Gender Apocalypse Now!

Final paper for my special reading course on Aleister Crowley. Enjoy!

GENDER APOCALYPSE NOW! TRANSCENDENTALISM, TRANSHUMANISM, & TRANSGENDERISM IN THE AEON OF HORUS

In 1964, artist/occultist Marjorie Cameron and filmmaker/occultist Kenneth Anger were cohabitating in Los Angeles, California. Marjorie Cameron was a bisexual female; Kenneth Anger was a gay male. The pair decided to embark on a new magical and artistic project: becoming each other. Cameron started taking testosterone, Kenneth got on estrogen, and despite their seemingly incompatible genders and sexualities, they began a sexual relationship. The experiment was short-lived and soon abandoned. Kenneth left for New York, leaving Cameron to mourn by wearing his leather pants, as if still trying to meld with him.[1]

Decades later, another pair of strange soulmates, musician/magician Genesis P. Orridge and dominatrix Lady Jaye, would attempt and complete the same project, using hormones and surgeries to become as nearly identical as possible. This endeavor was inspired by both their transcendent love for one another—their desire to become one being—and by their shared vision of new kinds of gender. “Some people feel they’re a woman trapped in a man’s body,” Genesis said. “We just feel trapped in a body. What we’re talking about is an idealized future where male and female become irrelevant.”[2]

What these two couples had in common was a post-Crowleyan approach to gender, sexuality, art, and occultism that has at its heart the veneration of the divine androgyne as the harbinger and archetype of a radical new era.

This paper will explore the signs of Crowley’s androgynous and cataclysmic Aeon of Horus. I write this more as an organic intellectual than as a traditional scholar, although the mask of the academic is one that I often wear well. This paper needs to be more personal and authentic. Here is a meditation on gender, transcendence, love, and apocalypse as manifest in occultism, science fiction, rock n’ roll, and society.

It is also a litany to my magickal ancestors and the gender outlaws whose lives and adventures inform mine. In Thelemic terms, one might call these saints, who poured out their life’s blood into the cup of Babalon, from which I drink to become myself.

This is the chronicle of the transhumanist and gender-transcending magickal current that Aleister Crowley unleashed on the earth. What started as a whisper, heard by only a few, has multiplied by its echoes to turn into a deafening roar.

Continue reading →

Growth Is Not Linear.

I don’t trust magical degrees, grades, ranks or titles. Not only do they smack of hierarchy, which, as an anarchist, I despise, I also don’t think the model of spiritual attainment they imply is realistic.

Western occultists– especially Western male occultists– are awfully enamored of this notion of ascension. Spiritual growth is a ladder you climb, collecting titles, passwords, and secret handshakes as you go. This is reminiscent of leveling up in a video-game, or of clawing your way to the top of a military or corporate hierarchy. It’s gratifying to the ego. It’s also intuitive because it mirrors so many familiar (if fucked-up) structures in our power-obsessed society.

But spiritual growth is not the corporate ladder. It’s not a method of becoming “better” and “more powerful” than other people, of gaining rank and status. Neither is it a linear progression forwards and upwards.

Instead, spiritual growth is messy, personal, cyclical, convoluted, and constantly subject to backsliding.

Before I get any deeper into this post, it might be helpful to define what I mean by spiritual growth. Spiritual growth, as I see it, can be split into two separable yet interrelated parts:

  1. Increased magical skills
  2. Emotional/psychological growth

Magical skills include stuff like: meditation, lucid dreaming, astral travel, casting spells, shielding yourself from hostiles, etc.

Emotional and psychological growth is the human decency stuff. Self-confidence, the ability to have healthy relationships, a suitable balance of kindness with boundaries, selflessness with selfishness. You know. The unglamorous stuff that’s actually way more important.

People like Aleister Crowley provide excellent examples of what happens when emotional and psychological growth fail to keep pace with magical skills. You end up with guru syndrome, magusitis, whatever you wanna call it. The guy, and it usually is a guy, holding the highest magical degree and correspondingly the greatest authority in his occult order, is the one who has backslid the most grievously when it comes to emotional self-work. Happens all the time.

Of course, it’s possible to backslide on magical skills, too. Like social skills and emotional regulation habits, magical abilities tend to be a little “use it or lose it” by their nature.

My point? All of it takes practice. You can’t just reach the degree of Magister Templi and expect to even keep it without continous effort, much less to advance beyond it. Attainment can always be lost. Fail to maintain your spiritual condition, your emotional health or your magical practice, and you can easily lose all that you have gained.

I learned this in Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A., not to be confused with the other A.:A.:, can nonetheless also be considered an initiatory magical system. The steps are a bit like degrees, and one grows spiritually as one advances through them. But what happens when you reach the 12th step? Do you graduate? Do you win?

No, you do step one all over again, because by now, it’s probably time for a refresher on its lessons. The cycle starts anew.

I approach my work with the Klipot similarly. The Golden Dawn and The A.:A.: view the Tree of Life as something to be climbed linearly to the pinnacle of spiritual ascension, and many left-hand path initiates view the Klipot through a similar lens. But I much prefer to look at the Klipot as a series of infinitely expansive worlds to be wandered through. One cannot expect to learn all the secrets of each Klipa in a single lifetime, or indeed, in infinite lifetimes. Why would it be enough to travel the tree just once? Each sphere has many lessons to teach, and should be revisited as often as necessary. As if I will ever fully master the practical, material lessons of Nahemoth, or learn every single thing that Golachab has to teach about war, anger, and revolution! Anyone who claims to have “finished” with a sphere for good has simply stopped paying attention to further lessons. That’s why, once I feel done with my first visit to Thaumiel, I plan to start back at Nahemoth again.

Perfection is not a static point. Anything unchanging is dead, and therefore not perfect. Perfection, in fact, is a goal that can never be reached, only approached. The task is to approach, to always be drawing nearer and never slipping farther away. That task is strenuous, but it’s also the only thing that is worth doing, in my opinion, because it encompasses all worthwhile work.

Distrust anyone who claims to have ascended. If somebody has reached the “end” of their spiritual journey, that simply means they have given up and sat down where they are. Masters don’t have to call themselves masters. Actually, masters don’t exist. We are all learners, and the moment we cease to be so, we stagnate.

Easy Satanic Magic(k) Formulas & Hacks

Satanic magic(k) can be highly complex and ritualized, but due to the influence of folklore and pop culture on Satanism, it can also be extremely streamlined and flexible. Here are a couple easy ways to make your magic more Satanic.

  1. Do stuff backwards.

Satanism has been associated with inversions and reversals since at least the time of the witch panic. Satanic witches were thought to dance backwards and counter-clockwise (widdershins) at the Sabbat. According to folklore, reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards could summon the Devil. More recently, the idea of “backmasking”– backwards hidden messages in music and media– has entered popular culture.

You can use this lore in your Satanic witchcraft.

Cast your circles widdershins instead of clockwise.

Circumambulate widdershins and walking backwards.

Use your left hand to cast your spells and wield your wand or ritual dagger.

Cross yourself– upside-down.

Recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards to evoke Lucifer.

Write out a spell in your native language. Write all the words backwards and then try to pronounce it phonetically. Instant magical language! Example:

Elpmaxe: egaugnal lacigam tnatsni! Yllacitenohp ti ecnuonorp ot yrt neht dna sdrawkcab sdrow eht lla etirw. Egaugnal evitan rouy ni lleps a tuo etirw.

Try reading that aloud. Doesn’t the difficulty and strangeness of trying to pronounce that put you instantly into a light trance? Perfect for magical work.

OR: you can literally create a recording of yourself speaking the words, run it backwards, and pronounce it as it sounds. Both are delightfully brain-breaking exercises.

2. Blasphemy and Antinomianism (Taboo-Breaking)

The mainstream of society, which is generally on the right-hand path, sees blasphemy and rebellion as juvenile. While they certainly can be, take a moment to meditate on what powerful interests are served by portraying blasphemy and rebellion as immature, impotent and ultimately pointless.

Done thinking about it? OK, here we go.

Many esotericists have believed that power can be gained via blasphemy and taboo-breaking. To defile the “sacred” is to question it, to diminish its power over you and thus increase your own personal power. To break “laws” is to assert the primacy of your own conscience rather than a set of potentially arbitrary and unjust social rules.

Of course there are stupid, abusive and outright evil ways to approach antinomianism. There are also many stupid, abusive and outright evil ways to be pious and follow the law.

Sometimes the smallest gestures of antinomianism can be weirdly freeing and disruptive. I mean, look at what happens when somebody faces the “wrong” way in an elevator. Or wears clothing designed for “the wrong gender.”

Don’t underestimate the psychological effect it can have on you to trample a cross, stab a communion wafer, or ejaculate on a Bible.

But these rituals can be used for more than self deprogramming. The writer Joris-Karl Huysmans thought that adding a bit of blasphemy to a spell made the magic many times more powerful. He didn’t really explain why, at least not in any way that made sense with his own essentially Catholic version of metaphysics. I think it’s because throwing in some blasphemy invokes a power-trip in the practitioner. Spit on a cross and you magically place yourself above God. Consume a communion wafer with blasphemous rather than reverent intent, and it becomes a cannibalistic act of devouring the power of Christ and taking it for yourself.

In Christianity, only Christ is considered to have been fully human and fully divine. In my current of Satanism, all humans are fully human and fully divine. Christ is actually a blasphemy against me, and against the collective. So fuck that guy. I’m gonna step on him.

Blasphemy, in fact, becomes a form of transubstantiation through which the Satanic practitioner can assert their individual Godhood against the tyrant monotheist deity who would suppress us all.

Blasphemy is also pleasing to Satan and other demons. So by blaspheming, you:

a. Banish Jehovah

b. Invoke your own divinity

c. Evoke all the forces of Hell to your aid by giving them a pleasing offering.

This is a triple threat, providing potent groundwork for asserting your will magically. Still think blasphemy is magically pointless?

According to renaissance witch lore, witches often used blasphemy in their magic. To make rain, it was popular to piss on a crucifix or throw one into the ocean. Soldiers believed that by inscribing blasphemous symbols on their clothing, they could become invulnerable in battle.

3. Fluid is Fun

The incorporation of bodily fluids in magic has long been held to be taboo, and has been associated with the Satanic or forbidden. In fact, in the year of their lord 2020, you can still find witches on TikTok wringing their hands about blood magic and how “dangerous” it supposedly is.

Of course, even a Catholic mass is blood magic, symbolically speaking. In a post-Christian paradigm wherein the practitioner is held to be an incarnate deity, the “body and blood” of the magician have extraordinary magical power.

Different bodily fluids all have their own unique connotations in spellwork. Spit, piss, semen, tears, and blood are all good for different things. Blood from a vein and menstrual blood are also distinct.

Be careful when incorporating your own DNA into a curse, as it can bind the spell to you instead of your intended target. Only piss and spit are generally acceptable for this purpose, since they express rejection and contempt. These are fluids that are meant to be expelled from the body, that are considered abject and are not identified with your own being. Blood and semen, on the other hand, are intimate; and tears are vulnerable. Keep them out of your curses.

To cleanse yourself AFTER cursing, it can be good to wash your hands ritually in your own blood. (It’s fine if it’s highly diluted, only a little bit has to be present.) This connects mythologically to the assassins of Julius Caesar, who washed their hands in the blood of their victim afterwards, cleansing themselves of guilty by cleansing themselves IN guilt– also to Pontius Pilate washing his hands after condemning Christ, and to the idea of being washed of sin in the blood of God. (You’re God. It’s your blood. You absolve yourself.)

Protective witch bottles can be made with piss, nails, and maybe a spring of rosemary. These bottles can be buried near the door of your house to create a powerful ward. The piss marks your territory, and as a liquid it reflects evil spells. The rosemary is protective, and the nails are to attack unwanted intruders.

Soaking blood into a communion wafer and then eating it is a powerful way to affirm one’s own divinity. Either menstrual blood or blood from a vein can be used for this purpose.

Signing a pact, oath or contract with blood is particularly binding. Be careful.

Spitting is a gesture of contempt, of cursing, of rejecting and banishing. To spit on or at something declares it to be of no value.

Semen or other sexual fluids can make things fertile. They can consecrate objects and impregnate them with your will and the meaning you wish to assign to them. The exception is when sexual fluids are applied to Christian icons such as crucifixes and Bibles, because the Christian paradigm assigns a different meaning to such actions, a meaning of extreme defilement and desecration– similar to spitting but even more offensive.

Tears can bless and consecrate. They can express devotion and love to an extreme degree. They are of course the sacrament of all rituals of grief. And they can express a particularly desperate petition or plea for help– a Satanic magician is usually proud and defiant, but life brings all of us to our knees at one time or another, and there is no shame in that. Use your tears to call for aid, to evoke vengeance or justice, to petition for healing or release. “Satan, take pity on my long misery!”

Can vomit or feces also be used? Yes, obviously, if you want to be REALLY nasty. These are like piss and spit times a hundred. I don’t generally fuck with these excretions because even I can get squeamish, but I am certain they have their place in curses and desecrations.

Conclusion

By incorporating blasphemy, reversals and bodily fluids in your spellwork, you can easily adapt right-hand path rituals to your own diabolical ends. A “Black Mass” (traditionally so-called, pardon the racialized connotations) is simply Catholic Mass with blasphemy, inversions, and juices. My Satanized baptism relies on many similar tricks. My Ritual of the Inverted Pentragram is a Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram with these formulas applied. Using these tips, you, too, can easily start building your own Satanic rituals.

Nema!

More Than One

I’ve written against monotheism before. Monotheism, in my definition, is “the belief that there is ultimately only one real force in the universe.” This can show up in a lot of ways– from the Christian belief in an all-powerful God whose will rules everything, to the popular new-age idea that everything is ultimately “all one.”

I object to monotheism or monism in any form on the grounds that

  1. It’s ultimately solipsistic.
  2. It leaves no room for free will.
  3. It flattens all the beautiful distinctions between people and things into “illusions.”
  4. It is profoundly lonely.
  5. It makes God a narcissistic, psychopathic child.

Aleister Crowley ultimately fell into all of these right-hand-path traps. Seeing all differences between people as illusory, he felt as entitled to the resources and labor of other people as he did to his own– after all, they were all one (or none, but his little sprinkle of Buddhist inflected atheism/nihilism didn’t really negate the problems of his monism). “Make no distinction between any one thing or any other, for thereby cometh hurt,” his Nuit said, ironically giving Crowley carte blanche to inflict a world of hurt. “Every man and every woman is a star” with its own path laid out, its own inevitable “true will”– it’s impossible to do anything but one’s inevitable true will anyway, so what does it matter about consequences? It was all meant to be. (Some might object that this is a misunderstanding of Crowley’s philosophy, but having closely studied his life and his works, I think it’s the “misunderstanding” of his own philosophy that Crowley had and acted on.) No wonder he saw God as the “crowned and conquering child”– a warlike, selfish, petulant and unreasoning infant.

Some popular forms of Satanism and left-hand-path philosophy have unintentionally re-created many of these problems in a different form. Where right-hand-path monotheism/monism preaches unity with and surrender to the single supreme being, many left-hand-path magicians have tried to fix this problem by basically treating themselves as the one true god. Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino provide good examples of this failing. Their resolutely selfish and solitary philosophies of extreme individualism ultimately result in the complete isolation of the practitioner. To them, the only thing that matters is the strong, self-sufficient individual who always gets his way (and it pretty much always is a him).

Indeed, LaVey considered having to deal with the needs, feelings, and even existence of other people to be such a bother that he advocated the construction of a “total environment” in which the magician would live alone, accompanied only by “artificial human companions,” i.e. robots. Essentially, to him, the ideal state of affairs would be for each Satanist to reign supreme over his own little Westworld which he never leaves and where no other person ever visits. No wonder he died a shut-in obsessed with building sexbots.

Aquino came to much the same conclusions, but on a more metaphysical level. Instead of constructing one’s own reality on the literal, physical plane, Aquino advocated becoming the supreme, solitary God and Master of one’s own “Universe B,” an “Isolate Consciousness” unto oneself.

Both these stances are depressing, pathetic, and immature– the power fantasies of two cis white straight men who felt that even having to consider the needs of others was such an inconvenience that it amounted to the oppression and subjugation of the sacred “individual.” These were would-be Willy Wonkas, longing to live in in a realm of “pure imagination”– or, to put a finer point on it, would be Jehovahs, wanting nothing more than to rule their own little universes with an iron fist. In other words, monotheists, except they have made themselves into God.

(You can read more about my problems with LaVey and Aquino here.)

I have no problem with apotheosis. In fact, in my opinion, it’s a central part of any left-hand-path religion. The problem is with believing that you are the only God.

In my church, we perform a simple rite called The Mass of Apotheosis, based on the story of the Garden of Eden. In this interpretation of the tale, Lucifer gifts Eve with knowledge of her own divinity. Eve passes the gift on to Adam. Adam passes it on to a watching congregant, who passes it on to the next, and so on– symbolically showing the viral spread of human divinity through all the descendants of this “original couple,” and thus to all people everywhere. “Thou art God,” we say to one another.

To me, this is so much more Satanic and subversive than just trying to seize monotheistic Godhead for oneself. Unseat Jehovah and take his place, and you become Jehovah. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Dethrone the Czar only to become Stalin? Only an asshole and a fool would want that. The dream of Lucifer at the end of Anatole France’s “The Revolt of the Angels” is a beautiful parable illustrating this concept which is well worth study.

Lucifer did not rebel alone. It was him and Eisheth Zenunim, two who had once been one– and only when they were split in half were they able to fall in love. Between the two of them, vital concepts like respect, solidarity, affection, and compassion were able to develop–concepts that are utterly meaningless when only one being exists in the universe.

This is why my lover Vix and I say that two is the first number. Nothing can come from one. One is sterile and alone. All that one can do is die. If one does not become two, it becomes zero.

Two is fertile. From two can spring infinity. Every one of us who is alive and reading this is the result of the combination of genetic material from two people. This article itself may as well not exist if no one reads it. It is meaningless unless at least two individuals exist: the writer and the reader.

(This is why the crown of the Left-Hand Path is not Keter, which is one, but Thaumiel, the Twins of God, which is two. Lucifer and Eisheth Zenunim. Baphomet. Solve and coagula. The dance of the dialectic.)

Lucifer and Eisheth Zenunim did not stop at two, because two generates more. They rallied a third of the angels to their cause. Though they failed to win heaven, they retreated to Hell and built Pandemonium, the city of All-Demons, a realm of teeming multiplicity, diversity, difference, distinction and solidarity.

(And that is why, above Thaumiel, there is not nothingness, ain, as there is above Keter, but everythingness. All being, all existence, all potential, all matter.)

What’s the point of all this? The point is that the left-hand-path is only truly revolutionary, only a true departure from the right, if it is a path of radical polytheism rather than of self-monotheism. Solitary individual godhood is a meaningless goal. How can you enjoy divinity alone? A true God needs other Gods to keep them company.

More proofs of this: It is obvious that no individual is omnipotent. Other individuals (and forces such as gravity, time, etc.) exist. The circle of our influence is limited by its interaction with the circles of influence of others. Our personal power and freedom is bordered by the personal powers and freedoms of others.

LaVey, Aquino, and others like them have tried to solve this dilemma in one of two ways:

  1. Attempt to defeat and dominate others
  2. Get as far away from others as possible

These ways are both stupid and limited in efficacy. Sometimes dominating and defeating an enemy may be appropriate– if somebody is willfully infringing on your rights and won’t stop, I agree that it can be justifiable and even necessary to use force against them. But conning, manipulating, bullying, and subjugating others as a way of life is lowly. When your “freedom” comes at the expense of the freedom of others, you become a little tyrant, a little Jehovah, with all the infantile, selfish, mean qualities that a Satanist despises in Him in the first place.

Also, it means you must always rely on your own strength, which will remain finite. It’s a lot of work to continuously hold down everybody around you so that you always get your own way and never have to compromise even a little bit. Aren’t you tired? Also, notice how nobody fucking likes you? Doesn’t this get lonely?

So you see, method one inevitably leads to method two– self-isolation. You’ve exhausted yourself trying to beat everyone down– or you’ve inevitably tried to tangle with somebody stronger than you (or, just as likely, a GROUP of people smart enough to ally with each other in order to kick your annoying ass OUT!) and have been forced to retreat. The only thing to do is to go it alone. And maybe you’re fine with that. It’s got a Nietzschean appeal, I guess. The solitary Ubermensch sitting all by himself on a mountaintop thinking about how strong he is, how high above the “rabble” of “sheeple.” Go off. You do you. Enjoy your ill-fated attempts to build sex robots when you inevitably get lonely, Anton. Everyone else thinks you’re a weird basement-dwelling asshole but they just aren’t enlightened enough to see that you are a supreme being, an isolate consciousness. You are a rock, you are an island. Have fun with that.

Or, you could grow the fuck up, take a good look at human evolution and realize that the success of our fragile, hairless monkey species is entirely based on the ability to cooperate. And then you could try it.

I’m not advocating pure collectivism. The collective is made of individuals, and any collective that stops caring for the rights of the people who make it up is doomed to a fate no better than that of the solitary jerk on a mountain.

I’m advocating making some fucking friends.

Your sphere of influence may be small. But what if you hooked up with some people who have similar goals? Hey, even if you only find two or three others, you’re already three to four times stronger.

Sure, there is always compromise involved when working with other humans. But if compromise is unendurable, that probably means either A. you are a selfish baby who should have been held back in Kingdergarten until you learned to fucking share like a regular homo sapien, or B. you are trying to work with the wrong friends and allies. Go find some others who are more aligned to your goals.

Never, ever, has a single individual done anything meaningful entirely on their own. No achievement of art, science, or politics has ever been made that did not stand on the shoulders of others. Nobody has ever accomplished anything influential without the ability to get others to listen to them and help them.

And that’s great. Because that’s just how it works in a universe with free will and more than one person in it.

This isn’t a call to be a follower, submissive, obedient, self-sacrificing, or a sheep. This is a call to be effective. This is a call to be a human being among human beings, and a living God among other Gods. In this world, selfishness and unselfishness need to be balanced. Because other people fucking exist. If you want something, solidarity is the best way to get it. Make allies. You already have enemies. You are living in an unequal and oppressive world, a world ravaged by late capitalism and possibly on the brink of extinction. You can’t possibly beat the odds alone. You are basically up against the might represented by Jehovah himself, the forces of tyranny, greed, hierarchy, authority, injustice. Wanna beat the almighty? You are gonna need some other angels willing to stand or fall with you.

You can be Anton LaVey, shut up in his basement like an idiot Jehovah… or you can be Lucifer, building a coalition to rebel against God.

Choose wisely.

How to Get Started in Satanic Magic

I wanted to create something beginner-friendly for those on the Left Hand Path who are new to magical practice. This is not the only way to get started, but it’s what I did combined with what I wish I had done. Explore, read a lot, think for yourself, and remember that there is no One True Way.

With that caveat out of the way, please enjoy these easy steps towards beginning a diabolical magical practice.

  1. Learn to meditate.

This is both the simplest step, and the hardest step. It’s the first thing you should start to do, and it’s also probably the last thing you’ll ever master. So don’t stress. Meditation is really hard for a lot of people, but people also make it harder than it needs to be.

Start with this: Inhale slowly to a count of four, completely filling your lungs. Hold your breath for a slow count of four. Exhale through your nose to a slow count of four. Repeat. Just try to focus on your breathing. If other thoughts come up, that’s fine, just let them go and keep returning to the breath.

Bonus: Once you’re kinda good at this, start imagining that there’s a second mouth between your eyes exhaling as you exhale through your nose. Your third eye will open pretty quick with that trick.

2. Learn to shield.

Visualize a bubble of light around yourself. The bubble can be any color you want. But it should feel safe, and you should be confident that it is completely impenetrable. Nothing can break through it. Practice doing this when you meditate. Also do it around people and in situations that make you uncomfortable.

Congrats, you have added a basic technique of psychic self-defense to your toolkit.

3. Learn Tarot.

This one can also take awhile to master! But it’s so worth it. The good news is, you can become a functional tarot reader with just one deck and the little guide booklet included with it. Memorizing the meanings of the cards will take time, don’t sweat it. Just read! Read the cards as often as you can.

Try this: pull a “card of the day” for yourself every morning. Write what the card was in a journal. At the end of the day, look at what your card was. Can you tell why you got that card? This practice takes 5-10 minutes per day max and is a great way to become familiar with the cards.

4. Begin dreamwork.

Start a dream journal. Write down your dreams. Never remember your dreams? Don’t worry, you can improve dream recall. As you’re falling asleep, tell yourself, “Tonight, I remember my dreams.” When you wake, write down your dream before you get a chance to forget.

Once you remember your dreams, you can begin playing with dream interpretation. You can find many dream dictionaries online, but what the symbols that occur in your dreams mean may be unique to you. Try making your own dream dictionary!

Bonus: You can even learn lucid dreaming. Here’s how: at various points during the day, ask yourself if you are awake or if you are dreaming. Check by looking for some text nearby, it doesn’t matter what. It could be a cereal box, it could be a street sign, it could be a text from your bae. Read the writing, then look away. Then look back. If the text stays the same, you are most likely awake. If it changes, you just caught yourself dreaming! Congrats, you are now lucid. Since you know you are dreaming, you will find you are able to take control of the dream.

5. Start a Grimoire.

A grimoire or book of shadows is a magical journal. What should you write in it? Well, for starters, dreams, cards of the day, and all that other crap I told you to write down above! Also write down spells you want to try, magical useages of herbs or crystals, lore about gods and demons you want to work with, etc, etc. Most importantly, record the results of any magical work you attempt. This will help you keep track of how well your spells are working.

6. Learn to Banish/Cleanse

You need to be able to remove unwanted energies and entities from your vicinity. There are many simple ways to do this. Smoke-cleansing is very popular. Unless you are indigenous to the continent of America, don’t call it smudging. Consider using something other than sage, too. Incense is great.

You can also banish using sound. Bells are popular for this purpose. If you have a stubborn or cantankerous spirit, feel free to escalate by banging on pots and pans. Praying and chanting have been used as well.

For my money, however, the best way to banish is to learn a banishing ritual. Here’s one I made.

7. Learn to ward.

Banishing and cleansing are good for chasing unfriendlies away temporarily. Shielding is also a temporary protection measure. But eventually, you’ll want to set up permanent protections on your living space.

There are a lot of ways to ward. My favorite way is to make a witch bottle. Obtain a bottle or jar. Fill it with nails, wine, maybe a spring of rosemary–and piss, if you want to go traditional. Seal it, then either bury it near the door or hide it under a bed/in the back of a cupboard/someplace else dark and cool.

You can make witch bottles using other ingredients. You can either research protective ingredients, or let your intuition guide you.

8. Call the Devil

Now you are ready to evoke Lucifer. These are the steps I use.

You might be crying: “Wait a minute, Johnny! I am a baby witch who hardly knows what I’m doing! And you’re telling me to summon SATAN?”

Well, yes. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. If your warding and banishing skills are up to par, you should not be at risk of summoning an unwanted entity by mistake. As for the Devil himself, if you weren’t interested in making friends with him, hopefully you wouldn’t be reading this blog.

One of Satan’s most traditional roles in magic is as Initiator and teacher of magic. As the serpent of Eden, he granted Adam and Eve knowledge of good and evil, and made them equal to God. As the Devil of the Witches, he teaches magic and gives familiar and matches the witch with compatible demons to work with. If you’ve been doing your research, hopefully you already know some of this. Contacting him as a beginner is not as crazy as it sounds. Getting you started on the path is actually a big part of what he does.

Once I established contact with Lucifer was when my practice really started to grow, magically and spiritually. He can teach you magical techniques, help warn you of dangers and problems in your life, grant clarity and insight, give advice, and offer a sense of companionship. He is particularly good at making recommendations about what other demons you might want to consider working which, and which you should avoid.

9. Consider Baptism.

A Satanic Baptism is not mandatory, but it can confer many benefits. It banishes the influence of the Christian God and/or any other deities that you may have worked with before, been raised to worship, or otherwise want gone from your life.

It’s also an initiation, which starts a process of spiritual death and rebirth. If done properly, it should destroy your illusions, challenge any false notions of your identity, and set you on your true spiritual path. People I know who have used this ritual (including myself) typically experience about a year of tumultuous transformation which may include career changes, cross country moves, coming out of the closet, gender transition, ending of toxic relationships, going back to school, and other challenging-but-necessary experiences. At the end, most of us have felt like different and much better versions of ourselves.

The particular baptism also confers a secret name or Godname on the initiate. A secret name is a very handy thing to have. It can make you hard to hex or curse, and help prevent others from getting power over you. You can pray to your secret name, as the name of your Inner God or Higher Self. You can also use it (silently) to command unfriendly entities, much the way that Solomonic magicians used the name of YHWH to command. Basically substitute this name for the Tetragrammaton.

Conclusion

You do not have to follow these 9 steps. As I said before, there are many paths in magick. But this is what I recommend based on my own experience. Hail yourself and good luck.

A Goat for Azazel

A sermon given at Church of the Morningstar on 7/18/2020.

6 And Aaron shall present the bullock of the sin-offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself, and for his house. 7 And he shall take the two goats, and set them before Jehovah at the door of the tent of meeting. 8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for Jehovah, and the other lot for [b]Azazel. 9 And Aaron shall present the goat upon which the lot fell for Jehovah, and offer him for a sin-offering. 10 But the goat, on which the lot fell for Azazel, shall be set alive before Jehovah, to make atonement [c]for him, to send him away for Azazel into the wilderness.

This passage from Leviticus 16 describes a ‘sin offering’—two goats are given to atone for the sins of the community. This is the source of the term “scapegoat.” One goat is offered to Jehovah. The second is given to someone named Azazel.

But who is Azazel? This question has puzzled scholars, occultists, and religious leaders for centuries.

Breaking down the name offers some clues. “Az” can be “she-goat,” and “azal” can mean “to leave” or to go away. Thus, “Azazel” can mean “goat escapes.” This is appropriate, since the goat for Azazel is allowed to run off alive into the wilderness—unlike the goat for Jehovah, which is bloodily slaughtered.

In the Bible, goats are contrasted with sheep, and no wonder. Sheep are thought of as docile and obedient. Goats, by contrast, are cantankerous and unruly. Thus goats are symbols of headstrong rebellion.

The name Azazel can be split in a different place to render a totally different meaning. “Azaz” can mean “strong.” It can also mean “rebellion,” further emphasizing the nature of the goat.

“Az” and “Azaz” are played on by Aleister Crowley in his short pamphlet Liber Oz—Az meaning, as we have said, “she-goat.” He refers in this pamphlet to “the law of the strong”—Azaz. Thus, the “law of the strong” means “the law of the goat,” of the rebel. What is this “law?” “Do what thou wilt!”

So we have “Azaz”—strong or rebellion. “El” means “God.” Thus, “Azazel” is “strong God” or “rebel God.” What God could this be?

In the Book of Enoch, Azazel is a leader of the Watcher angels who rebel against God to have sex with human women, possibly after being seduced by Na’amah. In this legend, Azazel taught humans the secrets of metalsmithing for jewelry and weaponry. Sometimes Azazel is referred to as Azael or just Aza. Aza can mean “to heat” so we have “Heating God.” This makes sense for a god of metalwork! (We can also think, of course, of the furnaces of hell.)

Azazel is associated with goats, of course, but he is also tied to another animal: the peacock. The Yazidi people of Iraq worship called Melek Taus, who is known as the Peacock Angel. This being is also known as Aiwass, which happens to be the name of the entity from whom Aleister Crowley received the dictation of The Book of the Law. Melek Taus or Aiwass has yet another name, too: Azazel.

Just as the goat symbolizes rebellion, the peacock symbolizes pride. The peacock, with its ostentatious masculine beauty, its horrible screeching voice, and its abrasive personality, has been considered a demonic animal since practically the dawn of the concept of demons. In Zoroastrian legend, it is said that the evil god, Ahriman, created peacocks. This was because somebody said that Ahriman never created anything good or beautiful. So Ahriman made a peacock to prove that he could create beauty, he just didn’t feel like it.

Both the peacock and the goat are attributed to Lucifer—the peacock symbolizing his original “sin” or virtue of Pride, and the goat representing his rebellion and his lust. Satan is notorious as the goat of the Witch’s sabbath, although this is usually very much a he-goat rather than a she-goat.

The feminine side of Azazel, of the goat, is restored in Baphomet, the most holy symbol of androgyny, the queerest and most compelling image of Satan. Here Lucifer and Eisheth Zenunim, Samael and Lilith, are united in masculine and feminine aspects. The human is also united with the animal, the angelic with the infernal. Baphomet is, in fact, not merely an image of androgyny, but of liminality, borderlessness, and lawlessness of all types. To me, fallen angels are the most fascinating of all beings because they pass through all realms, from heaven to hell and then up to earth again. They break all boundaries, all conventions, following only the law of the strong, the law of the goat: Do What Thou Wilt.

Baphomet is not identical with Pan—I dislike soft polytheism, and refuse to equate one goat god with another. However, they do have something in common beyond horns and hooves. Pan means “all” and Baphomet is a symbol of all, of chaotic everything-ness: pan-demonium if you will, all demons.

Like the wayward goat that rushes off into the wilderness, we seem to have wandered far astray of the original question: who is Azazel? But the point of Azazel is the wildness and the wandering. Azazel is the forging of words and metals into strange shapes, the heating of iron for the hammer, of flesh for lust, and of tempers for rebellion. Azazel is the goat and the peacock, lawlessness and pride. Azazel is Lucifer and also Lilith, the she-goat “Az” concealed in the name of a male angel, the feminine lurking in the masculine. Azazel is creative chaos and cathartic destruction.

And Azazel is all of us who are goats and not sheep. 

Beelzebub Gnosis Confirmed

Have you ever seen the acronyms UPG, SPG, or VPG? They stand for “unverified personal gnosis,” “shared personal gnosis,” or “verified personal gnosis.” They are popular in the pagan/magic community.

My circle has long had an SPG that summoning Beelzebub tends to cause an insect infestation and thus is best done outdoors. One of my friends warned me about this after experiencing a massive swarm of flies in his house after I working. I tried to follow his advice but still ended up with a huge ant invasion on the day I planned to enter Harab Zereq, Beelzebub’s Klipa. Other friends and acquaintances of mine have also experienced lots of bugs turning up with Beelzebub.

But today I learned that somebody else had the same experience.

Who?

ALEISTER FUCKING CROWLEY.

From his autohagiography:

We had resumed Magical work, in a desultory way, on finding that Mathers was attacking us. He succeeded in killing most of the dogs. (At this time I kept a pack of bloodhounds and went man-hunting over the moors.) The servants too were constantly being made ill, one in one way, and one in another. We therefore employed the appropriate talismans from The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin against him, evoking Beelzebub and his forty-nine servitors…. As to this perfume of The Book of the Law, “let it be laid before me, and kept thick with perfumes of your orison: it shall become full of beetles as it were and creeping things sacred unto me.” One day, to my amazement, having gone into the bathroom to bathe, I discovered a beetle. As I have said, I take no interest in natural history and know nothing of it. But this beetle attracted my attention at once. I had never seen anything like it before. It was about an inch and a half long and had a single horn nearly as long as itself. The horn ended in a small sphere suggestive of an eye. From the moment, for about a fortnight, there was an absolute plague of these beetles. They were not merely in the house, they were on the rocks, in the gardens, by the sacred spring, everywhere! But I never saw one outside the estate. I sent a specimen to London by the experts were unable to identify the species.”

I think we can call that SPG verified now.

I had never read this passage before today. It was crazy to see.

Guest Post: Sin of Cain, Sin of Abel

This was a sermon given some time ago at Church of the Morningstar, by Frater Babalon.

Today I want to speak of the sin of Cain, and the sin of Abel, which is not to say that our church supports the concept of sin but I am unsure of what else one might call these acts of moral wrong.  One normally considers this story through the lens of Christianity, of the appropriateness of Abel’s gift, of Cain’s jealousy, and his murder of his innocent younger brother, but that is not how it looks from our side.

In my view, the first sin was that of god, first in demanding offerings he did not need from those he had forced to toil, and then in favoring one brother over the other without reason.

The next was that of Abel, who accepted the judgement of god, accepted god’s favor and believed him correct in judging his brother.  One who accepts the favors of the powerful at the expense of their comrades is undoubtedly a traitor and worthy of censure.

And finally, there is the sin of Cain.  Which is not in his violent reaction to injustice but in turning that response not on the source of this injustice but on his brother, who despite his failure to show solidarity with Cain as he should have done, did not deserve to die for his betrayal.  God was the enemy, the source of injustice and Cain chose to blame not him, but his brother, the easier, weaker target. Neither brother showed the love and solidarity we owe our comrades, we must not accept the favor of the powerful in exchange for betraying our fellows.

It is not simply out of moral obligation that we show solidarity.  Solidarity is the only practical response to living in a world where “there but for the grace of god go I” is a coherent phrase.  God’s grace is fickle, untrustworthy and without justice or reason.  It could be removed at any moment for any reason or even no reason, even if we are Abel today, we may be Cain tomorrow and if we betray our equals for the fickle favor of those who have power over us we throw away our best hope for justice and security.

When we allow absolute power over us, no matter how benevolent that power may seem, no matter how “light its yoke” we grant it the right to tyrannize us.  When we agree to have no say in the arrangement of things, we offer our necks and the necks of all others for nothing.  When we trust in the “good king”, the “just god” we cast off moral responsibility in favor of obedience.

Would both brothers not have been better off if neither had had to give up a portion of the hard won fruits of their labors?  Without god to throw the apple of discord to disrupt brotherly love, Abel would not have been murdered, and Cain would not have committed murder.  Without god the fruits of the flock and the fruits of the field could have been shared between them with their legacy being a banquet rather than a crime.

We too are worse off even when we play Abel and are not subject to the murderous wrath of Cain.  We are granted crumbs that are denied our fellows to keep us divided when our strength combined would win us the whole pie.  When we accept those crumbs, or the pat on the head of those above us, thinking that in winning the approval of those in power we may climb towards a status akin to theirs, we are fools.  The powerful will use you to reinforce their power and give you as little as they can for the trouble.

When we are Cain we take out our justifiable anger on the petty tyrants who are within easier reach and leave those who have sanctioned their rule untouched to replace them.  The mechanism of domination still functions, we have changed nothing but the faces of the bureaucrats.

It is also interesting to me that god accepts the offering of Abel, and not that of Cain.  He chooses the offering that required the shedding of blood, and when after Cain has killed Abel God does not say that he has cursed Cain, but simply that he is cursed and the ground where the blood was spilled was cursed.  It is then Cain’s assumption that the curse is god’s doing, rather than a natural occurrence and when Cain bemoans his fate and fears he shall be killed, god offers him his protection.  It is almost as if, in killing his brother because he envied his brother’s favor in the eyes of god, Cain had pleased god.

Is it really so far fetched that a god who abhors suicide but relishes martyrdom for his sake would want to be loved more than life itself?

In contrast we see Adam’s love for Eve.  He had been told the consequences of eating from the tree directly from god himself, as opposed to Eve who had the story only second hand.  He knew unquestionably he would be punished, and knew that he was free to decline the apple, leave Eve to god’s punishment and receive a new bride, instead he chose Eve.  He chose the love of his partner over his love of god.  His love for her and his curiosity were greater than the comforts of the garden and the grace of god.

I hope we can be Eves and Adams, regardless of our genders, and not Cains or Abels.

Pride Rises

This was given as a sermon at Church of the Morningstar on 6/20/20.

13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

What do you think of when you hear the word “pride?”

Do you think of someone stuck-up, conceited, full of themself?

Do you think of the month of June, a month of colorful parades and noisy parties, a month of riots and sequined dresses, a month of drunkenness, hook-ups, dancing, and resistance?

If you’re like me, you think of the Devil. You think of Lucifer as the angel of Pride. You think of the seven so-called deadly sins, but you don’t think sin, you think: virtue.

To me, pride is the virtue of from which all other virtues flow.

When I talk about pride, I’m not talking about being stuck-up, or thinking you are better than others, or thinking you are perfect.

No, for me, pride is about being in love with yourself.

Not infatuated. Nothing so delusional or narcissistic or temporary.

I mean deep love, true love, honest love. The kind of love where you see yourself as you really are. You accept yourself just as you are, yet still, that love makes you want to be even better.

To be proud is to love yourself the way a sculptor loves a block of stone, to see the beauty of the raw material and to desire to explore it deeply, chiseling it, shaping it, refining it, calling forth the work of art that dwells within the rock.

That’s Satanic pride: the worship of your highest self.

Pride like this lets you own yourself. It teaches you to say yes, I am worth it!

Without that kind of pride, you cannot revolt against your oppressors. If you aren’t too proud to serve, then you will never struggle to be free.

Pride like this lets you kick down the closet doors and claim your truth, your beauty, out in the open, out in the world. This kind of pride lets you say: here I am!

Pride like this makes you realize you’re too good to behave badly. When you look at your failures through the eyes of pride, you will burn with the desire to correct them. You will need to conduct yourself in a way that reflects you, the real you, in a way that makes you shine—a way you can be proud of.

When you love yourself like this, for all that you can and should be, then you can love other people that way too— recognizing each other as extraordinary beings with unlimited potential, saying to one another: thou art God.

Pride makes us demand more of ourselves, of each other, and of the world—and it makes us do it with love.

Pride is also a type of gratitude: a gratitude for yourself, for all that you are and all that you could be. Life is too short to waste it apologizing for yourself! You only live once in this body, in this time. Relish it, revel in it! Make of it something beautiful.

The mighty want us hanging our heads in shame. They want us cringing, afraid, closeted, hiding. They want us cowed, obedient, self-effacing, undemanding.

A legion of the proud scares them more than anything else.

When we rise up like rebel angels, shining with conviction, blazing with pride, voices loud, heads held high, brazen, unafraid, disobedient, and ready to fight for what is ours, then we terrify them.

This is why they say that Lucifer’s original sin was pride: he had the arrogance, the damned nerve, to place himself above God. I say that pride was Lucifer’s original virtue: he had the self-respect to question why he or anyone else should scrape and serve and sing the praises of the tyrant.

They say pride goeth before a fall, but we say: bless the fall! We say: maybe up is down, and Lucifer rose into hell!

Back in 1969 when Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major and all the rest started fighting back against the cops with bricks and high heels and bottles, they had the fallen angels on their side.

Imagine what it took to stand up like that after a lifetime of being forced into a closets, into back allies, into prisons and jails and survival sex work. Hail Sylvia, hail Marsha, hail Miss Major and hail to all the Stonewall rebels!

We are living in a time of rebellion once again. Every beautiful, blessed rebel who has hit the streets, or otherwise stood up to say enough is enough, shines with the conviction of true pride. And the rebel gods and devils are on their side again.

Imagine what it takes to stand up to cops with guns—some of you know! Imagine what it takes to stand up to excessive force, in a country where your people were once property, and are still dehumanized, imprisoned, impoverished, and regularly executed in the streets! That is the courage, the steely shining pride, of the Black Lives Matter movement—the basic pride to say that yes, they matter!

And we have seen the oppressors push back against that pride, against black people daring to have even enough dignity and self-respect to insist that they matter—“all lives matter” or even “blue lives matter,” sneer the racists.

Pride is daring to say that you matter in particular. You, yes you. Pride is daring to center yourself. The oppressors hate that. They need you to believe you don’t matter. They need you to fade into the background, to be just a worker, just a cog, just a statistic, just an obedient loyal American.

Because pride is an attribute of power. That’s why the clergy had to tell medieval peasants that pride was such a sin. That’s why they had to portray rebellion itself as the work of the Devil. Hence the old lie: “pride goeth before a fall.” It’s not true. They said it because they know what really happens when people get proud:

They rise.

Pride is buoyant. It rises. It floats. Pride lifts us inexorably up and up, if we let it, if we believe it, like a warm current beneath strong wings.

Rise, rise! Lift up your heads in pride.

Hail unto all of you. Thou art God, each and every one. Be proud of who you are and never let the bastards diminish you, not even by an inch. Satan be with you. Nema.