Jupiter’s Golden Rule

The cool thing about theurgy is the constantly amazing learning curve. The universe is vast and infinite nature is well reflected in the mind of man.

During one meditation my angel told me that the Golden Rule must be reversed in the West. Instead of, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, the rule should be, do unto yourself as you would do unto others.

Many of us would counsel our friends to stick up for themselves, exercise more, eat right, explore the things you love. Good friends not only say these things but help in anyway they can. When it comes to ourselves, we still have the thought but lack the action. The inverse Golden Rule says to put effort into yourself the same way you would put effort into the lives of those you love.

Last night, I communed with the forces of Jupiter. As I have stated before, each planet has its own intelligence. My view, up until the last week or so, was that the intelligence was the environment of the force. Now, I am beginning to see the intelligence as being of the planet that is a helper to understanding. In order to accomplish that goal, the being creates the environment and assists your immersion into that space.

As part of that meditation, I gleaned this. Everyone is just as important as you are. Like many revelations this sounds obvious in multiple ways but the thought really felt new. My belief is that our higher self knows these truths but our lower self does not. That is why these things are obvious and stunningly surprising at the same time. One is left with thoughts like why didn’t I think of this before and have I ever lived this truth?  

For me, the answer to both questions is you have. Often, we do not realize we partially live truths before they are revealed to us.

When this information struck me, I felt the emotion of the state of mind necessary to hold this as a living truth. I brought forth the image of a woman that I like but do not know well. As the emotion of that truth became solidified, I watched something expand. Describing this vision and feeling is difficult. Imagine one degree of a sphere becoming larger than before. Was that the universe, my perception of the universe, my mind or simply a sign in response to me getting something correct? Maybe, the vision was a combination of some or all of these. At this point, this musing doesn’t matter. I love the idea.

Everyone is just as important as you are.

What would be the result if humankind adopted this thought? I do not know. Making this real in my universe feels important. We will see what change this brings to myself and those around me.

Magick in the Workplace

 Now that my career in government is over, I can reveal some magical successes and failures in my workplace. I would venture to say that the vast majority of magic I have done has been purely personal and theurgical. Nowadays, I would say my efforts are becoming a more even mix between the personal theurgical (spiritual) and the healing of others. The workplace has been the only area where I have done magic without the permission of my target.

When I began working in a particular department, I was immediately introduced to a very problematic coworker. I described that meeting as, “Hate at first sight”. Her look of disdain towards myself was so pronounced I asked if we had ever met or spoken before. She said no. Over the next year or two, she accused me of being racist, a thief, and to being incompetent. She would go out of her way to make my job more difficult. This came to the point of writing mass emails accusing me of all sorts of horrors that included not only my superiors but supervisory staff that were not in my chain of command.

I am loath to do magic just because I am irritated with someone. You never really know if your irritation is just a personal quirk or truly and deeply justified. So, I did a spell in which I glued two shiny hematites on either side of a crystal associated with her birth sign. I used the mirrored surface of the hematite and worded my spell like this. “May her intents towards me be reflected back to her three times over be they for good or ill.” Two days later, she was transferred to another department. That department was the one area of the agency she despised. She had declared that if she was ever transferred there she would quit. She was true to her word and resigned within a couple of days.

The second time was similar but not personal. There was a high-ranking member of the department that was absolutely evil human being, at least as you can describe evil and a boss-like sense. She once fired two of her assistants in public during an official public government meeting without cause or preparing these folks in advance. She also called my then boss at 11 PM at night and demanded that a report be presented to her by 8 o’clock in the morning. My boss responded by saying it would take her all night to do that and she needed to get her five-year-old to school. This woman was unrelenting. The next morning, my boss went in and handed this person the report. She looked my boss in the eye and said, “I do not need this,” and through the report in the trash.

As time went on, this woman decimated the long-term staff in the department depriving it of crucial institutional knowledge. She would then relentlessly pick on others forcing them to quit. I knew the time would come for my turn in the barrel. The first time, I simply worked my way through her crazy demands and showed no angst or anxiety that she could see. She got bored and moved on to somebody else. The second time she came for me I was done.

I did a brief psychic investigation and found the most likely route of her travel would be North. I prepared some hot foot powder and charged the substance with words I can no longer recall to quote. However, the spell included some words the effect of “go away immediately” and North. At the time, this woman had her own office far away from the rest of us in a different part of town. Around one or two in the morning, dressed in a way that was significantly different than how anybody would see me at work and wearing a large hat I found in the back of a closet, I walked by her office door and blew the powder in that direction. I expected the stuff to spray up and gently coat the door and doormat. Instead, a large chunk of the powder arced through the air and landed directly in the keyhole of the door. Two days later, she was gone. She had accepted a job working in the state capital and that did not last too long.

The last time, I was dealing with a boss who was quite the hard worker and quite intelligent. Unfortunately, she was the type that would immediately complete assignments presented to her by her supervisors and do them extraordinarily well. Unfortunately for her subordinate staff, she did not care what happened below her. She would not get involved whatsoever in helping us resolve long-term intractable problems with other areas of the department. After a decade or so, this got quite old.

I did a spell intended to allow her to feel the mental stress she was causing those below her. It bounced back on me and I ended up going out on a stress leave for about two months. That turned out to be a great thing for myself, as it did prepare me for retirement. A good effect does not make good magick in this case. Not only was it unpleasant but the result was certainly not the intent of the spell.

The reason the first two worked is because the targets had serious weak points. Namely, that they had each angered a great many people. My second target also had a strong point that was also a weak point. She was quite attractive, had a way of networking and executive smooth for lack of a better word. Many people in high position enjoyed being with her. So, when my magic worked, it hit her weak point. That got her out of town. Her strong point gave her someplace to go in a hurry. Had she not had that ‘strong point’ she may have stayed longer and done more damage before finding someplace to go. The last one didn’t work because this woman has no workplace weak points. She is very pleasant and does everything her bosses direct her to do quickly and efficiently and she does not care if it is nonsense work at all. That is why it flashed back into my face. My magic had no place to go and my weak point was I was already stressed in that situation anyway. 

Two out of three isn’t bad.

My rule for this sort of thing was that if you went after my livelihood, you were fair game. Other stuff, I let go. Had I not had that rule, I would have magicked a lot of folks. Maybe the agency would have been better for it but I doubt that. When I did the magick that bounced back, I broke my pre-made rules for doing magick at work. That may be another reason why it smacked me upside the head, literally.

My rules for doing such things have expanded. If someone goes after my loved ones, my relationship with my wife, dear friends, my shop and a few other areas of import that are not as obvious, I am willing to smack that person around. Otherwise, no matter what people do, I am a live and let live sort of fellow. 

My next workplace magic post will be on magic I should’ve done but didn’t.

The Moon is Associated with Air, Not Water

 

This post makes a technical point about the qabala. You may find it irrelevant, if you are not a qabalist. Or, you may find the glimpse into my mentally interesting, amusing or frightening. Who knows?

Each path and sephira of the tree of life is associated with an element. Air makes up the middle pillar. Fire and water alternate upon the pillars of mercy and severity. The image shows the pattern with red representing fire with yellow and blue showing air and water respectively. This arrangement looks neat and tidy. The image is completely balanced in an intellectually satisfying way.

There are those that say when things fit this neatly they are not natural. Others have pointed out beautiful symmetries in the glyph and qabalistic thought and see therein divine inspiration. In my opinion, these statements are both correct. When something is forced into a pattern it isn’t likely to be representative of a deep truth. Of course, neither is a complete mess. Nature does have its order.

On the tree of life, the 9^th sephira, Yesod, is associated with air and the moon. In my internet travels, I came across the statement that this is obviously false. The moon is water*. In looking to the natural world, this would seem confirmed. The moon effects the tides and is associated with the cool night. From this point of view the system is too neat and just may be forced into place.  

In this case, the perspective is incorrect, not the tree. Nothing is being forced. The tree of life is not meant to reflect the natural world in that way. The pattern shown is a fractal or repeating pattern of creation and a path to return to the godhead. The combination of Luna and the element of air creates something called the pure and clear intelligence. This is the mindset of the sephira.

The moon is ever changing but locked in a fixed pattern. The self-observant may recognize this as reflective of their own minds. Whatever the full scope of one’s thoughts, topics repeat and often associated thoughts simply regurgitate one’s own perspective and opinions. Air is associated with thoughts, not cycles. Combining the cyclical but mutable nature of the moon with an influx of new thought creates a mindset close to the pure and clear intelligence when new enter the picture.

The final step is the to multiply one’s thoughts by negative one.

Thoughts are things. Buckminster Fuller laid out these ideas beautifully. If you want a fun fictional read on this topic try the book, Poker Without Cards.

Thoughts being things gives them certain properties. Namely, that one thought is capable of hitching to another and that to another etcetera.  For example, my late father once said of Michael Jackson, “How good can he be if he has to dress up like a doorman to get attention?” That thought-memory is always attached to Michael Jackson in my mind. It also attaches to any flashy-dressed performer. Along with it comes the thought that I disagree with my father’s statement. Jackson was quite talented. Attached to that is the thought of how my father’s political views were always well-thought out and interesting before he started to listen to Rush Limbaugh. After that, he just repeated absurdities with little of his trademark thoughtfulness. This is literally my train of thought, one thought hitched to another. Each of those thoughts makes a living by linking up with the previous thought like a little energetic parasite. You can see how this limits my thinking on Michael Jackson. When I hear his name, I do thing of him at all, but instead, thoughts of my father fire off in my consciousness.

In Yesod, one must be in the state of mind or ‘the intelligence’ of the pure and clear. This state allows you to multiply each thought by -1. All thought associations disappear. All that is left is the idea of Michael Jackson. I can even burn away the pedophilia accusations and the fact that he was singer. I am left with nothing but the visual image of the man.

This same process works for all our inner self-perceptions, emotional ties and the like. By going through this process I have become a much more gentle communicator. Why? Because I have burned of a thought that change that led almost all communication to led to anger.

So, sometime the obvious associations, such as the moon is linked to water, are incorrect trains of thoughts. Sometimes, you have to burn these associations off in order to heal, learn or grow. This is one part of The Great Work.

Parenthetical Note: The sephiroth are more than their associations. I am more than willing to entertain the idea that the sephira Yesod is airy and a water associated moon exists within that sphere.

Another Parenthetical Note: This post is about Qabala and makes no reference to other world views outside of Qabala. It is entirely possible that the moon is totally water using another philosophical map of reality.

*I came across this statement just before I started blogging but I have not been able to find that quote again. Trust me, those words are out there somewhere.

Image: The base image has full public use rites. The color modifications are my own.

 

Why Your Map is Wrong

Since I became a member of the magickal community, I have witnessed and participated in a lot of dialogue regarding which map of the astral universe is correct. Naturally, I have a leaning toward the qabala. I have participated in so much qabalistic magick that I think like a qabalist. That said, I have visited other places on the astral that seem much different. This has broadened my view.

Recently, I read a claim about the qabalistic universe as shown in the Tree of Life that said the that the universe just doesn’t work that way. When I travel from Fresno, CA to San Francisco Bay Area I take Highway 99 to the 152 to the I-5. Eventually, I wind up on Highway 80 to find myself in familiar territory. Sometimes, I take the 99 north to the city of Modesto and travel the 132 West to link up with I-5. Had I taken that route and found the road closed due to accident or construction, I would not claim that a person can’t take the 132 to the Bay Area or worse, say the Bay Area doesn’t exist.

If I define all of the non-mundane/non-consensus reality of the universe as the astral, I would have to conclude that the astral is a very big place indeed. For all practical purposes, the astral is infinite with possibilities and probabilities. Anyone’s description of a place on the astral is more likely to exist than not.

Jason Miller’s Hecate Course is highly recommended. His system allows one access to an astral world that is tangible. I walked along a path in the wilds. I saw an actual gorgon and, if memory serves, did so before gorgons were actually mentioned in the course. Hermes manifested so strongly that when he put his foot on my chair, I could feel the cushion compact just as if a person had done so. His system, is a key to that world.

If the Hecate course didn’t work for me, I would not be here saying that the astral reality he describes does not exist. I know this because I took his Strategic Sorcery course and bombed out. I just couldn’t function. And, I am not saying that the magick he teaches does not work. That technique didn’t work for me at the time.

Jason’s Hecate keys are mentally ritualistic with physical anchors. Qabala has its own keys to the worlds. I believe that reaching a certain mental state, even temporarily, that links with the path/sephira one is working is the secret key to the qabalistic spheres.  Reaching those compatible mental states require certain thoughts, actions or modes of thinking must be burned away. If the practitioner is not willing or able to burn away his or her own thoughts, behaviors and misunderstandings that block passage to the various sephiroth, that practitioner will not be admitted. That does not mean the spheres do not exist.

A lot of Qabala as taught is ritualized. I have done a lot of such ritual. I can think of very few times that the ritual alone helped me to get anywhere. At best, I was introduced to a spirit that helped.  The ritualization of qabala misdirected me for a long time. I now work much more mentally than ritualistically.

Even if the magician is able to do the deep internal work necessary, she still may not be admitted to the various locations on the tree. Perhaps, the qabala does not fit the person’s soul work, personality, way of thinking or something else in a person’s basic make up. Maybe one of the darker forces has attached and the powers that be will not let those be carried into those worlds. I am not a master of all keys. I do not know every reason someone may be barred. I do know that any given person being unable to enter an astral world does not mean that reality doesn’t exist.

There are an infinite number of places that exist on the astral. There are many places in the physical. Just because we live on Earth does not mean Jupiter does not exist. The manifestation of San Francisco does not disprove the existence of Paris. The standard three-tier view of the universe, the below, the earth-bound and the etheric does not preclude a space that one would be hard pressed to insert into the map. A world where beings use base-eight math, have eight fingers and has an orange tinge to it does not preclude a realm associated with the moon. Nor would such a place even hint that a realm that looks much like ancient Egypt is impossible on the astral.

If you have traveled on the astral and built any sort of map, extensive or preliminary, I have no doubt your map is correct as far as it goes. Your map is only wrong if its end excludes all other maps. 

 

Why I No Longer Use the Term Holy Guardian Angel

Many years ago, my Holy Guardian Angel landed upon me as I was standing in line about to order an unhealthy lunch in a Wendy’s.  He told me that I belonged in an occult shop. I asked how am I expected to do that, he said not to worry about it. It will happen.

He was correct. Many years later a series of mundane events happened that just led me to opening my shop, The Open Eye. I have found running the place to be nothing like work. I love my customers. I take great pleasure in our conversations as they share their life journeys with me. And, I bounce off the walls with joy when I am helpful in someone’s life. I have a nice little niche in the corner of my town the size of two master bedrooms. I enjoy every minute of it aside from one task. I am not happy doing curbside with Covid-19 so prevalent in my area. All this happened because I simply trusted the universe and my angel. Aside from that, I can take no credit.

I no longer refer to him as my Holy Guardian Angel. When my HGA first appeared, what stood out was the guardian part. When I did or wanted to do something stupid, he would show up in a dream as a police officer. He would stop me from doing something analogous to my contemplated stupidity. More often than not, I would heed the warning. In short, he was the guardian of a child.

That role has changed. I know him better. I know where he lives as an angel. I know his origins as a human and thus my own. He is just one more aspect of my multi-dimensional self. So, I now refer to him as my angel.

As such, he has showed me other aspects of myself that live fully unique lives on other planes. I have not explored these much. I can say that when self meets self both are surprised by the encounter.

I can say that knowing more about him makes me understand some of my personal quirks. For example, since I was a child I have always been confused by the act of walking. The fact that we put one foot in front of the other to move never felt right. I also have to be very diligent when handling objects. Once I am done with a physical object, I have to be very aware I am holding it or I will just drop it. I believe but do not know for sure that these traits are the result of my angel being present. In his world any object that is needed materializes or dematerializes as needed. Everything is made of light. Moving is the result of intent, much like it is during astral projection. No ‘feet’ are necessary.

I also lose things constantly. I can put something down and not be able to find it again. I can ask whomever is around and they can tell me exactly where it is. This is especially annoying when I just looked where someone else found the object with ease.  I am the mythical absent-minded magician. I have learned that when I can release my frustration and just tell the object to materialize on this plane so that I can use it, I will suddenly come across the object. Never has an object just materialized in front of me so that I can see it but that would be totally cool.

In short, I call him my angel because he does not fulfill the role of a child’s guardian anymore. That has made the relationship all the more fascinating and, from some perspectives, even more weird.

Planetary Angels, Intelligences and Spirits

In working with the angels, intelligences and spirits of the planets, I think I have learned something about these hierarchies. I am going to start from the bottom and work up. I know more about the spirits and intelligences than I do of the angels.

Those beings we classify as spirits of planets are agents of manifestation. These powers can make things happen in your life. However, their default mode of operation is to mess with you for they are also guardians of the intelligence. Their job is to keep you out. Once you pass the test, they become your helpers.

Passing the test is really a misnomer. They are not testing you anymore than a bouncer at a private club is testing your ability to fight. To get in, you have to know someone. That someone is your mind and what controls it. Most of the time, that isn’t you. At best, it is your habits of thoughts that incompatible with the intelligence you seek. An analogous example is you cannot gain the intellectual knowledge you seek by being lazy in school. Laziness is  barrier to that mundane intelligence. Figure that out and you are golden. This is especially true of the hierarchy of Luna.

While they have names, I do not perceive intelligences as beings. They are more akin to environments. Any name you have is a key, that is all.

The intelligence of Luna is called some horrible unpronounceable Hebrew name of uncertain meaning. If you do your due diligence you will also see the intelligence of the sphere of Yesod, which is associated with the moon, is the Pure and Clear Intelligence.

The first time I saw this was during a Theoricus initiation in my lodge days. I walked into the prepared temple room and could see the clearness in the air. It was as if for all of our lives we see through a filter of fine airborne impurities. When a skilled ceremonial magician, like my teacher, opens the temple the intelligence had a physical manifestation. As far as I know, I am the only one that perceived it at the time.

The key here though is in the name, intelligence. The intelligence of Luna is pure and clear. This means that your thoughts cannot have attachments. A thought about a red pen is that a red pen is a device that allows you to draw lines that appear to be red. There is no association to what those lines may represent. All you have is a red pen. In this space, you can examine any thought and rip away all associations. With just the intent of will, I was able strip a thought of three or four associations I did not know I had. Stripping those thoughts of associations were a step toward lucid dreaming, a very long-term goal that had eluded me.

To succeed, you must be willing to rid yourself of all attachments of thought. You must enjoy that mind set. It is not necessary to do this to every thought. That is impossibly time consuming. Yet, you must allow it to happen as often as possible.

I have not mastered the entrance to Mercury’s intelligence yet. I have not been able to define it. So, I will not speak of it much. I can say this. Just being within the intelligence changed me. For example, Mercury has a strong communication aspect to it. After being in that space, even if only partially, I appear to be writing the blog again.

Just getting into the sphere changes you. Practical magick is not necessary.

The angels still elude me. They may be a bridge between planetary work and sephira work. They may be guiding forces within the intelligence. I have no good answers at this point.

Expect more on this topic as I have further experience.