An Import of my Tumblr Blog
Babalon Rising Pan-Thelemic Festival
Back after a one year hiatus, Babalon Rising is a Pan-Thelemic event, meaning it is for everyone who believes in doing their true will, not just members of the OTO. It’s for all those who have an interest in magick. Held June 12-15 in southern Indiana.
I’ll be making two presentations: The Babalon Current in Modern Magick, and Activist Magick.
Today we enter the High Holy Days of Thelema, this being the 110th anniversary of the first day of the transcribing of the Book of the Law.
And no matter how much I bitch about it, it is still a hugely influential and powerful book of magick.
Take a moment read this short and thought provoking book.
Happy Holy Days to my Thelemic friends. You have my leave to smack me down if I get too snarky about Old Beastie and his tome.
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.
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.
I want you to read this book. My Babylon is a dark, modern exploration of esoteric beliefs and one man’s personal trip through the Abyss. It can be described as a “Thelemic fairy tale,” urban fantasy, and occult horror.
In My Babylon, the magus, consumed with longing, seeks to create a replacement for his lost love using a grisly ritual that requires the theft of a body. Through her creation, he learns that he has a much bigger role to play, and that she may be a form of salvation not only for him but for others.
I believe if you try this book, you’ll want to read the the series. That’s why I’ve created so many options for you to GET THIS BOOK FOR FREE.
You can get a copy of My Babylon – Book One: Body by:
Signing up for my mailing list at jameslwilber.com. When you sign up you get an email link to download this and some other short stories in pdf, epub, kindle, .doc, .rtf, formats.
You can download it using bittorrent by using the magnet link on thepiratebay.com in pdf, epub, and kindle format.
You can download it for free from the following websites:
Smashwords (html, epub, mobi, pdf, rtf, lrf, pdb, txt)
Please help an indie author by reblogging this. If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review wherever you downloaded or on Goodreads.
You can purchase a print copy of My Babylon: Complete, containing all five novellas in the series at Amazon.
0. These are the adorations to be performed by aspirants to the A.·. A.·.
1. Let him greet the Sun at dawn, facing East, giving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:
Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!
2. Also at Noon, let him greet the Sun, facing South, giving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:
Hail unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy triumphing, even unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy beauty, who travellest over the heavens in thy bark at the Mid-course of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Morning!
3. Also, at Sunset, let him greet the Sun, facing West, giving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:
Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even unto Thee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Day!
4. Lastly, at Midnight, let him greet the Sun, facing North, giving the sign of his grade, and let him say in a loud voice:
Hail unto thee who art Khephra in Thy hiding, even unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy silence, who travellest over the heavens in Thy bark at the Midnight Hour of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Evening.
5. And after each of these invocations thou shalt give the sign of silence, and afterward thou shalt perform the adoration that is taught thee by thy Superior. And then do thou compose Thyself to holy meditation.
6. Also it is better if in these adorations thou assume the God-form of Whom thou adorest, as if thou didst unite with Him in the adoration of That which is beyond Him.
7. Thus shalt thou ever be mindful of the Great Work which thou hast undertaken to perform, and thus shalt thou be strengthened to pursue it unto the attainment of the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness.
So now that I’ve gone and written out in detail my own banishing ritual, I think I’m gonna try the Star Ruby tonight. The only problem I have with it is calling on Therion. My biggest problems with Crowley’s magick comes from when he tries to insert himself into it. As long as I keep in mind Therion is the Beast and not Crowley, I think it will go well.
Went to a class on Saturday about ritual construction hosted by my local Thelemite encampment. Saw this while I was pulling out of the parking lot. Made me laugh. Note the freemason symbol as well.
Yesterday, in my first real act of gardening ever, I planted to rose bushes dedicated to Babalon. I don’t consider myself a Thelemite, but I do like some of their gods.
