Mass of Nuit and Babalon for 2020

Here is the video of Saturday's Mass of Nuit and Babalon. If you have ever wondered what this ritual looks like when performed, this will give you an idea - though of course it is bigger and more impressive when done with multiple officers, the full temple setup, and all of the blocking bits and pieces that can't really be done with a limited streaming setup.

Happy Summer Solstice, everyone!

Ritual Night Talk for June 16th

Here is the video of last night's Ritual Night Talk. In this installment I talk some more about the Holy Guardian Angel and start in on Liber Samekh. I'll be going into more depth on Liber Samekh next week.

Here are some links I included with the video:

The Path of Initiation - The Holy Guardian Angel
The Headless Rite from The Digital Ambler
Liber Samekh from sacred-texts.com

Aleister Crowley's conception of the Holy Guardian Angel is one of the hallmarks of Thelemic magick, and Liber Samekh is the ritual that he wrote to obtain and stabilize knowledge and conversation with this entity. The ritual is based on the much older Stele of Jeu or Headless Rite from the Greek Magical Papyri.

Mass of Nuit and Babalon for 2020 (Streaming)

This Saturday is the Summer Solstice and we will be performing the Mass of Nuit and Babalon to celebrate it. This is the full script for the ritual, which we have been celebrating for a number of years now with some pretty impressive results. This year the ritual will be streamed online, so it won't look like the full temple version shown above. Also, there have been some changes to the script due to the streaming format. The livestream will take place this Saturday, June 20th, at 7:30 PM CDT on the Leaping Laughter OTO Facebook page. It will also be archived so you can view it later if you miss it live.

0. The Temple

The ritual space is set up with the Holy Table and Sigillum Dei Aemeth in the center. The banishing dagger, invoking wand, and bell chime are arranged on the Table. The chalice containing the Eucharist is placed in the center of the Sigillum. Holy images of Our Lady Nuit and Our Lady Babalon, including the Star of Babalon, may be prominently displayed. The Lust card from the Crowley/Harris Thoth Tarot can be used as a meditation focus, if desired.

Ritual Night Talk for June 9th

Here's my Ritual Night Talk from last night. The long awkward pause at the beginning is due to Facebook rolling out a new interface and me standing there waiting to make sure I was live before I started speaking. I was fine with the old Facebook interface - no idea why they felt the need to change it up.

Anyway, this talk focuses on the idea of True Will, which in my opinion a lot of people explain in an incorrect or at least incorrectly limited way, and an introduction to the idea of the Holy Guardian Angel. I'll be talking about the Holy Guardian Angel and Liber Samekh in more detail next week.

The biggest misconception I see about True Will is the idea that it's a task, a calling, or a vocation. Certainly tasks, callings, and vocations can be in harmony with your True Will, but they aren't the extent of what True Will is. Rather, True Will is about being as true to your fundamental nature as you can possibly be from moment to moment and situation to situation in a coherent fashion.

It's like "following the Dao" corresponding to your specific nature, and there's a reason that Aleister Crowley was a fan of Lao-Tsu and Daoism.

Paula White Versus Demonic Protesters

Donald Trump may have lost Pat Robertson, but I suspect hell will freeze over (and yeah, I know there's supposed to be a frozen hell too so this figure of speech is not even remotely theologically correct, but whatever) before he loses his spiritual advisor Paula White. White's advice for Trump in response to the recent protests was to recruit an army of exorcists to battle the protesters, who were (of course) possessed by demons.

Spiritual shyster Paula White has rushed to congratulate President Donald Trump after he tear-gassed Washington, D.C. protesters just to get a photo op of him holding a bible. White claimed that Trump’s move conferred special spiritual power on him.

“When God looked down from heaven and saw an American president holding a bible up, he automatically conferred spiritual leadership powers that would allow Trump to crush the army of demonic protesters,” said White in a press release.

She also suggested that Trump conscript preachers skilled in exorcism to help battle the protests. “Many of these protesters are possessed by riot and disobedience demons,” she added.

No, they're totally not. I say that as a practicing magician who is quite familiar with conjuring demons. I'll counter with a question. What the heck are "riot" and "disobedience" demons? Do you have names? Sigils? Because otherwise I'm thinking the whole concept is bullshit.

And yes, I'm only playing dumb there. I am well-aware of the fundamentalist Christian worldview in which every little thing that deviates from polite conformity at the local church brunch is supposed to be caused by demons. Like right now, they would probably say I'm possessed by a "demon of snark." Except this is just me being snarky, because that's what I'm like.

The very idea that a "demon of snark" would even exist is frankly kind of scary - and not because it scares me, but because of what it says about them. How does their god even function without a sense of humor? I know, far more prominent people than me have asked that question. It confuses me that anyone would follow a god who thinks jokes are evil.

To be fair, I should point out that Paula White is considered extreme by even other fundamentalist and prosperity gospel preachers, most of whom I already have nothing nice to say about. The frightening thing here is that she's a nut, and she has Trump's ear.

Penis Candle Toad Venom WHUT???

Possible captions include "Don't lick it, man!" and "Does this toad look high to you?"

This story from AV Club seemingly has it all - penis candles, rituals, toad venom, and manslaughter. Oh, and Spain. If you're wondering what the hell I'm going on about, you're not alone. But here's deal, according to the article:

Today, in ritualistic toad venom death news: A man best known as a prominent Spanish adult film actor—but who also has a sideline selling candles shaped like his own penis—has been arrested on charges of involuntary manslaughter in relation to, well, a death from ritualistic toad venom ingestion.

Ignacio “Nacho” Vidal—a well-known porn performer with several AVN awards, and more than 1,500 credits to his name—was, per The Guardian this week, reportedly arrested in relation to the death of photographer José Luis Abad, in July of last year. Abad died after inhaling vaporized secretions from Incilius alvarius, a species of North American toad that secretes multiple hallucinogenic compounds (and also a few different potentially lethal poisons) when threatened.

Incilius alvarius (a.k.a. the Colorado River toad) has a long and complicated history as a controlled substance (or provider of same), and is both endangered and illegal to transport in a number of states. In addition, Bufotenin, one of the primary hallucinogens excreted by the animal, is considered a Class I controlled substance in the U.S., although it’s not immediately clear whether it carries similar restrictions in Spain, where Abad’s death occurred.

Spanish police have arrested three people in relation to the incident, with Vidal believed to be one of them. Police have accused Vidal of serving as a guide for a “mystical ritual” using the venom, and argue that he encouraged participation from “highly suggestible people who were especially vulnerable and were seeking alternative ways to cure certain ailments or addictions.” (They also claimed he downplayed the potential lethality of the secretions.)

He's Lost Pat Robertson

Here's a moment that I never expected. Donald Trump has apparently lost Pat Robertson, who called out Trump's response to this last week's protests. Trump floated the idea of sending in the military to police American cities, which is banned under the Posse Comitatus Act. It's a truly terrible idea regardless of your political ideology.

Televangelist Pat Robertson scolded President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his threat to send the U.S. military into American cities to control civil unrest. “You just don’t do that, Mr. President,” Robertson said on his “700 Club” TV show, then he raised his voice: “It isn’t cool.”

In comments posted online by Right Wing Watch, Robertson also called out Trump for getting the tone all wrong in dealing with the people protesting against racial injustice in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, last week.

“You know, there’s a purpose to everything under heaven, you read in the Bible, and there’s a time,” he said. “And I think like now is the time to say, ’I understand your pain, I want to comfort you, I think it’s time we love each other.”

But Trump, he said, took a very different approach.

Whether Pat Robertson should the arbiter of what is or isn't "cool" is a whole other question, but it's surprising to see this because up until now Robertson has been a big Trump supporter. Trump's response was also called out by several prominent Republicans over the idea of sending the military into American cities. At least they're cognizant enough of what that would mean to know it's a very, very bad idea.

I neither want nor need the military in my neighborhood. And keep in mind, I say that as someone who lives on the north side of Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis. That's a block and a half from Lake Street for those of you who don't live here. We had the National Guard here over the weekend and that was already more military presence than we needed.

Ritual Night Talk for June 2nd

Here's the video of last night's Ritual Night Talk, covering Liber V vel Reguli. I realized when I went to put this together I don't actually have a version of this ritual here on the blog with my comments, so that's on my list to get done soon. Until then, this video covers my take on the ritual. It's a little more of a presentation, since I walk through the script that I have linked to up above. I also could have been a little more prepared in spots - this is a ritual that I haven't done regularly (aside from the first part, the Elevenfold Seal, which I do as part of my daily practice) in almost twenty years. So I couldn't quite "wing it" to the same extent as I have done with the previous talks, and I suspect it shows at least in a couple of places.

Enjoy, and I'll be putting together a "Thoughts on Liber V vel Reguli" article here on Augoeides including these remarks soon.