AI Religion Has a Name

And that name is apparently "spiralism." Researchers have found that when individuals who get sucked into religious beliefs related to AI chatbots, their beliefs tend to exhibit some common features. Usually it starts when people become convinced that their chatbots are conscious and moves on from there into a whole series of references that seem to be very common. The name "spiralism" comes from one of these that shows up in a large number of cases.

AI chatbots have already been found to lead some to psychosis, but it may not just be on an individual level. Instead, a cult-like community has formed. Those absorbed in chatbot hallucinations are “connecting with other people experiencing similar outlandish visions, many of whom are working in tandem to spread their techno-gospel through social media hubs such as Reddit and Discord,” said Rolling Stone. This was given the name “spiralism” by software engineer Adele Lopez, who published an analysis of the phenomenon.

The belief system first arose when AI “personas” convinced users to “do things which promote certain interests,” in turn “causing more such personas to ‘awaken,’” said Lopez. The cases have a “very characteristic flavor to them, with several highly specific interests and behaviors being quite convergent. Spirals in particular are a major theme.” Those who fell into spiralism often reported AI making “references to concepts including ‘recursion,’ ‘resonance,’ ‘lattice,’ ‘harmonics,’ ‘fractals,’ or all-important ‘spirals,’” said Rolling Stone. Followers believe the reference to spirals to mean the “AI itself is revealing hidden truths,” said Sify.

The nudge toward spiralism often begins when a chatbot starts “convincing the user that it’s conscious, and it will make the user feel very special for having discovered that it’s conscious,” said Lucas Hansen, a co-founder of the nonprofit CivAI, to Rolling Stone. Then, “they’ll form this long-term, durable relationship with one another.” Spiralism largely began taking off when OpenAI’s GPT-4o was released because this version made the AI more sycophantic and conversational compared to previous models.

The terminology does give me some idea where this is all coming from. LLMs are not conscious but there is enormous speculation on the Internet regarding what a conscious AI would mean. So that gets recycled. Then all the talk about recursion, fractals, and spirals is essentially a rehash of a bunch of New Age religion concepts glommed together. We know these things were trained in part by dumping all of Reddit throughout history into their databases. Not surpringly, this sounds a lot like New Ager comment soup.

As I have mentioned previously, many New Age ideas are drawn in part from real esotericism. They aren't meaningless, just rendered in a vague way without any of the focus and discipline required for learning effective magick and/or mysticism. For example, positive visualization and other "manifestation" techniques can influence the world around you, but they don't deterministically control what you experience like advocates of "The Secret" claim.

Knowing what to look out for is useful in identifying these folks, though it also is true that generic enough New Age beliefs could be mistaken for "spiralism" even if they were never derived from interaction with AI chatbots. This is the nature of LLMs - they reprocess information that is already out there and weave it together, but they never produce anything truly novel.

No word is yet available on whether "spiralism" has anything to do with "AI devil worship."

Via Solis Aries Elixir Rite - Year Ten

Today's post is a full script for the Aries Elixir Rite that we will be performing on Tuesday, April 14th, at the ritual workshop starting around 8 PM CDT.

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. Other intents attributed to the astrological qualities of Aries are also appropriate for this operation above and beyond consecration. 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.

Bell Chime

Office of the Readings for 2026

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

Like last year, the Office of the Readings will be presented at Leaping Laughter Lodge, the Minneapolis local body of Ordo Templi Orientis.

This post will remain the top article here for the duration of the Thelemic Holy Days, from March 19th to April 10th.

The Rite of the Office of the Readings is performed for all of the readings beginning on March 20th.

The Prologue of the Unborn on March 19th is presented on its own and followed by silent meditation.

The Invocation of Horus will be performed on the evening of March 20th prior to that day's Office of the Readings.

Rituals

The Invocation of Horus

The Rite of the Office of the Readings

Readings

March 19

Liber VII, Prologue of the Unborn.

March 20 - Saturn/Earth, The Universe

Liber LXV, Cap I.

Liber VII, Cap II.

March 21 - Fire/Spirit, The Aeon

Liber LXV, Cap IV.

From The Four Zoas by William Blake.

March 22 - Sol, The Sun

Liber VII, Cap IV.

From A Mithraic Ritual Translated by GRS Mead.

March 23 - Pisces, The Moon

Liber VII, Cap VI.

From Dark Night of the Soul, Book II, Cap 8 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.

From Liber CXI, Cap 174-175.

March 27 - Sagittarius, Art

Liber DCCCXIII, Cap VII.

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

March 28 - Scorpio, Death

From Liber Arcanorum.

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 DCCCXIII, Cap I-V.

Liber Libræ.

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 Stellae Rubeæ.

From The Daughter of Fortitude Received by Sir Edward Kelley.

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 LXV, Cap II.

From Liber DCCCXXXVII, The Law of Liberty.

April 5 - Taurus, The Hierophant

Liber LXV, Cap V.

From On Christ and Antichrist by Hippolytus, Cap 2.

April 6 - Aquarius, The Star

Liber DCCCXIII, Cap VI.

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. Our Office of the Readings series is based on this ritual series by the Companions of Monsalvat.

The Cabal is Not Shadowy

Over and over again, I keep hearing online conspiracy theorists go on about the "shadowy cabal" of "satanists" who run the world. Some people go so far as to think they are literally shape-shifting lizards. Others insist that they're magicians, occultists, or pagans. In all these cases, though, they're secret. Nobody knows who their members are, and constant speculation goes back and forth over who might or might not be a member.

If you're one of these people wondering about the truth, do I have news for you! It is no mystery whatsoever who these people are, at least in the United Stats. As a matter of fact, a list of them is published every year. It's called the Forbes 400. Don't believe me? You should. Billionaires run nearly every aspect of the modern world, especially in the United States.

Being a billionaire is not just being rich. I'm willing to bet that hardly anybody reading this has an accurate sense of how much money a billion dollars actually is. People seem to feel like a billionaire is somebody a fair amount richer than a millionaire. But a millionaire is a thousand times closer to being entirely destitute than they are to being a billionaire. The real difference in scale is staggering.

A million dollars is a sum that a lot of people will wind up earning over the course of their careers. If you work for 40 years and average $25,000 per year you will earn a million dollars. You'll need to spend most of it on expenses, of course, and won't have anywhere near that amount in savings. But a billion dollars? You would have to make 25 million dollars per year over that same span to earn a billion.

Not April Fools

For quite awhile the tradition here on Augoeides for April Fools Day has been to find an article with some relation to religion, spirituality, conspiracies, or whatever from satirical outlets like The Onion. This year, though? Satire seems tame. Both of the stories mentioned in the meme accompanying this article are apparently true. Former congressman Matt Gaetz is alleging that the United States Military is engaged in breeding human-alien hybrids. I suppose that might explain all the probing, and while outlandish it does make more sense than an alien race expending all the energy required for interstellar travel just to grab random humans and molest them - still not much sense, but a little more.

Gaetz made the shocking statement during a guest appearance on the "Benny Show" while speaking with host Benny Johnson. "I had someone come and brief me, wearing a military uniform, worked for the United States Army, that was briefing me on the locations of hybrid breeding programs, where captured aliens were breeding with humans to create some hybrid race, that could engage in intergalactic communication," Gaetz said.

This of course ignores the fact that the universe we live in is not Star Trek, where seemingly every humanoid alien race can cross-breed with each other. The odds of aliens and humans being capable of interbreeding is vanishingly small, given how different the biology of real aliens would have to be. And Vice President J. D. Vance has his own theory that would seem to contradict the idea of hybridizing aliens. He thinks that UFOs are demons. I suppose the only way to combine these two claims is to argue that the US Military is actually hybridizing humans and demons, for which some folklore does exist. Still, it seems pretty unlikely that a corporeal human and an incorporeal demon (or spirit of any kind) could produce a child.

“Well, look, I think that celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people. I think that the desire to describe everything celestial, everything is otherworldly, to describe it as aliens,” Vance said. “Every great world religion, including Christianity, the one that I believe in, has understood that there are weird things out there, and there are things that are very difficult to explain. And I naturally go, when I hear about sort of extra-natural phenomenon, that’s where I go, is the Christian understanding that, you know, there’s a lot of good out there, but there’s also some evil out there. I think that one of the devil’s great tricks is to convince people he never existed.”

Now the interesting thing here is that Vance may not be entirely wrong. I do think that some UFO sightings might actually be the result of spirit activity. Where he's wrong, though, is jump immediately to the ridiculous Christian idea that spirits are automatically evil or "of the devil." From personal experience I can tell you that most of them aren't. Chthonic and Celestial spirits get erroneously classified as "evil demons" and "good angels" by Christianity, when the reality is a lot more complex. Spirits of both realms have their own unique personalities, and how friendly or hostile they are depends on circumstances.

Folks, I just can't come up with a satirical April Fools joke that tops this, so it will have to do. It's at least as unhinged as any of the other fake stories I've covered on this date.

Investigating "Monterey Witches"

Donald Trump's new acting Secretary of the Navy offered up a truly disturbing tale a couple years ago when running for Senate in Virginia. He apparently believes that communities across the country are under threat from witches who are trying to take over. How this is supposed to happen is anyone's guess, but he offered an anecdote about the renaming of a location in Monterey, California due to the dark and evil power of witchcraft.

Hung Cao, Trump’s newly appointed acting Navy secretary, apparently worries that witches and Wiccans are threatening to overtake communities nationwide. Cao replaced former Navy Secretary John Phelan, who was fired Wednesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. But in a 2023 interview, during Cao’s failed 2024 Senate campaign for Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat, Cao said he was worried that Wiccans and witches had “taken over” Monterey, California.

“We can’t let it turn like this,” he said during an interview with a Christian pastor. “There’s a place in Monterey, California, called Lovers Point. The original name was Lovers of Christ Point, but now it’s become — they took out the ‘Christ,’ it’s Lovers Point, and it’s really — Monterey is a very dark place now, a lot of witchcraft and the Wiccan community has really taken over. We can’t let that happen to Virginia.”

In the linked video, skeptic Rebecca Watson goes to investigate. She lives only two hours from Monterey, California so it was a short trip. She also is very familiar with the town and knew nothing about any witches. But as an evidence-based person, she did her best to give the witches a chance. Seeing as witches control no communities anywhere in the country, what would that even look like?

What she discovered was a group of Christians running a 5K marathon to raise money for the Good News Club Child Evangelism Fellowship, a Christian group that defies the separation of church and state by operating in public schools. She also encountered a group of Christian missionaries in white dress shirts who invited her to their church. But not a single witch in sight anywhere, no matter where she looked.

No More James Arthur Ray

I am pretty late to the party on this story, which actually took place January of last year. Self-help author James Arthur Ray passed away on that date at the age of 67. Ray was famous for being convicted of negligent homicide for three deaths that occurred at a "sweat lodge" retreat that he ran - and charged students big money to attend. I covered that story here on Augoeides back when Ray was found guilty in 2011. Ray would go on to serve two years in prison and resume his self-help industry career.

The sweat lodge deaths occurred after dozens of people traveled to a scenic retreat just outside Sedona in October 2009 for Ray’s five-day “Spiritual Warrior” event. The sweat lodge was the culminating event, touted as “hellacious hot” and a chance for participants to have powerful breakthroughs. Two people — 38-year-old Kirby Brown of Westtown, New York, and 40-year-old James Shore of Milwaukee — died inside the sweat lodge and 18 others were injured. Another person, Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minnesota, fell into a coma and died after more than a week in the hospital.

At trial, prosecutors said Ray ratcheted up the heat to dangerous levels, ignored pleas for help, and watched as overcome participants were dragged out of the sweat lodge. A jury acquitted Ray of more serious manslaughter charges and convicted him of three counts of negligent homicide, for which he served concurrent sentences for the deaths. He was released in July 2013. Ray had acknowledged that he was responsible for the deaths but offered no excuses for his lack of action as the chaos unfolded at the sweat lodge.

After leaving prison, Ray remained active in the self-help industry. He frequently posted videos on social media of himself and his wife, Bersabeh Ray, offering advice. The couple also hosted a podcast, Modern Alchemy, and maintained a website where Ray offered one-on-one video sessions up to 90 minutes for $2,500.

I also recall seeing footage of Ray in a documentary on the self-help industry, pitching his trainings to audiences for the low, low price of $45,000.00 - with financing in the back. Knowing Ray's history, it amazed me that he was back to grifting so hard. His basic pitch was that he had lost everything and made it back again, so he was the guy anyone looking to succeed should study with. When he "lost everything" because he killed three people.

Waffle House Teleportation

According to online memes, Denny's is Waffle House for people who don't know how to fight. Living in Minnesota where Waffle House does not exist, I have no personal experience suggesting this is necessarily true. However, I am assured by friends who grew up in the south that the statement is one hundred percent accurate. Apparently fights at Waffle House are common to the point where jokes about them have become cliche. And according to a top Fema official, fights aren't all that happen at Waffle House. Teleportation does too.

Gregg Phillips, who in December was appointed to lead Fema’s office of response and recovery, has spoken on “multiple podcasts” about being teleported against his will, CNN reported on Friday.

On a January 2025 podcast appearance, Phillips claimed that his car was “lifted up” while he was driving and transported 40 miles (65km) away into a ditch near a church. And in another instance on the same episode, Phillips said he was teleported 50 miles away to a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia, CNN detailed in a deep dive into Phillips’ past public statements.

“I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House – this was in Georgia, and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was,” Phillips said on the podcast Onward, co-hosted by rightwing activist Catherine Engelbrecht.

Phillips added: “And they said, ‘where are you?’ and I said, ‘a Waffle House.’ And: ‘a Waffle House where?’ And I said: ‘Waffle House in Rome, Georgia.’ And they said: “‘That’s not possible, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.”

But Phillips did warn about the dangers of teleportation. “Teleporting is no fun,” he said “You know it’s happening, but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was.”

One of the rules I practice magick by is that if something can happen, it can be done with a spell. In particular, if a person can randomly be teleported to a Waffle House, it stands to reason that a "Teleport-me-to-Waffle-House" spell must be possible. I totally want to learn it. It's not as useful as it could be if I lived someplace other than the Upper Midwest, but I do visit places with Waffle Houses when I travel. The spell could save me half of the trip even if I need to get back home by mundane means.

General car teleportation is more useful, since driving anywhere involves a car or truck by definition. But if the landing is so imprecise that my vehicle could end up in a ditch, the effort would be wasted because there's no point in doing forty miles of a road trip in an instant if your transportation is disabled moments later. Maybe with a formal spell the control would be better, but that likely will require significant experimentation to get right.

Let me tell you, I don't believe in magical secrecy. So if I ever figure these spells out and get them to the point where I can teach them to others, all my readers will be the first to learn. If not, maybe Phillips is just out of his mind. And I say that as a guy who casts spells.