Granny Wolf

09:55 pm: Faith in the Gods
Objective, independently motivated, self-aware ideas?

“The fact is that certain ideas exist almost everywhere and at all times and they can even spontaneously create themselves quite apart from migration and tradition. They are not made by the individual, but they rather happen-they force themselves upon the individual’s consciousness. This is not platonic philosophy but empirical psychology.”

-C.G. Jung, Psychology and Religion, p. 4

Jung observes that complexes which spring from this forceful presence are better understood as separate from the individual that experiences them. Attempting to incorporate them into the self intellectually posits a division within the self. The first step in resolving these complexes is to distinguish them from the core essence by recognizing that they originate from outside sources.

In magick and yoga, understanding and ceremonially articulating this separation allows the adept to recognize their core essence, their True Will, by distinguishing it from all other apparent motives and agendas. This arduous process determines a definite “center of the universe” which makes an intelligible conception of the “all” possible. From there, the adept’s idea of the universe is expanded to include all objects and phenomena with reference to this absolute point of origin. When we try to confront these complexes without True Will as a frame of reference, we mistakenly try to include external influences in our conception of ourselves, and become subject to spontaneous unconscious actions and emotions that spring from our struggle with these Self Aware Ideas that are forcing their agenda on our consciousness.

As Aleister Crowley observes, we will restore our faith in the Gods by getting to know them. Instead of trying to block them out with mindless repetitive tasks, or drugging ourselves senseless, or drowning them out with media noise, we have to learn to realize their independent existence, and confront them on that level.

How can the people of this culture ever hope to know themselves when they believe that everything in their head comes from them?

Tags: aleister crowley, s.a.i.s

01:45 am: The Invisible War- Corporations as vehicles for S.A.I.s
Corporations, like people, have essences. Or at least, for the sake of this discussion, let’s look at what is revealed if we take this premise as a starting point for our analysis...

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Tags: aleister crowley, s.a.i.s, the invisible war ii

07:53 pm: The Dangers of Demons
The real danger of the Goetia comes from identification. Demons are easier to relate to than angels. It is a false analogy, because the entity in question does not have any real connection to human experience, but it can SEEM that way. The demons want things. We want things too: that’s why we evoke them. The demons are cool. We’d like to think that we’re pretty cool, because we did pull this shit off after all, and now we have a demon on our hands. When we start to think that we understand them personally and try to anticipate them on that basis we make our mistakes.

People will make these mistakes for as long as they work with the Goetia, and in a sense they are necessary mistakes. Angels simply do not present this danger. No one would be foolish enough, when faced with an authentic angelic manifestation, as to become familiar and personable. The alien purity of such entities is immediately and terrifyingly apparent. Astral elementals love to pretend to be angels by being safe, nurturing, and comforting. This can be difficult to navigate. My basic rule of thumb is “if I’m not about to shit myself from fear, this has nothing to do with God...”


For those watching, the report will be a little late this Equinox BUT I finally have my laptop back and fixed. Pray for my enemies. I'm back.

Tags: aleister crowley, s.a.i.s

03:37 pm: Rose Colored Glasses- duty
“The seems to be much misunderstanding about the True Will. In argument people are always making assumptions which imply as uncaused will. The fact of a person being a gentleman is as much an ineluctable factor as any possible spiritual experience; in fact, it is possible, even probable, that a man may be mislead by the enthusiasm of an illumination, and if he should find apparent conflict between his spiritual duty and his duty to honour, it is almost sure evidence that a trap is being laid for him and he should unhesitatingly stick to the course which ordinary decency indicates. Error on such point is precisely the ‘folly’ anticipated in CCXX 1:36, and I wish to say definitely, once and for all, that people who do not understand this position have utterly failed to grasp the fundamental principles of the Law of Thelema, and may be expected to get themselves into all kinds of trouble which result from uncriticized enthusiasm about the ‘revelations’ which are made to them: their great Qabalistic discoveries and similar mantraps.”

- Crowley, May 21 1923 10.15pm

( Read more... )

Tags: ethics, s.a.i.s

11:34 pm: Weeds
The ego gets a lot of bad press. Some people (oo! vague!) try to diminish, discourage, or disenchant themselves with the ego. After a certain amount of work this takes place naturally, but we can see people mimicking this disenchantment without really understanding what it is about their egos that they don’t like. They only know that the ego is “bad” and that they are “supposed to” dislike it.

The funny thing about yoga is that it doesn’t make the ego small. It makes it BIG. The practices are difficult, and when one achieves some measure of success there is always the danger of self-agrandizment or self-fascination. You don’t just “think the right thoughts and avoid the danger,” although that is the ultimate goal. You fight with it on a regular, one might even say perpetual, basis, until you are so familiar with it that you can deflect it without expending any significant energy...

( Read more... )

Tags: s.a.i.s

03:41 pm: Upon the Earth
This is a post about creeping things!  Just a little research on the idea with no overarching theme, presented here for you to be interested in, or not.  I’ve had beetles following me around lately, so I decided it was time to check this shit out.  That sounds crazy to me, but its true.  My friends tell me that if I know I’m crazy, it means that I’m not crazy, but if I’m not crazy, what do I know?  Its a troubling paradox... anyway.... beetles...




Tags: aleister crowley, s.a.i.s, the invisible war

03:06 pm: Propaganda: The History of a Sacrifice
In any case in which we seek to describe an objective situation, in science or in this case, in history,  there is the record, and there is mythology.  These combine, under the watchful guidance of our values and ideology, to create the narrative.  Good history happens when the mythology gives us an informative perspective on the record.  Bad history happens when the mythology distorts the connections between the facts in the service of ideology or values.  Some people will think that the following is good history, some people will think that the following is bad history.  All that I ask is to consider the perspective.  In the interests of brevity, I assume a general knowledge of the players and the game on the part of most of my readers...



Tags: s.a.i.s, the invisible war

04:29 pm: Love and Hate
Hate is not for your enemies.  Hate is only for yourself.  This is not advice, a creed, an ideological standpoint, or a way of looking at things:  it is a truth.  A fact.  Those that threaten us are our enemies, but because they have the power to threaten us, they deserve our respect.  Hate, whatever its target, always turns out to be self-directed.  That’s all the nature of going.  The law, Love, GOES- and so it must unite with the new.  That’s love.  The union of one thing or event with another thing or event.  Hate is a turning away.  When you turn away from the NEW, you can only turn to the OLD.  And that means that you turn to some part of yourself, what has been digested already, and replace your potential experience of the new with an experience of THAT.

I’d love to say that hate rocks.  Not because I’m really hateful, but because I like going against the flow.  I’m the kind of guy who would just love to love to hate.  But, as hard as I try, I can’t.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating.  And hate is the worm that devours itself.  Love is the serpent that surges through the stars...

Ugh.  Actually, now that we're on the subject, I hate myself right now.

Tags: ethics, personal, s.a.i.s

02:39 pm: Sexual Revolution- The Secret Weakness
To equilibrate the threat that exists, in the form of the rule of the slave Gods, a weapon to secure our divine freedom and accomplish our divine mission also exists.  This weapon, because of its nature, is, by definitition an absolute pleasure to weild.  The incentive to use it comes, not just from pleasure, but from the hunger of physical desire.  It would seem as though this would be a difficult phenomenon to counter, but the Tyrant is creative.  Our present-day western society, in terms of corporate logo filth manifesting itself from horizon to horizon, is essentially a pornographic wasteland.  The mass media has used this method in advertising for a long time, but seriously, somewhere in the last ten years, things took a pretty steep turn to the sleezy.  I don’t think that anyone will dispute this.  There is certainly a relationship to growing internet use, and I personally see these things as co-related, but that’s just me.

What has the effect of all this been?  Have people’s sex lives become free and easy?  Or just jaded?  Is this an attempt to make us bored of sex?  We’ll never stop wanting to have it, but if we can’t conceive of it as sacred, we can’t weild the weapon.  How much power can this weapon possibly command if it is diffused by a pornographic society?

During the Aeon of Osiris, the sex-instinct had only one lawful expression, and by becoming forbidden, it gained great power to bring people to specific psychological states, and sexual imagery, because it was so rare and symbolic, had occult power.  This power cannot be destroyed in its essence, but in creating a sense of ennui around sexual imagery by using it for the most mundane consumerist purposes, the slave Gods are able to keep it hidden from most people.  The inversion of sexual imagery, and its acceptance into mainstream media, did nothing to enlighten people as to its divine nature.  The masses can not, will never, perceive the sacred.  They will never, therefore, understand the access point to occult power, not even if they read this post twice.

In a landscape sculpted by the cheesemongers of the world, the ever-present danger is wandering attention.  We inhabit an atmosphere of distraction.  And let us give thanks!  For our faculty of concentration is more greatly strengthened thereby!

Tags: s.a.i.s, sexual revolution, the invisible war

03:22 pm: The taste of the tail
Creation is the absolute reference point.  It is the heart around which solar-phallic gnosticism winds itself, in which all essential power is grounded.  Creation is the common ground that all existence has.  Even if the world is an illusion, that illusion was created.  Even if everything we know is wrong, our experiences are still somehow created.  Creation transcends possible doubt, because to doubt, one must have something to be doubtful about. 

As far as material existence is concerned, causality is what creates our reality.  Even those of us who are independantly acting, self-motivated go-getters, the circumstances of our birth and upbringing coupled with the genetic circumstances of our particuar bodies play a crucial role in making us capable of the things we are capable of.  This is why it has been so important in metaphysics and theology to establish God’s relationship to causality.  Spinoza’s conclusion, the one that I happen to agree with, is that God is self-caused.  This is more or less consistent with Crowley’s views on reincarnation.

Tags: ngbmii, s.a.i.s

09:25 pm: Propaganda
“If we assume quite generally that the motive force of all human activities is a striving toward the two confluent goals of utility and a yeild of pleasure, we must suppose that this is also true of the manifestations of civilization ... although this is easily visible only in scientific and aesthetic activities.  But it cannot be doubted that other activities too correspond to strong needs in men-perhaps to needs that are only developed in a minority.  Nor must we allow ourselves to be mislead by judgements of value converning any particular religion, or philosophical system, or ideal.  Whether we think to find in them the highest acheivements of the human spirit, or whether we deplore them as abberations, we cannot but recognize that where they are present, and, in especial, where they are dominant, a high level of civilization is implied.”

-Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents

The humanitarian values of modern liberal democracy present themselves as a system which, to borrow a term from Chantal Delsol, can best be described as a Black Market Utopia.  This is a Utopia that, because it exists in an age in which Utopian ideals are regarded with suspicion, emphasizes its own imperfection, and thereby disguises the Utopian nature of its goals and values.  Because, unlike previous systems, it is willing to admit to imperfection, it claims infallibility.  The errors which seem to have been made were not really errors, only the best possible decisions that could have been made with the information and resources available at the time.  This phenomenon is prevalent on the personal level in our society as well.  Whatever abusive tendencies, destructive personal habits, or escapist lifestyle a person leads, if they admit to it, and claim that it makes them happy, their flight from life and reality somehow becomes legitimate.



Tags: politics, s.a.i.s, the invisible war

02:56 pm: Words, revealed and occluded, on intoxication and conflict
,In Chapter Three of Liber AL, Aiwass tells us the promise of Ra-Hoor-Khuit “I shall give you of their flesh to eat.”  Crowley doesn’t say too much about that in his commentaries.  Motta remarks “he does, and its delicious” in his comment on Crowley’s comment, which seems to me to be avoiding the issue.  Much like the command to “kill and torture,” this phrase in the Book of the Law can easily be interpreted in light of religious and alchemical symbolism.  Symbolism surrounding death in the system of alchemical imagery, and the torture of the eagle by the lion, are important parts of the system of communication shared by Aiwass and Crowley.  An esoteric interpretation becomes possible.

Liber AL attacks the point of view of Jesus:  the notion that the world is bad and must be redeemed.  We should note that Aiwass does not attack this point of view because it is incorrect, but because it has been fulfilled, and incorporated into a larger system.  We find that Ra-Hoor-Khuit, rather than offering us his own flesh or the flesh of our prophet consumed vicariously, is offering us the flesh of our enemies in Eucharist, taken in war and vengeance.  It is possible to see this line in Liber AL as a metaphysical comment on the shifting of responsibility from a symbolic sacrifice to individual Will in the New Aeon.

But there is also, sadly for those who want to run from nature, a more obvious interpretation. 



Tags: aleister crowley, ethics, s.a.i.s

03:50 pm: Mainstream Genius
It is a common misapprehension that the goldfish is a particularly unintelligent, or at least forgetful, animal.  This strikes me as somewhat isomorphic to the conditions of our own society.  When raised in the proper environment, goldfish live for long years, and remember specific people.  They can be called, like other pets, and come for treats.  When raised in a small tank or bowl, one has to wonder what they could possibly do that would exhibit intelligence or personality.  Without an opportunity to learn or express themselves, they never acquire new behaviours or a sense of self to express.



Tags: media, s.a.i.s, the invisible war

03:35 pm: Tyrannical Anatomy pII- Love and the Tyrant, Mammon and Jesus

Its been a while since I talked about the danger of seeing a means as an end, but at one point this was a major theme to the analysis of the Tyrant and His activities.  It is significant, I think, to briefly revisit this subject.  A good end is “an end whose fulfilment brings not satisfaction, but pulls one ever onward.”  Love is uniquely suited to this purpose, for as Crowley tells us in The Book of Lies, “the joy of love is but love, and the pain of love is but love.”  Huey Lewis echoes these sentiments when he reveals that “the power of love is a curious thing/ makes one man weep/ makes another man sing.”

A little exposition on the subject will prove to be interesting. 



Tags: s.a.i.s, the invisible war

05:28 pm: Tyrannical Anatomy phase II- Who is the Tyrant, really?

It is insufficient to say that the Tyrant is Fear Itself, although practically speaking this is not an incorrect characterization.  The Tyrant is the self-awareness of a particular kind of fear.  One way of putting it could be “fear of success.”  Another would be “fear of authority.”  “Fear of power” could work as well, although ultimately it is apparent that these are different ways of saying the same thing.  William Burroughs once said that control can only be used as a tool to provide more control.  I don’t totally agree with that notion, but it is as demonstrably relevant as the axiom that “power corrupts.”  The Tyrant provides control.  When the obstacle presented by the Will of another is broken down by the excersize of one’s own power, the Tyrant is the initiatory force which allows this break to occur.  It is a necessary consequence of power, but it should never be mistaken for power itself.  To say that it is self-aware and has a personality may seem strange to some people who have no clue what is going on around them, but this post is not for those people.  It is not mere ignorance that produces this confusion, but an intentional unwillingness to see what is obvious to the observer unprejudiced by culturally indoctrinated assumptions about awareness and intelligence.  In the age of information, stupid people are stupid on purpose.  This obfuscation is itself the vehicle of the Tyrant.



Tags: ethics, s.a.i.s, taii, the invisible war

02:36 pm: Leadership, Occultism, and the Will-to-Die

Any individual or institution which is not grounded in Essential Truth (i.e. “reality” as it is perceptible to sensation, measurable by science, and can be reckoned by its Going, for all Truth is essence-in-motion) is doomed to delusion, neurosis, and functional insanity. The ego of the individual or the administration of the institution will have to rely on the suppression and/or representation of Truth in order to maintain its power and authority. The imaginary worlds created by this serve to cathartically release the energy which is needed to provide the imperative to overcome obstacles and move according to the direction provided by the individual or institution’s goals and objectives. This energy is, ultimately, generated by the Will-to-Die, which Crowley tells us is the product of our toil and labour. Although a “toxin,” it is also clearly a resource which must be utilized in the Great Work.

In the case of the ego, grounding itself in Essential Truth is equivalent to suicide. The Truth, pursued to its full extent, will lead to the revelation that ego is an illusion created by the conditions of existence, in the same way that a mirage is an illusion created by the heat of the desert. Ultimately, a commitment to truth is a manifestation of the Will-to-Die. This is a very natural and important human drive, (a product, if we are to take a line through the Torah, of the divinely decreed fate of the line of Adam upon obtaining knowledge of Good and Evil) as is clearly observable in modern society. Those who do not satisfy the Will-to-Die by masking it in afterlife fantasies of childish religions must sate its hunger with drug-abuse, alcoholism, overeating, the pursuit of suffocating romantic relationships, or automatic conformity to a set of social norms which are, for all intents and purposes, the death of their essential Being.

“The fatigue of the day's toil creates the toxins whose accumulation is the 'will to Die'. All mystic attainment is of this type, as all Magick is of the 'Will to Live'. At times we all want Nibbana, to withdraw into the Silence, and so on. The Art of it is to dip deeply into 'Death', but to emerge immediately, a giant refreshed. This plan is also possible on the larger scale, all Life being Magick, all Death Mysticism.”

-Aleister Crowley, comment on AL II:73



Tags: aleister crowley, ethics, s.a.i.s, the invisible war

06:28 pm: Thelemic Etymology I- the short comment
A lot of people have their own opinions about the meaning of the comment which appears at the end of the published version of Liber AL, the so-called short comment.  While I am all for diversity of opinion (meaning, of course, that I have no choice but to acknowledge its existence) there is a difference between opinions and facts.  I “study” of the book frequently.  Crowley tells us in the short comment that this activity is “forbidden.”

So was the Apple of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden...



Tags: etymology, s.a.i.s

03:49 pm: War Machine VII- Thien Tao and the Tyrant
In his political essay, Thien Tao, Aleister Crowley deals with a hypothetical situation in the orient which mirrors the rule of the middle-class and the dissent of the aristocracy into plutocracy (“the cheesemongers” as he calls them) which has taken place in the west over the last few hundred years.  There is a crack in that mirror, however. 

“A system of intrigue and blackmail, elaborated by the governing classes to the highest degree of efficiency, acted as a powerful counterpoise. [to the mediocrity which was the consequence of “equality”]  In theory all were equal; in practice the permanent officials, the real rulers of the country, were a distinguished and trustworthy body of men.  Their interest was to govern well, for any civil or foreign disturbance would undoubtedly have fanned the sparks of discontent into the roaring flames of revolution.”

-Aleister Crowley, Thien Tao

This stands as one of my favourite Crowley essays for a number of reasons, but its hard to get over the fact that have circumstances changed a great deal from the time that it was written.  It is no longer in the interest of the plutocracy to govern well, and the threat of revolution in the west has been totally nullified.  As I mentioned in a previous post, “destiny” is best defined, according to Crowley, as “the path of least resistance.” 

What conditions have created obstacles to good government?  Why is it no longer in the interests of the plutocracy to govern well?



War Machine .1 .2, War Machine I, War Machine II, War Machine III, War Machine IV, War Machine V, War Machine VI

Tags: aleister crowley, politics, s.a.i.s, the invisible war

03:41 pm: No God but Man pII- the Serpent
“The Astral Light is the universal seducer, typified by the serpent of Genesis.  This subtle agent, ever active, ever vigourous, ever fruitful in alluring dreams and sensuous images; this force, which of itself is blind and subordinated to every will, whether for good or evil; this ever-renewing circulous of unbridled life, which produces vertigo in the imprudent, this corporeal spirit, this fiery body; this impalpable omnipresent ether; this monstrous seduction of nature- how shall we define it comprehensively and how shall we characterize its action?  To some extent indifferent in itself, it lends itself to good and evil; it transmits light and propagates darkness; it may be equally called Lucifer and Lucifuge; it is a serpent but it is also an aureole; it is a fire, but it may belong equally to the torments of infernus and the sacrifices of incense offered up to heaven.  To dispose of it, we must, like the predestined woman, set our foot upon its head.”

-Eliphas Levi, The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic, cap. VI

The serpent in the Garden, according to Eliphas Levi, whose understanding was accepted and expounded upon by Crowley in his own work, is a symbol of the force of attraction.  The Lion, the man, when combined with this magnetic energy, produces the Lion-Serpent:  the symbol of the combination of the essence of Man’s nature with the force that compels him to create (in every sense of the word), which is desire in the prosaic, terrestrial manifestation of the force, and Will in the poetic, celestial sense in which it occurs.  The Lion-Serpent is therefore the substance of desire as it proceeds from Man’s essential nature.  The serpent itself is pure desire.  If this symbol is, as Levi suggests, equivalent ton the Astral Light, the Lion-Serpent is the impression that Man’s creative Will makes upon that substance.


Tags: ngbmii, s.a.i.s

03:56 pm: War Machine V- The Paper Empire
As we have proceeded in our examination of the War Machine, we have obtained some significant clues as to its methods.  The striking factor of colonial imperialism is not how much land, natural resources, and physical wealth it is able to generate, nor is it the expansive power of the colonial tyrants.  The striking factor which differentiates COLONIAL imperialism from a more simplistic understanding of an EMPIRE is the geographical separation between the rulers and the ruled.  This is not really a new factor, but there are some key differences in the colonial approach, which is simply a highly evolved and sophisticated form of looting which began during the Crusades, and exists today in the form of the IMF, the World Bank, “free trade” (a typically obnoxious choice of words) agreements with either governments or specific companies, and facilitated by the United Nations, which provides in its Charter an excellent standard of international relations which it has absolutely failed to live up to.

As an interesting correlate to yesterday’s post, I discovered that the largest contiguous empire in history remains Ghengis Khan’s Mongol empire.  That expansion actually set a lot of records for “land covered.  It is all in one piece.  It certainly didn’t last very long, but the military approach which starts by covering land is counterproductive in an industrialized military climate.  The conditions are inverted.  Weapons are so numerous and potentially destructive that you must make peace with your neighbours, and make war across the world.  This is basically the opposite of the case in the time of the Mongols, where distant rulers would offer support to each other, until they became too close, at which  
point they became a threat to one another.

And, while hardly a single determining factor, I had to take an interest in this point when I was looking at the organization of the Mongol military.




War Machine .1 .2, War Machine I, War Machine II, War Machine III, War Machine IV


Tags: politics, s.a.i.s, the invisible war