As part of my commitment to myself after the Choronzon ritual, I am not going to bite my tounge as much. In my meditation, and reading, I have been struggling to please everyone all the time. This was an error, and I am going to be fore more upfront in the blogs and take far more controversial positions.

Daily Work from Thursday==Nada, because I was working on the Spirit Communication Class till 1:30 am... although I did do 20 minutes of Inner Smile work before sleeping and now the regularly scheduled rant

Friday -=- Extensive Tantric work ( all night long)

Saturday -=- Called and held space for the order of avalon in Mi. Yes I essentially called the quarters ( but did this in the typical Andrieh Hard core fashion).

Lately, I have been doing a bit more ceremonial magic. The first thing I am going to point out is that ceremonial magic, like the word paganism, encompasses about a million different systems that although on the surface are labeled together are in fact different systems from different authors. However, I have been working with the Aggripa system, the Kabbalah and the OTO's LBRP. Most of the Kabballastic thought, would be a an OCD organizers dream. Everything corresponds to everything else. Its quite thorough. I enjoy doing it.

I have seen countless arguments and commentary about ceremonial magic from various authors. Many ceremonial magicians have well to be blunt attracted my book “Hands On Chaos Magic”. Its definitely offensive to them and there is a lot of reasons why. I see a lot of of Ceremonial magicians ( not all) arguing the fine points of what Crowley said, or what this author said, making endless correspondences and playing endless mental games. In fact, you might be lost when reading several of these authors and might be lost in the discussion of the technical points. I know I am, and I get ceremonial magic and want to get a PHD. This overly intellectualization started with Crowley, and then continues today. The fact is that most of the posturing, and most of the conversations ( and even books), are a great level of mental masturbation. As Hyatt once said, most occultism is bullshit, because most people doing this stuff are bullshit. Whats missing from many of the overly technical and intellectualized dicussion that stagnates in the foul pit of its own hubris, is well in fact MAGIC. As in doing it.

I get pretty fantastic results from ceremonial magic as I do it. I can honestly say that the majority of people I meet doing ceremonial magic are not really getting results. When I need to know the hebrew equivalent, of a correspondence, I look it up. Some day, I would like to learn hebrew fully but not today. I need the results now. In fact, Crowley himself was something of an aristocrat magician not a working class hero. For most of his life, he had someone else give him money and thus had the time.

So whats going wrong. Take in mind, if you buy my argument, probably you've already bought Hands on Chaos Magic or are seriously considering it.

Pain Points

1. 1. 1. Intellectualization of experience to the point transformations of the core being are not possible while maintaining the intellectual superiority that you know more ( because you intone things exactly right). This is a way of making magic safe and thus impotent.

      2. A reliance on holy words and ritual structure over Trance and Gnosis ( this is where Chaos Magic most vehemently disagrees with Most Ceremonial Magic).

      3. The subservience to the exact and right way to do something ( I will attack this a little later on)

      4. An over reliance on exact form over the fundamentals that seem present in magic

      5. An over reliance on Book mechanisms instead of self exploration, experiential knowledge and ritual based illumination.

      6. A misconception and demonization of the physical world and the Christian moral values ( valuing spiritual development over any physical development), and a reliance on the flawed Descartian Mind body seperation.

Point 1:

Mostly this the study for 5 years before doing one operation syndrome. I have heard this from ceremonial magician teachers over and over and over. Its also completely ridiculous, because you can not really learn magic by merely reading a book. In fact, even in the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, there are SO many variations that its not clear what is in fact the right way. Of course, such variations do not make a non-dogmatic magician fret, but they give some ceremonial magicians a heart attack. These rituals derive from the Golden Dawn, whose system was very clever, but if you really study the history of the Golden Dawn, or Crowley, you realize well to be blunt, they made a lot of shit up. Its somewhat ridiculous to think they didn't or to even argue about it. Now, if we keep going with this you could learn all the hebrew you want, and could memorize years of Kaballasitic knowledge... and your magic will still suck. These are informational hooks that lead toward something but you have to understand and have internalized a personal conception of the Kaballistic concepts or concepts you working with. AKA you have to allow the words ( even if mispronounced) to have spirit and be alive. They have to be more then words, but anchors to internalized states or vibrating in line with external realities. The key is that there is a conceptualization there. Ideally, this is why you are studying all the different correspondences in the first place, but that jump from dead symbols to alive words only happens with doing, not the endless intellectual debates that turn out to be intelectual pissing contests. The process of doing, aligns yourself with those forces/words ( which is really I think the secret of kabballah is that the word and the spirit are one :). It might take some time to build the internalized structure to pull the forces down, but each time you do it and tweak or adding a bit more, you get closer and closer to the resonance of what you are trying to work with. After a while, you can pull down the forces to amazing degrees getting amazing results. This is by the way, one of the undercurrents contained in Hands On Chaos Magic. If people were serious about having more effective ceremonial magicains, they buy my book for there favorite Ceremonial magician ( although that would start a intellectual pissing contest, and Id probably be called evil).

Point 2.

Over and over and over and over, I am more fully convinced of the wisdom that Peter Carroll really go. There isn't any real magi without trance state. Period. The more I see, the more that seems to be the case. Although it is possible to go into and out of trance very quickly and you can see the right physiological response to trance if you are looking closely enough. As complexity of a ritual increases it is hard and hard to complete a ritual while deeper and deeper into trance. This means at greater level of memorization and pre engrained pathways to obtain the trance needed for more effective magic. The words are not enough, its the internal conception of the words and the living internal thoughtforms that assist and create the externalized changes in reality.

Points 3-5 all deal with the same issue. The tendancy to know your right and know there is one way to do something. I value study and theoretical knowledge but the one way to do things is unfortunately non borne out by history. The Golden Dawn clearly synthesized components of different systems into a system of ceremonial magic that had a certain agenda. This educated synthesisis ( another word for this is educated guess) is a workable system that forms the root of both the OTO and Wiccan religious operations. Now, many Wiccan's and many Themelites believe there is one way to work their magic. There are a couple authors who will make the same type of claims, despite rather extensive experience to the contrary that people are getting verified results within simplified frameworks that in general seem to produce better results then the original ceremonial systems. The upshot is also that people doing this sort of thing are getting into the proper state of mind and paying attention to internalized contructs that should be built as the important thing in magical operations. Current blind acceptance of even modern book and author experts. Fact is still, it doesn't work till you internalize the conceptual information and that means in most cases when you are practically doing magic, making the system work for you and not the other way around. AKA most people will have to change the book materials to get the magic to work and have the proper investment to manifest physical results. When you put spiritual results over physical one, you have no methods to verify and see how things are working. There is no context to judge whether or not you are making progress. The second fact is that as you work and by work, I mean actual ritual work, most magicians will get far more information about how to work with these information patterns. First, their internal structure will adapt and better project it out. Illuminations from ritual work, will reveal additional methods that increase the effectiveness of and potency of rituals. This knowledge is experiential and trumps

Point 6: The notion that the body and stuff is bad or corrupt is a notion directly out of Christian ethical code. Although the Lesser key of solomon is difficult to work with, the idea stretches across multiple venues. Its all to easy to be more spiritual, and not have things in life and see things in life as somewhat lesser to spiritual development. This is a core believe of many ceremonial magicians, but it also greatly holds them back. In Alchemy at least, spiritual transformations had to reflected in physical transformations. Many of the systems labeled as ceremonial magic can be adapted to get physical results and the self-limited internal structures dealing with internalized demons of poverty or internalized demons of spirituality pop up quite when you you talk to many people. While being spiritual is indeed fun, such transformations should be accompanied by manifestation in the physical world of greater potential, ease of movement, and ease of manifestation. This may in fact not be money, but there should be reflections of spiritual attainment in the physical world. This goes right along with the hermetic idea of “AS Within, As without”. If you drop the mind body soul split proposed, and instead the spiritual and the world as linked wholy, its much easier to get consistant physical results using even ceremonial magical techniques ( modified through your own filters), that do affect the physical world and change your possibilities merely by applying religiously through thought control and mediation, the notion “AS Within as without”

The over-intellectualization, lack of internalization, and rote memorization all seem to lead to same place which is lack of effective results producing magic. Really, the same cermonial magicians who well kind of slammed my book, you should be celebrating it. I want people to understand the mechanisms of magic, and trance states so results orientated magic becomes not more possible, but more and more likely. While I provide a series of techniques to understand the mechanisms of magic, I provide no Narrative or story to provide meaning to the your life. Instead of slamming a book that provides easier techniques, the same people slamming the book, Hands On Chaos Magic ( in ceremonial magic circles), should realize that the book does not seek to replace their narrative, stop defending their imagined turf and actually provides additional tools to enhance the development and manifestation of that personal narrative.