By Demonolaters, For Demonolaters

Category Archives: Spirituality

Say Goodbye to 2016!

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How would you describe 2016? It’s been so bad for some of my friends that they want to stay up until midnight tonight just to watch the old year die. I’m always up for a decent death bed vigil too, but I’m also a horror writer. I’m tempted to cut off its head and drive a stake into its heart for good measure!

But why was 2016 awful for so many people? I suppose we could blame the infamous Mercury-in-Retrograde or the rise of our God Emperor, Trump. Perhaps it is a little of Column A and a bit from Column B. If we work out the numerological value of 2016, adding each digit of the year together, we end up with 9, the number of completion, where all things must come to an end.

I know well enough that not all stories can end on a high note. If they did, happiness simply wouldn’t mean as much. The difference between it and sadness allows us to both recognize and savor joy’s sweetness.

More importantly, however, our stories are not over. You may feel like you played the villain in this chapter of your life. You may think that you played almost no role at all in your life this year—that you were little more than an extra in another person’s big scenes. 2017 promises to be different. When we add up its digits, we are left with 10. In Western numerology, 10 is reduced to 1, meaning 2017 is a year for fresh starts and new ventures.

Tonight, wherever you are, whether you are alone or surrounded by friends and fireworks, take a moment to purposefully wish 2016 farewell. Close your eyes and thank the year for what it has given you. Mourn what it has taken away. Tell it to go screw itself if you must! Then say goodbye. Let it go. You will be here tomorrow. You will be here, in 2017, but it won’t be. You survived and it did not.

Congratulations. You survived.

Happy New Year.

Give 2017 A Magical and Spiritual Head Start With These Easy Tips

Posted on by Posted in Demonolatry, Demons, Magick, Spirituality Leave a comment

Pagans of all kinds set lofty goals at this time of year. Some will aim for the stars and end up with a handful of glitter instead. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Despite what Master Yoda says, there’s value in effort alone. A magician who screws up a ritual is far more powerful than one who never leaves the couch.

Fear of failure can make it hard to pry your ass from the seat cushions, though, especially if you’ve never meditated or practiced magick before. Perhaps that’s why so many new Daemonolaters worry they will “do it wrong.” Truthfully, experienced practitioners worry that too, including me. In my case, perhaps it’s a holdover from being raised in a Christian household, and I’m secretly afraid a little red man with horns and a pitchfork will pop out of the ground to claim my soul. More likely I’m frightened I won’t be able to understand all the old grimoires on my 2017 reading list. For the first time in forever, I feel like a newbie. I understand even better now why daemonic sigils and enns can seem confusing and overwhelming at first.

So what can a new Daemonolater do to ease into daily practice slowly? How can you start fresh with your practice in the New Year?

Created with clip art from Freepik.com.

Created with clip art from Freepik.com.

Try getting in touch with Daemonic Divine through these suggestions.

Appreciate

  • Keep a gratitude journal. Not a wordsmith? Say thank you with a daily doodle or a photograph snapped on your phone. Do specific events or objects remind you of the blessings of particular daemons? If appropriate, say a prayer of make an offering in thanks.
  • Salt and spice your food with thanks to Belial and Verrine for their gifts.
  • Say grace. If you feel uncomfortable saying it at the table, try saying as you fill a pet’s bowl or when you fill the birdfeeder.
  • Eat an everyday food or do a day-to-day chore as mindfully as possible, using all your senses, while you dedicate the task to a daemon. How did your awareness of the task change? Could you sense the daemon’s presence?

Beautify

 

  • Create art that expresses your emotions, a problem that you want to overcome, or how you feel about the Daemonic Divine. Draw, paint, write, sing, knit, make jewelry or incense, sculpt…The possibilities are endless.
  • If you don’t feel that your art is good enough, remember that some of the first recorded spiritual art—cave paintings—were little more than stick figures, and they were more than good enough for the gods!
  • If you don’t know what to do with your arts and crafts when you are done with them, remember that some charities will accept art crafts as donations. Homeless shelters always need warm scarfs, hats, mittens, etc. Also, consider sacrificing any crafts you have made to the Daemonic Divine if it is safe for you to do so and you cannot donate them. Of course, the truly amazing artists among you could open Etsy stores!

 

Cleanse

  • Mindfully cleanse your hands, face, or body with Leviathan’s help. Focus on your physical grime.
  • Use creative visualization, repetitive sounds, and pleasing scents to relieve the tension of the day. Focus on your mental grime while running the light of the daemons you feel closest to through your body if you can picture it. If not, pray at this time.
  • Straighten your living environment while concentrating on sending negative emotions out the door! Ask Amducius to drive all obstacles from your path and Verrine to bring health to your home!

Dedicate

Purposefully plan to do at least one act in a daemon’s name each day:

  • Learn something new for Ronove.
  • Light a candle for Flereous.
  • Read Tarot cards for Delepitore.
  • Observe the moon for Unsere.

Did it change the activity or give it special meaning? Could you sense the daemon’s energy?

Educate

  • Read about your faith, its history, and its traditions. You don’t have to read full books if you don’t have time. Short articles on the internet can be a wonderful starting point if make sure to check the facts you find. Question facts in the name of Lucifer!
  • Try to include material written by those outside your faith to broaden your perspective. Read about other faiths for the same reason, including those you would never consider joining. Be curious.
  • Watch television shows and movies that feature characters of your faith and characters of other faiths. Do you think these portrayals are accurate, based on what you read?
  • Look into attending spiritual get-togethers or joining online forums to engage in discussions with others. Be respectful of group culture while being aware that not all groups truly want to get together to discuss spirituality and magick. Some groups are for coffee hook-ups only, while others want meeting leaders just want to sell you something. Be cautious but open-minded.

Be the Hero Halloween Deserves

Posted on by Posted in Necromancy, Solitary, Spirituality, Witchcraft Leave a comment

Witches love a good banishing. As a magician and horror writer, exorcisms fascinate me. Whenever I watch priests battle the Antichrist, I cheer for the men in collars even while I cringe at every negative stereotype those films reinforce about daemons, daemon-worshippers, and Paganism in general.

I don’t need a Catholic priest—or any priest—to rescue me if I feel supernaturally threatened. Of course, not everyone feels as confident evicting spiritual jerks from their home as I do, but I realized a long time ago that witches recognize authorities far older than the titles of man. Since then, I have gone directly to my highest power and simply asked him to intervene directly whenever me or mine have needed protection. I recommend that anyone sensitive to this sort of activity do the same, especially when the veil is reportedly at its thinnest.

But calling on my highest power has often meant more than vibrating the appropriate Daemonic enn and drawing the right sigil on parchment. It has sometimes required I display more vulnerability than I have before—and it has almost always resulted in me knowing myself better, for good or ill. A thing learned cannot be unlearned, and that is the price of seeing God. A thing revealed can never be completely hidden again, and that is the price of exposing your belly to the Divine.

Yet our guts also seek to warn us of danger. Remember the last time you felt heaviness in the pit of your stomach, or when someone disgusted you so deeply you wanted to throw up? In today’s world, our conscience seems to reside in our digestive tracts.  We’re even told to relax by not “giving a shit!” In the past, my teachers have advised me to follow my instincts whenever they manifested through these physical reactions. Then again, many people who wouldn’t consider themselves magickal at all base major life decisions on intuition. And why not? Doing so keeps us firmly anchored in the animal kingdom. We are a part of nature. It feels both foolish and wasteful to ignore its gifts.

So, at the risk of baring my belly and looking like an idiot, I’d like to share a song I have used to banish spirits from my house multiple times, Batdance by Prince. (It’s also part of an eclectic playlist I’m posting for Death on Facebook over the next week.) The movie associated with this album exploded into my life when I was all of fifteen years old. I was mad at the world and drunk on the possibilities I’d discovered in Buckland, Starhawk, and Cunningham. I studied the lyrics, agreed “this town needs an enema,” and decided to flush negativity out of my life with the powers that had set my teenage heart on fire.

How did I do it? Intuitively and embarrassingly, using ecstatic dance and dismissive laughter. I had no idea I was playing with chaos and pop-culture magick. Since then, I have learned a good deal about channeling spirits thanks to “Batdance,” including how to horse more than one at a time. Does this mean I think you all should ghostbust with the late 1980s stylings of Prince?

Hell, no! The musical skeletons in your closet may be entirely different from mine. That’s the point. My relationship with the divine is unique. It’s impossible for two magicians to interface with the same daemon in exactly the same way no matter how hard they might try to duplicate each other’s work. Don’t feel weird if you have to look outside the box for ritual inspiration during the Season of the Witch. I sing and dance for the Daemonic Divine regularly. Sadly, I’m no musician! Until I have a wider variety of hymns to choose from, I can only use the rhythms that move me.

Isn’t that the point?

Happy Rite of Eurynomous, everybody. “I’ve seen the future and it will be Batman…”

…unless he is played by Ben Affleck.

Dare We Question Our Faith?

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Late last month, I attended an interfaith festival in my city where I ran a table on Daemonolatry. Although the organizers encouraged visitors to step outside their comfort zones and talk to people who might challenge their religious views, I’d estimate that less than ten people asked me anything about Daemonolatry at all. Far more were interested in the plastic cauldron filled with candy that I’d set in front of me—or the life-size, cardboard Pope planted right beside my booth. The Catholic meant to defend the Pontiff’s honor from nasty photo ops was busy most of the day, so I enjoyed the irony of explaining how His Holiness wasn’t mine for six hours.

I also took home all the free literature I could and received invitations to numerous places of worship. I wept (discretely) thanks to an amazing hip-hop poet, and I realized that the Sikh children performing their traditional martial arts could kick the ass of nearly everyone present. In short, I’m glad I went. I believe interfaith events can benefit us all. Meditate for a moment on the idea behind this year’s celebration: myriad faiths united by shared human experience, learning from one another and growing because of it. How inspiring!

Of course, I jump at the chance to go to and host non-denominational spiritual events. What I see posted on Facebook makes me suspect others may not be as excited as I am. Perhaps they worry that mingling with followers of other religions will test their beliefs. Well, so what?

We hear all the time that deity works in mysterious ways, and the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac indicates that at least the Christian god likes to test our faith. I don’t work with that aspect of the divine, but I’ve definitely felt tested by my patron. I’ve gone so far as to scream at the sky and demand a sign from him. That doesn’t mean I haven’t squeezed shut my eyes as tightly as I could to avoid seeing one of his signs when it suited me too. The longer I ignore him, the bigger his billboards always become.

I’ve learned the hard way to listen when my belly begins to knot and twist. I’m lucky that my body provides me with such clear signals, but it was only through carefully going over my ritual notes and journal entries that I figured out what my ‘tell’ was. My stomach acts as both my conscience and my bullshit detector, and woe betide me when I listen to the opinions of others rather than it.

I wish I had understood this about myself sooner. My parents impressed the importance of maintaining ‘decorum’ in public at an extremely young age. Because of that, people compliment me regularly on my poise during speaking engagements. No one has ever noticed the sweat dripping down my body under my clothes or my shaking hands. They have occasionally not believed me when I have pointed these signs of anxiety out. Unfortunately, I haven’t believed my own anxiety at times, either, and dismissed ill feelings that crept up repeatedly as stage fright rather than my gut warning me. As I’ve watched my loved ones struggle with their own stress and nerves, I’ve sometimes wondered what their bodies are trying to tell them. We can never completely know a person until we at least attempt to understand what they are going through.

I try to learn about other religions because I have felt misunderstood because of my faith in the past. Some of what I have read over the years has undoubtedly changed me—and for the better, as far as I am concerned. After all, I started reading about Paganism with Raymond Buckland and am now a Daemonolator. I suspect most readers here will view that positively, though I know not everyone will agree.

Change is by its very nature unpredictable, and humans fear what we cannot control. Just watch any parent’s face when they watch their child ride a bike for the first time, go out on their first date, or move out of the house. We worry about these things just as much as we look forward to them. I think interfaith activities frequently have such low turnouts for similar reasons.

Yet we cannot stop change from happening. Children eventually move out whether we count the months to their departure or try to barricade the doors. Similarly, members of other faiths will continue to immigrate to our countries. More burkini incidents will occur, or situations like them. Transgender individuals will continue to demand fair treatment from religious organizations that have never had to deal with them before. The wheel will keep turning, as it always has. We cannot halt time.

In the end, I suppose each of us must tackle the interfaith conundrum on a personal level, from within our current belief systems—whatever they may be. As for myself, I left the festival wondering where Daemonolators fit in the grand scheme of things. Do we see ourselves as part of the larger Pagan or Occult community? If so, is that where anyone wants us to be, including ourselves?

I can’t answer these questions right now. Realistically, I’m not sure I ever should—at least for anyone but myself. The All may be One, but I refuse to believe there’s just One path to the All.

May this season of renewal revitalize you and yours. Naamah.

Let’s Be Terrible For a Moment…

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One of my oldest friends has a two-year-old daughter. She’s made of sunshine and giggles, but she bursts into tears whenever a stranger pops their head in the front door. Since few people are stranger than I am, and since my schedule keeps me from visiting as often as I would like, I remain terrifying to her—but only for about fifteen minutes after I arrive. By then, Dad will have convinced her I am not the boogeyman, and I will have tried to bribe her several times with whatever colorful toy or tasty treat is closest at hand. I smiled all the way home the day she finally agreed to share a drink with me.

When she responded to the same tactic with “NO!” a few weeks later, I laughed out loud. Her parents might not appreciate it right at this moment, but their daughter is learning how to set strong boundaries that will serve her later in life by indulging in her Terrible Twos. With how much time and money the Pagan and Occult communities devote to reclaiming our personal power, perhaps we should all be so terrible once in a while.

The last year has been a learning experience for me. I am using that phrase in the way I suspect many people do, as an attempt to re-frame a chaotic time in my life as something positive. I’m not sure why I’m bothering. Maybe it is because I’m used hearing that we should all see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. I know one thing for certain: whenever I have reached out to someone about the water level of my cup, all I have ever wanted is their help refilling it.

Sadly, I’ve found that many people worried about how others fill their cups do almost nothing to refill their own. These armchair magicians read endlessly but rarely cast spells or hold rituals. These holiday magicians never celebrate outside of the major holy days but want to run our daily practice. In mundane life, these maiden aunts call to plan wedding to spouses we haven’t met yet, and these backseat drivers scream at us to slow down but vow to never get their learner’s permit.

Worse yet are those people who fill their glass by draining ours. These sorts email us questions easily answered within Google’s first five hits. They ask us for favor after favor but disappear mysteriously the instant we require assistance. They lure us in with promises yet their promises seem to evaporate once we have upheld our part of the bargain.

Magickal or mundane, these people drink from our glasses. I wish I knew why. I’d like to believe most do not realize what they are doing, but some may simply prefer a different vintage than their own. In the end, it doesn’t matter. They drink from our cups without refilling it, and our cups runs dry.

After this last year, I plan to be more protective of my cup going forward. That doesn’t mean I plan to be a hermit. I am glad to be a member and Initiate of the Temple of Atem. I wish I lived closer to its members. Until such a miracle occurs, however, I am the sole Demonolater in my area… as far as I know! I am the only person who has chosen to out themself, so I might as well be alone. I attend both Wiccan and Christian churches in the meantime, and they provide me with face-to-face spiritual nourishment and companionship. In return, I volunteer and am seriously considering some sort of career in interfaith ministry. I feel grateful for these kinds of reciprocal relationships because they help refill my cup and the cups of many others. Yet I do not walk through my local spiritual community blindly, nor do I think that everyone I meet follows their path’s version of the Golden Rule. If anything, the last twelve months have made me far too aware of the manipulative games all of us play, myself included.

Consider the act of applying for a job. By presenting myself well, I can convince potential employers I am doing them a favor just by submitting my resume. The truth is, I have sought them out because I want their favor in the oldest sense of the word. When I apply for a job, I want paid. If this last year has taught me nothing else, it is that people offering help out of the kindness of the hearts may be using similar techniques to extract a favor from me.

When your gut tells you that an offer feels too good to be true, stop for a moment before you say yes. Put on your boss hat and ask yourself:

  • What is this person actually asking from me?
  • Can I realistically provide this and do I want to do so?
  • What are they offering me in exchange?
  • Do I believe they can and/or will provide actually this?
  • Is this a fair exchange? If not, is it worth it?
  • How will working with the person affect me in the short term?
  • How will it affect me in the long term?
  • Again, is it worth it?

These questions are not hard-hearted but practical. When you do a favor for someone, you are working for him or her. Working for them without compensation doesn’t negate the time or energy taken up by that work. Every hour spent on free favors is a droplet taken out of your glass. If you do not charge for supplies but create tangible products as part of your favors, these “freebies” can become cracks threaten the integrity of the entire vessel.

No matter how good giving feels, those that give endlessly may someday discover that they have nothing at all left to give. Bodies fail. Money runs out.  This can be especially devastating to writers, artists, and crafters who donate their work in exchange for “recognition,” or for witches, diviners, clergy who donate countless hours and dollars to their community by providing rituals, readings, teaching, often without any sort of traditional payment whatsoever.

Saying no the first time is hard. Saying no after saying yes fifteen times can feel insurmountable. That’s why so many of us turn to magick in those situations. We go to shamans and ask for stolen soul pieces back. We ask witches to bind those who leech on us. We banish malicious spirits of self-sabotage with elaborate exorcism rituals.

But we don’t need an old priest and a young priest. We need to go through the Terrible Twos again. We need to say no when asked the first favor that feels wrong, when our guts originally twist with discomfort, right at the beginning. If we know we are being too nice, then we have only ourselves to blame when do not reach our goals.

Of course, we usually do not need to be as loud as two-year-olds. Saying no with tact takes practice and can take a lifetime to master. Yet we still acquire this basic ability as toddlers. We may forget that we possess it, or it may have been stolen from us along the way. Even so, we can reclaim little by little, by saying “no” when our highest selves counsel that we should, and when it is safe for us to do so.

Ave Satanas, everyone, and happy full moon.

Evolution into what?

Posted on by Posted in Ceremonial Magick, Demonolatry, Jadean Lazulli, Spirituality 2 Comments

The other day I happened to defend the Book of Oberon from the idea that the king of Fairies is somehow a forgery of Daniel Herms and James. R Clark, by remembering the fact that his presence predates John Dee (which by any means wasn’t even intended to debate the person making the original affirmation because I don’t even know him or his tradition, heck I’m not really the one to judge him either), which probably was the influence in Elizabetian England to make a play starring him by William Shakespeare, Oberon is nowhere is Slavic traditions or probably not even in traditional Draoich that I know of, but somebody wrote magic about him along Satan and other spirits, which was the core of treasure hunting magicians (Which after checking dates kind of made me wish for a second Alexander Willit was pirate, I know its probably bullshit from my own wishful thinking but picture this: (Meeting a raspy voice in the Darkness saying “I’m Captan’ Alexander Wilit, to the service of her majesty Elizabeth I, and scurvy dog of our unholiest lord of hell, Satan”, Tell me that ain’t a picture to blow everyone out of their underwear right where they are standing?!).

I have for years seen magicians fighting over who is more right than who, where can they get more sources, what is traditional and what is not, if the Necronomicon is Legit, if they feel unimpressed with chaos magic, and well Deamonolatry has had its good share of slamming over generations, and after a few praising of my stance on the whole Oberon thing, I got some positive attention.. that I probably didn’t even deserved much because I just pointed some facts of things that anyone could have probably checked for from the Book of Treasure Spirits by David Rankine, I’m not sure how that gives me cookie mage points but I appreciate the positive attention to a grade I’m too bashful to admit, but it also it begs to consider when other people or even us have given the same treatment to things we are doubtful about.

Still its strange, Daemonolatry its hardly out from scrutiny by a lot of Traditionally purist mages, specially if they want to point out about the lack of information on Alexander, or how nothing surfaced to public until the 60s, and at this point a lot of you have raised a brow and said “So what?”, I’ve heard some of the Daemonolatry practitioners have grown into the tradition from birth, and kept it in the family, a lot of you aren’t really checking what other magicians are into these days and even less interested into making much of an ecumenical interchange of things that where never in contradiction in the first place.

We live in times where diversity should makes us richer, except it doesn’t, internet gives us access to all the information around the world and somehow, we have never ever been less excited about it.

Is it that a lot of people interested in esoteric themes sometimes are weird and looking for quick power to make all their dreams come true from night over?, is that some of those guys happened to have tinfoil hats and where sure the Reptilian Annunaki where going to suck our brains right from their Planet X?, are they just old farts resisting change and look newer traditions as a Millenial thing and hate us for our iEnns and Skateboards?

True to that everyone’s esoterically development its quite different, not only that, how they embody it its quite enormously different and you can see it even in their personality, some Solomonic Magicians are very true to a very sort of Judeo-Christian idea in the way that the Jews disliked the old rites to Baal’Sabaoth because they left offering left to rot until they where covered with flies, that’s why they came up with the name Belzebuth in the first place, and they might not see it exactly that way now but if you cannot get the spectrum of the spirit beyond the opposing idea, it creates a pattern of behavior that continues even if its not the original intention as long as you keep associating a spirit to the same things, you cannot grasp the whole potential of interacting with it, that why I do care about History as much as practice, because once you go to the roots of some things you can make a multilayered spectrum of things you can add into practice, but when new practices are made and new spirit names come and technique and theory that hasn’t been written before in history adds on top the rejection is imminent, and Magicians that are usually in established lodge traditions usually shoot first, and followers make echo.

But if you think about it the Sloane texts don’t have Millennia, Enochian doesn’t Have Millennia of being written, not all the spirits described by John Dee where known from biblical times, and certainly Oberon its no where to be found in the Bible or Sumerian or Egyptian or Greek traditions, so by the standard of today’s magicians John Dee actually doesn’t pass the test by that logic in the late 1500’s, then Samuel L McGregor Mathers, Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley would fare even worst, by those terms, and to the esoteric tradition that saw the incarceration of Giordano Bruno they where the chaos magicians riding their Neomasonic Style with all those checkered floors and LVX… things.

So why bash Richard Dukante for not accommodating to the traditions?, Why grabbing into the lack of data about Alexander Wilit and say, “But you don’t have enough proof, where is your evidence?”…

And somehow no one asks for evidence on that the guys who wrote the Sloane texts, the Grimoires, or John Dee where where legit, most of those guys where Anonymous, and one of them even moonlighted as a pope so everyone would think he was legit (or not burnable in a fire).

I can see why S Ben Qayin is kind of effed with the whole legit discussions lately, because they have becomed a whole vortex pointless arguments, because by strictly scientifical data the Necronosimon has the same validity as Liber al Vel Legis and the Bible, and while some people feel “Become a Living God” is pretentious marketing selling pseudo spirituality to the capitalist public, some other people spend tons of money and time in the hope of finding the Philosophers Stone and their labs and mysteriously heal all the diseases by reciting over and over Psalms, and deem it totally aceptable.

Some times they come to shove their Gold and platinum spoons to my face, other they die from a sore throat because they refused to take antibiotic, but in the bashing end how old or new a technique is probably has to do more about our incapabilty to trust what other people is doing and specially when has notorious differences and less with if its legit or not, because by all means judging legitimacy by age is a double standard, because in that regard we wouldn’t have a Greco-Egyptian Tradition in the first place, because by the Greek state religion of ancient time there was no reason to have a Greco-Egytian tradition, and yet somehow somebody did, and we don’t even know who that someone is, and yet there is a Greco-Egyptian tradition, there is a Hermanubis, a combination of two gods of different cultures that by the Athenian standard should have not been, after all Cthonic religions of the Thracians was shunned and looked down, and somehow even after all those years we have just been repeating over and over the same pattern of behavior, when somebody mentions the void and chaos, and darkness there a lot of people rolling eyes like “Oh these goths talking about dark stuff again”, but if their rites have a Typhon and Apophis, or you are required to repeat the travel of Osiris to the underworld with Anubis guidance and is told by a well established Lodge Master, nobody in social media is batting an eye.

And don’t get me wrong, I know where a lot of the Lodge Leaders in other traditions come from, I know they have their own trajectory made in blood and sweat and I know some of them have gained love and respect for good reasons, and that probably is the very reason they are resisting some things with every cell in their bodies and smugly firing shots some things come up in conversation, its kind of understandable, but not justifiable in this day and age.

Tranhumanism is upon us (No is not a pipedream unlike some have said, its here and its gradually taking strength and interest, and I will slap you with a giant photo of Neil Harbisson if need some evidence), our curriculums are loosing terrain against artificial intelligence everyday, and if we are going to resist all that is new as unfounded, It is going to be a shock that your grand kids might be more interested to work with XaTuring than any of the old Traditions, at least he makes sense with their neural implants for augmented reality live neural feeds.

Here this post dedicated to  the magical community in general not asking you to change anything you are doing right now, but to consider everyone’s space in a little less judgmental way.

Jadean Lazulli.

Addendum: This blog does not justify in any way going to another person’s group that is entirely focused on there; or to an author of certain tradition and make your posture, If you don’t like something being discrete is the better part of valor, that’s why I wrote this point of view in on here instead of smearing it all over Facebook

And all being said work both ways because Respect is two way road.

The Myth of the Magickal Quick-Fix

Posted on by Posted in Books, Offerings, prayer, S. Connolly, Satanism, Solitary, Spirituality, Tools 5 Comments

I receive emails weekly where someone wants me to make them a pact, item, amulet, fetish, oil, incense, or other mixture that will magickally fix all their life’s ills. As if possessing the item alone, or having someone else do the work for them will allow them to sit back and collect their millions, their fame, and all the sex they want.

 

What most people don’t seem to realize is that all of these things – these items of magick and magickal operations are just TOOLS the magician uses to cause change in conformity with one’s will. When you buy a magickal item (including spirit vessels) or you have someone make a pact on your behalf – you still have to make the item your own, or sign that pact. YOU. Not the magician who made it for you.

 

I have been writing a series of chapbooks called The Daemonolater’s Guide covering a lot of these frequently desired items to explain to people how to use them, what they are and ARE NOT, and what realistic expectations should look like.

 

Magick isn’t like Harry Potter. You can’t just wave your sparking wand, scream “Stupify!” and poof — your enemy is incapacitated. I wish it were that simple because if it were, everyone would practice magick, and everyone’s life would be picture perfect.

 

The general rule of thumb when it comes to alleged “magickal quick fixes” is that if it sounds too good to be true – it probably is. Just because you’re a practicing magician does not mean you need to throw all common sense and reason out the window. Magick is an exercise to cause change in conformity with your will. Not a get-quick-rich scheme or a get-out-of-jail-free card. Magickal items are tools not surefire ways to get the girl/guy, or solve all your money problems. You have to know how to use the tools to get those kinds of results, and learning to master a tool can take years. After all – anyone can own paints and a paintbrush, but it can take years and years of honing skills to become an accomplished painter. Very rare is it to meet someone for whom any given magickal skill is innate and requires no effort.  Translation: Even born magicians have to learn to navigate their gifts or talents.

 

All of this said, let me introduce the Daemonolater’s Guides, little chapbooks that put the common-sense and realistic expectations back into the mythologies and misconceptions surrounding certain magickal and esoteric topics!

Daemonic Possession – I can’t believe how many times I get asked about Daemonic Possession and the crazy-ass misconceptions out there about this one. Find out what Daemonic Possession is and why it actually happens. Also – learn the difference between channeling and possession.

Daemonic Pacts – A pact is not the cure-all to all your ills. Learn the proper creation and use of pacts, and learn to adjust your expectations from Faust – to reality.

Daemonic Offerings – There are a lot of people who think Daemons must be offered the first born, the lives of people or animals, or that all Daemons require blood, but this just isn’t true. Learn the how, where, why, and what of Daemonic Offerings.

Spirit Keeping & Spirit Vessels – Spirit Keeping is all the rage! But mere possession of an alleged spirit/Daemon/djinn trapped in an item does not guarantee a quick fix to all life’s problems. As a matter-of-fact – you may have just gotten ripped off. This little guide gives you the scoop on spirit vessels, including how to properly make them and how to adjust your expectations.

Daemonolatry Groups – The mythical Daemonolatry group is just like any other and often has the same benefits and drawbacks as any social/magickal/spiritual group. This guide offers advice on how to navigate groups and again, adjust your expectations.

Sex, Money & Power  – Usually when people contact me about wanting a magickal quick fix — these are the three main things they’re after. If this is what you want, this little guide will tell you how to get it via Daemons and Magick, replete with realistic expectations.

 

More Daemonolater’s Guides coming!

Something isn’t right

Posted on by Posted in Sentinel, Spirituality, Uncategorized 2 Comments

Firstly, many apologies for posting anything for a long while. There have been issues, some linked to the background of this post. I hope to be more active this year.

Where to begin ? Back in 2004 I was presenting at an Einstein Physics Conference up at the University of Warwick. During the day, we did have some time off, and while wandering around the grounds I started looking at the flowers, bees, insects and their interaction. It got me thinking about how everything seems to fit together, and was thee in fact any ‘intelligent design’. For some reason, after pondering over the statistics of this occurring by chance, intelligent design became a believable option, a strange conclusion for a PhD in Astrophysics.

I followed this up, and pondered on it for a few years, and I still ponder it. Then I came across Red Crow, a Native American Elder, speaking about ‘the time of renewal’ and Native American Prophecies. This I had to listen to a number of times in order to study.

Linking this with intelligent design, I am of the opinion that the time of renewal is here. This explains the strange weather patterns, increase in volcanic activity and earthquakes, and the unusual ‘groaning sounds’ heard about the planet recently.

When the planet exited the previous interglacial period into the previous ice age (that finished 11000 years ago) all we know from climate records is that it happened very quickly, so we have no idea of weather patterns. Currently, the flooding experienced is the worst ever, tornados across the U.S., snow storms, El Niño is forecast to be the largest ever.

Are we looking at just a glitch in the climate and geophysical cycles or are we looking at something else ? I have included a link to Native American Prophecies and Red Crow. Listen to it and comment. I would be interested in your opinions.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-e50MBBCwLE

The Power of ‘I Don’t Know’

Posted on by Posted in Community, Demonolatry, Magick, Martin McGreggor, Satanism, Spirituality Leave a comment

This past year I celebrated my 11th year as a Satanist. Near the anniversary I planned on writing a post about what I had learned and how my views had changed over that span of time. After working on it for a time, I began to realize that I don’t really like to write about what I “know.” Instead, I always find myself much more comfortable speaking to what I don’t know.

I think this is because I try to always remind myself that I could be wrong about anything I believe, at any time. This does not have to apply to the magical or occult. We all know the sky is blue. But the sky is only blue because of the way the atmosphere interacts with sunlight. If anything about the atmosphere changes, then the sky can be a completely different color. When we look at a sunset, we see a red and orange sky because molecules in the atmosphere have scattered the blue light out and away from our line of sight. So really, the color of the sky depends on our position in relation to the sun (time), and our line of sight. Knowing this, is the sky really blue?

Well, it depends.

And that is my point entirely. Reality is really nothing but our individual perception of reality. Accepting this principle makes it much easier to entertain and explore ideas without having to accept them as fact. This ability is paramount to ideological pluralism.

Ideological pluralism is something this country is supposed to be built upon. The ability for each man and each woman to believe what they want, practice what they want, without interference of any kind. Acceptance for all under the stars and stripes. We may have the mechanics and laws in place, but our citizenry does not employ acceptance and pluralism as a daily practice. We take attitudes of right and wrong, rather than that of Mine and Yours. We ask each other if we believe in <X>, whether that be God, or Satan, or Magick. But the answers we give are in the form of knowledge, not belief. This may seem like a small thing, but as a writer I put a lot of weight in the meaning of words.

Know: to perceive or understand as fact or truth.

Believe: to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.

If we honestly answer that question of “Do you believe in <X>” then by definition we have already admitted that we do not know for a fact. So why is it that anytime someone offers a differing opinion, we must cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war? Why can’t we simply smile, listen, and then go about our merry way? Until we can do so, collectively as a race, I fear we will never be capable, or worthy, of true advancement.

And this is the power of ‘I don’t know.” It’s a simple statement, and yet people are so threatened by it. By accepting the fact that we don’t know, we are freed from the fear of being wrong. There is no right; no wrong. Just belief.

Because what do we really know?

Is the sky blue? I don’t know, but I believe.

Does Satan exist? Does magick? I don’t know, but I believe.

 

MM

The “Lazy” Magician? I Think Not!

Posted on by Posted in Ceremonial Magick, Demons, S. Connolly, Spirituality 9 Comments

goetia.jpgOver the past few years I have been heavily criticized for my book “Daemonolatry Goetia” because I basically took the entire Goetia out of its historical context, modified it for Daemonolatry magicians (who prefer to respect the divine intelligences they work with), and gave the Daemons/Spirits updated attributes for the modern age based on my own personal work with said Daemons/spirits. I still stand by my work and don’t mind the criticism. Bring it. What others think about my spiritual leanings or practices isn’t my problem, it’s theirs. But sadly it does matter to a lot of younger, maybe more inexperienced magicians who feel pressured to conform.

Evidently what I did with “Daemonolatry Goetia” was a huge no-no because somehow, my little book of modification (for Daemonolaters) got rather popular among even more mainstream magicians, and that pissed off a lot of old-school grimoiric magicians whose emphasis on tradition, history, and “one-size-fits-all” dogma doesn’t “sell” as well. Evidently those of us who think outside the box and don’t do things their way are “stupid” and “lazy”. (Of course.)

Mind you I don’t mind pissing people off. I’ve been proudly pissing off the religious right AND left since 1999. I will NOT stop writing books about magick or sharing my ideas. Love me/my work or hate me/my work – I’m not going anywhere folks. Suck it up, buttercup, and deal with it.

My techniques work for me and hundreds of other magicians. In my little magickal world, manifested results and personal experiences trump history and tradition. Sorry if that upsets people. The assumption that magicians from 100AD (or whenever) had more method to their madness than today’s modern magicians who are writing today’s modern grimoires is a lot of bullshit. Many of the occult authors I know have a very solid foundational knowledge of old school magick. They just realized that magick is not stagnant. The old grimoires were great for their time. But technology, and human sensibilities and priorities change as the centuries and decades pass. Something very relevant hundreds of years ago may not be as relevant today. I don’t think the Gods/Daemons exist in a vacuum. I believe they tolerate change rather well.

Just because modern magicians creatively apply their thinking to magick (and perhaps even throw out old traditions) doesn’t mean they didn’t develop their system based on trial and error. I worked a great deal of magick, tested it, built on it, and used deductive reasoning AND personal experience to come up with techniques that work. Now will my techniques work for everyone? Probably not. However, my techniques, modified, might. In the very least they will inspire someone else. Hence the reason I publish what works for me.

Why this pisses some people off is a mystery to me. Other people’s spiritual growth and practice is none of their damn business, so perhaps they should get off it already. Just because it pisses them off that I’ve taken the Goetia out of historical context to make it more workable for those who want to respect the spirits gives them no right to tell me that my methods are lazy or flawed. Those methods work for me and enhance my relationship with the divine, and that is none of their damn business either. This goes for every occult author and every magician.

Mind your own business instead of everyone else’s and quit worrying about selling your ideas to everyone else.

It takes massive hubris (which admittedly most magicians have in spades, myself included at times) to assume one possess the ONLY correct way of anything when it comes to the subjectivity of magick and spirit work. I’ve actually conversed with the spirits about my magick and they seem to be okay with it. Of course my critics would likely just say I’m a flake and maybe have some kind of disorder because my methods don’t match theirs. So I’m the quack, or the lazy magician. I get it. It makes them feel superior to call me names and push me around for being different. I could be a “school yard bully” or an internet troll too, if I wanted to be.

Also, all the snarky comments about “stupid Americans” haven’t been lost on me either. I get that many of my critics are rather chauvinist, provincial, or xenophobic. I’m sorry they feel that way. While I agree the United States does have its fair share of idiots (don’t we all), the hardcore practicing magicians are generally NOT within that group of people. Most, if not all, of the hardcore magicians I meet (and by hardcore I mean those who actually practice, not sit around waxing philosophic about it, or only performing in front of an audience) are highly intelligent people perfectly capable of making up their own minds about whether they want to follow the herd like blind automatons, or think for themselves and come to their own conclusions. I give my readers credit for being intelligent and being able to use deductive reasoning. I don’t need to tell them what to believe, and perhaps that’s why Daemonolatry Goetia has become so popular. I’m giving magicians permission to flex their creative muscles and step outside the box.

After all – magick is about creation. Real magicians create.

I always like to ask my critics a few simple questions when they start going off on me about how their by-the-book, historically accurate magick is better. 1. Is magick a creative process or not? 2. Is Magick about conformity? 3. Is Magick all about research, memorize, imitate/regurgitate, repeat? 4. If you are creating your own life and transforming yourself via magick, doesn’t that give the magician some creative license? After all, as above, so below. None of us grows in the exact same way(s) as our neighbor.

By-the-book Magick, imho, stagnated my growth, which is why I abandoned it early on in my career as a magician. Sure, know your roots, have foundation, know what magicians before you have done, and then take that knowledge and apply it in a way meaningful to you to connect with the divine, and transform your self and your life. Just because not everyone has a boner for old grimoires doesn’t make them any less a magician or lazy. Quite the opposite in fact. IMHO, having others do the work for you and you simply following their books to the letter is lazy. Eventually you have to grow past that. Eventually most serious magicians do!belial-sigil-d75739183

Also, it could be argued that focusing on the details like history and tradition is just an excuse to sit around waxing philosophic instead of getting into that magick circle and getting one’s hands dirty. Go ahead — think outside the box. Modify to your heart’s content. Sure, sometimes it won’t work, but sometimes it does, and when it does, you can pull it apart and figure out why it does and begin building your own “personal gnosis”, which isn’t the dirty little phrase everyone makes it out to be.

By-the-by, I don’t wish the by-the-book grimoiric magicians any ill. Personally I don’t care what they do because it doesn’t concern me. If their practice works for them and they’re getting results from their by-the-book magick – awesome, but them trying to browbeat others to conform to their ideas is rather annoying. It reminds me too much of evangelical Christianity. Can’t we all just live and let live? I have my magick, my critics have theirs — and I’m okay with that.  It’s sad, and it speaks volumes, that they aren’t.

Rant over.