Ritual Night Talk for July 14th

Here are the videos of last night's Ritual Night Talk, on magical power.

This was another one where Facebook cut out on me partway through, so the talk picks up in Part 2. In this talk I touch on the "operant equation" that I developed based on Peter Carroll's magical equations from Liber Kaos, how magical power can be measured by means of probability shifts, and some of the factors that contribute to powerful magical operations.

Enjoy!

Bailing Out Prosperity Gospel

In this article from Twin Cities local news outlet City Pages I came across this particular gem. To be clear, the article is about a much larger issue involving the allocation of funds from the coronavirus relief bill, but I'm not going to talk about any of that. I have opinions about it, of course, but here's the bit that wanders into Augoeides territory.

Churches and religious organizations also tapped PPP money, including Eagle Brook in Hugo ($2-$5 million), the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul ($1-$2 million) and Bethlehem Baptist Church of Minneapolis (also $1-$2 million).

Of particularly delicious note was Living Word Christian Center, a Brooklyn Park megachurch that received a loan somewhere between $2 million and $5 million. Senior Pastor Mac Hammond has been known for preaching the "prosperity gospel," which teaches that God rewards good faith and tithing with the alleviation of sickness and poverty and the deliverance of prosperity and – yes -- actual, material wealth.

Living Word also didn’t respond to interview requests about what role the government plays in the church's prosperity (or lack thereof). Living Word has been on shaky ground in the past, with numerous struggles to meet monthly budgets and repeated investigations by Congress and the IRS.

And what I really want to know here is how Living Word is going to spin this. Prosperity Gospel teaches that (A) God rewards you with money if you're doing a good job and (B) government money doesn't count, because welfare programs are evil. But God didn't give them enough money so they had to take one of those evil government handouts. That's the truth, right there.

There are plenty of legitimate arguments over whether funds like these should go to religious organizations at all, given the separation of church and state. But the funnier point for me is that, basically, in doing this Living Word completely undermined all of that Prosperity Gospel nonsense. It's a scam, and it's time more people realized that.

No matter what these churches preach, the reality behind it is that as long as the church is pulling in money they don't much care where it comes from. And that, in and of itself, should be a complete violation of the actual teachings of Jesus. In Prosperity Gospel, the merchants haven't just taken over the temple, they are the temple.

Heptarchia Mystica Presentation Transcript

The following is my prepared transcript for the Heptarchia Mystica talk that I delivered yesterday for OTO Austria. For this one I actually put together a rudimentary PowerPoint presentation, and the slide images are embedded in the text. It was a fun presentation to do and my thanks go out to the folks at OTO Austria for inviting me to speak and making this happen.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Welcome to my presentation on Dr. John Dee’s Heptarchia Mystica. I am Scott Stenwick, author of Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy from Pendraig Publishing.

Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy is a practical guide to working with the mystical heptarchy, an often-overlooked portion of John Dee and Edward Kelley’s system of Enochian magick. I have been an OTO initiate since 1995 and have served as a chartered initiator, ordained priest and deacon, local body officer, and currently as Master of Leaping Laughter Lodge in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have been involved in OTO for almost 25 years, but I had already worked with the Enochian system for years before I joined.

The way that I approach Enochian magick developed over several decades. I started with the Schueler books in the early 1990s and quickly moved on from there to a more “Dee Purist” approach based on Geoffrey James’ Enochian Evocation. At the same time, though, I did not entirely abandon modern ceremonial methods like pentagram and hexagram rituals. What you will find in my books are ritual templates that allow you to work according to the original grimoire structure based solely on prayers and conjurations, but also show where those modern ceremonial forms can optionally be added to the process. This gives the practitioner greater flexibility to approach the work as they see fit.

Heptarchia Mystica Presentation for OTO Austria

Tomorrow, July 11th, at noon CDT I will be presenting on the Heptarchia Mystica for OTO Austria. The presentation will be on Zoom, so you can join in too. I will be covering the basics of Heptarchial magick, the only portion of the Enochian magical system that Dr. John Dee assembled into a usable grimoire and also the subject of my first published occult title, Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy. There will be some time for questions after the presentation - and yes, just in case anybody is wondering, I'll be presenting in English. I do speak some German but not nearly enough to put together a decent presentation in it.

Click here to go to the Facebook event. The link to register is at the bottom of the description. It sounds like you do need to register ahead of time, so if you want to catch the presentation please go ahead and do that. You can also go to the OTO Austria page and scroll down - they have the event listed there as well. This should be a fun one and I'm really looking forward to it.

Thanks to the folks at OTO Austria for inviting me to present and making this happen!

Analyzing Conspiracy Theories

I talk a lot about narratives that can be dismissed as "conspiracy theories" here on Augoeides. Usually the stories I cover are the sorts of things that are outright unbelievable or impossible. And keep in mind, if I take a look at your conspiracy theory and describe it as unbelievable, that assessment is coming from someone who is serious about casting spells. So there's that.

But here's the thing - while many conspiracy narratives are absolute garbage, it also can be an easy hand-wavy way to discredit anything that sounds weird by calling it a "conspiracy theory." Government agencies like the CIA, for example, have a long history of doing just that when information about dubious plots or projects get out into the public eye.

What we really need is an objective way to analyze a narrative and see if it holds up, no matter how weird it might sound. And according to this article, a team of artificial intelligence researchers are on the case. They compared debunked conspiracy theories with real conspiracy narratives that turned out to be true, and found significant differences between them that their algorithm could identify.

A new study by UCLA professors offers a new way to understand how unfounded conspiracy theories emerge online. The research, which combines sophisticated artificial intelligence and a deep knowledge of how folklore is structured, explains how unrelated facts and false information can connect into a narrative framework that would quickly fall apart if some of those elements are taken out of the mix.

The authors, from the UCLA College and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, illustrated the difference in the storytelling elements of a debunked conspiracy theory and those that emerged when journalists covered an actual event in the news media. Their approach could help shed light on how and why other conspiracy theories, including those around COVID-19, spread—even in the absence of facts.

Ritual Night Talk for July 7th

Here's the video of last night's Ritual Night Talk, on science and magick. As I suspected and noted at the outset, it is a little less focused than some of my other talks covering specific rituals and/or magical techniques.

The relationship between science and magick is a complex discussion - some practitioners don't seem to think there's much of a connection, but the scientific method is the best tool we have for investigating the natural world. I am firmly in the camp that sees magick as natural just like every other phenomenon, but at the same time I believe things like paranormal abilities, spirits, and so forth are all part of the natural world just like cars, computers, and so forth.

Macroscopic Quantum Effects

Here's another new quantum physics experiment that is highly relevant to magick, and especially my quantum information model of magick. According to this article from The Independent, physicists have worked out a way to scale tiny quantum fluctuations up to measurable effects on the macroscopic world. The mathematics of quantum mechanics predicts that this should be possible, but up until now it had never been observed experimentally.

Scientists have seen "spooky" quantum behaviour happening to objects at the human scale, according to a new paper. Researchers have seen quantum fluctuations "kick" large objects such as mirrors, moving them by a tiny degree but one big enough to measure. Such behaviour has previously been predicted by quantum physicists. But it has never before been measured.

The movements are the result of the way the universe is structured, when seen at the level of quantum mechanics: researchers describe it as a "noisy" space, where particles are constantly switching in and out of existence, which creates a low-level fuzz at all times.

Normally, that background of quantum "noise" is too subtle to detect in objects that are visible at the human-scale. But the new research shows that scientists have finally detected those movements, using new technology to watch for those fluctuations.

Researchers at the MIT LIGO Laboratory saw that the those fluctuations could move an object as big as a 40-kilogram mirror. The movement pushed the large mirrors a tiny amount, as predicted theoretically, allowing it to be measured by scientists.

The researchers were able to use special equipment called a quantum squeezer that allowed them to "manipulate" the noise so that it could be better observed.

According to the quantum information model of magick, manipulating these sorts of fluctuation is how magick goes about affecting the physical world. So in a sense, you could say that these effects were produced by a technology that imitates one aspect of magical manifestation. We practitioners just do it with consciousness rather than machines - and I would expect at least a few radionics practitioners to point out that machines and consciousness can work together if you have the right kind of machine.

Cancer Elixir Rite for 2020

Here is the video of yesterday's Cancer Elixir Rite. I'm still working with getting the camera settings the way I want them, but I think I'm making progress. Also, not sure why I got tongue-tied there at the beginning - this series is Via Solis, not "Via Sola," which is what it sounds like I'm saying for whatever reason.

Cancer is attributed to the power of casting enchantments, which are operations intended to draw or magnetize things into your life. Those things can be as simple as prosperity or happiness, and pretty much as complex as you can imagine. The caveat being, as with any other magical operation, the more unlikely the thing you want to enchant is, the more difficult it is to successfully manifest.

Enjoy!