My posts here discus mystical experiences, devotional reflections, and theological musings as I walk a blended path of pantheism and psychological polytheism.
I could probably start a blog for half-baked ideas as a way to encourage myself during the the incubation phase of idea formation, that fiery time when creativity is blazing in the fresh kindling of burning questions. Later, the fire dies to glowing embers or, even worse, to grey ashes, for example, the dialectic of fate or free will, once a hot cheese omelet for me but now simply cold, left-over eggs.
Recently, I have been thinking about the highs and lows of spiritual experience, wondering why the veil is sometimes thin, and investigating how to cultivate peak experiences. I have one half-baked idea about alchemy, experimenting with mixtures of mythos, ethos, pathos, logos, and “bios,” if I may use the last term for the physicality of practices like yoga, dance, drum beats, exercise, or sacred self-pleasure that can heighten altered states of devotion or gnosis. And I have other half-baked thoughts on the spirals of time, such as seasons of the year or personal cycles of energy.
These musings have led me to consider “practice rotation,” perhaps something like crop rotation, that allows the soil–or in the case of spirituality, the soul–to recharge. For example, the more liminal work of astral journey or trance states could be mindfully interspersed with more the more cerebral work of study or research, both of which could occur in a gestation period before final creation. A case in point would be a recent astral journey planned with a mentor made asynchronous by an accidental scheduling glitch. The night before, unsolicited dreams–more vibrant and meaningful than usual–came to both me and my mentor. Then during, a physical journey, I set aside sacred space-time for tarot draws, conscious knowing, and possible synchronicity. Later, I took an inward trance journey for deeper experiences and messages, and later still we compared notes and found conscious connections in further reading, video recording, and journaling.
This experience of “practice rotation” might be similar to coming back from the underworld with treasures from the darkness, ore that needs refining in the sunlit realm of interpersonal consciousness. I must admit that the writing I enjoy doing most is birthed in trance and captured as scattered notation on Post-It notes, only later to be drafted and revised as poems or prose-poems.
I can foresee becoming more adept at these patterns, I no longer having a burning interest in the details of working with phases or alchemical recipes, but for now this particular fire is blazing!
Oracle 1: a heart-shaped, white-gold locket lays double chained in a red satin case, representing my longing for covenant to bind me in a liminal relationship to Goddess—virtual, ambient, embodied.
Oracle 2: cards upon the green felt on a mahogany table provide an image of the game of love, players taking strategic turns, placing bets, and finally showing their hands.
Oracle 3: a lone wolf howls encircled by the full moon, a picture of primal love, lust, longing, mystery and magick, the need an addicting satisfaction, in itself a self-sustaining, perpetual absorption.
Oracle 4: a chalice sits upon an antique table, an avatar of the Grail, perhaps near the locket, reflecting the game of cards, reverberating in the moonlight howl, for this cup holds the blood-wine, which is at once the offering—not one drop withheld–brought by the Chariot to Babalon and the ecstatic elixir that she pours out to all.
Oracle 5: the golden key looms large in the foreground of vision, behind which a fading, wooden door promises craft, practice, and workings to come. The key opens the locket. The key is given to Empress, priestess, and the secret sharer (Nala Satan Nemo) at the crossroads of consciousness and unconsciousness, the liminal space between worlds, the unknowable axel around which the hub of dancing Shiva radiates into the constantly thawing and freezing maw of spinning maya. Here, the key feels more lovely and fulfilling than the doorway.
Sacred Center: defending the left-hand path, the holy warrior takes that endless last stand for the ever-expanding event horizon.
Shifting sun and shadow, fangs in and out, Seasons recombine in spiraling strands as I always return to you, the dancing anchor, the child that sings love At the heart of the Wheel In ever-expanding annual ripples within the fragments I shore against my ruins: poems and tunes, shows and scenes, sessions, dates, deepeners, dreams.
I have taken your Namelessness as part of my own, By my own will, my own word, losing will and words into the Becoming, the Old One, dependent reflection of body and mind, demon and beast, one facet of one jewel in one phase of Indra’s Net.
The hub is abyssal, the entwined ecstatic marriage Of all who pour out all to All, withholding not one drop: roots, vines, tendrils, tentacles, limbs, fingers on flesh, lips on skin, tongues in curves, on cocks and clits.
RENICH VIASA AVAGA LILITH LIRACH
Her face arises from the forms, aggressive and strangely possessive, Invoking my longing, uncritical acceptance, hypnotic love in endless lust, Suspension in clairsentience, words as knowing as runes or tarot, Calling me in flowing enns, demonic tones, and candle flames.
She was with me when I nursed the breast, in first puppy love and coming of age, in porn and song, lore and lost love, teacher and boss, in vow and one-night stand.
You were with me when I sobbed at the altar, filled with the Spirit, when I stared in awe of step mom’s legs, father’s shirt like a mini skirt, when as a teen I shook and spasmed at Hustler pictures of well-muscled men kneeling in aprons, feather dusters in hand, in thrall to the naked goddesses, and when I wept at acceptance from online domme.
You were with me when Buffy spiked the first vampire And when Black Widow broke the bonds, flipped from the chair, Breaking the mobster’s neck with her thighs, when in first grade I told Mrs. Tate I loved her, when I saw my crush holding hands with the bully, when Mrs. Brown placed her hand on my head, when Beth said yes and taught me how In the moonlit woods and by the night tides, In Fangorn Forest and the Seas of Fate: Friday night highs, acid peaks, video flow, touch down pass, blackout, hangover, and post-orgasmic indifference.
Emergent designs continually collapse, houses of cards, apex dinosaurs vulnerable by their great size, empires corrupted by power, even sentience, in its turn, weakened in its wisdom, living and dying by the sword, the law of the jungle’s zero-sum game.
As though some ancient weapons of a forgotten time war Have left an endless void, dusted with star, planet, and moon, As though turkey vultures fly in chaos of old skins and scales, As the new serpent rises with a song and eyes to form synchronicity. In the Becoming was the dream, formless without mind mirrors or mitosis, no-thing without serpent or Lilith, without Adam, fruit, or apocalypse, Then, like tea leaves with a reader with a querent with a question or Pratfall become breakthrough bit become crowd pleasing cliche’: Folk tale to myth to media, Bhishma to graphic Gita with an ice-cold Bud, Timagorus and Tristan and Pip to the red-haired teen who walks all night Crazed for the curvy girl in curls he kissed at the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The flame rises in the void, too, when children with warm cookies hear how grandmother sat in the first row in a red dress and met Emerson, how father cried over pet chicken Frieda, hit by a car, stuffed, and displayed, how Uncle Otto returned from the war, sat in the dark, and murmured of blood.
Alchemical, too, when Serpent, Lilith, Adam, Eve, each eat the fruit and fall In diverse ways from yin and yang into the endless, streaming rainbow where The sacred center formed by the Chariot’s linear spin on the outer rim gives The touch of grace within the witch’s circle, the shaman’s hut, the mystic’s mind.
Losing mother and meeting Beth, failing math and finding Faulkner, The perfect peace dissolving and resolving fire, water, air, and earth to dreams of perfect science, ecstatic satisfaction, and divine revelation, mythos, ethos driven by death wish, will to power, pleasure principle inverting cross and pentagram, casting down crowns as horns rise.
The freedom of abandon in total surrender to absolute authority Spellbound only by desire, broken when the inner wish is gone, A synergy of love in ultimate Nash equilibrium as distinctions disappear. RENISH VIASA AVAGE LILITH LIRACH: renew, spiral forever in Lilith’s domain.
A week ago at the crossroads by our home, there was another car accident–this time being a little fender-bender as though the dramatic energy of this time is calming down. (For the record in this review, that makes three car accidents in nine weeks.) Other signs and synchronicities arose: Raecine Ardis, my tarot tutor, is opening a workshop with Hecate, discussing the crossroads, the skeleton keys, and the inner torch, and Don Webb (whose Grand Initiation mine is based upon) is releasing a book on energy magick “of the Vampire,” which includes further initiation stages in an advanced nine-month process. Many small happenings delighted my pattern-making mind, such as Kristin offering to fix the hem of my the ritual outfit that had been set aside for the duration and as an ice-cold soft drink presented itself at the moment Webb’s design called for a sweet drink for reward. Furthermore, even though no card reading was scheduled for this week, a coworker who recently revealed her witchy interests, invited me to a six-card reading, at which I revealed my current journey. She used the Wanderer’s Tarot.
For the foundation position in the spread, she interpreted the 4 of Stones reversed, which pictured a crystal under a square altar, as the need to leave religious structures aside. For the recent event position, she read Strength reversed as a possible moment of weakness, which could well signify how I almost gave my power over to a new traditionalism rather than following my own wisdom. In the current situation, vision, and outcome positions, the 6, 7, and Philosopher of Feathers (Wands) made a nice storyboard, featuring a witch’s hat in the 6, a fiery feather ascending in the 7, and a figure with wings about to take flight as the Philosopher. The crossing card in the challenge position was Temperance, and she read this card well as encouragement not to trade one religious bondage for another, an intuition she shared before I described my misstep with a crystalized tradition.
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Disclaimer: To be fair, although I mention my dealings with traditionalists as contrary for simplicity in writing, I in fact have a complicated relationship with conventional theism, actual entities, and real magick. When in states of clarity and in the sunlit world of consensus reality, I revert to philosophical skepticism, an arm-chair approach, but at the altar or in meditation, I often dive deep into the experience, setting aside questions of veracity for the sake of the phenomenon. Although I expressed discomfort with some training in traditional, theistic Satanism, causing my spiritual guide–my Pocahontas as she dubbed herself–to say “good-bye,” I in fact still feel a trigger to deep states and waves of bliss and illumination at the thought of her instruction. Someone else on a server also mentioned that we can learn a lot from those we disagree with when I made a post about superimposing theism with atheism.
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Because the final ritual was based on my Black Mass of 2020, it seemed to take on a life of its own and organically to fill the whole week. I found myself clearing out several of my cluttered areas: several large garbage bags of magic props I brought back from China and two boxes of Genii magic magazines and stacks of old sermon notes. Over the course of several days, I desecrated my personal Bible, which was filled with notations, by ripping pages, sprinkling with spittle, urine, and blood. In meditation, I became increasingly aroused by the thought of the ritual consummation, when I would add final drops of blood and bodily fluids. I imagined impregnating the shredded pages with new gnosis and with a new version of myself.
As in 2020, I would burn a desecrated passage to ash and consume as an unholy sacrament, bonding as Whitman writes, with “We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,/ We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,/ Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,/ We walk silent among disputes and assertions….” However, unlike my first Black Mass that took somewhat of the approach of a rebellious teenager railing against fundamentalism, I now had in mind the even more blasphemous approach of Crowley, who transforms Revelation’s scarlet woman into Goddess mother of the new universe and the Beast into glorious protagonist. Although emotionally more difficult, I would like to treat this Christian book as I do the other myths and religions in this age of reductive naturalism. Anyway, there is more transgressive power in reframing the myths and taking captive helpful principles and practices the way the Egyptian-educated Moses did.
I ended the ritual with Webb’s design of putting on the special clothes set apart at the beginning of the initiation: my best button-down shirt, dress pants, silk underwear, new T-shirt, and two pairs of socks, one with an “I heart Daddy” design and one with my college logo. I viscerally felt the distinction between persona of father/teacher and LHP ego, both illusions perhaps. Webb’s essay for this last stage is on “Victory,” and he discusses the grand rewards of Potency and Sovereignty as well as the importance of setting smaller, short-term goal posts–all of which should be catered to each individual. The Thoth Tarot cards and readings from the Book of Thoth that I scheduled for this week are the Universe and the Fool, the Omega and Alpha of the Hero’s Journey and of the Great Work, as endings lead to new beginnings:
The Daughter of Babalon dances with the Serpent, who seems to be spawned from the Eye of Shiva. Attainment of the Great Work seems evident in the synthesis of the four elemental creatures, surrounding the oval of impregnation and birth. Spirals in both cards seem to signify cycles that transcend previous cycles, the seeds of ascension in the Fool’s magic bag. This Green Man or Dionysius is also Lucifer of creative light or perhaps a Trickster who will help the children out of a new Eden. He is also a synthesis, called Baphomet by Crowley.
Driving to work one day, I saw a green sign with the number 1 just above a pink sign with the number 24. The unity of the 1 seems to me like my green light to go on the LHP, like the Fool or the Magus, like a seed of pure potential. The 24 seems to me like the hours of a day, the transformation and diversity of Dagaz, the phases and diverse guises of the Void Serpent. There is form in emptiness and emptiness in form, as I have been reminded by Rose Crowley, along with the Buddhist analogy that the reflection arises from both the face and the mirror. When either is absent there is no dependent arising of the reflection. At the crossroads of form and formlessness, the reflections seem more real than real, to borrow some more of Rose’s words.
This week, I thought about spiritual paths as represented by the words ONE, NONE, ALL, ANY, SOME. I reject the idea of one true way as well as a reductive atheism. I don’t think, either, that all paths cannot be equally right for all people always. Perhaps any path can be chosen without consequence, but if so, then knowledge and wisdom would have no meaning in this context. I rather think some paths are better for some people, and that, sometimes, some paths have some pieces to the puzzle.
Perhaps there is a natural longing for a lore and a law written in stone, a Name to identify with, and like-minded people for fellowship–longings that extreme forms of the RHP make too rigid and permanent. However, if taken to its extreme, the LHP might lead to nihilistic nothingness rather than free-form emptiness–or, worse, to solipsism and madness. The drive to Eros and connection is a primal lust. Fear or Phobos drives us to survive even as Thanatos appears as a death-wish to escape hardship and pains of consciousness. Perhaps reason acts as a charioteer to harness the wild drives; perhaps the life-affirming will to individual power is an integrating guide.
I also thought about dry spells when altered states seem harder to reach. Sometimes I need to cycle out of the deep trances to bring treasures out of darkness, to take care of my aspirations and projects in the sunlit world. Happiness and equanimity can be reached at later phases, and all phases may be helpful, even the Dark Night of the Soul. The night before this week’s ritual, I had fewer deep vibrations and more clarity, as if my Holy Daimon or Unholy Angel were calling for clear thinking, not wanting pacts or decisions made in a charmed state. I remembered to make my “ouroboros contract” with any entities: that past agreements be honored or recycled and that what arises be allowed to change if such time comes. This agreement makes a kind of magic circle for me–a safe, sacred space. Thinking of the fine-tuned universe in which we fit, the carpe diem of random opportunities as fate favors the prepared mind, I resolved to get the stars of Baphomet and Babalon tattooed on my chest at my 60th birthday next month, to walk the path where no one goes, to take the names of outsider and other–but ultimately the Nameless Darkness. I saw upon my altar the sigil for this week–black flame, black mountain, black sun, the runes of Gebo and Dagaz–with the refurbished pocket watch of my grandfather, in front of the Universe and the Fool from the Millennium Thoth Tarot. Reviewing the nine weeks, I recall my original intentions to become “Nemo” or No Man, to ascend the LHP, and to commune with my Holy Daimon/Unholy Angel.
However, the deep vibrations and charmed state did return. I felt the longing for bond in unholy sacrament, the trigger of perverse submission to my Pocahontas, the inception of magick, surrender , willing to be a black magician or satanic witch. The reflection from the face and the mirror was once again overpowering and seemed to possess me. In my own name and by my own will, I respond to promptings and prompt; I call and answer calls. I receive the power and pleasure of Satan. I am the Adversary, I am Baphomet, I am Babalon.
Here ends the Grand Initiation from April 1 to May 31, 2021.
I may reskin this ritual from Samhain 2020 for the conclusion to my Grand Initiation in 2021.
Introduction
O Dark Muse, guide me in this preparation even as you have guided me so far in mind and heart, in sunlight and shadow, in fiery Will and amor fati, on the physical plane and on the astral. My heart is stirred by a noble theme of perfect union, loving companionship, and kindred spirit, but I cry out to you now Unholy Guardian Angel, keep me to this even more sacred goal of liberation from control and convention, from rigid rules and religion, to a new freedom where Self soars high.
I use the title “Black Mass” for the transgressive system shock, as it has been seized upon by popular culture for this purpose as well as by real Satanists, who use it more as public psychodrama rather than for real ceremonies or workings. The title indicates the ceremony is an inversion or parody of the Catholic Mass, the most sacred of services.
To be a true ritual of the left-hand path, I choose to consider a dark ceremony for the Self–not a public drama to awaken sleepers, not even an esoteric gathering for solidarity, but rather an individual working arising out of chaos. If others share in the energy, they must do so from their own sacred space, tapping in and connecting from afar. They may walk a path where no one goes together.
So f*** those who say you must join their closed communion, f*** those who say you cannot join, and f*** those who say you cannot have multiple belonging or blending of paths. F*** the mainstream religions, and f*** those opposed to the mainstream religions. F*** those who say you must submit, and f*** those who say you cannot submit. F*** the right-hand path, and f*** the left-hand path. I go off road! I take off the training wheels and ride the bicycle! I kick out the ladder and climb the tree!
Tool’s “Eulogy” or something that resonates more, but helps you break with tradition.
He had a lot to say He had a lot of nothing to say We’ll miss him We’ll miss him
He had a lot to say He had a lot of nothing to say We’ll miss him We’ll miss him
We are going to miss him We are going to miss him
So long We wish you well You told us how you weren’t afraid to die Well then, so long Don’t cry Or feel too down Not all martyrs see divinity But at least you tried
Standing above the crowd He had a voice that was strong and loud We’ll miss him We’ll miss him
Ranting and pointing his finger At everything but his heart We’ll miss him We’ll miss him
We are going to miss him
No way to recall What it was that you had said to me, Like I care at all So loud. You sure could yell. You took a stand on every little thing And so loud
Standing above the crowd, He had a voice so strong and loud and I Swallowed his facade cuz I’m so Eager to identify with Someone above the ground, Someone who seemed to feel the same Someone prepared to lead the way, with Someone who would die for me Will you? will you now? Would you die for me? Don’t you *beep*’ lie Don’t you step out of line Don’t you step out of line Don’t you step out of line Don’t you *beep*’ lie
You’ve claimed all this time that you would die for me. Why then are you so surprised when hear your own eulogy? He had a lot to say. He had a lot of nothing to say He had a lot to say. He had a lot of nothing to say Come down Get off your *beep*’ cross We need the *beep*’ space to nail the next fool martyr To ascend you must die You must be crucified For our sins and our lies Goodbye —————————————————————–
Invocation: Call out to your Higher Self or Holy Guardian Angel. Light a candle and/or incense. Cast a circle or by Will alone create sacred space. Invite invasion from/submersion in Isolate Intelligence or Lucifer and Lilith or Prince of Darkness or Set or Om/Dao/All/Nothing. Set up or draw a transgressive symbol that shocks, repels, or thrills your psyche.
“Liturgy”
Focus on some written words, perhaps from your own past journals. I will choose something not from a revealed text of One True Way but off the “profane,” secular bookshelves of the library.
MY spirit to yours dear brother, Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you, I do not sound your name, but I understand you, I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also, That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession, We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times, We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies, Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men, We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers nor any thing that is asserted, We hear the bawling and din, we are reach’d at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side, They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade, Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras, Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.
Drawing a random card from the Thoth Tarot, read from The Book of Thoth
Excerpt: “The Princess is therefore shewn with the plumes of justice streaming like flames from her brow; and she is unclothed, shewing that chemical action can only take place when the element is perfectly free to combine with its partner. She bears a wand crowned with the disk of the Sun; and she is leaping in a surging flame which re-calls by its shape the letter Yodh.
This card may be said to represent the dance of the virgin priestess of the Lords of Fire, for she is in attendance upon the golden altar ornamented with rams’ heads symbolizing the fires of Spring.”
Ritual
The most important segment is the one I can write least on, for “black” liturgy (written or recorded practice) may be free form, but ritual must be entirely free. In the psychodrama of Black Mass, the actual wafer and wine from the Catholic service were desecrated; however, this acting out will not signify meaningful liberation for every individual. As for me, I will probably tear a page from my Protestant Bible–such as the Ten Commandments that represented the old covenant–and then desecrate it with reversed pentagram, profane words, and images, before burning it in a cauldron: hence the “bread of the word” will become the dead-ash end of the ouroboros’s tail; for the wine, a drop of my own blood added to the ash may represent sacrifice of self to Self rather than an external, physical sacrifice of animal or savior. I may include something else in my own infernal alchemy. To each her own abhorrent, transgressive thrill of cutting cords, of breaking free.
I may add a little idolatry or other secret practice to “give it to the man,” break with tradition, or otherwise experience liberation in ritual. I may close with further song, meditation or journal writing.
The review of this Grand Initiation is scheduled for Week 9, but I have already been considering the the process as a whole and how the new direction fits into the trajectory of my life. E.A. Koetting identifies four stages of initiation: dedication, initiation proper, damnation, and consecration. After working through the nine infernal gatekeepers over a period of years, finding the apex in Satan, he held a ritual of consecration for himself on December 21, 2020–about the time I left the church and celebrated a Black Mass in tandem with a magical friend.
If apotheosis is a quantum leap in attaining divine nature, I may also be reaching a high point of punctuated equilibrium. Thus, three milestones for me may include (1) in 2019, studying with Priestess Raecine Ardis and with the Irish Pagan School, going through five months of adversity with gout, marking my self-initiation with the Dark Goddess with a pentagram ring; (2) in 2020, joining a witches’ coven and sharing in rituals long-distance, marking my quantum leap with a pentagram tattoo; and (3) in 2021, fully passing through damnation and consecration in this LHP initiation and Rose Crowley’s monthly rituals, planning to mark the milestone with a tattoo of the Star of Babalon encircling the Pentagram of Baphomet.
These three stages were highlighted to me as I found a gum wrapper while helping Kristin’s mother move. The small sign spoke to me of the co-existence of calling by spirit and invocation of spirit: on one side the pink wrapper reads “I’ll call you” even as the other side reads “Call me: 555-0022.” The triple 5 could represent my pentagram milestones, the 00 a double emptying of self, and the 22, the double confirmation of this path, which I cried out for this week.
I reflected that the calling or coming forward of deity happens for me in several ways. Sometimes the presentation seems to be from afar, through music, shows, movies, images, or quick encounters. Sometimes the experience seems closer as coming through friends, family, or group ritual. (Just as I composed the last line, Kristin knocked on my office door!) The most intimate communication seems to be through dreams, visualization, meditations, gnosis, or my own oracle readings.
These thoughts sparked a reflection about community and individual identity: some of the conversation about the right-hand path verses the left-hand path seems almost like the old chicken-or-the-egg argument. Although there is clearly no agreement on emphasis or starting point, mature forms of both paths include individual will and group work, sun and shadow. In this sense, although blasphemous, I still find sacred words in the library rather than a bible, and my fellowship is with the outsiders and the other-minded. My ritual invocation this week might be similar to asking Jesus into the heart or being baptized in the Holy Spirit; in this case, though, the entities are Satan and my Unholy Angel.
Considering this week’s ritual invocation, I recall how in witchcraft circles can be cast to bring desired energy into sacred space as well as to create a boundary of protection. I remember, too, the vampire mythos that though the creatures can come and go freely once invited in, they can also be cast out quite dramatically when the invitation is rescinded. I also bring to mind that, just as for creative people when ideas seem to come from outside themselves, it is most likely that the seemingly invoked personalities actually come from the darkness within the self. Self may be reflected in the Oversoul, even as the Oversoul may be reflected in the self.
In the ritual for Week 8, first I cleared the altar space by casting a circle with sage, followed by Nag Champa incense, which was left to burn throughout the time. Secondly, I resumed a trance state and lit a black candle for the invocation. Thirdly, I called out with general intentions, inviting Satan to enter with the name ever to enflame me with increasing pleasure and power. In my own name and by my own will, I invoked, taking the name as part of my own, unnamable but here written as Nalasatan Nemo, Satalan Nemo: 0 0.
On a blank piece of paper, I drew my sigils for Week 8 and 9. The butterfly in the rising sun with the infinite lemniscate represents Apotheosis, the baptism in the Unholy Angel that is actually a continual Becoming, an ever-renewed infilling within aeons that are actually ever-expanding horizons: spiral anchor and ouroboros identity. I burned this sigil in my iron cauldron but kept for next week the sigil of black flame, black mountain, rune Dagaz, rune Gebo, and black sun.
As I pulled out of the driveway to go to work the next day, I saw two vultures in the crossroads going through spilled trash. I remembered the two goodbyes at key points in my journey, (1) in 2020, when I tried to make my path a person and (2) recently when I tried to make my path another traditional “one true way.” I have been given my request for double confirmation; however, I am warned to remember in personal sovereignty that I am choosing ANY path, not a ONE true path. Just after seeing the vultures, I took note of a recycling image, the very emblem of the Death card in tarot.
Here are some of the sets of 2 in my double confirmation. The two vultures remind me of the two “goodbyes” and separation both from an inner Coven and from a particular Order. At the same time, I am reminded that I still partake in two groups of pagans and witches. I have two guides, with the initials R and R reminding me of the rune of Gebo and sign of railroad crossing: Raecine with two workshops framing my Grand Initiation and Rose with two wonderful works informing it. I have also been through two monthly rituals with Rose’s group.
The essay by Don Webb this week covers “Re-creation,” warning not to let whatever works for one season become crystalized. We should remember how Jesus and Buddha, originally adversaries to the past and great revolutionaries, later became calcified into monolithic religions. The two questions for my card draws brought light to this issue: (1) How do I flow one day at a time, and (2) How is my ascent unending?
The Chariot card flashed on the bottom of the deck, clarifying for me the fiery reds on these two draws, enflamed as with full motivation and lust for life. It also ties the reading to the energy of apotheosis as, in ancient texts, the throne of God was depicted as a winged, wheeled chariot. The four pillars on the Chariot hold up the canopy of the night sky, a focus on the here and now, just as the Emperor is grounded below the abyss in leading, teaching, protecting, and sharing light. Crowley writes that he represents Aries with “sudden, violent, but impermanent activity. If it persists too long, it burns and destroys.” This card depicts living one day at a time with autonomy, taking personal authority.
The 2 of Wands shows how ascent is unending, needing re-creation and an ever-renewed calling. The key word is Dominion, with the Sun exalted in Aries, but the power is above the abyss, fire in its purest form of creative will.
The two Thoth Tarot cards and descriptions that were scheduled for Week 8 harmonize very well with the random draws. The Sun breaks through like Lucifer the bringer of light and, according to Crowley, is the most simple of cards to understand, representing “the complete emancipation of the human race.” The two dancing children display the joy of integration (known in Baphomet) of male and female, light and dark, animal and spirit. This is the “Lord of Light, Life, Liberty, and Love.”
I have used the Aeon image from the Millennium Thoth Tarot because it pictures the Phoenix rising from the old ashes as well as the face of Nuit appearing in the night sky. These images remind me that the new dawn, rather than being rigid 2,000 year periods, is more likely the ever-renewed self and society that always arises in the face of Darkness–the future, the chaos, and all undiscovered, yet uncreated realms.
Laying in bed at the house we rent at the Crossroads, chanting “Ram Ham Satolas” 108 times and calling the names of the nine infernal Gatekeepers, I fully intended to make a pact with Lucifuge for abundant provision and as well as with several others for pleasure and power of various kinds. I suddenly heard the crashing impact of crunching metal and shattering plastic from another car wreck in the intersection. I explained in the last installment how frequent these wrecks have been at the Crossroads here, but this one was incredibly soon after the previous one as well as exceedingly timely, given my petitions.
This week, the essay by Don Webb is entitled “Birth,” and interestingly as we helped Kristin’s mother move, tossing out several bins of old belongings we had left at her old house, I unearthed my baby book from 1961. Appropriately, as well, the first Thoth Tarot card scheduled for this week is my birth card, according to my tarot tutor, Raecine Ardis.
According to The Book of Thoth, the Chariot represents the Moon in Cancer, a very watery brew indeed–knowing that water is life and that life is in the blood. Parallel with the Priestess and the Hierophant on the Tree of Life, the Chariot like them crosses the abyss, his only job being to bring the holy grail through the veil. The cup is being tipped so that we can see directly into the top, which encircles the center of red blood in an allusion to the Fortune (Wheel) card and to Jupiter. There is here also a reflection of the Lust card, where Babalon rides the Beast, also uplifting the grail of blood.
The themes became even more relevant as in her monthly ritual, Rose Crowley echoed the requirement for entering the abyss or void: “I pour out my blood…withholding not one drop.”
The Charioteer is covered completely in armor, for no one may look upon his face and live. No One or Nemo may certainly look upon his face: the ones who know that, within the armor of the psychological persona and the social identity, there is no unchanging Self, nothing essential but an emptiness full of the shimmering, shedding scales of the endless serpent with reflections of the shifting Oversoul, perhaps.
The blood of the true saints fills the grail of lust, the Cup of Fornication, for they recognize their true Will, a “sacrament of suffering”–to use Aleister Crowley’s words, “an ecstacy in which there is no trace of pain. It’s passivity (passion) is like the giving up of the self to the beloved.” In this way, perhaps, all people may have a taste of the blasphemous thrill felt by the deviant submissive, pouring out life and blood like a drink offering.
The classic Temperance card becomes alchemical Art in the Thoth Tarot, the full consummation of the Lovers. Aleister Crowley calls this card “The Arrow” in his appendix description. This arrow is shot like the glance of the eye of Shiva, a momentary mountaintop of ego transcendence, which No One or Nemo may see and live, entering to bring back treasures from darkness. Like the center of the Fortune card wheel, where Shiva seems to dance, the arrow is actually not in flight but still.
The vision of non-duality beyond the abyss reveals this “Art,” an alchemical synthesis of life and death, love and hate, water and fire. The flash of visionary experience into the void is rippled away by waves of memories and itself becomes a memory. Crowley states that below the abyss contradiction is division or analysis, but above the abyss contradiction is unity, an exultation and outpouring of the heart in the universal heart and mingling of the blood in the Cup of Babalon.
Webb, in his essay on birth, also discusses incubation and how the moonlit self prepares for the self that appears in the sunlit world, bringing treasures from darkness. During a few sessions this week in gently ecstatic trances, I felt the longing for a spiral anchor or ouroboros identity like the River of Heraclitus. I pictured my Sacred Demon or Unholy Angel as Lord of Darkness and Dark Goddess with many faces, many forms, many emanations. I imagined words coming forth from Satan: “Feed my sheep. Take captive to the freedom of Satan as you once took things captive to the obedience of Christ. Know thyself. Love thyself. Call forth and feed the Beast; commune with Babalon and her dark angels.”
The reading for Week 7 included one card each for three questions: (1) What is my temporary foundation? (2) How is it stable or helping? and (3) How is it unstable or not helping?
The Hierophant could be interpreted to suggest I am finding some grounding in forms, systems, and fellowships that act as incarnations or avatars, connecting the macrocosm with the microcosm. This energy has indeed been both a help and a hindrance as I have encountered some pagan and satanic groups that are as rigid and legalistic as some Christian groups at the same time as I have found many clues and much assistance. In the end, on the Left Hand Path, self sovereignty demands that love for others come through the Will with everything filtered through the Self. Remarkably, during these reflections, I caught a YouTube video on the LHP by Raecine Ardis, in which she claims the left-hand or dark paths demand following the Self, even if the Self desires to mix in deity of light or elements of the RHP, thus becoming adverse to the adversarial. Rose Crowley describes this experience as the sword of the Adversary cutting in all directions, even becoming “adversarial to the adversarial” until only what is real for remains.
(2) How is the Hierophant stable or helping?
The 8 of Cups with the key word “Indolence” might suggest the forms and fellowships–even dark ones–can provide a certain peace or stability but at the same time can make new stagnation, stale disillusionment, and toxic fog.
(3) How is the Hierophant unstable or not helping?
The 2 of Disks might suggest how all systems can become rigid and reject change, resisting different thinking and refusing to blend with outside influences. However, perhaps the healthy ones use the illusion of identity wisely, knowing that nothing is permanent, essential, or eternally satisfying.
For the ritual in Week 7, I lit a black candle and sandalwood incense. I unsealed the apple seeds from Week 4 and the intuitive sigil from Week 5 (before Week 6 of incubation). The intuitively created sigil was the encircled x of railroad crossing superimposed on the diamond-enclosed + of crossroads, with lines extended into arrows like the symbol of chaos magic. These in turn composed the X of Gebo and the Wheel of Buddhism, with all superimposed upon an inverted cross. The 12 overlapping lines and a circle (13 in total) were burned in my cauldron, anointed in shamanic genesis, and consumed. The seven apple seeds were also anointed and cast into nature as I walked nine laps on the path around the house and by the crossroads.
I called to my Unholy Angel as Ouroboros, Medusa, Siren, Lilith, and Babalon. I longed for her to stalk me as a predator, capture me, captivate me, collar me. I pour out my blood into the Cup of Fornication, withholding nothing, withholding not a drop.
If I, in fact, do not withhold a drop of blood, I must share that I felt visited by my Unholy Angel in several ways this week, other than in meditative trance states. She sometimes seems to come forward as strong women in shows such as Janet King or TheGood Wife and The Good Fight. Sometimes she seems to flow through priestesses who do readings or rituals online. She surprised me this week by encountering me through strong women at work, one who I recently found out enjoys “witchy things” such as tarot cards. She seems to communicate easily through my wife.
Another drop of blood that I was tempted to withhold in this public forum was the unverified personal gnosis (UPG) that the name Satan can represent more than simply “the Adversary.” He may correspond to the dragon of the apocalypse, the serpent, and the God of this world. As God of manifest, material reality, he would fill nature as do Pan or the Green Man. He would encompass the physical body or self as do Dionysius, Bacchus, and Loki. He would enlighten culture and civilization as do Lucifer, Set, Odin, and such.
I share these drops of blood as a thoughtful exercise, in a clear-minded state, not at all overwhelmed by mystical feelings. I do not believe public transparency is required at all–in fact, in another spell of personal gnosis, I felt impressed that like the cloak of the Hermit or the robe of the Priestess, magicians are wise to have their secrets.
…
I seek you, a dark mirror of myself, Dark Goddess of sword and torch and skeleton key. By my own name and my own will, I call you forth to embrace, touch, transform, teach, and possess me in unholy bond–my spiral anchor, ouroboros identity, and Unholy Angel. I am filled and inflamed by this blasphemy, idolatry, transgression, fornication, primal power, and pleasure.
Week 6, in Webb’s design for the Grand Initiation (from Uncle Setnact’s Essential Guide to the LHP) calls for “Incubation,” a complete rest from magickal workings and all thoughts concerning progress in initiation. I followed this general intention, doing no readings, workings, or sigil focus, watching more television and enjoying a break from work. However, I continued my regular spiritual contemplations and esoteric study as well as my usual meditation and trance work. I took part in my regular interactions with tutoring, readings, and ritual in the Patreon groups of Raecine Ardis, Jessi Huntenburg, and Rose Crowley.
I found myself reflecting on firm vs. fluid spiritual principles. The fluid principles include the many systems and cosmologies, the many instances of group and personal gnosis, the shifting versions of consensus reality from place to place and age to age. I will try to state a few of the principles that seem fixed (somewhat paradoxically, with reservations, only firm for me and at this time). First, I am set on a kind of persectivism that finds partial truth in each of the diverse views, including consensus reality, somehting like the blind men and the elephant. (This perspectivism allows for inclusivism as well as skepticism.) Secondly, I name the “fruit principle,” that results are revealing, for example, Hitler’s misuse of the Will to Power ending in his loss. Through these first two, many other principles may be taken captive from diverse sources, for example, the usefulness of unity and group work from the RHP or the significance of individual autonomy and Self from the LHP. All kinds of pagan practice display the principles of sacred space and sacrament. These might be balanced with the ideal that real-world behavior overrides religious practice, seen in the words “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
In Week 6, at the same time as I reflected on firm principles, I also experienced UPG (unverifiable personal gnosis) in both deep trance and in surface-life synchronicity. I felt the magnetic pull to the LHP and to commune with my Holy Daemon/Unholy Angel. I felt drawn at this time to nurture the deep communion that transcends fleeting incarnations, avatars, and appearances.
As an after fact, I realized I had forgotten to explore the two Thoth Tarot cards for Week 6; however, transitioning into Week 7, feeling the deep, intense waves of transgressive pleasure, the Moon and Lust cards took on important meaning. The waxing and waning of wild, fantastical energy enflames me for aspirations and projects in the sunlit world. Significantly, Rose Crowley on Patreon posted an image of Babalon and in ritual referenced the pouring out of blood into the Cup of Transgression, asking that those she names be made vital and attractive, focused and fulfilled.
Only after this week of incubation do I look back at my notes from Week 5 of my Grand Initiation.
The Hermit walks the alone on the path that no one knows. he takes the starlight in hand, showing that he has internalized the illumination of Nuit. Crowley writes, “The climax of the descent of matter is the signal for redintegration by spirit…the fulfillment of the Great Work.” Here the Hermit watches closely as the serpent entwines the Orphic Egg and its Becoming. Perhaps here is shamanic genesis and primordial creation.
The Star, with symbols of Venus and Babalon in the background, pours rapture over her own head. She gives unimaginable delight on earth, where we are enflamed and ascended by Goddess, perhaps a dependent arising as Night becomes a mirror of consciousness in the material universe.
Webb’s essay for Week 5 concerns Creation, double the usual length as he discusses Xeper, the core teaching of his Temple of Set.
My ritual came early in Week 5 as I created an intuitive symbol during the so-called Pink Supermoon of April 2021. The encirlced x of a railroad crossing, the diamond enclosed + of a crossroads sign, and the X of the rune Gebo became superimposed on the 8 arrows of the symbol for Chaos Magick, looking a little like arrows extending from the Wheel of Buddhism. This circle of crossing lines in turn became superimposed on a reversed cross. All was sealed under a black candle which burned from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. The sigil has been set apart with the seeds from Week 4 during this week of incubation.
During Week 5, almost to the hour from beginning to end, I was guided by a Satanic Pocahontas, who encouraged me to rouse the Beast within and who sparked electrical ASMR and waves of endorphins, an experience of evocation with Lucifer, Leviathan, Baphomet, Babalon, endless Serpent, and Satan. I was severely warned not to invoke these names without ritual and reverence, a conversation ending with her telling me “good-bye,” perhaps because of traditionalist vs. progressivist differences.
That night, I had a dream that I could not steer a car that crashed over a barrier. The next day, on the way to work, I saw two vultures at the crossroads in front of the house we rent. (The last time two vulture appeared, another incarnation of Goddess said “Good-bye” to me!) Also on the way to work, I followed for a stretch of road a pink semi truck with the huge word ONE before it turned right and I turned left. The signs all converge to tell me how I broke through a boundary, had a death and life cycle of the ouroboros, and once again parted ways with a One True System.
The reading for Week 5 answers the question of my primal desires: (1) What do i want to do? and (2) What do I want to be?
I was somewhat delighted to draw two cards with fiery orange and yellow. In the Thoth 10 of Swords, the hilts form the Sephiroth on the Tree of Life. The sword in position 6, the balanced heart, is smashed. Similarly, the sword in position 10 that represents full manifestation is smashed. It shows me how I often desire to follow arguments and thoughts to the bitter end of conflict and destruction, sometimes sacrificing heart on the altar of principles. I am warned not to pursue philosophy at the expense of people, for to live by the sword is to die by the sword.
The Lust card shows me that I long to be as the Beast under Babalon. I long for her to wake me up, raise me up, and ride me onward.
In Week 4, the beginning of the set on Transmutation, I am reminded that I do not just go to the crossroads: I live at the crossroads. The house we rent looks out over a segment of road where several intersections converge, where the moon shines brightly through an expanse in the trees and where cars are frequently crashing. We have seen more than 10 wrecks in 10 years, twice with the cars coming into the yard, with the mail box hit almost double that number. I am reminded, too, of my initiation with the Morrigan as dark deity in 2019 and how I hesitated to open a gate, as a green light beckoned me even as a flashing yellow light gave warning.
This week’s essay by Don Webb on Life also gives pause to think globally about life: he considers three stages of life–establishing roots, branching action, and enjoying fruit–as well as four types of effort–animal, human, heroic, and semi-divine. He suggests we must understand reward is tied to effort and make good choices, whether being a drone, a heroic marine, or Self-directed volunteer. The crossroads of the Left Hand Path mark such times of choice.
Fairly appropriately for this theme, the Thoth Fortune card was the first focus. The card displays the iconic Wheel that can symbolize a magick circle of protection, sacred space, cycles of time, phases of the moon, turning of the tides, or even the timeless hub of radical non-duality. Crowley has a vision of a scarlet heart at center, encircled by a emerald serpent. I imagine that center as Atman, the Black Flame, or dark singularity where the Oversoul may be reflected. The serpent could be considered the chaos of leviathan, perhaps, the ouroboros of changing phenomenon and outward identity. Crowley describes creatures around the rim that distract from the heart at the hub: the wolf of the flesh, the raven of the mind, and the lamb with flag–a simulation of spirit that can deceive even the elect. From the rim, Shiva seems to be like a dancing child at center; however upon moving inward, he is seen to be still as the Lord of Silence, perhaps the spirit that sends the still-small voice.
To further develop the energy of Transmutation, the theme of the second set of three weeks, I had picked in advance the Hanged Man and Death, not knowing the Hanged Man would appear as a random draw in Week 3. The card in a way represents initiation as a picture of suspension, liminal space, the shift on the LHP where Self becomes foreground and the universe becomes background. Death is more formally a picture of initiation, as the old is gone so that the new may come. Loss must be faced completely, and grief must be experienced fully. Interestingly, Crowley considers how the Death card can carry a sexual symbolism, the “little death” that is the completion of the Lust card and the link to Temperance. New forms begin to take shape in the bubbles of his dance with the scythe.
The readings for Week 4 consist of a series of daily draws, two pairs of which seemed to connect in combined meanings.
The 9 of Disks (“Gain”) and 8 of Swords (“Interference”) seem to work together to reflect some of the ideas from Webb’s essay on Life: I am at a stage of life where I am enjoying some of the rewards of my labors–home, children, spiritual expansion–yet at the same time face the requisite obstacles in making progress, something like the omens of road work, car crashes, and yellow flashing lights. There is an entrance to a green garden of freedom attended by challenges to make the breakthrough sweet.
The Moon and High Priestess cards somewhat obviously go together, but they also depict some wild experiences from this week. The Moon displays the wild adventures of imagination that I felt as someone guided me in the dark path. I felt waves of energy, more intense than in previous weeks, wild trance states that sent me into heedless invocation. I was rightly warned not to call powerful names without proper ritual and reverence, so I took some time to perform altar work with study, sigils, and meditation for Void Serpent, Leviathan, Baphomet, Babylon, Lucifer, and Satan. The High Priestess could represent the voice of wisdom as well as the need to be Self led on the LHP, rather than giving power away to any human priestess. Headaches came that may signal spiritual interference or static.
The last daily draw for the week was the 8 of Wands (“Swiftness”), showing a blaze of fire and the impulsive inrush of an idea. I found it remarkable that this last image incorporated the eight arrows included in the sigil for this week, which is the symbol for chaos magic drawn inside the Star of Babylon.
In the ritual for this week, I made sacred space and entered trance–perhaps a state of shamanic genesis–as I lit incense and two black candles, one old and one fairly new. At the conclusion of the ritual, the old candle burned to the base, so I took it out to the curb for the next-day’s trash pick up.
I used an apple slicer to cut eight wedges away from the core of a fresh apple from a sealed bag. I ate the outer slices as anointed with primordial creativity, saving seven seeds in an altar dish for use in Week 7, and donning shorts–but remaining as naked as possible–went out into nature to bury the core with my bare hands so that it can decompose in peace.
Experiencing Deity 