Driving

As I threatened/promised in my last post, RO and I had more work to do.

The night before last, we switched roles. He was the scryer and I the conjurer.  We used the same modified Trithemian rite as usual, but started things off with Thelemic version of the LRP and LRH.  Once the space was made consecrated and defensible, I summoned the spirit:

"In your name and by your seal, I conjure you, Bune, Thou great and mighty Duke. Appear before us and speak clearly and truly without the least ambiguity, so that even men such as ourselves may understand. Be comely in thine appearance and equally comely in thy manner. We bring you here today to bless these spirit pots, if you find them acceptable. Also we ask for the gift of your eloquence so as to clearly and concisely speak our Wills into being."

RO felt the spirit right away, and knew him. They've worked together extensively in the past, as you know, so this makes sense. I asked the seer what the spirit looked like: RO reported that he did not have a vision of the spirit so much as sensed him. There was a heavy heat in the room as we started talking to him.

RO asked him for approval of pots, which he immediately gave. There was a field of “yum” about this that was palpable.  The spirit had a quiet, expectant energy.

I then asked him if he had anything else to communicate, and he said that making spirit pots for other people was fine, but not to sell them to anyone stupid (I almost cracked up about that).  He explained that they are connected in a way, and if we made too many of them would diminish their power, like objects in a flow causing turbulence. This would interrupt the hydrodynamic flow in the same sense as putting big rocks in a stream. The flow can be used to create power, he said, but it must be allowed to move without impediment.  Additionally, he made a wry and crabby statement about the least common denominator which I don't remember well.

I asked Bune what the spirits received from having relationships with people: he said that other spirit were like forces of nature, and therefore couldn't choose their actions. They are a cause-and-effect system, and there’s no responsiveness in them; people are different in that way, and therefore interesting to “speak with.” Additionally,  he said, that humans are almost like mirrors to him, and allow him to see himself, as well as communicate outwardly.

He spontaneously stated that he liked my vocabulary and would like to help me with my writing and marketing efforts. I thanked him and accepted that gift.

The spirit then fell silent. I dribbled the spirit pots with whiskey, and I gave leave to depart.
I said: Be thou blessed, be thou cleansed and raised. By my skills and office, I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. May all impediments and obstacles standing between you and your Source be removed. (RO talks in his post a bit more about us having been ordained, so I won't go over it here.)

We then extinguished the candles and tipped over, because we'd been sitting on our heels for so long and our feet were completely asleep.

Be thou blessed.

 

In need of practice...

Last night was our first private working together in our new house. We have been here for two months, but have had visitors for most of that time; not at all conducive to the invitation of and conversation with the spirits. In between, we did a working together with two other magicians in which we conversed with Usiel and Ansoel about divorce shenanigans for a client. My first paid working. It was strange, and I’ll comment about it one day. Not now, though.

Our first private working, then, in our new space, was a spirit pot working. RO has some client work bound up in these, and lately gave a talk including a brief mention of their use at MNCON, an OTO convention held last weekend in Minneapolis at Leaping Laughter Lodge. A spirit pot, basically, is a particularly rich talisman that gives a meeting place between you and a spirit, a place from which the spirit can influence your physical reality. He’s written extensively on such things, have a look here:

http://headforred.blogspot.com/2011/07/spirit-pots.html

The actual recipe for the pots were using will be in his blog post of today (he’s sitting next to me writing it, in fact… “Babe, what’s the herb we used that smells like a dirty sock?”)

http://headforred.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-dukes-are-back-in-town.html

The target for my spirit pot was a duke, as described in the the Pseudomonarchia daemonorum:

"Vapula is a great duke and a strong, he is seene like a lion with griphens wings, he maketh a man subtill and wonderfull in handicrafts, philosophie, and in sciences conteined in bookes, and is ruler over thirtie six legions.”

Yesterday, Venus was in Leo. Additionally, of course, Friday is the day of Venus, and the Dukes are all about Venus…

My part in the working began with a ritual bath, NaCl and NaHCO3 added. I took kratom beforehand; I was interested in its effects on my scrying. Kratom is an herb local to Thailand (currently legal, but this status may soon change – keep your eye on Erowid) that is considered a mild stimulant and intoxicant. In candlelight, I sang Lutheran Te Deum, and put my head under the water and listened to the sounds of the house, the tub, my heart beating. When the water started to cool off, I got out and bound my hair in a white, new dishtowel.

RO began the Trithemian rite by calling on the Source/First Father. After that, he performed the LRP and I the LRH. After that, we returned to the script described in the latest entries. Before we donned our phlacteries, I took off the towel. RO consecrated me to the work at hand, and then he summoned Vapula.

When he entered, my head (the back particularly) became hot and slightly prickly. The crystal had in it a figure like a superposition of a hawk’s head and the skull of a big rodent. There seemed also to be a pointy tail underneath these things - a scorpion’s tail, perhaps.

Vapula made the crystal appear to be a tiny planet, complete with an atmosphere. This seemed a wonderful trick that he did just for me. Then, the atmosphere became a black aura around the crystal that throbbed.

When RO asked him if he had anything to tell us, he said, breathily, “Who are you?” Then he told RO to speak to him more. RO reminded him of other workings they had done together.

When prompted, he agreed to work with me on deepening both my learning of physical sciences and occult history and philosophy. He agreed to come when I call on him. He liked the spirit pot, and wants menstrual blood to be applied to his seal.

[I’ll have to consider that request…]

At this point, he showed me several different phases and forms of iron, including blood, before we wrapped up.

When releasing Vapula, RO blessed him and said, amongst other things, that we hoped any obstacles between V. and his Source would be removed. V seemed to like that very much.

A couple of comments on the rite: I’m out of practice and I could tell. I guess it’s like playing a musical instrument. If you play guitar and you lose your callouses, it’s hard to dive in. Perhaps worse if you play a woodwind or brass instrument and need an embouchure.

I’m also not drinking alcohol at the moment, and am as a result more sensitive about all sorts of things. The kratom gave me a terrific headache later, so use with caution. I am not going to use it again.

Tonight…more spirit pots. For those of you interested in the male-female/conjurer-seer stuff, you should know that I’ll be driving this time. I’ll report back.



Blessed be thou.

Yin and Yang of Ritual Work

The role of women as magicians is a topic that rolls around the internet periodically. It seems to be back in sight at the moment, and I wanted to say a thing about it. Most of what has surfaced is the usual. Lots of it is advice driven: Don’t hang out with people who want you to do things that seem inappropriate to you (no sex for initiations, don’t pay the guru too much, etc). Find something that resonates with your interests, and don’t be intimidated into doing things. There’s nothing earth-shattering here. People should do what feels right to them, and avoid doing anything that feels wrong.

Another topic that has surfaced (again and again) is whether certain magickal organizations are inherently sexist. Under particular scrutiny at the moment are the societies that were developed in late Victorian times with a masonic structure. Certainly, when looked at with modern eyes, the people who developed these societies look fairly sexist. For their times, however, they were for the most part quite progressive. The organizations founded around the turn of the 20th Century that are still in existence also find themselves on the edge of social progress. Since they promote the double-edged sword of personal freedom and responsibility for one’s actions, these occultists are typically supportive of LBGT rights and of any sort of consensual relationship. Many are champions of civil rights of all kinds.

The “sexist” label comes into play, at least in the OTO, because of the lack of outwardly recognized female saints and the very rigorously defined roles of priestess and priest in the Gnostic Mass. Since this is the only OTO ritual that most people know anything about, this evidence can appear somewhat damning. However, there are reasons for the sexual polarity invoked in the Mass, having to do with the energy of procreation.

Descriptions of the reasons for the public silence involved in female saints and this sexual polarity of the Mass are numerous, and truly scholarly work exists to explain how this is in no way represents a sexist situation. I’m not going to go into those things, because others have done a beautiful job of it already, and if you’re going to allow yourself to have a knee-jerk reaction about the facts in the paragraph above, adding my voice to those will not change your mind. The reason I brought this up is that I wanted to address some polarities in ceremonial ritual work that have been under discussion lately.

I want to talk about the polarity that exists in the working pair of the magician and the seer. In this operative pair, the magician is the projective element, and the seer the receptive element. This is not the same as doing dishes as compared to changing the oil in the car. The latter pair of activities do not have an inherent polarity, they just both need doing. The only thing that is similar about the two pairs of activities is that there are not inherent gender assignments for either one. The relationship of the magician and the seer in conjuration is the same as an outgoing email is to the electronic answer. They form a necessary couplet, which is a communication. It is also as gender specific as this example, which is to say, not at all. It's not even a different function, it's more like a frequency shift, as in the gif of the sine waves.

To more thoroughly beat this dead horse, then, men are not inherently the projective part of the pair. Women are not naturally more sensitive, and therefore the seer. I would venture that you can’t do either at will, you need to do some homework. Some people have brought forward that I’m the seer end of the R.O. – H.F. dyad because I’m female. Folks, it’s just not that simple. My professional life is thoroughly masculine. I’m normally the only woman in the room at any meeting. About my role in magickal operations, I have been the projective part of our magickal couple many times, but prefer the receptive part because I need the practice. My “mundane” life doesn't give me that opportunity; I’m lucky to have it in my spiritual work.

In closing, I’d like to say something indirectly related. It’s been forever since I’ve written a post. I’ve been finding a new job, finding a new home in a city 1300 miles away from where I am now. And now I’m packing. Prior to that, the room that served as our temple developed a leak in the window that the landlord wouldn’t repair, making it impossible for us to use that room the way we were beforehand. I am hoping my focus returns to ritual work shortly; life isn’t the same without feeling the invisible friends at your side. Is it?

Blessed be thou.

Shabbatai!

RO and I performed a conjuration of Tzaphkiel, spirit of Saturn, last night.  It was the first planetary working for some time, since we’ve been busy with Thelemic things (including an invocation of Baphomet that I may describe at a later point).  Tzaphkiel is held to be the angel of YHVH Elohim, and is connected with the sephira of Binah.  The link between “understanding” as the characteristic of Binah and patience and hidden things (a few of Saturn’s attributes) is chiefly made through the application of silence and observation, which will explain some of what we experienced.

I started with a purification bath, with sea salt, magnesium sulfate and sodium bicarbonate.  I made it as hot as I could bear, as I have reported previously, and sat singing bits of Lutheran liturgy until the water was cold, then dressed in a black robe with my phylactery and a black filmy veil.  I was absolutely empty at this point.  I went into the temple room, where RO was finalizing the preparations of the altar and the space, and sat down.  Then we began.

We purified one another with hyssop and consecrated with Abramelin oil.  We then together said the phrase from the Stele of Jeu (ΑΟΘ ΑΒΡΑΟΘ ΒΑΣΙΜ ΙΣΑΚ ΣΑΒΑΟΘ ΙΑΟ).  After that we called universal forces with the First Father prayer, and consecrated the crystal and the incense. RO then summoned Tzaphkiel.  I then read Fr. Achad’s Conjuration of Kronos (http://hermetic.com/achad/misc/conjuration-of-kronos.htm ).  The room began to thicken, and I put down the veil.  It made the candlelight dance in an interesting and confusing way (meaning it was perfect).

RO then read the Orphic hymn to Saturn.  The room was electric, and I peered into the crystal.  I saw first a mouth with a thousand very slender and pointed teeth, and it then resolved itself into any eye.  The overall sense was a quiet expectant waiting.  RO saw an old man in the crystal, but I will leave his impressions for his blog post on the subject. 

RO then stated our requests, for Tzaphkiel to open us to the wisdom of his sphere, to help us on the path to occult wisdom and understanding.

Everything felt of quiet and patient waiting (although I confess to being concerned about the flammability of the veil and the lack of a strong impression) when I heard the voice:

“You can take off the veil any time you want.”

Of course, there was a mild joke in it about my headdress, but it was also directly addressing our request.  Apparently, it really is up to us.

Blessed be thou.

Photo credit: http://www..aworldofmyths.com%2FGreek_Gods%2FCronus.html