Tag: A.’.A.’.

A Man Without a Country

One more day off for recovery and then back to my regular magical practice. I have had an epiphany. It seems recent return to performing magick every day has once again returned me to thought processes that I cannot ignore. The feeling of anticipation at attending the gnostic mass this weekend and possibly meeting with a member of the A.’.A.’. has changed to dread. Not because I fear I am not worthy but because I know that my magical path does not fit with Thelema.

I constantly chide my Christian friends, “why don’t you change your bible?” Why doesn’t your particular flavor of Christianity hold a conclave, just as many have in the past, and make an official statement. That sections of the Old Testament that condone rape, slavery, and misogyny are not congruent with the teachings of Jesus and our current understanding of God, so we have decided to remove them from our teachings. They shall remain in archive for a deeper understanding of our history, but those passages will no longer be a part of the Bible we present as the example of our faith.

But they won’t do that. And I am fairly certain the reason they won’t do it is because there are those who want to keep those things around in case they need an excuse for the heinous things they do. They are afraid they might make mistakes and instead of having to admit they were wrong use the Bible as justification.

There are those that say as long as you believe in Jesus that you are still a Christian, and you don’t have to believe in those things. I say, if you are a true disciple of Jesus, why do you tolerate those teachings in your church?

I read the Book of the Law and I see the same thing. I see excuses for misogyny, and slavery, and violence. My Thelemite friends try to tell me that’s not what they really mean, that it’s a metaphor. So why not explain it? Why not say that in plain words? There are Thelemites who tell me that as long as I believe in the “Do as thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” than I don’t have to acknowledge the rest. That’s the same BS excuse as “if you just believe in Jesus.”

So I can’t do it.

Part of my decision might have something to do with learning that the Illuminates of Thanateros are possibly active somewhere in North America. Perhaps. But my application and ability to join the IOT is a long shot. And even if I do, I’m not so sure I’ll fit in with them. I have shown that I simply cannot change my beliefs on a whim. I have a moral center.

Comedian Patton Oswalt moans that he hates Republicans and he hates hippies. He’s a man without a country. I feel that way about everything, including my magical practice.

I’m not a Wiccan. I respect the cycles of nature, but I am not compelled by them. Ceremonial magick is what moves me, but I am not a Judeo-Christian (Golden Dawn, Rosicrucians), or a Thelemite (A.’.A.’., OTO), and I am not a hardcore worshipper of chaos (IOT?).

Perhaps my chaos brethren will be more understanding if anything else. Until then, I will continue my own practice, building my own system, and keep looking for answers and kinship.

A New Magical Order

Yesterday, I wrote a short post on the need to create a new magical order that wasn’t based on a particular faith. It seemed to generate some interest with responses like:

“Exactly what I needed to hear.”

“A tremendously large one (need), and once someone starts the snowball effect will do the rest.”

“I think the need for useless secrecy needs to stop. This is the age of open source, where you should be able to take other people’s code adapt it and make it work your way.”

The responses are pretty encouraging and despite trying and failing at creating magical groups through tumblr before, I am willing to give it another shot. Or at least start a discussion on what a new magical order could look like.

I am talking a physical, in person, initiatory order. In my original post I envisioned a group that had an Inner Order, something akin to the OTO, which functioned as the “social” arm of the order and the branch that performed physical initiations. And also an Outer Order that acted as a magical peer group. Something like the A.’.A.’. where the main purpose is reviewing each other’s work and developing courses of study.

Of course all of this would be open for debate and change. The only thing I know personally is that I would only be involved in the creation of such an order if it were founded on and maintained democratic principles. Not saying that leadership structures could not be created, only that ALL members would have a say in the direction and practices of the organization regardless of grade or rank.

For some interesting observations on the politics of magical orders – see this post by Phil Hine – http://www.philhine.org.uk/writings/gp_schism.html

So if I receive more than a couple of responses to this post, I’ll set up a tumblr group to facilitate the discussion. I’ll even go so far to say that if at least three people who live in the Ohio River Valley are willing to sit down with me face-to-face, we will officially get this party started. If folks want to start their own local nodes, that would be fucking awesome. Ideally, such an organization would be local, regional, national, and international.

I have encountered plenty of Hebrew during my magical studies but I don’t think I can say I ever “studied” it. In fact, for a long time I eschewed anything associated with Kabbalah seeing it as a product of repressive monotheism. I’ve gotten past that but I’m still not enamored with it.

I consider myself a chaos magician first and foremost. With that in mind I have decided in order to further my magical development, I must seriously immerse myself in a magical system and train myself mentally and physically. In this endeavor, I thought it would be helpful to join a magical order to keep me on task. Sometimes you need a teacher to make sure you do your homework, and it doesn’t hurt to have their perspective. With the Thelemic paradigm containing what I need and being the most accessible. And by accessible I mean not being a flakey magical order that has no consistency and may actually have a member or two living anywhere close to Indianapolis, Indiana. So I picked the A.’.A.’.. Which, by the way I have not yet committed to. I’m sure I will have some words to say on it once I finally get that sorted out.

So I’m studying Hebrew because it is the core of Kabbalah which is the core system of correspondences used in Golden Dawn based magick and its offshoots.  

Your second sentence has strange wording and I’m not sure what you mean by it. I am having difficulties right from the start because so many of the Hebrew letters look almost identical. Also, because there are more than a few variations of the alphabet and Aleister Crowley himself seems to switch which version of the alphabet he’s using depending on which book you’re reading. Which may be a fault of the editors or the typesetters, but the results are the same. Confusion. It’s making my transcription of 777 to Excel format a pain in the fucking ass.

But your question, “is it working for you?” That requires an examination of exactly what is the Hebrew supposed to be doing for me on a magical level. Development of a magical language helps the magician remove the object of desire and thus the lust of result. By burying your meanings behind layers of symbols it moves the actual meanings deeper into the subconscious mind which is better at doing magick. At least that’s one theory and the one I happen to like. Check out this article on Ouranian-Barbaric http://home.comcast.net/~max555/rites/obessay.html for some good explanations behind magical language.

There is a danger in all this, however, and I agree with Peter J. Carroll when he says too many magicians get wrapped up in learning and developing correspondences that they never get around to actually doing some fucking magick.

We can all start arguing about white magick and black magick or high magick and low magick and that the systems are there to prevent you from going down the “wrong” path, but I am in the camp that believes magick is magick, and that all of it is a road to your spiritual development. If you end up taking a wrong turn into the bad part of town that’s just part of the fun, right? Or as Peter Grey puts it, “real magick has no safety net.” No one told you this shit was gonna be easy and harmless.

The search continues

I have had one branch of the A.’.A.’. actually contact me. In their branch, the nearest mentor would be in Toronto or California. It seems somewhat pointless to join a group that I would never be able to meet with on any consistent basis. It’s not that I’m not willing to travel, but really, you don’t have anyone in Chicago? I find it hard to believe that practitioners are so rare. 

THE A∴A∴STUDENT PROGRAM

My course of study for the next 3+ months

1. THE EQUINOX from No. I to the current number.

2. “Raja Yoga,” by Swami Vivekananda.

3. “The Shiva Sanhita,” or “The Hathayoga Pradipika.”

4. “Konx Om Pax.”

5. “The Spiritual Guide,” by Miguel de Molinos.

6. “777.” 

7. “Rituel et Dogme de la Haute Magie,” par Eliphas Levi, or its translation, by A.E. Waite.

8. “The Goetia of the Lemegeton of Solomon the King.”

9. “Tannhäuser,” by A. Crowley

10. “The Sword of Song,” by A. Crowley

11. “Time,” by A. Crowley

12. “Eleusis,” by A. Crowley

[These four last items are to be found in his Collected Works.]

13. “The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-melin the Mage.”

14. The Tao Teh King and the Writings of Kwang Tzu (Sacred Books of the East, Vols. XXXIX, XL).