This is more of reflective post but will have the jounraling in it, but it is also one that may anger some people.  I am ok with that, cause it comes from the heart.

For several months, maybe longer, I have been wondering why I do any public magic?  Couple that with a growning desire to well to be blunt cut ties to various magical orders I have been a part of.  Further kinda distancing myself from those currents.  The Choronzon ritual really brought into focus alot of these issues, that I was in some places trying to hide from.  I read a post today, a critic of someone else's book on Amazon.  I won't name the book.  Suffice to say, not my book, mostly people just critisize me for being "fluffy"... those of you at the choronzon ritual would call me that.     First, I dont make decisions rashly, and no this wont be a shocking post on any decisions, althouhg I realized a couple things that directly related to the criticisms armed at that person's book.  This will be long and drawn out.

The criticisms basically boiled down to two things first: Look at the author's life, dont buy this bullshit.. His life is terrible and does not get tangible results in his life because he does not excel "real" in anything.  People should use common sense and critical thinking and not buy that bullshit.

First, I will attack the criticism of the critique.  First off, magick is a skill.   AKA you can make the claim that it should related to other endevors ( a claim I would agree with), but if a person had similiar training in Car Repair, that I have with magic they would have a career they could enjoy in Car Repair... possibly at the level of a nascar or rally mechanic.  Thus although there is a shit ton of work for real magical development, there is not a one to one correlation between results  ( aka magic requires a vehicle for expression).   Second, if you are so in love with a culture that at every term tries to decimate your being,  I say great for you.  Let me know how that works out?  Imagination has immense power, perhaps the one saving grace of a dying culture that is closer and closer to ant colonies.

Critique of the Critique aside....

Magic is a direct confrontation with reality, not an escape from it.  Its a confrontation on multiple levels.  First, you are confronting the very cynism expressed in the critique by the material world.  This Mememic cultural undercurrent says, none of this is real, why arent you all rich?  Have beautiful blonds, and are power brokers in the world.  This magic is all bullshit.  I am extremely sympathetic to this view at times.  This is exactly what I told my brother at one point not so many years ago ... ok more then a few yeas ago.  Subjective experience is not a result, and most of us who are into magic are not rich, famous, or have any of the trappings of power in society.  The Spiritual among you will point out thats because we will have things in balance, or point out the enlightened state of the people they would learn from.  I would claim that the critique is probably valid at the cultural level giving the terms of the culture.  We should be more powerful and have more control then we do.  Period, but that confrontation isnt always in our favor and that same cultural confronation has every reason to brutally and in everyway supress magical development if you see magic as empowerment and control.  Think about it for a minute.

Magic is thus a secondary confrontation with ourselves.  Self-hypnosis, NLP, and other stuff all deal with the symptoms sometimes getting to the root of the problem.  Magic says great, be more then you were.  Not at all a small task if one thought about that.  Not only deal with what holds you back, grow and become more then you were.  Remove internal limitations that negatively affect your world.    The inertia and comfort of these limitations are hard to deal with sometimes.  Magic demands change, and yet the safety of our carefully created illusions, our own victum consiousness ( we all have, I can't... I dont know how... etc etc etc) is very comfortable indeed.  Thus magic offers you little solice in the face of that comfortable, although potentially known pain, in fact it say something akin to.. There is no Cant and thus there is no excuses.  That makes point one all the more, well, poignant.

However, I can remember it all pretty clearly when I was arguing with my brother about magic ( well maybe even wicca).  My brother, is a real asshole magicially speaking, hes on facebook so he will see this,  but by asshole I mean hes pretty good at the agressive shit.   Really, hes a walking nightmere, but he does get results when fucking with people.  However, in the end, when I made these comments, I asked and continue to ask.. whats the point?  who cares?  How does magic improve your life?  Or said another way, why arent you rich, have hot models, power etc?  (I will get to the slam on that in a second).

After that Chronozon ritual, I can honestly say, theres been alot of benefits to magical practice, in my well being but not all.  I started from a real dark place and in some ways, lost some destructive magical ability to ( if you can beleive that, but lets just say me and my brother both have some natural talent in this area), to balance and grow and become more then I was.  I pretty much am a great spirtual teacher, but not because I put myself there on high, unreachable.  In fact, I probably do not hold myself in high enough esteem, honest esteem, which is why I doing the solar work now.  Quite the opposite ( although I am at odds with the need to be overly marketing,  campy, and even degrading to myself at times to draw more income in).  The truth is, I am a flawed teachers, like all teachers, but I admit it.  I havent completely healed all the abuse and damage, that occured before, or after starting in magic.  I work on it though and am honest about it stuggling.  The lie that "guru's" dont feeds the above criticism of the world.  I can honestly, meet my own critiria for magics justification.  My life is in fact better.  I have often said that.

But I get into trouble with other people, a pattern I am working to reframe.  First, I am very happy to have written a book and I spent way to much time on it.  I love teaching classes and it doesnt quite justify the time effort alot of the time.  There is this tendancy in magic to want to share ideas, or in the least, at least "get playmates"... make a difference... change the world.   I think when I started I wanted to change the world too.  I might be a little wiser now, or even more foolish... depending on things.  I keep coming back to the whole "rich" "powerful".  I do rituals, that honestly speaking, are well beyond what most people can pull off.  Reality fucking breaks around me alot of the time.  Even accomplished magicians, I have met, they dont really get that.  This isnt arrogance either, its just a statement of observation.   I am tending to get more and more physical manifestations in my magic.   People's lives change.  Its not just entertainment.   I am good at what I do, but I pay for it.  

More often then not, I am tired to extreme fatique.  I get resentful, because I feel like people's lives change and I have to suffer for it ( either in the case of fluffier wiccans not understanding the redeeming qualities of darkness or what death or decay have a natrual part of the universe, in emotional costs, in physical costs, or even in time costs).   I do not draw much satisfaction from "alturistic pursuits", and dont really believe in karma... maybe an afterlife... :)...  Still I only make about $1-3 a book, and I have done alot of rituals for people.  Often this rituals happen at festivals, where while I get in for the price of admision and enjoy the company, I have to admit theres very few tangible benefits from a materialist pov, and often little long term social benefits. Usually, the festivals are little semi-autonomous zones, where the functional reality is different and that escapist reality bleeds to the internet but not the phsyical world.

 This weekend I did a shit ton, of rituals for a person.  Mostly when I roll those dice for free, I get burned.  I am hoping this time is different.  Don't get me wrong either, I am not whinning..... I am actually VERY grateful for the people who bought my book and realize that something might not be optimally working, for me personally.  Even a magus, in self-proclaimed title, because no one will give me that :)  well even we have to have support.  See its still not the individual but the network.  Shamans and priests had large followings just for this reason I think, at least if they are honest ones.   Too often, I give to much away, being far to anarchistic, far to influenced by chaos magic, and far to naive.  In the end, people do not always give back an equal amount and its a struggle to not give up.  Many teachers do.  In th same token, people who are making a decent living in spirituality only pander to the McPhilosphy of telling people what they want to hear.  Mostly I see it as an internal demon of esteem and an external demon of cultural "unreasonable expectations" from pagan/occulture.  In practice, it just means I have a shit business plan energerically, and need to figure out better ways to monetize, which will of course be further "demonized."   Its not just me too, I have heard the same thing from other teachers, well they more just say they want to be out.... and done.   I just look to myself and say, business plan isnt good.

I have been flirting with giving up the name Andrieh Vitimus and walking away from the public.  Dont worry, I am not going to do that. This might seem like well why do that?  Well because it takes away from my time to magic for myself, to figure out and work towards becoming at least "richer"  in the tangible sense of the word.  It removes excuses I have from working toward that goal.  Ironically enough, it means I am not just a public figure, but a real magician trying to gain and become more then I was.   AKA I am practicing what I preech nd bettering my life.  Goals that I not only feel are possible, but reachable with proper planning organization and work.  That might seem horribly selfish, but its where I was at before the choronzon ritual.  Certainly in some ways, I have moved away mentally from things that were costing to much and producing no rewards and in other ways, I can clearly understand where internal issues are getting in the way.  Some things already have died, and remain a skeleton, others I dont know.   Every weekend this month I have to travel.  Fatique is already setting it.  People sometimes dont get the logistics of these events, the real costs, or the real benefits.... Hell I had a people who are getting different results from a situation where I coached them, tell em an attitude change is not magic ( even though they had made no attitude changes before that).... and sigh.  Must be nice to feel better and more assertive.

Through June, I am pretty busy.  Most of this I just fell into.  It just appeared on the schedule.  I didnt expect it to and maybe in some ways was wondering what the fuck.  But still I am haunted by that question, how does this improve my life?  Magic is a confrontation with reality, but reality is percieved from internally.  Of course, the spiritualist, or mystic would argue, that an enlightened being would simply change there frame and see the greater good it causes, but that doesnt really matter much when rent is due or a person is stil dealing with trauma, or just trying to have a fun night.  Like I said, I am not whinning like many others do who dont put themselves out there in the same kinda risky ritual way i do, but realize too...   that rituals that transform will not always be around if you dont really support the people doing them.  Realize, you know, your magical teachers are people too.  The information you get is probably far more valuable then you realize and you show them you appriciate them.  Although, alot of public rituals are more like lifeless ceremonies, celebrate the ones that flow with juice.  Tell people about them, make the new modern myths in a cultural malase of slow death. Actually tell the people doing that sort of thing, you have their back, go out of your way to tell people about them... and then mean it.  Buy them dinner, not just me, stop by their house if you know where they live.  Offer to help them out.  Buy them a computer, a small mp3 player, anything really ( I need neither of those two things so its not me I am talking about)... shit like that... because they wont always be there and if your had a transformational experience as a result of a ritual or ceremony for the better.  If you can film stuff, offer to help them film it and make dvds.

Just remember, you probably got way more then what you paid, way more then you gave and go figure out a way to be there for them... even if they dont ask.

RANT over.

Daily Work Notes:

Lunchtime:

Clymans Daily Practice Routing in Full with Inner Smile.

The net impact of this is that the head cold is almost gone.  Energy work is great.  Still havent taking my vitamin C routin (3000 mg)  but that should about do in the head cold provided I can get some sleep this weekend.  The bad side, my boss guilt tripped me into getting Girlscout cookies.  And of course they came in...so I ate too many, since I dont really eat sweats and need more water to get rid of the sugar.  Sugar is the devil.

Dinner time:

Packing for Michigan trip, LBRP ( and an attempt to work out a solar ritual ).