Ritual Night Talk for April 27th

Here is the video of yesterday's Ritual Night Talk, on with more on exoteric magick. The donation link is here.

Continuing the discussion from last week, this video goes more in-depth on the idea of "exotericism" and covers some more real-world examples. An exoteric magick movement might look something like the "psychic powers" craze in the 1970's - and in fact, much of magick and psychic abilities are pretty much the same thing. This sort of magick consists of a structured, disciplined approach to working with those abilities.

Enjoy!

Ritual Night Talk for April 20th

Here is the video of yesterday's Ritual Night Talk, on exoteric magick. The donation link is here.

Occultism and esotericism are both terms that allude to that which is hidden or obscured. But magick is a technology - a technology that involves consciousness, but a technology nonetheless. This is the point of "exoteric magick," the application of this magical technology without all the unnecessary secrecy that has hindered the discipline for a long time.

Enjoy!

Real Techno-Magick

This article from Vice is from back in February, but I figure it's still relevant because it includes a link to a fascinating Internet tool for creating unique sigils. The Sigil Engine is designed to automate the process of sigil creation in a manner similar to that used by chaos magicians, but with a couple of pretty cool additional ideas for keeping sigils unique and distinct. This consists of writing out a simple phrase as your magical intent, eliminating the vowels and repeating letters, and then arranging those letters in a way that obscures the meaning of the phrase.

Users of the Sigil Engine, though, rely on code to do much of the legwork. When visitors land on the URL, they're greeted by a sparkling black background and a prompt to type their "intention." Doing so will set the Engine in motion, drawing the sign in bright red. Co-creator Darragh Mason, who hosts the Spirit Box podcast, describes this flourish as "a prayer or a moment of reverence to the goddess Babalon," found within the Thelemic system first synthesised by British occultist Aleister Crowley. The backdrop alludes to "the great expansive void from which all things spring".

"We wanted to create something that actually felt magical when you used it," Mason told Motherboard. "For a lot of people in their magickal practice, the aesthetic helps give it more potency, so we were very conscious: we wanted to have the process of creating a sigil—removing the vowels, removing repeating letters, creating the actual symbol itself—to be experiential, something that drew you in and [gave] it a sense of wonder." To ensure the final sigil is almost guaranteed to be unique, the application logs the speed of typing, the time between keystrokes, and compares these to the entirety of the Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni, a Thelemic text that's contained within the code.

The measurements are combined to return a unique value for each of the base characters, says co-creator David Tidman. More number-crunching normalizes a very large figure to between 0.0 and 1.0, which is finally used to position each character on a point around the circle—for example, a character with a value of between 0.51 and 0.54 would be located at the 11th of 21 points in total. At the moment, whatever the user types is stored temporarily and then deleted, but Tidman says in future this information won't be stored at all, and that there are no personal identifiers logged when visitors type their intentions.

Free Speech, Christian Style!

I guess when you get right down to it, "free speech" isn't really free. That's the takeaway from MyPillow guy Mike Lindell's latest statements regarding his "free speech" social media platform that he is working on launching. According to Lindell, the site will be moderated along "biblical principles." What does this mean? Well, it seems pretty clear to me that this will be a social media platform specifically for the Poor Oppressed Christians, since I suspect no "free speech" besides theirs will be allowed.

With his new Frank Speech platform set to launch on April 19, Lindell appeared on Eric Metaxas’ radio program Monday to promote it. During the discussion, Lindell revealed that speech on his new platform will not be quite as free as one might have imagined, announcing that users will not be allowed to swear or use the Lord’s name in vain because Frank Speech will be “a Judeo-Christian platform” founded on biblical principles.

“People asked me, ‘You’re going to let everything go? Porn? Swearing? Everything?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely not,'” Lindell said. “We have a thing we found in the Constitution and our founding fathers that defines what free speech is. And Eric, get this, this Judeo-Christian platform we’re going to have here, they go by biblical principles—you know, you get to the Supreme Court, you have the 10 Commandments there—so, in other words, you’re not going to have porn up there, you’re not going to have these sites that contain material that go against our Constitution, go against what our founding fathers put in there.”

So let's say I got on and there and pointed out "America is a Christian Nation" is not true because (A) there is no mention of God in the Constitution, and (B) this was affirmed by President and Founding Father John Adams in the 1796 Treaty of Tripli. Would I be allowed to post that bit of "free speech" according to the guidelines above? If the answer is "yes," I'd be forced to give Lindell some props - which I sincerely would hate to do. But it would also surprise me if it's anything but "no" based on how the Poor Oppressed Christians conduct themselves around dissenting opinions.

Aries Elixir Rite for 2021

Here is the video of yesterday's Aries Elixir Rite. The donation link is here.

The sign Aries is attributed to the Star or Emperor card in the Tarot, depending on whether you flip Heh and Tzaddi, and its power is "The power of consecrating things" in Liber 777. This is a power that can be used to consecrate magical tools and implements, and more generally magically empower and dedicate items and operations to the Great Work.

Enjoy!

Via Solis Aries Elixir Rite - Year Five (Streaming)

Today's post is a full script for the Aries Elixir Rite that we will be performing tomorrow, April 13th. It will be streamed on Facebook Live at the Leaping Laughter OTO page. The page can be found here. I will be starting around 8 PM CDT, but barring any technical difficulties I will archive the video after the ritual so you can view it whenever you have time if you miss it live.

We did have some technical difficulties with the Office of the Readings, so hopefully things will go smoothly tonight. If the feed does go down, I will be restarting it and picking up where I left off, so be ready for that just in case. I have made some adjustments to my camera and other settings that I hope will resolve the problem, but we'll have to see. Going forward I do want to be able to stream these on FB instead of relying on Zooms, which some people have trouble using and which are more difficult to post here on the blog.

0. The Temple

The ritual space is set up with an altar table in the center. The bell chime, banishing dagger, and invoking wand are placed on the altar. In the center of the altar is placed a cup of wine for creating the elixir, within the Table of Art corresponding to Aries. Items to be consecrated may be placed on the altar by any of the attendees, as Aries is attributed to the Power of Consecrating Things. The Via Solis Elixir Rites were written by Michele Montserrat in 2010 for the Comselh Ananael magical working group.

I. Opening

All stand surrounding the altar. Officiant inhales fully, placing the banishing dagger at his or her lips. The air is then expelled as the dagger is swept backwards.

Officiant: Bahlasti! Ompehda!

Officiant then performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. All rotate accordingly.

Officiant: We take refuge in Nuit, the blue-lidded daughter of sunset, the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky, as we issue the call to the awakened nature of all beings, for every man and every woman is a star.

All: MAKAShANaH

Officiant: We take refuge in Hadit, the secret flame that burns in every heart of man and in the core of every star, as we issue the call to our own awakened natures, arousing the coiled serpent about to spring.

All: ABRAHADABRA

Officiant: We take refuge in Heru-Ra-Ha, who wields the wand of double power, the wand of the force of Coph Nia, but whose left hand is empty for he has crushed an universe and naught remains, as we unite our awakened natures with those of all beings everywhere and everywhen, dissolving all obstacles and healing all suffering.

All: AUMGN

Officiant: For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

All: All is pure and present are and has always been so, for existence is pure joy; all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass and done; but there is that which remains. To this realization we commit ourselves – pure and total presence. So mote it be.

Office of the Readings for 2021

Happy Thelemic New Year, everyone! It's that time again, for the Office of the Readings.

The Thelemic dates that you may see written online are arrived at by counting the number of 22-year cycles since 1904 to obtain the upper case Roman numeral, and then counting the years of the current cycle starting with zero to get the lower case one. Within each 22-year cycle, many Thelemites ascribe the Major Arcana trumps of the Tarot to the years in order starting with The Fool and ending with The Universe. According to this, the year that we're about to enter into is V:vii, attributed to The Chariot.

This post will remain the top article here for the duration of the Thelemic Holy Days which end on April 10th. The Rite of the Office of the Readings is performed for all of the readings beginning on March 20th. We will be switching to a "Year A" ritual this year, which is the ritual we performed up until the "Year B" ritual we did last year last year with a few modifications. The first readings are according to an arrangement by M. Dionysus Rogers. The second readings are from the Office of the Readings by the Companions of Monsalvat with some switches and substitutions we have made over the years.

Like last year, we will be streaming the Office of the Readings this year, mostly via Facebook Live. You can find these virtual events on our Leaping Laughter OTO page on Facebook here. We will stream the readings every evening starting around 8 PM from tomorrow evening through April 10th, but barring any technical issues and/or difficulties, we will leave the videos up once they are created so you don't have to watch them at that exact time.

Rituals

The Invocation of Horus

The Rite of the Office of the Readings - Year A

Readings

March 19

Liber VII, Prologue of the Unborn.

March 20 - Saturn/Earth, The Universe

Liber VII, Cap II.

Liber Libræ.

March 21 - Fire/Spirit, The Aeon

Liber LXV, Cap V.

From "The Four Zoas" by William Blake - "Night the Ninth, Being The Last Judgment"

March 22 - Sol, The Sun

Liber VII, Cap IV.

From "A Mithraic Ritual" Translated by GRS Mead. Cap I, II, and XIII.

March 23 - Pisces, The Moon

Liber VII, Cap VI.

"The Dark Night of the Soul" by San Juan de la Cruz.

March 24 - Aries, The Emperor

Liber Tzaddi vel Hamus Hermeticus.

From the “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu, Cap 37 and 39.

March 25 - Mars, The Tower

Liber VII, Cap I.

From Liber CDXVIII, The 16th Æthyr.

March 26 - Capricornus, The Devil

Liber A'ash. Relevant to Liber A'ash is my solution to the mystery of the duck.

From Liber CXI, Cap 174-175.

March 27 - Sagittarius, Art

Liber DCCCXIII, Cap I-III.

From “The Vision of the Universal Mercury” by G.H. Frater S.R.M.D.

March 28 - Scorpio, Death

Liber Stellae Rubae.

From Liber CXI, Cap 192-194.

March 29 - Water, The Hanged Man

Liber LXV, Cap III.

"I. N. R. I." by Frater Achad.

March 30 - Libra, Adjustment

Liber LXV, Cap IV.

Selections from “The Spiritual Guide” by San Miguel de Molinos.

March 31 - Jupiter, Fortune

Liber VII, Cap III.

From Liber CDXVIII, The 20th Æthyr.

April 1 - Virgo, The Hermit

Liber VII, Cap V.

"The Emerald Tablet of Hermes" by Hermes Trismegistus.

April 2 - Leo, Lust

Liber LXV, Cap II.

From “The Daughter of Fortitude” Received by Edward Kelly.

April 3 - Cancer, The Chariot

Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni.

"Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra" (The Heart Sutra, Buddhist text. Translation by the Kuan Um School of Zen).

April 4 - Gemini, The Lovers

Liber B vel Magi.

From Liber DCCCXXXVII, The Law of Liberty.

April 5 - Taurus, The Hierophant

Liber LXV, Cap I.

From “On Christ and Antichrist” by Hippolytus, Cap 2.

April 6 - Aquarius, The Star

Liber DCCCXIII, Cap IV-VII.

From “The Thunder, Perfect Mind” (Gnostic text).

April 7 - Venus, The Empress

Liber VII, Cap VII.

From Liber CDXVIII, The 7th Æthyr.

April 8 - Luna, The Priestess

Liber AL, Cap I.

April 9 - Mercury, The Magus

Liber AL, Cap II.

April 10 - Air, The Fool

Liber AL, Cap III.

If you would like to perform this series and have questions, feel free to e-mail me here. All Office of the Readings posts may be viewed here.

Gay Satan an Abomination

Conservative Christians have been up in arms lately about a rap video by Lil Nas X, in which he seduces Satan and makes himself King of Hell. The video checks a lot of boxes - most conservative Christians don't like rap to begin with, and imagery of Hell and Satan in music usually attracts their ire. But one conservative Christian, tracked down by the crack reporting staff at The Onion, explained the real outrage behind it all - the music video dared to accuse Satan of the abomination that is homosexuality.

Decrying the depiction as “sacrilege,” local conservative Christian Elizabeth Dillon told reporters Tuesday she was deeply offended by a music video from rap artist Lil Nas X that implied Satan was a homosexual. “Nowhere in the Bible does Satan receive a lap dance, least of all from another man,” said Dillon, who was just one of thousands of worshippers across the country outraged by the depiction of the fallen angel as anything other than a devout Christian. “Satan embraces sin, but not that sin. He has a wife, you know, and three young demonic children. And sure, he tempted Christ, but never in a sexual way. Satan simply couldn’t be any straighter.” At press time, a horrified Dillon had realized that Satan was bisexual.

It simply is amazing to me that even the Prince of Darkness doesn't get a break from these folks. Who cares if Satan is gay? It seems to me that if you're not looking to date someone, their sexual orientation is none of your business. So are conservative Christians really wanting to boink the Devil? It seems to me that would be a much bigger story than an allegedly offensive music video, and when it breaks I'll be reporting it for you right here on Augoeides.

Happy April Fools Day, folks!