Granny Wolf

10:44 am: Demonology
“Now, metempsychosis, which has been misinterpreted frequently, has a perfectly true side; for animal forms communicate their sympathetic impressions to the astral body of man, which reacts speedily on his lineaments according to the force of his habits. A man of intelligent and passive mildness assumes the inert physiognomy and ways of a sheep, but in somnambulism it is a sheep that is seen, and not a man with a sheepish countenance, as the ecstatic and learned Swedenborg experienced a thousand times. In the kabalistic book of Daniel the seer, this mystery is represented by the legend of Nebuchadnezzar changed into a beast, which, after the common fate of magical allegories, has been mistaken for an actual history. In this way, we can really transform men into animals and animals into men; we can metamorphose plants and alter their virtue; we can endow minerals with ideal properties: it is all a question of willing.”

-Eliphas Levi, Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic part II p. 77

I thought about this passage a lot when I read Malachi Martin’s introduction to Hostage to the Devil. Martin is in the difficult position of confronting a real problem with occult forces. If you talk about the way these things REALLY manifest, it is hard to get people excited about it. Occult forces manifest their intentions through unconscious spontaneous human action. There is no massive satanic conspiracy in the literal sense of the word. But the same eyes that might see a sheepish man as a sheep, when turned to our culture, might see just that…

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Tags: aleister crowley, doe, ethics

04:07 am: Goetia and the Angelic Hierarchy
I think I finally get it...

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Tags: aleister crowley, doe

02:25 pm: A little self-love, for a change...
“Humility seems to be discountenanced by The Book of the Law as incompatible was the proper understanding of onself as a star, a king, divine or sovreign being, no less than the greatest of the Gods.  It is further likely to lead to sin, i.e. restriction, since the humble are liable to fail to assert their independence and their right.”

comment on Liber LXV cap V:7

Feels good, don't it?

When I reflect on the reasons why I avoided writing up my own expariments, putting forward my position (online and elsewhere) on political issues, or otherwise shirked my responsibilities to my own essence, the demon humility has been at the root of all these failures.  I may not seem like a humble person, but frankly I am embarassed by myself far more often than I am genuinely proud of myself.  My solution to this problem has been to "wander the streets as a painted harlot," as it were, and to scourge humility to the bone, until its its wimpering finally ceases to distract me from my purpose.  I cannot emphasize this point enough, because without understanding it, my work is practically unintelligible.  There strikes me as something fundamentally obscene in my writing, which I would prefer remained "under lock and key" as the expression goes.  The profound discomfort that comes with revealing it is liberating, to say the least

Tags: aleister crowley, doe, personal

03:07 am: Middle-Class Magick
When people talk about middle-class values influencing magical practice, what they’re talking about is the lack of a goal HIGHER than one’s mundane circumstances.  Sometimes, you need to work at that shitty job, be totally broke, or go without sex, to get to the higher and better goal.  When you’re building the foundations of the pyramid which is the temple of which the aspiring magician intends to become master, you start at ground level.  For most of us, we already have structures in our lives that need to be torn down before we can lay the foundations for that pyramid.  These structures are characterized by implanted desires, desires not our own, which family, society, and through them, the ruling plutocracy, installed in our consciousness using the tools of mass media to define the psychological environment and the value-priorities of our civilization.  You don’t have to destroy those structures to learn how to use the pentagram ritual to calm your nerves, evoke Goetic spirits, call on Enochian Cherubs, construct working talismans (which is the true basis of this “servitor” crap that dim-witted Chaotes blather ceaselessly about), or invoke Pagan Gods.  Those things might present threats to those structures at times, but they are circumstantial, not essential, threats.  You DO have to destroy those structures in order to achieve knowledge and conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel and cross the Abyss.  Herein we find the essential difference between Thelema, and Paganism, Wicca, or “Chaos Magick.”



Tags: aleister crowley, doe, ethics, politics

01:09 pm: Sol Invictus

I recently read an excellent piece on the role of idols in Thelema on John Crow’s blog, which motivated me to finish this particular write up of the operations which consecrated my last temple.  I do assert that Thelema is a religion, after all, but I have also always venerated the images of sun and phallus in my temples.  I’ve been suspicious that numerous sudden changes that I’ve seen in my personal life lately, and the prospect of myself moving into a position of authority (rather than starting at the bottom rung of another kitchen of the same size in a bigger city), have been directly related to this working.  Normally, I like to wait at least a year before I make a full account of an operation of this nature so that the results can be fully and meaningfully calculated, but I’m excited about it now, so now’s when I’m writing it.  The actual work was performed between mid June and the end of July.  Although it could be done a bit faster if one were so inclined, it takes roughly six weeks.

Unlike much of the D.O.E. thread, there is nothing in this working exclusive to me personally, and it could easily be repeated by others to, I suspect, great benefit.



Tags: aleister crowley, doe

01:31 pm: How I Learned to Be Creative

“Be creative!”  Was what he told me.

I had what some people would consider to be an ideal job.  I was basically getting paid to goof around and surf the net for eight hours a day.  Ostensibly, my duty was to design a website for a professor of education, who seemed barely literate, and believed that the internet was kept in a box in the administrative building (funny, perhaps, but not a joke).  The fact that he did not seem to know what a “website” was made it somewhat difficult for him to provide me with actual tasks to perform, guidelines for the project, or to in any way evaluate my performance.  As such, most of our meetings consisted of his repeated imperative to “be creative!”  I would then return to my assigned office and, if I was lucky, masturbate to dubious pornography.  I did not really know how to design a website beyond using the built-in editor to Explorer, but I was willing, when I took the job, to learn new things if my task called for it.  Since I didn’t have a real “task,” per se, it didn’t.



Tags: aleister crowley, doe, personal

03:52 pm: A Judaic Question...
I don't usually post about these sorts of things, but there's something that has me stumped.  I received indication the other day that it would be significant to look into the Biblical figure Ahasuerus, the Persian King referred to in the Book of Esther.  The story seemed relevent enough because I was dealing with Lilith and there is a "jilted first wife" issue at work there as well, but it is my custom to dig deeper.  Simply having a computer that can easily search itself, and a vast collection of .pdfs, usually turns up a fair number of references to whatever figure of religious or occult significance that I might want to find.  When I put Ahasuerus into my search, I turned up a reference in Dion Fortune's "Psychic Self-Defense" which caught my attention.  It seemed to be talking about Crowley, and insinuating that his difficulty in attracting attention to his work and getting published while in America was the result of breaking his oaths to the G:.D:.  I was particularly struck by this, because I had been reading the Confessions while waiting for the appropriate astrological time to undertake the ceremony which created the imperetive to look up Ahasuerus in the first place, and had specifically been reading Crowley's own description of his difficulties in this vein.  Fortune's turn of phrase is "it was as if the curse of Ahasuerus had fallen on him," or words to that effect.

My problem is that, after reading the book of Esther thoroughly, I can't find reference to any bloody curse.  Is this just the flakey Miz Fortune shining through, or am I missing something? 

Tags: doe

03:31 pm: The consequence of recreational geometry

There are a number of interesting things about the squares of Agrippa that can be discovered with graph paper and a ruler. 

A few years ago I found an interesting incongruence with the mercury square in some of the available translations of various occult texts.  I believe that I brought up the matter at thelema.nu, back when it was a discussion forum, but the issue has once more come to my attention, and I realized that I hadn’t mentioned it in years.  It has no direct bearing on the presently ongoing discussion of this LJ, but I feel like writing about it today.



Tags: doe, ethics

04:57 pm: Into the underworld

If one has any familiarity with astrology at all, the following image is somewhat striking.  Indeed, if one has NO knowledge of astrology at all, there are still an obvious peculiarity.

I have considered posting a protracted analysis, but for the time being, I will stick to the most conspicuously relevant points.



Tags: doe

01:32 am: collage/montage
Here is a picture courtesy of the cosmic, the magnificent, the perfect, the wonderful Miz Mae . . .
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Tags: aleister crowley, doe, personal