May passed me by

Hope you all had a Happy First Rite of Leviathan. I’ve been slacking on my beginning of the month posts. Today, S. Connolly called me on it and told me to get on the ball. She was right to do so.

Some things you may want to know. I am behind in doing A LOT of uploads. If there is a file that is supposed to be uploaded here and you need it right away, please let me know and I’ll get it to you.

Second, copies of the Melissa Press title Infernal Colopatiron are going to be scarce really soon, so if you’ve been wanting a copy, order one soon! If you are looking for a discounted copy, contact me at [email protected] , We do have a few lightly used or slightly damaged copies available. Those usually go for half price, which is nice. They all look to be in relatively decent condition.

This month’s topic is Prayer! We ask the bloggers: Where does prayer fit into your practice. Enjoy the blogs and participate in the discussion!

Animal Magic

As per usual, tonight when I came home from work, Princess was waiting for me, sitting on top of the television, jumping down and running over to me to say hello, and Rufus (who I only adopted at Christmas – was going to have a computer, ended up with a cat), comes down stairs from his duvet to say hi and have some cuddles. Thinking about it I find pets quite amazing. I beleive that many people who read this have pets, and I would have though that your pets come to welcome you, ask you for things, come to you when you are not well to offer ‘healing’. Is this not some type of magic ?

Over the weekend, my wife gave herself food poisoning. She was quite ill. Rufus never left her side, with the other three coming up quite often to say hello, and nuzzle. I friend of mine was murdered a number of years ago now. I was very depressed. My cat Loki stayed with me for fives days solid. Would not leave my side.

Animals are very good judges of human character. Those who have dogs may notice that their dog can be come ‘nasty’ with certain people, even though those people haven’t actually done anything. What have they picked up ? Recently, we had to have a new roof. We phoned around and had several companies around for quotes. It was the cats who decided who got the job. Some of the people who came around were instantly liked by the cats, with the cats not leaving them alone. Up on their laps, pawing them for attention. Then, again the same cats, when approached by some of the other people who came around hissed and ran out of the room when the people tried to be friendly. Those people certainly didn’t do anything to get hissed at, so what dove the cats to behave in this manner ? It was interesting that one of the people who got hissed at eventually tried to pressure sell at 500% the cost of the other firms ? How did the cats know ?

I would say I have a close relationship with my cats, Rufus especially. He’s my boy as I would say, almost a familiar. I never chose him at the animal shelter. He chose me, and became a trusted friend and confident almost immediately. How does this trust build ? Why did he choose me at the shelter ? How many people out there ended up with a pet that chose them rather than them choosing the pet ? How many people feel their pet understands them when they speak to them assuming you do talk to your pets – I always talk to mine, even discussing problems at work with them. Why would I talk to my pet about work problems ? They can’t discuss it with me, or understand me ? But yet, after talking to them, I feel more relaxed with an answer to the problem. How is this so ?

I think magic is a lot closer to home than people otherwise might think, and the wonder of pets is a prime example.

Kasdeya Rite of Ba’al

You know, Kasdeya came up in a conversation I was having with my best friend the other day. She and I were looking back from where we had come from to where we are now since we first met. We’ve been friends for over eight years now. Everything has changed in that amount of time. We were barely teenagers then and now she’s a new mother and I’m about to graduate college. We’re in a place where we can finally acknowledge that things aren’t perfect but we’re, for the most part, satisfied.

Eight years. In that time we’ve made a lot of questionable choices as teens and young adults. I said that teenagers were horrible and I couldn’t believe we were recently teenagers ourselves. We were still up to no good at nineteen. I made a comment about sometimes wishing I could do things over.

She said “But would you really, if given the chance?”

We talked about the different things we would want to alter, I went on a paranoid rant about the butterfly effect, and she said if it were as simple as picking and choosing what would remain the same she’d do it in a heartbeat. Her newborn daughter is beautiful and an obvious choice to want to keep, for example. She came to a conclusion that she would rather make amends for her regrets, seek closure, and move on with her life.

I thought of Kasdeya and told her my very basic understanding of the rite. The Kasdeya Rite of Ba’al is an adept ritual that takes massive amounts of dedication and prep-work. I’m going to quote one of S. Connolly’s YouTube videos on this so I don’t screw it up and say its purpose is “to help one commune with the Demonic Divine; to learn a lot about the Self; and to take one’s physical, material plane life and remove some of the things that are holding you back.” To me, that goes hand in hand with what my friend and I were talking about.

While the Kasdeya rite won’t turn you into an immortal jellyfish with your sentience and memories intact, it strips away the things that are negatively influencing your life. Some people need a little more Demonic help than others so the ramifications of this ritual can turn your world completely upside down. You can’t pick and choose the parts you want to do (or the barriers to your spiritual growth that will be shattered) and you can’t go back to the day before you started the ritual if you decide you don’t want to do it or experience the changes it’s bringing after all.

You really need to look at yourself honestly and determine if it’s something you can accomplish. I’m going to use myself as a quick example of someone who shouldn’t perform the Kasdeya rite:

1. The longest ritual you’ve done was only about two weeks long.
2. The longest goal you’ve completed period had the duration of a month.
3. You don’t have a physical space to perform the ritual in its entirety.
4. You procrastinate and half-ass things frequently.
5. You have trouble completing tasks you start.

If you read any of these and thought “Wow, that sounds like me”– especially if it was just a little whisper at the back of your head secretly admitting it to yourself but openly denying it to others — then the Kasdeya rite certainly isn’t for you (or me, for that matter).

It’s not something to be taken lightly. Do it for the right reasons. Admit to yourself if you aren’t ready. If you realize you aren’t and it disappoints you, feel free to look back to this article and know you’re not the only one who isn’t ready. There’s no rush to do Kasdeya so there’s no shame in going at your own pace.

If you’re interested in watching S. Connolly’s Youtube video on the topic, you can find it here

Are You Ready for Kasdeya?

I’m not sure what happened to Frank’s introductory post for the month of April. It’s my understanding that this month’s posts are supposed to be about Kasdeya. To do or not to do Kasdeya – that is the question.

I suppose this is something you should question before embarking on any extended ritual work whether it be Kasdeya, Abramelin, or other type of path work.  While my own interpretation of the rite, including considerations and warnings, are currently in print for all the read, I will give the following advice about embarking on ANY extended ritual work.

1. Make sure you are used to doing daily rituals. Oftentimes, missing a day of ritual in rites like this can be akin (for women anyway) to missing a day of taking your birth-control pill. It just opens you up for an “accident”.  There’s a reason extended ritual work often calls for daily ritual.

2. Make sure you have the time for it, or you may find yourself missing a ritual. See number one. You NEVER, if you can help it, want to stop extended ritual work half way through. It can, especially in the case of Kasdeya, throw your life into extreme chaos that won’t subside until you get back on track and finish it.

3. Don’t skip on the prep. I don’t care how big and bad ass you think you are. Prep exists for a reason and if you don’t see the value in careful consideration and taking your time in preparation, you probably ought not be doing the ritual. Remember that the bigger the ego, the more likely you are to get your ass stomped.

4. Make sure you are really ready for any and all possible outcomes of such a ritual. This really is an extension of number three. A lot of these types of rituals are like personal path work boot camp. They deconstruct your life, oftentimes throwing it into extreme chaos, and then they rebuild a stronger you. Of course this may not be true of everyone who performs the ritual.  Some people need bigger life changes than others.  Whereas some people may lose jobs, friends or family members, others may simply lose their sense of security or their emotional security for a time (even if it’s all just mental and nothing happens in the physical world). These losses often happen to make apparent what our weaknesses really are.

5. Don’t take short cuts. The only person you cheat when you do that is yourself. Basically I’m saying don’t be lazy. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing it right the first time. If you’re serious about wanting to affect change and to change your life, you’ll do it right.

In summary I suppose I’m just basically saying don’t be a half-assed, lazy magician who expects laurels and results just for *thinking* about the magickal operation, or performing it at breakneck speeds with little consideration. Of course as a student of the Daemons of magick, perhaps I’ve become accustomed to being taught by taskmasters who demand excellence, and that, in turn, has turned me into a taskmaster with regard to my own learning. I only expect from others (if they want me to take them seriously) what I expect from myself. Take it as you will.

Spring beckons…..

Spring beckons. The equinox has passed, but where is spring I ask ? I sit here in my part of the UK. It is 32 degrees F (zero degrees C). This time last year I was basking in 68-70 degrees, with sunshine !

I am now thinking about the future. Is global warming to blame for this weather, and what is in store ? Is it man made ? Are we to blame ? I think of the tarot card – the wheel of fortune, and the medicine wheel of the shaman. Both use the wheel, giving the idea of rotation and cyclicity. Is this weather and the global warming simply part of a cycle ? Just because we have never seen it before doesn’t mean it isn’t cyclic – It may just be part of a long cycle.

The idea of cycles is well documented in occult literature. Enochian Physics relies on the great breath (see earlier editions of the Black Serpent) as a foundation of its basis, but again we see that breathing is a cycle. It is sadly only science, where unless there is documented evidence of previous happenings of cyclic activity, science will refute it. There is plenty of evidence to support ideas of cyclic mass extinctions, ice ages, but science refutes much of this since a driving force cannot be found.

So, the question is, do we believe science or the idea of cycles as indicated by occult literature and past civilisations ?

Daily Ritual

I’m breaking away from both my traditional blogging day (the 15th) and this month’s topic (magickal languages) to blog about what is tickling my fancy this week.  That is the art of daily ritual.

I often find myself surprised when I discover that a lot of people don’t perform daily rituals. I guess I always assumed everyone partook in the practice.

My daily rituals began as meditation and prayer sessions and kind of escalated, over the years, to the variety of work I do daily and weekly.  For those of you who might want to start a daily practice to bring the Daemonic Divine ever present into  your life in a more permanent way, I’ll share my daily ritual routine with you to give you an example of how one might go about it.

For most people, prayer and meditation is often enough. Of course now that I have an actual temple, it does require some tending. If you don’t have a temple or altar to tend, your own practices will likely vary.

MORNING: I wake up, go into the temple and clean up anything I didn’t clean up the night before. Once that’s done, I give the signs of my initiation, anoint my statues, acknowledge any vessels that may be present, I anoint myself and I say a prayer. I burn incense. The scent/type depends on any work I’m in the midst of, or the season it is. Right now we’re on the eve of Rite to Lucifer so I’m burning a robust Lucifer incense this week. I might also leave the week’s offering on the altar or in the offering bowl if it’s a Sunday.

NIGHT: Before bed I enter the temple, give the signs of my initiation, invoke any Daemons I seek audience with (if any), anoint myself, light an incense, then spend about fifteen to twenty minutes in meditation. Sometimes this is moving meditation (via Yoga), and sometimes I’m still. This depends on what *I* need. Then I perform any work I need to perform. Last night, for example, I performed a self cleansing ritual in anticipation of spring and tomorrow night’s rite.

When I’m finished for the night, I usually clean out the incense burner and clean up the altar (I generally wait until morning to do this after a group rite). The offerings and offering bowls are refreshed once a week and all statues are wiped down once a month. The temple is dusted twice a month.

While I tend to mind days, hours, and planetary influences in my work, there is regular work I do. For example:

I often use Monday nights for scrying and personal divinations. I perform these weekly.

Wednesdays are my Ascension nights.

Every Thursday night I do a healing ritual prayer. This is where I send prayers and healing energy to everyone in my life who might need it (usually by name). I got in the habit of doing this while I was active in AMORC and just never saw a reason to stop.

I use Thursdays and Sundays to do divination for others.

Of course I’ll do whatever work needs to be done when it needs to be done, too. I’m not a hardcore, by-the-book traditionalist by any means.

Hopefully this has given a sample of the kinds of things one can do to work spirituality and magick into his/her daily life so that one is actually LIVING their spirituality as opposed to simply being a weekend practitioner.

For those of you who have a daily practice, please share your daily, weekly,  monthly rituals in the comments below! Let’s share ideas!

March Beckons

Happy March, folks! The end of this month marks the beginning of the Rites of Belphegore! Time to make sure the stones are set and the bloodletting devices are sharpened. In the meantime, our bloggers talk about magickal languages! When should they be used? Why should they be used? What do they add to the work? What about Enns? Learn the answers to these questions and more this month at the .org!

This month also begins on a great note with the release of Keys of Ocat and Necromantic Sacraments. DB Publishing has more forthcoming titles, too. Stay tuned!

-Frank

Guest Blog: A Review of *Keys of Ocat*

Keys of OcatFr. Sem Sebastian’s Review of *Keys of Ocat*
If I were to sum up Keys of Ocat: A Grimoire of Daemonolatry Nygromancye in a short phrase, I’d call it absolutely brilliant.  Stephanie Connolly, Adrianna or S. Connolly as many of you know her, does the topic of necromancy a great justice. Keys of Ocat removes the veil of darkness and mystery surrounding advanced necromantic practices and challenges the reader’s perception of the dark art. For those brave enough to traverse the path of necromancy, this book is a guide that offers the advanced practitioner enough material to chew on for some time. The subject is treated with a great deal of respect and reverence for both the dead and the living.
I’ve been working necromancy for thirty-four years and there were things in this book that both took me by surprise and taught me a great deal about a subject I’ve devoted my entire life to. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but Stephanie certainly succeeded.  I will never again look at the Goetia the same, and I have a new appreciation for tablets and funerary stele.  I am particularly appreciative of her explanation of the se-akh rites.
Just like all of her books, she doesn’t dress the work up with needless nonsense.On the contrary, she makes this material highly accessible and usable for working magicians and funerary priests. From ancestor veneration, sciomancy, sigils and symbology to working with the death deities and death current, the rituals within the book are quite efficacious . The added element of gate opening gives them an additional dose of potency that is hard to find in public or published rituals of this nature. It’s for these reasons and more that I have decided to begin using all of S. Connolly’s necromancy books as the staple textbooks for my seminary students.
I would recommend Keys of Ocat to all practitioners of necromancy and to Demonolatry priests who perform the sacred passage rites of death and burial. However, for those Demonolaters new to the art I suggest first reading Honoring Death, and the chapbook Necromantic Sacraments.
To buy Keys of Ocat Go to this Page
Fr. Sem Sebastian “Bastian” Mitchell is a Kamitic Sem (Funerary) Priest and Demonolater with over thirty-four years of experience as a practicing necromancer. He and his wife, Jessica, run a GenDem approved seminary program for Demonolatry funerary priests within the Temple Thoth-Seshat. He hails from California.

Let me introduce you to a personal friend of mine…..

The word “evangelical” has negative connotations, at least for most of us. It is about annoying people entering our lives without invitation. It’s about pushing their ideas, usually Christian ones, on to unsuspecting men, women, and children. They impose themselves on our lives by knocking on our doors, buying air time on our air waves, and leaving tracts on our cars, with the intent of spreading the “gospel”. This is how most of us think of “evangelism”, including myself. These people are attempting to save the “lost” and add more names to their personal “book of life”. It would be funny if it weren’t a little bit sad.
Evangelism in Satanism or Demonolatry doesn’t have to be like that. I do identify myself as a Satanist and a Demonolator. I have always be somewhat guarded of who I allowed to know that about me. The tenets of Satanism and Demonolatry have made that easy. I am not expected to go out and spread the Satanic word. But I do think that if I am asked about my beliefs, extolling its virtues would not be a terrible thing. I will admit that I would like to see more Satanists and more Demonolators. But Christians and those that are more like Christian Satanists have really dirtied the concept of evangelism. They make it about being better in their chosen god’s eyes. They attempt to make the person being evangelized feel badly about their choices. And the kicker they bring is that if they stay that course, there will be punishment waiting for them at the end of their lives. This is true for both Christians and Satanic Christians. What I would like to see happen is that we as Satanists and Demonolators share our beliefs with those that show interest. And once interest is obvious, follow up on that. We don’t have to hound them, or make a pest of ourselves. What a person has as a belief is their own business. But I would like to see the Satanic community and the Demonolatry community is more open to those that show interest in the Demons. I would like to see us take these misguided Satanic Christians, and with the sharing of knowledge move them away from their twist on another religion and towards a more intellectual approach to the universe and to self-knowledge. In this vein I would support evangelical Satanism and Demonolatry. The more serious people involved the stronger the community could become. Of course that also depends on the caliber of the people involved. I believe in evangelizing Satanism and Demonolatry but with an eye to a type of elitism as well. This path is not for everyone, which is why full on, Christian type, evangelism would not be possible. There has to be capability as well as desire. Sharing with others what Satanism and Demonolatry have done for us could be a good thing, and something I would like to see more of. This would make me a type of Evangelical Satanist. But don’t run away quite yet, I have no plans to knock on your doors, buy any airtime, or leave any Satanic tracts on your cars. But if there is an interest, I am willing to share.

Necromantic Sacraments

necromanticsacraments2

Necromantic Sacraments: The companion chapbook to S. Connolly’s bestselling Honoring Death and companion to Keys of Ocat. This is a supplementary ritual and prayer book that completes S. Connolly’s trilogy of Daemonolatry necromancy reference works.

While the other books aren’t necessary to understand or use this book, if you are unfamiliar with Daemonolatry necromancy you might want to first read Honoring Death.

 

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