criticism, it can be argued that making meaning is does not fall strictly in the domain of magic (as a study of semiotics will quickly reveal to a reader).

I choose to take a different tack to defining magic, based on my own definition of magic, one gained from years of personal experience and experimentation. In Multi-Media Magic, I defined magic as: "Magic involves making the improbable possible. It's learning how even the slightest change you make can have a radical effect on the internal system of your psychology/spirituality, and the external system of the environment and the universe you live in. Magic is the realization of an interdependent system of life that needs every part to bring forth the hidden potential. It is also a methodology that can be used as a stress on the interconnected system, to manifest change in it." I go on to note that magic isn't the only stress on a system. In Space/Time magic, I also noted that magic involved being aware of probabilities and manifesting those probabilities into your life.

A definition of magic then is not so much about doing everything with intent as it is about recognizing probabilities and using a process (which we call magic) to manifest those probabilities into reality. Seems simple enough, but even the definition I wrote above has problems with it. I haven't overtly identified the process that magic utilizes which allows it to be an ontological presence. I identify a benefit of magic, that it makes a person aware of probabilities and enables manifestation of those probabilities, but the underlying mechanism still isn't defined. I note that magic can act as a stress on a system, but that could still use further clarification.

What I define as a system is a recognition that all life is interconnected. Everything lives within a system that necessarily requires everything to work together in order for the entirety of the system to be sustained (And we can note the effects that occur when a system is taken out of balance, global warming anyone?). In a systems approach, both intent AND impact are considered. Impact needs to be considered in order to determine if efficacy has occurred, since impact is one means for measuring the process used to generate it (As a side not, it amazes that most definitions of magic do not consider impact at all...too much focus on intent, not enough awareness of impact). The system is not entirely a physical reality, though it is based in a physical environment. It is also based in the mentality and even spirituality of what lives within it. Any system is effected by stress. A stress in this case is a mechanism used to change the system. Different disciplines of science are stresses on a system, because they utilize mechanisms to change the system.

Likewise magic is a stress that can be used to change the system, because of the mechanism that magic provides, which is not provided by the different disciplines of science, because while science enables from a purely physical end of the spectrum, magic enables change through a combination of physical, mental, and spiritual resources. An example of this resource would be the example of embodying a physical/mental resource of the human body, a neurotransmitter as an entity (thus creating a spiritual resource) which could be used to manifest a variety of possibilities, including creating altered states of mind, healing a person's mental state by working with the neurotransmitter, etc.

But what is the mechanism that makes magic an ontological presence, and enables its efficacy? That mechanism is Identity, specifically the ability to shape and change identity in order to mesh it with the identity if the possibility one wishes to manifest into reality. Identity can be considered to be both a state of existence and, in a system, a point or node of influence, connected to other nodes of influence. Magic uses identity as a means of manifesting probability into reality, by creating resonance between the identity of the magician and the identity of the probability the magician wants to make into reality (Think of magic as a string in a web, connecting one node of identity to another node of identity). The magician anchors a potential identity in the form of a probability to his/her actual identity, via magic to enable the probability a greater chance of manifesting than would occur if methods were not used to link the two identities together. Magic is a process of identification that allows the magician to change reality by altering the identity of that reality, or for that matter altering his or her own identity to conform to reality.

Magic uses methods to create resonance between different identities, or if you will between one version of reality and another. Probability becomes reality, when enough resonance is created between one identity and another so that the probability in essence becomes an extension of the existing identity of the magician.

This is my answer to Deo's question. It's also part of my ongoing work and experimentation with magic.

Hungry Ghosts

In Buddhism, there's a concept about desire called the hungry ghost. The hungry ghost represents the extreme of desire, the suffering a person feels in desire, and an inability to satiate that desire. As some of you may know, I've been involved a lot of internal work for a few years now. Doing the internal work is probably the hardest magical work a person can do, because once you start poking and prodding your reactions, subconscious patterns, etc, you open the door to facing your internal demons as well.

On Saturday, I went for a walk for a few hours...thinking over a lot I have on my mind about some of the current internal work I'm doing, and also dealing with a feeling of dissatisfaction that I feel sometimes, a feeling that has sometimes motivated my actions, in an attempt to find some distraction, some sensation, something that can drive away that feeling of dissatisfaction. I walked around and I looked at different things I might buy and I realized nothing I could buy could drive away that feeling of dissatisfaction. I thought for a moment of what it might be like to go on a date or see a friend, but I knew right then that no one I saw, no one I talked with could do away with that feeling.

I realized that feeling is my hungry ghost. It is the desire that is felt and yet is never satisfied, a desire to feel complete, a desire which likely never can be satisfied, because no matter who is in my life, no matter what relationships I have, or things I buy or use, that feeling is something that I may always feel at some point or another.

The best way to deal with a hungry ghost is to sit with it, feel it, acknowledge it, and then let it go. This is not easy, because it will use every thing to distract you. It will say, If you buy this, you won't notice me" and for a little while that might be true, but the hungry ghost will return and with it returns what it represents, whatever energetic blockages, feelings, etc, it hides that a person needs to feel in order to come to peace with him or herself.

So after I walked for a while, I just sat and meditated with my hungry ghost, accepting its presence, accepting what it represented, accepting I might feel this sense of dissatisfaction, but the only thing that could resolve it was to acknowledge and accept it, instead of fighting it. At some point, after doing that, I felt somewhat better, somewhat more at peace...it's still there, but it doesn't hurt as much and maybe someday it won't hurt at all.

0 and 1, all and none til something is done

I came across an intriguing question that asked, "What would there be, if there was nothing?" My answer is, "The potential for everything, waiting to be manifested into something"

This answer boils down one of my approaches to magic and life into ten words. I relate it to magic, because it was in the works of William G. Gray that I first discovered 0 and 1, which is an intricate of my private mythos and relates to the concept of nothingness, everything, and something. This concept is also explored to some degree in the fantasy works of Raymond E. Feist, when his characters discuss some of the metaphysics of the fantasy universe, metaphysics which I might add are very workable and sane as a magical paradigm when it comes not only the relationships one has with the spirits, but also as a way of explaining something of how the universe itself works, but I digress.

I came across the concept of zeroing in  Magical Ritual Methods by William G. Gray (one of my favorite authors of magic).  The concept boils down to the idea that creation cannot occur without a void. What this means is that nothingness needs to exist in order for something to have a place. Some of this concept is echoed in the jazz musician Sun Ra's philosophy, particularly the cult film he did in the seventies about the outer space employment agency. What I get from Gray's concepts is that in zero, in nothing, lies the potential for everything. But until something is actually done with that potential, nothing can occur. ) is the embodiment of all and none. It represents both nothing and the potential for everything. 1 is the direction, the manifestation of potential into something. Once 1 occurs, and something is manifested the potential has been shaped into reality.

Much of Gray's approach to magic was based on the idea that you had to, as much as possible, return to a state of zero, of nothingness, before you created any magical act. The reason for that was to create a state of objectivity or neutrality, from which you were free of contaminating influences that might taint the manifestation you wanted to shape. The zero that a person used is the magical circle meant to represent that state of neutrality, wherein a person begins to take the potential for everything and shape into something that can be manifested into reality.

Much of what Gray wrote about in Magical Ritual Methods continues to influence my own approach to magic to this day. If there was ever a book I would consider to be a definitive manual on how and why magic works, I'd probably refer people to Magical Ritual Methods and tell them to read the book and then re-read and take copious notes while also integrating the practices described into their magical practice. I can guarantee that working with Gray's concepts will definitely challenge a person's perspectives on magic, because Gray is very thorough about exploring what magic seems to be, as well as explaining what he believes a person needs to be able to do, in order to really work with magic.

For me, 0 and 1 represents infinite potential within nothing and the capacity to shape that potential, to evoke it into something. Of course to do all of that, it's essential to train yourself, train and shape your internal reality so that it can mesh up with external reality while also working within nothing to achieve something. I first read Gray's works in my early twenties and even now I can still safely say that it influences how I think about and approach magic, right down to how I develop processes for working magic.

I've even used some of his concepts in meditation, diminishing a senses to a minutae of potential within a see of potential. This concept can also be used to speak to the soul of a symbol...which is a concept wherein a person finds the meaning of a symbol in meditation by zeroing the sense of self and integrating the symbol into him or herself to experience it directly.

So that's a snippet of my personal mythos when it comes to magic.

From nothing...came something...From 0 came 1.

To Define is to..?

Recently, I've also been following with great interest several posts on the definitions of magic on Plutonica .net. Go here, here, and here, to read the posts on plutonica.net. I find this discussion interesting, partially because I devoted two chapters of Multi-Media Magic to definitions of magic. One chapter focused on what I considered inaccurate or poor definitions of magic, while the second chapter focused on what I considered to be good definitions of magic. One author whose definition I did not include, was Aleister Crowley's definition which goes, "Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will". Anyone who has read my books knows that I, on principle, do not include quotes or cite Crowley's work, for the simple fact that I feel that many other occult works are not nearly as recognized, because when people think of magic, they think of Mr. Crowley. I'd rather devote the majority of my writing to recognizing the works of other people and what they say about magic, because I believe a lot of people miss on some truly intriguing concepts when they focus only on Crowley's words and wit when it comes to magic.

All that said, I've never been impressed with Crowley's definition. I recognize that many occultists hold it up as the standard definition. In fact, if you go to Psyche's other site spiralnature, specifically to the magick index page, you'll note that the majority of definitions are derived from Crowley's definition. It would seem that Crowley nailed definition of magic down, so one might wonder, why Taylor, aren't you impressed by his definition.

Pretty simple really. It's vague. It uses abstract concepts and doesn't really define those concepts. What is Art? What is Science? What is Change? What is Will? These are abstract concepts used to define another abstract concept. He never fully explains what these concepts are, trusting instead in the reader's ability to divine the meaning of these concepts and put the puzzle together. This is a method, which Crowley is famous for (as are many, many academics and magicians the world over) of cunningly using words words to test how much a person really knows. In other words, the definition offered is written in a way that is left deliberately vague. Even the illustration he offers afterwards as an example of magic, of writing and publishing a book is not a magical act perse, as people who don't even practice magic and think of it as superstition write and get published everyday. The illustration is a way of interpreting how that writing and publishing occurred, but it doesn't prove that he has done magic to make it happen. Overly semantic or pedantic? Perhaps, but as I point out in Multi-Media Magic, definitions are often inaccurately treated as "is" or "Essence" statements, when, in fact what the definition really represents is the agenda or agency of the writer and what s/he beliefs something ought to be defined as.

To be fair to Crowley, in the theorem section of Magick in Theory and Practice, he provides a better explanation or definition of magic, by explaining the process of how magic works via theorems and illustrations. I don't agree with all of his theorems or his illustrations as definitions or examples of magic, but what he offers in that section is a better explanation of how magic could work as opposed to the more commonly used definition of his I referred to above. I still think his definitions are sloppy, because it ultimately boils down to the concept that everything we do is magic, as long as we set our intent to do it. That could be the case, but I tend to find that while magic is an integral part of my life, that doesn't mean that everything I set out to do is a magical act. In fact my main bone of contention with Crowley's definition and any definition derived from Crowley's work can be summed up in the following quote:

"Naming and describing are acts of entitlement. Through such linguistic practices, we give our experiences meaning and make sense of reality. By entitling a given phenomenon, we locate that phenomenon in a set of beliefs about the world that includes beliefs about existence-status (what things are real or not) and essence-status (what qualities we may reliably predicate about the phenomenon). Because the range of possible entitlements is theoretically infinite, any given act of entitling should be seen as a persuasive act that encourage language users to understand that which is entitled in particular ways rather than others" (Schiappa 2003, p. 116)

In other words, Crowley's definition describes magic in a particular way, while also reinforcing the values and meanings that Crowley associates with it. And if you wonder why I don't quote Crowley, it's because there are other perspectives, other views on magic that are equally as valid, but all too often ignored because Crowley's definition is not questioned nearly enough, but is accepted nearly a century later as holy writ.

Where Crowley's definition might be useful is to consider it as a paradigm shift, as a way of viewing reality through a very specific lens or perspective, while using discourse and language to embody that perspective. Treat everything as a magical act to play with your perspective. However you can take this trick and apply to it any discipline. You could view your actions through a semiotic or memetic lens (the popular choice of late among magicians in the know!). You could view your actions through a neuroscience perspective. Take Crowley's definition and swap a few words and you change discipline and paradigm for perceiving the world. That's really what Crowley's definition is...a paradigm, a way of viewing the world. It can be useful, though it can also be equally limiting.

There's a book I would urge any magician to read, which I think of as an essential book for both the practice of magic and also the use of definitions. It's called Defining Reality: Definitions and the Politics of Meaning by Edward Schiappa. It's a book on rhetoric, but it's very applicable to magic, because it examines how we use definitions to define and shape reality, as can be seen in this quote, "Definitions always serve interests and advance values, and they always require the exercise of power to be efficacious" (Schiappa 2003, p. 177). You know, put in the right context, that could be a definition of magic as well.

Updates on different projects

I thought I'd update readers on different projects I'm working on. Neuro-Sorcery Update

I'm continuing to do work with both the neural network and neurotransmitters. My focus with the neural network has been incorporating concepts of mindfulness found during meditation into directing the changes I want to make into the network. By mindfully observing behavior patterns I want to change, I can find where the patterns exist in the network and shift the network away from sustaining those behaviors, while focusing it on creating new patterns that sustain behaviors that are healthier for me.

The neurotransmitter work has mainly been a continuation of previous work, using multiple neurotransmitter to adjust the chemistry of the brain, as needed for particular types of issues.

Wealth Magic

I recently posted about making Babalon my wealth deity. since I did that, I did obtain a job, which is 100% telecommute. I'm also working with the spirit or egregore of my life coaching business, asking it what it wants me to do to manifest my business more fully into reality. So far I've been steered in the direction of networking, enlisting the aide of a marketing professional, and some advertisements. I'll be sure to let you know when I have more information.

Breathing/energy work exercises

I've been incorporating a taoist energy work exercise called the fusion of the 5 elements back into my daily routine. The goal of it is to convert negative emotional energy into healthy energy which is used to rejuvenate the body. I feel that the taoist alchemy is fairly important, especially because there is, to my mind, a connection between it and the neuro-sorcery work I'm doing.

So that's it for the moment.

There's a lot more going on underneath the surface, but the puzzle pieces for that work will have to come together in their own time.

Link to the pirate version of the Art of Memetics by Wes Unruh and Edward Wilson

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2564638/The-Art-Of-Memetics

Wealth Magic really does work

Yes, it really does. Readers of my livejournal will know that I landed a job today with a 100% telecommute. Pretty nice. what they don't know, and I didn't mention is that I only job hunted for 2-4 hours each week. I know that the usual job hunting advice is to treat job hunting like a full time job, but every time I've done that I've gotten really frustrated and usually don't feel very directed. So this time I decided to do it differently. I job hunted every couple of days, and other wise focused on building my current entrepreneurial venture. And each Thursday, I did my usual ritual before the wealth altar, thanking my household wealth entity for the prosperity it had manifested in my life and asking it for specific manifestations of prosperity. Then I stopped thinking about it and concentrated on doing what was important to me, which has been growing what will eventually become my full time career. Yesterday I made an offering of some money to my wealth deity Babalon, as well, and again let that intention go out there, knowing the right manifestation would come along. I trusted that the abundance of the universe would bring me exactly what I needed and let that trust propel me on, while focusing on what I love to do. A while back, it would've taken a lot more work from me in order to manifest this abundance, but I'm learning to let go and trust in the universe, to let my intention go out and then let it go from my thoughts. And so that's how wealth and abundance manifested this time. And I'm very thankful for it.

Re-Thinking and Re-Making Babalon into a Wealth Deity

I've been spending some thinking about my relationship to Babalon, both in relationship to the Elemental Love working I'm doing and also in where she fits or doesn't fit in the overall scheme of my life. And then this weekend I finished reading Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and I realized where Babalon fits into my life, and I had a better appreciation of the lessons she's teaching me in this year's working. In Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill discusses the necessity of mastering sexual energy in order to direct your creativity and imagination to manifest your goals of wealth. He incorporates a number of "occult" principles into his writing, which as an aside, I'm surprised more magicians haven't realized. In anycase, I began to think about Babalon and desire and the Strength card. It's true that Babalon is the sacred whore and the great mother, but it occurs to me that's much more than that. She represents desire, but in the Strength card, she also represents the ability to find inner strength to harness those desires. She holds a cup up, but is it really a cup of abominations? Or is it a cup of wealth, a realization of success in managing the internal desires to manifest the desired result?

One of my own recent realizations has been that I have to be strong for myself. This means I have to choose to master my desires in order to manifest the reality I desire to live in. While giving into my desires can lead to pleasure in the short, in the long term mastering my desires can lead me to achieving my goals. Upon some meditation and reflection, I decided that Babalon is my wealth deity. She can and has inspired me to master my desires so that I can manifest my goals. I put the bottle of red wine and the Strength Candle on the wealth shrine altar. I placed the sacred blade of desire on the altar as well.

Wealth is really about mastering yourself enough to know what you want and how to use all of your resources to achieve it. It's about finding the necessary strength to focus yourself on what really matters to you as well as tempering yourself so that while you acknowledge and enjoy your desires, you also use them to propel you to greater heights. Babalon embodies this concept by riding and directing the beast of desire, while holding up the cup of wealth to show the results of mastering the beast. She also embodies success, in and of herself, because she shows that success does involve being prepared to make sacrifices right up to and including your ego, in order to be transformed in your understanding of what you are giving to her and receiving from her. The success that comes from that is an internal success in terms of knowing and mastering your desires and external success in channeling the resultant discipline into what you want to accomplish.

Following Napoleon Hill's advice, I've decided to create a council I'd meet in a meditative state. Naturally Babalon is one of people on the council, as is Napoleon Hill, my wife Lupa, and other people/entities that are useful for the wealth work I'm currently working on in my life.

Pop Culture Magic Anthology

I'm editing an anthology on pop culture magic. It's nearly finished, I'd say. It's fascinating to read what other people have done or are doing with pop culture and magic. It gives me a renewed appreciation for that field of magic. I'll admit I'd become a bit cynical about that particular area, but after reading and editing the articles I may actually write another pop culture magic book down the line. *shrugs* or not. We'll see. The fact that I'm finding renewed appreciation in it is enough. Not everything has to involve writing. I've been doing a lot of thinking about my place in the occult/pagan community. I posted in my live journal earlier today about some of my reservations and whether I really identified as an occultist anymore. I practice magic and mostly I think that's useful enough as a descriptor of an area of my life, but not the entirety of it.

I think the practice a person takes on is really a personal thing...you make of it what you will. It's easy sometimes to get caught up in what others are doing, but what others do is not what I do...it can be similar, but I'm also on my own journey. I need to remember to honor that.

The Art of Memetics is now Available

The Art of Memetics by Edward Wilson and Wes Unruh is now available at Lulu.com. Check it out and see what two really talented magicians have to offer.

Neuro-sorcery Pt 4

A friend of mine asked me recently if I had considered working with the neural network of the brain. The neural network basically is a network that is created by how you learn, but also be the paterns of behavior you engage in. As you continue to repeat a behavior it becomes more and more imprinted in the patterns of psynaptic firing. To change a behavior, the change has to occur in the neural network. The change ends up creating new pattern of pysnaptic firing. That's a rough summary of it. I'm probably not entirely accurate in my description of it, but I'm still doing a lot of research on neuroscience. In anycase, my latest work has involved working with this concept of the neural network. Mainly it's been focused on exploring what it feels like. when I interact with it, I see a web fulls of lights with energy going in particualr directions. I'll be writing more later...it's at an early stage.

Advanced books: Is there a market for them?

Recently Carl Weshke, the owner of Llewellyn books put up a call for readers, asking them to email him about advanced books, i.e. what they wanted Llewellyn to publish that would constitute advanced material. Oddly enough, Donald Michael Kraig had recently written an article in New Worlds Magazine (A Llewellyn magazine), which seems to contradict with Carl is looking for in advanced magic. In Donald's article, he suggests instead that it's not deeper books, but broader books which are more important, and that there's no such thing as advanced material. I disagree with the sentiments of the latter article. I believe that it is possible to write and publish advanced books on magic and find an audience for them, but it strikes me as odd that there is such a fundamental disconnect, or rather contradiction at work within a publisher that wants to publish advanced works, but also discourages the concept. Granted, it could be argued that DMK doesn't speak for Llewellyn, as opposed to Carl Weshke, but he is an editor there, as well as an author. Then too, there's the question of whether Llewellyn ultimately can publish advanced books. Their focus is on trying to reach the broadest demographic, which is impossible to do with an advanced book. An advanced book is for a smaller audience and will generally utilize discourse that is focused toward that audience. The goal isn't to sell books to as many people as possible, but rather to meet a specific market's need, which necessarily limits the number of people who will buy the book.

Finally, The wildhunt as weighed in on this issue, as well as commentators. The sentiment there seems to be that the focus on advanced magic and esoteric technologies is too limited, with not enough focus on advanced pagan spirituality and theology and philosophy. While I think their is a point to be made for the lack of advanced books on those subjects, I also think it's important to find a way to bring some practical applications to those topics. Thus a book on advanced spirituality or theology could still include some form of practical exercises or magical work that integrates the concepts into the person's life. Then too there are publishers such as Asphodel press who do in fact offer a venue for publishing books on advanced spirituality, etc. The difference is asphodel isn't a big publisher, with access to big box book stores, while Llewellyn is...and perhaps that's where some of the discontent from some authors is, because presumably those big box book stores will sell lots of their books...but let me just say that any book of an advanced topic generally will not sell well in big box stores. The audience has to be reached through different means, through personal interaction, but also through recognizing that your audience probably won't go to Barnes and Nobles to buy a book on advanced magic.

As someone who helps publish intermediate and advanced books on magic, and spiritual practices, what I find time and again is that the sales are not driven by big bookstores, but by knowing the audience and recognizing it's not a large target demographic. And that's okay. It works, because the people who do buy the books usually end up being loyal and continuing to support the publisher, while also spreading word of mouth to other people. The market success is based on knowing what the audience wants, and also accepting that what is wanted doesn't need to sell in large numbers to be a success (though I'll never complain if large numbers sell). The bottom line isn't what's important. It's the value the audience places in the material and also the author's voice being fully listened and allowed to show through in the books that are written.

Neuro-Sorcery Pt 3

Each morning I've been doing the meditation I described in my last post about neuro-sorcery. What I've felt is a tingling feeling in the center of my brain. It's been a pleasureable feeling. I have felt more focused using the meditation. This working has given me some inspiration toward how specific psychological or physiological issues could be eased by working with the neurotransmitters. If we know what neurotransmitters cause specific effects or what nt's can be used to meditate an effect than we can start to work with our biology to aid the psyche of the mind. I'll be writing moreo n htis later...this is just a brief update for those who are interested.

podcast interviews on Tarot connection

Interivew with Lupa on Totem cards Interview with me on experiments with tarot and magic

 You know in listening to this episdoe, I'm struck again by how much the ritual I did in it, already has changed my life. Leisa, the host, mentioned that each time a person listened to it, the invocation would occur again...and so there's some space/time magic for you...but also that show and in fact that day made me recognize some realities that were important to me.

The transmutation continues...

Neuro-Sorcery pt 2

Today I re-established contact with the Endorphin and Serotonin neuro-transmitters. The Endorphin neurotransmitter gave me a ball with a synaptic fire in it. Said it would be useful for activating the psynapses for my experiment. Serotonin showed me how to combine the symbols for each neurotransmitter together and apply the synaptic fire to the symbols to start the process.  You might wonder how I'll experiment with this, if I don't have an official diagnosis of ADHD. It's a fair question...But I figure by applying this technique in an environment where I'm really bored, it'll approximate to some degree what i'm trying to test, which is to see if stimulating the neurotransmitters will help me focus my attention more. The place to do that: work of course. Using the NT's to focus my attention on what I need to get done in a manner that has me sharp and focused instead of bored would be useful, both to see if my experiment can work and to get some work out of the way. We shall see what happens. I won't report on this for a little while, as I'll need time to compare and contrast the results.