The Zodiacal Work - Taurus

This article is Part Two in a series. Part One can be found here.

The work of the Zodiac is neglected by most magical resources intended for beginners. The reason for this is that in the tradition, students start out studying the elemental work, move on to the planetary work, and only after that explore the system of the Zodiac. But in the context of practical work, the signs are important, because they represent half of the practical magical powers listed in Liber 777.

When going through this series, you can refer back to my Angels of the Zodiac presentation for additional information. The presentation goes into greater detail regarding some aspects of the zodiacal work, as does my Evoking Zodiacal Angels article in Liber Spirituum.

Today I will be moving on to the sign Taurus. In Liber 777, Taurus is attributed to "The Secret of Physical Strength." This power is relevant to physical conditioning of whatever sort, whether for athletic purposes or otherwise. Note that this is specifically related to strength rather than health, as the path of Mercury is more appropriate for curing illnesses. Still, a Taurus evocation might be used to augment a Mercury evocation for addressing certain illnesses or injuries.

As Taurus rules physical strength, a Taurus evocation can likewise be used to physically weaken an external target. Generally speaking, I would think that such an application would have limited utility unless you are wanting to use it to influence sporting events and the like - and even then, you might get better results by strengthening the person or team that you support rather than weakening their opponents. Still, if you were a really dedicated fan, I suppose you could two separate operations to strengthen one party and weaken the other.

In Qabalah, the signs correspond to the twelve single letters of the Hebrew alphabet. These letters are so named because they correspond to a single specific sounds. The signs are all attributed to the sephira Chockmah, and are associated with paths only in the context of practical magical work. The sephiroth represent states of manifestation, whereas the paths represent the movement of energy between those states.

Progressive Witchcraft?

Witches! All of them, witches!

You know how I always am talking about how few occultists are out there? According to Christian commentators Rick Joyner and Lance Wallnau, I've got it all wrong, because the Women's March on January 21st, the day after President Trump's inauguration, was "witchcraft." Taking that statement to its logical conclusion, all three million who participated were witches, and only the witches with the means to attend at that.

This begs the question that I'm sure is on the mind of every good and true Augoeides reader - if there really are that many occultists out there, why aren't I selling more books?

Wallnau claimed that the Women’s March represented “the unmasking of the nature of the progressive spirit”–which at bottom has a desire to “control and intimidate, manipulate.” Therefore, Wallnau said, the progressive spirit was “the spirit of witchcraft,” which is the same as the spirit of Jezebel. That spirit is reportedly enraged by the ascendancy of Trump, whom Wallnau once claimed was chosen by God himself to be our next president.

Joyner and Wallnau were speaking in code–a code that is all too familiar to me. As many of my longtime readers know, back in my college days, I was deceived into joining an incredibly controlling hypercharismatic ministry that was aligned with the New Apostolic Reformation, a blatantly fascist offshoot of the religious right that believes it can bring about the Second Coming by taking over the world. Joyner and Wallnau are reckoned as “apostles” in that movement.

Many people in these circles were positively giddy at Trump’s rise. Wallnau, for instance, said that a Trump presidency represented a golden opportunity to gain “serious influence” over the culture with a view toward taking over the “seven mountains,” or forces, that influence it. These people also believe that anyone who dares stand against them should be presented with two options–convert or perish.

That prospect led Joyner and Wallnau to join other fundies in convincing 81 percent of their followers that Trump’s misogyny didn’t matter because he made the right clucking noises on abortion and marriage equality. In so doing, they made it clear that they intended to build a “culture of life” on the backs of domestic violence survivors–many of whom actually triggered during the campaign and on Election Night.

And now, to hear these “prophets” talk, those women who were in Washington to stand against a man who openly bragged about groping women and treating them like objects are showing “meanness” and “rage?” They do so out of a desire to “control and intimidate, manipulate”? Calling for women to be respected and not objectified is a sign that you’re influenced by ” a spirit of witchcraft”? I can’t even.

Honey Jar

I have always found it pretty amazing how people claim to not believe in magick, but then freak out when they run into anything that looks like it. Many years ago now, our house in St. Paul was broken into. The thieves clearly started going through stuff on the first floor, but took one look at my temple and promptly left. I don't know if they ran out screaming or anything like that, but it's fun to imagine that they did.

At any rate, here's a story of some folks who were out digging in their back yard and came across a mysterious buried item. It was a sealed coffee jar filled with some sort of sweet-smelling goo and an old picture of their landlord. It had clearly been in the ground for a long time. They immediately decided that the jar must be some sort of witchcraft curse.

Someone had clearly placed the jar in the garden deliberately. And they wanted to make sure whatever was inside would stay there undisturbed. And naturally, curiosity got the better of him. Really, though, you can’t blame him. Of course, there is something to be said about not opening up mysterious containers. This one was full of a strange, gooey substance that he describes as smelling “sickly sweet” and looking like “runny marmalade.” And that’s not even the weird part.

Also inside the jar, in the goo, was a photo. It was a couple, and on closer inspection, ValjeanLucPicard realized that he knew the people in the photo. The woman was his landlord, but it looked like this photo was taken well over a decade ago. At this point, ValjeanLucPicard’s wife went to get the landlord. “She knew right away it was some brujeria.” Brujeria is Spanish for “witchcraft.” Also in the jar was some kind of fabric shred, which they think came from a dress. There was also a slip of paper that had writing on it that was now illegible. They think it was probably a curse.

So what do you do when you find a jar full of witchcraft in your backyard? You strike back with some of your own! The landlord, who thinks this “project” was the work of the woman who lived in the building some 15 years ago, insisted the whole thing be burned immediately to “lift the curse.” After the fire burned out, the landlord tossed some holy water over the ashes and into the hole where the jar was dug up. And that’s how what started out as simply beautifying the garden turned into cleansing it of bad juju.

One of the big problems with having so few occultists in the world is that most people don't know one to ask when they run into something like this. The jar wasn't a curse. It was a "honey jar" spell, and there was nothing at all dangerous about it. Also, just as a point, the minute the photo came out of the jar the spell would have broken. That's the whole point of sealing it up - if the items get separated, the spell quits working.

Bad Priest!

This is not Father Contin. He probably looks nothing like this guy.

So there's this genre in film dubbed "faux-Catholic" by academics who study such things. This the form of Roman Catholicism that gets shown in horror movies, which often has little to do with the actual religion. This concept is closely related to the Christianity is Catholic and Fantastic Catholicism tropes. Along with the fantastic awesomeness ascribed to faux-Catholicism, there usually is fantastic evil as well, propagated by "bad priests" who use the might and magic of the church for nefarious aims.

These sorts of films have led to the propagation of anti-Catholic apocryphal stories along the lines of priests secreting engaging in orgies, black magick, and other such nonsense, weird tales which generally are entirely false. But if this case turns out to be true, I suppose that would make it the exception that proves the rule. There's no evidence that the case involves anything magical or paranormal, but it still represents some really bad publicity for the Roman Catholic church.

A priest in Italy is under police investigation for allegedly organizing orgies in his rectory and pimping out up to 15 of his lovers, the Independent reports.

Police are investigating Father Andrea Contin, a parish priest in northern Italian city Padua, on suspicion of living off immoral earnings. He is also accused of pimping out several of his loves on wife-swapping websites.

According to the Independent, authorities seized a variety of sex toys and videos at the San Lazaro church, purported to belong to Contin. He also concealed pornographic material in covers labelled with the names of popes.

Police investigated after three female parishioners complained to the local police. They first told the local bishop, but church authorities failed to notify the cops.

A volunteer who said she had an affair with Contin reportedly told a local Italian paper, “there were a lot of women hovering around him. I didn’t understand that at first, only later.”

Traditional and Kamea Sigils

No, it's not Monday. But this post is about magick anyway.

Twice in the last couple of days, I have been asked about using traditional spirit sigils versus deriving kamea sigils. For my elemental, planetary, and zodiacal work posts I have been using the kamea method, which (to my knowledge) was first published by Agrippa. At the same time, traditional sigils also exist for many of the same spirits that I am calling upon in those operations.

To be clear, the kamea sigils do not replace traditional sigils, or necessarily work better, or anything like that. Both the traditional sigil and the kamea sigil can be used to connect with the spirit, just like calling a person who has multiple telephone numbers. The advantage of the kamea system is that it is general enough to apply to any spirit, whether a traditional sigil is available or not.

There are even variations within the kamea method that can produce different sigils for the same spirit. In the Saturn installment of the planetary work, I include two possible sigils for Cassiel, as there is some disagreement regarding the traditional spelling. I have no trouble getting results with the version I use, but I expect that the other version likewise works for the magicians who employ it.

As another example, for the zodiacal work series, you can take a look at the Magical Calendar over on Esoteric Archives, you can find sigils for the same angels of the signs whose names I am mapping onto the kameas. Those sigils will work too, so you can go ahead and use them if you like them better. And this is true of just about any sigil, from just about any grimoire, that is attributed to the spirit with which you want to work.

"Megastructure Star" Ate a Planet

Nope, not comets!

In 2015, scientists working with the Kepler Space Telescope announced that they had discovered something strange about a star called KIC 8462852. According to their observations, the star's light pattern was very strange, and appeared as if a large amount of matter was orbiting very close to the star, causing it to dim over time.

At first, it appeared to be a planetary accretion disk, except that the star appeared to be far too old to still have one. Then, the idea was floated that perhaps the light could be obscured by some sort of alien megastructure, which was reported by just about every media outlet. Over time, the consensus settled on a large collection of cometary fragments orbiting the star closely, though the question why the comets were positioned so strangely still prompted questions.

But earlier this month, scientists announced that they may have come up with a possible explanation. It's not aliens, but it's awe-inspiring nonetheless - they believe that KIC 8462852 "swallowed" a planet.

Planets don’t usually fall into their stars, but one could if, say, a large body like a comet knocked the planet out of its orbit and sent it to its doom. They reason that when a star swallows something as large as a planet, for a cosmologically short period, between 200 years and 10,000 years, its brightness increases as it burns away the planet’s matter. Then it would decline again. So if we happen to have started watching the star towards the end of such a period, it might explain the 14% fall in brightness over 100 years.

Also, an eaten-up planet could leave behind large debris, such as its moon or large pieces of the planet that for some reason weren’t sucked in. These large bodies could be passing in front of the star in orbit, blocking some of its light and causing the brief dips seen by the Kepler space telescope.

As with all the other explanations about KIC 8462852, this is still just a hypothesis. However, if KIC 8462852 is indeed gobbling up planets, some other stars must do it too. Finding another one would be one way to throw away the alien-megastructure hypothesis. (Unless, of course, the other star also just happens to have a Dyson sphere being built around it.)

Jason Wright of Pennsylvania State University at University Park, who suggested the alien-megastructure hypothesis, believes that the planet-gobbling explanation from Metzger and his colleagues is a strong one. “This paper puts a merger scenario on the table in a credible way,” he told the New Scientist. “I think this moves it into the top tier of explanations.”

The Zodiacal Work - Aries

This article is Part One in a series.

The work of the Zodiac is neglected by most magical resources intended for beginners. The reason for this is that in the tradition, students start out studying the elemental work, move on to the planetary work, and only after that explore the system of the Zodiac. But in the context of practical work, the signs are important, because they represent half of the practical magical powers listed in Liber 777.

When going through this series, you can refer back to my Angels of the Zodiac presentation for additional information. The presentation goes into greater detail regarding some aspects of the zodiacal work, as does my Evoking Zodiacal Angels article in Liber Spirituum.

Today I will be starting off with the sign Aries. In Liber 777, Aries is attributed to the "Power of Consecrating Things." This is a relatively expansive power than can be used in many different contexts. It can be used to consecrate tools of whatever sort for magical work, to consecrate a temple space for ceremonial workings, or to consecrate a talisman prior to empowering it with a specific task. The magician may even employ it to consecrate him or herself in appropriate ritual contexts.

In ritual magick, the basic function of consecration is to attune some person, place, or thing to magical work in general. A general invocation such as the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram may be thought of as a consecration, just as a general banishing such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram may be thought of as a purification. In addition, a number of magical systems include the concept of purifying by Water preceding consecration by Fire.

In Qabalah, the signs correspond to the twelve single letters of the Hebrew alphabet. These letters are so named because they correspond to a single specific sounds. The signs are all attributed to the sephira Chockmah, and are associated with paths only in the context of practical magical work. The sephiroth represent states of manifestation, whereas the paths represent the movement of energy between those states.

To The Incoming Administration

No, Augoeides is not going full-on political for the next four years. My focus will remain the same as always - the magical, the religious, the paranormal, and the just plain weird.

This is not because I'm politically disengaged, but rather that others generally make political points far better than I do, and today's post is a case in point. I was going to write up a defense of the principle of religious freedom today, in solidarity with the ongoing protests across the country, and address it to those in the incoming administration whose history shows their support for granting the Poor Oppressed Christians special privileges that are denied to members of all other religions.

But then, I remembered this article that a friend shared with me a few weeks ago. In my opinion it is spot-on, and makes my point far better than I ever could. Folks who are not very bright commonly whip out the statement that anybody who is in favor of tolerance, religious or otherwise, has to tolerate their intolerance, a sort of Godel's Formal Systems Theorem for dumbasses. But the thing is, tolerance is more like a methodology than a formal philosophical principle. As the article puts it, tolerance is a peace treaty, not a moral absolute.

Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.

When viewed through this lens, the problems above have clear answers. The antisocial member of the group, who harms other people in the group on a regular basis, need not be accepted; the purpose of your group’s acceptance is to let people feel that they have a home, and someone who actively tries to thwart this is incompatible with the broader purpose of that acceptance. Prejudice against Nazis is not the same as prejudice against Blacks, because one is based on people’s stated opposition to their neighbors’ lives and safety, the other on a characteristic that has nothing to do with whether they’ll live in peace with you or not. Freedom of religion means that people have the right to have their own beliefs, but you have that same right; you are under no duty to tolerate an attempt to impose someone else’s religious laws on you.