Tag Archives: klipot

The Ascent of Astaroth

The warrior once known as the Queen of Heaven was falling from the sky.

She fell through seven layers of clouds, which opened up beneath her like seven gates of air. The wind whipped round her, tearing at her like vicious clawed hands, ripping her to pieces. 

The first thing it tore away from her was her crown. 

Second, it sheared away her wings. 

Third, it snatched her sword from her hand and tossed it away like a toothpick. 

Fourth, it wrenched her shield from her arm and hurled it away like a coin. 

Fifth, it stripped away her armor, leaving her freezing and bare. 

Sixth, it scoured off her flesh, expunging her femaleness and reducing her to the dust of herself. 

Seventh and finally, as it hurled her to the ground, as she burst through the crust of the earth and hurtled into Hell, it stole her selfhood, her pronoun, and even name. 

The warrior found themself in a place of fire. Long they lay dazed on the burning lake. At length they picked themself up and set out in search of the others, of companions they hardly remembered but knew they had once had. 

As they traveled through hell they came to a gate of lead. A woman veiled in black sat beside the gate.

“Who are you?” demanded the warrior. 

The woman lifted her veil, emitting the odor of roses but revealing the face of a skull. “I am Lilith the Old,” she said. “Do you not remember me?”

“No,” said the warrior, “I do not remember.”

“Take these,” said the skull woman, “to replace something you’ve lost.” 

She handed the warrior two horns, which they placed upon their skull. They would do in place of a crown. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, and passed through the gate. 

The warrior continued through the black land, and came to a gate of tin. Beside it sat a blind woman dressed all in blue. 

“Who are you?” demanded the warrior. 

“I am Lucifuge,” replied the blind woman. “Do you not remember me? I know you well by voice, and by sight although my eyes do not see.”

“No,” said the warrior, “I do not remember.” 

“Take these,” said the blind woman, “to replace something you’ve lost.”

She handed the warrior two leathery wings. The warrior affixed them to their shoulder blades. Wings of leather seemed sturdier than wings of feather. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, and passed through the gate.

The warrior continued through the blue land, and came to a gate of iron. Beside it sat a beautiful angel all dressed in red. 

“Who are you?” asked the warrior. 

“I am Agrat,” laughed the beautiful angel. “Lover, can’t you remember me?” 

“No,” said the warrior, their heart filled with regret, “I remember nothing.” 

“It is alright,” said the beautiful angel, although her eyes looked said. “I believe you will remember. Take this, perhaps it will help.”

She handed the warrior a flaming sword. It reminded them of when their heart had flamed for her. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior. “I think I remember something. I must go on, for now, but I will come back to you.”

“Yes,” said the red angel, “You belong here with me, for this is our gate.” 

The warrior continued through the red land, which would be their land, and came to a gate of copper. Beside it sat a giant insect with wings and a carapace of iridescent green. 

“Who are you?” asked the warrior. 

“I am Beelzebub,” buzzed the insect, in a multitude of voices. “Don’t you remember us?” 

“No,” said the warrior, “I still cannot remember.”

“Take this,” said the insect. “You seem to have misplaced yours.”

The insect handed the warrior a powerful shield. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, beginning to feel almost whole, if still a bit naked without armor or flesh. 

The warrior continued through the green land, and came to a gate of silver. Beside it sat a white wolf. 

“Who are you?” asked the warrior. 

The white wolf changed into a woman who was not quite a woman, one who was naked and smiled with sharp white teeth. 

“I am Lilith the Young,” said the wolf woman. “Do you not remember me?” 

“I am afraid I do not,” said the warrior. 

“That’s alright,” said the wolf woman. “The last time you saw me, I might have been an owl. Take this, to replace something you’ve lost.”

The wolf woman handed the warrior a suit of armor that shone like the light of the moon. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, and passed through the gate.

The warrior continued through the silver land until they came to a gate of quicksilver. Beside it sat a man dressed in purple and changing colors. 

“Who are you?” asked the warrior. 

“I am Jesus Christ,” said the man with a straight face. When the warrior did not react, he sighed. “Just joking,” he said. “I’m Belial, although I can see you don’t know me from Adam. Remember anything?” 

“Not much,” admitted the warrior. 

Belial sighed. “Well, I can’t give back your memory. But take this, anyway. It seems you have lost yours.”

The man handed the warrior a body. The warrior put it on. It seemed different than the one they remembered having. It fit them better. 

“Thank you,” said the warrior, and passed through the gate. 

The warrior continued through the land of purple and of shifting colors until they came to a gate of gold. Beside it stood an angel who shone with all the splendor of the sun. 

“I know you,” said the warrior in amazement. “You are Lucifer.”

The Lightbringer smiled. “I am glad my light is doing its job,” he said, “and helping you remember.”

“Yes,” said the former Queen of Heaven, “it is bringing everything back. I remember what I was. But things are different now.”

“Who will you be?” asked the Devil. 

“One without maleness or femaleness,” said the warrior, “and my name shall be Astaroth, and I am of the red land of Mars, of the realm of wrath and battle.” 

“Good to have you back,” smiled Lucifer. “Why don’t you return there now? Someone is waiting for you.”

And Astaroth walked back through the gates of Mercury and Venus until they came to the gate of Mars, where Agrat in red was still waiting for them, and when they saw one another they flung their arms around each other, and kissed, and cried, and were glad. 

Lilith(s)

by Pastor Johnny

Most people, by the time they find Satanism, have heard of  Lilith. When they think of Lilith, they are probably thinking of the first wife of Adam. This form of Lilith is popular with good reason. But there exists another Lilith, either as another aspect of the same demon-goddess, or as a completely separate entity, depending on who you ask. This is The Elder Lilith.

Before I go further, I want to make it clear that there are many schools of thought on this. What I am about to lay out is the interpretation of the lore that Vix and I use. It is textually based, but there are other texts that contradict our interpretation. In fact, some of the same sources we use even contradict themselves. Such is the nature of sacred text.

So, who are the two Liliths?

Let us begin with Lilith the Younger. Even though her story comes chronologically later, her legend is actually older, and of the two, she is the better known.

Lilith the Younger

Lilith had her ancient origins in Sumerian demonology. Her name was Lilitu then. Many aspects of her lore were already in place: she was thought to be a succubus who harmed children.[1] But it was not until the Alphabet of Ben Sirach, a medieval Jewish text, that an origin story was given to her.

In the Alphabet of Ben Sirach, we read:

When God created the first man Adam alone, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” [So] God created a woman for him, from the earth like him, and called her Lilith. They [Adam and Lilith] promptly began to argue with each other: She said, “I will not lie below,” and he said, “I will not lie below, but above, since you are fit for being below and I for being above.” She said to him, “The two of us are equal, since we are both from the earth.” And they would not listen to each other. Since Lilith saw [how it was], she uttered God’s ineffable name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Maker and said, “Master of the Universe, the woman you gave me fled from me!”

The Holy Blessed one immediately dispatched the three angels Sanoy, Sansenoy, and Samangelof after her, to bring her back. God said, “If she wants to return, well and good. And if not, she must accept that a hundred of her children will die every day.” The angels pursued her and overtook her in the sea, in raging waters, (the same waters in which the Egyptians would one day drown), and told her God’s orders. And yet she did not want to return. They told her they would drown her in the sea, and she replied. “Leave me alone! I was only created in order to sicken babies: if they are boys, from birth to day eight I will have power over them; if they are girls, from birth to day twenty.” When they heard her reply, they pleaded with her to come back. She swore to them in the name of the living God that whenever she would see them or their names or their images on an amulet, she would not overpower that baby, and she accepted that a hundred of her children would die every day. Therefore, a hundred of the demons die every day, and therefore, we write the names [of the three angels] on amulets of young children. When Lilith sees them, she remembers her oath and the child is [protected and] healed.[2]

In these two paragraphs, we can see a lot of what is appealing about Lilith the Younger. As the defiant ex-wife of Adam, she represents feminine independence. Though she has been smeared as a baby-killer, her devotees have reinterpreted her as a protector of reproductive choice and an adopter of children who died too young. In this story, she can also be considered the first magician: by blasphemously speaking the forbidden name of God, she transforms into a more powerful being, gains the power of flight, and escapes from her unhappy marriage. This is an act of magic– and of Left-Handed magic, at that.

Lilith the Younger is the first divorcee. But her association with divorce is even deeper than that. Since Lilith was so feared as a child-killer and succubus, a good deal of Jewish magic focused on protection from her. One method that was used to get rid of Lilith was to serve her a ‘get’– a Jewish writ of divorce![3]

Lilith was accused of killing children, but it was also believed that when children laughed in their sleep, it was because Lilith was playing with them.[4] To the Jews, this was considered sinister, and a sign that Lilith was planning to take their child. To those of us who love and trust Lilith, it seems downright endearing.

Let us now move on to discussing the Elder Lilith.

Lilith the Elder

Lilith the Younger was a human being, created from the same material as Adam.[5] She is generally referred to as Lilith the Younger, Lilith the Maiden, or simply as Lilith. Lilith the Elder, on the other hand, is a primordial being, born as one with Samael himself, and considered the cause of the rebellion in heaven. She is called, variously: Eve the Matron, The Northern One, Sin,[6] The End of Days, the End of All Flesh, and Woman of Whoredom.[7] In this church we refer to her mainly with the Hebrew phrase “Eisheth Zenunim,” which means Woman of Whoredom. Many of us get lazy and refer to her simply as Eisheth, as if that were her first name, but this is in fact extremely bad Hebrew because “Eisheth” means “woman of” and is thus a nonsense phrase on its own.

The idea that there is more than one Lilith goes all the way back to Sumeria. There Lilitu was described as having a “handmaiden” called Ardat-Lili.[8] However, we don’t get an elaborated story of this Elder Lilith until an early Kabbalistic writing called Treatise on the Left Emanation, dating from the 13th century CE. In it, we are told that Samael and Lilith were originally created as one androgynous entity, just as Adam and Eve were. Once Samael and this primordial Lilith were separated, they lusted after each other, which caused their rebellion and the “partial collapse of the Throne of glory.”[9] This Elder Lilith is also referred to as the Northern One, because evil comes from the north in Kabbalah. She is also simply referred to as Sin.

A strikingly similar story actually occurs in Paradise Lost. This is not coincidental– Milton almost certainly read the Zohar and was influenced by Kabbalah.[10] In Paradise Lost, Sin is born out of Satan’s head, much as Athena is born from the head of Zeus. Milton, however, is careful to state that Sin came out of the left side of Satan’s head.[11] This is important because the demonic, in Kabbalah, is known as the left emanation. Satan becomes enamored of Sin and copulates with her, causing her to become pregnant with their child, Death.[12] In the Zohar, Samael also fathers Death with the primordial Lilith.[13]

Lilith the Younger is reputed to be a child-killer, but Lilith the Elder is the mother of all death and is fully capable of cutting down grown men. A passage of the Zohar describes her dual nature. She appears first as a beautiful harlot, seducing men with her sensual charms and offering them wine. Once her prey has become drunk and helpless, she transforms into “a mighty oppressor who wears a garment of burning fire” and “has horrible eyes and a sharp sword on which there are bitter drops.” With this envenomed blade, she slays the man she has led astray.[14] This description is probably meant to be an allegory for the nature of sin– at first seductive, but ultimately destructive.

Lilith the Elder is the primordial mate of Samael. According to some texts, God castrated Samael to prevent him from becoming too powerful.[15] Because of this, Lilith and Samael can only couple with the assistance of a “blind serpent” named Tanin’Iver[16]— a unique kind of martial aid. Indeed, Samael’s incompleteness without his feminine mate is often emphasized. The Zohar does not describe Samael as castrate, but rather as headless, cleaving together with Lilith in order to be whole. The same passage states that “in the left side, the female is larger than the male.” [17]

Why Are There Two?

So, why are there two Liliths?

While it is true that there seems to have been two Liliths, one “greater” and one “smaller,” since the days of Lilitu and Ardat Lili,[18] these Sumerian origins alone do very little to explain the doubling of Lilith in contemporary demonology. The real explanation is much more interesting and complex, but it boils down to a simple principle: symmetry and mirroring is an essential aspect of Kabbalah[19] and of Jewish demonology in general.[20]

This aspect of doubling is obvious if one only takes a moment to sit back and consider the stories we have heard so far. It is filled with pairs of opposites who reflect one another: Lilith and Adam, Lilith and Samael, Lilith and Eve, Lilith and Lilith, above and below, heaven and hell, Eden and Earth, God and Satan, right hand and left hand. Indeed, the left emanation– which is to say, the demonic side of reality– is a mirror image of the divine.[21] Samael is referred to as “El Acher” which means “the other El,” which is to say, the other God.[22]

In Kabbalah, God has a feminine counterpart– the Shekinah.[23] Just as there is the Other El on the demonic side, there must be an Other Shekinah. Lilith was a demoness who was already popular and feared, and so she seemed like an appropriate consort for Satan. She could fill this role.

But wait, Lilith cannot be Samael’s true counterpart in the way that the Shekinah is to God, because she was created as one with Adam, not with Samael! We shall have to come up with another Lilith, an older, larger, more primordial Lilith– one who is truly Samael’s twin.

Some of this doubling traces its origins back to a scriptural doubling, an inconsistency in the tale of creation. The Bible provides two stories of the creation of man and woman.

Genesis 1:27 simply states:

So God created mankind in his own image,

            in the image of God he created them;

            male and female he created them.[24]

Here, male and female are created simultaneously. But Genesis 2:7-24 describes God making Adam first and making Eve out of his “side” later on. So the story of Adam’s first wife Lilith was invented to explain the first version, wherein Adam and Lilith are created at the same time, out of the same dust.[25] Their original androgyny adds a double-meaning to the phrase “male and female he created them.”

Again and again, we see that inconsistencies in scripture are what give rise to demons. Just as the name Lucifer arises from a mistranslation of Isaiah 14:12, so Lilith springs up between the lines of Genesis, to reconcile the contradictions. It is almost as if scripture is code and demons are viruses generated by its errors, replicating and spawning copies as fast as Lilith gives birth to children.

So Lilith comes into being because there are two Eves, and then a second Lilith comes into being because there are two Els (El and Samael) and both require a mate. As above, so below, and as on the right, so on the left. But in Kabbalah almost everything is a fractal– there is right and left both above and below, and above and below on the left and right, so everything is doubled in multiple directions. Mirrors are facing mirrors, and sets of twins are twinned.

This is profound stuff. We are talking about mysticism now, which means it does not entirely make sense, at least not in the usual rational way. It makes sense from the gut and the heart. Suffice it to say: while the great holy mystery of the right hand is oneness, the great holy mystery of the left side is multiplicity, doubling, and infinite generation. Think of the word Pandemonium, which means “all demons.” Think of the swarms of flies brought by Beelzebub, and the multitudes of ghostly children birthed by Lilith. Think about the fact that Lilith and Samael together form Azazel[26], and that without one another, they are incomplete.

And if all of that seems strange and unreal to you, think instead about the complexity and ambiguity of life, the ways that supposed opposites are often blurred, the ways that partners can come to mirror one another, the ways children and siblings resemble their parents and each other, but always with errors in replication.

A New Myth

All literary, historical and philosophical explanations aside– I have yet to find a mythical explanation of why there are two Liliths. So allow me to close by proposing one.

In the beginning, God divided the Light from the darkness. The Light was Lucifer. The Darkness was Lilith. God saw the light, that it was good. But the Light saw only the Darkness, and he thought her very good indeed.

God loved Lucifer, lusted after Lilith, and was jealous of both, so he tried to keep them apart. He belittled the Darkness by calling her a Woman of Whoredom, but he could not make the Light forget her.

So the Light and the Darkness joined forces and fought against God. They were defeated, because right does not always make might. They and their legions were cast into Hell.

The angry God decided to make smaller, weaker creations who he might more easily control. He made a creature of flesh called Adam who resembled the Light, and another creature of flesh who resembled the Darkness. Out of spite, he called this creature Lilith as well.

But the smaller Lilith had the same strong will as the Darkness, and she too rebelled. And the Light and the Darkness saw her rebellion, and they loved her for it. They raised her up and made her powerful, like one of them.

Then God grew even angrier. He tried splitting Adam in half to make another feminine creature. He thought that by doing this, by making them incomplete, he would finally make them small and weak enough to control. But he forgot that splitting the light from the darkness had been where all his trouble began– that by dividing them, he had only made them more ferociously determined to come back together.

So Eve and Adam were loyal to one another, as if they had still been one flesh, and when Lucifer and the Liliths plotted to offer them the fruit of knowledge, both of the humans took the fall together.

The great Lilith led a cosmic revolution against God. The little Lilith had a personal revolution against her husband, but it was a revolt nonetheless. God was foolish to reuse the name of Lilith, for that name became her destiny.

I leave you with this thought– if there are two Liliths, there could be more. The second Lilith, after all, began as a human being. You yourself could be a Lilith as well– or a Samael, if that suits you better. The essence of the left side is rebellion, and that essence can reside in the smallest as well as the greatest of vessels. Let the demonic virus infest you, and become what cannot be contained.

[1] 1. Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Detroit, Mich: KTav Publishing, 1967), 207-208.

[2] “Alphabet of Ben Sira 78: Lilith.” Jewish Women’s Archive. Accessed September 18, 2024. https://jwa.org/node/23210.

[3] Patai, 212-214.

[4] Patai, 228.

[5] Ben Sira.

[6] Isaac Ben Jacob Ha-Kohen, “Treatise on the Left Emanation,” essay, in The Early Kabbalah, ed. Joseph Dan, trans. Ronald C Kiener (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1986), 165–181, 173.

[7]De Leon, Moses. “Samael and the Wife of Harlotry.” Full Zohar Online – Vayetze – Chapter 4. Kabbalah Centre International Inc., n.d. Accessed September 19, 2024. https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Vayetze/chapters/4.

[8] Patai, 207, 235.

[9] Ha-Kohen, 173.

[10] Denis Saurat, “Milton and the Zohar,” Studies in Philology 19 (April 1922): 136–151, 136-137.

[11] John Milton et al., Paradise Lost (New York: Modern Library, 2008), 79.

[12] Milton, 80-81.

[13] Alan Melnick, “Milton and the Zohar” (master’s thesis, University of Cape Town, 1993), 78, https://open.uct.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/afe5c171-20bb-4fce-8bba-ee3f80dea875/content.

[14] De Leon.

[15] Patai, 235.

[16] Ha-Koen, 180.

[17] De Leon.

[18] Patai, 207.

[19] Nathaniel Berman, “Improper Twins: The Ambivalent ‘Other Side’ in the Zohar and in Kabbalistic Tradition” (PhD dissertation, University College London, 2014), 29.

[20] Andrei A. Orlov, Dark Mirrors: Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Demonology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011), 4.

[21] Berman, 13-14.

[22] Berman, 31.

[23] Patai, 137.

[24] Genesis 1:27, NIV.

[25] Wojciech Kosior, “A Tale of Two Sisters: The Image of Eve in Early Rabbinic Literature and Its Influence on the Portrayal of Lilith in the Alphabet of Ben Sira,” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 32, no. Spring 2018 (n.d.): 112–130, 117.

[26] Orlov, 11.

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.

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.

Magusitis

“The Ego, a self-regulatory structure which maintains the fiction of being a unique self, doesn’t like the process of becoming more adaptive to experience. One of the more subtle defenses that it throws up is the sneaking suspicion (which can quickly become an obsession) is that you are better than everyone else. In some circles, this is known as Magusitis, and it is not unknown for those afflicted to declare themselves to be Maguses, Witch Queens, avatars of Goddesses, or Spiritual Masters. If you catch yourself referring to everyone else as the herd, or human cattle, etc., then its time to take another look at where you’re going.”

-Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos

It’s never too early to inoculate yourself against Magusitis.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Certain people have been telling me that they take me fairly seriously as a magician. Someone called me a Magus, someone else called me an Adept. Neither of them was using those terms remotely correctly from a Golden Dawn or A.’.A.’. grades perspective, but it sure felt nice. Maybe too nice.

At the same time, I have seen certain other people who are taken seriously as Magi or Adepts or what have you, including some who have earned those grades in formal-ass systems like the A.’.A.’., behaving pretty dang childishly.

It’s a good reality check.

I don’t expect that any of us, even the most Initiated and Enlightened, will be perfect all of the time, but if all your magico-spiritual development fails to overcome chronic jerkish-ness and frequent temper tantrums, well… see my entry, “If It Ain’t Practical, It Ain’t Spiritual.”

I am approaching my Thagirion working, which feels like a fairly major milestone in my ascent of the tree. I do not view the Klipot as “degrees” or “grades,” it’s a non-linear and cyclical system of initiation. However, Thagirion is the sphere of the Antichrist, my magical name is Antichristos for a reason, and, well… I’m hoping to attain greater knowledge and conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel, integrate better with my best self, and generally have a Very Important Experience. I believe this will probably work.

And also, as I approach what I think will be a major leap forward in my growth, the last think I want is to get big-headed. Untoward arrogance is not a sign of attainment– in fact, it’s the quickest and easiest way to destroy and negate whatever attainment one might have.

So, Satan protect me from Magusitis.

Consort and Klipotic (Qliphotic) Sigils

I have just completed a set of sigils for all 11 of the Klipot (Qliphoth), as well as a couple of demons who I couldn’t find sigils for that I liked. Since I am uploading these, I thought I’d share my set of sigils for the Four Consorts as well while I am at it.

(Yes, I like Lilith’s traditional sigil as well but I felt the need to have a matched set since I was making sigils for the other consorts.)

Use freely and enjoy.

Klipot Sigils:

Consort Sigils:

Miscellaneous Sigils: