Tetragrammaton Meditation

This is a good all purpose meditation.  I do it while I’m falling asleep, whenever I feel like I need to center or protect myself, if I feel like I’m getting sick, and as preparation for other magic.  It calls upon the “Tetragrammaton”, the four-letter Name of G-d, yod-heh-vuv-heh.  

Begin by finding a comfortable position.  Because this meditation involves mentally “drawing” on the body, it’s best to do it either standing or laying down while you’re still learning it.  Your spine, arms, and legs should be straight, and pointed down.  I keep my eyes closed, but you can also do it with your eyes open.  

Take several deep, slow breaths and relax your body.   As you breathe in, feel strength and health flowing to every part of you.  As you breathe out, feel your body relax, shedding trouble, tension, disease, and toxicity.

Whenever you’re ready, focus your attention above the top of your head.  Gather energy from all around you, from the heavens, from the divine.  Feel the energy coalesce into a glowing ball, about the size of an apple, above your head.  Take several deep breaths, and feel the ball pulse with each breath.  When the ball is pulsing in harmony with your breath, take a deep breath and…

Contract the ball down to the size of a grape and allow it to sink to the middle of your forehead.  Take several deep breaths, and allow the ball of light to glow brightly.  Whenever you’re ready, use the point of light to draw the letter yod in a straight line from your third eye, down the bridge of your nose, across your lips (like you’re saying shhhhh), and down to the hollow of your throat.

Take several deep breaths, and pronounce the sound yod in your throat.  Feel the energy vibrating your vocal cords, and the letter glowing inside you.  Take several deep breaths, and whenever your ready….

Move the point of light to your left shoulder.  Use the light to draw the letter heh across your shoulders, down your right arm and out the center of your right palm, and then from you left shoulder down and out your left palm.  Take several deep breaths and pronounce the sound heh in your chest.  Feel the energy beating in your heart, and the letter glowing inside you.  Take several deep breaths, and whenever you’re ready…

Center the ball of light at your breast bone.  Whenever you’re ready, draw the letter vuv in a straight line down your center, from between your breasts, through your abdomen, ending between your legs.  Take several deep breaths and pronounce the sound vuv from your diaphragm.  Feel the energy vibrate in your spine, and the letter glowing inside of you.  Take several deep breaths, and, whenever you’re ready…

Move the ball of light to your left hip.  Draw the letter heh within yourself, across your hips, down your right leg, and into the ground.  Return to your left hip, and draw the light down your right leg.  Take several deep breaths and pronounce the letter heh.   Feel the sound resonating in your legs, and the energy of the letter deep within you.

Feel the legs of the heh descend through the bottom of your feet, and deep into the center of the Earth.  Feel the crown of the yod ascending through the top of your head, up up up to the heavens above.  The holy Name is a pillar of light, connecting Above and Below, with you the conduit uniting them.  Feel the strength of this connection, and the easy and free flow of energy within your body.  The light gently melts away any obstruction it find, and leaves you feeling clean and healthy.  Take several deep breaths, and let the letters sink into invisibility.  As the light fades, remember that the Name is still there, inside of you, where it’s always been.

Nothing is As Practical as Theory

Letters from your Fairy Godmother: Nothing is as Practical as Theory

By now, if you started when I posted about it, you should have been doing the LBRP for about a week.  Let’s talk about why.  Seems crazy that I didn’t lead with that, right?  Just like in math, I think we all learn better by experimenting first.  “Geting your hands dirty” makes it easier to understand the theory.  I know that some magicians (including many chaos magicians) don’t put a whole lot of emphasis on theory, but I think its very important.  In the Metaphysics (which you should read), Artistotle says “When the objects of an inquiry, in any department, have principles/explanations [archae], conditions, or elements, it is through acquaintance with these that knowledge [episteme], that is to say scientific knowledge, is attained.”  I couldn’t agree more.  That being said, I’m kind of an intellectually pretentious douchbag (see earlier Aritstotle reference), so feel free to skip this lesson if you want.  

• The first reason is a little absurd:  it’s the sort of thing beginner magicians are “supposed” to learn; knowing it will make it easier for you to fit in to working with other “serious” magicians” when you find some to work with.  It will lend you a certain “status” as a “real” magician, which is bullshit, but sometimes its easier to just play the game.  
• Second, its a classic example of how classical ceremonial rituals are constructed.  Later in this post, we’ll do some deconstruction to learn how it fits together.  Understanding that will make it a little easier to build your own rituals.  
• Third, and most importantly, I think it’s a very powerful and effective ritual, but its really a very subtle and complicated one that does a lot more than just “banish”.

General Structure of the Ritual:

The ritual has three basic parts.  The first is called the Kabalistic Cross.  It’s general function is “center” the magician, preparing you for the work that follows.  By "center" I don't just mean to clear your head of distractions and focus on what you're doing (although I mean that too). I mean to ritually (metaphorically, if you prefer to think of it that way) place yourself at the center of the cosmos.

In the ritual, you start off by attatching yourself to Ein Soph, way up above your head.  I assume you learned all about Ein Soph in rabbinics class, but here’s my take.  Feel free to entirely disagree or even ignore all of this.  No matter what a certain bible teacher might say, your understanding of God is entirely between you and Him; the only real way to construct such an understanding is through direct experience of the thing itself.  Now, with disclaimers out of the way, here’s the understanding I’ve constructed for myself out of my experience.

Beyond our experience of the world, there’s a level at which all things are united in one completely harmonious thing. Our ability to work magic is grounded in this; the "divine harmony" connects all things, and so every piece of it is accessible from everywhere else. I think of working magic as pulling the strings that connect one thing to another; the ripples flow out of me to the ends of the world.  

I say “harmony”, but that’s not entirely right, because harmony arises when multiple different things come together.  The ultimate nature of Being, however, is that its all just one thing.  (Never trust anyone who proports to be telling you the “ultimate nature of Being”) What I mean to say is: when I’m deep in mystic trance, I experience reality as all one thing, and its convenient, for this particular explanation, for me to believe that my experience gives me some information about what the world is “really” like.  However, that “level” of reality isn’t one where we can really function for more than a few brief moments (or maybe I’m just not “enlightened” enough to stick it out there).  Between there and here, say the kabbalists, are three “veils” and ten “emanations”.  I’ll talk about all of this in more detail later (or, really, you should do some reading on your own;  “Pardes Rimmonim” is a good source.)  Here’s all you need to know to understand the kabbalistic cross.

The first (furthest from us) of the veils in called Ein.  You know how, in a Riemann sphere, all the ends gather together at infinity, so that no matter what direction you set out in, eventually (after infinitely long), you get to the same place?  Ein isn't the point at infinity that closes the plane. It isn't the sphere itself. It's the higher dimensional space in which that Riemann sphere is embedded.  (I’ll write more about dimensionality as a magical idea another time.  Suffice it to say that, when a magician who isn’t into math describes something as “noneuclidean” or “higher dimensional”, they usually seem to mean that it’s in some way non-metrizable (usually because it’s not fully positive definite)).

The next veil is called Ein Soph, which is where the kabbalistic cross begins.  Ein Soph is the feeling of vast and boundless possibility that accompanies creating things.  It's the moment when inspiration has hit, but not yet resolved into any definite form.  In the Kabbalistic Cross, we gather up some of this potential, and manifest into Being, using our body as the channel.  That, after all, is the basic function of human beings, it's on us to complete creation.

After you’ve “scooped up” some of the infinite possibility, you bring it down into your forehead.  In the traditional Golden Dawn version, you say "ata", asserting that the potential isn’t yours at all, because you’re acting in the place of God.  The thing is, those are the same thing, but a lot of people need to be reminded.  (I think magicians who came up Christian might say something closer to “acting as an instrument of God”, but that seems silly to me.)  In any case, when you do this, you’re holding the divine potential in  your forehead, where its associated with a sephira called keter.  Here’s an important piece of wisdom for you: Keter doesn’t mean “king”, it means “crown”.  When you say "Yours" in the crown, you’re putting on that crown.

From there, you move down the central column of your body, and down into the earth.  Here, a kabbalist would say that your manifesting in malkuth.  Humans form the bridge between heaven and earth, between the ideal and the manifest, standing like a pillar at the center of creation.  

When you come back up and put your arms out, you're standing like a balance scale, with gevorah (din) on one side and gedulah (chesed) on the other.  There’s a whole bit in talmud explaining how justice and mercy temper each other, and how they balance each other at.  The only really relevant part for you is that, when you’re doing the LBRP, you’re the balance point between those two extremes.  Finally, you stand at the center of it all and assert that it will last “ha olam”.  

When you’ve finished the cross, you’ve rituallt announced to the world that you’re at its center, as well as sinking deep roots into the earth, the heavens, the left and the right that can serve to stablize you for what’s coming next.  You can do just the kabbalistic cross by itself when you feel the need to be more stable.  Some people also tack it onto the end of a ritual to sort of “seal” it.

This post seems unreasonably long already. I'll write to you about the pentagrams tomorrow.

Hermes Cakes

This recipe is a greek spice cake I learned to make from my mother who learned from my great aunt Lilly.  I have changed the recipe somewhat.  My mother wasn't much of a baker, but my Aunt Lilly (whom I only sort of remember, she was actually my great Aunt who died when I was little) was an amazing cook.  I use this to make offering cupcakes for Hermes.  Also, they are delicious.  They're quite heavily spiced; feel free to cut back on the spices if you want.

Ingredients:
1 cup pistachios, chopped up (almonds or walnuts are also ok, or you can just leave the nuts out entirely)
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground mace (if you have it, otherwise, just double the nutmeg)

1/2 tsp black pepper, ground (seriously, it's good)

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground mastic (if you have it.  if not, just skip it.  Greek and Turkish grocers carry it. It tastes kind of like pinesol flavored chewing gum, but in a good way.)
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup yoghurt (real greek yoghurt; if not, strain it overnight)
1 orange worth of zest (optional)
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup melted butter or oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix dry ingredients except sugar.

Mix sugar and eggs.

Mix wet ingredients into sugar and eggs. Whisk well.

Mix wet into dry.  Mix well.

Pour into cupcake liners in cupcake tray.  You can also make it in a pan, but I like cupcakes.  

Bake for 20-30 minutes, until done.

A traditional Greek thing to do is bake a dime inside a cake for New Years.  Such a cake is called Vasilopita (King's cake).  Whoever gets the dime in their slice gets extra luck and sometimes a prize (or breaks a tooth)   Mercury dimes are fun for this.  Don't choke on the dime.  I think there's some kind of Christian folk-story about St. Basel and dime cakes, but I don't really know.  If you make it that way, it should really be round to be traditional.

What's in a name?

A friend asks: "As I understand it, I'm talking more to an idea than to a person. Is it the name that matters, or is it more about what the name represents?"


Good question!  There's a lot of debate around this issue.  Most views fall along a sort of spectrum:

• It's all in your head.  When you talk to a spirit, you're really just talking to a piece of your subconscious self.
• Spirits are egregores; that is to say, they begin inside of people's heads, but attain a sort of independent existence based on human beliefs about them.
• Spirits are real and independent of you, exactly the same way that monkeys and rocks and coca cola are real.  They do not rely on humans for their existence.  They're still there when you close your eyes.

The weird thing is, at least when you're just beginning with magic, it doesn't really matter.  In my experience, it's easiest to work magic if you behave as if spirits have at least some existence of their own, outside of you.

What do I think?  Hard to say.  For most of my time as a magician, I would have said that spirits were egregores.  These days, I'm coming around to a more complicated position.  You see, I do sort of think that spirits have their genesis in belief/thought/Mind, but I'm starting to think that trees and monkeys and coca cola do too.  The thing of it is, those things are all figments of imagination too.  God breathes creation into being moment by moment, that's why he's called Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh.  That's a thing that humans can do to.  Only we (and God) can create ex nihlo, bring forth something where once there was nothing, think things into being (make stuff up).  Here's what I can say from experience; intent is very important, but it's not everything.  If someone calls Lilith to help them get pregnant, it will not work.  If someone calls Lilith to empower herself as a feminist, it may or may not work.  If you call Lilith to curse an enemy to miscarry (you monster!  seriously!  don't do this), it may or may not work.  But, if you call Lilith in front of an abortion clinic to curse pro-life picketers, it takes about 15 minutes for them to get arrested (for assaulting you; be ready to get hit).  (I picked Lilith as an example because beliefs about her have moved so rapidly and vary so widely between communities that she makes a good example of problems in the "egregore" model.)

Now, on to your actual question, about names.  I'm a big believer in the magical efficacy and power of names.  Partly because I'm Jewish, and we're big on that.  Mostly, though, it's because the book that most shaped my ideas of magic when I was first learning was fiction in which that was a main theme.  (Don't you judge me!  I was 13.)  It's also just an aesthetic preference of mine; I like names and words and symbols and that sort of thing.  I'm not much a of a drawer, and I'm the worst musician ever, but I'm actually an ok writer, so it's to my benefit to believe very powerfully in the power of names.

Here's my take on it.  Different gods are different, but they're not as discreet as people are.  (Actually, people aren't really as discreet as they seem to be either, but that's a different lesson.)  Treating Hermes and Thoth and Mercury as interchangeable isn't so far from the truth.  They're all closely related, and they've been syncretized for millennia.  When you start to throw Ganesh and Anansi and Legba into the mix, then you're not really dealing with a god at all anymore, you're really just dealing with an idea, and a vague and confusing one at best.  (And these guys are far more similar than many other gods who get lumped together.  Pretty much the only thing Aphrodite, Ishtar, and Freya have in common is their lack of a penis, but lots of people try to equate them.)

Some people will try to sell you a line like "All gods are one god, all goddesses are one goddess."  I think that's total bullshit for a couple of reasons.  It's certainly true that, at the end (beginning) of things, there's only one God, but all gods are God only in the same sense that all demons are God, and all people are God, and all trees are God, and all electrons are God.  Honestly, though, that truth isn't terribly useful (or maybe I'm just not enlightened enough to use it?).

Ask a Witch

Puck asks: I kinda want to have a long talk about life with Hermes/Thoth/something that represents communication or writing. Would writing about him(her? It?) Be a good way to do that? 

NOTE: These instructions were originally written for a Jewish 16 year old, so they're framed with more Jewish and more protection than I usually would.  You can frame it anyway you want.  Automatic writing is not a religious activity, it's one available to all humans at all times.

Absolutely!

My go-to method for speaking with beneficent spirits is automatic writing; it's not a good method for dealing with less-friendly or less well-known spirits, because it doesn't offer a lot in the way of protection.  Basically, it's just writing while you're in trance.  Here's how I do it, but there are lots of other methods.  I developed this method when I was a freshman in college, after I read Austin Osmond Spare's essay on "Automatic Drawing", but I've refined it since then.

I find it much easier to write long hand than to try to type automatically.  My computer goes a little crazy when I try to use it for magic.  However, many other people get excellent results with "cyber magic", so try it both ways.  This guy: http://boundary-crosser.blogspot.com/ for example, is the techno-magician in my circle, but he rarely updates his blog, because he's a loser.  (Love you, Jason!) 

I find it easiest to use a "magic" marker and unlined paper.  I like felt tip markers ("flair" pens by papermate are very perfect) because they come in lots of colors and they require the minimum of manual dexterity.  My writing becomes quite indecipherable when in trance, even more so if the ink is skipping and smudging).  I transcribe the writing into a more readable format (usually typed) after I'm done.  That helps me process it, and also collect it.  Make sure to have LOTS of paper on hand.  I write very big, with lots of white space when I do this, and there's nothing more frustrating than running out of paper.

Start by "setting the mood".  Pick some incense or oil that's associated with the spirit you want to make contact with.  Listen to some thematically appropriate music.  Print out a picture of the spirit and stare at it.  Whatever.  

Get into your magic headspace somehow.  Lately, I've been partial to the "Deep Meditation" tone from here: http://iso-tones.com/index.php/tones/spiritual with very deep slow breathing and circulating the microcosmic orbit, which I only recently figured out how to do.  I don't really know how to teach it to you.  Many people, however, seem to find that sort of thing much easier than I do, so give it a shot.  I suspect you will be good at it.  Like with all things, don't force it.  If it feels injurious or sickening, stop, banish, and rest.

Once I'm feeling relaxed and "in the zone", I begin writing out an oration.  An oration is a kind of a preliminary prayer evocation that lists the names and qualities of the spirit you're looking for.  I always call Hashem first. (That's a total lie...I occasionally call Hashem first, but not often, unless I'm doing "big mojo" kind of work.  However, you can do it all the time until you know what you're doing if you want.  You don't have to.)  I write them spontaneously, but they follow a general format, that goes something like this.  

El Elyon, Adonai HaOlam, Immediate and Eternal, Instantaneous and Timeless, Emptiness beyond Darkness, Light Without Limit, Father of Heaven and Earth, Mother of the Ten Thousand Things, Mystery of Mysteries, Door to All Wonders, make open the way.  Open my eyes that I might see, open my ears that I might hear,  open my mouth that I might proclaim your Glory.  Send NAME to me, that we might freely converse.  

I call you NAME, LONG LIST OF TITLES AND ATTRIBUTES.  Come to me, attend to me, speak with me, move my pen and answer my questions.  NAME, TITLES, ATTRIBUTES, I am Sarai, inheritor of the line of Abraham, daughter of the house of Jacob, with the voice of my ancestors, I call out to you, with the hands of the patriarchs and matriarchs of my tribe, I reach out to you, with the magic of Solomon, the Sorcerer King, whose blood is my blood, I call you forth, blah, blah, blah...  (This part can vary widely depending on the spirit and my mood)

After a little while of this (about a page worth, usually), I start to feel inspired to write things.  Often, it's just a list of words to start with, like Freudian free association   For me, I find that, they tend to phonetically circle around a "key word" (often a "magic name" or "mantra" type phrase), and once I find that, the words just start to flow.  When I was new to it, the first part of what the spirit (in those days, it was almost always Arbatel, the Revealer, Angel of the East) had to say was usually an effusive outpouring of love for me, and happiness that I'm finally listening.  Depends on the spirit though.  I try to write both end of the conversation, both whatever they spirit has to say and also any questions I have to ask.  Sometimes the spirit breaks into drawings or math or not-English or sometimes nonsense words.  If it's nonsense for more than a line or two, I just remind it that it has to speak in clear and intelligible English.  If I get stuck in the middle, or loose the connection, I go back to free associating words.  After a while, we run out of things to say, and I say thank you and good bye.  Then, I banish.  In particular, I wash my hands and put some water on the top of my head.  Then I transcribe and ponder.

Good luck!

Your Fairy Godmother

Cold Water

I went to the beach again today, this time at West Haven.  It was hazy and much cooler than yesterday, but not at all windy.  Not ideal beach weather, but still nice.  The weather, along with the weekday, made it almost completely deserted.  I sat and meditated for some time, but I had a lot of trouble focusing.  After much mind wandering, I finally settled in.  I'm not sure how long I was not thinking about things.  I circulated the microcosmic orbit, like I've been doing.  I did not notice being warm today, probably because the sun was overcast.  I went into the water, which was quite cold.  I didn't call Kuvoah, because I don't have an answer for him yet about the thing he wants me to do.  I'm pretty sure he was there, though.  But he didn't "make contact" either.  Instead, I just soaked in the elemental water.  Invoking cold water is very different than invoking refreshingly cool water.  It felt very still, not dead exactly, but just very unmoving.  I decided to go with it.  I stilled myself as much as I could, just floating, trying not to be, imagining the deepest void.  I toyed with the idea of just giving up everything, just letting go of my whole life, and drifting in the currents, going wherever I'm taken.  This idea was not entirely without appeal.  I didn't feel like I could act; not as if I was constrained.... I just didn't feel like a creature that had volition.  I don't know how long I floated there.  After a long time, I had a vision.  An honest to god, seeing things vision, which I almost never have.  It was a giant golden bird of prey who glowed like the sun, who changed into an angel, and told me that was enough of the water, that I should get out and go home.  I suddenly realized how cold I was.  I got out of the water, gathered up my stuff, and got in the car with the heat on.  I shivered for a long time before I was ready to drive home.  I passed a large park on my way home.  While I sat at the red light, a big hawk flew by.

I took a very hot shower when I got home, and ate some soup.  The end.

Sun and Sky and Sea

I went to the beach again today, this time in Norwalk with my friend M.  I got a little bit too much sun; my shoulders are quite pink. The magic went very well.

At first, she and I were just hanging out and gossiping and playing in the water.  After a while, I swam out deeper my own to do my Work while she wrote.  As before, I circulated the microcosmic orbit until I was full of sunshine, and so, so hot. (temperature hot, not sexy hot)  Do other people find that the microcosmic orbit makes them hot?  I think I might doing it wrong.  It was weird to do that while already in the cold water; a very fun interplay.

Again, I called Kuvoah.  It was much harder than before.  Perhaps because I was too far south, but probably just because I was less "in the zone". After a bit, he showed up.  It was much less physical this time, and there was no shape-shifting or sensation of being penetrated.  Kuvoah "asked" me to give something up; something I'm not sure I'm ready to let go of.  We "spoke" about it for a little while.  I said I'd keep thinking about it, which seemed to satisfy him, and then he left.  I've lost so much already this year, I feel I can be forgiven for a clinging to security a little longer.

I did a bit more water invocation, which was a little melancholy.  I came out of the water sort of sad, but we had to leave right after that.