It strikes me that Plato’s philosophy derives at least in part from the recognition of how bad the consequences of civil and political unrest can be. He lived through the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War and saw first-hand what happens when tyranny and demagoguery gain the upper hand. This explains in part why he rejected…
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Eucharistic Magick Cheatsheet
I recently did a video called DIY Eucharistic Magick wherein I broke down how to create your own ritual eucharist with items you probably have at home. For those who want a reminder of that procedure without having to watch the whole video again, I present this little cheatsheet. Step One: Preliminaries Chastity: Keep firmly…
Between Rationalism and Fanaticism
In my opinion what makes Thelema distinctive is not the occultism, not the ontology, not the ethics, not the individualism. It’s that he took the western occult tradition with its God as a creative artist and inflected it through a Nietzschean understanding of life. Renaissance occultism is based upon a view of the cosmos where…
The Law of the Father
Someone yesterday asked me about the meaning of Saturn and what Saturn represents. Saturn is the Law of the Father. In any society you have certain institutions and practices which approximate to justice. They were created and codified over time by people’s experiences. But at some point these practices lose their experiential dimension and become…
Magick and Dwelling
One of the conspicuous features of the coronavirus pandemic is how little control we have over the situation. We’re facing a novel virus, one which has never infected human beings before. We have no vaccine. We have no treatments. The one non-pharmacological intervention we do have—social distancing—is leaving a lot of people feeling powerless. They…
The Secret of the Holy Graal
Not sure if I ever offered an explanation of my intention in making this. This was meant to visualize some insights I had while listening to Alan Chapman’s Magia Teachings and reading Peter Kingsley’s book on Carl Jung, Catafalque, last summer. The outer circle represents forms of absence. The flow of time is the absence…
Interview with Aion 131
In this video I sit down and have a long chat with Seattle occultist and author Aion 131. Aion 131 is a founder of Horus-Maat Lodge, a long-time Nath Tantrika Initiate, and a Welsh Traditional Craft Elder. He is the author of numerous titles, including Global Ritualism, Your Guardian Angel and You, The Book of…
Thelema and Postmodernism
Good grief. Somehow I made it all the way through the latest in Thelemic Union, a refutation of a prior article attacking “postmodern” or completely relativistic interpretations of Thelema. When I’ve attempted in the past to orient Thelema in, well, any direction, I’ve been accused of having an “Old Aeon” perspective on Thelema, which is…
Does praying to the Angel work?
I wanted to elaborate a little bit on something I mentioned quickly in my recent video, Love, Will, and the Angel. In that video I suggested a more-or-less traditional means of interacting with the Holy Guardian Angel, namely, prayer. When I was a child, I prayed frequently to God, usually asking for some favor or…
The gift that unites us
The purpose of any O.T.O. local body is to assist individuals to find their respective true wills and to promulgate Thelema. Differences in local culture notwithstanding, that’s what each lodge, oasis, or camp has a duty to do. There are many ways individuals can interact with us. There are the obvious ones like attend Gnostic…