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I am currently in the process of trying to get my first book published. It is entitled "Operant Magick" and is essentially a textbook on ritual magick incorporating some of my own personal theories and research along with key concepts from the Western Esoteric Tradition. One of the key concepts that I introduce in the book is the "operant field". I use this term all the time when discussing ritual work and it appears nowhere in any other published source on ritual magick, so here's a basic overview of the idea.
Most Western ritual magicians use variations of the pentagram and hexagram rituals. In the Golden Dawn tradition you have the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram, in the Thelemic tradition you have the Star Ruby and Star Sapphire, in the Aurum Solis tradition you have the rituals for raising the Wards of Power, and so forth. The normal way this is taught is as it appears in Donald Michael Kraig's "Modern Magick", one of the most popular and widely available books on Golden Dawn magick. Kraig says that you start off just using the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and then move on to using the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram at the beginning of every ceremonial ritual. The Golden Dawn taught both banishing and invoking forms of these rituals, but Kraig sticks to the banishing versions and a lot of ritual magicians are taught to do the same.
I started researching these ritual forms years ago and was confused by how little material was available on the invoking versions and when they should be used. In Aleister Crowley's "Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae" it is kind of a curious fact that he covers the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram followed by an explanation of the Lesser "Invoking" Ritual of the Hexagram. I went ahead and decided to try this combination out even though most writers will tell you that you shouldn't use the rituals that way. I was absolutely blown away by the result - all of a sudden my practical magical work got a whole lot better. I set up a number of objective tests and, sure enough, the LBRP/LIRH was amazing. I couldn't get anywhere near the same result with the LBRP/LBRH - even though the only difference between the banishing and invoking forms is the direction in which the hexagrams are traced. When I discovered this I asked around and, sure enough, most of the magicians who I knew who were able to get good results using the Golden Dawn forms had figured out the same thing. Other skilled magicians I know have tried the combination at my suggestion and also found that it just works better.
So what is going on here? I think that most modern writers don't understand how to use these rituals. From a Hermetic perspective the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram represents the psychological realm or microcosm and the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram represents the physical realm or macrocosm. Together the rituals set up a space in which the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm is defined that I call a "field". The four combinations of the banishing and invoking forms of the two rituals set up four different fields that are useful for specific magical operations.
BANISHING FIELD (LBRP/LBRH): This is how most magicians begin their rituals when working with the Golden Dawn forms. It is, in effect, the "full shutdown" - it clears mental and spiritual forms from both the interior and exterior worlds. In can be used to completely cleanse a temple, banish spirits permanently, or neutralize a magical effect that is targeting the magician. What it also does, though, is shut down any ongoing spells that the magician has running unless they are bound to talismans or some anchor other than the magician's consciousness. If you are casting a spell that you want to work over the next week, don't end the ritual with this combination under any set of circumstances unless you're convinced you made a mistake and want to stop the spell. The effect that you just set in motion will be negated when the field goes up.
INVOKING FIELD (LIRP/LIRH): This combination energizes all ongoing magical effects, and can be used to begin a ritual that you want to operate in both the interior and exterior worlds. A good example of this is a spell to get a good job. You want the spell to affect your psyche in such a way that you seem more confident and capable, but you also want it to shift probabilities in the material world so that the right opportunity will come your way.
CENTERING FIELD (LIRP/LBRH): This combination sets up a field in which the interior world is engaged while influences from the exterior world are neutralized. This field is ideal for exclusively psychological magical work of all sorts.
OPERANT FIELD (LBRP/LIRH): This is the one that I use the most. The field clears the interior world and then merges it the with the exterior world, setting up a space in which thought can more easily become material reality. All of the energy of a spell cast within this field is targeted on the macrocosm and the resulting probability shifts show that magick done this way just influences the outside world better - significantly better.
If you would like, try it out and see, and let me know how it goes. I think you'll be impressed.
Suggested ebooks:
Tarostar - The Witchs Spellcraft Revised
Frederick Hadland Davis - The Persian Mystics Jami
Katharine Pyle - The Counterpane Fairy
I have been carefully studying a recent transmission from the spokesperson for the secret chiefs of the HOGD faction of the Golden Dawn, translated and edited by David Griffin for the benefit of everyone. This transmission is entitled "Traditional Initiatic Meaning of the Three Grades of the R.R. et A.C.," and was written by Lux Et Tenebris. You can find the article here. I managed to copy the text into a word-processing file so I could print it out and truly study it. I don't often bother doing that with the blogs that I read, but this one merited a more careful study. What was being transmitted was truly remarkable, and it was obviously far beyond anything else that I have read on the same subject. The only problem that I had with this writing is that is was prompted by the never ending conflict in the GD community, and the need to distinguish a true revelation from one that is contrived or "reconstructed." The constant conflict is a sad reminder about how polarized and fragmented the GD community is in these dark Typhonian times.
Most of the Golden Dawn organizations seem quite unable to write about anything substantive when it comes to the degrees beyond Adeptus Minor. I would suppose that it might have something to do with the fact that the Golden Dawn material which is in the public domain only goes that far, and the various degrees and lore beyond that point have been, at least up until to now, merely suppositional. Some might say that the higher degrees of the second order (5th, 6th and 7th) are too secret and mysterious to talk about, or that those who could talk about them are oath bound and constrained to be silent. Of course, that hasn't stopped some in the Golden Dawn community from writing and talking about nearly everything in a public forum, so I suspect that it mostly has to do with the fact that the higher degrees are essentially undiscovered country for most GD organizations.
Yet in this specially transmitted document are the definitions of the initiatic degrees of the vaunted second order of the Ruby Rose and Golden Cross, written by someone who is the gate-keeper for the third order. You should expect that such a revelation would be quite remarkable if it were indeed a communication from the secret chiefs. Such a communique would have to walk a very fine line between being revelatory, and revealing confidential and oath bound information. I have carefully read over this transmission and I have found it to be profoundly revealing and truly amazing. Here was the blue-print to the second order of adepts written out for all to read and ponder, and little or nothing was remarked on it in the blog-sphere by other GD organizations.
I have shared this transmitted document with my peers, and they all agree that it is remarkable and quite amazing. I have seen nothing like it in the various Golden Dawn material that I have in my possession or have ever read about. It is deep, profound, and also, quite insightful. I found myself saying, "Of course, it was all so obvious!" at various points while I was reading it. If anything could convince me that the various claims made by David Griffin of being in contact with secret chiefs were true, this brief transmission should prove it beyond dispute. So I was that impressed by what I read, yet I saw immediately that there were some distinct differences between the second order as defined by Frater Lux Et Tenebris, and the way that the second order is defined in the Order of the Gnostic Star. They are analogous, but also different.
The second order initiations and ordeals of the Order of the Gnostic Star were developed by me over a long period of time - in fact over thirty years. I had an initial vision and plan that I was following, but I also discovered that it could be determined by the Sephiroth and Pathways of Tiphareth, Geburah and Chesed. There would also be a crossing of the lesser abyss that separates the lower sephiroth from the higher, but that would also be covered by the various ordeals associated with first four elemental degrees. There is indeed a theme of death and resurrection involved in the transition from 4th through 5th degree, and it reaches a climax in 5th degree. But beyond that point, the other themes associated with the second and inner order of the Gnostic Star are quite different.
Once the soul is challenged and mortality truly realized in an integral manner, then life itself becomes sacred, reaching its summit when an initiate undergoes the rites of the Sanctum Regnum and masters the Seven Rays of the Hierophant. If fifth degree is that of the sacred magician-priest, then the sixth degree is the sacred kingship (or queenship) and the seventh, that of the master of the initiatic temple as hierophant or magician-bishop. Each of these three adept degrees requires a mastery of a whole new level of being, and are quite distinct from each other. The three degrees of the adept in the Order of the Gnostic Star represent the resolution of three very important aspects of life itself, these are self-mastery, mastery of one's world, and mastery of the double gateway of the spiritual source. Let me briefly discuss each of these initiatory grades and their associated ordeals, although I will not be able to reveal the actual details, such as the ritual workings and how they might be deployed. That information is, of course, still confidential and keyed to obligatory oaths.
As I said, these three degrees are based on the Sephiroth on the Tree of Life, as are all the degrees of the Order. The Tree of Life is the map for achieving the ultimate states of illumination and spiritual mastery. Magickal ordeals that can encapsulate the Sephiroth and associated Pathways will likely emulate the actual internal processes that powerfully transform and spiritually evolve a person, from individual consciousness to cosmic consciousness and at-one-ment with the Godhead. The essential theme for the second order for the E.S.S.G. is that of the Tetra-sacramentary and the Stellar Rites of Gnosis. The four sacramental systems are associated with the four essential gnostic systems of initiation and magickal transformation. These systems are called Thelema, Agape, Thanatos and Eros, and they represent the transformative powers of the True-Will, Love, Death and Desire, which join together to formulate what is known as the Star of Individuation, or Astris. The Star symbolizes what is known as the Stellar Gnosis, or where the individual reaches a maximum state of spiritual autonomy and self-determination, and only then is brought into union with the presiding and internal Godhead. In this manner, the Atman is awakened and made ready for the next series of ordeals, which are begun with the abysmal crossing.
If we look at the Sephiroth of these three degrees, we can determine the logic and wisdom of the initiatory ordeals and understand the ascension of the adept into the high adept.
TIPHARETH - This is the fifth degree, known as the Adeptus Minor in the GD, and it represents the process whereby the initiate has overcome the obstacles of the four elements, and now is able to constitute the quintessence, which is pure Spirit. The initiation ordeal is where the candidate undergoes the spiritual knighthood of Sol Invictus and the Osirian mystery of Death and Resurrection. There is also an ordination and elevation to the sublime station of magician-priest, and there is the first attempt at the Bornless One Invocation Rite. The candidate also begins the long process of performing the first in a series of the Transdimensional Gate Vortex workings, where he or she enters into the domain of one of the eighteen triangular shapes found in the lattice structure of the Tree of Life. (Still, the key to this degree is the complete mastery of the self.)
GEBURAH - The sixth degree, known as the Adeptus Major in the GD, is where the initiate must master the very processes of life itself and the world that he or she lives in. This is a process of distillation, purification and the elimination of the irrelevant. The initiation ordeal is that of the Sacred King or Queen, and the establishment of the Sanctum Regnum. The ordeal is where the initiate has successfully constituted the four complete temples of Thelema, Agape, Thanatos and Eros, including their avatars, sacramental relics and spiritual hierarchies. Mastery of the Tetra-sacramentary is absolutely necessary before this ordeal can be considered fully accomplished. Often, it is also important for the initiate to complete all of life's tasks in regards to establishing a material basis for life, building a home, bonding with a mate, raising a family and becoming an important functionary in one's community. Some of these accomplishments are more important than others, and they are relative to the life path of the initiate.
CHESED - The seventh degree, known as the Adeptus Exemptus in the GD, is where the initiate must take the manifested Tetra-sacramentary and forge it into the fifth sacrament, which is the Star, or Stellar Gnosis. From this fusion emerges the true mystical and spiritual power of the Seven Rays and the underlying pattern Undecigram. The sacred pattern of the eleven consists of the seven spiritual virtues of the Goddess merged with the four powers of the God. I can only give these hints to you without much details, thereby showing that these mysteries are fully developed in the lore of the Order. At this stage, the initiate also performs the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal and fully manifests and merges with his or her higher self, in preparation for the ultimate abysmal crossing. The initiate of the seventh degree is also consecrated as a magician-bishop (hierophant) and learns to master the seven rays system, which is based on the planetary attributes (and deeper correspondences) of the seven Sephiroth of the Qabbalah. A successful resolution of these tasks and ordeals will help the initiate acquire the mastery of the double gateway of the Absolute Source (as the Supernal Triad).
What I have communicated here may seem somewhat opaque or full of symbolic jargon, but they can represent actual accomplishments in the material world, analogous to the highest achievements of a truly gifted mastery of life. The three degrees can be thought of then as representing the ordeals and achievements of self, community and one's ultimate legacy, but within a completely occult context. To become an adept is to become spiritually wise. Looking at these achievements in this simplified manner should make them appear to be quite transparent, despite the magickal context of the Order and its symbology. An adept level of initiation is then a mastery of one's life; and what lies beyond the life cycle of a mortal human being consists of the mysteries of the higher adept and the Supernal Triad of the Tree of Life.
Frater Barrabbas
Bernard Sell, our man in London and my co-author of "Monsters!" (Plug! Plug! Plug! Buy it, already!), sends us this post on THE BEAST OF BODMIN MOOR. What follows is a tale of crytpids, Alistair Crowley, and urinary urgency. If we here at STRANGE HORIZONS can offer you any advice at all, it is this droplet of Holmesian wisdom: do not go out on the moors at night...or in the afternoon in a Hyundai.
All through Cornwall, the great phantom cat, known as the Beast of Bodmin preys on local cattle and local locals. I arrived at around 1 p.m., so I did not expect to see it.
First of all, it's remote. To get there, you have to drive, and driving in Cornwall is more than just adjusting to driving on the left side of the road or navigating roundabouts. No, no. Oftentimes, one of the big hazards in Cornwall is driving down narrow roads, and by narrow, I'm talking about roads barely wide enough for one vehicle, let alone two. You learn to memorize where the pull-offs are when you see them, in case there's a car bounding toward you beyond the next hill.
Proud of myself for getting from Bodmin to Port Isaac to Camelford without killing anyone or nicking any parked vehicles or pedestrians, I drove down what seemed to be the world's longest private alley, unable to see the sun for long stretches due to the overgrowth above my head.
Leaving my hired car, I reached Bodmin Moor. I have never seen a moor in person. They are reputed to be windswept. They are not incorrect. The view opened out on three tors, (which are something something), Showery Tor, Little Rough Tor, and Rough Tor, 'rough' here pronounced as 'row.'
I have had some hiking experience, but it never ceases to amaze me how something that looks quite near is actually quite far, and something that doesn't look that steep is going to kill your quads. Check and check. Also, news flash-I am not as fit or athletic as I was 20 years ago. Did not help.
Once I reached the iconic Showery Tow (check this), I was fit for the cardiac unit. In revenge for my misery, I decided to flout the dangers of the moors and relieve myself on it.
This may not have been the smartest idea. This was the land of the Beast, remember?
Once I did so-I kid you not-the wind off the Celtic Sea picked up, and man! it was cold. It may have been a coincidence, but it didn't subside until I had come off the hills and crossed the heath.
The story doesn't end here. I got into the rental Hyundai and guess what?
It wouldn't start. It had been functioning perfectly until then.
But no big. Irritating, certainly, but a coincidence, right?
I was fortunate enough to mooch a ride into Bodmin from two elderly Samaritans, who were unable to get a signal on their mobile at Rough Tor, as it so happened. On the way, we got to talking, and asked me about what I was doing in England. Researching for supernatural comedies, I said.
The old man asked me if I knew who Alistair Crowley was.
If you know who he is, as I do, then you will understand my reaction of, "Well, of course. It all makes sense then." If you don't, check out some information about him HERE.
Alistair Crowley was known to have gone up into the Tors and performed dark rituals there. Some speculate that the Beast of Bodmin is somehow a product of these malefic rites.
Did old A.C. not appreciate where I drained my lizard? Is he the reason the winds picked up, that my car wouldn't start, that I couldn't get a mobile signal?
By the way, did I mention that I've developed a cold all of a sudden?
Jon's two-cents: I have no doubt that there is a Beast of Bodmin Moor, perhaps several of them, really. They are panthers brought from elsewhere in the world. For a time in the late 19th Century, it was fashionable for the elite and wealthy of the British establishment to own pets from exotic locales. These pets, often big cats such as panthers, inevitably grew larger and became too much for both house and home. The owners then turned them loose into the moors. These big cats are adaptive and have managed to survive in small pockets.
Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets
CONJURELLA FEVER: TRANSCENDING TIME & MK-ULTRA
Science Fiction Truth by award-winning CREEPY writer T. Casey Brennan
This is the story of the Abominations. This is the story of Those Who Wait. Like L. Ron Hubbard and H.P. Lovecraft, my late father, St. Clair County (Michigan) Board of Education member William J. Brennan worked for that Citadel of the Old Ones, the pulp magazines of the 1940s. Two issues of the 1940s Street & Smith companion to WEIRD TALES and THE SHADOW, LOVE STORY magazine, carry my dad's stories, under the
authorship, Bill Brennan.
To serve the pulps was to serve the Old Ones; to serve them, was to behold the NECRONOMICON, if only in dreams. Herman Slater, owner of the old Warlock Shoppe in Brooklyn, after he published ME, the blood-stained legend, in the square-backed summer 1975 edition of EARTH RELIGION NEWS (not to be confused with EAST WEST JOURNAL November 1984, page 13, which also carries a write-up on me - but that happened in Berkeley, when they tried to kill Manson, so I must talk about that later, much later),
published his own fictitious NECRONOMICON, what the Necronomicon "might be like". No... No, this is the story of Lynette Fromme, one of my
friends, a girl from Ann Arbor, met her while she was being transferred from one prison to another. It was a girl I lived with for a long time, she was never my lover, she was just my landlady, but we got introduced by the late Ernie Brown, of Ann Arbor's cable channel 9, host of
numerous Ann Arbor cablevision shows, the last being entitled SIMPLY YOU. Ernie died of pneumonia in December of 1996, at the age of 39, after introducing me to the girl who had met Lynette Fromme.
But now the Conjurella Fever begins, now the story comes forth, now the bleak memories of things that cannot be...
No, this is the story of Eponymous Hawking, and the Chandrashakar Limit, of dinosaurs that take back the earth, of black holes and time warpsof the boy who shot John Kennedy, who, still a boy in Berkeley, witnesses the aftermath of an attempt on Manson's life...
Eponymous Hawking fears the night. Eponymous Hawking fears the long, dark night. His tongue has been cut out, his mentor has proven himself an MK-ULTRA agent, he has only one ally: his mentor's wife. He will survive. Like the other MK-ULTRA experiments, like any life Dr. E ever touched, he is made of steel. He will survive. Like Howard Brennan, he lied. He knows.
In the known universe, there are about a hundred million galaxies, each with about a hundred million stars. To my knowledge, there is no proof that ANY of these stars has a planetary system, like our own sun, Sol.
This observation is extremely significant,,, vis-avis, the Chandrashakar Limit. The Chandrashakar Limit determines which stars have sufficient mass to collapse into that paradox of physics, the black hole. Beneath the Chandrashakar Limit, a star, upon expiring, collapses into something at least comparable to ordinary matter, a White Dwarf, at the extreme. A White Dwarf is still matter which obeys the ordinary laws of physics, unly under extreme density.
Above the Chandrashakar Limit, the star collapses into a black hole. A black hole is a virtually infinitely compact mass of time-space, drawing adjacent time-space into its core. The event horizon of a black hole prevents the entire universe from falling into such a collapsed star.
The event horizon is a kind of shell surrounding a black hole. Yet, worm holes escape from a black hole, sending a warping effect to all
time-space within their reach. A planet falling into a black hole can reverse in time, can enter parallell worlds, and it's own distant past.
The Abominations. Where man rules now, they ruled before, where man rules now, they shall rule again. Man's rule upon the earth has been but a whisper, a heartbeat, that "fleeting moment" of Goethe's Faust, one brief moment compared to endless ages when the dinosaurs ruled, when no mammal walked, when serpents ruled, masked and mystical, cowled and crimson, cold and dark, of the night, of the night...
The Conjurella dream is so difficult to tell. In 1975, my career as an award-winning comic book writer for the Warren magazines, CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPIRELLA (Marilyn Manson has a tatoo of Uncle Creepy on his arm),
was virtually totalled. I was reduced to writing essays claiming to be the reincarnation of Roaring Twenties "satanist", Aleister Crowley, as published in such magazines as Llewellyn's GNOSTICA (#30, 31? Ciurca
1977), EARTH RELIGION NEWS, and a mid-1970s issue of the British zine INSIGHT, from Crowleyan Deric R. James. Anyway, it all led to two links to Manson.
This is the first link to Manson.
In 1975, I was head over heels in love with my plan to have all
Crowleyans everywhere declare me the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley.
Support for this camp[aign, which preceded my work against smoking in comic books, as noted in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE, Voil. 128, No.
131, September 28, 1982, page S12435, was scarce, so I conceived that I would approach a well known cult figure, Charles Manson, for an
endorsement. I told Daddy about my belief in witchcraft and Crowleyan Magick. I sure as hell didn't know he was going to pull what he did, or I would have changed the subject, talked about school taxes, or horse racing, or football, or that kind of crap that he liked.
Daddy says: "Would you believe you could kill a squirrel in Michigan, and that would kill John Kennedy in Dallas?"
I pause nervously. I don't like to talk about the Kennedy assassination.
"Yeah, sure," I say, hoping to avoid JFK by going into a long, involved explanation of the principles of witchcraft, "It's called 'sympathetic magic'. The macrocosm and the microcosm. Well, the spell involves a miniature, a replica, which REPRESENTS..."
Daddy says: "I'll make it easyv for ya. Voodoo."
"Okay," I say.
Then he tells met it's not voodoo. Then he tels me about the Conjurella memory, and again the boy is lifted up. Again the voices, again the operating command, again the murdered President...
I remember flying into Chicago's O'Hare Airport in 1975. We hasd always respected Moslems. Sometime in the mid-1950s, my Uncle, Charles Goodrich (not Uncle Johnny of CONJURELLA, the one that got us involved with David Ferrie), was involved with the Aladdin Temple Shrine, on Stelzer Road, in Columbus, Ohio. David Ferrie lived in Cleveland. We're not supposed to say, but he had to do with my Aunt Patty, who wasn't really my aunt at all, and wasn't really Patty at all. Like David Ferrie, she was an Ohio cancer researcher, author of LIVING WITH CANCER by Edna Kaehele,
1952, Doubeday & Company. Her name was Edna Kaehele, but her friends called her Pat. She founded the internationally acclaimed anti-cancer group, Fear Fighters, much touted in the 1950s Columbus press, and wrote about me in her book, TRAINING THE FAMILY DOG, 1953, Lantern Press, page
180: "The hardiest individualist I know..Casey Brennan, a three-year-old friend from Avoca, Michigan."
Anyway, that was us in Ohio in the 1950s, and one day Uncle Charley took us to the Shrine Circus. He wore his fez, and I even got my picture taken with a little fez that said "Moslem" on it. I think that must have gotten us all respecting Moslems, and thinking of them as more durable allies than they eventually turned out to be.
So I flew into O'Hare airport in 1975. The next part of the memory, I was sitting beside Louis Lomax, on a bench, outside, in as remote part of the airport. I had read Louis Lomax's biography of Malcolm X, WHEN THE WORD IS GIVEN. In the preface, he takes note of the almost religious aspect of the Universal Pictures horror films ofv the Golden Age: THE WOLFMAN, et al. I had copied that style of melodrama in my own stories for the Warren magazines of the early 1970s, and my later comics, as noted in my 1997 and 1998 WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA istings.
I don't remember what Lomax asked me. I don't remember what I told him.
I only remember this. I was sitting beside Lomax on that bench. There was no one else in sight. Suddenly a car pulls up full of black guys. It all happen so quickly; they all jump out. The leader says, just like this:
"Put on your LIPS!"
They instantly pull thin gas masks over their faces. It's a low instant whisper, but the word "LIPS" is a shout. Silent machine-gun fire riddles Louis Lomax. I have only a nanosecond to look and see the wounds
erupting from his body, as the rapid-fire shells hit. Then another
nanosecond to look around and see pink gas being sprayed on us from tubes.
No, after they try to kill Daddy and me, Daddy says: "Do you still want Charles Manson as an endorser?"
I say: "No." This is the second link to Manson.
In February of 1977, I went to Toronto, to secure an introduction to HOLLYWOOD BABYLON author and film-maker, Kenneth Anger, from my then friend, Captain George, of the shop, Captain George's Memory Lane. I had some Canadian ties; I'd attended comic book conventions as a panel guest at Winter's College at York University. I'd signed autographs (following publication of my award-winning "On the Wings of a Bird" in CREEPY #36),
done radio interviews, and hobnobbed with other celebrities. I had some action in Toronto.
I stayed at the Carleton Inn; they had a pool and a sauna on like, the eighth floor or something. It was nice, but it was 40 below outside.
Forty below, is, by coincidence, the same temperature on both the
Fahrenheit and Celsius scales. Also, the fire alarm went off, and I ran down twenty-three floors. Then they said there was just something
smoldering in the basement, and I threatened to sue them.
But I got the introduction to Kenneth Anger, who, at that time, was preparing a sequel to his highly acclaimed film, SCORPIO RISING. The new folm was to be called LUCIFER RISING, and, in no time, I had arranged a part in it, written by anger himself. I had been slated to play the ghost of Aleister Cowley, who appears behind Anger, as Anger performs a Magickal Spell.
Name stars associated with the movie included Marianne Faithfull, and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, who had written the musical score. But
Page's music was scrapped in favor of that of Bobby Beausoleil, which Anger seemed to pronounce "Bobby Beloy", and the T. Casey Brennan scene was eliminated altogether. I asked Anger if Beausolil, in prison for murder, was one of the Manson Family.
Anger says: "He killed one of the Manson Family." This is the third link to Manson.
This is Berkeley in the early 1980s.
On October 17, 1983, Linda and Susan bought me a plane ticket to San Diego. They distributed Jack T. Chick comics; they disappeared on a road trip shortly thereafter. Jack T. Chick didn't give a damn; none of their family has seen them since. I soon migrated to the San Francisco Bay area, and in March of 1984, I moved into the Berkeley Krishna Temple.
Well, it was sort of a Krishna Temple, but for them too, things had gone from bad to worse. An early leader of the Berkeley Temple, a priest named Jiva, had gone bad, engaging himself in a variety of criminal activities, prior to his murder. This was all before my time, but around the time of Jiva's fall, and his death, Srila Hansadutta arrived.
Hansadutta was born in Germany during the war, the son of Hitler's
personal baker. He had been thrown out of Germany, and I had seen a copy of DER SPIEGEL, the German version of TIME and NEWSWEEK, calling
Hansadutta and his followers "more dangerous than the Bader-Meinhoff gang". I have trouble believing that; he wasn't BAD, he was just
hot-headed. According to the Berkeley police, the Berkeley press, and others, he liked to crusise around Berkeley with the passenger window open, firing on buildings. I don't think he ever shot anybody, even by accident. He was just letting off steam, but it was crazy as hell; me, I'll just fire off a few rounds in the air when I'm like that. Not
Hansadutta.
Anyway, I'd promised Linda and Susan I was going to make some smart career moves in California. Joining the Krishna Temple wasn't one of them; the Hansaduttas treated me like dirt - I wasn't even a eal
devotee, I was just their dishwasher. A typical memory of Berkeley was washing pots on July 4, 1984, while the Hansadutta almost blew up their parking lots with repeated blasts from "firecrackers", manufactured from sticks of dynamite at their secondary temple, "The Farm", which I'd never seen. I was told later that someone had talked "the Farm" right out from under Hansdadutta. He'd signed over the deed in a supposed business ploy, then, it was lost, and he'd never get it back. I was interviewed on the UC Berkeley radio station, KALX, by Donna Fox, and on KBLX by Keith Jenkins. I went on KTEH in San Jose as a member of a San Francisco Regional Mensa team soliciting funds for the station, during a Dr. WHO marathon. I even took a call from a San Jose police officer on camera, calling in a donation. I was mentioned in some issue or other of the CATHOLIC VOICE in Oakland, I created a short-lived comic character called "Capt. KALX" for the KALX PROGRAM GUIDE, I appeared on CALIFORNIA TONIGHT on KFCB in Concord (at that time, one of the Jim and Tammy
Bakker stations), I was written up in EAST WEST JOURNAL, November 1984, page 13, and I was an also-ran guest, with a free table, at a comic convention in one of those buildings by Sproul Plaza.
That was Berkeley, 1983 to 1985, a hodge-podge of memories; a hell of free meals, long penniless walks to the AA meeting at 2910 Telegraph for free coffee, a career being shattered, and a servant's life in a commune of inexplicable cultists, who, like myself, were being pursued by their own deadly enemies.
This was the hit on Manson.
That afternoon, I came back to 2334 Stuart, the Berkeley Krishna Temple, to find the community abuzz with some astounding news. The LOS ANGELES TIMES had called...a former Berkeley devotee had attempted to kill
Charles Manson. The TIMES was adamant: Manson was DEAD, or should be considered so; he'd been burned over 90% of his body, they said. Some time after that, we were given a more detailed account of the attack, so detailed that I suspect it may have come from law enforcement officials, or even a call from the attacker himself, though I suppose the LA TIMES could have given it.
It went like this.
The ex-Berkeley devotee, first a priest, then a cop killer, then a
convict, is trying to chant aloud on his Krishna rosary. This gets on Manson's nerves. Plus, probably Manson still thinks the Krishna people are a bunch of sissies, the way they were when he went up...whatever happened, now they're often mean as hell, especially ones from Berkeley.
Anyway, after much wrangling with Manson, the priest conceives an
assassination attempt. He has clearly studied Manson's habits, in that he knows that Manson frequents the prison hobby shop. His thinking is the elementary thinking of a warrior (of those objects around me, which can be used as a weapon?), not the subsidized kind of thinking, where they GIVE you a weapon that DOES the job. He chooses his make-shift weapon, a can of paint thinner used in decorating model cars sold there.
He awaits Manson, throws the fluid in his face and lights it. Some
combination of prison guards and other inmates put out the fire, which leaves Manson with only a few scars...but instantly the story is brought to the Berkeley Temple, where the priest once lived, that Manson is bu rned over ninety percent of his body, and is not expected to live.
This is the fourth link, the link that cannot be.
Scientists have determined that our sun, Sol, is well within the
Chandrashakar Limit; that there is no possibility that it will
eventually implode into a black hole. But the Chandrashakar Limit was based on the atomic weight of suns with no known planetary systems. Sol, combined with its solar system, particularly if one adds the outer
planets that are speculated to revolve beyond Pluto, is doubtless well above the Chandrashakar Limit.
You could just LOOK, and the sun could turn into a black hole! Long before our planet pierces, or is shattered against the black hole's event horizon, worm holes of distorted time-space will escape from the black hole, encompassing whole worlds, even travelling back in time to before the black hole took place.
Time will turn backward. The earth will become as it was. The
abominations shall rise up, their wait has been endless, the serpents of the old times shall rise up and take back the earth.
This is fiction:
Squeakanella sees the matrix, falls, has an epileptic seizure, then pockets the gun. Two operating commands repeat themselves in her
frenzied head:
1. Fire on command.
2. It isn't real.
Someone has erred. The commands will conflict. Squeakanella has fired guns in dreams before, she knows how a dream gun works, you just draw and fire. You don't have to DO anything, it ruins the dream.
You don't have to take off the safety.
Squeakanella raises the impotent automatic, and pulls back a rubbery trigger, just like a dream gun should be. She has shaken off the blood, she did what I could not. Then she looks to the sky and she beholds them, the serpents of the old places, for endless ages they ruled before man, their yearning is endless, they yearn for the earth, they yearn to come forth, and even to be used by them once is to know that yearning eternal.
[from http://www.geocities.com/allaxul9/set.html ]
Set: A Predecessor of Satan?
By Fenris Wolf
"Set goes into Satan a whole lot easier then Satan goes into
Set. A good anology would be a man (the "Set-oriented"
occultist) attempting to fit a good sized elephant into a
shoebox. It simply can't be done."
-Fenris Wolf, A thought
You hear about it among some circles-namely, "Satan is a
bastardized version of Set", or, more kindly, "Set is the
predessesor of Shaitan and Satan." But honestly, is this true?
The author says not. For one, notice the areas of any influence
that Set would have on the, perhaps you could say, "designing" of
Satan. For one, I could be wrong, but I don't believe that
Christians where paying all that much attention to the Egyption
religion, much less "design" as it where, Satan after Set. As the
Christian knee-jerk reaction is to ultimately paint ALL foriegn
symbolic "Gods/Goddesses" as "Evil", it's hard to believe that
they sat down and said, "Ok, now which one is the Evil god in the
Egyption religion? It is best we "design" Satan after him."
Doubtful. I have no proof that they didn't, but just through the
use of common sense-doubtful.
Plus, if Set was truley a 'main' influence on Satan, then why is
there so little resemblence? The Devil and his minions have of
corse been depicted in many different ways over the last few
thousand years, but never as ant-eater or ardvark looking
creature*. Satan has been, in most cases, depicted as rather
fearsome, or at least mischevous. No, rather, if any thing was a
"main" influence on Satan, it would have to be the greek gods Pan
and Dionysus, who's resemblence is uncanny to him.
But lets go beyond looks-how about characteristics? Satan has
always been a figure of intelligence, ultra-pridful,
ultra-lustful, and extreme rebellion-while in the Egyption sense
of things, Set really only existed as a god of destruction, such
as draught for instance. There where other deities, such as
Thoth, Amon etc that represented intelligence and Darkness/The
Hidden respectfully. So therefore, one could possibly gain more
correlation between Amon and Thoth with Satan, then one ever
could with Set.
Bogus occultist Micheal Aquino (from hearon out known as "Mikey
Abeano") claimed something along the lines that Set embodied all
of the Aespects that the Christians used to "create" or "design"
Satan, but this is inherently false. He claimed that various
characteristics, such as "honor, honestly, intelligence, etc"
where of Set. As far as honor goes, in a well known tale about
Set, it was said that he, in his hurry to be born, tore himself
out of his mothers womb. With all due respect to the symbol of
Set aside-thats hardly very 'honorable'. Secondally, we have
honestly-The Devil has been portrayed in many ways, with normally
positive qualities, but being an honest joe wasn't ussually
always in the cards to be honest. Lastly, as said before,
attributes like intelligence, power, etc, while they might have
been placed by the Egyptions onto Set simply because he was a god
(as all mythologies portray they're deities as intelligent,
powerfully suppierior to mortals anyway) they wheren't his "Main
line" if you catch me. Rather, as said before (sorry if I'm
repeating himself) but Set was more destruction oriented and
such, and any portayles of Abeano and others as the epitome of
intelligence and power are simply-as Rev.Hr.Vad once told
me-placing on him attributes that he did NOT have before.
On another way to refute that Set is the 'predessor of Satan'
what about the other, hundreds of gods/goddesses that easily fit,
or are at least related to the Satanic type? Could not Loki and
his progency, when combined wholesale (more on this in another
essay) be concidered Satan? Plus, there was no way that the Norse
mythology could have influenced Satan-yet it is still EXTREMELY
similar to Satan-so in otherwords, there are these "Satans" in
every religion, new and old!(even in new age, although they're
harder to see more on this later too)
As the Italian Fascist Dictator once said (I'm quoting from
memory, forgive me if I'm somewhat off) "We are not like the
English...we call our bread bread, and our wine wine, we tell
things for how they are". In otherwords, unlike Kenneth Grant and
Aliester Crowley, who both where/are intelligent men, people like
Dr.LaVey didn't beat around the bush-they where direct. He called
his Satan Satan, he did'nt make up other names for him.
(Also, I'd like to say that I don't have anything against Set as
a devil, as he certainly was, but I do have something against
this symbol being portrayed as some sort of major Satanic deity
or whatever.....lets face it people, Set was more of a predessor
to Gonzo then he was to anything else!"
Copyright XXXV A.S. / 2000 c.e. by Fenris Wolf. All Rights
Reserved.
END
Suggested ebooks:
Kenneth Grant - Aleister Crowley And The Hidden God
Thomas Voxfire - What Was Aleister Crowley
