This is a post about something I have just made up, regarding things which people have just made up.

I call it “The Precept of the Eye of Hoor,” a deliberately pretentious name for a simple concept.

Allow me to explain.

Aleister Crowley talks a lot about the Eye of Hoor, which, as it turns out, is his fancy Kabbalistic euphemism for… the butt hole.

No, my Precept is not actually about butt stuff, at least not in a literal sense. This is not that kind of post. Sorry to disappoint.

The Precept of the Eye of Hoor is as follows:

If you just pulled an occult concept out of your own ass, you don’t get to pretend that it is ancient wisdom from Egypt or some shit. Conversely, if you used someone else’s occult concept, you have to cite your source.

Simple, right?

Yet a failure to obey this precept plagues occultism. Occultists are shockingly terrible at citing their sources. Furthermore, there is a longstanding tradition in Western Esotericism of pretending that made-up shit is actually “ancient wisdom” from Egypt or Lemuria or Atlantis or the Akashic Records.

Many popular occult texts, such as, oh, The Testament of Solomon and The Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon and The Sacred Book of Abramelin the Mage and the Zohar claim to be a few thousand years older than they actually are and written by people who did not write them. Don’t get me wrong. Those are all important and effective and powerful texts. But in a bid for greater legitimacy, all claim greater antiquity and more illustrious authorship than they have.

This is the rule when it comes to occultism, not the exception. Think about how many Neopagan traditions (I am looking at you, Wicca) claim to be continuations of “ancient universal religions” that absolutely did not exist. Think about how many occult writers use the work of others without citation or credit (I am looking at you, LaVey).

The truth is that the Eye of Hoor, aka pulling stuff out of your own ass, can actually be a legitimate source of gnosis. You, yes you, can just make shit up and have it be effective and useful. And you ought to be able to admit that.

Pagans on the internet have come up with some useful acronyms to talk about sources of belief. “UPG” stands for “Unverified Personal Gnosis,” aka stuff that you yourself channeled, divined, or intuited. “SPG” means “Shared Personal Gnosis,” which is when more than one person has independently channeled, divined or intuited the same thing. “VPG” or “Verified Personal Gnosis” is when you channeled, divined or intuited something and then later realized that there is support for it in lore and texts.

For example, let’s say you get the feeling that Eisheth Zenunim likes red roses. That’s UPG. You mention this to other practitioners and they go “ya know, that’s funny, I always thought so too.” Now it’s SPG. Later you stumble on the passage in the Zohar where Eisheth Zenunim is repeatedly compared to a red rose. Welp. Now it’s VPG.

And that’s a cool and validating experience, but you know what? Just plain old UPG can be good, too. For example, I feel like Eisheth Zenunim has a thing with spiders. I started seeing spiders around my house in unprecedented numbers right after I started working with her. I do not know anyone else who really feels strongly about this connection. I have found nothing in any text relating Eisheth Zenunim to spiders. I could be wrong, but I also could be right.

Because guess what! All occult wisdom was unverified personal gnosis at some point in time. What do you think prophets are?

The entire Enochian language and system of magic was probably pulled directly from Edward Kelly’s bunghole, and you know what? It works.

I have personally based multiple rituals on alleged rites found in witch hunting manuals which were probably made up by inquisitors and never actually practiced by witches, and you know what? Those rituals worked. They worked really well. I perform Black Masses too, which were similarly made up via a series of anti-Satanic stereotypes. Yet Black Masses have power. And I don’t have to pretend that these rites come from an ancient strain of “traditional Satanism” that didn’t exist. They were made up by Catholics who were scared of blasphemy and who, by channeling their own fear of the Devil, imagined rites that would be very effective in attacking everything they believed. And those rites work just as well in practice as they did in the feverish nightmares of witch hunters.

Because that’s what magic is like. The performance of magic is a series of ritual words and actions given symbolic meaning and power. The Chaotes are on to something.

So please, let’s stop insisting that things must be old to be legitimate. Let’s stop obscuring our sources and omitting our citations. Let’s admit where our knowledge, lore and praxis actually comes from, even when it’s straight from the Eye of Hoor.

Conversely, let’s stop pretending that our ideas are original when they are not.

Let’s cite our sources accurately, whether our ideas come from Paracelsus or are channeled from the Aethyrs or are pulled from our own asses.

And by the way, you don’t have to prove that you were “channeling.” If you believe that you were, just say so, and people can decide for themselves whether or not it seems like a load of bull.

Broad adoption of the Precept of the Eye of Hoor can only benefit occultism as a whole. It will make study much easier for everybody, neophyte and adept and Grand Poobah Magister Templi alike. It will increase rather than decrease legitimacy, because honesty about sourcing is by far the best policy in the digital age. You can’t just claim something is an ancient text anymore, people will catch you and you will only look silly. Citing sources properly would also do a lot to combat cultural appropriation. There is no downside here, except for dishonest and manipulative charlatans who want to claim that gnosis belongs to them and to them along.