Strategic Sorcery Course (52 Lessons)

Table of contents :
Strategic Sorcery - 52 Lessons - Jason Miller
Strategic Sorcery - 1 - Meditation Part 1
Strategic Sorcery - 2 - The Subtle Body & Energy
Strategic Sorcery - 3 - Zone Rites
Strategic Sorcery - 4 - Thought Management
Strategic Sorcery - 5 - Offerings Part 1
Strategic Sorcery - 6 - Offerings Part 2
Strategic Sorcery - 7 - Subtle Body Power Centers
Strategic Sorcery - 8 - Prayer + HGA
Strategic Sorcery - 9 - The Elements
Strategic Sorcery - 10 - Working with the Elements
Strategic Sorcery - 11 - The Planets Part 1
Strategic Sorcery - 12 - The Planets Part 2
Strategic Sorcery - 13 - Azoth
Strategic Sorcery - 14 - Materia Magica Part 1
Strategic Sorcery - 15 - Materia Magica Part 2
Strategic Sorcery - 16 - Materia Magica Part 3
Strategic Sorcery - 17 - Materia Magica Part 4
Strategic Sorcery - 18 - Materia Magica Part 5
Strategic Sorcery - 19 - Knowing and Using Your Environment
Strategic Sorcery - 20 - Dream Sorcery
Strategic Sorcery - 21 - The Planes
Strategic Sorcery - 22 - Astral Projection
Strategic Sorcery - 23 - Astral Mechanics
Strategic Sorcery - 24 - Artificial Spirits
Strategic Sorcery - 25 - Spirits of Place
Strategic Sorcery - 26 - Necromancy Part 1
Strategic Sorcery - 27 - Necromancy Part 2
Strategic Sorcery - 28 - Grimoire Spirits Part 1
Strategic Sorcery - 29 - Grimoire Spirits Part 2
Strategic Sorcery - 30 - Grimoire Spirits Part 3
Strategic Sorcery - 31 - The Strategic Sorcery Mini Grimoire
Strategic Sorcery - 32 - Spirit Houses
Strategic Sorcery - 33 - Meditation Part 2
Strategic Sorcery - 34 - 9 Principals of Strategic Sorcery
Strategic Sorcery - 35 - The Set Point and How to Move it
Strategic Sorcery - 36 - Tactical Timing
Strategic Sorcery - 37 - Will
Strategic Sorcery - 38 - Intelligence Gathering
Strategic Sorcery - 39 - Information Sorcery
Strategic Sorcery - 40 - Persona and Influence Work
Strategic Sorcery - 41 - Time Management
Strategic Sorcery - 42 - Strategic Sorcery Group Work
Strategic Sorcery - 43 - Healing
Strategic Sorcery - 44 - Attack Magick
Strategic Sorcery - 45 - The Causal Level
Strategic Sorcery - 46 - Financial Strategies Part 1
Strategic Sorcery - 47 - Financial Strategies Part 2
Strategic Sorcery - 48 - Financial Strategies Part 3
Strategic Sorcery - 49 - Working for Others
Strategic Sorcery - 50 - An Introduction to Sex Magic
Strategic Sorcery - 51 - Advancing the Art of Magic
Strategic Sorcery - 52 - The Strategic Sorcerer

Citation preview

Strategic Sorcery - 1 - Meditation Part 1

3

Strategic Sorcery - 2 - The Subtle Body & Energy

14

Strategic Sorcery - 3 - Zone Rites

23

Strategic Sorcery - 4 - Thought Management

36

Strategic Sorcery - 5 - Offerings Part 1

43

Strategic Sorcery - 6 - Offerings Part 2

50

Strategic Sorcery - 7 - Subtle Body Power Centers

60

Strategic Sorcery - 8 - Prayer + HGA

68

Strategic Sorcery - 9 - The Elements

79

Strategic Sorcery - 10 - Working with the Elements

88

Strategic Sorcery - 11 - The Planets Part 1

97

Strategic Sorcery - 12 - The Planets Part 2

106

Strategic Sorcery - 13 - Azoth

115

Strategic Sorcery - 14 - Materia Magica Part 1

123

Strategic Sorcery - 15 - Materia Magica Part 2

129

Strategic Sorcery - 16 - Materia Magica Part 3

138

Strategic Sorcery - 17 - Materia Magica Part 4

147

Strategic Sorcery - 18 - Materia Magica Part 5

156

Strategic Sorcery - 19 - Knowing and Using Your Environment

166

Strategic Sorcery - 20 - Dream Sorcery

174

Strategic Sorcery - 21 - The Planes

183

Strategic Sorcery - 22 - Astral Projection

192

Strategic Sorcery - 23 - Astral Mechanics

200

Strategic Sorcery - 24 - Artificial Spirits

207

Strategic Sorcery - 25 - Spirits of Place

216

Strategic Sorcery - 26 - Necromancy Part 1

227

Strategic Sorcery - 27 - Necromancy Part 2

234

Strategic Sorcery - 28 - Grimoire Spirits Part 1

244

Strategic Sorcery - 29 - Grimoire Spirits Part 2

251

Strategic Sorcery - 30 - Grimoire Spirits Part 3

258

Strategic Sorcery - 31 - The Strategic Sorcery Mini Grimoire

266

Strategic Sorcery - 32 - Spirit Houses

277

Strategic Sorcery - 33 - Meditation Part 2

285

Strategic Sorcery - 34 - 9 Principals of Strategic Sorcery

292

Strategic Sorcery - 35 - The Set Point and How to Move it

301

Strategic Sorcery - 36 - Tactical Timing

312

Strategic Sorcery - 37 - Will

321

Strategic Sorcery - 38 - Intelligence Gathering

330

Strategic Sorcery - 39 - Information Sorcery

340

Strategic Sorcery - 40 - Persona and Influence Work

347

Strategic Sorcery - 41 - Time Management

356

Strategic Sorcery - 42 - Strategic Sorcery Group Work

366

Strategic Sorcery - 43 - Healing

376

Strategic Sorcery - 44 - Attack Magick

384

Strategic Sorcery - 45 - The Causal Level

395

Strategic Sorcery - 46 - Financial Strategies Part 1

401

Strategic Sorcery - 47 - Financial Strategies Part 2

411

Strategic Sorcery - 48 - Financial Strategies Part 3

424

Strategic Sorcery - 49 - Working for Others

438

Strategic Sorcery - 50 - An Introduction to Sex Magic

447

Strategic Sorcery - 51 - Advancing the Art of Magic

457

Strategic Sorcery - 52 - The Strategic Sorcerer

471

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON ONE: MEDITATION 1 Those that have taken classes from me in the past will not be at all surprised that the first week’s lesson is devoted to meditation. In each of my books I have stated that if I had to keep only one spiritual practice, meditation would be it. Because of the expectations of a book on magic, I have only included a short meditation called the Gate of Heka in each one so that people would have something to practice before getting into the bulk of the book. Since this course is aimed at those who wish to learn how I actually do things, we will be spending a bit more time on it. There will be a total of three units on meditation throughout the course. Some of my readers have questioned the need for meditation. It is true that you can do magic without meditation. Some point out that many systems of magic do not have any meditational elements to them other than prayer. Others complain that it seems like doing nothing, when most magic is about doing something, and that their time would be better served talking with angels and astral traveling. Since this course is concerned primarily with practical sorcery, it’s a fair question. The reason that meditation is so important in Sorcery is because it is the best way I know of to discover and dwell in the real nature of your mind. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "The ancestor of every action is a thought." Everything you do in magic follows the mind. Mind drives the chariot of body and spirit. Without intimate knowledge of your own mind you cannot discern the voice of a spirit from your own fantasies. Without the ability to quiet the mind’s chatter, you will never be able to tell your own true will from habits and whims. Without expanding your awareness you will never fully actualize the self, or even realize what the self is. When asked to identify the self, most people’s first reaction is to point to their own body. Is the “self” contained within the skin? Is your body your self? There is almost not a single cell in your body at this moment that you were born with. Every day you take in food that is outside the body, and make it part of the body. Every day you expel things that were in the body outside of it. When you are an adult you are larger than you were at six years old – does that mean you have more self? If you loose an arm in an

accident, do you have less of a self? Of course not. So the body is clearly not the borders of the self. Perhaps the mind is the self? But when we look at the mind we find nothing there that we can identify as the self. What color is the mind? What shape is it? Where does it exist if not in the body? Is the mind synonymous with thoughts? Descartes declared “I think therefore I am”, but does the mere presence of thought really prove the existence of the self? Certainly the thought process is tied to the body. If you have a frontal lobotomy you will not have the same thoughts as if you had not had one. If you take LSD you will not have the same thoughts as if you didn’t take it. If you drink a triple espresso you will not have the same thoughts that you would if you had had chamomile tea. If you drink a Coke, if you eat a salad, etc, this all affects the nature of our thoughts. Following this train of logic, we can say that thoughts may in fact simply be an example of cause and effect – the cause is not necessarily a Self, but could be any number of conditions. Every moment of your existence is informed by countless factors: genetics that you inherited from your parents and ancestors, the way in which you were raised, the friends that you keep, random firing of synapses in the brain, what you had to eat and drink, how you woke up that morning, how much sleep you got, how much money you have, the color of the room that you are in, the television shows that you watch, the pollution in the air, the list could go on forever. This doesn’t even touch on more esoteric factors like past lives, karmic traces, psychic welfare, etc. Nearly every thought we have is not generated by our own consciousness, but by mechanistic reactions to all of these factors. The resultant chatter has been called in many eastern schools "The Monkey Mind". This monkey mind just keeps reacting and reacting leaving no space for real awareness. Gurdjieff likened the situation to being trapped in a prison. Buddha likened the situation to being asleep. If you are going to use Sorcery to improve your life, than you need to start with your own mind. The first duty of the prisoner is to escape. The first duty of the sleeper is to awaken.

Go and read the meditation section in “The Sorcerer’s Secrets” ( TSS) again. The Gate of Heka is a powerful meditation technique. I am going to share a few others below, but before I do, I want to give you a lead in that will help get the mind in the right space. I call it the mirror litany. Simply say this litany before engaging in a meditation practice and it will help keep your mind on track.

THE MIRROR LITANY My mind is like a mirror, Thoughts, emotions, and sensation are like reflections. Whatever the mirror reflects: good or bad, beautiful or ugly, The mirror remains unchanged. I sense my body within the field of my consciousness What can be sensed is not the sensor. I feel my emotions arise and dissipate within the stream of my mind What can be felt is not the feeler. I know my thoughts as they take shape inside the vastness of my awareness What can be known is not the true knower Just as the content of a reflection does not affect the nature of the mirror So too, the contents of my awareness do not affect the primordial nature of mind. I shall not fall into the delusion of mistaking the mirror for its contents Though I possess body, emotions, and thoughts I am not these things. I shall allow them to arise like reflections and rest my awareness in the nature rather than the content of awareness. A

This litany is based both on the traditional pointing out instructions of Dzogchen and Ken Wilbur’s witness litany. Someone experienced at meditation will be able to recite this litany or something like it and just sit in contemplation: a state of practice that is effortlessly open without need of an object for meditation. Those unfamiliar with contemplation, which we

will talk about later in the course, can enter directly into one of the meditations below. The last syllable of the litany is simply the letter A, which should be pronounced as “aaaaaah”. This is called the Unfabricated Sound since you do not have to shape your mouth in any way to say it. Just vibrate the vocal chords. Even used alone it can be a wonderful aid to establishing and maintaining a meditative state.

PHYSICAL POSITION Before we focus the mind we need to take up a physical position. There are oodles of asanas that can be used for meditation, but for our purposes I want to give just three. Whether you choose one of these three or another from another source, you should master your position until you get so comfortable with it that your body actually craves it. When you reach that stage, it will be like getting into a warm bath or lying down after a hard day's work. The position itself signals the mind to start behaving in a certain way. MASTER POSITION: There are many books that will tell you that there is no inherent benefit to sitting on the floor for meditation and that as westerners we are probably better off sitting in a chair. I respectfully disagree. Being a westerner and mastering both, I can tell you that the tripod that is formed by master position or even a full lotus asana is far more stable than a chair. Furthermore the flow of energy through the feet, re-circulates back into the body rather than into the earth, which is fantastic for most meditations. We will talk more about that when we discuss subtle body anatomy next week. This name “master position” is a rough translation of Siddhasana, the yogic asana that is also sometimes called a “half lotus” To sit in master position, simply draw one foot upwards towards the groin as far as is comfortable, than draw the other foot up and rest it on the thigh of the inner leg. If you cannot manage this, you can rest the outer leg on

the ground in front of the inner leg. This position is greatly improved by lifting the buttocks over the knees, which can be accomplished with a cushion such as a zafu or sitting on an incline such as a hill in your local park. Your back should be relatively straight. To accomplish this reach upwards and then lower your arms without relaxing your spine. This will straighten out the back. If you then tuck the chin just slightly, you will feel that last little bit of spine near head straighten out. Those sensitive to the flow of energy may feel a sudden opening of the central channel simply by sitting this way. The eyes can be closed for most meditations, but if you have an overactive imagination (or scrying ability) it is best to keep the eyes relaxed – neither open or closed. The tip of the tongue should touch the top of the mouth either at the front behind the teeth, or further up on the hard and soft pallets. These are points that connect important circuits of energy in the body and will again aid the free flow of awareness. Lastly, the hands can be placed either 1. palms down on the knees 2. on the knees, palms up with the thumbs and index fingers touching, or 3. in the lap with both palms facing up, right on top of left with thumbs touching. Each of these also form connections that effect awareness differently. Experiment with each and see what results chance. If you need a visual for the legs, you can google Siddhasana and look at a diagram like this one: http://lib.ru/URIKOVA/SANTEM/SVATMARAMA/fig8.gif With persistence this is a wonderful position to adopt when doing any kind of formal meditation. THRONE: Though the floor is preferred, in the west we more often find ourselves sitting in chairs. If you want to meditate in your cubicle at work, or sitting on a bus, you should master meditation in a chair. Also if you have a health condition that makes sitting on the floor uncomfortable, you should stick to the chair. Though any position will present its pains from

prolonged sitting, I don’t want anyone exacerbating a physical condition in the name of mastering a position. To meditate in a chair, you can either place your feet firmly on the ground or, if the chair is low, cross your legs and rest the feet gently. Keep the back, eyes, tongue, and hands exactly as in the half lotus. Be sure to keep the back as straight as possible while being comfortable in the seat. PILLAR: If you are going to follow a short meditation with a ritual that involves movement than standing is better than either the throne or the half lotus. This position is deceptively simple to perform, and from the outside looks like someone is just standing or perhaps getting ready to break into a martial arts routine. Stand with the feet a shoulder width apart, point the feet either straight forward or slightly inward. Tuck the buttocks in slightly so that the center of gravity is directly between the feet. Reach upwards to straighten the spine and then let it rest on top of the pelvis. Don’t forget to tuck the chin slightly. You should feel as if your legs, pelvis, torso, and head are all stacked on top of one another like a snowman’s orbs. Let the arms hang straight at the sides. Hold the eyes, and tongue as in the half lotus. If you have the strength to do it, you can bend the knees and elbows slightly. If you manage to stand this way for some time, you will automatically feel your energy sink into the earth, and the energy of the earth rise within you. The pose is quite solid, and an excellent position to master for many types of magick.

MENTAL FOCUS The actual process of meditation is strikingly simple: focus on one thing and one thing only, allow the mind to become still as you meditate. Like a lake that has been agitated by a storm, the waters of the mind are cloudy with dirt and debris. If you calm the mind by focusing on one thing, the waters still and becomes clear as crystal effortlessly.

The object of meditation actually doesn’t matter much. I recommend the breath most simply because we all breathe all the time. By meditating on breath you are linking your clarity to a continuous process. Later when we learn to control the breath for practical sorcery and effect mental states, you will be all the better for it. Also it is the easiest way to meditate in public without making a big show of repeating a mantra or staring at a funky mandala or statue. To actually meditate on the breath you can follow the instructions for the “Gate of Heka” meditation in my books, which focuses on the point in between the breaths, or you can simply allow yourself to follow the breath with your mind. Don’t stalk the breath like a cat watching a mouse, simply flow with the breath in and out, as if you are the breath itself passing in and out of a body that you possess. The past is a memory, the future is a projection, and the present disappears before it can be grasped. Be in the breath with no thought to any of these. You should also try meditating on a mantra. You focus your mind in the same way: simply feeling as if you are the mantra itself being spoken by the body. Some teachings say that the words themselves don’t matter, but I disagree. Certain phrases throughout time have been thought to elevate, clear, or deepen the awareness. You can research and choose a mantra of your choice or choose one of these that are listed according to source: Buddhist: Hindu: Christian:

Islam: Gnostic: Hekatean:

OM MANI PADME HUM or OM AH HUM OM NAMA SHIVAYA MARANATHA or even perhaps even the Julian or Norwich’s ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL SHALL BE WELL AND ALL MANNER OF THINGS SHALL BE WELL LA ILA HA ILLA ALLAH IAO or the permutations: IAO AIO IOA AOI OIA OAI IO HEKA IO HO (from my own Hekate Grimoire yet to be published)

If you don’t mind repeating something longer than a few syllables, than I invite you to use the Song of the Serpent. This Mantra or Chant is very

potent both in terms of a platform to clear the mind, and also to build power in the body. It will come up again in the course, and I highly recommend using it. HO OPHIS HO ARCHAIOS Oh Ancient Serpent HO DRAKON HO MEGAS Oh Great Dragon HO EN KAI, HO ON KAI Who was and who is HO ZON TOUS AIONAS Throughout the Aions META TOU PNEUMATOS SOU! Be thou with our spirit. Whatever mantra you use, you should rest your mind in the sound and let it fill your whole being. The words will at a certain point become irrelevant and I welcome you to use whatever you like as a mantra. You can also meditate on a visual object. Again, some say that it doesn’t matter, and indeed I can attest to the fact that I have had great meditations while staring at pebbles in the street. However, if you choose something that is meaningful and relates to the nature of clarity and mind than it will have some extra impact. Mirrors can make a good focus, as long as you don’t get caught up in the appearance on the surface. A representation of the letter A, the unfabricated sound, is also a great focus. My favorite object is a simple white dot on a dark blue or black background. You can also choose various mandalas such as the Sri Yantra, but I warn you not to get to caught up in the design. The idea is to clear the mind, not trip out on a funky image. In all these cases, you must rest your mind in the object of meditation. Allow thoughts to arise and dissipate naturally within the mind. Do not attach to these. When you become distracted simply go back to the meditation without judgment. Rest effortlessly in the nature of mind.

DEALING WITH DISTRACTION

The lack of effort is actually one of the hardest things to grasp about meditation. I meet people all the time who claim to be bad at meditation. Many even claim that they can’t meditate. They tell me that they tried in the past and couldn’t “get there” or “clear their minds”. They would like to meditate, but they just suck at it. I have good news: You cannot be bad at meditation. Barring serious mental illness, everyone can meditate. The problem can be summed up as expectation and tenacity. The expectation of what is supposed to occur in meditation is often a lot grander than what actually happens. People expect that they will sit down; the mind will quickly quiet and stay perfectly still for the length of the session. They will feel a calming peace that they have never felt before and be at one with everything. Needless to say, these expectations are unrealistic, especially when the subject is willing to give all of three sessions worth of effort towards the goal before declaring that they cannot meditate. This lack of tenacity is even worse than the unrealistic expectation. The first thing to do when undertaking meditation is abandon any lust of result. You should expect to be distracted almost constantly. In fact, if you are keeping a regular practice of meditating every day, you should expect nothing but distraction for almost six months! You sit and focus on breath, or mantra, or object, or whatever and a thought of food arises in the mindstream. You start thinking about dinner. Which gets you thinking about the time, and how much time as passed so far. You realize that you have lost focus… This is the crucial moment. When you recognize that you are distracted the natural reaction is to berate yourself because you stopped meditating. The secret is this: you did not stop meditating. You recognized your distraction: that IS meditation. If you can than return to the focus without judgment you will continue to meditate properly. If you willingly continue to be distracted knowing that you are distracted; now you have stopped meditating.

Some distractions are more insidious than others. A problem for magicians, witches, and psychics is that distractions often arise in the form of visions. If you are meditating and trying to experience the real nature of mind that is beyond subject and object, than even visions of your patron god or goddess need to be set aside as distractions. This is the meaning of the Buddhist axiom: “If you see a Buddha on the Road than Kill him”. If you spend your whole life experiencing nothing in your meditation sessions other than being distracted and returning to the focus of the meditation, you will have accomplished quite a lot. You will master your own thought process. I cannot stress enough what a wonderful feat this is. Almost everything that people do, say, and think is just a mechanical reaction. How you were raised, what you ate for breakfast, what traffic was like, what genes you inherited, how you are dressed, these all impact every moment and push us one way or the other. If you can recognize the mind being distracted by habitual pattern in meditation, you will learn to recognize these patterns in the heat of everyday life. The next time someone pushes your buttons and you start to react, you will probably catch yourself and be able to react from a place of real thought rather than habit, because you know how to recognize attachment and distraction. Good job! Of course, most people will eventually experience more than just this process during the course of their meditative journey. You may see visions, you may feel bliss, you may feel the barriers of the self melt away. All of this is what Tibetans call Nyams, which I translate as: weird shit that happens during meditation. None of it is as important as the process of recognizing distraction. Eventually, with practice, you will probably experience some genuine subtle states described in classical texts like Rigpa or Samadhi, but these come with time, and must not be sought after directly. Even if you do not experience these states, you will have accomplished much just by taking a little bit of control over your own mind. If you can, you should meditate a bit every morning and evening, 15 to 20 minutes is great. Linking the two sessions together with small 5 to 10 minute sessions when you have the opportunity will help increase your success and blend your natural clarity with your ordinary living levels of

awareness. I meditate in parking lots, in bathrooms, in parks, wherever I can get a moment to myself. Just remember that you cannot be bad at it. If the point is to get distracted and recognize distraction, what is there to be bad at? Work on this for now, and in a few months we will be getting deeper into the subject. Next week: THE SUBTLE BODY

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 2: THE SUBTLE BODY AND ENERGY One of the trends I find strange in modern occultism is the debate between various models of how magic works. "Energy Model" people will argue that everything is done by the channeling of psychic energy, and that various actions attributed to spirits are really just the movement of psychic energy. "Spirit Model" people will argue that magic is worked through the agency of spirits and that the effects reported by energy workers are actually the machinations of spirits and angels and such. "Psychological Model" people will argue that both of these are wrong and that all magick takes place in the mind: angels and demons are parts of the brain, and the feeling of energy is really just a physical sensation created by the brain doing its thing. The thing that puzzles me is why these folks can't see that all these elements have their place. In the race to develop a single model for understanding everything, they have made their universe very small and placed unnecessary limits upon their own magic. When you adhere too closely to a model, you draw strange and even potentially dangerous conclusions about magic. For example, the head of a Lodge that I know once made a recommendation to a psychologically troubles individual that they perform Goetia to confront their demons as a therapeutic exercise! I asked where they got this crazy idea, and they said that since Lon Duquette claims that the Goetia are all parts of the brain it makes perfect sense. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed, as goetia is something that even people with no outstanding mental issues sometimes have problems with. Models are all well and good and can help advance the art of magic, but when a model is presented that flies in the face of tradition, evidence, and experience, you have to question the validity of it. In this lesson we are going to begin to offer a model of the subtle body. It is only one model, there are others. Just keep in mind that models are like metaphors, they are useful to illustrate difficult concepts but can be taken too far. The Menu is not the meal and the map is not the terrain. Spirits have their place in magic, as does energy work, as does mental work.

THE SUBTLE BODIES Go back and read through the chapter on the Three Levels in TSS. In it I talk about the spectrum that exists between the dense material world, and the increasingly subtle world of spirit. This spectrum can be broken down into a number of divisions both in terms of the external world and our own body. In the book we deal with three levels: Level 3: The material Body, Level 2: the Aetherial Body and Level 1: the Empyrian Body. This roughly corresponds to the Body, Namshe, and Lha of Tibet; the physical body, ti bon ang, and gros bon ang of Vodou, The Body, Soul, and Spirit of St Paul, and the Material, Astral and Akashic Bodies of Bardons system. There are other ways to break this spectrum down though. In Khabbalah the four main bodies are the Neschema or Divine Body, Ruach or Mind Body, the Nephesh or astral body, and the Guf or Physical body. In some types of Hinduism there are five sheaths that are spoken of: the Annamayakosha or the "sheath of food" which is the physical body; the Pranamayakosha or the sheath of breath which corresponds to the higher biological and lower astral levels, the Manomayakosha or sheath of mind which is the intellect and the ego, the Vijnanamayakosha which is the sheath of subtle mind and controls higher level and transcendent functions, and finally the Anandamayakosha which refers to the highest and causal level of the body that is perfectly divine and transcendent. I mention all these scenarios because I want you to realize that they are all true, just expressing different things in different ways. The divisions are made based upon the needs of the system and so there is no need to argue the truth of one over another. For the most part, the three body system that I presented in the book is sufficient, but when you start getting into more advanced work I will be dividing things up further into seven bodies. . 1. Material Body: The body of flesh, bones, blood, nerves etc. . 2. Etheric Body: This body is right on the border between the astral and the material. It is the etheric body that contains the Channels, Winds, Drops, Chakras

and other subtle body organs that are manipulated by psychic healers, acupuncturists, martial artists, and others. It is also this level that visible and even physical manifestations of spirits can sometimes occur and the body through which most people are working with when they talk about "energy" in magick. . 3. Astral Body: This is the classical subtle body that people usually experience during an out of body experience (OOBE). It is termed "astral" because it is able to separate from the physicial body and travel on its own travel to the starry realms.. The structures of the etheric body are connected to this level, but in a more mutable state. The astral body can change shape and allow the magician to take on God forms for invocation, or to travel in animal form like the famous Benedanti of Italy or some modern day lycanthropic magical groups. 4. Soul Body: This body is a higher vibration of the astral body. It is even more mutable than the astral body and sometimes can manifest non-locally, or in more than one place at once. The soul body is free from much of the lower ego driven functions and cravings of the lower bodies, but can be injured as well. It is a part (and only a part) of this body that separates during "soul loss events" and which can be retrieved by skilled shaman and magicians. 5. Mind Body: This body is formless. This and the causal body below can be said to be a "body" only in the sense that there is still a separation between self and other. Mind here refers to strictly higher level, even archetypal functions, not thoughts emotions and other ego-related processes. It is this mind that generates deep intuition and insights. It is this body which approaches the "abyss" experience spoken about so often. It is in this body that the highest beatific visions of the divine occurs. 6. Causal Body: This body touches on the truly cosmic and transpersonal. Those that can shift the seat of awareness to the Causal body level are no longer experiencing visions of the divine, but are beginning to experience the divine itself. The lack of difference between subject and object can begin to be fully grasped at this level.

7. Perfection Body: This is very hard to define, but suffice to say that it is beyond space, time, and probability. It is the highest step of the ladder, and the substance from which the ladder is made. In addition to these, there are bodies that can be developed through high level practice. The famous clear light and or rainbow bodies are two examples, not simply a level of form that exists naturally, but an alchemical transoformation of the astral and physical bodies respectively. People not only have different systems for how to divide these bodies, but for how to describe the shift of consciousness from one to the other. many describe it as a process of ascension, going inwards and upwards. Many Shaman would say that it is a process of descending into the self, peeling off layers like an onion. I myself prefer to describe the process as clarifying - becoming increasingly clearer in mind so that the seat of awareness can shift effortlessly between these levels. It is also a mistake for the sorcerer to ascribe positive or negative qualities to these levels. The Causal body is not better than the material body, it just has different functions. Just as matter is forever longing to embrace the subtle realms of spirit, so too is spirit ever seeking to kiss the manifestation of matter. We will talk about the shifting of the seat of awareness between these levels in a later lesson. What is of more immediate importance is learning to feel and work with the body that is most often used in sorcery: The Etheric body.

ETHERIC BODY ANATOMY The etheric body is the most dense of the non-physical bodies, and just like the physical body, has its own veins, organs, and biology. Many people in the occult community are content to just know that the energy body is there and channel "energy" in a very general way. Maybe they know a bit about Chakras, but in general don't pay a lot of attention to it. This works, but can lack finesse and keep one from being able to accomplish some of the finer points of energy work. On the other hand, there are systems that have extremely detailed maps of the

etheric and astral bodies showing thousands and thousands of channels, chakras, sub-chakras, and so on. Once chart that I have on my shelf here shows the location of 72,000 channels in the subtle body. While these very detailed maps are useful for acupuncturists and very skilled traditional healers, he focus on that amount of detail can actually be a distraction when trying to work with the etheric body. One of the things that is amazing about this field is how similar most of these maps of the body are. Different systems emphasize different things for sure, and even within the same system you will find conflicting descriptions of various features, but over all there are a small amount of things that need to be focused on by the practical sorcerer. In the Sorcerers secrets I give a basic introduction to five chakras or spheres that relate to the elements. There are many others, but these are the ones that I would like you to focus on for now. In this lesson the most important thing to talk about are the channels, which carry the "power" or energy throughout the body. The Central Channel: You encountered the first channel in The Sorcerers Secrets as "The Pillar". It runs from the top of the head at the point where the skull plates join, and terminates at the perineum, the point in between the genitals and thee anus. It relates of the element of Azoth (Spirit/Space) and is the central collection point for energies in the body. The Right And Left Channels: These run on the left and right sides of the central channel and are fairly close to it. They are also called the solar and lunar channels, or male and female channels. They are sometimes shown spinning or spiraling around the central channel like a strand of DNA, but mostly are shown as running along side the central channel. The Solar channel is on the right and lunar channel is on the left and relate to the elements of Fire and Water respectively. they also relate to the left brain and right brain (right channel = left brain left channel= right brain) Hindu and Buddhist yogas do a lot of work with these channels as they govern most inner experiences. The central channel and two side channels are called "The Thrusting Channels" in Chi Kung. They connect to the central channel

at the perineum and the crown of the head and have sub channels that extend to the nostrils, eyes, arms, legs and so on. The Front And Rear Channels: These are called the functioning and governing channels in Chi kung, and run up the front and rear of the body. The rear channel relates to the element of air and starts at the base of the central channel at the perineum running up the rear of the body into the brain and down the front of the face terminating in the mouth. The front channel relates to the element of earth and extends from the tip of the tongue down the front of the body and meets the central channel again at the perineum. Some descriptions have the rear channel ending at the crown and the front channel descending from the crown to the perineum. regardless of the specifics the channels connect when you move the tip of the tongue to the top of the mouth. Generally energy circulates up the rear and down the front, though this can be reversed. Those familiar with Chi Kung will know this as the Microcosmic energy orbit and can attest to the feelings of strength and wellness that arise when these channels are strengthened through work. When one considers the shape of the central, right, left, front, and rear channels you can easily see where Vajrayana Buddhists drew the shape of the vajra from. The Belt Channel: The belt channel also runs from the crown to the perineum, but does so in an outer spiral around all the other channels. This channel provides the natural defenses for the body and can be strengthened with shields and other defensive measures. The Limb Channels: From the left and right channels extend channels that extend into the arms. they terminate in the palms and than have five extensions that extend into the fingers relating of course to the five elements. Traditional sources for which finger relates to which element vary widely, even within the same tradition. For instance in Tibetan Buddhism the kalachakra tantra gives the thumb as earth, in guhyasamaja it is space, in the bon ma-gyud it is water. I have experimented with this and have been able to channel any element down any channel equally so the point is moot from a practical perspective. What I will say is that the index and middle fingers draw energy gathered from above with

greater ease, and the ring and little fingers gather from below. You can experiment with this yourself by holding your arms out at your sides and seeing how much more stable you are when concentrating on your ring and little finger, than on your index and middle. You can even have someone try to move you while doing this to see the difference, it is really quite striking. Of more importance are the limb channels that extend from the perineum down through the legs and terminate in the feet. I say that this is more important because when you do a practice like the Pillar, where you draw up energy from below while standing, you are actually drawing it up through both legs, allowing it to gather in the perineum and than ascending through the central channel.

ENERGIES Let me start by saying that I actually hate the term "energy". It is imprecise for what we mean, but all the alternatives are either more misleading (ie: magnetic fluid, winds, etc), or too arcane or system specific to be meaningful (orgone, prana, ashe, etc) or just as vague and hokey sounding as energy (power, force etc.). So since everybody seems to use the term energy - I will use it too. So we have talked about the channels as places to channel energy through, but where are we drawing it from? It has been said that the magician is one who stands in the path of power. This is very literally true. As a sorcerer you will draw upon your own bodily energies that you were born with, but you will also draw upon a myriad of other powers that you can run through these channels. Go back to TSS and look at the Pillar and Spheres exercise again. Do the exercise again, but this time consider that all fixed stars and the planets are also feeding energy into the column that descends from above. Each of these have their own energy that is gathered into the channels and distributed throughout the body. Indeed each of these has their own receptor in the subtle body which we will get into in a later lesson.

Once you get to drawing the energy from below, know that you are not only drawing from the earth itself, but from the "underworld" or what I like to term the "divine chthonic". Face east. Feel the energy that is flows round you created by the rising and setting of the sun. Tap into that. Stretch your arms out at your sides, right palm down and left palm up. Feel the magnetic field of the planet. Tap into that. If you have a forest near you, take a walk. Place your right hand on a tree and close your eyes. Than with your eyes closed, place your left hand on another tree so that you are not just tapping into one tree (tree hugging:-) but tapping into the system of the forest itself. Run that energy through you. Feel the power that sits in your body just in front of the spine, and below the navel. This area is called the Hara in Japan, the lower Dantien in China, and the seat of the Kundalini in India. It's like a nuclear reactor in the body. Feel its power run through the body. Do the pore breathing exercises from TSS, but this time run that elemental energy through the channels. Go out at night and pick a star and tap into it. Find a stream and do the same. Get the idea? About the only things that I don't want you to tap into yet are other people and the electric grid. You can do both but the issues with people get complicated quickly, and the psychic every that rides on the electric energy of the grid can fry you out pretty quickly if you are not ready for it. In all these cases let the breath guide the energy into the body and through the channels. Be gentle with yourself and experiment. Do this in the temple and in the street. Do it in the three positions I taught you last week, but also try it while walking. When I draw on the column while walking I always get the sensation that I am actually standing still and the world is moving around me.

It is important that you realize that when you visualize or concentrate on a particular type of energy you aren't tapping into something new - you are tapped into all this normally. Rather you are emphasizing this energy type, and increasing its flow. When you make energy flow in specific ways you increase the capacity and strength of that channel . We will work more on the specific qualities of various types of energy later on. Right now I want you to keep meditating, and start experimenting with the channels. See if you can feel them individually. See how placing your minds attention into a channel instantly emphasizes it. Specific things to try: 1.Draw energy in through the crown of the head, through the feet, and through the hands. Circulate it up the rear channel and down the front. After a few rotations reverse the flow. 2. Send the energy into crown of the head and let it descend to the perineum and rise through the central channel. Reverse this after a few times. 3. Send the energy into the crown and down the belt channel around and around the outside of the etheric body. Reverse the flow. 4. Send specific types of energy through the limb channels in the hands and create energetic shapes. Start with spheres and tetrahedrons and then get as complex as you can. Re-absorb what you create. In other words: PLAY. NEXT WEEK: Zone Rites

Strategic Sorcery Correspondence Course Lesson 3: Zone Rites. Simply put, Zone rituals are magic aimed at creating or delineating a special area that is under the control of the Sorcerer. In Paganism this is typically accomplished by creating a witches circle, and in ceremonial magic by banishing rituals. There are however many other methods, and the accomplished sorcerer will know a few different methods, not just one. Truth be told, there is a bit of an obsession in modern occultism with these two practices, especially banishing rituals. When I was instructing members of Thelesis Lodge in Ceremonial Magic back in the 1990's it seemed that we could never get past banishing rituals. I actually know more than a few magicians who seem to do no magic except banishing rituals. I have attended long ceremonies that were nothing more than people drawing geometric shapes in the air at the four directions. If you are one of these folks, afraid to do anything but endless LBRP's all day and all night, please get over it. Fast. The first thing that I want to say is that zone rites like banishings and circles are NOT necessary for magic. There are many types of magic throughout the world that do not make any use of them at all. In most cases nothing bad happens when you use magic without casting a circle. Much of the magic in this course will be things that you do on the fly or even in public places. You do not need a special zone to do it in for it to work, the real world works just fine as it is. In the case of banishings, you do not need to spend every day inside an insulated bubble. It is not desirable for the practical sorcerer to spend every day inside banished space. Now, anyone that has done work like the LBRP for long stretches of time, knows that there is a lot more to it than banishsing: it is prayer, it is energy work, communion with angels. It is a fine ritual that I actually respect highly, but all those elements can be broken out into other things without having to create a "banished space". That said, it is true that you will sometimes want to mark off a protected zone while doing some sensitive magic or when working with wrathful and feisty spirits. But zone magic goes beyond simple banishing and protection. A barrier

that appears as a wall of fire to entities on the outside can also act as a lens for those on the inside - focusing and amplifying their efforts. Separating a zone from "ordinary reality" and placing it under your control is actually a bit of a revolutionary act. Since the 1890's just about every scrap of land on the globe has been claimed by one power or another. Those that aren't, like most of Antarctica, are protected by treaty and thus also accounted for. When a Sorcerer marks off space and by will separates it from the rest of reality, he takes charge of that spot and responsibility for all that happens within it. This idea of sacred space as a revolutionary tool has been explored by Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson) in his chapbook TAZ or Temporary Autonomous Zone. The importance of this idea for Sorcerers is that we are not only suspending the laws of the land, but in some cases bending the laws that the universe usually runs by. It is also true that when you take over a space, you can sometimes push out forces seen or unseen that were already occupying the area. To help mitigate the negative feelings and fallout from pushing these forces around I recommend making an offering to spirits of the place ahead of time. In Tibetan Buddhism, there is often a physical offering of a ritual cake called a Gektor that appeases spirits and warns them of your intention to take over the space. In our practice a simple offering of energy from the hands will be sufficient. If you are going to be holding a major ceremony like an full evocation or long term vigil, than a stick of incense or cake might make a good physical support to make the offering more substantial. We will be talking more about offerings in two weeks, but for now, here is a simple ritual to use when about to take over a zone. THE ZONE OFFERING Begin by performing the Pillar Rite as given on page 62 of TSS, with or without the Spheres. Follow this with the Universal Center Exercise on page 42 of TSS. The Pillar will connect you to and fill you with universal power, and the Universal Center will establish you in a place of authority. Optionallu you can also take on the "God Form" of a martial or wrathful diety or angel. If you don't know how to

do this, don't fret. It's not strictly necessary and we will be going over it in a future lesson. After these preliminaries imagine that rays of light with hooks on the end emanate from your heart center in all directions. The stir and summon the beings in the area that you will be working, calling them to attention. Address them with the following, oration. As you speak, your voice should be softer and quiet at first slowly building up to your normal voice: All gods, guardians, and spirits of this ground and air I stir, summon, and call you to attention. In order that I may accomplish the work of my will which is the same as the will of the very universe I request that you turn this land over to me! I ask this in the name of IAO M You can begin rubbing your hands together, per the gesture of offering, as you say this. When you say the final word IAO, you should perform the last part of the gesture and hold your hands out to release the offering. At the sound I (EEE) emanate the energy outward. At the sound A (AH) will the offerings to take on the shape of whatever is most desired by the recipients. At the sound O (Oh) mentally multiply the offerings into inexhaustible clouds. After this is done make the sound M, which is a seal upon the offering. Say the following: May all allies and beings of good will be pleased and fulfilled May all harm seeking and obstructing daemons take this offering and go elsewhere! If you transgress the command, you will be destroyed! At this point you should will the space to clear out. If you have been using a physical support for your offering such as food or incense, you should take this outside of the zone that your are working in. This is VERY important. EXORCISM FORMULAE

The EXORCISM is optional and should be fairly short. The idea being that after you after you have warned beings that you are taking over the area, you are than going to push whatever remains out. I do this by using what I call the "Gesture of Eviction". To do this make a fist with your left hand and place it over your heart, cover it with your right hand and apply about 5lbs of pressure there and imagine that the force that you summoned forth from the column begins to concentrate at the heart. Imagine that this power, drawn by the physical pressure and force of will, takes the shape of a gray sphere about the size of a baseball. Visualize this until you have it very clear in your mind. Release the pressure and in one motion step forward with your left foot and throw your arms outward in what it called the Sign of the Enterer. As you make this sign, see the sphere at your heart grow. As it grows and spreads it pushes back all malefic forces and harmful spirits. It grows past your body continues until it stops where you wish to make the boundary. Accompany this with some statement that reinforces your energy work such as the classical Greek: HEKAS HEKAS ESTE BEBELOI! Or The Latin from Virgils Aenead " PROCUL, O PROCUL ESTE, PROFANI". Both of these phrases mean "Away, Away, all ye Profane", which if you don't like dabbling in foreign languages, works just fine as well. In each case the phrase should be accompanied by three claps, one for each Hekas (or Procul or Away) and one after completing the phrase. SIEZING THE ZONE Now we come to the heart of the matter, what to do with the space? There are numerous options here that I break up into three basic categories: Sacred Space, Ground Consecration, and Fortress Building. SACRED SPACE: The consecration of sacred space is basically just meant to imbue a certain area with a chosen psycho-spiritual ambiance. It could be consecrating it to a certain deity, loading it with a specific elemental energy, or simply making it "holy". In this case there is no delineation of boundary. Beings are allowed to pass through freely and openly. If you are doing this type of work you can forgo the Zone Offering, or at least change the last part so that you are re-inviting entities, rather than warning them away.

Note: Just as with the book, most of the material in this class is meant to work together and cleverly "stacked" to create full scale rituals. What you dont include is just as important as what you do. GROUND CONSECRATION: Some people equate the spheres and 3-d energy structures that are used in Golden Dawn Style ceremonial magick and some traditons of Neo-Paganism with the old circles included in the grimoires and old style witches circles. The assumption being that they 2-d structures shown in the grimoires were meant to be projected into three dimensions. I assure you that they are not the same thing. In the classic grimoire circle, and in the traditional Witches circle, or compass-round as it was often called, the ground is made holy and thought of as a barrier established by the powers evoked in its consecration, not as a physical wall. The idea is similar to the border between two countries like the US and Mexico. Rather than a physical barrier enforcing the boundary it is the power of the negotiated treaty and the threat of force that is invoked should it be transgressed without permission. This type of ground consecration most often takes the shape of circle, but it doesn't need to. In some there are multiple layers to the barrier. For example in the Heptameron there are three circles in the outer most rim are four angelic names of that day, in the middle are names of various spirits associated with the type of spirit to be called, and in the innermost circle are names of God associated with the practice. Another three layer circle made from ash, water, and sulphur is used in The Clan of Tubal Cain to represent the land of the dead, living, and between. The practice of "Beating the Bounds" that I give on page 156 of TSS is an example of a Ground consecration. FORTRESS BUILDING: Fortress Building is what I call any ritual that constructs and three dimensional energy structure around the ritualists. In this type of ritual not only is the border enforced by the powers invoked but by an actual barrier of energy of one kind or another. This would include the LBRP and most modern GD/Thelema derived spacial workings be they Banishing or Invocation rituals. Also included in this category would be the "Vajra Palace" rituals of Tibetan Buddhism, and a lot of modern

Pagan Circle castings. Generally speaking if you see a witch drawing an Athame or Sword in a circle on the ground, they are making a compass round, if they are doing it at waist height in the air, they are doing a fortress building rite and their circle will at some point "snap" into a sphere. The advantage of this kind of zone ritual is that the specifics of how you make the barrier can act as a spell itself. For instance, in Regardie's Opening and Closing by watchtower, you are building actual gates to the different Pure Elemental planes represented by the four watchtowers, these are than carefully blended into a vortex that centers on the altar where the work is to take place. In The Vajra Palace rituals of Tibetan Buddhism, not only is the ground protected by various circles of elemental energy and guardians, but the barrier is constructed entirely of atomic sized vajras, thus surrounding you with the penultimate symbol of the tradition to aid you in your sadhana. Below I am going to provide a few different rituals for you to try out. They all accomplish different things. In all cases you should do the Pillar, Universal Center, and Zone Offering exercises before delineating your boundaries. THE SIMPLE PROTECTION CIRCLE This circle can be drawn on the ground with either a dagger, wand, staff, sword, or your hand. After your preliminaries move to the eastern edge of where you want your circle to be. And say: Gyrum Carpo! (I seize the circle!) Move clockwise tracing a circle on the ground while saying.

Consecro et Benedico istum circulum (I consecrate and bless this circle) per nomina dei attisimi IAO (in the name of the most powerful god IAO) Ut sit mihi et omnibus scutum at (That it may be to me and all a shield and) Protectie Dei fortissimi invicibile (protection in the name of the most powerful invincible god) Contra omnes malignos spiritus (Against all malignant spirits)

Gerumque potestates in nomine IAO(and powers in the name of IAO)

Notes: Feel free to use either the English or the Latin. That all there is to it. By your will it is done. THE COMPASS ROUND Begin in the eastern quad facing east. Touch the ground with your tool of choice and declare the following facing east: By the Planes of the East and the light of the Dawn By the winds of Eurus and the waters of Cocytus By the spirits of Air and the whirling of sylphs Powers of the East, Arise, Witness, Bless and Guard this circle. Move to the South By the Deserts of the South and the brightness of Noon By the winds of Notus and the waters of Phlegethon By the spirits of fire and the rushing of Salamanders Powers of the South: Arise, Witness, Bless and Guard this circle Move to the West By the Shores of the West and the twilight of dusk By the winds of Zephyrus and the Waters of the Styx By the spirits of water and flow of Undines Powers of the West: Arise, Witness, Bless and Guard this circle. Move to the North By the Mountains of the West and the darkness of Midnight. By the winds of Boreas and the waters of Acheron By the spirits of Earth and the burrowing of gnomes. Powers of the North: Arise, Witness, Bless, and Guard this circle Complete the circle by connecting it to the east and Move to the center:

All the powers of Ouranos and Highest Heavens All the powers of Chthonos and the Deepest Depths All the powers of the endless Horizon I summon and bind you to this circle. May you act as a catalyst for all that is willed within And a wall against all that approaches from without. SO It is and so it shall be. Notes: This ritual not only sets a circle, but calls upon the blessings of the Elemental powers. Each direction of course corresponds to an element but in each call we are using classical elements to represent each of the four elements as well. Thus by calling upon the planes of the east, light of the dawn, winds or Eurus, and waters of Cocytus we are calling upon the earth of air, fire of air, air of air, and water of air respectivly. Those uncomfortable with invoking the four rivers of hades can substitute the four rivers of Eden from Genesis 2: the Pison, Hiddikel (Tigris), Gihon, and Phrath (Euphrates). THE HEPTASPHERE The Heptasphere is a ritual for the management of planetary energies. It is based loosely on instructions in PGM XIII 824. Imagine that on any given day there are a variety of positive and negative planetary attributes. These planetary energies interact with the mind and body of the individual through receptors in the subtle body, the mircocosmos (as above, so below). The Heptasphere acts as a barrier between the two so that whatever planetary alignments there are at a given time, hit the sphere where they are re-balanced and regulated, and than passed on to the individual. Begin by performing the gesture of eviction as given above. After the force has cleared your sphere, retract the energies and form them into a sphere around you. Face East, hold your hand out and visualize Agrippa's symbol of the Moon branded onto the sphere and utter the syllable Α (Greek letter Alpha pronounced Ah)

Turn North, hold out your hand and visualize Agrippa's symbol of Mercury branded onto the sphere and utter the Syllable E (Epsilon, pronounced eh). Turn West, hold out your hand and visualize Agrippas symbol for Venus branded onto the sphere and utter the Syllable H (Greek sylable Ita, pronounced as a long "a" like it fate) Turn North, hold out your hand and visualize Agrippas symbol for the sun and utter the syllable I (Greek syllable Iota pronounced as a long e, like in tree) Touch the ground and visualize the symbol for Mars at the nadir of the sphere and Vibrate the Syllable O (Greek syllable Omnicron, pronounced as the o in the word "not") Touch your own heart and visualize Agrippas symbol of Jupiter blazed upon it. Vibrate the sound Y (Greek vowel upsilon, pronounced eu (like the french du - the ee sound with the lips rounded) Finally reach upwards and visualize the symbol for Saturn over your head. Vibrate the sound Ω (Greek syllable Omega, pronounced as a long o as in "home". ) After you accomplish this you can make the following prayer: I call upon the eternal and unbegotten Aeon who holds together the creation of all things whom none understand and whom the gods worship empower the sphere that surrounds me That the seven rays be a balanced and beautiful blessing and the Archons Influence dignify my works In the name of ABRASAX And in the name of the great one, Whose name is the name of the Cosmos itself. Notes: The order of the planets and syllables in the ritual is true to the order in the Papyri. I have changed the order for my use. I invite you to do the same placing Mars in the East, Jupiter in the South, Venus in the west, Mercury in the North,

Luna at the nadir, Sol in the heart, and Saturn at the zenith. This aligns it more or less with the spheres as presented on the tree of life and makes more sense to me energetically. Use whichever pattern you like. Certain Astrologers have taken umbrage at the idea that a ritual could effect the astrological influence upon an individual. I really don't want to argue the point. Try it and see for yourself. If you would like a challenge, I invite you to find and use the Great Name itself. Its Number is 9,999. That should give you a clue for your research. THE ANGELIC CUBE Here is one for those that like to work with the Archangels and dont mind a little prayer in their Sorcery. After the preliminaries of the Pillar, Universal Centering, and Offering call upon the Archangels to construct the cube of space around you. Kneel and face upwards, your hands in a position of prayer: In the name of the most Holy IAO I call upon the Archangel METATRON to set above me zenith of the cube, to act as a portal between this space and the outermost heavens, and to protect from all danger and threats that descend from above. In the name of the most Holy OAI I call upon the Archanhel SANDALPHON to set beneath me the firm foundation of the cube, to act as a protect from all dangers that ascend from below. In the name of the most Holy AOI I call upon the Archangel Raphael to set in front of me the eastern wall of the cube, and to protect from all dangers arising from the east. In the name of the most Holy IOA I call upon the Archangel Gabriel to set behind me the western wall of the cube, and to protect me from all dangers arising from the west.

In the name of the most Holy AIO I call upon the Archangel MICHAEL to set on my right hand the southern wall of the cube and protect me from all dangers arising from the west. In the name of the most Holy OIA I call upon the Archangel URIEL to set on my left, the Northern wall of the cube and protect me from dangers arising from the north. A cube within a cube, a world within a world, I place myself within the adytum, emanated from the Pleroma itself. May the Logos sanctify my mind, and the Sophia arise within my heart. Amen. THE ADAMANTINE TEMPLE The last zone rite that I want to share, is called The Temple of Fire. It is loosely based on Tibetan Vajra palace rituals. This is the first time I have ever put this into print. I have considered it one of my personal "aces in the hole" as I find it to be a VERY potent ritual. This ritual can be performed sitting or standing. You can begin as always by Casting the Pillar but what is more important is that you reach a state of real meditative clarity during the Universal Centering. Though you do send energy through the hand in this rite, it is primarily driven by the power of clarity. Hold your hand out in front of you and and emanate a spark from the index finger. This spark takes the shape of a tetrahedron - the most basic and strongest three dimensional shape, and the platonic solid associated with the element fire. Touch the ground near you and make the sound SSSSSS PHE! This is not a literal word, but onomatopoeia. The first sound recalls the hissing of serpents and also the ratting of chains. It should be thought of as a sound that disturbs the natural order. The second sound PE should be uttered as a sudden pop, with a puff of air. Say the word as if you are hurling it like lightening from the

top of a mountain. These words appear in the Mithras Liturgy and other places in the papyri. The word Phat, pronounced exactly the same, is also a power word in Tibetan Buddhism that is used in exactly the same way. These two syllables together when powerfully uttered from a position of divine authority literally shake existence itself and should never be uttered in jest or for fun. Let the words disrupt your mind, shocking it perfectly clear if only for a nanosecond. It is that moment that drives the whole ritual because in that one moment of perfect clarity, you are inseparable from the universe itself. As you touch the ground, the tetrahedrons multiply beneath you making a latticework of interlocking atomic sized tetrahedrons that forms triangle beneath you. They than extend upwards creating a large Tetrahedron around you and your temple. You are now in a fractal tetrahedron - the Adamantine Temple. Though you do not need to say anything further to actualize the Temple, you can further aknowlege it by saying the following. In the Infinite Purity of Appearance Not even the name of Obstructing Spirits of Hinderences exists. From without, this Temple is an impenetrable pyramid of flame Its surface a razor that destroys even the memory what it touches. From within, this temple is a lens Focusing the light of gnosis, into the rays of action.

Notes: The Tetrahedron shape has three basic functions. First it is the most solid three dimensional structure, also called an adamantine structure. Therefore as a barrier it is supreme. Second the tetrahedron is also associated with weapons, Aristotle associated it with fire because of its sharpness, and of course the blade of the Tibetan Phurba is also in the shape of a Tetrahedron. This has been called in one sadhana, "The Razor that destroys at a touch". You should consider that any unwanted influence that attempts to breach the temple is instantly destroyed. Lastly, as a three dimensional triangle of manifestation the tetrahedron acts as a perfect lens for whatever magic is performed within it. Its zenith functions much

the same as a church spire or stupa top, recieving and conducting higher influences, and its other sides can pull in whatever spirits or influences the Sorcerer desires. Like a three dimensional Goetic Triangle. We will be revisiting this rite in future lessons and building upon it. It came to me in an ecstatic vision while meditating on the mandala known as Metatrons Cube. That is all for this week. Please play around with these zone rites and others that you may know. You will get to see how you can use different rituals for different purposes, and how to stack the various exercises that I am giving into full scale ceremonies. Your feedback both privately and in the forums is much appreciated. Because this lesson ran so long, I am holding off on another Q and A till next time. NEXT WEEKS LESSON: THOUGHT MANAGEMENT

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 4: THOUGHT MANAGEMENT So far, if you are hardcore and doing all the stuff that I am throwing out there, you have been meditating regularly in the morning and evenings, which gives you a better feel for the nature of your own mind, and the ability to disengage from the cycle of attachment or aversion that we have to our thoughts. This power that thoughts have to dominate our mind and reality is the reason that we need to learn to be free from them, but is also precisely why they are themselves a powerful tool for magic. The meditations in lesson 1 train you how to concentrate on just one thought, and how to let go of any other thoughts that arise. Apart from helping to reveal the calrity of primordial awareness, this concentration can be applied to sorcery. Most spells, even those that seemingly rely upon primarily external tools like folk magic. will be greatly improved by your single pointed concentration on the work at hand. Below I will be teaching a few other tricks of thought that I find vital to working successful and strategic sorcery. Some of you after reading this lesson and finding no overtly magickal and arcane instructions, will think of this is a "throw away lesson". I assure you it is not, in fact its one of the most important lessons of the course. Not all magic is couched in foreign words and strange symbols. In TSS I stated that "purely mental magic, tends to yield purely mental results". This is a bit of an overstatement. You can indeed get physical results from purely mental magic, though your chances are better if you incorporate energetic and material elements. That said, thoughts are integral to almost all magic, and any rituals can be greatly improved by the way that we focus and manage our thoughts not only at the time of ritual, but throughout our day to day life. So let's get started with the very first things we do in our day. MORNING PROJECTION Ideally, you should wake up, and do some meditation almost immediately after getting up. After your meditation, but before getting up, you should capitalize on the clarity of the post-meditative state and focus on your day. You should focus the mind on how you want things to play out in three areas: Money, Health, and Love. Of course if there is anything in particular that is an issue, you should focus on that specifically, but you should spend just a few moments visualizing or

concentrating on how you desire things to play out in those three areas. Actually see yourself doing well at your job, making money, eating well, exercising, and getting on well with your significant other. If you don't have a job than focus on getting one. If you don't have a significant other, see yourself getting one. Basically spend a few minutes envisioning the success that you wish to generate. Feel very confident in it manifesting. They key to this is to focus only in tems of the positive and not the negative. Focus on things that you want, not on those that you don't.As most hypnotists and NLPers will tell you, the deep mind doesn't respond to negatives. Excessive worry about fighting debt, illness, and loneliness only tends to reinforce patterns that yield more debt, illness and loneliness. This is also the reason that if you yell at a kid not to drop something, he immediately drops it. Be for something not against something. If you want to be wealthy focus on wealth not on being out of debt. If you want to be healthy, focus on health not on fighting illness. If you want to be loved, focus on being loves, not on ending a bad streak. This sounds like a lot of new age twaddle doesn't it? It is. I actually struggled with whether or not I wanted to include it in the class. The thing is that it works. It works really well. You actually effect your day to day activities this way. I use it every day. After I meditate I literally say to myself "I see my day coming into focus ..." and take just a few moments to build positive momentum for what I am trying to manifest. Just try it and see what happens. IDENTIFY AND CHANGE UNHELPFUL PATTERNS You should start thinking about the way that you think about things. How's that for a confusing sentence? Seriously though, you should identify the manner in which you think about things. Most of you know that I am a newly minted father of twins. More than a few people have commented that I seem to be producing more now that I have kids than I did before. They are absolutely right. For example I have had the idea for this course kicking around in my head for two years, but it didn't launch until four months after my kids were born. Do I have more time now? No, like all new fathers I have WAY less time. The difference is that I have more motivation.

Rather than say to myself: "I can't do that because I have kids" I decided to say "I NEED to do that because I have kids and I want them to know that achieving your dreams is possible". Whenever you find yourself thinking negatively about something, try and turn it around by looking for the opportunity. IMPORTANT NOTE: I am NOT suggesting that you ignore reality as books like "The Secret" seem to suggest. You can't just reverse every negative into a positive, but you can train yourself to see possibility and opportunity. For example, if you see something that you would like to own, but which seems out of reach most people say to themselves "I can't afford that". New Age Positive Thought books like the secret would have you think to yourself "I can afford that." even though you clearly can't. What I am suggesting is that rather than either of these you ask yourself "How can I afford that?" There is always an answer. It may be something that you are unwilling to do like go back to school and do a career that you would hate just to make the cash, but there is an answer of how. This process will either put the item into perspective, it's not worth changing careers or selling everything you own to possess, or it will open you up to inspiration and ingenuity - two things that your sorcery can help actualize. See the difference? Rather than worrying about things like optimism vs pessimism, or true vs untrue, I suggest you evaluate your thought process in terms of it being helpful or unhelpful towards your goals. The biggest example of this is getting rid of blame and excuses. KILLING YOUR EXCUSES I have a close friend that spent a good deal of her life screwed in almost every way she could be: drugs, theft, failure in almost every pursuit. When confronted about this, she blames her mother for screwing her up. The truth is that her mother DID screw her up. It is safe to say that is the primary reason behind most of her problems. However, focusing on that reason is not useful for getting unscrewed up. It wasn't until like forced this person to focus on something other than her mother, that she was able to turn herself around.

We all have excuses for just about everything. In the very first lesson we learned how every thought and action that we have is just a result of external factors, so it's not a very far jump to say that there are reasons for just about everything from someone being late to work habitually, to someone being a murderer. The thing is though, that though we all have excuses, we still need to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. Back in the nineties I used to complain a lot about time I had to spend at the day job. It was my excuse for not doing this or that major project. Finally one day during an Evocation I asked the spirit to help me do something about this. The spirit told me to add the amount of time I spent at work to the amount of time I spent sleeping per week. It came to about 82 hours total. He told me to subtract that from the number of hours in the week, which yielded 86 hours. He told me to come back when I could honestly say that I used those 86 hours to the maximum benefit and he would help me out. Right there, my excuse for everything was destroyed. Point being, when thinking of problems don't focus on why something happened or who is to blame. Focus on fixing your problem and improving your life. Repeat as necessary. THANKFULNESS Another piece of the thought management puzzle is thankfulness. Thankfulness is a practice that is not only religious, but magical. When we are grateful to another human being for something that they did for us, we give value to that person, build rapport, and also cause that person to want to please us further to continue the positive feelings. It is the same way with the universe itself. After your meditation, but before you concentrate on your projection for the day, give thanks to the universe for all the random factors that have gotten you this far. The body you were born in, the education you were able to receive, the people that life has brought you into contact with. Anything and everything that you value. The focus on good things that you already possess reinforces the idea that you can get more of the same, and build self-value. Another trick is to give thanks in advance for what you expect to achieve through magic. It just primes the forces that surround you to respond with success.

This being the week of Thanksgiving, I would like to suggest that you make a list of things that you are thankful for. Post it to the forum if you want to inspire others.

NIGHT PRACTICE At night, before you do your nighttime meditations and rituals, you should go back over your day in your head. Those things that did not go well, you should take a minute and replay them in your head as you have liked them to come out. This sounds a bit like wishful thinking, and in a way it is. The idea though is not to fool yourself into thinking that everything went well when it really did'nt. The idea is simply to free yourself from the patterns of guilt, blame, self-judgement, and insecurity that can arise from these situations. It enables the next day's magic to be done without so much baggage attached. CUT AND PASTE THOUGHT QUALITIES Here is a more advanced thought exercise for you to try out: Whether you realize it or not every thought you have triggers a host of sensations throughout the body and mind. Take a moment and think of something that you are firm about. Think "I love my Mother" for instance. Notice what feeling comes over you. Look in your minds eye and see if there is a color associated with this thought. Perhaps you even feel a direction that this thought arises from. Take note of all this. Now repeat the experiment with something that you are unsure about. Think, "I can make a million dollars" or "I can quit smoking". Whatever it is, note the same feelings, colors, directions and so on. When you are working on a developing a new habit or belief or working on a new problem, you can take the qualities of one thought and cut and paste it onto another thought. For instance, one of the biggest problems that people have with wealth magic is that they have been trained to dis-trust rich people and to think of money as a corrupting influence. In love magic the biggest issue that people have is making themselves believe that anyone, much less someone "out of their league" would be interested in them. Whatever it is that you feel mentally daunted by , you can use this excercise to get you over the hump.

Simply think a strong thought that you have deep and concrete assurance in. This should be something pretty down to earth, not a religious conviction, and map all the feelings, colors, sounds, directions that are associated with it. Take a snapshot of it. Now think on your problem and change those qualities to match the thought you are confident in. This is a powerful exercise for overcoming ones fears, inhibitions, and preconceived limitations. KEEPING IT REAL All the these thought exercises are powerful, but they are non all-powerful. Even while breaking your old conceptions of what is possible for yourself, you must not get carried away into fantasy. I have already mentioned "The Secret" which goes so far as to suggest that checks will just appear in your mailbox because you expect them too, and that fatty foods will not make you fat unless you think that they can. This is of course, complete bunk. In this type of thought magick, as in all magick, you need to follow up with hard work and effort to achieve your goals. Magick will open the door for you, but you still have to step through. That said, if you can make these simple exercises a part of your daily routine, you will start to see things happen. You will see opportunity and motivation where once you only saw obstacles. You will become a better person with less fear and more confidence. You will be doing the great work. Q&A FROM LAST WEEK There is a lot of activity on the forum, and I dont want to repost things here from there, but there is one thing that I have to address from last lesson. The topic of dissipating or undoing Zone magic Most of the zone rituals will create effects that dissipate on their own. This is true to the GD banishing rituals as well as the Heptasphere, and Angelic Cube from last lasson. The ground consecration rites should be officially closed because they are tied to a phyisical support; the ground. To do this you do not have to actually untrace a circle. Simply declare the space free and state that you wish for the border to dissipate. The Adamantine temple should also always be closed as it does not seem to dissipate over a short time. To do this simply will it to dissipate into five colored lights.

Another question about the adamantine temple was whether to see the atomic sized tetrahedrons as 3-d. Absolutely. In fact each atom sized tetrahedron is comprised of more atomic sized tetrahedrons and so on ad infinitum. It is fractal. One of the unique characteristics of this ritual is that not only does it protect the person inside, but it actually breaks up bad conditions and harmful forces. They get drawn into the various atomic tetrahedrons and broken down and down and down through this infinite fractal until nothing remains.

NEXT WEEK: OFFERINGS

Strategic Sorcery Correspondence Course Lesson Five: Offerings

Other than meditation, there is no single practice that I place a higher value on more than the making of offerings. I have written briefly in both my books about offerings and the importance that I place on them, but have shied away from giving a really detailed treatment of the subject. I first encountered the practice of offerings when I started investigating the magic of New Orleans Voodoo and other ATR's. The first offering I ever did was to Papa Legba shortly after moving to Philadelphia, in hopes that he would help me gather a group of magicians to work . The morning after one of the biggest snow storms that decade, I went out to the corner of 6th and Pine, the corner that my apartment was located at, and drew a very large veve of Legba that extended 1/4 of the way up each street on that block. I made an offering of a Coconut filled with palm oil, and a candle and asked for his help. Later that week a friend contacted me and asked if I was interested in starting a Philadelphia OTO group. One month after that offering the first meeting of Thelesis camp happened at my apartment. That group pulled me into contact with some of the best people I have ever worked with. Though I am no longer a member of the OTO, I still act as visiting teacher and occasional advisor to that group which exists today as a full lodge. This type of magic - making an offering to a specific spirit for a specific service, is pretty common throughout the world. It is what my student Persephone calls "gumball magic": put a quarter in the machine, get a gumball, that simple. This is similar to the making of pacts, such as outlined in the Grimoire Verum, and is a workable system in a pinch. It is not however the primary manner in which I use offerings. If you make offerings a part of your regular practice, than you will develop more powerful and long term relationships with the spirits than simple tit for tat contracts. I have been told by one practitioner that this is one of the primary differences between the Bokor (Sorcerer for hire) and Houngan or Mambo (Priest

of Priestess of Vodou) in Haiti. When i began to study Tibetan magic, offerings were again emphasized in an even more advanced and profound mode. Think of it this way. If you asked a complete stranger to loan you fifty bucks they would say no. You could ask a bank or a loan shark, but then you are paying interest and run the risk of having something go wrong and suffering the repercussions. If you asked someone that you worked with for fifty bucks, they may lend it or they may not, it largely depends upon your experience with that person: have you ever had outside work experiences like sharing a bill? Have you ever treated them to a lunch? Do they perhaps even owe you money? have you shown yourself to be generous and reliable? If you asked your best friend for fifty dollars its almost certain that they would lend it and ask if you needed anything else. They would also probably not be concerned about the date of payback because you have a long history with this person, likely making gestures of goodwill to one another for years. These gestures are offerings. The practice of offering is deeper than just a way to make friends with spirits though. To understand this we need to talk about the classes of guests that can be served at an offering. THE FOUR CLASSES OF GUESTS The first and highest classification of guests served at an offering is the Divine realm of Level one. This is Deity is the highest most cosmic sense as well as those beings that can be considered enlightened such as Buddhas, Ascended masters, and indeed the Universe itself. This type of guest doesn't in any way need the offerings that we make, the benefit is strictly ours. By making offerings to such beings we remind ourselves what we constantly strive towards, and in turn build a connection to beings that have achieved that level of realization. It is an exchange of energy similar to hat between a parent and child. Your child may give you something that you neither want nor need, but you not only accept it, but go out of your way to enjoy it fully because you know that it cultivates certain qualities in the child. This type of offering cannot be under-rated. The cultivation of compassion as a means of achieving Gnosis will be dealt with later, but this is a good start.

The second classification of guest are the protectors, guardians, and lesser deities of a tradition. These are beings of great power but who are not fully realized beings. They do actually enjoy the substance of the offering that is made but do not depend upon them. The third classification is simply all regular beings. This can include all non physical entities such as nature spirits, ghosts, etc as well as the spirits of all currently incarnated beings. Everyone. The fourth classification singles out beings to whom you owe some kind of debt. These could be problems that come from this life or this life with people or with spirits. The most common example is a spirit of nature that you have run afoul of through your ordinary human actions like driving or getting rid of trash. A good portion of the Shamans work was keeping the balance between our world and the world of the spirits, a role that the sorcerer will sometimes be asked to fulfill. Being a magician you are even more able to trample upon the turf of spirits or powers that you may not even be aware of - one of the dangers of the endless banishing sometimes recommended by books on Ceremonial Magic. Your offerings can be made to any one of these groups or all four together. My only recommendation is not to make offerings to the fourth classification without also acknowledging the first and second classes. This is for protection from hostile forces and energies. Think of the offering as a meal, you would not hold a dinner at your home for your worst enemies without also having a few friends on hand right? Even better is some of those friends are extremely powerful individuals unto which you are both subject. THE FIVE TYPES OF OFFERINGS Your offering can be either very simple or very complex. I classify them as follows: Extremely elaborate: This is a full layout of all the physical supports that acknowledges all four classes of being and is highly ritualized. Usually done as a group ceremony.

Elaborate: A layout including two or more physical supports which acknowledges all the four classes of guest, but with less elaborate ceremony for ease of practice by one person. Normal: One or more physical supports acknowledging one or more classes of guest with a small ceremony consisting of only a few lines Concise: No Physical support acknowledging one or more classes of guest with a small ceremony consisting of only a few lines. Extremely Concise: No Physical Support, acknowledging one or more classes of guest with no verbal ceremony other than perhaps a vibrated word. You should not attach ideas of worth to these classes of offering. Just as you may enjoy a trip to your favorite burger place or falafel joint as much as a seven course meal in formal attire, so too do the spirits enjoy different ways of making offerings. What makes them good, better, and best is largely the power of the person making the offering. A master can use the extremely concise offering to literally cover the world, uplifting the spirits of every sentient being, if only a little. Most of us however will have to settle for a less lofty goal, at least for now. In general I use the concise and extremely concise offerings three times a day: Upon waking, at noon, before dinner, and before bed. Most days I make a normal offering upon waking or shortly after breakfast, If I don't than I make an extremely concise offering then as well. I try to make one elaborate offering per week on a day off, and get together with people to do extremely elaborate offerings a few times a year. PHYSICAL SUPPORTS You will note in the above classifications the notes about Physical supports. It true that the real substance of an offering is in spiritual substance not gross physical matter, but the use of physical offerings is a good way to materialize your result. This means it draws the spirits a bit further into our realm and gives them more of a connection to our lives. The physical offering is also more pleasing to those

beings whose presence reaches into the etheric level such as ghosts and some nature spirits. Here are some examples of Physical support. INCENSE: In my books I talk mainly about incense as a great support for physical offerings. The ascending smoke is not only said to carry ones prayers to trhe higher realms, but to actually be consumed by classes of beings called "scent eaters". LIGHT: Nearly universal symbol for wisdom. Light is appreciated by most spiritual beings and is thought to actually be consumed by certain beings.I recomend candles and actual fire to electricity, but some beings have come to appreciate that as well. Whatever you use as an offering should be separate from your work lights - the lights you use to illuminate your temple. WATER: Symbolizing purity and washing clean. Water is an extreneky attractive and calming substance for many spirits to linger near, especially spirits of the dead. FRUIT: Symbolizes the fruit of gnosis, and the surrender of something valuable of yours to the spirits. FLOWERS: Symbol of beauty and also impermanence. Some spirits absorb their beauty, some their scent, still others value their very impermanence. MEAT: Valued most by strong, wild, and wrathful spirits meat is a potent offering. It was the smell of the burning flesh that was actually offered to YHVH in the bible, and is still a powerful incense today. Already prepared or even raw meat can also be offered to beings that like that kind of thing. SEX: The offering of sexual energy both contained in the fluids and released during the rite itself is a powerful offering for many spirits and a poweful turn off for others. If you dont know whether you should ofer it, ask either the spirits directly or through a divination. If you are not adept enough to get an answer, you are not adept enough to make the offering. It will come in time. MONEY: Money is enjoyed by spirits of departed humans, and also by certain beings of the second classification that value your sacrifice. It can be also a

powerful offering to those beings who govern money matters, but its offering must be handled properly. Burning or throwing away money is not greatly appreciated. See Symbols below. SYMBOLS: Certain beings have various symbols and tools that they are associated with. Love goddesses seem to enjoy perfume and sometimes even sex toys, war deities love swords and even guns, wealth spirits love hoarding jewels and money. Spirits of dead magicians seem to like talismans and occult bric-a-brac. Use your knowlege and intuition to choose. ANIMAL SACRIFICE: Obviously animal sacrifices are a pretty common offering to the spirits. Done with reverence and skill they can actually be a very beautiful and moving gesture to spirits and gods that like that appreciate that kind of offering. Done without skill, it is an unholy travesty. Basically my rule of thumb is that if you grew up killing your own meat and can do it quickly with little pain, than it's not such a huge jump to include animal sacrifice in your rites. If you are doing it because its forbidden or somehow "dark" in your mind than skip it please. If you dont have the skill to do it fast and sure, than skip it please. Nothing you learn in this class will ask for it or even suggest it. There are ways around it. SELF SACRIFICE: There are small sacrifices that you can make yourself that can be used as offerings. Money and personal objects are also a way to give of one's-self, but be sure that you are ready to let whatever it is go. Your own blood is an excellent offering to some spirits, as is the pain that is released when you draw it. Pain itself can be offered to spirits. I have worked with magic involving BDSM at times in the past, and have made an offering of the pain from whipping a willing submissive as a sort of "human sacrifice". The possibilities are endless, but we have to end here for this week. Next week we will do Offerings Part 2 where I give several specific rituals and instructions that make use of all the above. But before we end this lesson completely, it is the last day of the month which means...

HOMEWORK #1 We are going to start with something simple. One question: Name one big specific goal that you have and would like to use Sorcery to help you achieve. The goal could be as materialistic as making a million dollars or getting laid by a different person every week, to something more internal like becoming a more compassionate, loving, or influential person. The only response that I do not want to see is "enlightenment", or "to become more than human", or "to realize your inner deity". I will just assume that you all want to be Living Buddhas, Christs, or Gods. Give me something down to earth and measurable, something that you think would be hard or impossible to achieve without magick. Something that when you achieve it, you can look back on the lessons of this class and say "damn, that crap really works well!" Send your answer to my e-mail [email protected] with the subject line STRATEGIC SORCERY HOMEWORK 1 all in caps. See you on the forums, and next week for more offerings!

STRATEGIC SORCERY CORRESPONDENCE COURSE LESSON SIX: OFFERINGS

DISPOSING OF OFFERINGS Last week, we laid the foundation of offerings by discussing the basic classes of guests, the types of offering ceremonies, and some examples of physical supports. I would like to pick right up where we left off with Physical supports, because when people actually go out and make physical offerings, they are quickly confronted with a problem: what to do with the offerings afterward. The answer is a little complicated and depends upon what you are offerings and whether you are making the offerings at a permanent shrine in your own home or making a temporary offering at a crossroads or something like that. In the case of offering food, flowers, or anything that spoils in your own home, you should keep it there as long as it's not stinking up the place, attracting bugs, or looking shabby. Those familiar with Tantra might point out stories of Mahasiddhas making rancid offerings to reveal the inherent purity of all things. That's ok if you are a Mahasiddha. Can you fly through the air or make imprints of your hand just by touching solid stone? No? Than do yourself and the spirits a favor and stick to nicer presentations, unless a spirit specifically asks for something gross. When disposing of food offerings I do not throw it in the rubbish with common waste. Instead I try to find a place in the woods or on the side of the road to leave it. If you are making a food offering in the wild, than the problem gets handled for you: whether its animals in the forest or homeless people in the city, you can consider that the guests consume the best part and leave the rest. In the case of symbolic objects like mojo bags, jewelry, bottles of perfume, etc, or other permanent objects like money, the rule is to leave it be. If you are leaving money or another object in public, don't worry about what happens to it, just let it go and don't look back. In the case of a shrine or altar in your own home, you should only offer those things that you are prepared to leave permanently. Every

now and then someone will get so addicted to making physical offerings (and thus train the spirits they work with to expect them) that their living space becomes overcrowded. Don't let this happen to yourself. Make offerings of energy and astral objects all you want, but leave permanent physical offerings for very special occasions. Whatever you do, do not take the offerings back. If you offer money, that money is no longer yours. Do not ever spend it. If you offer whiskey, don't consume it as part of the offering. You can consume it along with the spirits, but not their portion. Also know that spirits do not always relate to size the way that we do. Often a small dagger, or even a toy sized sword will suffice as an offering to a martial being (note the size of the "Weapons" in Santeria) . Similarly, just a couple dimes or even pennies will be just as enjoyable to spirits as larger sums. Leaving hundreds of dollars on an altar is just foolish and pleases no one. Make a donation in the name of the being you wish to please, just don't let that amount of money go to waste. More on this when we get to the lessons on Finance magic. The last rule of thumb for offerings is not to let yourself be bullied by any of the four classes of Guests. The first type of guest is a level that is well beyond ever asking for specific offerings, so if it seems like the Buddha, or Christ, or the Great Goddess are asking for a Bottle of Whiskey , it's a safe bet that entity is just masquerading as something greater. If a being of the 2nd or 3rd class of guest is asking for something that you do not wish to give, than politely tell them no. This is true even if it is a Orisha, Loa, Angel, or Deity. You are in charge of your own life, not them. If a spirit that you work cannot understand this or acts against you because you refuse to build your life around making ostentatious offerings to them, then cut ties and remove that being from your life. This may run against the teachings of some traditions that teach service to the spirits as integral to the religion, but I truly think that turning too much of your life over to the spirits is dangerous and counterproductive to real spiritual evolution. Whether you are letting them demand offerings you cannot afford, or working at a job you don't like because, that is what the spirits provided for you, you are giving up your own

Sovereignty. As a Sorcerer, you should never do this. The whole idea behind all of what we are teaching here is taking control over your own life. Below, I will be going over a ritual in the Extremely Elaborate or Elaborate category. This will cover all the essential points in a very clear way. After that I will show how to scale the same rite down to meet the needs of the less elaborate categories. PURIFYING AND ESTABLISHING THE OFFERINGS If using a physical base for offerings, it is a good idea to purify that offering of any negative traces that it has accumulated before offering it. There is a simple method of doing this via the four elements. The gesture of consecration below is simply the index and middle finger extended out from an otherwise closed fist. You can do the just the visualizations alone, or if you are quick, you can send out the consecrated elemental energy. You should not spend an inordinate amount of time doing this though, just flow with the rite. We will be dealing with the elements in depth, very shortly. Make the gesture of consecration over the offerings: “FIRE OF FIRE, FIRST OF THE FIRE WITHIN ME, BURN AWAY THE IMPURITIES OF THE OFFERING ” Visualize the offerings on fire and consider that this consumes any impurity in the offering substances and consecrates them by fire. “AIR OF AIR, FIRST OF THE AIR WITHIN ME, EXTINGUISH THE FIRE AND SEPARATE THE ASH FROM OFFERING” Visualize a wind that blows out the fire and consecrates the offerings by air. “WATER OF WATER, FIRST OF THE WATER WITHIN ME, CLEANSE THIS OFFERING SO THAT ONLY SUBTLE SUBSTANCE REMAINS. Visualize a torrent of water that passes over and through the offerings, washing away the ash from the extinguished fire and consecrating the offerings by water.

“EARTH OF EARTH, FIRST OF THE EARTH WITHIN ME, MULTIPLY THIS OFFERING THAT THIS SOLE SUPPORT MAY FILL THE TEN DIRECTIONS AND SATISFY ALL SEEK SUSTINENCE Visualize the offerings multiplying and filling all of space “SPIRIT OF SPIRIT, FIRST OF THE SPIRIT WITHIN ME, TRANSFORM THIS OFFERING INTO WHATEVER IS MOST DESIRABLE THAT IT MAY PLEASE THE SIX DOORS OF SENSATION AND DELIGHT MY HONORED GUESTS” Consider that the offerings take the pattern of whatever the recipient find most pleasing. INVITING THE GUESTS The invitation is a conjuration and should be set up similarly. The example below is very general and covers beings from all the groups. In this specific ritual, I use a drum, though one is not specifically necessary. If using one youshould first perform the rending of space than beat a drum lightly three times. The first time you should think “Don’t be afraid”. The second beat you should think “I will not harm you”. The third you should think “Come and receive offerings”. Than start beating the drum louder and louder in an increasingly powerful rhythm as you chant: IO EVOHE! IO AIONES! IO THEON! IO ANGELOS! IO DAEMONES! DAIMONES EVOHE! COME! COME! AEON OF AEONS, BORNLESS AND PERFECTED ONES IO EVOHE! COME! COME! ANGELS AND ARCHONS AND GUARDIANS OF THE WORK IO EVOHE! COME! COME! EVERY ENTITY OF CELESTIAL SPHERES AND OF INFERNAL CELLS! IO EVOHE! COME!COME! FAMULUS AND GUARDIANS WHO ARE BOUND UNTO ME! IO EVOHE! COME!COME!

SPIRITS OF THE FIRMAMENT OF EARTH AND OF ETHER IO EVOHE! COME!COME! SPIRITS OF THE DRY LAND AND OF THE FLOWING WATER IO EVOHE! COME!COME! SPIRITS OF THE WHIRLING AIR AND OF RUSHING FIRE IO EVOHE! COME!COME! PHANTOMS OF THE DEAD THE QUICK AND INBETWEEN IO EVOHE! COME!COME! EVERY DRYAD, SLYPH, AND SATYR WHO DWELLS WITHIN THIS PLACE IO EVOHE! COME!COME! EVERY UNDINE AND SALAMANDER, EVERY FEY AND GNOMISH SPIRIT! IO EVOHE! COME!COME! TO THOSE WHOM I OWE DEBT AND WHO OWES DEBT UNTO ME IO EVOHE! COME!COME! EVERY SUCCUBI AND INCUBI, EVERY SPECTRE OF ILL WILL IO EVOHE! COME!COME! ALL SPIRITS WHO CAUSE HELP OR HARM IN RESPONSE TO HUMAN ACTION! IO EVOHE! COME!COME! COME HERE ACCORDING TO YOUR DESIRES, BE SEATED ON THE THRONES IO EVOHE! COME!COME! This type of conjuration garners a lot of attention very quickly and thus should only be attempted by people who are comfortable with being able to banish straggling entities after the offering. If you wanted to focus on a specific group of beings or a specific entity than I would recommend creating several lines noting the qualities of that group or being. This is typical invocation type stuff: simply retell some of the deeds, qualities or names associated with the beings. For instance if I wanted to make an offering to the Jersey Devil, a famous spirit that resides here in the NJ Pinelands I might say... YOU WHO GUARDS THESE BARRENS WITH TOOTH AND CLAW, IO EVOHE! COME!COME!

YOU WHO APPEARS WITH HORSES HEAD AND DRAGONS WINGS IO EVOHE! COME!COME! YOU WHO RISES FROM POOLS OF IMPOSSIBLE BLUE IO EVOHE! COME!COME! YOU WHO RUNS ALONG STREAMS OF ORANGE IO EVOHE! COME!COME! YOU WHO STALKS AMIDST SILENT AMIDST THE STUNTED PINES IO EVOHE! COME!COME! YOU WHO IS KNOWN AS THE 13th CHILD AND LEEDS DEVIL IO EVOHE! COME!COME! COME IN PEACE AND BE SEATED UPON THE THRONE THAT I HAVE SET FOR YOU I am sure that you get the idea. Let your words ring forth into the universe an get a response. You can also visualize thousands of beams of hooked lights, radiating and returning, pulling in those beings whose attention you wish to receive. MAKING THE OFFERINGS During this portion of the rite you make your actual offering. Light your incense and waive it about in the air, hold your candles out to symbolically offer their illumination, pour your libations on the ground, place your items at the altar, or in the case of making offerings to beings that you owe debt to, move the offerings outside the temple. CLOUDS OF OFFERINGS, I GIVE TO YOU FOOD AND DRINK AND FUMGATION ENJOY! ENJOY! LET THE OFFERINGS ARISE AND PERVADE ALL SPACE LET IT TAKE THE FORM THAT IS MOST DESIRED ENJOY! ENJOY! GOD, AEONS, PERFECTS ONES THANK YOU FOR YOUR BLESSINGS ENJOY! ENJOY! FRIENDS AND FAMILY FROM FORMER LIVES I AM GRATEFUL FOR YOUR PAST KINDNESS ENJOY! ENJOY!

YOU WHO FORM OBSTACLES AS RETRIBUTION TO MY ACTION FORGIVE ANY OFFENCE MADE BY MISTAKE OR DELUSION ENJOY! ENJOY! SPIRITS OF THE DEAD AND TRAPPED IN-BETWEEN SPACES WARDENS OF THIS GROUND AND KEEPERS OF THE WINDS ENJOY! ENJOY! GUARDIANS AND FAMILIARS, BE THOU FULLFILLED QUICKLY REALIZE MY HOPES AND DESIRES ENJOY! ENJOY! TO EACH OF YOU I OFFER INEXHAUSTABLE TREASURES DELIGHTFUL SUBSTANCES AND ENJOYMENTS. YOU WHO WOULD HARM ME, PARTAKE OF THIS FEAST AND BE AT PEACE YOU WHO WOULD HELP ME BE FULFILLED AND ACCOMPLISH THAT WITH WHICH YOU ARE CHARGED ENOIGESAN AI PYLAI TOU OURANOU! (open the pylons of the heavens) ENOIGESAN AI PYLAI TOU CHTHONOS! (open the pylons of the earth) PASAI DYNAMEIS HYMNEITE XAIPETE SYN EMOI! (rejoice with me all the powers) This again is a very wide and general offering covering as many bases at once as can be. If I was to make a specific offering, I would tailor the oration as well as the substances that get offered. In the case of the Jersey Devil given above, i might lay out a "Red Feast", a visualized display of corpses and meat and such. In the case of visualized offerings, let there be no boundary. I have make visualized offerings of 100 dancing girls to a spirit that managed the powers of charisma. It is amazing what the mind can do. If you are making physical offerings of food and drink, it is a good idea to partake of some of the same stuff that you give the spirits. The last Vodou rite I went to in New Orleans the Houngan made an offering to Legba by pouring rum onto his veve, then said, "because I know you do not like to drink alone, I will have some with you". In Tantra many offerins are part of a Ganachakra feast where all the yogis and yoginis eat in communion with each other as well as the gods, guardians, and spirits. My own mentor John Reynolds, has noted in several books the similarity between the Ganachakra feast and the archetypal Witches Sabbat. Needless to say this type of offering can be placed into most Sabbat rites.

You will also note above that we are not only giving the offering, but making certain requests. We want spirits that are angry with us to be appeased. We want guardians to renew their vigilance. We want suffering spirits to be helped. We want spirits of place to act as our friends. All of this gets discussed "over dinner" so to speak. DISMISSAL The dismissal is the queue that the feast is ending. It tells everyone gathered to go home, and signals to those that linger that there might be forceful means employed to get them to vacate the premises HONORED GUESTS OF THIS TEMPLE, THE WINDOW OF OUR COMMUNION IS CLOSING AND OUR FEAST IS COMING TO AN END. TAKE YOUR LAST TASTE OF THESE ENJOYMENTS AND GO IN PEACE. VACATE THE THRONES OF THE FEAST AND GO FORTH UNTO YOUR ABODES AND HABITATIONS AS YOU DESIRE FOREVER ACT AS FRIENDS AND HELPERS ACCOMPLISH ALL THE DEEDS WITH WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN CHARGED BY THE POWER OF THE HAND AND EYE AND THE ARCANA OF THE SACRED ARTE AS YOU CAME IN POWER, SO GO IN PEACE AMEN The above dismissal is again quite long, but gets the job done. Unless you sense some kind of hostile entity remaining, you should not immediately banish the space and set up a zone rite. Just let things be. You don't want to be seen as slamming the door on your guests as they leave - that's just impolite. Be polite, be humble, but be frank, these are the rules for not only offerings, but dealing with spirits in general. MAKING CONCISE OFFERINGS Obviously the above is quite a mouthful. The shorter offerings that I give in my books fall into the "normal" category, but what about the Concise and Extremely Concise categories? There is no physical support for these offerings, so the purification must take place in the mind. Take a few deep breaths and clear the

mind. If you have been meditating regularly, than this should be easy enough to accomplish. The invitation can be cone very generally simply calling to "the powers that be" "The Pleroma (fullness)" or just making the gesture of offering and releasing it into the ether. Often a concise offering is aimed at something actually present in your area. This can be a statue of a diety or spirit, a grave, a sacred spot, a tree, whatever. In this case, there is no need for an invitation, the guest is already present. In fact it may be you that is the guest. The offering itself should be self explanatory. Make the gesture of offering and let it fly with little or no comment. Words are not always necessary, and sometimes the sublime and wordless gift is worth more than pages of recitation. The dismissal is usually not given in Concise offerings because you are either making the offering to powers so general that they need not be addressed or are aiming your offering at a being that is present in that area naturally. That is all there is to it really. I cannot stress enough the boon that offerings have been in my life. The wheels of providence get greased well and obstacles start to dissipate on their own. Eventually you will develop such strong allies that they will actively help you without request. I have been woken up by spirits at night with messages for me that have actually saved me from massive problems. You get out of it what you put into it. Next week we will be covering part 2 of the Subtle Body anatomy: Energy Centers. Now for a special comment on the Homework: Many of you have turned in your homework already which is fantastic. Even better is that the majority of you have turned in goals that reveal a good understanding of the path: challenging yet possible goals. I wrote a post on the forums regarding hitting the big pot in the Lottery as a poor goal because of the near impossibility of that happening even with the aid of magic. While I stand by my statements, that does not mean that you should choose goals that are easy or statistically probable. One students goal was to become a celebrity. While this is

also statistically improbable, perhaps almost as much as winning the lottery, it actually makes a great goal for Sorcery because the main factors that lead to success are not blind chance. There are certain doors that are opened by chance, but once those doors are open the main thing that gets you there is hard work. Your goals should be high, but they should be obtainable by skill assisted by magic, not just a big pile of cash metaphorically left on your doorstep.

Strategic Sorcery Lesson Seven: Subtle Body Anatomy Part 2: Power Centers.

Most discussions of the subtle body in western books seem to focus primarily or even exclusively on chakras, sephiras, or other points of energy in the body. Sadly, although these traditions draw upon eastern sources, those sources are usually the handful of texts translated into English over 100 years ago by people like Evans Wentz, Arthur Avalon (Sir Johnm Woodruff), and others. The west seems to have grabbed on to the idea of the seven chakras such as presented in "The Serpent Power" and run with it, to the point that for a while you could scarecely find a book on witchcraft or ceremonial magic that did not have a section on Chakras or something like it. Whether the book needed one or not, it was just expected. There is a lot more to working with the Etheric, Astral and other bodies than just these power points, which is why I started you off with a discussion of the various bodies and channels. In my experience, focusing on the channels and the movement of different types of energy through the various main channels of the body is more useful than focusing on the chakras right out of the gate. It is also important to strengthen and grow the capacity of those channels so that when you do work with the energy points, you can handle the sometimes potent results. The work presented below, as with everything I present in this course, is my own. It is based upon my study of different systems approach to the subtle body, teachings presented to me privately by teachers both incarnate and not, and my own insights and experiments. Rather than discuss the power points of the body in a single list or seven, nine, four or whatever Chakras, I talk about them in terms of importance and how central they are to the work of the Sorcerer. THE THREE MAIN CENTERS

There are three main centers that are more important and central to the Subtle body than any of the others. These are called the Three Cauldrons in some Celtic systems, and the Three DanTiens in QiKung. They all exist along the central channel of the body. THE CORE CENTER: The core center is my name for what is known in China as the Lower DanTien, in Japan, as the Hara, and in Hinduism as the seat of the Kundalini. It is the center of gravity in the body, and is about four finger widths below the navel and a couple inches in front of the spine. This is the point that is the primary focus of most internal martial arts and is the seat of the original sexual energy that we are born with. A seat of immense power, it is also a seat of intense passion. If the energy in this center is cultivated at the expense of other centers it runs the risk of causing many emotional and at times physical difficulties. THE HEART CENTER: The heart center is the seat of the higher emotions and the center of the Astral and Soul bodies. It is the middle DanTien of the Chinese systems and the Anahata Chakra of the Indian systems. It is the point of fusion between the vital and atavistic powers that emenate from the core center, and the purifying and enobling powers that descend from the Crown center. Because it is the meeting place of the highest and lowest, it is this center that gets a lot of attention is mysticism. The union of god and man that can occur simply by meditating on this point is sometimes represented in Christian mysticism by the heart with an eye at the center. THE CROWN CENTER: The Crown center is the Upper DanTien of China and the Sahasrara chakra of the Indian systems. It is here that the seed of divine wisdom and bliss resides. These three centers equate roughly to the three levels as presented in TSS and also to the first six of the seven bodies listed in lesson 2 of this course. The Core center is the root of the physical/etheric bodies, the heart is the root of the Astral/soul bodies, and the Crown is the root of the Mind/Causal bodies. By

meditating upon and entering into each of these centers, we can shift awareness from one body to another. One of the goals of the sorcerer should be to integrate these three centers and all the bodies into a seamless system that can be accessed all at once. In Tibetan tummo practice the fires of the core center are increased so that they fill the body, eventually rising to the crown and "melting" the seed of wisdom/bliss which than washes down over the body. The metaphors are similar with the rising of the Kundalini in Indian Yoga and the refining of Jing, into Shen spoken of in China. This is the root of the exercise that I give as "The Breath of Fire" in TSS, but can be explored in other ways as well. SECONDARY CENTERS Apart from the three listed above, there are secondary centers that also exist along the central channel but are not as integral, and which serve as satellites to the three main systems above. Starting from the bottom and working up again: THE ROOT CENTER: This center is located at the Perineum and is the same as the Muladhara Chakra in Indian systems. It is in control of drawing up energy from below through the legs and integrating it into the channels in the torso. This point is very important for grounding and centering and also for controlling energy released in sex. SOLAR PLEXUS CENTER: Located under the heart center and above the Core center this center is known as the Manipura chakra in India, and is sort of a psychic gateway in the body. It is through this point that the astral body is Tethered to the physical and etheric bodies and it is also through this point that some psychics and magicians find it easiest to access the subtle body of another via the philotic lines, that we will talk more about later. Energy from the core center gets balanced and distributed at this point, and in some ways it acts as an intermediary between the core and heart centers, just as the heart itself does between the root and crown centers.

THROAT CENTER: Center The throat center is associated with speech and expression. It is a point where the descending influences of the divine can be released through and made material through the power of vibration. This is why spells that are spoken work better than those that are only thought, the act of vibrating them into the world is gives them power to manifest. This point is also integral to dream work, dreams being "the speech of the subconscious mind". THE STAR CENTER AND EARTH CENTER: The Star center actually hovers above the physical body and the crown center. It transpersonal and is in some ways a regulated gateway between you and the infinite. It plays an important part in collecting energy from outer planets and stars, acting almost like a computer to program such energies before they hit the body. The earth center does the same thing from below. Though I spoke in lesson two of the Central Channel as extending from the perineum to the crown, there is a very subtle astral extension of this channel that travels beyond the physical and etheric body. These exist along that part of the Central channel. CENTERS NOT ON THE CENTRAL CHANNEL THE THIRD EYE: I know many of you were expecting me to list this above as it is one of the classical seven chakras. I however have never felt the presence of the third eye as part of this system. To my senses it is further forward than the centers mentioned above and is connected to the crown center, central channel, and left and right channels via a separate channel of its own. Whatever the most correct description of its location, this center is facilitates the higher aspects of sight both inner and outer. Those that have trouble visualizing, should visit this center and send energy there to help that faculty. The gazes in TSS all will help develop this point. THE TEMPLES: There are also power centers at the temples that help facilitate perception and internal balance. They are connected to the Third eye, in fact these three points form a triangle of perception that can act as a sort of internal scrying mirror if you can perceive it.

REAR CHANNEL POINTS: There are power points along the back channel of the body , very close to the skin. • The sacrum relates to the sexual energy and is integral to orgasm reversal. • The spine accross from the navel, known as the "door of life" in Chinese medicine. This is one of the main places where the Rear channel intersects with the belt channel. • Mid-spine. near the T-11 vertebrae: entrance into the heart for healing purposes and emptional balance • Skull Base, also called the Jade Pillow and Mouth of God. This is a center that is closely connected with the Crown and Throat centers it is said to produce a divine nectar that can be tasted by some yogis. It is also the place where you can connect to the logos within you and the place where true words of power can form before being uttered. FRONT CHANNEL POINTS: Points in the front of the body include: • The Genitals typically have three points: the Testes or Ovaries and along the shaft or on the clitorus. These form a triangle of manifestation. The intersection of these two triangles is an important feature in some Tantric symbolism. • The Navel: point that you were first attached to the external world. This is sometimes called the "Mind palace" in Taoism. It is also where most energy exercises begin in Taoism, as opposed to various Tantric excercises that begin at the Core, Crown, or Root. • Low Heart Point: Bottom of breast plate • High Heart point. At the top of the breast plate HAND CENTERS: In the palm of the hand is one of the most useful collection/release points for energy. The point is basically right in the center of the triangle created by the three pads on the palm. There are other, smaller points at the tips of the fingers and in the cavity between the thumb and hand.

This last point seems to link to a channel right into the brain and is a great tool in influencing magic as well as curing headaches. FEET CENTERS: On the bottoms of the feet are a point that the chinese call, the bubbling springs. It is right behind the front pad. This is the major collection point for energy from the earth. ALTERATIONS AND CONSTRUCTS You will note that I did not assigns elements and planets and sephira and all that jazz to these centers. Such assignments can be made, but they reflect the will of the magician making certain energies flow to different centers, than they do any "real" or inherent quality of that region. For instance in TSS I teach an exercise for placing the five elements onto the body to create a specific alchemical effect. Earth at the root, fire in the core, water in the heart, air at the throat, and azoth in the crown. There are other excercises that use the same elements in different spots. Each is correct according to its own rules. Same thing with the Middle Pillar excercise: Daath only is connected to the throat because the magician draws and enforces that connection. The same exercise done repeatedly can make a permanent changes in the subtle body so be careful what you decide to do. Some practices move or extend the points and channels in the body, for instance, moving the belt channels further outside of the body, or Castenada's practice of shifting the assemblage point to alter perception. Apart from altering channels and power centers that are already there, it is also possible to create entirely new structures in the subtle body. This is done in some traditions of Qi Gung where Pa Kua's ae set up to filter and regulate toxins in the body. I have met other people that claim to have made adjustments to their subtle body such as strengthening and widening channels that control sleep or creating vortexes that help alter time flow, and creating points that filter planetary energies such as we do in the Heptasphere rite, but in this case permanently grafted into the body.

There will be nothing in the course that requires any work like this, but I want you to know that some people do it, and claim success. I can attest to two people I know that have serious physical ailments that they trace to this kind of subtle body manipulation, so please tread lightly. I do perform this kind of permanent alteration unless it was under the direction of a very high spiritual intelligence such as an Angel or very realized Guru, but you are free to do as you will. VISITING THE CENTERS Now that we have this very rough map of channels and power centers, it is time to visit each of them and explore them on your own. The way that this is done is to gather energy using the vase breath and the pillar and let your body fill up with power. When you are ready pick a place on the body to start and concentrate the energy at that point. Taoists usually do this at the navel, Tantrics often at the core center, but it actually doesn't matter at all. You could start in your left hand if you wanted to, though it is easier to condense a lot of energy on a point somewhere in the torso. As the power condenses see it take the shape of a perfect and milky white pearl. Find the seat of your awareness in this pearl. The pearl has the ability to regulate and balance any part of the body it passes through. Try as best you can to think of yourself as having condensed your own mind into this pearl. Travel with it through the channels of the body and to the various power centers as I have described them: healing, strengthening, and balancing them as you do. The order doesnt matter The idea here is a little like the movie "Fantastic Voyage" from the 60's where you shrink down and enter a human body in a little ship. In this case your pearl is the ship, your mind the passenger, and your will the propulsion. It is one of the best ways to get to know the subtle body. Once you have done this you can experiment with pore breathing from different centers of the body or simply placing your mind into them and meditating. See what changes in mood or health occur both during and after your workings. Revisit the breath techniques from TSS in the light of these power centers and channels. In time we will be teaching more breath exercises that will take that work even further. CRAFTING

Lastly, I would like you to take some time sending power from different parts of the body through the power center at in the hand. Experiment with different ways to position your fingers and hand and how it alters the spiral flow of power through that zone. For example a great position to craft energetic structures is to hold the four fingers together straight up and with the thumb facing the inside of the hand held straight up as well. The hand should look like you are making an upward facing gators mouth. Allow the energy from the palm to spiral upwards and take a simple shape such as a ball. This ball can be patterned with will and sent to do a certain task or effect a specific persons mind. Next try creating more complex shapes like platonic solids. Eventually you will be able to "will" very complex structures into existence. These can come in handy in making certain offerings, and also when doing very precise healings. More specifics to come, but for now I want you to focus on getting the skill down. That's all for this week. See you on the forums and in next weeks lesson on:

Strategic Sorcery Lesson 8: Prayer Next week we will be delving into an exploration of powers of Level 2, the Aetherial level, starting with the elements, the planets, and azoth itself. This will be followed by explorations of materia in magic, and astral work. Before we get into these more arcane and complex topics I want to address a topic that is fairly simple, but often overlooked, especially by modern magicians. Prayer. A lot of people want to place magic as a more powerful, or perhaps more precise alternative to prayer. Make no mistake though, prayer itself is a traditional part of magic all over the world and can be a vital tool in the magicians arsenal. One of the misconceptions about Prayer is that the word prayer means one thing and one thing only. There are in fact several types of prayer, and several objects of prayer all of which have a place in magic. OBJECTS OF PRAYER Not every prayer is aimed at Deity. Some are aimed at lesser beings like angels and protector spirits. Some are even aimed at getting other beings to pray for you, the idea being that a great saint is closer to the source than you are. There are prayers to the ancestors, prayers to the ascended masters, prayers to the Buddhas. Prayers to... well you name it. One special object of prayer that commands a great deal of attention in western magic, are prayers to the HGA or Holy Guardian angel. We will address this later in the lesson. Other prayers are not aimed at any being whatsoever, but are simply statements made to yourself and to the universe at large. These are probably my favorite. INTERCESSIONARY PRAYERS This is what most people think of when they think of prayer: asking a being to intervene for you in a given situation. This is also what I would consider the lowest form of prayer - though one that often yields fruit. The protocols often differ from tradition to tradition and depending upon what being you are asking.

Bargaining is a fairly common form for this prayer to take, which is why it is one of the five stages of grief. It generally goes something like "Lord, if you just do X, I promise to do Y (or will stop doing Y) for the rest of my life". Often when they get X, they breathe a sigh of relief and say "never mind lord, I don't need that help after all". It need not be that crass of course. A skilled magician can make promises of specific offerings for specific services. The key is just to make sure that you follow through on whatever you promise, and not to promise more than you are willing to do. If the prayer is aimed at a being with a compassionate nature such as Mary in the Christian tradition or Avalokiteshvara in the Buddhist tradition, there is never any need for deals. It is that beings nature to help just causes out of love. In other cases you might be praying to beings that have a special contract with you, your specific tradition, your culture, or mankind in general. Often there is a reminding of that contract that is included in the prayers. This is particularly true of religions that have contracts with wrathful spirits and protectors, but is also seen in a lot of religions where mankind is more concerned with avoiding the wrath of the gods than in communing with them. This type of prayer for mercy is very old. Most practices of Human and Animal sacrifice from the Aztecs to the early Jews stem from a need to avoid the gods wrath. Catholic Priest and theologian Richard Rohr has argues that the real meaning of Christ's Crucifixion was to put an end to the idea of this type of sacrifice through an act of god making a final sacrifice to himself. He further argues that Christ was sent to change the relationship between mankind and god from one of fear of punishment for violation of laws, to one of limitless love and forgiveness. The irony of how fundamentalist "God Fearing" Christians turned out is a great sadness when one takes this argument into account. Sometimes people add something to the end of their request that says something like "if it be your will", or perhaps "thy will be done". Some view this as a silly addition, after all if god is just going to do what he wants anyway, than why

bother asking for anything at all? Others see it as a sort of cosmic covering of one's ass: it is up to the object of prayer to decide if it is good for you or not. In reality there is a subtle type of mental yoga going on here. You are trying to free your own will from your ego clinging by making sure that your will and gods will are one. Another type of intercessionary prayer is the imprecatory prayer. This is basically asking for the death, downfall, or general jinxing of a specific person or group. These can be found on the famous Greek Defixiones Tablets, Christian Psalms (109 is my favorite), and even Buddhist Tantric texts (one of my favorite translates as "Severing of the Life Channel"). PRAYERS OF BLESSING Prayers of blessing are a special type of Intercessionary prayer where you are not asking for the being to take an active role but are rather asking them to lend some of their power to a person, place or object. This is one of the most active elements of folk magic. The rootworker or folk magician creates an object or series of physical actions that spell out the pattern that they want to release. They then pray for God or Gods to lay their hand upon the work and act as the power source, or at least to release the innate power of the herbs and such that they are using. Since I strongly recommend not turning too much of one's life over to deities and spirits, this is a type of prayer that I use often in my work. PRAYERS OF EXPIATION Prayers of expiation or contrition exist all over the world. One need not adhere to a particular religion in order to feel that one has committed negative acts that are harmful to others as well as oneself. Actions out of anger, laziness, obsession, arrogance, and ignorance are just harmful, period. No religion needed to explain it. Unless you are a psychopath, you know when you do something like this, and you know the effect it has. Prayers of expiation bring these to the surface where we acknowledge them, examine them, and deal with them.

At higher levels of meditational practice, we begin to view all clinging to thought and confused appearance as something that needs to be renounced. There are Expiatory prayers used to confess ones continued clinging to ordinary perception and to help gain clear perception. PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING In the lesson on thought management I recommend a daily giving of thanks as a good practice for generating yet more things to be thankful for. This can certainly take the form of a prayer. Starting off intercessionary prayers with thanks for all that X has already done for you is always a good practice. PRAYERS OF ADORATION Prayers of adoration can be deeply misunderstood if you think that it is just all about worshiping a diety for the sake of worship. A prayer of adoration is meant to bring you closer to the object of prayer, not just supplicate that being. You adore the object of prayer like you adore a lover. You express your desire for union, be it with God, a Set of Gods, your Holy Guardian Angel, or just reality itself. Even in Buddhism where there is no GOD orSELF, prayers of adoration aimed at those who have achieved Buddhahood that we too may attain clear perception are common. MYSTICAL PRAYER These are prayers aimed at clarifying perception. Whether simple statements of intent like the Liturgy of the Mirror given in Lesson one, or prayers to a specific being asking to be free from delusion, the idea is that you seek clear perception of ultimate reality. A wonderful example of this is the Prayer of St Joseph the Visionary: Cleanse my hidden mind with the hyssop of your grace, for I draw near to the holy of holies of your mysteries. Wash me from all my understanding of the flesh and may an understanding of the spirit be mingled with my soul. Cause to reside in me a faith that perceives your mysteries,

so that I may perceive you as you are, and not as I am. Create in me eyes that I may see with your eyes, what I cannot see with my own. My every bodily image be wiped from my mind's eye, and may you alone be recognized before the eye of the mind. Amen. PRAYERS OF SILENCE Silence itself is sometimes seen as a prayer it starts with meditation, but rather than focusing on a specific breath or mantra, one simply relaxes the mind and turns it towards infinity. You open yourself up to the influence of primordial consciousness itself. When you become distracted you simply move your mind back to open relaxed clarity. Some recommend doing this with a word. Patrul Rimpoche in his commentary of the Golden Letters of Garab Dorje recomends the word PHAT! Which is a wrathful word that shatters the concept of the mind. In a very similat excercise from a Christian mystical text, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing suggests the word "Love". This is also similar to the practice known as "centering prayer". For the benefits of this type of prayer to show you need to make room in your life and your mind for the voice of the angel to manifest. For that you need to open up some periods of silence where you are not only not talking and listening mundanely, but you are not doing any particular prayers or meditations either. Ever notice how sometimes great ideas and insights come when you are performing simple repetitive tasks like mowing the lawn or washing the dishes by hand? Our lives are so filled with chatter and information that these are sometimes the only moments that the mind is simply at rest. The body is busy enough to be occupied with something simple enough to let the mind wander. Here are some ideas to recapture some silence in your life. •

Drive with the radio off - I like NPR and loud music as much as the next guy, but I try to make at least one car trip a day in silence.

•

• • •

•

Fake a habit. Hopefully you don't smoke, but that doesnt mean that you cant take a break like the smokers do. Excuse yourself, go outside and just stand or walk a bit. Leave the Ipod at home when running or walking in the morning. Excremeditate - thats right, just linger a bit longer in the can. Tack on 10 minutes to just about anything. Running a quick errand on a busy day? Take 10 and just relax. No one has to know. 5 minutes after a meditation session. Best one yet, after meditation, take 5 minutes to just walk or sit without any thought as to meditation instructions, breath, or asana, just hang and let your mind go.

PRAYER RETREATS AND LONG TERM PROJECTS Obviously some people feel so compelled that they dedicate their lives to prayer and meditation as monks, nuns, yogis etc. The idea of long term cumulative effect of prayer and meditation is a common throughout the world, but one need not be a full time contemplative to gain some benefit. One merely has to have the discipline to either carry on a strict and extensive regimen while still doing the essential business of ones ordinary life, or one has to take time off from ordinary life and go on retreat. The most famous example of this kind of work in western magic is the attaining of the Knowlege and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. THE HGA The term Holy Guardian Angel is a term borrowed from "The Sacred Magic of Abramelin". It is similar in many ways to the Agathodaimon of Greek Theurgia, and also the Paredros, or as my friend Frater RO likes to call it, the Supernatural Assistant. It is difficult however to pin down what exactly the HGA is. Is it a personal angel sent to you from God? Is it your higher self? is it yourself in a future incarnation? Is it a part of your brain? Is it simply a type of familiar spirit? Getting hung up on trying to answer this question before actually doing the work to establish contact is a bit like trying to decide on your opinion of a place before you visit it. You can read the guidebooks and opinions, but you will never really know until you go.

The one thing that I will say about it is that the angel is not simply a higher part of yourself. Anyone that has really done the work seems to agree on this. Even Crowley who early in his career (before attaining K&C) wrote that the HGA was a "Silent Self" later admitted in "Magick Without Tears" that the HGA was: "Something more than a man, possibly a being who has already passed through the stage of humanity, and his peculiarly intimate relationship with his client is that of friendship, of community, of brotherhood, or Fatherhood. He is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from yourself; and that is why I have insisted rather heavily that the term 'Higher Self' implies a damnable heresy and a dangerous delusion." That said, while the HGA does manifest as a separate being, it is so tied to us, that it is not entirely separate either. There are states of mind where you and the angel unite, or rather that you surpass the need for the angel at all. The topic is subtle and the more one speaks on it the more one tends to mislead rather than illuminate. The best advice I can give you is to do the operation and call to the angel as if it were the missing link between you and the most divine. IS K&C OF THE HGA EVEN NECESSARY? With all the fuss that gets made in western ceremonial magic about the K&C of the HGA people tend to forget that it is not the end-all be-all of magic. The concept doesn't even exist in most magical systems. The HGA has three main functions: to act as a guide on the path, to act as a conduit of power, to act as a contact for dealing with different spirits. We will deal with each of these in turn, but you need to know that there are different ways that you can fulfill these functions. In many eastern systems like Tantra for instance, the Guru acts pretty much as the HGA. It is the Guru who is guiding you on the path through his or her instruction. It is the Guru who provides access to the power of the divine through abhisheka (tantric empowerment), and the Guru that introduces you to all the Devas, Dakinis, and various classes of spirits that you will deal with. The advantage of the Guru is that he or she is a physical person that you can converse

with as reliably as anyone else in your life. The disadvantage is that being a physical person, even the best and more realized Guru's have some ego that sometimes gets in the way. It is not easy for a westerner to turn over trust that easily to another human being, nor should it be. In other systems, the Gods or their representatives such as Priests are relied upon for guidance. Access to the divine power can be bestowed through various initiations, or gained solely through the work of the magician himself - no angel needed. Same with access to the spirits. Just keep in mind that there is no one thing necessary for magic. The Sorcerer recognizes that magic is worked effectively by different means and seeks out the most useful methods to adapt and improve upon. ABRAMELIN As most of you know, The term Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is taken from "The Book of Abramelin" by Abraham the Jew. This is one of the most famous books on magic, and if you are unfamiliar with it, I urge you to do a little googling and come back to this lesson. What some people are not familiar with is the fact that most of the occult world has been using a very sketchy translation for the last 100 years. If you don't have it already you should pick up a copy of the Dehn translation of Abramelin, which is the most correct and authoritative version made from older German texts, and which has major changes from the Mathers translation, made from a poorly translated French copy. Changes between the editions include small details like: • • • •

its an 18 month operation, not a 6 month operation the recipe for the oil calls for calamus, not galangal there were no blank spots on the magic squares there is an entire book of natural magic missing from the french edition.

All that said, you do not need a copy for this course. I did not find the K&C by following the Abramelin method to the letter, nor did many other people. In fact,

ultimately, I think that every person finds their own way there in the end, even if they start following a specific program. That said, there are certain key points. TIMING One of the most off putting things about Abramelin is the idea of getting involved in a ritual that takes (what everyone until recently thought was) 6 months. This is really not such a big commitment considering the pay off. Most Tibetan lamas for instance go on a fully closed retreat for 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days. I myself have never believed in a firm time line for finding the K&C of the HGA. Not everyone starts off in the same place, so how can anyone say exactly how long it takes to finish? For some it comes in weeks, for some it may take years. For me it took over a year, but as I said, I did not follow the book. RETREAT Another off-putting part of Abramelin is that many people think you need to remove yourself from society completely in order to do it. This is not the case. If you read the text carefully (either translation) you will see that for the first two stages you can continue working and living, and even in the third you can do this if you need. The point of retreating is to turn the mind completely towards the operation and tone down the chatter of ordinary life. If you can do this for at least a few months, it is wonderful, not only in this context, but many others. Though I wasnt able to do this during the Abramelin operation, I have managed to take months off at a time, and recommend it highly. When we get to financial magic, I will be talking a bit about how to arrange this, but in the meantime you can look at books like "The Four Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferris and its chapters on mini retirements. If you cannot take a short retreat from life, than you need to arrange your life in such a way as to leave some time every morning and evening for prayer and meditation, as well as periods of silence throughout the day. PRAYER

This is really the crux of it. Some books say that if you are uncomfortable with prayer you can do Yoga or whatever spiritual practice you like in order to reach the angel. Respectfully, this is bunk. You need to enflame yourself with prayer and call out to the universe like you are looking for a missing person that means the whole world to you. You must call to the Angel like you are calling to a lover. You have to strive honestly and with all the force of your being. You cannot find the Angel in a vision quest or somewhere on the astral plane. It is a being that is both within you and outside you, but it must be wooed like a lover. It is not a being that you can evoke in a single ritual or vision quest. In TSS I provide two invocations that can be used, and they can get you started, but to be honest, I actually recommend that you follow the advice of the Abramelin book directly: "It is absolutely necessary that the prayer should issue from the midst of your heart, because simply setting down prayers in writing, the hearing of them will in no way explain unto you really how to pray. This is the reason that I have not wished to give you any special form of prayers or orations, so that ye yourselves may learn from and of yourselves how to pray, and how to invoke the Holy name of God, our Lord" In other words: speak from the heart. Address your God, your Gods, or Reality itself and speak like you were speaking to a person. This type of conversational prayer can actually be useful to the Sorcerer beyond just finding the K&C of the HGA. ATTAINMENT OF K&C OF THE HGA When you finally contact your angel, you will know. It will tell you it's name and will always be just a thought away for the rest of your life. In the classic text, there is a series of operations summoning the hierarchy of hell and binding them, but I will leave that for you to sort out with your angel. There will be some talk about bindings of this type later in the course as well.

I want to stress that attaining the K&C of the HGA is NOT necessary for Sorcery, nor enlightenment. It is not part of the course persay, I give it as an example of an ongoing prayer or prayer retreat, and also wanted to address it because of the importance it plays in some traditions. Whether you undertake that work is up to you.

PROBLEMS I do have a warning about undertaking prayer retreats, whether just to gain clarity, commune with the divine, or go after the K&C of the HGA. When you formally undertake the work, the universe seems to relay that message to any and all forces that are threatened by such an act. Whether you chalk these up as forces of ignorance in the mind, or actual demonic forces, or just a test, the universe always seems to put up a fight against anyone performing this work. When i did it, I was living the life of a 20 something slacker in the city. There wasnt all that much to loose. Others have told me that everything from marriage problems to financial woes to illnesses cropped up to divert their attention from the work. Crowley himself was drawn away from his early attempts and the same can happen to you. For a more modern diary of someone that completed the Abramelin operation, I recommend "The Sacred Magician" by Robert Bloom. Is filled with examples of the types of problems, both psychological and external, that can arise during the operation.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 9: The Elements Welcome back everyone and happy new year. I hope everyone had a good holiday season and that you are planning for lots of targeted and tactical thaumaturgy in two thousand ten! For the next two lesson we are going to be focusing in on one of the primary sets of powers: the five elements. I imagine that most of you already know a bit about the elements: colors, directions, that kind of thing. For this class there will some new information and tech that you have to learn, and almost as important, some associations that I would like you to unlearn, or at least not be as firm about as you were. INTRODUCING THE ELEMENTS The elements as we use them in this course are the elements of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Azoth, which we can interpret as spirit-space. Most books will trace the origins of this system to Plato in Greece, but the same elements are spoken of in the Upanisads from India, which are far older. In the Upanisads all descends from Akasha or spirit, which emanates Air, then Fire, than water, than earth. The idea being that they descend from the subtle to gross. This same system is taught by the Buddha but Akasha is interpreted less as spirit, and more as space, one of the other meanings of the word Akasha being "sky". In Greece various presocratic philosophers had focused in on one element or another Thales, Anaximenes , Xenophanes , and Heraclitus focusing in on water ,air , earth, and fire respectivly. It was not until Plato however that all five elements were dealt with in any kind of depth, work that war further expanded and clarified by Aristotle. In the medieval period these elements were the subject of much conjecture and experimentation by European and Arabic scholars alike. CORRESPONDANCES VS QUALITIES: You probably leaned in high school chemistry class that modern chemistry proved its superiority to alchemy by its detailed table of 103 elements rather than the

simple five proposed by alchemy. The truth of course is that the five classical elements were never envisioned as actual physical elements in the way that chemical elements are. They are representations of unseen forces that make up all reality. Physical water consists of all five elements, as does physical fire and air and earth. If you want to look for a correspondence in modern science to the classical elements you need to look at the four fundamental forces: Gravity (earth), Electromagnatism (air), Weak Nuclear Force (water), and Strong Nuclear Force (fire). We can use physical elements as symbols to get to know the essential elements, but only if we focus our minds upon their true qualities. An important distinction that we make in Strategic Sorcery is the difference between symbolic correspondences and inherent qualities. Nowhere is this more important than when dealing with the elements. Most traditions assign symbols, colors, directions, and perhaps even sounds to the elements. For instance, the most common color and directions for the elements are:

COLOR DIRECTION

AZOTH White Center/UP

AIR Yellow East

FIRE Red South

WATER Blue West

EARTH Black/Brown North

This directional scenario was determined by the geography around the temple mount in Jerusalem. Planes to the east, desert to the south, Mediterranean to the west, and mountains to the north. If however we want to work with the elements as they relate to the four royal stars in astrology, such as is done in the Golden Dawn Hexagram rituals, the directions become:

DIRECTION

AZOTH Center

AIR West

FIRE East

WATER North

EARTH South

I often do magic at the beach here in New Jersey. Though it is true that the physical elements are themselves merely symbols of the actual elements themselves, it is quite counter-intuitive to think of water in the west when the

whole Atlantic Ocean is splashing at you from the east. so I usually arrange them this way when doing that kind of work at the beach.

DIRECTION

AZOTH Center

AIR West

FIRE South

WATER East

EARTH North

Now let's look at color. The blueness of water is only apparent to those that live near the sea. In Tibet the deep blue of the night sky best represents the element space. The arid climate of the Tibetan plateau makes yellow the best color for earth. The most common elemental color scheme in Tibet, and the one that you see all the time on prayer flags, is:

Color

AZOTH Blue

AIR Green

FIRE Red

WATER White

EARTH Yellow

The directions associated with these elements differ from text to text, implying the need for flexibility with your symbols inherent in the tradition itself. The Golden Dawn also stresses this flexibility with its different color scales associated with the different kabalistic worlds. Some traditions of magic, especially some modern expressions of Kabala, stress memorization and indoctrination of these types of correspondences so that any time you think of a sephira or element the color and direction instantly comes to mind. Some teachers can get rather adamant about these symbolic correspondences, confusing them with actual inherent qualities of a thing, rather than just the contrived device for learning that they are. In today's multicultural world, and multi-traditional magic that you are likely to encounter, I stress flexibility when it comes to these symbolic correspondences. To me it is not a good thing to have your brain think "water" every time you face west or see the color blue. This extends to concepts like the planets and the sephira as well. If you think all love magic should be green because thats what the Key of Solomon says the color or Venus is, than you will have some problems using anything from a rootworking perspective, or for that matter any color

scheme that is based on how color naturally effects your psyche. While it may be Venusian, the color green is about as far from evoking sex in the brain as it gets. You should know the correspondence well enough to use it in a ritual, but be flexible enough to change your thinking for other systems or more importantly, to deal with reality as is. ELEMENTAL QUALITIES Most of the work with the elements that we will be doing in this course focuses on the qualities rather than the correspondences. It may be easier to face a certain direction, visualize a certain color, and look at a certain symbol to tune into the power of the element, but if you can manage to do it using the qualities instead of the correspondences than you will have a much stronger and more tangible connection with those powers. If after you have connected to them via their qualities, you than desire to overlay some symbolism you can certainly do so. This is quite useful for dealing with spirits from a specific tradition that are used to certain protocols, or for getting everyone in a group ceremony tuned in together. Most qualities exist in polarities and this is the most basic division amidst the four lower elements. The fifth element, that I call Azoth but which has also been called spirit, space, akasha, quintessence, and other names to numerous to name is an element that is beyond division, so for the moment we will focus on the qualities of the other four elements. The first quality to know is whether an element is fixed or volatile. An alchemical text from the 1700's called The Golden Chain of Homer divided the elements into celestial salt (fixed) and celestial niter or life (volatile). We can also think of fixed elements as the passive or feminine elements and the volatile elements as active or male elements. Water and Earth are the fixed elements with Earth being the most fixed. Fire and Air are the volatile elements with Fire being the most volatile. If you wanted to you could stack the elements from most fixed to most volatile: Earth, Water, Air, Fire.

Aristotle attributed qualities of temperature and humidity to the elements. This, more than any other set of qualities is what the majority of occult texts give as the qualities of the four elements.

HOT COLD

WET Air Water

DRY Fire Earth

This system neatly gives each element one opposite element and a connection to each of the other two. Those that like neat and tidy closed system charts that "prove" the divine symmetry of the universe usually stop right here. I however hate that crap, so let's add some more qualities that are connected to the elements. These are not arranged in neat polarities, but they are REALLY useful for psychoenergetically honing in on the elements when the ideas of fixed/volatile hot/cold and wet/dry just aren't cutting the mustard. FIRE: Radiance, Expansion, Warmth, Light, Explosiveness, shimmering, burning AIR: Penetration, diffusion, rising, frenetic movement, constant change WATER: Contraction, mutability, deterioration, fluid movement, EARTH: Stability, inertia, Density, attraction, descending, crushing Using these correspondences I want you to do an pore breathing experiment right now. Imagine that your body is empty like a balloon. Perform the vase breath, but as you do imagine that you are breathing through your skin, which is the surface of the balloon. Your whole body is a lung, inhaling and exhaling. Pick an element and read all of the qualities I list above out loud. Let your mind be guided by your words and try to psychically distinguish the pure element that you have chosen in the environment around you. As you inhale, breathe that element in. As you exhale exhale normal air. Continue to do this until you feel filled with the element. At that point you can either reverse the process and breathe the pure element back out into the ether, or you can condense that element down

into your body into the appropriate sphere as listed in the Pillars and Spheres exercise. ON AZOTH Azoth, the fifth element is beyond all conception. It is the top of the ladder, and the substance from which the ladder is made. It is the clear light of reality that when passed through the prism of perception fractures into the separate colors of the lower elements. It is infinite, containing all opposites, yet can be said to be naturally and inherently compassionate and loving. At first it might seem odd to say that something which contains all opposites has a quality like compassion and love, when these things themselves have their opposites: callousness and hatred. If however you have the experience of resting the mind in the pure awareness of the element of Azoth you can see that callousness and hatred are generated by ignorance and compassion and love are generated by understanding. Thus it can be said that within Azoth callousness and hatred exist only when ignorance of its reality is present. Sadly this is the normal state of affairs for most of us. FOUR FUNDAMENTAL FORCES I mentioned above that the four elements are related by some to the four fundamental forces of modern physics. If you had a mind to do so you could also think about the action of those forces when trying to tap into the elements. I myself have only gotten mixed results from this, and get a bit wary when physics and magic are mixed. Still, the correspondence is so close that I would be remiss in not explaining it. I list them from weakest to strongest Gravity of course relates to the element earth. It is the weakest of all the forces. Its weakness is easily demonstrated. Rub a comb over your shirt and give it just a bit of static electricity, than hold the comb over a piece of paper, which should lift off the desk from the static. The entire planet is using gravity to keep the paper on your desk, but the comb only needs a bit of electromagnetism to break its hold. Though weakest of the forces gravity has the largest range as everything in the universe is exercising gravitational pull on everything else.

Electromagetism equates to air. Electromagnetism comes in positive and negative charge which allows for the attraction of opposites and the replusion of same charged particles. It is the binding force that holds an atom together. Weak Force equates to water and is responsible for radioactive decay and operates on the scale of the atomic nucleus. Strong force relates to fire and is the strongest force with the shortest range. Its duties are keeping quarks together and keeping protons and neutrons inside atomic nuclei. I mention these four only for those that wish to push the limits of their psychic exploration. If you are interested in the concept than I recommend you read up on physics. If not, don't worry, the main qualities that we will focus on henceforth are the ones listed in the section above. ELEMENTAL ACTION So we have discussed elemental correspondences and qualities, and hopefully you can get a good feel for the element based on this. The question still remains though: what good does this do me? For this, we need to know not only the correspondences and qualities, but the magical actions of each of the elements. According to some the elements relate to various levels of mind. The Alchemist Robert Allen Bartlett gives these as Fire=Superconscious mind Air=selfconscious mind Water=subconscious mind Earth=conscious mind. Just as by working on the seven bodies I listed in lesson 2, you can shift your awareness from gross to subtle through the awareness of the elements. On a more mundane level, the elements each also relate to specific mental processes. Fire relates to will - the fire and drive to get something accomplished. Water relates to understanding - deep intuitive knowlege. Air relates to the faculty of analysis - ability to rend apart and examine anythung. Earth relates to the faculty of synthesis- the ability to relate and bring things together and correlations.

On a yet more mundane level (note how the more mundane it gets, the more useful it gets) Fire relates to the sex drive, Water to the emotions, Air to the intellect, and Earth to laziness and inertia. In the body fire relates to the nervous system. Air relates to the breath. Water to the blood and other fluids. Earth to the bones and flesh. Fire relates to the sense of sight, Water to the sense of taste, air to the sense of smell, and earth to the sense of touch. Azoth governs the sense of hearing. In the external world Fire can be used to banish, start new projects, burn out illness, fight conflicts, win contests, ripen situations, cultivate health, get laid, put the spark back in a marriage, speed things up. Water can be used to cultivate romance, deepen emotions, ease negotiations, breed friendship, slowly deteriorate a long term obstacle, increase perception, help psychic perception. Air can be used for passing tests in school, improving memory, teaching effectively, confusing enemies, organizing. Earth can be used to support projects, bring money, gather forces, barricade yourself, slow processes, help agriculture, insure basic necessities. See how being able to tap into and channel these forces can be useful for both the mystical quest for gnosis and the needs of strategic sorcery? Next week we will be going over how to do just that, in a lesson that consists of almost nothing but elemental tech. Spend this week getting in tune with the elemental correspondences, qualities, and actions because next week you will be given a lot of tools to play with. More I think than in any book on Elemental magic that I am aware of! NOTES Ten of you contacted me this week to ask where last week's lesson was. Since I did say in lesson zero that I didn't expect people to read or work through every lesson as it comes, I suppose that it is perfectly understandable that the notice did not reach everyone. From now on, I will make a separate announcement e-mail if there will be a delay or week off.

HOMEWORK #2 Homework assignment number 2 is another easy one. Name three exercises and rituals from the class that you have used and give me feedback on their effects. I am not necessarily looking for events or observations that came from the moment you practiced them, but for the effect that they had on your life. It could be a zone rite that shielded you, an increased amount of energy from working with the channels and power centers, a spirit that you contacted through offerings, or an overall sense of clarity from regular meditations. It doesnt have to be positive either. If you tell me that your life is turning to crap from a ritual or that you are having a mental breakdown because your meditations are disturbing, than I want to hear that too.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 10: WORKING WITH THE ELEMENTS We left off last week with a pretty full description of the elements: their symbolic correspondences, their innate qualities, and their magical actions. This week I promised to give a series of rituals, exercises, and subtle keys that utilize that knowledge. Before I do I want to remind everyone that this course is designed to present you with the training that I have found most useful in Sorcery and as many tools to exploit that training as I can. I am making the class as information dense as possible so that by the end you will have an immense resource of tech and training that you can refer back to throughout your lives. It is not my intent that you try everything I lay out there every week so that the day after the last lesson goes out you can say that you have done everything in the course. You are receiving the fruit of twenty years of research and practice. Don't let yourself get overwhelmed, work at your own pace. Experiment and have fun. With that said, lets jump right into it with what I consider the basic practice of working with the elements: PORE BREATHING I covered pore breathing very briefly in TSS, but I want to revisit it here. Pore breathing is a technique whereby you can accumulate certain energies in the body from the world around you. The first step in this is to clear the mind and imagine that your body is empty like a balloon. Meditate on yourself being surrounded completely by the element you are looking to breathe in. Use the qualities that we spoke of from the last lesson, and let your mind run wild with visualization and fantasy. Your mind should transport you to a place where the entire universe is that one element. If fire, you imagine that you are at the center of a perpetual explosion. If water, that you are in the deepest ocean with no sense of ground or surface. If earth, that you are buried completely at the center of a planet. If air that you are in a void of whirling air, not flying or falling as there is no ground of sky. When you can actually feel yourself experiencing the effects of such an environment you know that you have successfully tapped into that element enough to start pore breathing it.

Perform the vase breath as per the instructions in TSS (deep belly breaths) but as you do imagine that you are breathing through your skin, which is the surface of the balloon. Your whole body is a lung, inhaling and exhaling. Franz Bardon recommends scrubbing yourself in the morning with a stiff brush to open the pores. With continued practice you will actually gain the physical sensation of your skin breathing and energy passing through it, this is how you know that your visualization and physical breathing on Level 1 has triggered the Astral/Energetic response on Level 2. As you breathe, imagine that you are breathing in the element you are concentrating on, and that your empty body is filling up with it. As you exhale don't think of anything in particular, just exhale ordinary air. Once you feel that you have loaded up with the appropriate amount of energy, you can simply cease the meditation. If you no longer desire to be filled with that element, simply reverse the process, breathing that element out, and ordinary un-patterned air in. If you don't reverse the process yourself, nothing bad will happen. In about 24 hours your ordinary ratio of elements will take re-establish itself naturally. If you look back on the last lesson you should have no trouble seeing the usefulness of this. Want to appear sexier to the guy across the room? Pore breathe fire. Want to learn something fast? Pore breathe air. Want to calm down fast in a tense situation? Earth. Want to feel some empathy for your spouse? Water. With practice, you can also use fire to help keep your physically warm, and water to keep physically cool. ELEMENTAL COMPACTING Once you are filled with elemental energy, you can than concentrate all that energy down into specific shape or specific part of the body. To do this follow the instructions above and fill up with the element you want to work with. Nest choose the part of the body that you want to condense the element into, or if you prefer, a point just outside the body to put all the elemental energy into. Continue breathing. Inhale normal air but as you exhale, will the element to travel to the preselected point and gather there. This can be as small as you like, simply compact all the elemental energy into the space.

You can also compact the element into specific shapes. The platonic solids are excellent for this, as they each one has a natural affinity to a specific element. FIRE: Tetrahedron EARTH: Cube AIR: Octohedron WATER: Icosahedron AZOTH: Dodecahedron The usefulness of this is that in the body you can send these condensed elemental structures to different organs for healing or other effects. I warn you not to use them on the brain or heart however, there will be much gentler methods of healing given later on in the course. You can also send these structures out to other people, hitting them with a bullet of pure elemental goodness (or badness if that's what you are up to :-) For instance you could send cubes of earth element into a patient with weak bones to help his bone structure. You could send Tetrahedrons of fire to warm the blood or help the nerves, Octohedrons of air to aid in breathing, and icosahedrons of water to assisnt in cleansing the blood. You could hot these systems differently for an elemental attack, using air on the bones and fire in the blood for instance. OBJECT LOADING Using the same method as above you can create very simple amulets and talismans by loading an object with a specific element. This seems to work best with Metals and natural objects like stones or herbs. If you are using a paper talisman, you should anoint it in an appropriate oil, so that not only is it empowered by the oil, but that the oil gives the elemental energy a better "grip" on the object. If the object is itself representative somehow of the element than it will work all the better. This is where the symbolic correspondences come in: use the qualities of the power to tap into and feel it, use the symbolic correspondences to help pattern that power to do what you want it to do.

LOADING SPACE You can load an entire room with elemental energy if you want to. Begin by meditating as you did with pore breathing, on seeing the space entirely filled with the element in question. Pore Breathe the element again, but this time Pore Breathe it in and out. The idea is that in your meditation, you are tapping into the plane of that element and drawing it through yourself into the physical room you are in. You can even open your eyes if you like. When i do this I feel a sense of bilocality, of being in two worlds overlapping. We did this once at a party, loading each room with a different element. By the end of the night the living room was filled with people slumped on the couch watching TV (earth), my room was filled with people having a very emotional conversation (water), my roomates bedroom was filled by four people doing some serious flirting, and later following through on it (fire), and the kitchen was filled with a group of people discussing Khabbalah all night (air). INVOCATIONS A great way to bolster an elemental spell is by calling upon one of the powers associated with that element. When I first moved to Philadelphia with my friend Matt (who is also the illustrator of TSS) it was a brutally hot summer. We met someone at a craft faire that was reading Modern Magick and got to discussing the art. Relatively new to the practice, he was not convinced that magic could affect anything outside of your own head. I told him that I would try to make it rain that night, and if I was successful he should give me a call so we could get a group of like minded people together. I went home and pore breathed the element water till I was brimming with it. I than faced west. drew a water invoking pentagram, and called upon Nixsa, the king of the water element. I asked him to aid me in my spell to make it rain a cooling rain that would give relief to the city. I than released the water element that I had accumulated in my body upwards into the air. Despite the dry forecast, it rained within the hour. There are too many associations with the elements to list them all here, and I leave it up to you the ones that you want to work with. Some common ones in the

west are the four archangels: Raphael (Air), Michael (Fire), Gabriel (Water), and Uriel or Azra'il (Earth) , and the Four Elemental Kings Paralda (Air), Djinn (Fire), Nixsa (Water), and Ghob (Earth). The Enochian system probably offers the most complex system of specifically elemental beings. Each elemental watchtower has three banner names that open up the watchtower, an watchtower king, a group of seniors and then subdivides again into four (for example: air of water, fire of water, earth of water, water of water) listing kerubic angels, serviant angels, and kakodaemons. Some rituals that call upon Enochian elements, like Regardie's Watchtower opening and closing are safe enough and give a nice added kick to a ritual, but in general I recommend that if you feel called to it, you study Enochian magic separately from anything else until you become adept in it. It is a complex, idiosynchratic, and incomplete system that is quite powerful by itself. No matter what beings, if any you choose to work with, the one thing that I must point out is that MORE is not BETTER. If you are looking to tap into the element earth, you will do much better spending a few minutes invoking Uriel as a single cosmic presence than you will by throwing as many god names as you can find into an invocation. In the future when I ask you to write a ritual as homework, I do NOT want to see things like: "I call thee, Uriel, Ghob, Vaishravana, Zimimay, Mahazael, Thahaaotahe, Tammuz, Gaea, Habondia, etc etc etc.". Even though these all may be the names of entities associated with the element Earth, that does not make them the same. Even if they were, you would get no benefit by calling more and more names. Focus on one at a time, preferably from a tradition that you actually have a fairly deep knowledge of. Most of the time when I call upon beings in their capacity as representatives of the elements, I either am opening the quarter gates as in the Compass Round or Watchtower ritual or I ask them to assist in patterning a spell that I am doing such as Loading a talisman or applying elemental energy directly to a target. I do not generally summon them to deal with a problem on their own, as the elements can be rather single-minded in approach, and I find other beings better for that kind of work.

REVISITING THE PILLARS AND SPHERES No single practice I have given thus far has generated as much feedback as the Pillars and Spheres. If you do not know it, go back to TSS and read the chapter on Regular practice. The rite is pretty basic, it simply establishes the five elements in strategic spots along the central channel. There are similar practices in other traditions, the main difference is the order of the elements. Bardon for instance would have you gather Earth at the legs, water in the belly, air in the chest, and fire in the head, and azoth above you. Other Indian systems gather them in chakras as I do here, but stack them Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Akasha. In each of these the elements are progressing from the most dense at the lower extremities, to the most subtle and volatile at the higher extremities, thus making a microcosmic map on the body, of the descent of spirit into matter. The Pillar and Spheres rite as I give it in TSS is based on a different principle. The elemental progression in the Pillar and Spheres rite is designed to cause an alchemical reaction in the body. The Earth element is at the root in order to ground you and form a basis for your practice. The fire element is placed in the belly, the center of gravity and seat of the kundalini to excite that energy and psycho-energetically enflame yourself. This fire is the key to the whole reaction and is make brighter with special breaths, some of which are contained in TSS. Water is the seat of understanding and compassion at the heart. The flame underneath boils the water and releases its contents upwards where they become hot air. This hot and humid (remember air is hot and wet according to Plato) melts the frozen seed of wisdom that resides at the crown. If you are already familiar with the Pillar and Spheres exercise as a regular practice and want to work with it more fully when you have time you should spend some time pore breathing each element, than condensing it down into the appropriate sphere so you have a very visceral feeling of the elements. Than perform the breath of fire and let that fire work its magic. Eventually what will happen is that you begin to feel quite hot all over. Next this heat will give way to a cool feeling descending from the crown. This feeling causes great shuddering bliss. Later in the course, I will talk about contemplation and

how to hold the mind when this occurs, but for now, simply enjoy it. It is the nectar of wisdom descending. DISSOLVING INTO THE ELEMENTS The last practice that I want to share involving the elements is a practice where you meditate on yourself dissipating into the elements. In this meditation, you are to imagine yourself being slowly overtaken by an element, until that element kills you and completely overtakes your body. As macabe as this may seem to some, the practice instantly strengthens your connection to the elements and your ability to see how all reality breaks down into these forces. Furthermore it prepares one for the moment of death when the elements dissolve into one another and the spirit is released from the body. In Strategic Sorcery, we not only seek to live with skill, but to die by it too. Here are a few examples: Fire: Visualize yourself sitting exactly as you are now, but in a deep but dry forest. A spark ignites, and the fire spreads all around you. It travels up the trees, until you are sitting in an ever shrinking circle of ground. Eventually your clothes catch fire, than your skin. You sit unmoved. The fire consumes your body. Organs pop releasing their fluids, which boil on the ground. Eventually only a skeleton remains, until even that is reduced to ash. In the end there is only flame. Water: Visualize yourself sitting as you are, but in a valley. The valley begins to flood until your sweapt away in the rushing waters. Your lungs fill with water and you down. Eventually your body is worn away by the water until you yourself become part of the water. Earth: See yourself in a canyon. Rocks begin to fall, and the ground begins to shake. A chasm opens underneath you and draws you in, soil pouring in on top of you burying you alive. Feel the crushing weight of the entire planet press you into atoms until you yourself are part of the earth. Air: See yourself in a field. A wind begins to blow. It gets stronger until you are taken up into the air. The air rips at your clothes and finally your skin. It

completely rips your form down to just the atoms until you yourself are part of the wind. Azoth: You are in outer space. You begin to expand. As you expand you get lighter and more transparent. You fade as you grow to encompass the universe itself. In the end you are everything and everything is in you. If you can get used to the sensation of loosing yourself to the elements, it will be one of the best ways to get to recognize them and how they work. This is useful for all the work above as well as at the time of real physical death. THE DISSOLUTION OF ELEMENTS AT THE TIME OF DEATH Everyone knows about the Tibetan Book of the Dead and its instructions for the Bardo. What not a lot of people, including a lot of Buddhists dont know is that it is not a text meant for serious practitioners but for lay people. Tantric practitioners are either going to be using Phowa to eject their consciousness into a predetermined pure land at the time of death or they are going to try to use the moment of death itself to attain enlightenment. One of the ways to do this according to the Guhyasamaja Tantra, one of the oldest tantras, is to meditate on the process as it happens, and release the illusory body to attain enlightenment with. According to this text when the elements dissolve, there is a specific vision of light associated. These are, in order Earth to water Water to Fire Fire to Air Air to Space Gross Consciousness to Luminescence Luminescence to radiance Radiance to imminence Imminence to translucency

Mirage of water Smoky vision Flickering lights like fireflies in the sky A clear flame Clear moonless sky Clear Sunlit sky Clear pitch darkness Clear light of pre-dawn sky.

The body would actually be clinically dead at the fourth stage, but the second four processes happen very shortly thereafter. There are still more elemental practices that I could teach, but this is a good grounding in elemental sorcery. Next Lesson: The Planets!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 11: The Planets

The seven classical planets are one of the pillars of magic both western and eastern. At different times and places they have been seen as: benevolent satellites that shine influence down upon the earth which can be harnessed by the skillful and the religious, malevolent archons acting as barriers between our material existence and the glory of the highest heavens, or as gates leading up a ladder of lights to ultimate divine gnosis. A full treatment of planetary magic is beyond the scope of this work, but the basic structure and meaning of the planets that was set up by the ancient Chaldeans is necessary both for understanding what the seals do, and the mechanisms that they are designed to overcome.

PLANETARY ORDER

The ancients believed that the earth was the center of the solar system, and as such treated the moon and sun as planets. Thanks to Galileo we now know this to be false cosmologically, but in the case of magick the center is wherever the magick is done, regardless of what revolves around what. The order of the planets set up by the Chaldeans still hold true as far as the distance from the earth. Moving in ascending order, they are: Luna, Mercury, Venus, Sol, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. This pattern is vital to understanding how the times of the planets are calculated.

PLANETARY DAYS

Every child learns in kindergarden that the days of the week are named after planets, such as Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; or Norse Gods such

as Wednesday (Wodens day) Thursday (Thors day) and so on. In Latin and modern day languages heavily influenced by it, all the names retain their planetary reference. In Spanish for instance Tuesday is maries, Wed is Miercoles, Thurs is Jueves. And Fri is Viernes.

At first glance it seems that the Chaldean order above was ignored when naming the days of the week, but in reality the order is there, if you extend it over two weeks. The reason that the planetary days run in order every other day is that it is the only way for the planetary hours to work.

PLANETARY HOURS

Just as with normal hours, there are 24 planetary hours in every day. However, because the astrological day and night need to coincide with actual light and darkness, rather than lasting 60 minutes, the planetary hours are the time from sun rise to sunset and vice versa divided by twelve. Because the day and night hours will be different on every day except on the equinox’s thus they have also been called The Uneven Hours. Thankfully, there are now sites on the internet and programs that you can purchase that will calculate the planetary hours as well as many other astrological calculations for you..

The first hour of the daylight hours is always the same as the day that it falls upon. As you can see below, the other hours follow the Chaldean sequence repeated over and over, which works out perfectly when the days follow the two week sequence that I mentioned above.

Planetary Hours of the Day Hour Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Saturday

1

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury

Jupiter

Venus

Saturn

2

Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury Jupiter

3

Mercury Jupiter Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

4

Moon

Mars

Mercury Jupiter

Venus

Saturn

Sun

5

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury Jupiter Venus

6

Jupiter Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury

7

Mars

Mercury Jupiter Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

8

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury

Jupiter

Venus

Saturn

9

Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury Jupiter

10

Mercury Jupiter Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

11

Moon

Mars

Mercury Jupiter

Venus

Saturn

Sun

12

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mercury Jupiter Venus

Mars

Planetary Hours of the Night Hours Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Saturday

1

Jupiter Venus

2

Mars

Saturn Sun

Mercury Jupiter Venus

Moon

Mars

Mercury

Saturn

Sun

Moon

3

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury

Jupiter

Venus

4

Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury Jupiter

5

Mercury Jupiter Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

6

Moon

Mars

Mercury Jupiter

Venus

Saturn

Sun

7

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mercury Jupiter Venus

8

Jupiter Venus

9

Mars

10

Mars

Saturn Sun

Saturn

Moon

Mars

Mercury

Mercury Jupiter Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury

Jupiter

Venus

Saturn

11

Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury Jupiter

12

Mercury Jupiter Venus

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

With this system of hours and days at their disposal a magician could focus on a particular time that the planet most favorable to his operation would be available. To further aid the magician in his work various symbols and words have been employed over the centuries that could be employed at the correct time to channel the planetary influence. Because they were integral to how the seven seals were developed, we will be focusing on Agrippas system of Kameas, Intelligences, and Spirits of the planets, as well as the Greek practice of attributing vowel sounds to the planets.

KAMEAS

In Gnostic cosmology there were two planes beyond the planetary spheres. Because they were so close to god, they were thought to be inaccessible to all but the most profound mystics. In Khabbalah these are the first two sephira on the tree of life: Kether and Hochma. In Hermetic cosmology these get spoken of simply as the 8th and 9th, which Hermes Trismegistus wrote about so beautifully. The fact that astronomers later discovered the planets Uranus in 1781 and Neptune in 1842, which would correspond to these spheres, hint at the deep level of gnosis that these early mystics possessed.

Since the first planetary sphere one encounters is Saturn, and below the invisible, two higher spheres, it gets assigned the number three – the lowest possible number for material manifestation. Jupiter gets assigned the number four, Mars five, and so down the sequence. The Persians assigned magickal squares to each of the planets known as kameas. Each square has a number of boxes that is the square of the number of the planet. Thus Saturn is 3 across and 3 down making 9, and luna is 9 across and 9 down making 81. Each of these boxes is in turn filled in with all the numbers in the square so that they add up to the same number in whatever line across or down. Sticking with these two examples the numbers in any line of the simple Saturn square add to 15 and the numbers in any line of the more complex lunar square add to 369. These squares themselves are magickal talismans of some power, but they have other uses besides.

INTELLIGENCES AND SPIRITS

Henry Cornelius Agrippa developed seals of the planets, their intelligences, and their spirits by using the Kameas as a sort of mystical tracing board. By using gematria he extracted the numerical equivalent of the letters in each name, and reduced them until they were all numbers that appeared on the

kamea of the appropriate planet. He than traced a line from number to number to arrive at a sigil for the intelligences and spirits. His process for developing the seals of the planets from the kameas is quite a bit more complex and I refer the reader to Donald Tyson’s explanation in the appendix of his translation of the Three Books of Occult Philosophy.

With the knowledge of the proper day and hour, a magician could use the name and seal of an intelligence and spirit to perform a conjuration. Agrippa saw the intelligences as the benevolent aspect and the spirit as the malevolent aspect of the planet, similar to the system of angels and demons that Christendom was used to at the time. Most modern magicians however do not see the the division between intelligence and spirit, or angel and demon, for that matter as a difference of good vs evil, but celestial vs material. In this case the intelligence is reflects the higher or more cosmic processes associated with the planet, but is not necessary concerned with the goings on of every day life. The Spirit on the other hand may be a bit unruly at times, but is more connected with life here in the material plane. Despite being planetary in nature, they are sub-lunary or earthbound. In a very real way they can be seen as the earthly emissary of the planetary intelligence.

THE SEVEN VOWELS

Rather than rely upon complex names and seals to access the powers of the planets, the Greeks used the tones of the seven vowels to unlock the powers of the planets. These were thought of as the vibrations of the planets themselves. The important Pythagorean Mathmeticisn Nicomachus wrote in his “Manual of Harmony” that

“The tones of the seven spheres, each of which by nature produces a particular sound, are the sources of the nomenclature of the vowels.”

Most often the attributes of the vowels in the alphabet follow the Chaldean planetary sequence either ascending or descending: Alpha (A) = Saturn Epsilon (E) = Jupiter Eta (H) = Mars Iota (I) = Sun Omicron (O) = Venus Upsilon (Y) = Mercury Omega (W) = Moon Alpha (A) = Moon Epsilon (E) = Mercury Eta (H) = Venus Iota (I) = Sun Omicron (O) = Mars Upsilon (Y) = Jupiter Omega (W) = Saturn

The descending order with Alpha as Luna and Omega as Saturn is the one that appears most common in classical writings. For instance Porphyry (not the famous Neoplatonist) gives this order in his commentary to Dionysus of Thrace as does the Gnostic Marcus as recounted in Irenaeus’s “Against Heresy”.

There is some evidence that these seven vowels for the planets also pertain to the seven stars of URSA major. Franz Dornseiff notes that one of the papyri calls upon the seven vowels as they that rise in the night – clearly leaving the sun unaccounted for. Also note that the Sabeans of Harran, the Hermetic sect that first attributed the metals to the planets and which survives in Asia Minor until this very day, had a liturgy that not focused on the movements of the seven planets, but also the pole star around which the Great Bear turns.

Setting such speculation aside however, we can follow the advice of Porphyry (this time we are talking about the famous neo-platonist) and “Invoke Hermes and the Sun in the same way, than Cronos and Rhea and Aphrodite, With silent prayer invented by the greatest mage, King of the seven notes known to all”.

OTHER CORRESPONDENCES

There are other important correspondences used in planetary magic. As mentioned above, the Sabeans of Harran attributed metals to the seven planets:

Lead = Saturn Tin = Jupiter Iron = Mars Gold = Sun Copper = Venus

Mercury = Mercury Silver = Moon

Some of these were choices because of color such as gold and silver for the sun and moon, value such as tin which was once worth more than gold to Jupiter, or properties such as Irons use in war to Mars, or the ever malleable copper to Venus, or the completely fluid and changing Mercury.

Colors have also been attributed to the planets. These however change based upon different systems and culture. The most commonly accepted attributes being:

Black = Saturn Blue = Jupiter Red = Mars Yellow = Sun Green = Venus Orange = Mercury Silver or Gray = Moon

Lastly, shapes and stars are all associated with the planets based upon their number. The triangle for Saturn, the Square for Jupiter, the Pentagram for Mars, and so on.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 12: The Planets part 2 In the last lesson we gave some of the basic wisdom on the planets, the kind of stuff that every practitioner of magic should know if only to be able to converse with others in the art. This lesson will focus much more heavily on how I think of the planets and how to use them in Strategic Sorcery. Starting with an explanation of the planetary powers. PLANETARY POWERS In the last lesson you learned about the colors, metals, sounds, numbers, kameas, and times of the planets. All that is fine and well, but if you don't know what they are good for than what's the point? Here than are some examples of what each planetary energy can be used for. These are only examples though, not exhaustive lists. By reading through these, you should get a good impression of the kinds of things that the planetary power can help you with. Luna: Deep intuition, Illusions, Time. Love, Dreams, Sex, Psychic Powers, Travel, Water Mercury: Thought, Intellect, Business, Marketing, Movement, Intelligence Gathering, Science, Theft, Writing, Games, Eloquence. Venus: Emotions, Love, Friendships, Romance, Enchantment, Beauty, Art, Parties, Sol: Ego, Inspiration, True Will, Great Gains, Health, Peace, Youth, Resurrection, Promotions, Mars: War, Conflict, Defense, Aggression, Strength, Competition, Lust, Courage Jupiter: Accretion, Wealth, Abundance, Success, Health, Honors, Materialism, Saturn: Death, Binding, Time, Underworld, Underground, Darkness, Buildings, The Elderly, Sleep, Entropy. These are just a few of the forces that have been said to be linked to the planetary energies. It should be easy to see how these forces can be useful in practical magic, and how they can work together to complement each other

It is a mistake though to only think in terms of how the planetary spheres can be helpful. You must also consider how they can be detrimental and how they can be banished as well as invoked. Every force can be out of balance: Saturn can weigh one down with its entropic and stagnating qualities, Jupiter can gather to the point of gluttony, Mars can turn measured force into murderous rage, Sol can exalt the ego rather than transcend it, Venus can enchant to the point of manipulation, Mercury can intellectualize at the expense of all else, and the Moon can literally lead one to lunacy. WORKING WITH MORE THAN ONE PLANET One mistake that many magicians make is to work with only one planet on any given problem. It is easy to see how Mars can be used to fight an enemy, or how mercury can help you in school, or how Venus can help you get a date, but in truth every situation has aspects that can be effected by every planet. In The Sorcerers Secrets I spoke about working with the planetary powers in pairs. For wealth, I called Jupiter your savings account and Mercury your checking account. In the Protection section, I called Mars your Sword and Saturn your shield or chains of binding. There is no reason to stop at two planets though. You can include all seven planets into just about any strategy. THE TWO WEEK STRATEGY As I pointed out in the last lesson, the days of the week are arranged in such a way as to repeat the ascending planetary pattern every two weeks. This makes it very convenient to do a two week working for just about any goal that you can think of. One day for the working and one to rest and prepare for the next day. The following are examples of how the planets could impact workings for helping a business, getting in shape, and win a lover. Working to Build a Business: MOON: To help reveal deceptions both from yourself and others involved in the process MERCURY: To help bring in lots of ideal customers

VENUS: To help create goodwill towards the business loyal customers SUN: Inspiration - without an idea, there is no product MARS: Fend off competition and enemies of the business (every business has enemies) JUPITER: Accumulation of wealth (duh). This rules the whole operation SATURN: Help manage time. Working to Improve Health MOON: Help reveal the deep habits that keep us from being in shape. MERCURY: Help process information about diets and excercise. Anyone who has tried to do this knows that you almost need a spirit just to separate the fact from fiction. VENUS: Help make you a more physically attractive person through fitness. SUN: Should be the main planet for the overall effort. MARS: Fend off cravings and sloth JUPITER: Tie your fitness to your overall influence and well being, and ask Jupiter to help you in this Kingly effort. SATURN: Bind your bad habits. Working to Win a Lover: MOON: Help excite sexual passions in your target and steer them to you. Give him/her dreams about you. MERCURY: Help make yourself witty/confident/funny. Looks may be the thing that gets initial attention, but wit, confidence, and humor will beat looks every time. Just don't over do it. VENUS: To directly make your target attracted to you and you attractive to your target. This planet should rule the whole operation. SUN: Add the suns radiance to your aura. A glamour that makes you more visible to your target than anyone else. MARS: Externally to fend off competition. Internally to fend off fear of rejection./ JUPITER: Can be called to give the appearance of command. SATURN: You can banish the influence during the attraction phase, or use it in a binding. Depends upon your ethics.

I hope that these examples provide some fuel for inspiration. Feel free to write in the forum with specific problems or goals and get input for the ways in which these planets impact the situation. ALTERNATE PLANETARY DAYS AND HOURS The system of planetary days and hours that I provided in the last lesson is the most common and widespread system used in planetary magic. Like all correspondences, it has a reality that is not simply in the mind of the practitioner, yet is also not inherently true or universally applicable. What I mean is that the more you use it and immerse yourself in it, the more hold that system will have to the point where even unconsciously screwing up the hour will affect the result. The same is true for all symbols and systems that are made by man. In TSS I tell the story of how my roommate accidently invoked Saturn on a daily basis instead of the sun, but screwing up the type of hexagram he was drawing in the air. Despite not knowing that he was making a mistake, he got the result because he was immersed in that current. Though it is hundreds of years old, and has a long pedigree, the planetary day/hour system from the last lesson has always seemed a bit arbitrary to me. I prefer magic that is based more on reality itself than on subjective correspondences and charts, no matter how mathematically clever. Whenever possible, I make reality itself my symbol set, and so I prefer a system that is based on the movement of the actual planets, to the one mentioned above. In other words, when that planet is overhead, you are good to go. This is not without precedent. Abramelin chastises occultists for relying upon manmade charts that have no basis of actuality. How can it be the day of that planet if the planet is below the horizon? How can it not be that planets moment when it is right overhead? The system that Abramelin suggests, and that I give more weight to than the typical list of days and hours is as follows. If the planet is above the horizon, it is the day of that planet. When that planet is at its highest overhead, it is the hour of that planet.

This means that it can be the day and hour of several planets at once. This makes it easy to time some of the dual or even triple planet invocations. Thankfully we do not need the astronomical equipment or complex calculations to know this. You can simply google it. Such is the advantage of the modern Sorcerer. ANGELS AND DIETIES OF THE PLANETS Just as there were various entities associated with the elements, so to are there beings associated with the planets. This is a subject to vast to cover completely here, but I do want to mention several different groups of beings that I have worked with in planetary magic and how they differ. It is important to remember that even though two beings are associated with a planet or an element, that does NOT make them the same being. First and foremost, the names of the planets are of course the names of Roman Gods, so one need look no further than that for Luna/Selene for the ever feminine and changing moon, Mercury/Hermes for the fastest moving planet, Venus/Aphrodite for the brightest and most beautiful planet, Sol Invictus/Helios for the Bright star of day, Mars/Ares for the planet of blood red, Jupiter/Zeus for the largest planet, and of course Saturn/Cronos the father of Jupiter/Zeus for the outermost planet.There are traditional and modern hymns, invocations, and prayers that you can use to call upon all of these beings. for all of these. Some of my favorite modern ones are over at www.renaissanceastrology.com. For older spells check out the Greek Magical Papyri for inspiration, or do like I do and write your own specific to your situation. Anyone that has ever worked with the Necronomicon (Simon edition) knows that before you use most of the magic in the book you should walk the gates, all of which relate to the planets. Despite the book being a modern creation, it is still a grimoire that has served many mages well, myself included. Here we are calling upon Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian beings have Nanna in the Moon, Nebo in Mercury, Inanna in Venus, Shammash for the Sun, Nergal for Mars, Marduk for Jupiter, and Ninib as Saturn. When calling upon the planets (or traveling in their zones) in these names, you get a very different experience than when using the Greek or Roman names. There is more of an Atavistic and harsh element. These

beings are not as friendly to man, though they are not antagonistic either. It is well worth your time to call upon the Roman names and the Sumerian ones, so that you can see the differences for yourself. Another group of entities associated with the planets are the Archangels. There are varying lists or who controls what sphere depending upon the source document, but the most common attributes are: Gabriel for the Moon, Raphael (some give Michael) for Mercury, Haniel (some give Uriel) for Venus, Michael (some give Raphael) for the Sun, Khammael for Mars, Tzadkiel for Jupiter, Tasphkiel for Saturn. Again calling upon these beings will give you different results than the ones above. If you relate well to the Judeo-Christian religions than there is an immense power here. If however you do not, it is probably best to avoid them. A great resource for working with these angels in a traditional, yet streamlined manner, is the Modern Angelic Grimoire by Frater RO. This is available as a PDF on his website. Just as the Necronomicon suggests you travel through all the gates and receive each planetary initiation in order, you can do the same with the Archangels: either evoking them into your temple space or traveling to the celestial sphere in your Astral Body. Indeed the term Astral Body, gets its name from exactly this practice. We will be covering both Evocation and Astral Projection in future lessons, but for now you can experiment with prayers, spells, petitions, and the like. INTELLIGENCES AND SPIRITS One of my favorite systems of planetary entities to work with are the intelligences and spirits as given by Agrippa in the Three Books of Occult Philosophy. The sigils and names for these beings are pulled out of the planetary Kameas, magic number squares relating to the number of the planet. Saturn starts at 3, the minimum number for manifestation, Jupiter 4, and so on until the Moon at number 9. The exact method for how the Kameas are constructed and how the sigils are derived from them can be read from any number of books including the Three

Books of Occult Philosophy. Whereas initiations and empowerments of the planetary spheres seem best served by the angels and deities that I list above, I have gotten the greatest results in spell work by using the Intelligences and Spirits from Agrippa. In this system, the Intelligence represents the ruling celestial power of the sphere, the spirit is the material and manifesting agent. Some sources count the Intelligence and Benevolent and the Spirit as Malevolent, but I have not found this to be the case. Even Sorath, the spirit of the sun who has something of a reputation of a wild and evil spirit, I have found to be amenable if he is approached humbly yet frankly. He does not seem to like being evoked into physical appearance and questioned for silly reasons, but has no problem being called upon in spells and other rituals. It is these spirits that I typically go to for Strategic Sorcery, which is why I included them in the invocations in TSS. If you look past the specific words of the invocations, you will see a simple and systematic approach that you can use to create your own invocations. 1. First call upon Level 1 through invoking the name of God. I am partial to IAO and the Permutations thereof. 2. Call upon the Sphere itself by either tracing the sigil of the planet as given in Agrippa, or visualizing the actual planet. I prefer the latter method. Whichever you choose you should activate it by sounding the sacred vowel sound associated with the sphere. 3. Call upon the Intelligence of the planet to send that planetary power into your sphere, and to control the spirits invoked 4. Call upon the name of the Spirit of the Planet to act on your behalf. For example, if I wanted to invoke Sorath for a spell to get promoted or find a job, I could invoke as follows at noon . IAO AOI OIA AIO IOA OAI By the permutations of the Highest Name and through the sacred seed syllable I I call forth the powers of the blazing sun

That its illuminating graces be transmitted here. By the virtue of NACHIEL I call forth the Spirit of force and flame SORATH That you should lend your might to my cause.

At this point I would ask that Sorath help me directly, or lay his hands in consecration upon a talisman, oil, powder or some other physical object to use in the work. I could use other correspondences in the ritual as well. 6 Gold candles, and a Talisman engraved in gold would be an excellent start. SECRET SEALS OF THE PLANETS I want to take this opportunity and give you something a little special as part of this course. In TSS there were three planetary seals given: Venus, Mars, and Saturn. These were part of a special project between the illustrator and I that was not complete at the time. Though we are still working on the applications of these seals, we have received the full set. The idea behind the project was to ask each of the planetary spirits to transmit a seal that could be used regardless of the astrological aspects at the time, and form a direct line to the planets force. Each one is meant to represent the actual energetic pattern of the planet at work. The invocations were done by me, but the inspiration for the drawings were sent to Matthew Brownlee, who through the combination of his own abilities and artistic talents, was able to render a beautiful set. In the near future there will be a chapbook about these seals, including many rituals and advanced techniques that we are still testing out in the field. I feel moved to share the full set of sigils with you now, and you can find them attached to the email. I would appreciate it if for now you kept these seals amongst the class, and not spread them around the internet. I would however be very interested in any results that you are able to get by working with them in any way that you feel inspired. Think of it as Beta Testing.

Until Next week. Enjoy.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 13: AZOTH For the last four lessons we have been focusing on various spiritual powers that can be called upon by the Sorcerer. In lessons 9 and 10 we focused on the Elements. We spoke quite a bit about the four lower elements of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth but said comparatively little about Azoth, the fifth element. In lessons 11 and 12 we learned about the seven traditional astrological planets, but did not touch on the what lies beyond that: alternately spoken about as the mysterious 8th and 9th of Hermes Trismegistus, Chokhma and Kether and the negative veils on the Tree of Life, and of course Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. All of these relate to the Azoth or as I sometimes call it Spiritspace. A good metaphor for Azoth and how it relates to divisions of power like the elements and planets is that it is somewhat like white or clear light that hits a spectrum. The more complex the spectrum, the more detailed the rainbow of colors that it breaks down into. You can divide Azoth by 2 and get the polarity of yin/yang, male/female etc. You can divide by three and get the alchemical breakdown of Salt/Mercury/Sulphur or the three Gunas of Tamas/Sattva/Rajas. Broken down by four you can get the elements. By Seven the planets. By 8 the PaKua Trigrams. By Ten the Sephira, By 12 the Zodiac. Pickl a number and you can probably find a way that someone has broken Azoth down. Thrity is the number of Enochian Aethyrs, as well as the amount of heavens in certain Gnostic systems. Whatever the breakdown of steps on the ladder, Azoth is usually the highest step of the ladder, and the substance from which the entire ladder is made. This is ultimate reality itself, which means that apart from touching on non-theistic ideas like shunyata and alaya, it touches upon theistic ideas like God. This makes it a touchy subject for some. Now I want to be clear about one thing right off the bat: I am not trying to tell anyone how to see ultimate reality. This class is open to people of all religions, top all shades of agnostics, and even ardent Athiests as long as they acknowledge some reality beyond what science can currently detect. You are free to disagree with me on anything I say. When it comes to musing on the nature of ultimate reality, that goes double. If you really believe that YHVH literally created the world in seven days or that reality itself sprung into existence through sheer ignorance than I leave you to it.

When it comes to the origin of the universe, I personally an relying upon science to figure out that one. I stand with the Buddha in not saying anything about questions of the origin of life or the exact nature of deity at all. He taught a lesson that is known as the parable of the Poison Arrow. In short a man is shot with a poison arrow, but before the doctor pulls it out, he wants to know who shot it (arguing the existence of God), where the arrow came from (where the universe and/or God came from) why that person shot it (why God created the universe), etc. If the man keeps asking these questions before the arrow is pulled out, he will die before he gets the answers. The spirituality of Strategic Sorcery is about pulling the arrow out. That said, I would be doing you a disservice as your teacher if I did not share with you my views on the subject. I have spent most of my adult life as a non-theist, not believing in the existence of presence which could appropriately be called God in the large sense. Ironically, it was through the practice of Dzogchen, a non-theistic practice within Buddhism and Bon, that I began to feel that all space was not only aware, but had a definite Consciousness and direction. So you could say that in some ways I do indeed believe in God. But you shouldn’t take my belief in God to mean belief in some entity outside the universe, or a micro-managing deity that controls the wheels of destiny. No, that’s not it at all. God is consciousness itself. Consciousness pervades all space, time, and probability. The universe is “just right for life”, as physicist Paul Davies puts it in his book “Cosmic Jackpot”, because consciousness itself makes it so. Consciousness, in its final stages of the evolution of has to filter back to the very beginning of time so that it can insure its own evolution, so that it can reach its final stages, so that it can filter back and insure its own evolution…. Etc etc. Davies, who really helped me articulate some ideas I have had since I was five years old, but who would argue with my conclusions, calls this a quantum feedback loop. Since I try not to speak for sciences that I do not fully understand ("Enochian Physics" anyone?), I call this a Creation Feedback Loop or CFL for short. If this all sounds a bit too “Doctor Who” or "Terminator" for you, than think of it like this: God, is us, but not as we are now. As Meister Eckhart said: “The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.”

This truth is known by anyone that has crossed the Abyss for even a second. Or if you like, ascended to the 8th and 9th, as Hermes Trismegistus would have said. It is the work of every sentient being to become liberated and head towards this goal. In the process of filtering backwards, God/Consciousness also impacts the creation of certain special individuals. Thus the Buddhas, Saviors, Avatars and so on throughout time. Some have greater impact than others. To quote another Christian Mystic, Bishop Athanasius put it quite well when he stated that: "God became man so that man might become a god." This is the great work itself. AZOTH AS SUBSTANCE As I said before, musings on the real nature of ultimate reality are ok, but in Strategic Sorcery we always ask ourselves: What good is it? To answer this we must approach Azoth not as an abstraction but as a substance, just like we did the other elements. As with the other elements, in order to psychically tap into it we can focus on symbolic correspondences, inherent qualities, and action. Whereas the elements relate to the cardinal directions, Azoth is in the center both above and below. Rather than qualities like Hot, Dry, Etc the only quality to grasp onto is non dual clarity. If you have been meditating regularly you might have come across these moments of clarity, if so than you are tapped into the Azoth. Another method is to fill the mind with opposing thoughts: hot/cold, left/right, form/formlessness, etc. Contemplation of the cosmos itself is yet another way. The fullness of time, higher dimensions, infinity, etc. These are the direct qualities of Azoth. In the scheme of the planetary spheres Azoth exists beyond Saturn. If you want to use the planets of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto as symbolic of this you can see them as transmitting the volatile, passive, and nondual qualities of Azoth respectively. Unlike the traditional planetary symbols of the seven classical planets, the names symbols and metals of these planets were not chosen for mystical or religious reasons thus they are not quite as useful to the magician as those of the lower planets. Even if they were, it's hard to get your hands on Uranium, Neptunium, or Plutonium to make talismans out of. When working with

Azoth and the planets, I usually stick with the symbol of Uranus and the metal Platinum. The best symbol to use for Azoth is light itself. When doing the pillar ritual you are calling down the light of Azoth into yourself at the very start. This light is refered to throughout the world by various names. The Hesychasts called it "Uncreated Light" and felt that contemplation in this light was the highest calling of man. Buddhists refer to the Clear Light of awareness. When you call upon the light the Pillar and other practices, your visualization taps into only little bit of this essence. This is sufficient for most things, but I can tell you from my own experience that when you put yourself in a real state of contemplation, and have stabilized that contemplation, you will get more than just a little bit. In some cases this light is visible to everyone present, and even able to be captured on film. The lesson here is to keep meditating. I cannot stress enough how meditation is the key. When doing visualizations that call upon Azoth itself rather than one of the elements, planets, or other sources of power I see it in one of three colors: White, Electric Violet, and Black. White Azoth: We have already discussed that Azoth is like white light, so it should be no surprise that white is the most common that is used in magick. It's light is purifying, calming, passive, and ennobling. If you are applying energy to a working that you are afraid might cause some collateral damage than use the white light of Azoth either instead of, or in combination with the other energy you are working with. When we discuss direct healing, we will revisit this topic. Electric Violet: Whereas white is light purifying, calming, passive, and ennobling; Electric Violet is empowering, exciting, invasive, and atavistic. Electric Violet may sound like a random color for pure Azoth to manifest as, but the places that this color pops up are amazing. Mantak Chia speaks about Electric Violet Chi as a more active form of white chi, as does Master Choa Kok. These Taosists claim that white Chi fills the cup of the big dipper and it than pours out as EV. Kenneth Grant encounters it as the energy of the Mauve Zone - the area of psychic space through and around the Abyss. Chaos Magick Pioneer Peter Carroll calls it Octarine and calls it the color of "Pure Magic". It is a powerful way to relate to spirit in its most active sense.

Black: Black Azoth is entropic, destructive, and void. It is very difficult to work tap into, and even more difficult to work with. Do not however think of it as Evil or anti-white, for this is not the case. I would recommend staying away from this until you are extremely adept at both handling volatile energy in the subtlle body AND accomplished in your meditations AND very stable in your Thought Management skills. Go back to the lessons on Channels and Power Centers in the body and run both the pure white, and EV through. Create a pearl of EV and send it around the body charting its effects. If you feel that a place on the b AZOTH AND DIETY Any deities name that is used to call tap into the Azoth should be truly cosmic in scope. This is where the idea of the three levels comes into play. Some God and Goddesses fit the bill. Some do not. Others straddle the fence depending upon how you conceive of them and which aspects of their theology you cling to. For example Ptah makes a wonderful representative of Azoth itself. Baphomet does as well. Had and Hadit from the Chaldean Oracles are the first and second fathers and represent Azoth unmanifest and manifest. Though Buddhists would deny the status of "deity" beings like Kuntuzangpo are most excellent representatives of the Azoth. I have a huge thanka of Kuntuzangpo on the wall above my monitor as I write this. Another statue of him at the highest point on my Altar. There is an extent to which any deity is a facet of the Azoth, as indeed are every single sentient being in existence throughout all times and probabilities. To be a functional representative of the Quintessence however, a deity must be bigger than its own mythology. Never forget that while on the causal level all beings are wisdom and pure energy, at a lower level the various Pantheons of Gods and Goddesses can seem like the Archetypes of dysfunctional families more than anything else. Because of this Dieties that are strictly the god of "X" do not fit the bill unless explored mystically to the fullest extent. Aphrodite, for instance is for the most part the Goddess of Love. Now if you spent years in devotion to Aphrodite and attained mystical union with this entity and she revealed the full cosmic implications of love, and delivered a body of teachings relating to this, than the situation is different.

Some beings have done just this and fulfill both the role of cosmic representative of the Azoth as well as having more specific roles and functions when approached at a lower level. Shiva is a great example of this. He has a quite extensive mythology of fights, loves, arguments, travels, etc. He can be approached as a separate being in this way. If you talk to a Kashmir Shaivite however, they will tell you that You are Shiva, and they are Shiva, and the room is Shiva, and the conversation is Shiva. Clearly at this point we are above the idea of an individual entity who gets angry because he can't barge into his wife's bath, and so cuts his sons head off. Most of you know that I treasure my relationship to Hekate for similar reasons. She is as material and approachable as a Goddess of the dead, underworld, justice, illumination, witchcraft, and so on. Yet in the Chaldean Oracles she is restored to her original status as a Great Goddess and is the fully transcendent wife of both the first and second fathers. Nature itself hangs from her back and virtue springs from her hip. This is clearly a deeper mystery than the Goddess who receives pleas for vengeance scratched into lead defixiones tablets. Even the God of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims straddles this fence. In fact there was a clear progression from a very specialized deity of just the Tribes of Israel to the One True God of All that most worship today. If we look at the history of the book of Genesis, we can see that the current book is actually constructed of several narratives that were interwoven. The two main narratives are known as the Y and E narratives, named for the names of God used in each YHVH or Yaweh and Elohim. The Y narrative is older and speaks of a being that creates a Garden amidst the world, and creates Adam and Eve therein. If you pay attention, you can see that the writers of this narrative never envisioned Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all mankind, because when Cain is Banished he immediately finds a wife and founds the first city named after his son Enoch (not the "Book of Enoch" Enoch that becomes Metatron, he is born later). Almost everything in the Y narrative relates to the people of Israel only. The E narrative was written later and is clearly an attempt to identify YHVH from being just the God of a specific group of tribes, into the one true god of all. This is the narrative where Elohim - a plural name with both male and female elements linked to the Babylonian father god El, creates the whole universe in Seven Days. The progression of this creation closely mirrors the Seven generations of Gods in the Ennuma Elish and again shows an attempt to turn their religion into

something more like the Babylonian religion. The one benefit of Genesis however is that mankind is created to tend and manage creation, whereas in the Ennuma Elish, man is created to be slaves of the Gods. When interacting with the Christian side of my spirituality, I try to stay away from using the term YHVH for exactly this reason despite all the wonderful khabbalistic meanings of it. Terms like IAO, Existence of Existence, Eheiyeh (I am), and so on speak more to the real nature of ultimate reality. AZOTH AND REALIZATION You will note that no-where in the above discussion on Deities did I mention the word worship. That is because though I acknowledge the existence of deities, I feel no need to worship them. I respect those that do, but the idea of Worship in the traditional sense has never worked for me. When it comes to worship I follow the advice of the Hevajra Tantra, where it is written"The only appropriate worship of me is to become as I am". I view the relationship with Azoth as existing in three phases of realiZation: Pistis or faith, Gnosis or direct knowlege, and Theosis or becoming divine. Pistis is the level at which 90% of the world uses to relate to Spirit. As mystics, magicians, yogis, etc we tend to loose sight of the fact that for most of the world religion is not about self transformation or any kind of process. It is about translating the mysteries of the world in ways that let you get on with your life. What happens when I die? What makes a good person? What is wrong to do? How do I mark the stages of life? How do we make God or the Gods happy? This is the level of common worship. Most of the world just wants these questions answered and nothing more. There is nothing wrong with this unless that faith is exploited for devious ends. Gnosis is the level that most mystics and magicians relate to spirit at. Here we are seeking not to simply have faith in a tradition or body of teachings but to know the truth for ourselves. On a lower level Gnosis manifests as literal visions that appear either to the physical eye, or as visions that are beheld while traveling in one of the spirit bodies that we discussed in Lesson 2. The apparitions at Medjugorie , Crowleys experiences in Vision and the Voice, and my own work with Hekate are examples of this lower level of Gnosis. At the higher level of Gnosis reality itself is perceived not only as a vision but as a realization of the mind. This is what is meant by crossing the abyss, experiencing Samadhi, looking

upon the face of God and so on. In these higher expressions of Gnosis, the vision and the viewer are inseparable and the viewer is actually changed by the vision. Some stop there, believing that the work of crossing the abyss is the goal. It is not. Theosis, or becoming Divine, is. In that higher stage of Gnosis, the process of Theosis is sparked and you could argue even accomplished temporarily. The difference between the higher stage of Gnosis and the process of Theosis is that in the former we are just day tripping into the state of divinity. Afterwards we return to reality and fall back into our lives and old ways of thinking, though perhaps slightly more realized than before. In Theosis we seek to stabilize that Primordial State of Awareness and make it our normal living level. This is the work of lifetimes. This is the difference between a highly realized Saint and a Christ, or between a Bodhisattva and a Buddha. With all this, I hope that you have a pretty good concept of Azoth as both a state of realization, a state of reality, and a force. HOMEWORK # 3 Its Homework time again. Now that we have a few more lessons under our belts we can get into more hands on assignments. This time, what I want you to do is use the lessons to apply an elemental or planetary power to make a change in your life. This can be something as simple as pore breathing the element fire to fend off the effects of sleep deprivation or as complex as a full strategy to find a job entailing all seven planets, and four elements. Feel free to include outside elements into this from either my books, or from other systems of magic. When you are done, write up a field report and mail it in to me. It doesn't matter if you succeed or fail, as long as you try and do the work. I may contact you and ask to post your field report up on my blog, either with your name or anonymously. If you do not want me to do this, simply state that it is for my eyes only and I will never tell another soul.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 14: MATERIA MAGICA PART 1 In the last five lessons we have been introducing the qualities, correspondences, and actions of various powers that can be called upon by the Sorcerer. We have focused on the Elements, the Planets, and the Azoth itself. There are others. The wise Sorcerer can use the same techniques to tap into Stars, Rivers, Tides, The Planets Magnetic Field, etc. In the future we will be going over more advanced sources of power like Sex, Electrical Grids, and other People, but for now we need to take our teachings on Energies (Level 2) and Azoth (Level 1) and bring it down into the material world (Level 3). The topic of physical materials, or materia, covers a lot of ground. Components with magical properties like Herbs, minerals, zooligical objects, condition powders and oils, paper talismans, metal amulets, as well as magical links like hair and fingernails from a target are all covered. There are six main reasons that I always recommend the use of materia in your magic: 1. Material Foothold: In TSS I made a bit of an overstatement when I said that purely mental magic tends to yield purely mental results. This is not really true. While there are plenty of examples of mental and energetic magic that get physical results, the use of physical objects does greatly increase the impact and longevity of magic that effects this plane. This phenomenon is sometimes called "earthing". 2. Permanence: Creating an amulet or talisman is a great way to give your sorcery a long and constant effect without constantly being aware of its working. The creation of astral structures that do the same thing is much more difficult. 3. Ease of use: Some do not have much capacity for visualization and even less clairvoyance to actually see what is happening on the astral and energetic levels. The manipulation of physical objects to perform magic is a way around relying upon these senses.

4. Group Workings: Even if you and everyone you work with has well developed psychic senses, the way that energy or astral structures manifest to one person is often different than how they manifest to others. Creating a working around materia helps everyone stay on the same page. 5. Working for Non-Sorcerers: When working for people who practice no magic, or only practice magic from a religious/spiritual angle, a physical object is your best bet. Many people make the mistake of trying to teach craft to everyone that comes to them for help. I never understood this impulse, but I have witnessed it over and over again. When you go to the police for help, they don't send you to the police academy right? When you go to the accountant, they don't insist on you becoming a CPA do they? If someone wants magical protection, that does NOT mean that they want to learn the LBRP or how to Cast Circle. You can do a spell for them, but unless that spell is accompanied by some physical component or action that they take, they often do not feel that real work has been done on their behalf. 6. Firm Link: When there is a physical target of person or place, nothing succeeds like a physical link. Whether it is something that you take from the target to the temple or something that you take from the temple to the target, a physical link can make the difference between success and failure. Even those that are adept at doing magick or psionics without a physical link often find their results are much stronger when they start using materia. TYPES OF MATERIA Wherever you are right now take a look around. Just about everything around you can be used in magic. Your computer, your pens, your books, action figures, you name it. All these things are not created equal however, some make better talismans than others. Every objects use in magic fits one of four categories: 1. Inherent Power: Objects of inherent power are items that do not need to be loaded by the Sorcerer. Crystals, objects from ley lines and sacred spots, holy relics, etc. These items have their own inherent power that can be patterned by the Sorcerer or simply left to work by themselves. A

subcategory of this type of object would be any object that carries a symbol on it that is representative of powerful and specific entities or spaces. Whether the symbol is unlocked through intent or not, if it is specific enough (ie not the symbol for an entire religion) and has enough power behind it, it acts as a magical link to that force. Goetic seals on a babies onesie for instance are a very bad idea. http://www.zazzle.com/seal_of_astaroth_tshirt-235288771689358443

2. Conductive Objects: Energies of the elements, the planets, and so on an be loaded into objects that can conduct their influence. While physical electricity needs very specific metals and or water to be conductive, the energies of level 2 can be handled by just about anything that is mineral or organic. Some objects like Gold and Chamomile are more conductive than others generally. Others are more sympathetic to certain energies by either their inherent nature or symbolic tradition. Iron for instance seems to work as a apotropaic substance by its very nature. Copper on the other hand is aligned to venusian work for more symbolic reasons. 3. Non-Conductive Objects: While the energies and forces of level 1 are best conducted by natural substances, anything in all creation can be used to conduct the divine/causal influence of level one. So yes, that plastic Jesus on the dashboard can be made into a protective guardian. It would be better if it was coated for filled with a conductive substance, but even just as plastic it will work. Our society places a great deal of importance of things being natural. It is important to remember that there is nothing at all that is outside of nature. No matter how synthesized, it is still natural. Its all just a matter of degree. 4. Object Links: Already mentioned are magical links. These can be either conductive or non-conductive substances that have a link to someone or something else. This link is formed through a process similar to what on a sub atomic level is called quantum entanglement or non-local connection. Basically two objects that are connected keep a connection when apart so that what effects one effects the other.

PERSONAL LINKS In the next few lessons we will be discussing all manner of Tools, Amulets, Talismans, Powders, Incense, and objects of the art. Before we get into all that though I want to cover something that I consider one of the most important yet most overlooked and misunderstood aspects of sorcery: personal links. The important thing to remember is that it’s not about whether a link works or not, but how well it works. Generally speaking I rate links in two categories: 1. How personal a link is 2. How related to the working it is. The first think that everyone thinks of is a picture, partly because they can be sent via e-mail, which is how I do most business with people, but also because so much modern magic is focused on visualization at the expense of other elements. Pictures are great as a secondary link, but are not great as a primary link. If you know the person well, they work ok because they stimulate the philotic link between you, which is a link in and of itself, but if you don’t, than they suck. If you have nothing but a picture, you can sometimes make it work with their name and birthdate, or their name and their parents names, but in general its not such a hot thing. There are after all, a lot of people that look like just about everybody. I tell people to “think bloodhound”. If the link is something that you could give to a bloodhound, than it’s probably a good link. The more personal an item is the better. The classical hair and fingernails are great. Bits of clothing are good. If they are unwashed it’s even better. Underclothes are better than outer clothes. Unwashed underwear with visible bodily fluid stains are like hitting the magical link jackpot! In African magic the feet are said to be especially susceptible to magic, shoes and foot-tracks make really good links if you can get your hands on them, especially for spells that drive traffic to business or get someone to move. I once instructed a client to walk across the company lawn while having a business related talk with a target so that he could later turn around and dig up a foot track that he would

mark with a dropped coin. Almost every New Orleans spell to drive trade to a whore house, be it a wash, bath, powder or Gris Gris bag, seems to involve the ashes from a burnt mans left shoe. In this case, it's not just to get him back, but to get more like him – another good use of magickal links. Moving downwards, personal belongings are pretty good, again, the more personal the better. If you are shy about petty larceny (pussy) than papers that the target has signed are good. In fact, even photocopies of signatures seem to work better than pictures; the magic of names I guess. I was able to summon the famous Dr John of New Orleans using just the copy of his signature from his mortgage deed. Business cards are a last resort and are not even as good as pictures. The quality of a link changes if it is directly related to the type of spell you are doing. Someone’s checking account statement is not that great of a link, but if you are trying to effect their prosperity, for good or ill, it goes up a notch. Fecal matter, and yes there are ways of getting it, are good for curses. Hair from a head is good for influencing decisions. For sex spells you might want to aim for hair a bit lower down. Often a link is added to a spell with other material components, such as dolls, conjure hands, spiritr bottles and the like. Perhaps my favorite method though is, in the middle o fthe night when the target is asleep, just to take the link itself and hold it in my hands speaking to it, telling it to do what I want it to. If you have some incense, than you can bathe the link in its smoke as you gently make your suggestions. Next week we will be covering objects that can be planted on a target rather than the other way around. While it is somehhat straying from the topic of materia, I should note that if you cannot do either you can exploit the philotic link. All beings are linked at a very subtle level. When you meet someone this link becomes more tangible and grows stronger the more personal you get with someone. Certain beings have a very strong link present from previous lives, but not often. If you can conjure that person sufficiently in the mind, than you can

effect magic through this link. In a group ritual to affect a target, such as a distance healing circle, I always ask that just one person who is closest to the target conjure them in their mind, everyone else feeds that one person. Too many people focused on many images of the same person are not as clearly focused.

Anyway, next week we will be continuing our teaching on materia with information on Oils, Powders, Baths, Fluid Condensors and a whole host of sorcerous goodies.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 15: MATERIA MAGICA PART 2 Last lesson we introduced the types of material components and then gave a short lesson on Personal Links. For the next three lessons we are going to discuss Ingredients and Components which covers everything from herbs to oils, to powders, to baths, to incense etc. The lesson after that will cover ritual tools, which will wrap up this segment on materia. What I want to state right up front though is that out of all these types of materia, I place the greatest emphasis on links to person or place. I would trade all my bend Over Powder, High John Root, Chamolile Fluid Condenser, and Abramelin Incense for one good link that I could push power through. Some of you taking this have a background in Psionics and other disciplines that dont really work with Physical Links - I urge you to use it and you will see the difference in signal strength. That said, let's move on to components and ingredients. A disturbingly large amount of practitioners seem to pay no real attention to quality ingredients and components. Throughout the later 19th and early 20th century, a period that saw a reinvention of what it meant to practice both Ceremonial Magic and Witchcraft, there was an enormous emphasis placed on the mind and consciousness in magic - and rightfully so. However, as with most things, people took it to far and today we are left with large swaths of both camps who insist that it is only the mind that matters, not the materia. This dismissive attitude towards the hundreds of practitioners who carefully recorded their formulas is terrible. Cat Yronwode makes an excellent point when she states that many modern witches would be just as happy to write "High John The Conqueror" on a piece of paper and drop it into a mojo bag as they would be to have the real thing. Though its good to be able to make substitutions and not slavishly follow formulas, this is not the same thing as "anything goes". Components and ingredients can be either vegetable, animal, or mineral. For instance you might find a gambling mojo that contains a gators claw, a two dollar bill, and a nutmeg in it - covering all three. The associations that these things have with gambling is from the Hoodoo tradition - my primary go to for this kind of thing. In other traditions, there might be other associations. In almost all cases

these associations are ruled by what Paracelsus called "The Doctrine of Signatures" which basically just means that the appearance of an item will guide you to its occult virtue. Sassafrass for instance is great at keeping money because some of its leaves look like mitts and fingers. Devils Shoe Strings are stringy roots that tie things up. Occasionally it is a history of an item or an effect that gives it is magickal association. The Two dollar bill mentioned above got to be associated with gambling because during the Storyville era of New Orleans, that was a prostitutes wage and Gamblers were said to live on Whores Wages. Dumb Cane gets its reputation for keeping people quiet by its biological effect: it constricts the throat when you come into contact with the sap inside the leaves. I have no intention of providing you with an exhaustive list of herbs and occult curio's. I will however give a sampling of the ones that I use most in my own practice. For those that want to go further, which I heartily encourage, I recommend Cat Yronwodes Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic (and course), teh Ars Philron and Vidarium Umbris of Daniel Schulke, and Scott Cunninghams Encyclopedia of magical herbs. There are tons of other great books on the subject, but you can use the Bibliographies of these to find those. Now without further ado, these are the components that I use most frequently. INOMINANDUMS LIST OF GO-TO COMPONENTS. BOTANICALS High John the Conqueror: Herb of Mastery and Power over others and over yourself. I use a whole one whenever I can. Big Balls of steel, just like the root. Low John: Love and Relationships. Binds people together with its little tentacles. Little John (Galangal): Court case root and reversal root. Cascara Sagrada: Court cases. Angelica: The root of angelic blessing and calm. Powerful root for women to control men.

Gravel Root: The job root. Finding, keeping, advancing - this is my go to for job stuff Lucky Hand: Anything that requires a delicate touch and some unexpected luck. Devils Shoe String: Tying up enemies Cinnamon: Money baby! Allspice Seeds: Even more money baby! Pine: Cleansing and Reversing Licorice Root: Controlling others Calamus Root: Controling Others Bergamont: Controlling others - Note all three of these together always seem to fail. It makes it so clear to the target that they are being influenced that they rebel. Devil Bat Nut: Keep Evil Away, work with dark god. Poppy Seeds: Confusion Pepper: Expelling and Driving away. Lemongrass: purification and extra kick Chamomile: all purpose power enhancer, also makes things work faster. Solomons Seal: Protection and Wisdom of Solomon Damiana: Love Dittany of Crete: Materializing Spirits, increasing Psychic Perception, also Love Mullein: Summoning and controlling Spirits and the Dead or Demons. Also Jinxing and Cursing MugWort: Dreams and Psychic Perception

Star Anise: My Psychic Enhancer Par Excellence Wormwood:Summons Spirits, Psychic Hyssop: Removal of self-negativity and crossed conditions. Good follow up to cuse work Dandelion: Psychic Eucalyptus: Reversal work Dragons Blood Resin: Pretty potent all purpose stuff Cinqfoil: Luck and anything that needs a delicate touch TwitchGrass: Breaking up relationships, causing nervous disorders and tension. Slippery Elm: Controls Speech. Good for revealing lies and stopping gossip Master root: Helps you develop personal mastery and also keeps people under your thumb. Get a whole root and stick personal links of your targets in the twisty parts. Valerian: Also called Vandal Root. Good for curses and also for putting situations to sleep or on hold. Vervain: Love or Protection Vetivert: All purpose love, protection, and money drawing Balm of Gilead: Protection, Peace, and Calm Catnip: Love Attraction - especially flirting. Great during the pick up phase when you are using your cat string technique, less so during the relationship. Unicorn Root: SUPER powerful love root for Men. Hard to get, but worth it. Basil: Happiness, Peace, Protection. Relationship Love Irish Moss: Business.

Spanish Moss: All purpose stuffing. Alos good for cursing and working with the dead. Sassafrass: Keeping Money Black Mustard Seeds: Curses. Imbue them with all the dark Leelo 1 and Level 2 energy you can, than cast that out at targets. Corriander: Love Rue: Staple of Protection Magic Camphor: Good for calming spirits and dulling psychic actitvity. Blackthorn Leaves: Calles Strafe, its great for Cursing Wolfsbane: Protection:

MINERALS Loadstone: Draws anything to you. Magnetite: Magnetic Hematite as above, but manmade. I use it all the time. Saltpeter: Protection Salt: Protection Black Salt: Wrathful protection and Cursing Sulphur: Cursing Graveyard Dirt: Must be paid for properly - is a connection to the spirit from whose grave it came from. More on this in later lessons Dirt from other places: Connection to the environment. Useful in giving spirits a foothold onto your reality

Red Brick Dust: protection. Doesnt work as well as it did in the Skeleton Key, but still valuable Crystals: Clear for all purpose, ruby for love, smokey for wrath, etc. The best and most powerful Crystals that I have EVER worked with are called Aqual Aura Quartz Irradiated with Gold. Hematite: Good for working with the blood. Metals: we went over these in the planetary magic section. Substitute Brass for Quicksilver. ZOOLOGICAL Gator Hands: Good for grabbing anything - especially money. As a lover of New Orleans I use these all the time Chicken Feet: Same as above with a more protetive quality as well. Black Cat and Dog Hair. Dog hair is good for working with underworld figures like Hekate. You can use the combo of Cat and Dog hair to break people up. Racoon Penis Bone: Sex it up! Hornets and Hornets Nest: Expelling! Sexual Fluids: Potent energetic charge for just about anything. Best while its warm, but still potent afterwards Beef Tongue: Good for controlling speech. Human Finger Bones: Good for work that needs a lot of dexterity and finesse Human Skull bones: Good for work that needs some intelligence. NOTE: you can purchase human remains from the net. DO NOT dig them up for yourself. Always make offerings and do divinations to make sure that the residual shell of whoever it was will work with you.

These are just a sampling of ingredients that I work with. Consult the books I recommended for many more items used in spell work. We will be referring back to this list throughout the course so keep it handy. I tend not to mix my own powders, oils, and incenses; so while you will have an entire lecture next week in "condition products" like these, it is all about their use not their construction. What I do use these ingredients for is anything that I can just drop them in to without too much fuss: Baths, Spirit Bottles, Talismans, and of course Conjure Hands. Eventually we will have a whole lesson on Spirit Bottle, and I am going to cover Baths Next week, so I would like to end this lesson with a staple of American magic: The Conjure Hand. The Conjure Hand is also known as a Mojo Bag or Gris-Gris bag. The word GrisGris means gray-gray and indicates that the bag has a combination of white and black magick at work in it. Of course in Strategic Sorcery we don't make these distinctions, but they are historically relevant. These bags are a staple of the American Hoodoo tradition and are made for a variety of purposes. They consist of components such as we listed above, gathered into a drawstring bag of an appropriate color (usually red) or binding them up in cloth, as is the style in New Orleans. The number of ingredients should traditionally be an odd number, three, seven, and nine being the most common. You should avoid bags with more than thirteen ingredients as these just get to complex. When making a Conjure Hand, I use a pattern that was taught to me by Papa Legba, the gatekeeper of Vodou. He taught me to make a "Head" for the bag. This is usually a seal of some kind, such as the planetary seals that we gave out, or another sigil representing the work of the bag. If not a seal, it is a single and powerful ingredient like High John or a Gator Claw. The Head is dressed as if it were a mojo in and of itself - often in its own bag or wrapped with appropriately colored thread to show its importance. This is placed in the bag before all else, unless you decide to attach it to the outside of the bag, which I do sometimes with Gator Claws and Keys.

Next come the Arms and Legs, these are primary ingredients that the head will use to accomplish its work. These are not just collections of herbs that do the same thing, but curios that compliment each other. The Arms and Legs can be 2 3 or four ingredients. After that comes the Body. These are supporting herbs, usually ground herbs, powders, and chips that fill out a bag and lend strength to the more primary ingredients. Here are two recipes of bags that I recently made for clients: JOB FINDING BAG Head:

Jupiter/Mercury seal separately consecrated for finding a job.

Arms and Legs:

Body:

HJ the C for Mastery Gravel Root for Job Loadstone for drawing work Licorice Root for Influence

Steady work powder Chamomile for speed Cinnamon for money Irish Moss for business

PICK UP ARTISTS FRIEND Head:

Venus/Lunar seal separately consecrated

Arms and Legs:

Body:

HJ the C for Confidence Licorice Root for Influence Raccoon Penis Bone

Damiana for love Catnip for Attraction

Corriander for Love Lucky Hand for luck and also for skill in the game. Both of these were consecrated by using the Song of the Serpent to build power, than infusing that power into the bag using the gesture of the Triangle of Manifestation. They were each held over an appropriate incense when this was done and than consecrated with an appropriate oil when finished. Next week we will be discussing fluid condensers and so called "Condition Products" like Oils, Powers, Soaps, etc.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 16: MATERIA MAGICA PART 3 When I was just a teenager some friends and I were wandering around downtown Lakewood New Jersey, and came across a store called "The Globe: African Fashions". The window had nothing in it but items related to African American Cosmetics, but something managed to pull me and my two equally white and teenage friends inside anyway. In the store at first glance there was nothing to suggest that there was anything going on other than African Fashions and Cosmetics, yet something pulled us back behind a display case and into the back of the store - a ballsy move in retrospect but one that seemed natural at the time. My friends and I had been consuming a steady diet of Llewellyn books on Wicca and Ceremonial Magic and really didn't know about much outside of that view. Imagine than our wonder when we found a room filled with things like Bend Over Oil, Confusion Powder, Cast Off Evil Soap, and Hot Foot Incense? This represented an entirely new view of magic and possibility. Turns out the man that ran the shop was a wealth of information. If you bought it, he would tell you how to use it. We all purchased some herbs and powders and such and began to incorporate it into the magic we already knew, not because we wanted to blend systems or something, just because we were so young that it was all just magic to us. The idea of separate and mutually exclusive systems just didn't occur to us. What worked was what worked, period. These products always remained with me as part of my practice. I noticed that even when I was working the High Magic of Archangels, if I incorporated some of these condition products into the mix, I would get faster and better results. Ten years later I would delve deep into Hoodoo proper, being one of the first 100 students of cat yronwodes excellent Hoodoo Rootwork course and traveling down to New Orleans to learn some of the Hoodoo/Voodoo that city is famous for. Now let me state right off the bat that I know the basics of several of these formulas and how to mix them up. It is not however something I enjoy or have time for. With a few exceptions of some delicate and special formulas I am

content to find reputable suppliers and but their products. This lesson focuses on use and deployment of these products rather than their creation. If you love herbs and do it yourself type stuff, than go for it. Read books, take a class in Hoodoo, or even better interview some traditional practitioners. What I will say is that while I do not want to debate the magical effectiveness of the Magical Child Formularies, I can tell you with great certainty that they do not represent traditional formulas for products under the names that they give. It is kind of a half hazard mess. TYPES OF CONDITION PRODUCTS Ok, let's pretend that you are walking into a Botanica or Conjure shop for the first time. There is a lot to see: statues of saints, herbs, colored candles, maybe Santeria supplies. Sooner or later though you are going to come to shelves filled with little bottles of oils and powders, and perhaps even incense and soap with some strange names like "Fiery Wall of Protection" and "I Dominate my Woman". There are too many different products to list here. You can peruse any Hoodoo catalogue and see the lists for yourself. Most of these products are self explanatory but some have more of a nuance than you might expect. Money Drawing Oil is pretty simple to figure out but below are some of the ones that I think could use some explanation: CONFUSION: This can be used to just simply cause confusion for the sake of causing confusion, but it is most often used as a protection measure. If someone is threatening you physically this might throw their life into enough confusion that they foget all about you. INFLAMMATORY CONFUSION: Causes fights between friends and lovers ADAM AND EVE: Love Drawing BLACK ARTS: Used both in cursing and in summoning spirits of the dead and of demons. It is one of Hekate Chthonos's favorite products. CAST OFF EVIL: More for ditching bad habits than for getting rid of curses

VAN VAN: Very popular in New Orleans and Algiers for almost everything that you want to attract to you. Used a lot as an all purpose annointing oil. CLEO MAY: Women and Prostitutes who want to draw sex or quick relationships COMMANDING: This increases your inherent influence overall rather than effect the mind of a target. Good product for Inner Influence work. COMPELLING: A light influence. Gets people to do things that they agreed to do, but havent done. Good for collecting debts CONTROLLING: Next step up the influence ladder. Helps get you in the mind of a target. I use it on skull candles late at night when the target is asleep DOMINATION: Yet another step up the ladder of influence BEND OVER: Top of the line Influencing product. This is thing to use to get people to do things that they probably would not do otherwise. HOT FOOT: Drives people out of your life. JEZEBEL: Used by Prostitues LUCKY 13: Changes Bad situations to Good ones. I get a lot of use out of this. It is amazing how many opportunities there are in seemingly bad situations. MASTER KEY: Occult mastery. I use it in all Sorcerers Special Bags. Q OIL: Used by Men to help find men. Some say it will help find women for men as well, but that is not my experience. ROAD OPENER: Clears away obstacles and allows you to see the way forward. Powerful stuff when you dont know what to do as your next move. Every shop or root worker also has a few unique condition products that they sell, but you get to know those by getting to know your supplier. As I said, most of the names are pretty self explanatory. With the above info, a little common sense, and a good relationship with your source, you should have no trouble knowing what is what.

Almost all of these products are available as Oils, Powders, and Incense. Some are also available as soaps and Candles, and such. OILS Oils are one of the most important magical tools in my arsenal. In western magic the anointing with oil is one of the primary ways for making something sacred or "alive with the spirit". Apart from the condition oils of Hoodoo I regularly make use of Oil of Abramelin and the Three Holy Oils: The Oil of Catechumens, The Oil of Chrism, and the Oil of the Sick. In general Oils are used by dripping the oil on a finger or dipping the fingers in oil, and then marking the points to be anointed while saying a prayer of some kind. For instance most conjure hands are "fed" with an oil that brings them to life and makes them active. I anoint talismans during the consecration process, as well as my altar and tools fairly often. Anointing Candles is another big use for oils. When dressing candles to draw something I hold the base of the candle towards my body and rub it from the tip down. I rub it the opposite way to repel. If using a candle to represent a person that I am trying to influence, I twist the oil on as if I am twisting that person to my will. If cursing, I stab the candle with pins or a dagger than splash the oil in the hole as if I am infecting a wound. When dressing glass encased candles I drill in an approriate number of holes into the wax and pour the oil in so that it is always feeding the flame. When it comes to dressing figure candles or genital candles I will just let you use your imagination. Just treat it as if the real thing were there in front of you. For long term work, I sometimes use lamps instead of candles. These can be made in bowls or cocoanut shells. You add your condition oil to a stock oil like olive or vegetable oil - than simply add various materia as if you were making a mojo. Float a wick in the oil (there are kits for this at most botanicas) and you are good to go. Just make sure that the oil doesnt get too low or you might have an explosion.

You can also use Oils on yourself or others as a way to bless them or transfer a spell from yourself to them. The first time I ever did this was in a ceremony at the Unitarian church in Phaildelphia where a ritual team of three, and about 30 other participants, invoked Ra Hoor Khuit (Horus) into me. I then proceeded to anoint all the attendees on their third eye to transmit the power of that god to them. Sometime Oil is used to mark several spots on the body: feet, knees, genitals, navel, heart, throat, forehead, crown, hands etc. If using a formula to draw something to you, it is best to start at the feet and anoint upwards, just as with the Bath formulas that I explain in TSS and P&RM. To Expel forces from you or repel them away, you do the reverse; starting at the crown and working down. When anointing the head to increase clarity, wisdom, psychic power, or enhance contemplation I anoint the forehead, the crown and the jade pillow - the area where the skull meets the spine. This last spot in particular is a very potent spot to work with on yourself, and also to effect others. You will note that in rootwork as in religion the mode of using oils, which themselves represent Level 3 or Material Magic, is to appeal to divinity or the universe as such through prayer and invocation which is Level 1. Most traditions do not call for channeling Level 2 energies through the body and into the oils, after all many prayer and even spell traditions stress that "It is not my hand but gods that does this" or some other words to the same effect. The idea being that whatever power you are appealing to empowers the oil directly without effort on your part. Indeed this removal of the self through meditation or simply acknowledged through liturgy is one of the keys to accessing the causal/divine nature of level 1 effectively. Effort is counterproductive. That said, you can add your own efforts of channeling energy into the oil. There is no reason not to do so. In fact, most magical and spiritual oils make excellent Fluid Condensers - matter that can contain and regulate extra elemental energies beyond what they are themselves made of. Though it is not specifically called for I have observed some Priests and Spiritual workers channel level 2 energies, either consciously or unconsciously, along with their prayers. Generally if you have eyes to see this kind of thing, you can actually see the swirl of energies gather above the crown and enter into the body of the priest or worker following the breath,

than transfer to the material through the hand. Such a linking bridges the gap between level 1 and level 2, which as I said in TSS is only a distinction made for our convenience. Using the knowledge from the previous lessons on powers, you should be able to anoint talismans with oil to consecrate them on all three levels. POWDERS Powders can be added as an ingredient to conjure bags, used to dust talismans, or used to powder yourself like talcum. More than all those other uses though, I find that I and most people end up using powder as a way to deliver a spell to a target. If you are into covert magic that aims to influence a target than powders are one of your best friends. In Hoodoo most powders are sprinkled on the ground because of the belief that the feet are one of the most susceptible areas to attack. Personally I try to place get powders somewhere that my target is going to get it directly on their skin. If I can't do that without getting caught, than I resort to powdering their footpath. Imagination here is really they key. Below are a list of some of the ways that I have delivered powders: • Dusted documents than shook it off so that no powder was still visible • Placed powder in with the targets cosmetic powder so that they powdered themselves • Mixed in with a gift. • Powder in the pocket so that I could grab some when I shook hands. • Hot Foot Powder in a neighbors shoes that he left outside the door every night. • Powder in the shape of a sigil on the doorstep of a target • Powder dissolved in water and then shot through a specially prepared super soaker at a front porch so that I didn't trigger the alarms in the yard. • Dusted on the gas pedal of a car • Spread in an unbroken circle surrounding a building • Powder blown in the four directions of a room

• Make a Pemba or chalk out of the powder by combining it with proper colorant (always natural) and egg white. I then used the chalk to mark sigils under chairs and behind pictures. When using a helpful powder such as cascarilla this can even be on your own body as I detail in P&RM. • I once blew powder right into someone's face. I was telling them that I was cursing them. Lockets with secret compartments and ladies poison rings are of course ideal ways to hide a powder until you slip it on your target. You can check antique shops for these as well as Head shops that sell products designed to hide other non-magical powders during body searches. Powders also get used in some European Witchcraft, but usually in the form of Philters that get consumed by the target. Some of these formulas cross the line from witchcraft into drugging. LaVoisin for instance was famous for using philters that used cantharides (spanish fly) during the famous "Affaire des Poison" that consumed the court of Louis XIV. Other recipes I have seen involving Opium and other drugs amount in my opinion to date rape drugs. I am all for excercising reasonable influence, but there is a line that crosses even the loosest ethical code and that is way way way past it. Truth be told, other than the lightest water infusion of simple herbs like Rose petals, Periwinkle, Damiana, or Corriander I would just stay away from mixing Philters for fear of chemical allergies. Choosing alcohols that have the herbs you want to use already in them is another matter. There is no reason not to charge a bottle of Absinthe that already has Wormwood (psychic power), Anise (psychic power) and Licorice (influence). But now we are getting away from the topic of powders. INCENSE Incense is one of the most archetypal elements of ritual both magical and religious, that I am surprised at how little attention it gets from some practitioners. Yes stick incense is easier than mixing your own blend to toss on a charcoal block or even using the self lighting powder that some Conjure shops

sell, but for infusing a room with a material representative of your intent, there is just isn't anything better. Everyone knows the symbolism of incense carrying prayers to the heavens making it an ideal offering to all gods and beings of the sky. Before I had twins I used to start every day with an offering of Incense to the beings of the air and heavens, and tea or alcohol to the earth and underworld. A similar combo is used in cleansing wiccan circles where incense represents the elements of fire and air, and salt water represents the elements of water and earth. My favorite influencing spell, bar none, is a very simple incense spell done in the dark of night when your target is asleep. You start by making a packet containing: a personal link to the target, a petition of what I want to happen, and various influencing materia. This can take the form of a conjure bag, a folded packet of paper wrapped in string, or if I feel like getting fancy, a stuffed doll. Some people like to mess around with making their own wax dolls, or sowing poppets. I picked up a tip from a Haitian Bokor and just use a plastic doll so I can stuff it full of materia. Even though plastic is not a great conductor of level 2 energies, you can paint it with oils, paint with herbs added, or even gold leaf - a good tip for making gold talismans on the cheap BTW is to coat a clay or wood talisman with gold leaf that contains real gold. After the packet or doll is made I baptize it in the name of the target by tracing a cross over it and pronouncing: "I name thee X. Thou Art X". Now I take my packet to the temple or to a power spot and light my incense. I hold my hands in the triangle of manifestation gesture as explained in TSS (index fingers and thumbs of each hand touching so as to form a triangle of space between the hands). I let the packet hang over the incense from a string that I hold between my two index fingers, so that I can see it through the triangle. If it is too heavy to hold, you can use some kind of frame like a banana holder to hang the packet from. As the incense rises it will envelope the packet in a cloud of smoke. I than talk to the packet as if the target was there, telling it exactly what I want it to do. Could be anything from agreeing to a contract to not performing certain bodily

functions. More on this kind of thing when we start detailing the strategies for influencing. Thats all for this week.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 17: MATERIA PART 4 In our exploration of materia we started with personal links than moved to individual components used in spells, followed by more complex condition products. This week the topic is Amulets and Talismans. There is some contention about the difference between and amulet and a talisman. Some people differentiate between and amulet and a talisman based upon whether it is naturally occurring or designed and constructed by man. These traditions would treat a Hagstone, stone with a hole worn through it by water, as an amulet and a piece of parchment with a seal from the Key of Solomon on it as a Talisman. I am not sure where this tradition comes from, but it is not the distinction that I use. Others insist that an amulet is something that repels, drives away, or wanes something, and a Talisman is something that draws, increases, or waxes. I am also not sure of the roots of this tradition, but it is a common concept amongst ceremonial magicians and is specifically made popular through the book Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig. The Latin word amuletum appears in Pliny's Naturalis Historia as a word that mean "object that protects a person from trouble". The term talisman comes from Greek telesma which means to consecrate and also telein which means to initiate into the mysteries. To me the terms are pretty much synonyms. You can have a money drawing amulet and a protective talisman - there are lots of historical examples of usage that would violate any of the rules listed above. For our purposes an Amulet or a Talisman is quite simply a physical object that produces a magical effect. I will be using the terms interchangeably. BENEFITS OF AN AMULET Why would you want to carry an amulet? By now you can probably guess my two answers. First it is a way of "earthing" you magic through a level 3 component which gives your work a foothold onto this plane of existence. Secondly it

provides a steady and constant presence without you having to concentrate or otherwise occupy yourself with it. When working for others I always try to include some kind of amulet in the mix of work, even if it is just a remnant of a ritual that I did in the temple space. Some people try to teach rituals and spells to those that come to them for help, and that is fine if it is simple enough (like a prayer and a candle) but if you are suggesting that they learn a zone rite like the Angelic Cube or the LBRP than you are just kidding yourself. Most people that seek magical assistance are not looking to learn magic, they just want the effect. An amulet is a great way to package your magic for another person. DEFICITS OF AN AMULET Really there aren't any unless you get dependent on them. I have met several would be magicians who seem almost weighed down with amulets - mostly made by others. Love Drawing, Money Drawing, Protection etc. If you are going to be a Sorcerer or Sorceress than you are transforming yourself into a being of power. You are the Talisman. At any given moment, I am probably carrying one or two talismans on me for projects that I am working on. Other items such as my Mala or certain symbols of focus amount to tools more than amulets, which I will be covering in the next lesson. CLASSIFICATIONS I classify amulets and talismans in several ways: Natural Vs Charged: Sometimes an amulet is charged by nature or tradition alone. Hagstones, Crystals, Mandrakes etc do their thing without any need of a Sorcerer to load or unlock its power. Other things like crucifixes, pentagrams, statues of deities, demonic seals etc have a natural power based on their inherent link to a power such as a deity or even a magical system. In both cases these items can be charged further or have their pattern refined (more on this further down) but if left alone they have their own virtue - no matter how small.

Constructed vs Re-purposed: A constructed Talisman is one that has been physically created with its purpose in mind. A re-purposed Talisman is a physical object that was created for some other artistic or utilitarian purpose that has been adopted for use by the Sorcerer. I use both regularly for both myself and for clients. Conjure bags are one example of a constructed talisman. Others would include parchment scrolls, metal engraved or wood burned talismans containing images and symbols relating to the work. I have repurposed everything from clients a favorite jewelry to action figures as talismans. The possibilities are endless Worn Vs Stationary: Is the amulet being worn on the person or is it meant to stay in one place and effect an area rather than a person. Often it doesn't matter from a practical perspective, but it is worth considering. Temporary vs Permanent: Nothing is truly permanent but if you are making something that is meant to last a lifetime there are different considerations than if you are making a talisman to achieve a specific goal within a short time frame. Permanent works of magic that draw upon energies of level 2 require either regular maintenance by the Sorceress or a fixed link to a source of power such as a river, a star, the earth's magnetic field, or any number of powers such as we have discussed thus far. CHARGING A TALISMAN There are three basic processes that can be used to charge a talisman: Unlocking, Loading, and Consecrating. These relate to the three levels of magic written about in TSS. These three are not mutually exclusive and can be used in combination. Sometimes this makes it more powerful, other times less is more. You need to develop your own intuition and psychic senses to tell which situation calls for what. Unlocking a Talisman is usually done with Natural talismans or with constructed talismans that have been inherited from someone else. You are not adding anything to the Talisman, only releasing its innate potential and asking it to work for you. The simplest means of doing this is to hold the object and speak to it

asking it to work for you. This can be done not only with amulets and talismans, but all material components. When I make a Conjure Bag for instance I speak to each item and ask it to come alive for me and work its power. You can also do this in the name of a specific deity or spirit. The natural mystic Charubel for instance developed sigils and names for various plant Geni that are well worth exploring for unlocking the full potential of herbal components. Loading a Talisman involves impregnating the object with one or more specific forces such as planetary energies, elemental energies, pure azoth, or any other kind of energy that can be either channeled through the subtle channels and into the object, or directly from the aether into the object. This type of charging tends to generate fast results but dissipates quickly unless the object is maintained regularly. As noted in lesson 14, not all objects are conductive to the elemental and astral energies in the same way. Plastic for instance just doesnt hold a charge. Consecrating a talisman involves imbuing the object with a divine blessing. This is normally done by prayer and perhaps a laying on of hands or gesture to channel that blessing. At the most basic level such a consecration is usually done by the Sorcerer offering him or herself as a vehicle for divine grace to work through. At a higher level the Sorceress enters into a state of contemplation where they are. Even for just a moment, realizing their own primordial nature as inseparable from the divine itself and are able to consecrate an object accordingly. There is a deep mystery here and it's not something that you can fake. As you progress through the lessons and become adept in meditation and contemplation you will hopefully be able to look back and grasp my meaning if you do not already. Consecrated talismans tend to either be general in nature and last forever, or consecrated for specific goals that can take a long time to manifest. PROGRAMMING If you think of the physical talisman as a computer and the charging of the talisman its power supply, than patterning is the program it runs. Programming, also called Patterning is normally done as part of the charging process, the power channeled of invoked gets programmed with what you want it to do as or even

before it enters the talisman. You can sometimes reprogram a talisman or refine its programming with further ritual work. This does not necessarily require recharging. A talismans program can be held in a number of ways. The most obvious is in the form of sigils and names of power that are present on the talisman itself. When doing this yourself you can actually write the Sorcerous equivalent of a program code in the form of sigils and seals that link it to various energies and tell it to do exactly what you intend it to do. In some cases these instructions are inside the talisman as a petition. In a way, the components of a conjure hand are themselves the programming code for the bag. In these cases the charging naturally and spontaneously gets programmed by the materia of the Talisman. Programming can also occur verbally and most rituals to consecrate a Talisman will have some kind of spoken statement of intent to guide the talisman. This can be addressed to the talisman itself, which is treated as if it were a living thing, or to a specific deity that you are working with to consecrate the talisman. Using a Venusian talisman of attraction as an example of both we could use either: 1. "I charge and consecrate thee of creature of Venus, that you forever emanate the hooked lights of enchantment that draw others into and under my influence. Make it so that all women upon whom I set my eye, find me fascinating and attractive, and that all men treat me with favor and goodwill. So let it be done." 2. "Oh most Lovely Lady of Loves Light, Lay your delicate hand upon this talisman which has been prepared to receive your grace. Make it so that all women upon whom I set my eye, find me fascinating and attractive, and that all men treat me with favor and goodwill. By your power, make this talisman engender lust and trust and favorable feelings in who gaze upon its wearer. Though my hands perform the gestures and my voice speaks the words, it is by your power, not mine, that this act is accomplished. So let it be done"

Programming can also happen in the astral either through the generation of sigils, and signs that enter the talisman, or by directly applying the will and imagination to the charging powers. As you can see, there are a lot of possibilities for working with talismans. If you get turned on by very traditional magic, you can consult thousands of books for just the right recipe or symbol to use. If you get turned on by the creative process, this is an area where your imagination can run wild. If you are like me and get turned on by both than you will probably wind up with a room full of strange looking stuff just like I am currently in! I always encourage anyone to come up with their own rituals that are based in the situation at hand, but sometimes it is helpful to have examples. AN EXAMPLE OF TALISMAN CREATION The following example is only one possibility for Talisman consecration. You can get much more elaborate or concise depending upon your needs. It assumes that we are both Charging and Consecrating a Talisman. 1. I usually begin by cleansing the talisman. I invoke the Divine to clear it, than visualize it consumed in fire to burn away the impurities, air to extinguish the fire, and then water to wash away the ash. If the material will hold up, you can run it with alcohol, set it on fire, wave it in the air, than wash it with salt water to mimic this process. I might use words such as: Hekas Hekas Este Bebeloi.. Existence of Existences, most holy and omnipotent, drive from this object of clay all profane influence and contaminating spirits that it may be as blank as the uncreated universe and a fitting vessel for our magic. By Fire the spirit of the Gods. By Air their holy breath. By Water the blood of the Gods, and by Earth their divine forms. It is done. 2. If consecrating a Talisman I spend some time in prayer and contemplation of Divinity. If there is a specific diety or spirit being called upon than I do

some preliminary prayers. If not I attempt to enter contemplation as deeply as possible. 3. If charging a talisman I spend some time accumulating the force that I want to load into the talisman though pore breathing or linking to a planet. 4. After these preliminaries I hold the talisman between the hands and load the power that I have built up in the body into it. If using a Planetary or Stellar Power I actually connect to this through the crown of the head and draw its influence into me and through me, patterning it as I do so. Send it through the channels in the arms and into the object. With practice you will be able to feel this happening, even feeling when the object is "full". I generally do not use words for this portion of the ritual. I do however usually include the vibration of a word or syllable such as one of the Greek Vowels associated with the Planets (See the Helptagram Zone Rite from Lesson 3), or one of the Enochian Names for the Elements from the Tablet of Union in the consecration below that aknowleges the power that has been loaded into it. 5. For the consecration I usually touch the talisman with my index and middle fingers in a gesture of blessing. If I am using tools I might use a wand to touch the talisman. Than it is a matter of being a good channel for the divine powers. Ideally you can move your egosistic mind aside and rest in the primordial state of awareness. If not than you can at least offer yourself as a vehicle for the power invoked. This can be simple or involved. For instance a simple consecration from the Christian Tradition might sound like: Lord Christ, to your most sacred heart I commit this Talisman. Only look upon me and do what your love inspires. Take it and place it in your open Heart. When the Eternal Father looks upon it he will see it covered with your

precious blood and it will no longer be my request, but yours that is fulfilled. Sacred Heart of Christ I place all my trust in you. Bless this Talisman as a vehicle for your grace. Amen A more complex Consecration, that acknowledges the powers which it has been loaded with might sound like. IAO, AOI, OIA, AIO, IOA, OAI Oh Existence of Existence Primordial Perfect and Profound Whom nature Has Not Formed Thee I invoke! Bring this lump of clay from death to life! IOPHIEL Intelligence of Jupiter Thee I invoke! Take hold of the powers that have been loaded into this object Drive them a Chariot that leads directly to my next job. By the sacred Syllable Y * Make this Talisman Vibrate with Jovian Grace Oh HISMAEL, spirit of Jupiter Bear Witness to this rite and assist me May this Talisman bring blessings of Wealth and Power In the form of Gainful Employment doing (X) May it Garner Glory for me and Gather Gain For the credit of your ineffable name *(Greek vowel upsilon, pronounced eu (like the french du - the ee sound with the lips rounded) If there are specific names or sigils on the talisman I try to work them all into the consecrating speech. It doesnt have to be poetry, and you can certainly use a "stock" ritual like the consecrations from Modern Magic. I

just prefer to come up with something specific to every ritual, making sure that it is targeted and special. 6. After this I seal the talisman with a gesture such as a pentagram or cross. In this case I would make a cross in the air over the Talisman. As I drew the vertical line I would say: I Consecrate you a Talisman of the Powers of Jove. As I drew the horizontal line I would say: So it is done.

Thats it for this week. Next week we talk tools.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 18: MATERIA PART 5 So far we have only covered things that get used as part of an individual spell or ritual, either as a component that is discarded as with Condition products and herbs, or as a focus of the rite such as an Amulet or Talisman. In all these cases the use of material objects helps give our Sorcery a foothold into the material world. Though ceremonial magicians do use amulets and talismans, they often do not make as much use of personal links, powders, oils, and other components as Root doctors and practitioners of Folk magic do. What they do use a lot of, that folk magic practitioners do not is Ritual Tools, which is the topic of this week's lesson. As I write, I am surrounded by ritual tools. Lots and lots of them. I have wands, staves, a Trumpet made from a thigh bone, a Vajras, Bells, aspergillums. Just for ritual libations I have a Chalice that we use for Sodality work, a GD style Chalice that I made in high school, an Ornate Catholic Chalice for offering communion, a Human Skull cap (Kapala) for Tantric rites. Lots and lots of stuff. As I get older most of this stuff gets less and less use. A lot of it is primarily for use in group rituals, specific religious ceremonies, or initiations. Other items are particular to initiatory paths or systems that I have stopped following. The tools that do get regular use are amongst my most valuable possessions. It is these that I would like to talk about in this lesson. But I would like to start with a cautionary tale about Tools. FIRST RULE OF MAGICAL TOOLS. The tools that I call The Big Four are the ones that appear on the altar of most ceremonial magicians and many witches as well. They are the same ones that appear on the altar of the magician in the Tarot: The Wand, The Chalice, The Dagger, and the Pantacle. If you are in the GD or following a similar magical training such as presented in Modern Magic, these are pretty focused on working with the elements. The color scheme alone makes it hard to separate them from the elements. This is however just one way of looking at them, one that I grew increasingly uncomfortable with

as I used them. For one thing it just seemed strange to be tracing pentagrams in the air with a cup or a Pantacle. They very shape of the object did not lend itself well to such use. Other tools like the Lotus wand made more sense, but still seemed overly specific for my tastes. When I joined the OTO and got into Crowley, the Tools took on a less elemental association. Instead of the elements the wand represented the Will of the Magician, the Chalice his Wisdom, the Dagger is Analysis, and the Pantacle his Synthesis. This made a lot more sense to me, and when I re-made my tools I linked these tools up to these capacities within myself, just as I had linked up the GD tools to the Elements within myself. This link between adept and tool is an approach to magical tools that I came to view as a mistake. One day, when shopping with my roommate, I felt a sudden shock to the system. It was so strong that it took me a minute to realize that it was a psychic shock and not a physical problem. I felt dizzy and couldn't gather my thoughts. Thinking that I was under attack I traced it psychically and realized that it was coming from my own altar. I rushed home and found that my chalice had fallen off the altar and split apart. I fixed it, but this caused me to think about what I was doing with my tools. By linking so much of myself to my tools I was indeed making powerful magical implements, but I was also fracturing my psyche. I saw the downside, and when I really thought about it, I saw no upside to working with tools that were so intimately linked to the self. It is not much of a stretch to compare this to the Horcruxes that Voldemort makes in Harry Potter. So the first rule of tools in Strategic Sorcery is: Make sure that your tools are just tools. You should be able to do without them. They may make your magic easier, you may love them and be proud of them, but they are just things. Don't let them become more than that. Do not link your soul or you psyche to something so impermanent. THE BIG FOUR Apart from representing the four elements, and four powers of the magician, the big four are also linked to the four Grail Hallows: The Wand is the spear of

Longinus, the spear that pierced Christs side on the cross. The Chalice of course is the Cup of Christ that is alternately thought of as the one he used at the last supper and/or the one Joseph of Arimathea used to collect his blood and sweat from the cross. The sword is Excalibur in some legends, or the sword that severed the head of John the Baptist in others. The Pantacle is equated with either the Dish used to hold the Shroud of Christ, or the emerald that fell from Lucifer's crown during the fall. These four hallows themselves have Pagan origins in the Irish Tuatha de Danaan legends, where they appear as the Spear of Lugh, the Cauldron of Dagda, the Sword of Nuada, and the Stone of Fal. As integral as these four tools as a set became in the GD , Thelema and other systems that came afterwards, they are not older than that. Certainly mages have used Wands, daggers, etc for centuries but not as a set to represent four cosmic qualities. Despite that, I still make use of all four and I still often set my altar up with them in the four directions, especially if I am working with other magicians who are likely to associate them with the directions. But now that I do not necessarily link the tools with the elements or the powers of the psyche, the question is what function do they serve? The answer leads us the second rule of tools: The Second rule of tools in Strategic Sorcery is: The meaning of a tool is defined by its use and nothing else. I will illustrate this through the big four below. THE WAND The wand is the tool of sending and transmission. Whether you are sending commands with a wand of conjuration, sending a bolt of martial energy with a Blackthorn Blasting Rod, or transmitting the power of heaven down to earth with a staff, it is a tool of conveyance. I have quite a number of wands for different purposes. Their symbolism can vary according to use. Some, like the Wand from Trithemius's book of calling spirits into crystals and reproduced in Barret's The Magus, are inscribed with names of God. I use that wand for working with the Archangels. Others are linked to

specific planets or uses, such as the aforementioned blasting rod, which only has one function - curse. Staves are nice as wands of command, and in the days following my attainment of the K&C of the HGA, it was a 6' long Egyptian Was that I bound the Demons with. This Staff is a symbol or power par excellance and can be used for any action of command. I keep three other wands for general use. One is carved from a piece of Oak that was struck by lightening. Another that is easier to carry around because of its size is a peculiar antique Dorje (vajra) that I picked up in Nepal, and have specifically chosen to use outside of its root tradition. The third is actually a toy replica of Dr Who's Sonic Screwdriver. In a fit of experimental madness I loaded the batteries with azoth, pushed energy through the wires, and placed fluid condensers on the inside of the casing. I have more modifications planned when I have the time to do something as silly as that. When I pop it out, people think I am just fiddling around with a toy, but I might very well be casting covertly. It has proven itself to work remarkably well. There are too many traditions and types of operation that you might want a special tool for to be covered in a single book much less a lesson. The possibilities are endless, whatever it is, it should be functional and inspirational, which brings us to the third rule. The third Rule of Tools in Strategic Sorcery is: It is more important for a tool to inspire you than for you to construct it yourself. A lot of people insist on making everything themselves and claim that any tool that you make, no matter how crude or how ugly is better than a tool that you purchased. I have found this to be absolute BUNK! If you can't make a dagger that looks and functions well, than go out and purchase one. I have made lots of tools. The ones that came out well I have found effective, but the ones that look like crap I have found to be less effective than ones that I have purchased. No one wants to have their temple space filled with stuff that looks like it was made in a 6th grade art class. Enough said. THE CUP

The Cup is a tool of reception and gathering. Whether it is receiving the wine to be transformed into the blood of Christ in the mass, the whiskey to be transformed into Amrita during a Ganachakra, the vulva of the goddess receiving the phalus of the horned god represented by an Athame, or simply a container for dark water for you to scry into - the Chalice is always receiving. I mentioned a few of the Cups that I have in the introduction to this lesson, so I won't prattle on about them here. The last one I mentioned is a Kapala- the top of a Human skull. I use this ONLY for the purpose that it was made: Buddhist and Bon Tantric ritual. Nothing else. As cool as it would be to whip it out for a Hekate rite, I do not out of respect for the person whose skull it was - likely a monk who expected that his remains would be used in a particular way. This brings me to the fourth rule: The third Rule of Tools in Strategic Sorcery is: Respect what a traditional tool is intended it to be used for. Sometimes we come across magical tools that have been crafted for a particular purpose. Sometimes they can be re-purposed, and sometimes not. Generally the more closely something is to a specific rite or tradition, the less likely I feel like it should be repurposed. The Kapala is an extreme example - it is literally part of someone's head. A less clear example would be an athame. If someone gave me a black hilted dagger that was used by an eclectic, I wouldn't have too many qualms about cleansing it and using it for whatever. If however someone gave me one that was engraved with Gardnerian symbols I would feel less likely to use it out of that context. Whenever I come across someone who is using a Phurba as an Athame, it always bugs the hell out of me because it violates this rule. I would have no problem if they learned about it and stretched its use for their own ends, but clearly these people do not have even the slightest interest in knowing anything about it other than what they fantasize it is used for. For the record a Phurba is not even a dagger, it is a nail or spike. DAGGER OR SWORD

The Dagger or Sword is an implement of cutting. As such it is normally a weapon of defense or attack, but need not be. I have seen the ritual dagger put to use as a scalpel in magical healings - it just takes a much steadier hand and skilled use of energy. Many people use the dagger as if it were a wand, and of course you can pretty much use anything as anything if you set your mind to it. Just like using a chalice to trace pentagrams in the air though, it always just seemed odd. When I use a dagger in a zone rite I am cutting that zone off from the rest of the world. When I use a wand, even if it is the same ritual, I am creating a boundary. You could conceivably use both in the same rite. Of course the dagger as a weapon can be thrust into a ghost or localized spirit to cause damage, or it can be thrust into a effigy in sympathetic magic. In some zone rites a sword is thrust into the ground to both represent the ground being infused with your will and as a reminder of what happens to those that cross your boundary. As with the other tools, I have several. Some like my kartika and athame, are used in specific rituals and only those rituals. Others like my Sherpas Kukhri (thinner and more balanced than a Gurkhas Kukhri), or any number of swords and daggers I have collected, I can use for anything. PANTACLE The Pantacle is an implement of manifesting. Think of it as a dish upon which food appears. In this case it is our desires that come together and manifest. Crowley had some great instructions for the pantacle in book 4 that basically amount to: make it represent the universe as you currently understand it. Thus the word Pan-tacle instead of pentacle. It is representative of EVERYTHING not the number five. Not a lot of Pantacles that are not talismans, get used in pre-industrial age magic. Cases like the Sigillum Dei Aemeth in Enochian magic are rare. In most cases it is the Holy Table or even the circle itself that serves as the true pantacle. In a lot of eastern magic it is the mandala that serves this role.

I have made a number of pantacles over the years, each reflecting my understanding at the time. If I had to make one today I would probably simply use a mirror or crystal ball as the best representative of the underlying reality. I keep a few of these around for different purposes. They are excellent bases upon which to place a scrying mirror or a talisman that you are charging. Whenever I create a servitor (thrall, watcher, egregore, etc) I usually create it on top of my Pantacle. More than any of the other tools listed above, this should be kept under lock and key, as even items placed on top of a pantacle by mistake have a habit of manifesting. In many ways, they are like micro altars. This brings us to the fourth rule. The fourth rule of tools in Strategic Sorcery is: Your tools are sacred, treat them as such. If you are using something for magic, don't leave it lying around to get dusty or toss it into a box with a bunch of other junk. Tools are sacred, but not sacrosanct. It is not necessary that you be the only person to ever touch them, nor must they be shielded from the eyes of the profane. Such rules do create a feeling of elite secrecy and specialness that some get off on, but I am not one of them. Handle it just like you would an expensive heirloom - you wouldn't hand it off to someone that you thought would not respect it, but you wouldn't hesitate to let genuinely interested parties examine it either. CONSECRATIONS Any consecration ceremony should acknowledge the three levels. For instance: if consecrating a new wand I might do the following: Cleanse the wand by rubbing with alcohol (careful of the finish) or immersing it in salt water. Running pure energy through the wand while my mind is in a clear meditative state. Making a prayer to Diety or Existence itself asking that it be cleared of all prior history and programming. Next I would Choose a particular oil to rub into the wand while channeling an appropriate energy and making prayers of consecration similar to those made on a talisman. This does not have to be anything fancy, but if you have taken the

time to have special symbols or words inscribed, they should be activated by working them into the ceremony. It does not differ all that much from making a talisman, that is because the real consecration of a Tool is not its ceremony, but its use. The ceremony is just to kick it off in the right direction. Through consistent use it gains it charge and is consecration. Peter Carroll in one of the appendixes of the Psychonomicon, gave an excellent ordeal to use with the wand or staff that will consecrate it more fully than any single ceremony. In his follow up book Psybermagick, he gave similar exercises for the other three listed above. The following method is different from his, but borrows from the idea heavily. STRATEGIC SORCERY METHOD OF CONSECRATION THROUGH USE The following takes place over a period of time no shorter than a week, but no longer than a month: On the first day: 1. Cleanse the tool 2. Make a proclamation about its use. This could be a simple statement, a poem, or even an invocation. 3. Following the basic instructions from lesson 1, use the tool as an object of meditation. 4. Explore the tool completely with all the senses. Feel it, smell it, listen to it, look at every square millimeter. Fascniate yourself with the tool. Explore it psychically by scrying and psychometry. 5. Use the tool for the first time. This could be a summoning or blasting with the wand, a libation or scrying session with the cup, a zone rite or attack with the dagger, a spell or conjuration on the pantacle. Whatever you do it the use of the tool should be 90% of the act. Using the wand once in the course of an hour long ceremony will not do. Every day after that for the duration of the consecration:

1. Carry the tool with you at all times within reason. 2. Wake up and repeat your proclamation about the tool 3. Use the tool. This need not be a grand ceremony. A quick blast with the wand, stabing of an effigy with the dagger, creation of a sigil over the pantacle, or drink from the cup will suffice. At the end of the retreat : 1. Use the tool in a full ritual of some kind. It should be a temple rite that involves the creation of a zone. A ceremony, not just a spell. OTHER TOOLS Apart from the big four there are a number of tools that I get a lot of use out of. They can be consecrated in a similar fashion. ROBE: I do not use robes for work in my own temple unless I am doing something very formal with the angels like a high mass on a holiday. Times like these I don a white alb, stole, and chasuble. For empowerments and Tantric ceremonies with others in my sangha I wear my Ngakpa Zen and Shamthab (shawl and skirt). I might wear a robe are for serious group ceremonies like sabbats or serious evocations - it helps get people on the same page. Whether you use robes or not, I will specifically warn against using them all the time. If you need to dress up in special clothes to do any magic at all, than clearly you are not grasping the methods of this class! BLACK MIRROR: I still have the first one I ever made. I use it all the time. Don't but a flat one though. Go out and get yourself a convex piece of glass - I got mine from a clock maker in Asbury Park. Spray paint the convex side flat black. Do not add any herbs or oils until it is coated completely and you cannot see through the glass at all. Afterwards you can apply oils or paints with herbs mixed in. P.B. Randolf used to sell mirrors that had psychotropic herbs and his own sexual fluids on them as fluid condensers. I use a mix of sex fluids, star anise, and mugwort. You can paint any kind of sigils you want on the back but do not paint any one the concave glass. In fact I strongly recommend that you do not even frame it in any way. When I use mine the mirror literally appears to grow and take over the space

around it. A frame would ruin that effect. I use it not only as a surface for scrying but as a portal for working on remote targets. ROSARY: Any Vajrayana Buddhist usually has a Mala somewhere on their person. I have too many to even name here, but the main one I use is Bodhi Seed with naga Shell spacers. I also use Greek Chokti for certain Christian meditations. I have a special Roasrie that I made of snake bones with human bone spacers for doing the Song of the Serpent. After 10,000 repetitions or so it starts to accumulate some serious mojo. This adds power to your chant, and also can be a source of power when you need an extra boost. A good rosary can be your best friend. RING: I have actually only recently started using a ring. It's a Platinum ring with a star sapphire that belonged to my Grandfather. I use it in wealth magick and for certain stellar rites that draw upon Uranus and points beyond. There are more but that covers the essence of what I wanted to say. I love experimenting with new tools as well. Inspired by the famous blue sunglasses of Dr Buzzard, I am currently experimenting with colored lenses in goggles and different gazes. I also want to build a nice radionics box to play with. Members of orthodox traditions draw power from the accumulated activity people doing the same things the same way for centuries. Creativity however is a force in and of itself. Do something special with your tools. HOMEWORK #4 You have a choice: Consecrate a tool that you have either purchased or made using the Strategic Sorcery Method Of Consecration Through Use. I want a photo of the tool and a detailed description of what you did. Include a script for your initial consecration, what exactly you did each day for use, and a write up of the ceremony that you did at the end.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 19: Knowing and Using Your Environment In the next bunch of lessons we will be talking about Astral Projection, the Astral Planes, Multiple Dimensions, Spirits, Dreaming, etc. A good topic to bridge the gap between this and the material focus of the last five lessons is to look at the place where we live and see how its physical, astral, and spiritual aspects can figure into our sorcery. The land has always played a part in traditional magic. Some types of shamanism and witchcraft are so linked to a particular place that its practitioners actually feel powerless when they are removed from it. In very traditional types of magic this link to the land of origin sometimes create strange issues. Many of the Tibetan Sadhanas on my shelf have prayers that refer specifically to protecting and blessing Tibet and no mention of the land that the modern practitioner might be in. Some books on traditional Witchcraft have ingredients that are almost impossible to get here in America, especially when the instructions are to cut them yourself at a particular time. For example the spirit Apoxias, that I mentioned in P&RM first came to me connected to some Horned God workings that I was doing. His request for blackthorn to be included in the bottle has prompted many people to write me enquiring about how to get some here in America. (Irish stores should carry Blackthorn items that you can repurpose BTW) Regardless of what distant lands and places of pilgrimage the Strategic Sorceress holds dear, she needs to make the place that she actually lives into her holy land . Obviously if you live in a place steeped in magic like New Orleans, Glastonbury, or Kathmandu you have an enormous amount of lore to link your practice to. Even if you live the dreariest suburb, surrounded by nothing but box stores and urban blight, you will do yourself well if you take the time to investigate the land and integrate it into your practice. Every place I have ever lived, I have made a map that details the important locations that I might need for magic. In the lesson below I will be sharing some of these as examples of what to look for in your own environment. Once you have this map, mental or on paper, you can begin to establish a relationship with the

land and its spirits. It will serve you in ways that you would never expect as long as you serve it faithfully as well. GEOGRAPHY Start with a little research into the natural Geography and look for things of interest. Since the possibilities are as varried as the earth itself, the best way I can teach what I mean is to give examples from two of the places that I have lived: Southern NJ and Philadelphia. I currently live in an area of southern NJ known as the Pine Barrens. Because NJ is known for the crowded areas around New York City most people don't give much thought to the very rural areas in the south and the mysterious land that has managed to stay pristine for the most part. First and foremost the whole area was once under water and is now filled with a white "Sugar Sand" that is primarily Quartz. This alone gives the landscape an unusual capacity to manifest astral and etheric patterns. Almost anyone that has spent time in the woods here has some experience with being chased by ghosts or shadows or some kind of paranormal phenomena. This sand makes an excellent spell component as well as making areas like crossed dirt roads extra powerful. Most of the water in the streams throughout the barons is deep orange because of the overwhelming Iron content and runoff from cedars. The iron makes the water an ideal base for war water or exorcism water. Strangely, amidst these orange streams there are three circular pools of very deep blue called "Blue Holes". The water in these holes remains cold (around 55 degrees) even in the summer which has caused several drowning accidents from cramps. These holes are thought to have been made by meteorites and the meteoric titanium is what causes the blue hue. The water in these is very useful as holy water. The holes themselves seem to be natural gates: areas where the etheric, astral, and material levels condense and crossover from one to the other becomes easy. Stories of these holes being bottomless and filled with demons abound.

After doing some research on the geography of the area, you should investigate psychically. I strongly recommend re-reading the section on gazes in TSS and practicing the wide, empty, and dimensional gazes. Scanning areas with these gazes can sometimes reveal interesting features of the landscape such as Ley Lines and Nexus Points, Spirit dwellings, and Gates as mentioned above. Apart from gazes you can use pendulums, diving rods, omens, spirit guides, and even EMF Meters to aid in your mapping. When I was living in Philadelphia we used pendulums over maps of the city, followed up by psychic viewing on site to confirm the existence of a large Ley Line that ran across the Delaware and west across the city between Walnut and Locust streets. Interestingly, places where these ley lines crossed others (Nexus Points) were at Parks; specifically Washington Square, Rittenhouse Square, and Blanch P Levy Park. Very often in cities you will find parks, churches, or old monuments on these power spots for two reasons. The first is that the power spots seem to inspire both people and spirits to become guardians of them. The Second is that often the planners of old cities and monument builders were people that had some knowlege of sacred geometry and geopsychic energies. The first of these parks is not only is the site of hundreds of unmarked graves from the revolutionary and 1812 wars, but was known as Congo Square because it was a place where Africans gathered to dance - just like Congo Square in New Orleans, another place of immense power. Philadelphia also has its own gateway pool of water known as "The Devils Pool" in Fairmount Park. This pool is said to have no bottom and act as a gateway to hell itself. It is in reality about 30 feet deep (in the physical realm at least). The pool is surrounded by Quartzite and Mica which makes for a powerful whirlpool of energy in the center of the pool. I have only ever worked here once, but it was potent! HISTORICAL RESEARCH

Almost everywhere has legends about local witches, monsters, strange occurrences, and eldritch locals. Often these stories can relate information not only on sites of power that can come in handy, but about entities that you can contact and commune with. In Philadelphia there is a cave known as the "Cave of Kelpius" or "The Rosicrucian Cave". Kelpius was a khabbalist and mystic that led a group of self styled monks known as "The Society of the Woman in the Wilderness" that lived in a system of caves in the Wissahickon woods. Legends abound about Kelpius including one that claims he possessed the philosophers stone, which he threw into the Schuykill River before transmigrating from this life to the next. The Ancient Mystical Order of Rosicrucians (AMORC) erected a monolith outside of the cave that he is thought to have lived in. I was not able to find a link to Kelpius's Ghost in the cave (he is said not to have died after all) but I did have a fantastic vision of the Woman of the Wilderness. Despite being a bit too close to a neighborhood for any involved ceremonial work, the cave is a nice power spot to do work in and has a current of practice that you can tap into easily. In Southern New Jersey we have the legend of the Jersey Devil. Some say he is an ageless protector of the Barrens and the reason that the Leni Lennapi Indians called the area "The Place of the Dragon". Other legends refer to him as The Leeds devil- the unwanted 13th child of Mother Leeds who cursed him while still in the womb. The Devil is said to appear with the head like a horse, long neck, bat wings, crane legs and with hooved feet. Sightings have been made for the last 200 years and tend to run in cycles. There was a painting of him that hung in the New Gretna Tavern that had an inscription that read: "Where stunted pines of burned over forest are revealed in darksome pools The Jersey Devil Lurks." The pools of cours are a reference to the Blue Holes that act as gates. The Trees refer to the Pygmi Pitch Pine a stunted Pine Tree that only grows here and requires the heat of a forest fire to open its pods. Using this Poem as a base, I was able to perform an evocation of the Jersey Devil and make offerings of peace. Another spirit here that I have been able to conjure is the Ghost of Peggy Clevenger, the Witch of the Pines. When I was unable to locate the cursed well,

which is the only thing that remains of her home after the locals set it on fire, I went on an Astral Journey to see if I could find her. Once I did she revealed several secrets of working magic in the pines. Before I moved south I lived in a house right on Lake Lefferts in Matawan NJ. This lake was the site of the famous shark attacks of 1916. A great White shark made its way to Long Beach Island and slowly made its way north into the Raritan Bay and eventually up creeks in the Lakes in Matawan where it killed several children. The story was the basis for the book and movie "Jaws". Interested in such an odd occurrence happening in a lake that was literally ten feet from my dining room, I spent several nights on the dock making offerings, finally making contact with a beautiful Undine who claimed that the shades of the victims were too fragile to receive the offerings, but that she would transmit them for me. Months later, one of these spirits appeared to me in my house to warn me of impending danger from an unstable person that I had recently befriended. As it turns out, this warning came in handy. I hope that I did not bore you too much with these stories from my own magical career. I supply them only as examples of what you can do with your own research into the geography and history of the place that you live in. Below are some useful sites that do not require research to find. Just a willingness to take walks. GRAVEYARDS Graveyards are the Sorcerers friend, or at least the home of a few of the Sorcerers friends. Shades of the dead can be very useful in all types of magic. Spirits of murderers and such are obviously good for cursing and jinxing. Spirits of Soldiers and policemen are likewise good for justice work and also for protection and binding. Ghosts of recently passed town politicians and councilmen are useful for conducting business in that town. It should go without saying that Spirits of former magical practitioners are useful allies. I will be going over Necromancy proper in a future lesson, but for now you can certainly work informally with the spirits of particular graves through simply

asking them for services and using divination to get their answers. You can also collect Graveyard dirt to use in your sorcery. Dirt itself is a powerful link, and I often use dirt from all over my environment as parts of spells or as a way to give a spirit a foothold into my world. Dirt from my bank for financial work, dirt from the police station, the town hall, the beach, the mountains, wherever is important. Graveyard dirt serves as a link to the shade of the person in the grave. To collect it properly you must pay for it with either a glass of whiskey or a silver dime. Offerings of three pennies are traditional in New Orleans and can be seen along the ridges of the tomb of the widow Paris otherwise known as Marie Laveau. Offerings of items and foods that the person enjoyed in life are also good, but avoid salt at all costs as this is harmful to the shades of the dead. To collect it simply dig a bit from the surface and leave the offering in the hole. This can usually be done during the day with no problem whatsoever. If you do it at night, which is a better time to communicate with the Dead, you should be careful about the Law, sometimes there is a fine for being in the Graveyard at night. Under no circumstances should you ever dig deeper than the surface. The fine for hopping being there after hours is normally a misdemeanor. The fine for desecrating a grave is usually a felony. We will talk more about graveyard dirt when we discuss spirits, but you should at least take the time to find some graves of spirits you would like to work with. Apart from the individual spirits there, graveyards are themselves excellent spots for meditations on impermanence and working with spirits of death itself such as the Guede of Vodou and the Angel Azrael. CHURCHES Churches, temples, synagogs, etc are fantastic places to meditate and pray. You do not necessarily have to belong to the congregation, or even the religion to make use of them. If like me, you are a person dedicated to the truth itself, which is beyond any specific faith tradition, than they are all fair game. If you do a bit of

asking around, especially around Catholics and Orthodox, you can get the skinny on certain shrines that the community considers to have a lot of power. I can tell you truly that the first time I was ever spiritually attacked, my life was literally saved at the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at the Byzantine Catholic Church in Toms River. Apart from their orientation to Level 1 (Divine/Causal), some houses of worship also oriented to accumulate the energies of Level 2 as well. There are two sites like this along the NJ/PA border. The first are the Stone Circles and St Columba Chapel at Columcile PA which were designed specifically by a Minister with knowledge of Earth Energies. The Second is the Swedenborgian Cathedral at Bryn Athyn. The latter is truly a marvel of spiritual/magical engeneering and one of the strangest Churches I have ever seen in all my travels. No right angles, no two things alike at all, the roof made from an unsparkable metal called monel that is almost as heavy as lead, lightning rods that run down into the church, an altar that is rumored to work like an orgone accumulator. I could go on, but you really would have to see it for yourself. Anyway, often you can access shrines or even the main room for private prayer, during which discrete spellwork can be done. Sometimes you can even rent them for you own rituals as long as they don't involve anything too over the top. WOODS, LAKES, OCEANS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, TOWNS, CITIES I live about 4 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. It plays a huge part in my practice. I go there in the morning and make offerings to the Logos itself, which is represented by the rising Sun. The sunlight reflected in the water serves as the divine conduit between us. When I walk through the woods in my area or in any new area, I always try to connect with the dryadic energy. To do this simply place one hand on a tree and the other on another tree. By connecting to two separate points in the same network you are completing a circuit and joining the network. This works way better than just connecting with one tree or object, though occasionally you do find those special trees that house a spirit in them.

Wherever you live, refer back to the lesson on offerings and design one of each style tailored for the place where you live. Do something specific for the angel of your city. Do something specifically for the energy of the place itself. Do something for the spirits of the electricity grid, for the demons that get attracted by traffic and congestion, for the beings trapped in the in between spaces. Make offerings without even expecting anything in return. I guarantee it will pay off. If this lesson came off as a bit too biographical, I apologize. The best way I could think of to cover the topic was to share my own stories. Next week we will get back to more straight instructions when we jump into the world of ONIERIC SORCERY

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 20: Dream Sorcery I am very excited that we have arrived at this portion of the course. This is where things have the potential to get really weird and creative. In the lessons ahead I will be talking about the Astral Plane, working with spirits, and such. Before we get into astral projection however, I want to talk to you about Lucid Dreaming, which is the basic skill that must be mastered to do any kind of dream sorcery. Simply stated, Lucid Dreaming is defined realizing that you are dreaming while in the dream. This has happened to some people accidentally, but often it shocks them awake as soon as lucidity occurs. What we are going to learn to do is wake up within the dream, stay within the dream, take control of the dream, use the dream state as a launching ground for sorcery, and eventually be able to shift directly from the dream state to other types of inner journeying and planar travel. You must not confuse this type of work with dream interpretation. Understand that when you become Lucid in a dream you are ending whatever narrative that dream had and thus interpretation becomes moot. Whether it was just the images from your short term memory created by acetylcholine bursts, your subconscious trying to tell your conscious mine something, or a message from a higher being - when you become Lucid and take control of the dream you are interrupting the program with your own work. Because of this you should NOT seek to Lucid dream every night. Doing it one or two nights a week is fine as is doing it every day during specific periods. MEDITATION A lot of you write in with your experiences doing the pillar and spheres, the song of the serpent, and other exercises. No one has written in about their meditation work other than questions on body position. I hope that this isn't because you have focused yourself on these more active practices with lots of cool colors and lights and feelings and such. If so, go back and read lesson 1 and know that having a good solid meditation practice is worth more than every other thing I have presented in this course combined!

We will be re-visiting meditation again soon, and once more at the end, but I urge you to meditate. In the case of Lucid dreaming, it comes in extremely handy because meditation gives you the power to recognize distraction and self deception. This really is the whole key to becoming lucid. It also helps cut through the clinging we have to surface level karmic traces, which is not only helpful in achieving lucid dreams, but in generating more potent and informative dreams even when we are not aiming for lucidity. THE FILM PROJECTOR Imagine that your dreams are like a film projected on a wall. The film itself are your karmic traces: everything that has ever happened to you in this life or any other. In fact there are several strips of film running through this projector. If you cut through the outermost surface level of film that is basically a run through of what happened to you that day, you can see a deeper film about your life overall. If you cut through that you can see films that detail past lives. If you cut through that, you get films concerning causality itself. If you cut through all the strips of film you see the bulb inside the projector which is the clear light of primordial awareness itself. By developing a serious and regular meditation regimen in the morning and evenings, linked by short periods throughout the day you sharpen the razor of awareness enough to cut through the film. By meditating your way into sleep and applying the following methods you will find Lucid dreaming quite natural and easy. If you do not meditate regularly you will find it difficult and spotty at best. There is no energy exercise, physical action, ritual, incantation, spell, or mental effort of any kind that can replace your meditation. Period. Remember the meditators motto: Don't just do something, sit there! REALITY TESTING Apart from meditation the other thing that you should be doing throughout the day is called Reality Testing. A reality test is really just a way of checking whether

or not you are really awake or if you are in a dream already. This may seem silly at first, but upon reflection do you really know? After all in a dream you do not realize that you are dreaming. The body you possess is you, but so are the bodies of all the other characters, the environment, and the events of the dream. It is all your mind, but it seems real. How do you know you are not dreaming right now? The first test is simply to ask yourself, am I dreaming? The mind will react and give an answer. Usually no. It is especially important to do this at times when you feel that reality is doing something strange like distorted air patterns from heat, strange colors in the sky from pollution, or even synchronous events like someone calling you after thinking of them. Other more involved methods include: • You can also pinch your nose to see if you can still breathe, often in a dream you can do this. • You can look at a digital watch or clock, remember the time, than look away and look back. In dreams the time will change drastically. This doesnt work with analog clocks. • Flip a light switch. The light levels in a dream do not usually change. • Look into a mirror. Mirrors in dreams are often blurry or incorrect. • Look at your hands or feet. These often look different if examined within a dream. You must make reality testing a habit. It cannot be something you do once or twice. It should be several times a day ongoing. The idea here is that when you are in a dream you will remember to test reality just like you do when you are awake. When you find out it is a dream - BAM! Lucidity! TRANSITION PRACTICES: Physical Focus Transition practices are ones that you do as you go to sleep. Start by lying down in the lions posture. To do this lay on your right side if male, left if female. This position places pressure on your solar channel that handles analysis and hard data, and leaves the lunar channel which handles wisdom and dreaming open.

Other positions include lying on the back and crossing both the legs and arms loosely. To be honest I have never been able to get to sleep this way, but it apparently works for some. Though like any pose, it becomes second nature with practice, it is far more important to be in a comfortable position that you can actually get to sleep in than it is to hold a yogic sleep position. There are traditional regimines for changing positions every two hours or so. One example from the Bonpo Ma-Gyud is printed in Tanzin Wangyal's book of the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. In my opinion though, this however has more to do with the state of mind that is reached between sessions of sleep than it is the physical positions. TRANSITION PRACTICES: Energetic Focus. When people talk about Tibetan Dream Yoga, they speak about it as if there is just one system. There are literally dozens of systems of dream yoga within Tibetan Buddhism. Most agree however that one of the key places to focus energies is the throat. This is because the throat is the easiest place to pattern energies between the body and head. You can do this by visualizing a dull white sphere at the throat. This white has nothing to do with the elements or the pillars and spheres exercise. This sphere is white because it is a very soothing and pacifying color, and one that the mind associates with purity. This should be the primary energetic focus. If you have trouble becoming lucid at all, than you can try changing this to a red color. This will cause more nightmarish dreams, but will increase the chance that you become lucid. If you are able to become lucid in your dreams, but find that you cannot see things clearly, you can focus on a bright white drop at the crown of the head. This will increase clarity of the dream. If you are lucid but cannot stay lucid, than move your focus to a deep dark blue sphere at the heart. This will increase your presence in the dream.

If you are having trouble changing things in the dream such as shifting the landscape, flying, creating figures and so on, than you can focus on a black or red sphere at the groin. You can switch between these in one night once you become adept at the practice, but in general you should be sticking to the dull white sphere at the throat. TRANSITION PRACTICES: Mental Focus. Obviously if you are going to be focusing the mind on an energy sphere, that will be what your mental focus is. Before you do that though, you can and should do two things. The first is make a request of a sleep spirit or diety for protection and assistance. The second is to affirm your intention to gain clarity while sleeping. Your invocation can provide both of these functions. Because you are going to sleep, this should not be particularly long or particularly powerful. Your intent is to have Lucid Dreams after all, not prophetic dreams or divine Dreams. The one I use most often is this: Morpheus, Sovereign of Sleep you grant repose from toil and care. You preserve the soul and store the memories of all who cross the Lethe. Incline to my invocation with favor and hold back the hypnosis of the Oneroi Let me not get swept up in the visions from the pylons of horn or ivory. Support instead, my intent to arise awake within my dream. And walk forth in power and knowledge.

If you do not like to make an invocation, or if you find such measures counterproductive, simply mentally state your intention to awake within the dream, than turn your attention to the sphere at the throat. Obviously this invocation can be altered to request prophetic dreams or dreams about certain things. It can be spoken over an oil lamp that you leave on while sleeping. This technique was mentioned in the Greek Magical Papyri.

BECOMING LUCID If you have made reality testing into a habit, or if you simply remember your nightime pledge to become Lucid, than you will at some point realize that you are dreaming. This type of Lucid Dreaming is called the MILD method, or Mnemotic Induction of Lucid Dreams. One technique that I have used to help with this is to set my alarm to ring off about 5 hours into a night of sleep. After I go to the bathroom I get back to bed and focus all intent on lucidity. Because the REM cycle is longer in the later in the night, you take advantage of the prime time to become Lucid. Not only does it help achieving lucidity, but holding it. Studies in Lucid Dreaming have shown a 60% increase in success using this technique. Another technique I use is called the WILD method, or the Waking Induction of Lucid Dreams. I have only ever used this method during the day, when I have had less than five hours of sleep. In fact, in the months after the births of my twins, I would laps into Lucid Dreams from the waking state accidentally. It works well with hypnosis style deepening techniques like seeing yourself descending a staircase. Sometimes this technique is accompanied by a lot of strange sensations and even shakes. Upon waking, you may also experience sleep paralysis because you have blended the waking and dream state so seamlessly that the brain does not know to release the body. HOLDING LUCIDITY Upon becoming Lucid for the first few times most people wake up. This is because the excitement that they are asleep brings body awareness back into the mind. To fight this off you should immediately reinforce the dream by saturating yourself with stimulai from the dream. Look at something and read it, smell something, listen, etc. The idea is to fully engage the dream as is. DO NOT attempt to change the dream immediately upon Lucidity. You should also get used to your dream body and move it around willfully. An especially useful method is to spin the body or rub your hands together. Stephen La Burge, a noted Psychologist who focuses on Lucid Dreams, has noted that 90%

of Lucid dreams can be lengthened by having dreamers rub their hands together. Spinning was shown to have a 96% effectiveness rate. STRETCHING YOUR DREAM MUSCLES Once you can remain lucid in your dream without waking it is time to have some fun. Remember, you are you in the dream, but the other people are also you, and the world is you, and the events that happen are you. Start small, just bending the laws of reality like in the beginning of the Matrix. Levitate a few feet off the ground. Leap tall buildings. Change the appearance of other people. Once you get used to it, you can go wild and do whatever you like. You are God here. Once you get the time travel, flying and sex with celebrities over with, you can start using your dream for some pretty useful things: • When trying to acquire a new skill, especially physical skills, you can practice it in the dream state. You will find your abilities the next day in real life to be increased. • Perform your zone rites here and see them take shape perfectly in the space around you. This will add to your efforts in the waking state. • Create and destroy objects. Start with simple shapes, than complex figures like cars, than whole cities. As you do, pay attention to every sensation. This will help you create astral and etheric shapes for spells, and also give you an insight into how the material world itself manifests. In a very real sense, the waking world is not as solid as you think. • Conjure spirits. Though your dream is all you, that doesn't mean that it is cut off from any outside influence. Indeed even regular dreams incorporate external stimuli - sirens in the street appear as emergencies in the dream, reflux attacks manifest as dreams of being suffocated. When you summon a being into your dream it will often manifest much clearer than in the waking state. Its ability to communicate may be enhanced, but its ability to effect material change may be hampered. Please start with friendly spirits. Evoking Demons into your dreams is for experts.

• Travel the Onieros and hone in on other dreamers. This is really easy if you sleep holding a material link to a target, if not look for the energetic link between you to find them. When you do, you can whisper suggestions in their ear, plant sigils on them, or even temporarily take over their dreaming form. This is done by approaching from behind and stepping into them. Look through their eyes and make them see what you want them to see. Devious stuff. The dreamers rarely remember this because we have so many dreams per night. • Ascend to higher planes or visit places here on earth. The Dream state can be used as a gateway to proper Astral Travel. We will be covering the ins and outs of that kind of work in the weeks ahead, but feel free to explore if you can get that far. • Meditate. Thats right, meditate to lucid dream so that you can meditate some more ! You will find it well worth your while and may discover some of the real magical secrets that cannot be spoken or shown. POST DREAM Some people really insist on journaling. Magical journals, diet journals, dream journals, etc. Personally unless I am making a record of a specific undertaking, I just don't find the benefits worth the time. It is however one method that people suggest for increasing dream awareness and dream recall.If you are going to do it, record it in the present tense and close your eyes to remember it. This will assist true recall. Another trick to help recall is to stay still after waking. This helps keep motor neurons from firing which facilitates a state of REM atonia. In addition to the techniques above there are drugs that help the process. I have used Huperzine-A which increases the half-life of acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that produces dreams. Apart from dreams it is also good for memory in general. Melatonin (3mg) and Nicotine Patches have also been used for Lucid dreaming. I have never used them but supposedly they increase the color and vividness of your dreams.

Talk to you next week...

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 21: The Planes Next week I will be giving the instructions for how to achieve astral projection. This week in order to prepare you for what you will find when you project, we will be discussing the idea of alternate planes of existence. If you are taking this course, you probably already have a concept of the astral plane: a level of reality that occupies the same space as ours, but at a different vibration or level of subtlety. These planes relate to the various subtle bodies that I taught you about in lesson two. As with the bodies we discuss them as if they are separated by firm boundaries because that makes it easier to discuss, but in most cases it is more like a spectrum than firmly separated levels. DIMENSIONS VS PLANES Before I get into it deeply though I want to differentiate the terms plane and dimension. Some teachers, especially modern ones, will use the term dimension to refer to an alternate plane of existence. This arises more or less out of science fiction and is very misleading. A Dimension can be defined as a direction or a coordinate in a specific direction. For instance, the book Flatland was about dimensions. It was about a square - a 2 dimensional being with width and length but no depth. When he encounters a sphere which exists in 3-d his perception reads it as a circle that keeps changing sizes because he can only see one cross section at a time due to his lack of ability to perceive depth. We normally have the capacity to experience three dimensions: height, depth, and width. Time is another dimension, but we cannot perceive it except for the cross section of it that passes through the three that we can see. If we could see along the dimension that we call time we would see ourselves at every time from birth to death at once. String theory postulates 10 dimensions, and other physics models postulate up to 36. Don't ask me about them because I don't know. Apart from time and space, Strategic Sorcery is concerned with the dimensions of probability and consciousness. This type of work is very advanced and requires a good capacity to learn from beings outside of the physical body.I am not even sure that I can teach them in a course like this.

For now please just do not confuse the concept of dimension and plane. If you are somewhere other than the normal world that you wake up in every day, but are still largely perceiving things in three dimensions of space and progressive time than you are on another plane, not perceiving added dimensions. THE USE OF MAPS AND MODELS To quote a respected scientist, "There is not only more out there than we know, there is more out there than we can know." I mention this because systems of magic that push various models of other planes can make the world seem rather small. Just pop out of your body and zip through these seven layers making sure to say hi to the guardians along the way, and you get to the top. Then you are a master magus and can just go about being all enlightened and crap. With all due respect to the neo-platonic models and other systems that push this kind of thing, it is my experience that they mistake their own explorations for the entirety of existence. This is a terrible mistake. You should assume that no matter what your level of realization, or how far you have traveled, there is always more. Think about our own planet using just the normal senses that everyone has. You can travel your whole life and not see it all. Even if you do manage somehow to see it all, you will not get to know it well. Now think about the entire physical universe. The whole world that you could never visit in one lifetime is just the smallest speck of dust amidst just the universe that we are able to see with modern equipment. If you add to this multiple overlapping layers at different vibration levels as well as possible alternate probable universes, it just awes the mind when you try to imagine it all. While many religions and magical systems claim to be showing that there is more to the universe than people suspect, in most cases the cosmologies and mapping that they do make the universe smaller, not larger. Am I saying throw out the maps? No. The maps are all good. They are just incomplete. Even systems like the seven planetary layers of the ladder of lights have lots and lots of variations. If you approach them using the system laid out in

the Necronomcion, you will have a very different experience than if you travel them using the Archangels as your guide. Magicians that try to take the particulars of their system and pretend that those spirits are universal and those realms represent a complete picture of reality are fooling themselves. Their small glimpse beyond what most people are able to see has fooled them into thinking that their vision is ultimate. Do not fall into this trap. All that said, there are some important features that are of use to almost anyone that leaves the body. This is knowledge of the first few sheaths or levels. Please just keep in mind that the divisions that I make are largely for the sake of making sense. The lines are fuzzier than you might think. THE ETHERIC PLANE I hesitate to even call this a plane of existence but it is easier to discuss it as such. The Etheric plane is the closest you can get to the material without being detectable by most scientific instruments. The Etheric Body houses the channels and power centers that we spoke about in earlier lessons. It is not able to project out from the physical body except under very extreme conditions. This is also the level that earths Ley Lines exist on and which most physical things have an energy signature. Some objects and non-physical entities are so close to the material plane that they also have etheric forms. These types of beings exist firmly within spatial coordinates and can be easily felt even by those with almost no psychic gift. These beings are also the ones that are also able to cause problems to our etheric body system in a way that filters down to the physical. It is important to mention it as a plane as sometimes clairvoyants and remote viewers can see the etheric plane as a separate plane. THE MIRROR PLANE The Mirror Astral is closely linked to the Etheric and creates a mirror of our world that is more fluid and maleable than a material or etheric level. This is what Robert Bruce refers to as the "Real Time Zone" because it is so much like our

world. The thing to know about this level is that your thoughts shape your perception much more than in the physical world. Most of the time when people are astral projecting and they think they are projecting around the physical world, they are really traveling in the Mirror Plane. When they go visit their boyfriend of girlfriend while sleeping, they may wind up seeing a version of him or her that is colored deeply by fantasy, insecurity, or fear. If you have someone place something in a box as a test for you to see if you are really projecting, and you guess at what it is rather than look with a clear mind, you will probably see an object that verifies your guess. Again, another example of why I find meditation so critical in my practice. Because this layer is so closely shaped by perception people tend to appear better looking, more fit, and possibly younger than they are in the physical. A neat trick that I have learned to use is to do the Rending of Space I spoke about in TSS and allow the perceived self of the Mirror Plane to inform peoples perception of the physical self. Try it. It's a very easy glamour to accomplish. The mirror plane is illuminated by a sun that follows the same timing of our own. Most of the reports of the dark ghostliness of this area are caused by the fact that people often project at night. If you project during the day, the colors can be amazingly vivid. Travel in the Mirror Zone is done in the astral body and is not bound by the laws of physics, though often as in the case of the dream body, people feel some resistance to flying and teleporting based on their own perceptions. If you can get the hang of it though, it is quite possible to travel anywhere, including other planets. Tibetans for instance have made records of some of the spiritual practices taught on other planets. It is important to keep in mind that when you leave the body most people do not naturally find yourself in the physical world and sometimes not even in the Mirror Zone. This sometimes throws people for a loop. We will be learning how to manage shifting layers in the lessons ahead. THE ASTRAL PLANE PROPER

The Astral Plane proper is even more malleable than the Mirror Plane. It rarely takes on the appearance of our physical world, though certain power zones are represented in truly glorious fashion. It is here that you will find an incredible variety of sub planes and pocket realms and beings of all types. Elemental planes, concentric planetary spheres, stellar colleges, worlds of neverending war, hell realms, pleasure realms, etc. It would be impossible and useless for me to present you with a catalogue of places. Normal perception can often break down in the astral and you may have trouble sensing up and down or even backwards and forwards. Because your astral body is a giant sense organ itself, you can also see in 360 degrees at once if you let yourself. Certain astral spaces are permeated by a particular element, force, or even emotion. The so -called "lower astral" are not really lower, they are just not nice places to visit: permeated with horrible suffering, hatred, delusion, and such. One such realm that I visited is a realm of fire ad sharp rock that is populated by beings whose bodies have the sensitivity of an eyeball. Often though, there are great insights to be had here, and sometimes beings from these realms afflict the astral forms of people. This is why the role of the traditional Shaman emphasized underworld travel so much in the healing process. You will occasionally come across tube like openings in the astral. These are like wormholes that go from one place to another. If you have a particular spiritual link to a certain astral realm either from a past life, blood connection, or spiritual tie, you may find one of these almost immediately after leaving the body. There is nothing to fear from these. There is almost no where you can go that you cannot get back from instantly. GETTING LOST IN THE ASTRAL While it is true that you can almost always snap back to your body, and that you can pretty much travel anywhere at the speed of thought, it is possible to get lost in the Astral. Many modern writers will tell you that warnings against people getting lost are just bunk but that is because they do not understand the context

of the warnings. You don't get lost in the astral like someone who cant find their way home. You get lost like someone who is obsessed or a drug addict can be "lost". You must remember that the Astral is extremely malleable and will produce things to meet your expectation. Because of this it is very easy to get swept up in dramas that are all of your own creation. Some magicians I have met, have spent hours regaling me of their adventures fighting such and such deity, or teaming up with these gods to fight those gods, or worrying that their immense power is attracting jealousy from "Astral Powers" that will attack them to keep them in line. The Astral is full of beings and formless intelligences happy to take the form of whatever will hold your interest. The majority of this is Psychic Soap Opera. Do not get swept up in it. Another thing that can get one lost is encountering the lower, or immanent astral forms of deities. We will discuss it more later, but true deities have a transcendent nature that is beyond subject/object relations and petty egoistic clinging. In the astral however, there are forms that these deities take, or sometimes beings that masquerade as these deities, who revel in petty rivalries. It is worth noting that while mystically speaking the gods and angels and such of lore can lead one to deep realization and high attainment; mythologicaly speaking the pantheons can act like archetypal dysfunctional families. The problem here is that one can encounter these beings and delude oneself into thinking that this is all there is to them. Psychics and people very focused on the Astral Realm often make this mistake. There is a deeper transcendent mystery here. On one level Shiva is the dude who cut his sons head off for keeping him from Parvati's bath. On another level I am Shiva, you are Shiva, this lesson is Shiva, and the world is Shiva. The same is true of the Judeo Christian God, which is why YHVH in the old testament sometimes acts like such a petty god of a particular people he made in a garden, yet when he is referred to as Elohim he tends to act like a Cosmic god who created all of existence.

SETTING UP SHOP IN THE ASTRAL Many magicians choose to set up an Astral Temple. This is accessed as a mental exercise at first, but all you need is a door and you can link it directly to the astral plane. That is how subtle the separation is between the astral space in the dreaming and mental spaces. Because you do not need to know how to project, you can work to set one up as soon as you finish this lesson! The first astral experiment I ever did was the visualization of a vase in the air in front of me as part of an attempt to channel. This triggered a full on astral projection and I found myself in a very large Rococo style library. A book laid out on a stand explained that this was the last surviving room of an Astral Temple I had constructed in a former life, and that I should make it the cornerstone of a new temple, which I did. Most of you will not have something like that happen, but you really don't need to. All you need to do is mentally figure out what you want one room to look like, than enter as deeply into meditation as you can. Once you are clear, visualize that room around yourself. Spend a good deal of time making this very detailed and real to you. Revisit this room several times to make it solid. Eventually you will be so comfortable here that you can create a door and add another room. As many as you like. Apart from the Library, I have several different styles of temple to work in as well as an armory, an almonry (room to make offerings or alms from), a communications room, and several playrooms. I also have rooms that are linked to the astral temples of a certain Lodge that I belong to which enables us to "meet" even though we live all over the world and haven't met physically all together in years. Just as with the Lucid Dream, an Astral temple is an ideal place to practice magic, and to astrally project from. Before stepping opening a door into the astral, you need to make sure that your astral temple is sealed and protected with guardians. You can use one of the zone rites to set up a perimeter, and create astral thralls as guards, which we will cover in a later lesson.

Beings of sufficient realization and power can actually create entire pocket universes within the Astral (and higher) planes. The Buddhist pure lands such as Dewachen and Zangdopalri are examples of these. Certain craft traditions such as the Clan of Tubal Cain are also said to have created realms of their own. With the right keys, you can actually project yourself into these lands and force your rebirth there. I myself am going to be projecting into Zangdopalri, Padmasambhavas Copper Colored mountain when I die so that I can attain Buddhahood through sex yoga with impossibly beautiful Dakinis (female wisdom spirits). VERTICLE ASTRAL REALMS Most of what I have been talking about can be considered horizontal travel for the most part. What some people refer to as traveling vertically, or rising on the planes, takes you to subtler and subtler realms. Traveling the ladder of lights or the planetary spheres is one example of this. Each realm is not only less solid and definite than the one below it, but requires clearer and clearer perception mentally. Eventually you achieve an extremely subtle astral body that I call the "Soul Body". As you vibrate higher, you experience less ego clinging, more compassion and noble feelings. The reason for this is that consciousness itself is an integral part of all manifestation, and the further you get from the dense material world, the more this consciousness becomes refined. THE MENTAL PLANES Eventually you leave behind any kind of body at all and travel as pure consciousness. These realms are filled with vibrant and perfect shapes and is probably the basis for the theory of platonic forms. In these realms you experience can experience deep and spiritual cosmic love, insight, and vision. This is the place where beatific visions of the most high take place. When magicians can see the machinery of the universe and all probability and time spread out before them, they are in the very high mental realms. THE CAUSAL PLANE

Getting to the causal plane requires crossing the much talked about "Abyss" that is spoken about so much in some Ceremonial Magic circles. The experience however does not have to be as traumatic as Crowley and some others make it out to be. As one mystic once said, you can travel there through heaven or hell, the only difference is how bumpy the ride will be. The Causal is beyond subject and object. Truly cosmic and transpersonal. If you are experiencing visions, than you are not in the causal realm. In this place you are inseparable from anything else. You do not see god, you experience god and god experiences you. That's it for this week. Next week, we leave the body!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 22: Astral Projection Last week we discussed the basic nature of the astral planes. This week we will cover how to get there. Astral projection is one of the biggest stumbling blocks that many people encounter in magic. A lot of people tell me that they have tried and tried, sometimes for years, with little or no success. In reality astral projection is not all that difficult. Like meditation however, there is a lot of false expectation connected with the practice. Once we let these go, and start focusing on the proper things, success comes quickly. So without further ado, lets dispense with a two myths of astral projection. ASTRAL PROJECTION MYTHS The Empty Body Myth: Bar none, the biggest issue that people have with getting out of the body is not feeling their astral body, but loosing the sensation of their physical body. They actually seem to focus more on whether they can still feel their physical body than whether they can feel their astral body. They lay there and think "I can still feel myself laying here". Let me be clear: unless something is horribly wrong, you will always be able to feel your physical body - especially when you check for it. It is the natural seat of consciousness in this life. Telling people that they need to not feel their physical body in order to astral project is like telling people not to think of elephants for a week. That whole week, they will be able to think of nothing but elephants. In Astral Projection, you do not quite "leave" your physical body. Your consciousness can bounce back and forth between the two bodies, and even occupy both at the same time. Some people will feel like they are only fantasizing unless they get the sensation that they have completely left the physical body behind. This is a flawed approach. You may indeed feel totally in your astral body, but this is largely because of your ability to focus, not because your physical body is empty. The Physical World Myth: Another myth of astral projection is that you will project out into the physical world automatically. Some people get very hung up on this, not realizing that they have projected because they are only seeing light

gray nothingness or even strange landscapes. Rather than think that they are astral projecting they think they are fantasizing. The problem is that the physical world is the home of the physical body, the astral world is the home of the astral body. Seems like common sense right? Why would you expect to find yourself in the physical world automatically if you are in your non-physical body? Some people project right out into the astral. Others project into the Mirror Plane, which looks so much like the physical plane that it is often mistaken for it. We will cover how to move back down to the mirror plane if you project further out into the astral later on in the lesson. For now just realize that the idea of rising out of your body and into the physical room you are in is false. The Sensation of Leaving Myth: Not as common a misconception as the two above, but still a myth that needs to be avoided is the myth of the sensation of leaving. The idea here is that some people want to feel themselves actually in transit from their physical form. If they just suddenly find themselves out, without any segway, they feel like they must be fantasizing because they did not feel a transition. The problem is that the astral body moves at the speed of thought. Chances are that if you are feeling a long drawn out process of leaving the body that you can mentally grasp on to, NOW you are fantasizing - not the other way around. DANGERS OF ASTRAL PROJECTION Most books on astral projection will warn of the myths about the severed chord and getting lost forever in the astral, leaving an empty and dying physical shell behind. The books are correct, this is a myth. I have met people that claim to be able to sever the chord, but I have yet to see it or meet anyone with firsthand experience. After they get rid of dispelling the myth of the severed chord, they go on to tell you that astral projection is perfectly safe and that there is no danger whatsoever. This unfortunately is also a myth. In fact anytime someone tells you that anything is perfectly safe without any chance of harm, they are either self-deluded or

selling you something. The world is dangerous, and the non-physical worlds are no exception. Shit Happens people. Your Astral form can be damaged to a point that it filters down into your etheric and astral bodies. The good news is that the astral body is easy to repair. The bad news is that the Etheric and Physical bodies are not as easy to repair and even though the astral cause is removed, the etheric and physical symptoms do not necessarily get removed. Furthermore, while you cannot be permanently severed from your physical form, there are aspects of the subtle body that can he held back from re-integration. This can happen naturally due to trauma or can be the result of "soul stealing" rituals. In the first case you must go on a journey to find the traumatized portion of the subtle body, often found nearby under a tree or near water. In the case of it being stolen, you have to do a soul retrieval rite, and perhaps need to counter curse the magician who stole it. This kind of activity is exceptionally rare in the developed world. A BAD METHOD I rarely speak out against a particular method of doing something. In most cases I may think my way is better, but that doesn't mean the other way is bad. In this case though I want to make a special warning. There are several books, groups, teachers, and magical orders that teach you to create a simulacrum in the space in front of yourself that you move your consciousness into. They instruct you to make this simulacrum into your own likeness and make it as detailed as possible. I have come across evidence that this practice can cause problems during the death process and may lead you to get trapped as a ghost for years and years. It is true that when you project, your astral body generally takes on the appearance of your physical body - albeit an idealized form of it. This however is a natural process and not the same as actually exteriorizing and shaping an astral form deliberately. This kind of deliberately constructed simulacrum tends not to be as malleable as the normal astral body and is closely tied to the karma from this individual life. At the moment of death when you separate from the physical

body, your astral body undergoes a second death and your higher bodies enter the bardo and work out their next rebirth. If however your astral body is imprinted too strongly with the karmic imprints from the physical body it may not experience this second death, and keep you trapped in the mirror realm/lower astral just like a ghost who clings to strongly to earthly life. I have met beings that this has happened to as well as met other teachers who have seen the same phenomena. You are free to disagree with my assessment, but I felt I would be remiss if I did not mention it. PHYSICAL POSITION Now that we have dealt with the myths and dangers it is time to get down to brass tacks and talk about actually projecting. First we need to establish the physical position. A lot of people seem to insist that you need to lie down to astral project - this is probably due to the assumptions of the empty body myth. After all if you really left your body, it would fall back right? Thankfully this is not the case. While some people like to lie down, I find that it leads to sleep or at least a sleepy drowsy experience. That is not what we are going for. By all means lay down if you must, but I recommend the master or throne positions that were mentioned in lesson 1. These positions align the central chanel to a verticel axis rather than horizontal axis. This assists the rising of planes. If you do Lie down, I recommend lying on your back and doing the exact opposite of what most books tell you: cross your legs and cross your arms over your chest. When doing this, I usually prop my elbow up on pillows so that my arms do not fall to my sides. This position, which is also beneficial for Lucid Dreaming, helps agitate the subtle body and shake the astral form loose. RELAXATION Whatever position you get into you should enter into a state of deep, yet lucid, relaxation. The best way to do this is simply to take several deep breaths, tell the body to relax, than begin meditating on the breath.

Even after telling the body over all to relax you may find that you are holding a lot of tension in certain places. Tell these areas specifically to release their tension and relax. Special areas to be aware of are the jaw, eyes forehead, abdomen, shoulders, and back of neck. Some excercises have you run through the whole body in great detail slowly telling each body part to relax. This can take over 30 minutes though, and is a bit more than I would assign as a preliminary to another practice. MEDITATION Yep, you guessed it. Spend a few minutes meditating. This does for the mind what relaxation did for the body. You will need that focus. Just a minute or two will do it however. This is not your regular meditation session. DEEPENING TECHNIQUE After a few minutes of meditation, you can perform a deepening technique. This is a hypnosis technique used to establish a trance, bringing your brain from Beta stage down to Alpha or Theta level. To do this all you need to do is imagine that you moving downward. Many hypnotists ask you to see a staircase that you walk down, but I actually prefer to simply feel that I am on an elevator and feel myself lowering down. Keep at this until you begin to feel heavy. This signals that you have reached a stage of light trance. RIPPLING At this point shift your awareness to your bodies channels and power centers. Shift the seat of your consciousness to the root center at your perineum. You do not need to visualize anything like seeing yourself down there. It is enough to feel for the moment that that center is the heart of what it is to be "you". Once you are firmly established in that center release a burst of energy. This has the effect of causing a ripple in the center, like a pebble thrown into a lake. You should actually feel a slight pressure upwards from the ripple.

Repeat this going up the central channel. Refer to lesson7. You should hit the ROOT, CORE, SOLAR PLEXUS, HEART, THROAT, and CROWN If you have been working on experimenting with the subtle body as I have suggested, you might be able to feel the EARTH and STAR centers that are outside the body. If so, you can and should add these to the mix, starting with the Earth, progressing through the others, and ending with the Star. The effect that this has is shaking up the astral/etheric/physical body connection and making it easier to use one of the following release methods. VIBRATORY PULLING An alternative to the Rippling method is to reach out with your consciousness to a point about 6 feet in front of you and feel for external vibrations of the astral. Pull these into yourself and shift them up and down your body from head to toe. I do not like this method as much as the rippling method above, but some get results this way. RELEASE METHODS. Release methods provide the final kick out of the body. There are numerous methods that work. Below are a few of my favorites: 1. GET UP AND GO: After all the work relaxing, meditating, deepening, and rippling you may not need to do anything but will yourself out of the body. Remember the trick is not worrying about whether you can still feel your physical body or not, its focusing on your presence in the astral. If your awareness shifts back to the physical body, just shift it back without self -judgment or critique. This is similar to how you handle thoughts in meditation. 2. THE ROPE METHOD: Reach out of your body and grab hold of an astral rope. Pull yourself up and out of the body. This method is greatly favored by Robert Bruce, whose work I highly recomend. 3. ELEVATING: Simply see yourself floating upwards. Higher and higher and higher.

4. CONDENSING: It is possible to condense your consciousness within the body down to a sphere the size of a pearl or even a mustard seed. You can then exit the body directly through the crown of the head and re-expand outside the body. 5. TACTILE REPETITION: This method is the first one that I ever got success with. Before you do any of the above steps, you move around your room and handle certain objects. It doesn't matter what they are, simply go around the room and handle them in a certain order. No less than five, no more than 8. After you do your meditation, relaxation, and rippling, simply see yourself getting up from your body and moving about the room handling those objects. Repeat the process again and again. When you really feel like you are doing it, leave the room and go somewhere else. ALTERNATE METHODS It is possible to move seamlessly into astral projection from doing other things. Lucid Dreaming can quickly turn into Astral Projection just by willing yourself out of the dream. Likewise you can leave you astral temple, which is primarily an "inner" experience, and find yourself in the astral. You may even find yourself shifting into astral projection while scrying. The extension of senses in remote viewing is actually a type of projection in and of itself that can blossom into full projection quite easily. RECALL: One problem people have with Astral Projection is the same that they have with dreams: remembering what happened. In some cases people do not even remember that it happened at all. The methods that help recall of astral projection are the same that help dream recall: Journalling as soon as you return, remaining still while recalling the experience, and if you really want to you can use Huperzine-A to help. Next week we will discuss astral mechanics. Now however, it is HOMEWORK TIME! HOMEWORK # 5 It's simple: Astral Project. Tell me the methods used and the experiences obtained.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 23: Astral Mechanics Before I start, I want to congratulate the two students who have already completed the last homework and have successfully projected. A future homework will actually test your perception of the astral plane by identifying specific things, so it is wonderful that some of you are already achieving out of body experiences. In lesson 21 we got a basic idea of what other planes are like. In lesson 22 we learned how to access them through projection. This week we learn how to move about, how to raise through levels, and how to build astral constructs. Let's start with just sending out portions of our astral body, called a watcher. SENDING WATCHERS It is possible to send out only portions of your astral form for the purpose of recording information. If you have trouble astral projecting, this exercise might help you get the feel of working with your astral self. The first time I ever did this, I was in Washington DC and decided to send it home to see what my parents were up to. I felt for my astral self, gathered at it at the solar plexus zone, and sent out a line of "self" into the space in front of me. I commanded the cloud of astral material to take the shape of a sphere and sent it home. Later that evening when I called it back, I willed the sphere to break up into the cloud of material, than withdrew it in through the solar plexus again. I cleared my mind and reintegrated the information with my mind. I saw visions of my parents putting up Christmas lights, which was normal for that time of year. What was strange is that they were unpacking new lights that were clear rather than the multicolored types we always used. I also did not see any of the illuminated platic figures that they would put out. When I arrived home, sure enough the house had no figures and was decorated all in clear lights. Because enough of the old lights had burnt out, and because my sister and I were now in our teens, my mother decided to replace it all and have what she considered a more classy display.

LATERAL ASTRAL MOVEMENT You have probably already figured out that movement on the astral does not require the movement of limbs. You simply will yourself to travel and you do. There may be a flash of travel time, but it is almost like teleportation. You actually have to concentrate on the traveling itself, rather than the destination if you want to experience the sensation of walking or flying. This will enable you to travel within three dimensions of space at whatever "layer" you are in. This movement within a layer is what I call "Lateral Movement", whereas shifting layers to more or less subtle states would be "Vertical Movement". It is important to not take various maps too literally, the plane or layer you are experiencing does not have physical borders. It extends in space just as far in all directions as our physical plane does. You do not move between layers of the astral by physically going "up" or "down". To rise on the planes from the most physical to the most subtle, you shift consciousness, not travel with the body. TRAVELING BY SYMBOLIC RESONANCE For the first several layers such as those associated with the planetary ladder of lights and such, it is enough to know the key associations and perhaps names of important beings from those planes. You can perform an invocation or call in your physical body before you project, in the astral body after projection, or in a lucid dream. The idea here is that there are higher and higher realms that you can travel to in the astral body if you know the proper keys such as symbols, names, passwords and so on. I call this travel by symbolic resonance. You essentially throw a lasso to the place you want to visit and use it to pull yourself there when you project. Examples of this kind of work exist all over the world from ancient Gnostic texts to more modern systems like Enochian Aethyrs and even the Gates of the Necronomicon. The term astral body itself arose from the idea that this was the body that could travel through the stars. Most of the time you simply arise in the

appropriate realms instantly, but sometimes the rite you are following requires physically passing through a gate of some kind. Because people get to attached to their maps and familiar methods, some people think that the highest of these planes is the highest vertical plane that there is. Far from it. All the planetary layers are actually very close to the physical and are generally experienced in terms of ordinary consciousness, linear time, 3 dimensional space, etc. Beyond these planes are higher realms that a lot of magicians never experience because you cannot access them through symbols and relationships with ruling powers such as angels and deities. They must be accessed through changes in the body and consciousness itself. VIBRATIONAL TRAVELING The first several layers beyond the symbolic realm can be accessed by raising your vibratory rate. The best way that I know to do this is a technique called "Sand Piling" that I learned from one of my first meditation teachers. I have no idea where she picked it up from, she was influenced both by Sufism and the work of Carlos Castenada as well as a host of other things. I do know that if you master it, it is one of the fastest ways to reach tangibly higher states of being, not only while astral traveling, but as a meditation that can be done in the physical body. I have only ever taught the Sandpiling technique to people in person. There is usually a mind to mind link that happens and makes it easier to understand. This will be the first time trying to explain it in text alone, so if you do not understand how to do the technique, please bring it up on the forum and I will try to explain further. The technique is actually very simple. You start by spending a moment or two "feeling" for the scope and breadth of your own awareness. Then, when you psychically have a grasp on this, you "pull yourself" towards the center. This action is like gathering sand from the sandbox and piling it high on top of itself. After a time, if you have been doing it successfully, this sandpile of self reaches a point where it reaches a new level. You may feel the pile crash and spread again, but you will be in a new higher state of being.

Take note of visuals, feelings, sensations, and even new types of sensory input. Using this technique you can experience the Soul Body and even the Mind Body. These bodies have additional types of awareness that may take some getting used to. In the mind body for instance you can easily perceive non-linear time and multiple probabilities at once. From this vantage point you can learn types of magic that truly cannot be spoken of in words. A lot of amazing sorcery happens at this level, including things that can impact the practical magic of the material world, but you have to reach the state before any of it can really be explained to you. Otherwise its like trying to describe the color brown to someone who has been blind since birth. The Causal and Perfection Bodies cannot be reached through this technique. They must be reached through purification of perception, so keep meditating because we will revisit deeper methods of meditation soon enough. Again, I understand that some of what I have written above may be hard to follow, but I urge you to try it. You do not have to be in the astral body to start it. You can do it from the physical body which can lead to projection in and of itself. ASTRAL CONSTRUCTS The wonderful thing about the astral plane is that if you can imagine it, you can make it. In lesson 7 under the heading "crafting" I introduced you to the idea of creating energy structures in the ether. This skill is very important to master as it is the main tool you have at your disposal for protection, healing, and all sorts of things. All you need to do is concentrate on the shape that you want to create, send energy to it, and make it so. Start with very simple shapes like platonic solids. In fact, right now wherever you are I want you to turn away from your screen and create a cube in the air. It should measure about a foot on all sides and should be bright green. Feel for the way your mind reaches out to create the shape and how the energy of your body instantly links to it to feed it. Next make the surface of the cube as if it is made of concrete. See the various poc marks and imperfections

on the surface. Add a door to the front of the cube. Open it and place a yellow flower inside. Create the flower in as much detail as you can. The point of all this is to show how simple it is to get detailed about your constructs and how real they can seem after only a few minutes of work. You should create increasingly complex structures as you progress. When I create astral constructs I often start with sigils or even series of sigils that are microscopically small and build the atomic structure of what I need to exist. It is possible to build astral machines and organisms that have extremely complex functions. Imagination and Will are the only limits. Now, normally what you create is linked to you and thus dissipates if you do not pay much attention to it for a while. If you want to create more permanent structures what you need to do is link them to a permanent source of power to maintain them. For instance, if you wanted to create a shield around your home you could link it directly to the sun, or the local river, or the magnetic field etc. Obviously the source of power that you choose should complement the function of the construct. This linking is quite easy to accomplish. Simply feel for the link that exists naturally between yourself and the construct then create another one to the permanent source. If you want to unplug from the construct you can now do so. Some may worry that their construct may take on a mind of its own if not connected and constantly maintained. While I do recommend checking in once and a while, I have never experienced anything like this myself. Your will is still the base of its being. When we deal with Artificial Spirits, which are themselves a types of astral construct, a few lessons from now we will re-visit this topic. In the meantime experiment. Half of what I learned comes from experimenting and occasionally getting my fingers burnt. Astral constructs can affect the physical world by effecting the astral level of other physical people and objects and filtering that effect down. I have used astral constructs within the bloodstream to help fight infection, used multiplying astral constructs to psychically implant a suggestion in someone that owed me money,

placed astral restraints on someone that cause me problems at work, and created astral constructs to help assist me in finding pertinent information on the web for research. Apart from the normal filtering down to the physical, you can link your work directly to the other levels. Remember that the closer to the physical plane something is, the more constrained it is in its manifestation. For instance in the astral body on the astral plane, one can instantly shoot a bolt of energy out the hands just as if you were Iron Man. For this to manifest on the etheric level we need to link this to the channels of power centers that handles the more tangible energy of that level. If we want this to have an effect on the physical level we might want to link it to the voice, which is the link between the energetic and physical levels (just ask Bruce Lee). If you really wanted to completely make it impact on the physical, you would link it to a physical object that is thrown at a person or enemies home. The Tibetan Dzor and the War Water of Hoodoo are two examples of such hurled objects. SHAPESHIFTING One activity that is quite traditional to undertake in the astral is that of shape shifting. Groups like the Benedanti in Italy would project from their dreams and take on animal form to fight the forces of evil, the Maladanti. More recently groups like the Temple of Set have explored various lypes of lycanthropic magic. There is more to this practice than simply shifting ones shape however. By taking on the form of an animal or even a mythic creature, you actually can integrate your mind with the archetypal spirit of that form. By taking on the form of a wolf on a regular basis, you can cultivate increased aggression, knowledge of the hunt, and even sometimes increased physical senses. I have used the shape of a toad to "leap" between worlds. I have used the shape of a wolf to join the wild hunt. I have often taken the form of a spider, which enables me to "walk" the web of psychic lines that exist between all beings. This is a good way to target someone with magic if you have no physical link that you can work with. If you want to try this, project and change your shape into that of

a spider. You will instantly become more aware of these lines as a web that exist between all beings. Using your legs, you can actually pull these lines into your body and gain information from them just like tapping into a data line. It way sound a little advanced, but really all you need is the ability to project, and the ability to quiet your mind so that you can receive input from the lines. Taking the form of different kinds of spirits is also a great way to work with those spirits. Many Tibetan Buddhist Yidams and Guardians specifically take the shape of different types of spirits so that they can pacify and if necessary control those spirits easier. Ekadzati takes the form of a Mamo, Rahula is that of a Tza, and so on. You can try this when encountering other beings on the astral. Next week we start the lessons on SPIRITS!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 24: Artificial Spirits Since we just finished a lesson on Astral Constructs, I thought it might be a good segway into the topic of Spirits if we covered the practice of using artificial spirits in magic. These are quite simply astral constructs that you create and "Quicken" through the power of your own will. The use of these beings have become quite popular in recent decades and they are known by many names: artificial elementals, servitors, thralls, thoughtforms, etc. In the first coven I was ever initiated into the practice was called "sending the fetch". One Greek Orthodox Magus that I know was taught a similar practice where the being is referred to as a Logismoi, a term that is also used to describe tempting and assaultive thoughts that occur during meditation. FAMOUS EXAMPLES OF ARTIFICIAL SPIRITS A German Order known as the Fraternitas Saturnai used artificial spirits quite heavily in their work, where they refer to them as Egregores or Watchers. Many of their sex rites are devoted to creating egregores, in fact the Kaula Tantric ganapuja feast, known commonly in the west as the five M’s, has been adopted for this purpose. The five M’s stand for: Mansa, Matsya , Mudra, Madya, and Maithuna. That is meat, fish, grain, wine and women respectively. To see how they adopted this rite for creating egregores I refer you to Steven Flowers book “Fire and Ice”. So important is this practice amongst the FS that one of the heads of their order is understood to be both a pre-existing entity and an egregore known as GOTOS (acronym for Gradus Ordinis Templi Orientis Saturnai). One of the most famous examples of an artificial spirit is one that, in the year 1580, Kabbalist named Rabi Loeb made to inhabit and animate a body of clay known as the Golem. A Catholic Priest, Taddeush, was planning to accuse the Jews of Prague with ritual murder. Rabbi Loeb heard about it, and to avert the danger, directed a dream question to heaven to help him save his people. He received his answer in an order that is alphabetical in Hebrew: Ata Bra Golem Devuk Hakhomer VeTigzar Zedim Chevel Torfe Yisroel The literal meaning was: Make a Golem of clay and you will destroy the entire anti-semitic community.

Through the Gematric interpretation of this phrase the Rabi was able to decipher the actual formula for doing just that. The Golem was given life by writing one of the names of God, EMETH on its head. Stories vary about how the Golum did in its task, some say it went berserk and had to be destroyed, some say that it killed the priest and was then put to rest. At any rate, the Golem was eventually deactivated by wiping off the E from the name to make it METH, which means dead in Hebrew. Its body was sealed in the Synagogue where it is said to remain to this day. This story became the basis for Mary Shelly’s classic work “Frankenstein”. One of the most cited examples of the creation of an artificial spirit is Alexandria David Neels creation of a small jolly Friar Tuck like Monk that she willed into being during a cave retreat. So real was this manifestation that it was occasionally seen by others of her travelling party. The plump and jolly monk eventually took on a gaunt appearance and began to cause harm to members of the party. Alexandria David Neel eventually had to do psychic battle with her creation and destroy it. This experience, which she wrote about in "Magic and Mystery in Tibet" gave rise to the idea that one should never allow a Thrall to just run amok, a concept that we will be commenting on later. NOT A TULPA! In the story above Neel refers to her creation as a Tulpa. This was a misunderstanding on her part. In Tibetan Buddhism, a Tulpa is indeed a mentally created figure, but one that exists within a visualized mandala and has a jnanasattva invoked into it. Despite what you may have read elsewhere, it is not comparable to artificial spirits in the way we are speaking of them or how ADN used the term. I have asked several different Lamas about this as well as several western translators and they have all confirmed this. One of the weird things about modern occultists is that even though actual Tibetans have been writing hundreds of books and traveling all over the world for over fifty years initiating people and teaching their spiritual practices, most western occultists would still rather rely upon sources that are nearly 100 years out of date written by people with deeply flawed understanding of the material they worked with. Alexandria Neel, Evans Wentz, Anagarika Govinda and others

of their generation made incredible contributions for the time they lived in, but their work was deeply colored by Theosophy and its misunderstanding of Tibetan Spirituality and Politics. Just because Franz Bardon didn't have anything better to do on in the 40's doesn't mean that you have to follow his lead. Same with Budge on Egyptology, and Crowley on Taoism, Yoga, Buddhism, and just about everything he commented on outside the realm of western magic. WHY MAKE AN ARTIFICIAL SPIRIT? So much of the literature of magic is devoted to conjuring spirits to perform tasks that you can probably find a spirit that would be appropriate for doing just about anything that we could possibly think of. With hundreds of names and seals of actual spirits at our disposal, a perfectly valid question to ask is: why would anyone want to create an artificial one? There are a few answers to this: 1. Control. Ever wonder why some attractive and wealthy men and women hire escorts and prostitutes? It boils down to controlling a situation. They want what they want when they want it, and they want it with no fuss and no muss. When dealing with spirits, you are dealing with another beings proclivities, interpretations, and thoughts. By making an artificial spirit, you have much more control over the thing (though not total) and can set as many parameters as you like for its behavior. 2. Nuance. There are a lot of ancient spirits that one might call upon, but not many of them are devoted specifically to computer security, finding partners into a particular kink, providing automotive care, spreading internet memes, or many other things that one may find handy in the 21st century. Yes, you can usually find a spirit that fits the bill, but you can't really say that they are designed specifically for it. 3. Creativity. Different peoples gifts manifest in different ways. Some peoples gift is fed by the creative act. They may have some capacity to summon and constrain spirits, but the act of creating something is really what they excel at. I myself often find that creating a spirit or a new seal or new ritual in certain situations can be better than even the most tried and true

traditional methods. This is not always the case, but it differs for different people. 4. Because you can. Sometimes that's all there is to it. There are a dozen ways to just about anything and sometimes you just feel more connection to one practice than another or maybe even just want to experiment. Humans owe a lot of our progress to needing no reason to explore than "because its there" or "because we can". THE CONCISE INSTRUCTION Making artificial spirits can be as simple or complex as you like. All that is really necessary is that you: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Decide what you want it to do. Come up with a firm idea of what shape you want it to take. Create an astral construct in front of you. Load it with an appropriate energy Consecrate it to make it alive. Let it go and do its thing.

Honestly, you should be able to make one of these right now with just those six concise instructions. Let imagination and inspiration be your guide. That said, I have developed a pretty solid process for developing Thralls that has proven successful time and time again. This is a very personal type of magic, and until now, I have never written about the exact process I use. SIGILIZE THE PURPOSE First step for me is to come up with a main sigil that encapsulates the purpose of the spirit. There are a number of ways to do this. The best sigils are ones that simply appear in the minds eye during deep meditation just after a period of nondual contemplation. Those that appear during ecstatic states or extreme devotional gnosis are second best. Sigils that are granted in dreams or as a response from gods and spirits are next. Lastly, are the kind that are constructed systematically such as by combining letters as A.O.Spare did, or Tracing them out

on another seal such as the planetary Kameas, Enochian Watchtowers, Golden Dawns Rose Cross, or some other such thing. Thought try to rely on sigils that appear in pure vision, when I do use systematically derived sigils I prefer either to combine letters into a sigil or to use a specific arrangement of english letters that appeared to me in a vision once. B

L

U

Y

Z

X

S

N

F

W

I

D

A

K

O

G

P

M

C

Q

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T

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I claim to particular genius to this arrangement. It was simply revealed to me this way and has generated useful sigils. Begin by tracing a circle or triangle in the place of the starting letter depending on whether the sigil is one that is supposed to be active (triangle) or passive (circle). Extend the line from that letter to the next letter of the word that you are sigilizing and continue through. At the last letter you can end with a perpendicular line or a trident or some other appropriate sealing symbol. Once you have the main sigil, you should come up with other sigils for any rules, parameters, or special instructions. For instance I once created a curse thrall that had the instruction to jinx and cause problems for someone as its main sigil. Smaller sigils instructing the Thrall not to kill or cause serious bodily harm, to specifically attack dreams causing sleeplessness, attack urinary process, to multiply itself by two every Tuesday, and finally for it and all copies to instantly dissipate into the ether the moment the target apologized to me or sought professional therapy.

Another example that I made with my friend Matt, the illustrator of TSS, was a Thrall that we created to help us find an apartment in one day. The main sigil was for this purpose. Other sigils concerned the rooms we needed, the neighborhoods we wanted to live in, the rent we could afford and so on. This spirit worked so amazingly well we both still use him for various tasks 15 years later! Matt claims that he can sense this Thrall easier and viscerally than he can most other spirits. MATERIAL BASIS Once you get the sigils and intent - make a talisman of them on paper. Let this serve as the material basis for the servitor. This will give you something firm to work with when you need to re-conjure the servitor, feed it, or destroy it. If you are creating a permanent thrall than you might consider engraving these on metal or even creating a statue of the being in question. Alternatively you could create a servitor to match a statue of figure. My advice here is to avoid any statues of gods or spirits as they already have a deep symbolic resonance that will interfere with your servitor. In other words, avoid making a servitor in the shape of the archangel Michael so that you can use the really cool statue that you have as a material base. If you want to make a servitor in the shape of a Japanese Robot to match the really cool toy you bought at the specialty store than go right ahead. Just remember to look over the lessons about Materia so that you are not working with dead materials. CONSTRUCTING THE BODY If you are not making one to match a material host than they can take any size and shape you can imagine. It should have something to do with its purpose of course. A floating mass of eyeballs is great for intelligence gathering, but not so much for defending from attack. Microscopic servitors for healing inside the body, parasitic servitors for attaching to targets, technological servitors for interacting with computers, these are all options. Whatever the shape you decide on, the way that I construct the body is to lay the material base, usually a piece of parchment with the sigilized information, on the altar or floor in front of me. After doing an appropriate zone rite or two, I see the

main sigil, what I call the Heart Seal, arise from the basis into the air above it. This main sigil emanates all the auxilliary or "limb" sigils around it forming one interconnected molecular like structure. As I concentrate on the purpose, I see this emanate light in all directions, filling all space, and eventually gather that light back into itself. After this I let the Central structure create multiple tiny copies of itself all around it. These form the "atoms" of the body so that the programming is at the very basis of its structure. Eventually I see these bond together inseparably so that none of them are any more noticeable than any single cell on your skin. Make this process as detailed and complex as you can manage. If there is more than one of you working on it, make sure that you both have a clear picture of the design, size, etc. Conflicting ideas make for weal structures. EMPOWERING You should do the pillars and spheres and circulate energy around the subtle body as we discussed in previous lessons. In particular, you can build up a lot of force by running the energy up the back and down the front, what Taoists call the Microcosmic Energy Orbit. When you are ready, fill the structure with this energy. If you are skillful than this step can actually be combined with the creation process itself. In fact it works best that way, you just need to be able to work on multiple levels at once. If you cannot, it is best to do it separately. You may choose specific types of energy to use, such as that from certain planets or stars. One or more of the four elements is often used for this kind of work, giving rise to the term "artificial elemental". Franz Bardon has you load the different elements at different points in the body: fire in the head, air in the chest, water in the belly, and earth in the legs. I prefer to blend the four elements to reflect how they combine in the gross physical body: Earth is the bones and skin, Water is the blood and fluid, Air is the breath and pneumatic power, fire is the nerves and will. The fifth element spirit is involved with the quickening itself. QUICKENING - ITS ALIVE!!!!

After you have created your body and filled it up with power, it is time to play Frankenstein and bring that monster to life. This is purely a matter of applying will and delivering it somehow. Two methods that I like are pointing the wand at the Thrall and commanding it to life with its name, or breathing life into it by breathing on the material link. Either way, once you name it or breathe life into it, you should repeat what you want it to verbally, than send it on its way. Now, most books that cover artificial spirits treat them almost like robots. They assume that there is no more life to the thing than what you put into it. This is not, at least according to my experience, not completely true. In fact most artificial spirits are not quite as artificial as they may first appear. The universe is teeming with life, energy, and awareness. Most of this is formless. Space itself is aware on some level. What actually happens when you create this kind or servitor is that it fills itself with this formless consciousness. In most cases this consciousness has little to no patterning of its own and thus will conform entirely with the programming that you wrote into the spirits shell. Rarely, but occasionally, a grouping of awareness that already contains a pattern will inhabit the shell. In the end, it doesn't much matter because the programming is hard to overwrite. TIME FRAMES It is usually a good idea to give your servitors a date to dissipate back into the ether. It is best if this is connected with a specific event such as an astronomical occurrence or worldly event rather than a calendar date. The reason to do this is simply a matter of keeping your magic neat and tidy. Some people claim that any servitor left to its own devices will turn bad and need to be destroyed. This all goes back to the problem that Alexandria David Neel had with her jolly monk. This can happen, but it is not likely. ADN's spirit had no firm purpose. It was just made to see if it could be made. If you have encoded your intent into the servitor as I suggest above, you will probably have no problems like this even if you let your servitor roam free for years.

Thats all for this week. Next week we talk Nature Spirits!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 25: SPIRITS OF PLACE Last week we transitioned out of the unit on Astral work with a teaching on artificial spirits. This week we begin our work with spirits proper, starting with spirits of place. Spirits of place are exactly what they sound like: spirits that are already at a certain place. They may be spirits that are simply making their home in a certain local such as many types of nature spirits, spirits that are magically tied to a location such as guardians and genius, or perhaps are passing through on their way to somewhere else. Everywhere we are, we are coexisting with beings on several different layers of reality. In most cases we do not perceive them and they do not perceive us. In some cases however our worlds overlap. There is no need to conjure these beings to the edge of a circle, they are already there. If you have been following my instructions in lessons 5 and 6 you probably already have some experience with these beings through the practice of making offerings, which is in fact the main way of interacting with spirits of place. CLASSIFICATIONS OF SPIRITS Different cultures and magical traditions have very different systems for how they view the various classes of spirits. Because the Strategic Sorcery system is deliberately designed to interface with other traditions, you may in the course of your career encounter different classifications and cultural rules for dealing with spirits. It is always best to follow the rules and classifications of the tradition that you are interacting with them through or when immersed in a particular culture. Because of this I do not want you to take the classifications of spirits that I am about to give you as being too firm or set in stone. As with most things in magic, there is more than one way to look at it, and if you get too set in your particular system of classifications, it can hold you back from seeing the actual truth of a situation.

That said, it can be useful, especially when structuring ceremonies and spells, to have some kind of classification system to use. The most common way of categorizing spirits in the west is according to the four elements: AIR ELEMENTALS: Sometimes all air elementals are known as sylphs, but this greatly oversimplifies the matter. Spirits of the air include everything from playful whisps that dance in the forest, to benevolent watchers and devas that hang in the upper atmosphere, to fairly violent storm beings. EARTH ELEMENTALS: If sylph is an over-simplification for spirits of the air, the term Gnome is a word that conjures the wrong image entirely. Far from cute little sprites, many earth spirits are quite dangerous. In India for instance there is a lot of magic dedicated to working with Yakshas, Fierce and heavy pot bellied and stout spirits of the earth who guard its treasures. You could also consider certain types of dryads and satyrs as spirits of the earth who are particularly connected with forests. WATER ELEMENTALS: Undines, or spirits of the element water, are not the only beings that are connected with water. Just as the earth has treasures that are guarded, so too does the ocean. All over Asia, the serpent spirits known as Nagas are propitiated in magic as the gatekeepers of wealth, rain, and fortune. Usually connected with fresh water, these spirits who are strict teetotalers and vegetarians, also hold immensely powerful wisdom and magic. In Haiti, the class of Loa known as the Simbi are all Nagas that have become recognized as powerful mysteries. FIRE ELEMENTALS: Salamanders are pure spirits of fire, but there are others. Djinn for instance old a place in Arabic magic similar to the place that Nagas hold in Buddhist and Hindu magic: spirits who can be summoned to perform magic and teach, but which are very dangerous to the magician if contacted at the wrong time or with the wrong protocol. Play with them at your own risk. ELECTRICAL SPIRITS: Apart from normal Fire elementals I should mention spirits of electricity. In traditional systems these spirits did not play a large role. When acknowledged at all they were in most cases were connected with lightning and

also with the nervous system in the body. Because of the wide spread use of electricity, these beings are much more plentiful than they used to be. During a scrying session focused on the electrical grid, suggested by a magician who works for an energy regulatory agency, I could see how these spirits are being made more and more manifest as time moves on. Since their vibration is naturally harmful to human beings, they are a good spirit to make the occasional offering to - at a distance. VIOLENT SPIRITS: Violent spirits can be spirits of any of the classes above and then some. I list them as a separate class because just as when dealing with dangerous people, you sometimes need different tactics than when you deal with good natured or neutral people. It is important not to fall into the good vs evil dochotomy. Think wrathful vs peaceful instead. For instance there are stories of spirits that feast on humans throughout the world: Rakshasa of India, Sinpo of Tibet, Empusae and Mormo in Greece, Lillim in Babylon. This is simply their nature and not any kind of moral decision on their part. At least not most of the time. SPIRITS OF GOOD AND EVIL: Some of you are not going to like this idea, and as always you are free to disagree, but there are spirits of good and evil. Unlike the violent class of spirits above, these spirits are specifically tied to moral actions. For the most part different spirits evolve in different ways because of what they learn to feed upon. In this case certain spirits draw nourishment from other beings who evolve spiritually, raise their vibratory rate, maintain balance, and generally become clear and happy. There are spirits who are also quite the opposite. Sometimes you hear about someone that does something so horrific and twisted that it hardly seems possible that a human mind conceived it. Sometimes one of these spirits was involved. Thankfully such corrupting and corrosive spirits are quite rare. Unfortunately so are the ennobling and benevolent ones. AUTHORITY There are Shamanic and Spiritualist paths where all interaction with the spirits is a process of offering and bargaining. There are Ceremonial Magic paths where all interaction with the spirits is based on commanding and binding. The Strategic

Sorcery approach is a combination of the two. Just as when you deal with human beings, approaching with offerings and bargains often makes for a better results than barking commands. However, just as with human beings, those you deal with need to know that you are in a position of power and that you are not to be trifled with. To quote Theodore Roosevelt "Speak softly and carry big stick, you will go far." Almost all magical systems have some process for establishing authority over the spirits. In the book of Abramelin, it is the Knowlege and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel that makes you someone who can command the spirits safely. In other types of ceremonial magic, you perform an invocation like the Bornless One to take on the role of a spiritual law-giver like Moses. In Christianity a lot of magicians would take Holy Orders and rely upon the power of apostolic succession in order to control the spirits. Many medeival grimoires refer to the operator as "the exorcist" not simply because he is working with spirits, but because it was expected that the operator has progressed through at least all the minor orders, the last of which is exorcist. This was also the last of the orders before you would take a vow of celibacy, thus a good time to exit the seminary. In a similar fashion, many systems of Tantra rely upon the power of lineage that is conferred through abhisheka or empowerment. In addition to this, in Buddhist tantra the Ngakpa or Tantric Magician takes on the astral form of a wrathful being such as Hayagriva so the spirits know that it is not just you that is commanding them. Though the power of a lineage does help. one need not have a special initiation in order to take on a god form. If you shape your body into that of an appropriate god, and perform an invocation to fill that form with its essence, than you will be perceived as inseparable from that being. In The Sorcerers Secrets I give the Universal Centering exercise which actually creates a state of mind where you are the very center of all creation. This gnosis is reflected in the astral body and places you in a position of power that will be

recognized by most spirits if you have done it correctly and are able to maintain it. Again I stress the importance of meditation and controlling your mind in this kind of serious magic. THE JOY BODY AND FIERCE BODY Apart from the methods above, I have received another method of establishing a presence of authority. It is a ritual for finding two special astral forms that are reflections of your own true nature. To perform the ritual you must first pass through the Seal of Sorcery into the astral temple as you did in the optional ritual in lesson zero. Once inside you will have an additional seal to concentrate upon. These seals are attached. The one with an trident arising from a pentagram with one point up is called the seal of Joy. The sigil with the trident stemming from the bottom of a pentagram with two points up is called the seal of power. The seal of joy is a seal that invokes the ouranic, purifying, and ennobling forces. The seal of power is a seal that invokes the chthonic, passionate, and atavistic forces. More will be explained below. Sit or stand in your temple space and stare at the seal of sorcery in front of you. After you do this for a while, close your eyes and see the seal glowing in front of you in the darkness. In this astral temple the space behind you is the past, the millions upon millions of actions, chances, and factors that have brought you to the current moment. On your right there is a white pillar that represents your desire for Gnosis and Enlightenment: to elevate yourself beyond your limits and realize your full spiritual potential. On your left there is a Black Pillar represents your desire for power, wealth, love, and health; the realization of your full material potential. Feel how these forces are always at play within you: the material longing for elevation into spirit, and the spiritual yearning for materialization. In space in front of you is the unknown future, upon which you have placed the seal of Sorcery. Focus intently upon the pupil in the eye of the seal – it is a gateway. Will yourself towards the seal and see it growing larger and larger as you approach. As you approach, mentally or vocally call upon the powers that be as you know them at this stage to bear witness. These are all the gods, ancestors, spirits, and saints that you have ever worked with in this life or any other.

When you come up close to the seal, imagine that it is so large that you pass easily through the pupil in the eye. As you pass through intone the word ABRA (ahhhhbraaah) as the password to enter through the pupil gateway. Once inside the gateway follow one of the two following paths. Seal of Joy. Once inside the astral temple search until you find a huge mirror in front of you. Depending upon how the temple manifests to you, the mirror may be right there or may need to be searched for. It also may differ in size, but it should be large enough to reflect your body. Stand in front of that mirror and imagine the seal of Joy in blazing white upon your chest. The seal is made from the energy of pure azoth. Concentrate on the seal singlemindedly. Allow the seal to reach through your body and call down the ouranic powers through the trident. The power moved through the points of the pentagram and spreads through your five points of the head, arms and legs. The Three upper points of the trident stretch upward channeling that energy down into you. The three lower points that end in spheres transmute that energy outward, radiating and reabsorbing it. Changing your body into the body of joy. This process may be accompanied by feelings of rising and also of the body being stretched, flattened, or other sensations. Allow all this to happen. Whatever occurs you must meditate single-mindedly on the seal and merge your consciousness with it. When you feel that you have finished and that the seal of joy is finished, focus again on the mirror in front of you in the astral temple. Look at your body and note its appearance. Work on stabilizing yourself in this body. The form is the product of your primordial consciousness. As normal non-meditatve thoughts re-emerge the body will fade. You must work to maintain it. Seal of Power Once inside the astral temple search until you find a huge mirror in front of you. Depending upon how the temple manifests to you, the mirror may be right there or may need to be searched for. It also may differ in size, but it should be large enough to reflect your body. Stand in front of that mirror and imagine the seal of Power in blazing electric violet or red upon your chest. The seal is made from the energy of pure azoth. Concentrate on the seal singlemindedly. Allow the seal to reach through your body and call up the Chthonic and Atavistic powers through the trident.

As the power surges through the five points of the main pentagram, feel it touch your eyes, breasts and genitals. When the power moves through the smaller pentagram feel it move through your core center and twist upwards. It rises through the two curved "horns" which summon the animal passions. From the heart of the sigil, the flame that hovers above the triangle rises above your own head so that no matter what passion and power arises through the sigil it is always tied to the light to gnosis and is never allowed to degenerate into simple animal instinct. This process may be accompanied by feelings of sinking or falling backwards. You may also feel body being stretched, flattened, or other sensations. You may experience strong feelings of emotion such as love or hate. Allow all this to happen. Whatever occurs you must meditate single-mindedly on the seal and merge your consciousness with it. When you feel that you have finished and that the seal of poweris finished, focus again on the mirror in front of you in the astral temple. Look at your body and note its appearance. Work on stabilizing yourself in this body. The form is the product of your primordial consciousness. As normal non-meditatve thoughts re-emerge the body will fade. You must work to maintain it. You should keep the exact appearance of these forms a close secret. If you have really had a genuine vision and not simply constructed a fantasy, when you take on these bodies, spirits will respect the authority that they hold as having arisen from true gnosis. Though I cannot tell you the exact appearance of the bodies that arose for me when i did this I can share certain features that are common so you will know if you are on the right track. The joy body is generally emanating light. You might be completely light or you might wear clothes that float around the body. Some people experience this in one pure color like white or gold. I experienced rainbow colors. You may see yourself as holding items like scepters, orbs, or perhaps even lightening itself. The imagery will be that of joyfulness and peace. The fierce body is by contrast usually a darker color and demonic in appearance. You may see horns, garlands of skulls, severed limbs, weapons, etc. Exaggerated genitalia are common as well. The imagery will be Thanaterotic - that of death and sex. The body of Joy can be used to make offerings and present yourself when doing workds of charity or compassion or celebration. The fierce body should be used when you are dealing with dangerous spirits, performing exorcisms, or exploring the nightside gnosis.

OFFERINGS I want to repeat that it is important to follow the customs of the tradition or culture that you are working within. Sometimes these rules will conflict. For instance in both native North and South American, as well as African, traditions tobacco is a good offering for a lot of spirits. In Tibetan magic however, which is my root system if you want to call it that, the Dharmapalas might be enraged by Tobacco which was identified as a poisonous and harmful plant by Padmasambhava which caused harm to practitioners and spirits alike. For the most part I said everything you need to know back in lessons 5 and 6. In those lessons I gave an example of an elaborate offering rite. For most of you, something on that scale is too time consuming to manage on a day to day basis. Because of this, I wanted to offer two offering rituals that fall into the concise and normal categories and which can be easily performed every day. I give two rituals to be performed because the world of spirit is even more radically different between night and day than the waking world is. Some very peaceful and timid beings who are most easily contacted in the early morningh quiet, will simply not share space with some of the violent and fiesty spirits that come out at night. Unless you are making an elaborate or extremely elaborate offering where everything is carefully planned, I suggest making a separate offering in the morning and evening. MORNING OFFERING Begin by purifying the self and any physical offerings you are presenting with the four elements. In the elaborate spirit feast in lesson six we did this with ritual. In this offering you can do it by channeling the elements directly. The element earth is your body and the physical offering so that is covered already. You than channel the element fire to consume yourself and the offering - burning away all impurities. You channel the element air to blow out the fire and blow away the ashes of the impurity left by the fire. You channel water to wash over you and the offering, washing away any remaining impurities and leaving a clean and pure body and offering behind.

When I do the offering in the morning I offer incense that has no musk or animal matter in it, either purified water or tea as a libation. If you make a more elaborate physical offering it should be flowers and fruits and vegetables laid out very neatly and attractively. Whatever the base you should multiply it and transform it so that you see a vast feast before you of fine foods and golden nectars laid out on clean linens and precious chalices and plates. The time you spend perfecting this visualization will make it even more satisfying to the guests. You should imagine that this visualization multiplies and covers the whole earth, with your location as the center of the feast. Whisper the word ARISE Say again the word ARISE slightly lounder Say the word ARISE a third time at your normal volume. ARISE ALL YE NOBLE SPIRITS OF THE DAYLIGHT PATHS SPIRITS OF THE EMPYRIAN HEIGHTS AND TREASURE FILLED DEPTHS OF THE TOWERING MOUNTAINS AND DENSE FORESTS OF THE DRY DESERTS AND FERTILE PLAINS OF THE FLOWING RIVERS AND VAST OCEANS OF THE RUSHING FLAMES AND CRACKLING SPARKS OF THE SPARKLING AIR AND THE BLOWING WIND IN PARTICULAR THE SPIRITS OF THIS VERY PLACE WHERE I DWELL PLEASE ACCEPT THIS OFFERING AND PRAISE MAY IT MANIFEST AS GOLDEN NECTAR AND SPARKELING RICHES TAKE YOUR FILL AND MAINTAIN PEACE BETWEEN ME AND THEE SO SHALL IT BE. Thats all there is to it. No need for formal closing. Just let them take what they want of it and let it go.

NIGHT OFFERING You can purify the offering in exactly the same was as above. For a material base you can use a musky incense, or even burnt meat if you have the time. As a

libation you can use whiskey or wine. If you want to make a more elaborate offering you can make small cakes and stain them red with palm oil or another substance to look like bloody flesh. If you are the type of person that has skull chalices and bone candle holders and such, this is an ok time to use it. Again say the word ARISE three times moving from a whisper to normal volume. ARISE ARISE ARISE ARISE ALL YOU FIERCE SPIRITS OF THE TUNNELS OF NIGHT SPIRITS OF THE DARKNESS OF SPACE AND THE INFERNAL DEPTHS YOU DISHEVELED DEAD WHO WALK THE GRAVES AND LONELY PLACES YOU SERPENTS AND HAGS WHO HAUNT THE WATERS BLACK YOU DEMONS WHO FEED UPON BLOOD AND SPIRIT YOU WHO WAIL IN THE WANDERING WINDS IN PARTICULAR YOU SPIRITS OF THIS PLACE IN WHICH I DWELL PLEASE ACCEPT THIS OFFERING AND PRAISE MAY IT MANIFEST AS OCEANS OF BLOOD AND MOUNTAINS OF BONE TAKE YOUR FILL AND MAINTAIN PEACE BETWEEN ME AND THEE SO SHALL IT BE Again, you can just let it hang. No need for dismissal. If you feel any kind or ill effect or hostile response, than announce that you will be taking over the land and do a zone rite from lesson 3. INTERACTING WITH SPECIFIC SPIRITS OF PLACE The types of offerings that we have been discussing thus far are general. They are meant to introduce you to the spirits of your area and get you into the most positive relationship possible with them. At times you may wish to do more specific work with the spirits of place than simply making offerings to ensure their good will. For instance, you may want to contact the guardian of a specific location that you will be dwelling or working on. You may also want to find a willing local spirit to perform services for you. Often magicians think only of Spirits that appear in Grimoires complete with seals and

names for this kind of work. Many of those spirits however were originally spirits that a magician encountered and bound to a specific arcana. You can do the same with local spirits, gaining an advantage for working that effect your area. To do this all you need to do is adjust the wording of an offering ritual to include a request for a specific task or to focus on one specific type of being. If for instance you wanted it not to rain on a specific day you might do the morning offering above, but rather than mentioning all the types of spirits that I list, focus solely on the Nagas or some other type of spirit of water or air. Make the offering and request that they keep the rain back for a certain amount of time. If you are skillful at communicating with spirits, powerful enough in your spiritual authority, and on good terms with the spirits you are working with, you can even create your own grimoire. You ask the spirits that are willing to work for you to present themselves one at a time, ask for their name and seal (or failing that provide them with both), and bind them to a certain protocol. I have a small book filled with nothing but spirits that I have worked with in the areas that I have lived. You can do the same. I hope you understand that this course is not aimed at simply enabling you to follow the instructions of classical grimoires, but in making you a Sorcerer or Sorceress that is capable of generating such grimoires yourself. Till next week, be well.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 26: NECROMANCY PART 1 Next up in our discussion of spirits are the Dead. Communication with the dead, known as Necromancy, has been a major preoccupation in nearly every culture throughout all of human history. There are numerous ways to work with the dead in sorcery, but first we must discuss the nature of the soul. REINCARNATION, THE SOUL, AND THE DEAD If we work within a tradition that acknowledges reincarnation (which I do) there is an apparent contradiction with working with the spirits of the dead. After all if we reincarnate, there would be no one to contact right? Wrong. While there are cases where people through accident or design get stuck in the post death experience and remain connected to the identity that they had in life, these instances are rare. Even in these cases, the being does not usually stay in this state for more than a few decades. When Necromancers contact or work with the spirits of the dead, more often than not, they are not contacting a being stuck in this way, but only a part of that being that was left behind after death. In the Judeo-Christian influenced west we tend to view the soul as a singular thing that you are at your core rather than as something that is itself made up of different parts. Not all cultures view it the same way though and instead see the soul as something that exists in several parts, some of which can be separated from the rest of the rest of the ego, causing great suffering and many emotional, psychic, and spiritual problems. In ancient Egypt for instance a person was thought to be made up of a number of different parts. Apart from the Kha, or physical body, there is also the Ka, Ba, and Akh. The Ka is the psychological makeup of a person and is something of a double of the physical body after death and is generally bound to the lower planes. The Ba travels back and forth between the heavens and the earth and is what receives funerary offerings when they are made. The Akh, also called the Khu is the complete opposite of the Kha in that it is the highest spiritual and eternal self.

In Tibet, they speak of the Namshe (rnam-shes) and the La (bla). The Namshe is the consciousness that reincarnates from life to life and carries the karma of an individual. The La is an emotional construct and more connected to this particular incarnation and ego. It can leave the body under certain conditions and become fragmented, lost, or stolen. The Tibetans have many rituals for retrieving the La called La-gug. In Haitian Vodou the soul is also viewed as consisting of two parts: the Gros Bon Anj and Ti Bon Ang, which translate as Big Good Angel and Little Good Angel respectively. The Gros Bon Ang is what travels to heaven when you die, and is connected ultimately to God. The Ti Bon Ang is somewhat like the Tibetan La and is connected to you as an individual. Like the La, the Ti Bon Ang can be lost, fragmented or stolen. It is the Ti Bon Ang that is captured and controlled in the famous rites of Zombification. Victor and Cora Andersons Feri Tradition of Witchcraft divides up the soul into three parts called Sticky One, Shining Body, and Paraclete. Sticky One is the animal and child nature somewhat corresponding to the Freudian Id. Shining Body is the intellect and mental capacity extending from the rational and logical to the psychic and energetic levels. The Paraclete is pure spirit and represents your own divinity, connecting you to ancestors and gods and universe as a whole. The Seventh Century “Cauldron of Poesy”, a Bardic Poem from Ireland tells of three Cauldrons that make up the soul in the Celtic traditions. Multiple souls are also encountered in Hermetics, Kabbalah, and Sufism. Whatever system of soul anthropology (literally the study of what makes a human) that you ascribe to, most agree that there is some aspect of the self that can be separated from the rest. At death the most essential parts of the self reincarnate, and other parts remain. In terms of our 7 body system in the Strategic Sorcery system, the Physical body and Etheric Bodies die at the time of death. The Astral body and Soul body dissipate over the course of several weeks and often leave an imprint upon the astral - a shell that can be contacted through various magical rites. The Mind and

Causal Bodies reincarnate. The perfection body exists outside time and beyond the cycle of reincarnation. The shell or imprint of the astral and soul bodies is what is normally worked with in most necromancy. It can be summoned to perform tasks, or made to answer questions. There are however two other examples where this is not the case, where the Sorcerer is actually dealing with a being lacking a physical and etheric body, but keeping its Mind and Causal bodies linked to the Astral Body. THE ASCENDED DEAD The Ascended dead are beings of great magical power who have chosen to transform their Astral Body into the main seat of consciousness. This astral body is no longer an ordinary astral body however, it is transformed into a true body of light through skillful manipulation of the subtle forms of the five elements. This can be done in the time just after physical death, or rarely, even while one is alive. This latter practice involved dissipating the physical body over seven days, and transforming it into what Tibetans call the Ja-lhu or Rainbow Body. Nothing but of the physical body except hair and fingernails is left behind. The ability to do this kind of transformation is the work of extremely advanced adepts, and thus beyond the scope of this course. Beings that have achieved this can be contacted by numerous methods: prayer, conjuration, offering. When you are dealing with a figure like a saint, you are dealing with the ascended dead. THE RESTLESS DEAD The second example of a spirit of the dead that has not moved on to reincarnate is the restless dead. Rather than transform the astral body through great power and realization, the restless dead survive second death through the power of shock. These beings who usually die violent or untimely deaths simply cannot accept their death and remain through the power of grasping at life.

Because these beings are more powerful than empty shells that most people leave behind, yet unlike the mighty dead, are easily controlled and dominated by the living, they are sometimes highly sought after in sorcery. In Greece, they were known as the Aoroi. Rits associated with Hekate and other underworld dieties exist to put these beings to work for the magician in exchange for some small comforts. In Haiti, the spirits of those that died violently are called zombie astral, and are put to work in much the same way. I do not recommend working with the restless dead in sorcery. They are by nature, troubled souls, and while they may produce fast results, dealing with them is often not worth the trouble. There are other easier ways to do just about anything. You can include the restless dead in your offerings as an act of compassion, but my advice would be to keep your relations with them at that level. EXALTED DEAD Unlike the examples above, the exalted dead are shells left behind by beings that have reincarnated. The difference between them and normal shells of the dead lies in how others treat them, not in any work that they did themselves. The Exalted Dead are usually famous people who get "worshipped" after death. In some cases this is mere psychic attention. In others it is literal worship and offering. The shells are strengthened by the attention and offering, and just like a person who reveives good food, they become more powerful than they would be on their own. The shells of powerful sorcerers sometimes become exalted dead if they are worked with and propitiated by other practitioners after death. When exploring the magic of New Orleans, I went to great pains to create spirit bottles for both Marie Laveau and Dr John to help open up the secrets of that city and its magic. They have proven useful contacts in this as well as other matters. ANCESTORS

Your own ancestors can be powerful allies. While your innermost self may have been passed to you through reincarnation, most of your habitual patterns come to you through your genetics, which are passed through ancestors. Acknowledgement of your ancestors with an occasional offering is a great way to contact beings that you already have a psychic connection to, and who will almost always be inclined to help you. There is a reason that in many African Traditional religions like Vodou, getting in touch with ones ancestors is the first step. If you have someone in the family that was known as a magician or psychic, obviously that would be a good person to start with contacting. In addition to the benefits of having a spiritual ally, making offerings to your ancestors seems to strengthen your own body and spirit - you are after all an emanation of them. NECROMANTIC MATERIA Another advantage of working with the dead is that instead of just having to psychically hone in as with spirits of place, or rely upon sigils and names as with Grimoire spirits, we can often get direct links. Sometimes very direct links. The link par excellence is, of course, necrotic material: bones, ashes, or sometimes even flesh from the body of the deceased. If you can get these through legal means, than great. Options like the Bone Room make it fairly easy if expensive. Whatever you do, do not steal necrotic material. Its a crime just about everywhere, its a despicable act, and whatever you think is worth the risk, is probably not gonna pan out. As aside note, it is possible to purchase human bone impliments from Tibetan Buddhist suppliers. Kanglings (thigh bone trumpets), Kapalas (skull bowls), Damarus (drums made from human skulls), and Bone Malas are all available, in Nepal and over the internet. Be very careful using these outside the tradition that they were meant for. The person that dies most likely intended for them to be used in a certain way, and you may just get a bad reaction when you try to use that Buddhist Monks skull cup in a ceremony of your own design. GRAVEYARD DIRT

Thankfully, it's not really necessary to delve into the actual remains, there is a perfectly good link closer to the surface: Graveyard Dirt. Dirt, dust, earth, these are powerful links because they absorb some of the psychic essence of their surroundings. Dirt from your bank can be good in financial magic, dirt from your lovers house is good for love spells, and dirt from a grave can be used to connect that Graveyard Dirt is actual dirt from a grave. There is no substitute unless it is the dirt from an actual corpse. Mullein, and other herbs are NOT Graveyard Dirt. There are two main considerations when dealing with Graveyard Dirt: which grave to use and what to pay for it with. As to the first consideration, it depends totally upon the type of work you want done. Here are some examples from my own life: • SOLDIER OR POLICE OFFICER: Obviously good for protection and any kind of martial work, including Curses. They are good for a lot more than that though. Soldiers are thought to take orders well and therefore can be considered a catch all. If you unsure of who to use, a soldier will probably get the job done. • FAMILY MEMBER: Not only good for establishing that connection to the ancestors that I was speaking of, but also for protection. In the old days when you would probably be living in a house that was build by your father or grandfather, it was pretty common for rootworkers to place a bit of graveyard dirt from the builder in the four corners of the property. • MURDERER: Used for curses where you are ok with the target coming to a bad end. • MAYORS AND TOWN OFFICIALS: I have used this type of dirt in spells aimed at business transactions. Good for getting permits approved and for greasing the wheels of any interactions between you and the local government. • MUSICIANS AND CRAFTSMEN: You can use these spirits to help you master a skill like playing guitar, carpentry or whatever.

• POWERFUL MAGICIANS: Dr John, Marie Laveau, Crowley, Charles Leland. The shades that these beings leave behind can be very useful in some endeavors. Especially in the field of Meta Magic, or magic that effects magic - something we will be getting into at the end of the lesson. • DOGS AND OTHER ANIMALS: A trick that is used in the Congo for making nkisis is to include the bones of a dog in with the bones of a human. The dog spirit tracks the target, and the human does the work. Dirt will work the same as the bones, though perhaps not as strong. You get the idea. If the action of the person in life would have been desirable, than their graveyard dirt may be of assistance. The last one that I want to mention is that of a baby or deceased small child. I did not include it in the list above because, to be honest, I find the practice repugnant. It is however a common practice amongst some circles. There have even been people that collected aborted fetuses for use in this type of necromancy, I know this because they occasionally get arrested. The idea is that the fetus, baby, or toddlers spirit will be almost a blank slate that will obey without question. There is more to this kind of work, but to be honest I don't want to write any more about it. If you want to follow up on this kind of thing you are on your own. The second consideration is paying for the graveyard dirt. This is simplicity itself. Simply leave a dime, or some whiskey in the hole left by the dirt that you dug. The dead do not need a lot of money, and these are traditional offerings. If you want to make a more elaborate offering, you are welcome to do so, simply follow the instructions from those lessons. Next Lesson, More on Necromancy!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 27: NECROMANCY PART 2 Now that we have a handle on the parts of the soul, the types of dead that we may contact, and the types of links we may use to reach them, it is time to discuss one more element before getting into the practice: Death itself. O DEATH "Well what is this that I can't see With ice cold hands takin' hold of me Well I am death, none can excel I'll open the door to heaven or hell Whoa, death someone would pray Could you wait to call me another day The children prayed, the preacher preached Time and mercy is out of your reach I'll fix your feet til you cant walk I'll lock your jaw til you cant talk I'll close your eyes so you can't see This very air, come and go with me I'm death I come to take the soul Leave the body and leave it cold To draw up the flesh off of the frame Dirt and worm both have a claim O, Death O, Death Won't you spare me over til another year" The above lines are from an old American folk song, pleading with death for just a bit more time. Most cultures have some kind of God, Angel, Spirit, or psychopomp that oversees the process of death. Some cultures have more than one. The Ghuede and Barons of Haitian Vodou. Hades, Hekate, Charon, Thanatos from Greek Mythology. Anubis, Maat, Azrael, Ereshkigal, etc. Working with one of these beings can help you make your Necromancy more effective. I would

recommend picking one that you know well, rather than dabbling though. They all have different aspects and approaches to death. In the ritual examples below, I use Hekate. She is however far more than just a Goddess of Death. Her role in the process of death is one of giving clarity and leading one through the bardo or underworld to the best possible outcome. She is also a granter of mercy and is said to occasionally take the place of the condemned to spare them suffering. In addition to this, the Aoroi or restless dead run with her hoard through the night, similar to the Wild Hunt myths. In contact I have also done a lot of work with Azrael, the Angel of death recognized in Arabic angelology and made famous by the works of Leilah Wendell. Hekate is much more an Illuminator. I even performed a public invocation of Azrael at the Unitarian Church in Philadelphia for over 30 people. Azrael is much more a reaper figure - a cold presence who solemnly plays the role of ending life. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum are the Barons, who I also know. These Lwa are connected not only with death but sex and trickery. They tell amusing jokes and make lude gestures through the people they possess. Whatever figures you decide to work with, if any, get to know them and their roles well. Often these figures can be instrumental not only in facilitating communication with the dead, but also with healing work and exploring the mysteries of our own mortality. FOUR TYPES OF NECROMANCY Following the division set down by Paul Huson in Mastering Witchcraft, we will discuss Amatory Necromancy or the emotional communion with lost loved ones, and Necromancy of Intelligence or the questioning of spirits for the purposes of intelligence gathering. To these two, I would add Necromancy of Action. In this work you are trying to put the shade to work, possibly not communing much at all. Most spells that use Graveyard Dirt or Human bones fall into this category. You can commune with the

spirit to make sure that they agree to the work, but often a simple divination will work just as well. Last in the categories of Necromantic work is what I call "High Necromancy" which is the process of exploring your own mortality and integrating it fully into your awareness. AMATORY NECROMANCY This rite below of Amatory Necromancy has its roots in the old traditions of the Dumb Supper. The Dumb supper has its origins in Scotland where on Hollantide eve girls would make a soddag valloo or Dumb cake. They would make cake of flour and water without any leave. Silence would be observed through the baking and cooling and then the cake would be eaten walking backwards to bed. It was believed that this cake would induce a dream of their future husbands. The practice became popular in the Ozarks where it was combined with the old practice of setting places for the dead on Hallowmas. In a house with unlocked and open doors and windows, the entire dinner would be set while walking backwards, place settings would be reversed, and the order of things served would be backwards: with desert being served last, all in complete silence. It was believed that the spirits of dead loved ones would come and give a sign about the future, especially of future husbands. Eventually as the tradition spread from the Ozarks through the rest of America, the aspect of divining future husbands became overshadowed by communicating with departed loved ones. The dumb supper is still practiced widely in rural West Virginia as a way to connect with lost friends and relatives. The following rite is not a full dumb supper, but rather a ritual that borrows some elements of the practice and shares the intent of contacting departed friends and loved ones. It was originally written as a group ritual to be performed at Halloween. It should however be easy enough to adapt to use for a single sorcerer.

All participants should pick a deceased friend of relative that will be the focus of this rite for them. This is NOT a work of general Necromancy, but amatory Necromancy and works through the bond of fraternity, love, or blood. If you did not know the intended target personally while they were alive, than you must choose a relative. The ritual will not work to contact historical figures or random shades. Thirteen days prior to the ritual you should set up a small altar somewhere in your home facing west that has some personal item or image of the person you intend to contact along with a white candle. Each night you should light the candle and spend a few precious moments meditating on that person. Each night mentally call to them across the veil. Your success in the rite will be greatly dependent upon this preliminary work. On the day of the work it is preferable to fast until the rite. The temple should be set up so that everyone can sit on the east side of a table facing west with an empty seat across from them. If tables and chairs are not available the whole thing can be done on the floor. If space does not permit everyone to face west, than you can wrap the seating around so that some sit in the south facing north. Apart from this the temple can be decked out in Autumnal, Saturnian, and Necrotic style as much inspiration and materials allow. The temple should be lit only with candles and should be dark enough that the edges of the room are cloaked in shadow. Any introductions to the rite, should be given outside the temple, as talking in the ritual space should be kept to a minimum. It is VITAL that all celebrants be somewhat familiar with the order or events to come before entering the temple. Afterwards the celebrants can be led in. If possible all should walk in and take their seats walking backwards. If this is not possible to do safely and solemnly than all should simply take their seats in silence and begin meditating on their loved one. There are only two active parts for this rite: a ritualist and a server. Once everyone is seated the server should lay out plates and cups for everyone there, and another set for the departed, placed across from the celebrant. This should be done by one person walking backwards but if this is not able to be

done, than it can be done walking normally but in a widdershins pattern. After the table is set, the server should place a piece of cake (poundcake works well) on each plate and some whiskey in each cup. If performing the rite alone or with a small group you can use foods and drink that the person enjoyed in life, if working with a larger group, it is a lot easier to keep it to cake and whiskey. Always avoid salt while working with the dead. After the food is served the ritualist should stand and begin the invocation while the server fumigates the room with Necromantic incense, again walking widdershins backwards. The incense should be made from Vervain, Dittany of Crete, Wormwood, Sandalwood, a couple drops of honey, and a couple drops of Blood. Alternatively, traditional “black arts” incense can be used. This is available commercially premixed but is made from patchouli, black mustard seeds, spanish moss, a pinch of valerian root, and a few black dog hairs. The invocation is to Hekate to open the gates to the netherworld:

Hail many named mother of the Gods, whose children are fair Hail mighty Hekate of the threshold, keyholder of the world Hail ENODIA, Keeper of the Crossroads and Three ways ARKUIA, NEKUIA Nether, Nocturnal and Infernal one You who walks disheveled and wild through tombs and cremation grounds Cloaked in saffron, crowed with oak leaves and coils of serpents You who is followed by hordes of ghosts, dogs, and restless spirits Yet is at once the luminous Empress of Empyrian realms. HEKATE CHTHONIA Throw open the gates that the Living may break bread with the dead.

By AKTIOPHIS. By ERESHKIGAL, By NEBOTOSOUALETH By Blood and by Love And By This Sacred Time out of Time We stir summon and call you May the dead cross the Lethe and remember. May the dead come and break their eternal fast with us (all should now whisper the name of their loved one and consider that they emerge from the west and take a seat across from them at the table). All present should east and drink while opening their perception and silently commune with the departed in whatever way their capacities and training allows. Those of superior capacity may have a direct experience of a shade sitting across from them. Those of middling capacity may have only the slight feeling of a presence and perhaps will receive some residual communication in dreams that night. Those of inferior capacity may feel nothing but should know that they have strengthened their connection to their ancestors or loved one and may receive various benefits because of this connection. After the heaviness of the contact has lifted the ritualist can again speak. The guests should be thanked and a general offering to dead should be made. To the honored guests, we give thanks and offering To the guardians of the gates we give thanks offering To those who have come before us and made the base of our path we give thank and offering To those who are named…

To those whose names have been forgotten… To those whose bones lie within and upon the land… To you, from the living…” With each line of the above the ritualist should pour a little whiskey in a cup. At the end of the rite, all food and drink for the dead should be gathered and left at the gates of a graveyard. NECROMANCY OF INTELLIGENCE Temple should be set up with a Triangle in the west. A Skull or representation of a Skull should be placed within it, as well as a healthy dose of Necromantic incense as given above. If you feel like you want to use a zone rite between yourself and the Triangle, I recommend the simple circle or Compass round from Lesson 3. I do not recommend a fortress building rite as this will insulate you too much from the spirit. Eventually however you should be able to do such rites without such a circle, relying upon your spiritual authority alone. If you have done the rituals from the last lesson you can use the Fierce Body that you discovered from within yourself to establish dominance. Holding a link to the deceased, circumambulate your circle backwards three times. While repeating I call this night to …. Come forth that I may speak with thee. Return to the east and face west towards the Triangle. Spirit of ______ Approach the gates of the east and answer my questions truly. Arcuia Necuia! Nocticula! IO! IO! IO!

Arise! Arise for I charge and command thee. Repeat this charge three times. Than read the final conjuration, Ringing the bell or striking the link with the tip of the wand each time. By the mysteries of the Arcuia. (strike) By the Flames of Necuia (strike) By the silence of night. (strike) By the Holy Rites of Hecate (strike) I open the Westgate! (strike) _______ I Stir Summon and Call thee (strike) To present yourself here (strike) And answer truly our demands. (strike) Arise and be present (strike) Continue to chant the person's name until you sense their presence. Than question the spirit and listen to its answers as you may know how. When ready to dismiss the spirit: As You came in power, now go in peace. Back beyond the western horizon. Back to your natural habitation I thank you and bid you well

NECROMANCY OF ACTION

The Necromancy of Action includes just about any spell or ritual that sets a shade to a task. It includes everything from an full evocation, to the construction of the famous hand of glory, to simple spells like placing someone's personal link into a grave with the intent of having that spirit "hold" the target back from you. You can easily convert the Necromancy Of Intelligence ritual above into an action ritual, by simply replacing the phrase answer my questions truly with the phrase perform the tasks which you are given. It need not even that fancy however. Just gather your link and speak directly to the spirit. Make an offering of light and perhaps a dime or some whiskey. We will revisit this topic again in a few lessons when we cover spirit bottles. HIGH NECROMANCY High Necromancy is the art of exploring your own mortality and integrating it fully into your awareness. You can perform some invocations to death itself or to a spirit of the dead, but these should only be to ask for their guidance in your endeavor. The real work must be done by you, not simply an idea bestowed upon you by a spirit. When I lived in Nepal, I had the opportunity to engage in a three day retreat at the cremation grounds of Pashupatinath. This place is a sacred city-temple to Shiva and is where they burn the dead on ghats along the Baghamati River. It is a smaller version of what goes on in Varnassi in India, which you may have seen pictures of video of. The point of the meditation was to first view the bodies being burned so that I could get to know the feel of a human form disintegrating. After that you integrate your own consciousness into that of the corpse, feeling as if you are dead and losing your bodily form. Finally you project this vision onto all others, so that everyone you encounter is seen as a rotting corpse, for in a short time, that is exactly what we will all be. It sounds somewhat macabe, but it is one of the best retreats that you can engage in. Most of us spend our time avoiding the talk of death, yet it is the one experience that every living being shares. Even those very late in life, seem to pretend that they have decades ahead of them. The truth is that everyone who

has ever lived has died. Everyone of you that reads this will die. Some not for decades. Some perhaps in just a few short months or even days. If you can manage to get to know Death itself and make it your friend it will make you free in ways that you won't fully understand until you do it yourself. While you perhaps cannot travel to somewhere that they do outdoor cremations, there are still opportunities to integrate death into your awareness. Leilah Wendell recommends breaking into a crypt and spending the night with a corpse I do not. It's a good way to get arrested. Instead, watch videos and study anatomy. Modern technology makes all kinds of things accessible via video. Once you have viewed it in all the grisley detail, meditate on that happening to your own form, than apply the same to others. Do this repeatedly and you will know death in the most intimate way that you can without actually dying. That's all for this week. Next week we talk Grimoire Spirits!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 28: Grimoire Spirits In Europe for most of the medieval and renaissance periods most magic was performed through the agency of spirits summoned according to the names, seals, and rituals contained within books of magic known as Grimoires. Even today there are several magicians who make this work their entire practice: spirits carry out all their practical magic and they rely upon the contact with spirits to be their main means of spiritual growth. Some magicians will even go so far as to suggest that all magic is really the work of spirits and that even those who think they are manipulating energy or using psychic influence are actually communicating with spirits who do the work. It should be obvious at this point in the course that this is emphatically not the view of magic that I take or that I wish to teach. Spirits play a role in magic as does energy, psychism, dimensional manipulation, materia, and other factors. How much you rely on spirits in your personal practice will be up to you. There are many up sides, but there are also several downsides, which we will discuss later. THE GRIMOIRES The word Grimoire simply means Grammar, and refers to a textbook for learning. Though the word could be applied to include almost any kind of book on magic, the classical grimoire is usually centered around a group of spirits represented by names, seals, and descriptions. This is accompanied by instructions for evoking, binding, and dismissing the spirit. A grimoire might also contain chapters on spiritual preparation for the work as well as related magics such as the construction of amulets and talismans like in the Key of Solomon, or even chapters on folk magic spells such as you will find in the Dehn translation of Abramelin as well as in Francis Barrett's Magus. These chapters however are somewhat secondary to the summoning of Angels, Demons, or other Spirits.

Each Grimoire has its own rules and protocols and purists will want to follow them closely. Others, like myself, will try the traditional methods a few times, than integrate the methods into my overall practice. This hacking is guided by prior experience, experimentation, and guidance from the spirits themselves. Many of the grimoires actually intend for this to be the case, the initial ritual described in the book only being meant as a way to establish initial contact. Once you establish that contact with the spirits, you can agree upon less formal methods. This course is not about teaching you how to summon the spirits according to individual Grimoires. I am more concerned with making those spirits work effectively for you and with giving you the tools you need to contact spirits on your own and make your own grimoire. PURISTS vs HACKERS As I already mentioned, there are a lot of people out there that you could call "Grimoire Purists". They believe that the instructions in the grimoires should be followed as close to the letter as possible. These modern purists stand in stark contrast to the attitude taken by the Golden Dawn and other Occultists of the industrial age. These groups and individuals mostly ignored the instructions from each individual grimoire, only paying attention to the seals, names, and descriptions of each spirit. The actual ceremonies of conjuration in the book would largely be replaced by rituals from that orders teachings. Those of you familiar with Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig, can a good example of this in his chapter on Evocation where rather than using a circle from the Key or Solomon or the Goetia, he instructs you to use the Opening by Watchtower. He then provides a call from the Goetia for use with spirits from the Goetia and the Key of Solomon. Purists would say that by only paying attention to the names and seals, and in disregarding the individual instructions of the Grimoire for your own rituals, you are throwing lots of babies out with the bathwater and not getting as powerful results as you would if you did the rituals exactly as written.

Hackers, those who use the Seals and Names in ways not described in the Grimoires themselves would argue that the Grimoires are not fit for the modern day, and that the particulars represent a view of magic that no longer holds water for most practitioners. My own view straddles these two points of view. I think that the Golden Dawn and similar types of 19th and 20th century approaches to magic did sometimes ignore important points, or at least ones worth exploring. Purification rituals, devotional rites, holy tables, and roles of the circle beyond mere protection are all examples of this. In some cases, the Golden Dawn approach makes things more complicated. The Arbatel for instance provides a system for contacting the spirit using only a short prayer. On the other hand, magic changes over time and there is a sort of natural selection process at work that constantly refines and changes the art. I have done evocations by the book and I have done them according to Kraigs / Poke Runyons system, and I have done them according to my own system. I honestly cannot say that I have gotten much better result with one than another. Those that claim that the old system magic gets results that the later techniques do not, I ask for proof. When you are summoning gold coins out of thin air and flying through the air without a plane, than I will acknowledge your way is better. Until then I don't want to hear it. In the chapters below we will be presenting the basic steps that will get you success with almost any Grimoire. In TSS I presented an example of a Hacker style evocation of the spirit BUNE. By following the basic principles that we will go over, you will be able to develop your own rites on a spirit by spirit basis. If however you are interested in delving into European Grimoire tradition as a purist, let me suggest the following books: 1. The Modern Angelic Grimoire by Frater Rufus Opus 2. Secrets of the Magical Grimoires by Aaron Leitch

3. Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa translated by Donald Tyson We are also lucky to living in something of a golden age of Grimoire Translations. After years of unreliable and nearly unworkable traditions, we currently have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the Grimoires. If you get the Grimoire bug you should check out the following translations: 1. The Lemegeton, also called the Lesser Key of Solomon(which contains the famous Goetia). The best translation is available from Joseph Peterson. There is also a translation of Dr Rudds variation on the Lesser Key available from Stephen Skinner and David Rankine 2. The Book of Abramelin translated by Denn has already been mentioned in the course. 3. The Grimoire Verum has been translated by Peterson and a more user friendly version with extra sections and commentary has been made by Jake Stratton Kent. 4. The Clavis Inferi or Keys to Hell has been translated by Skinner as has the Fourth book of Occult Philosophy which contains the Heptameron. 5. The Key of Solomon (sometimes called The Greater Key) also by Stephen Skinner and David Rankine. 6. The Arbatel of Magic by Joseph Peterson 7. The Picatrix, most recently translated by Christopher Warnock and John Michael Greer AUTHORITY The most important thing in evocation is spiritual authority. We went over this in lesson 25 and described several types of spiritual authority that you could use when dealing with spirits of place. Many of the Grimoires also have chapters on developing their particular route to spiritual authority. In the Key of Solomon for instance you take Nine Purifying Baths. This idea of purity is one that appears over and over again in magical and religious texts. The idea being that man, washed

clean of all the poisons of action, body, and mind, is automatically restored to his natural state of grace, realization, and power. In lesson eight we discussed the 18 month long attainment of K&C of the HGA as prescribed in Abramelin. In the Necronomicon (Simon edition), definately the most popular modern grimoire, spiritual authority is established by walking through the seven gates. Other Grimoires do not contain any specific instructions for establishing authority over the spirits. Some assume that the proper circle and calling upon various and sundry names of God in the actual evocation itself is enough to establish authority. Other texts assume prior initiation. In the classical Grimoire tradition this would usually be the taking of Holy Orders with the Church at least up to the lesser order of "Exorcist" , which is a term many Grimoires use to indicate the operator in the text. You have probably surmised that spiritual authority in some of these systems such as Abramelins 18 months, The Necronomicon's seven gates, or the taking of Holy Orders as a Priest or Exorcist, yield a permanent life change or a state of awareness that you can access quickly and effortlessly. Others like the nine purification baths, relying upon the names in the circle and evocations, or taking on god forms are more temporary and focused on establishing authority for the term of the ritual. These are the "fake it till you make it" methods. In terms of the Strategic Sorcery System, in the long term we rely upon meditation and contemplation to reveal our true natures. We may also quest after the Agathodemon or the HGA as a permanent relationship. Temporary methods include the Universal Centering exercises in TSS and taking on the Fierce and Joyful bodies during spiritual interaction. This last method actually bridges the gap between both since you need a certain amount of spiritual power and realization just in order to have the vision of the bodies. Ideally, you do both: quest after the change in mind body and spirit that makes you a true spiritual power, AND reinforce that before the ritual by one of the temporary methods. I try to give you teachings in these lessons

that are useful at different levels of realization. You must at all times be honest with yourself about your own development and capacity. INTERNAL CONSISTENCY Even when performed by someone with all the spiritual authority in the world, most evocations call upon names of God, Gods, or other spiritual powers. Please make sure that these are consistent with the spirits that you are summoning. Someone new to evocation wrote me a few years ago asking for help with his evocation on the archangel Michael, which was not producing any results. I asked for the details and he sent me his ritual which calls upon the Archangel Michael in name of Mercury. When I asked him why he is summoning a Christian archangel and commanding it in the name of a Pagan diety, he just could not understand what the problem was. A God is a god right? Not really. First rule is try to stick within the pantheon. If you are uncomfortable with calling upon the Archangel Michael in one of the many kabalistic, hermetic, or biblical names of god than just don't call him. Second rule is that just because we call a being a "god" in English and treat all religious practices equally under law does not mean that all these beings are equal or the same in terms of magic. In every Pantheon there are lesser deities and higher deities. Sometimes there are creator deities or beings with very cosmic associations, and sometimes they are more down to earth. Many pagans refer to the Lwa of Vodou as "Gods". Vodou however is a monotheistic religion. The Lwa are not really gods, but mysteries. There is a difference. If my friend was going to summon Michael in the name of Jupiter, the king of the gods, he might have gotten better success, but I would still recommend sticking within one paradigm.

Now, some familiar with the grimoires will be pointing out that in some cases the gods of one religion become the demons of another. Many demons in the Grimoires for instance have roots in Pagan deities. So you can call Astarte using pagan means or you can call up Astaroth using the Grimoire Verum and binding him/her in the name of the Christian God. The first method is friendlier and will yield a different result than the latter method which is quite confrontational. We will talk more about this in the section on Demons in the next lesson which deals with continues the talk on evocation methods.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 29: Grimoire Spirits Part 2 Given all the hullabaloo in the last lesson about the need for spiritual authority you might be asking yourself why I made such a big deal about it when writing of the Spirits in Grimoires and not when I wrote about spirits of place or shades of the dead. I do not mean to give the wrong impression. You do need to establish spiritual authority in those circumstances as well. Even if you call upon beings using nothing but friendly offerings, you should still at least be able to banish them or command them if necessary. The reason that it is so important to understand the need for spiritual authority with grimoire spirits, and the reason that this entire lesson is about the nature of those spirits, is that they are Powerful. Very powerful. There is great benefit to be had from working with them, but they can also screw up your life faster than any other type of magic. So before we get into the tech, we need to fully understand what we are dealing with here. ANGELS AND DEMONS Most grimoires from the western magical tradition make the distinction between Angels and Demons. But what is really meant by these terms? Both terms have totally neutral roots in the Greek Language. Angel comes from angelos meaning messenger. Demon comes from daemon, which simply means spirit. An evil spirit would be a kakodaemon, a good spirit would be an agathodaemon. By the time the classical grimoires were written however, these terms took on very specific meanings. Particular theology aside, an Angel was good and a Demon was Evil. There are a lot of writers on the grimoires that want to whitewash this. Though we modern day practitioners may not see these beings as good or evil, that is the view that was taken by the medieval practitioner. In general the practice of evoking Angels falls under the category of theurgia and the practice of evoking demons falls under the practice of Goety.

In this medieval view the reasons for contacting angels were obvious, they are higher beings closer to god, able to teach us and intercede for us from that position. The reason to contact demons was two fold. The first was to bind their influence and set them to doing non-evil work. The second was that they were often faster at this work than the more lofty angels as well as more likely to deliver material gains. In the case of both angels and demons, they were summoned in the name of god and the act was not seen as evil, at least by the practitioner. Now, though this view of good and evil was the way it was thought of then, it is not largely the way spirits are thought of today, nor is the way that I think of them. In Tibet there, spirits are divided up amidst "Wrathful" and "Peaceful" spirits. Some like to equate this to the situation we find in the Grimoires, but it is not really applicable. The Archangel Michael, Khammael, Azrael, Uriel, and Gabriel for instance all can be agents of divine wrath. Also many beings categorized as Demons in the grimoires have more or less peaceful activities and appearance. A better division for our purposes can be seen in Haitian Vodou where they speak of different spirits as being "cool" or "hot". Cool spirits tend to be slower to work, but offer more stable results and keep the practitioners best interests at heart. Hot Spirits tend to work quickly but offer less stable results with little regard for the welfare of the practitioner. In Vodou, the spirits of the Rada nation tend to be thought of as Cool while the Petro Nation is thought to be Hot. There is no Good or Evil judgement here. The Petro were instrumental in freeing Haiti from slavery to France. Petro spirits are invoked for good reasons by good people such as when a single mother invoked Ezili Dantor for protection. She is however more demanding than Ezili Freda from the Rada Nation. Though the terms are not perfect, I tend to use the terms "Angelic" and "Demonic" or "Material" for these classes of spirits. I do not however attach ideas of good or evil to these divisions. Its just the best words that I can find for their natures. For instance, if you required protection and turned to the Angels for help, it is a bit like turning to the Police: they will help you, but according to their

own rules. Turning to Wild spirits for protection is a bit like hiring a biker gang instead of the police. They will do what you ask, but they may be a bit to violent for your tastes and may hurt a few people on the sidelines, and may turn on you if you do not meet their demands. Let's take a look at how we deal with each of these in turn. WORKING WITH ANGELS This category includes not only the classical Archangels, but also the planetary intelligences, Olympic Spirits from the Arbatel, and other spirits of this nature. In practice these spirits are best brought in to either bestow an initiation that causes you to resonate with a sphere or power that they oversee, or to ask them to bless or guide an overall strategy. For instance if you were about to start up a new business you might evoke Tzadkiel to give you the initiation of Jupiter and make you resonate strongly with that vibe of increase and wealth. You might also ask him to lay his hand upon the venture overall so that the flow of probability moves in your favor in a general way. I do not often invoke Angels for very specific tasks. Staying with the example above, I would not be constantly evoking Tzadkiel for small issues like getting a permit or increasing customer count in a specific month. The Angels are big picture types of guys. It is your job to handle the details of your life, not theirs. WORKING WITH DEMONS In this category I include the 72 spirits of the Goetia, the demons of the Grimoire Verum, The Demons of Abramelin, Agrippas Spirits of the planets and so on. These spirits are not evil. Some are quite good natured and fun. They are all somewhat dangerous however. Keeping with the analogy of a criminal gangs I used above, you will find some really nice guys in biker gangs or the mob. They are not evil. They are wild. They might be cool and friendly, but it's a good bet that they are surrounded by some people that aren't and that if you hang around too long you will probably find yourself in some trouble. Many people avoid them entirely, and to be honest, that is not a bad idea.

They do work quickly however and unlike the angels are ideally suited to what I call Micro-sorcery, the tactical application of sorcery to very small details that will cause a domino effect. In a court case for instance, you might invoke an Angel to bless the whole case, but you might summon a demon to effect just the mind of the prosecutor or a particular witness. Demons are excellent at short term, well defined tasks, with very little room for interpretation. If you give them too much room for interpretation, they will typically carry out your instructions in the most wild way possible. Also, which Angels tend to follow your intent, demons follow the exact wording of your request. Poorly worded or vague requests can lead to what I call "The Ham Sandwich Effect". Heres how it goes: Sorcerer: "Genie, make me a ham sandwich." Genie: "Zap! You are now a ham sandwich." Now, as I pointed out at the end of the last lesson in some cases the gods of one religion become the demons of another. Many demons in the Grimoires have roots in Pagan deities. So you can call Astarte using pagan means or you can call up Astaroth using the Grimoire Verum and binding him/her in the name of the Christian God. This has been used by some as an argument that demons are really no wilder than any other spirit. The problem with this is two-fold. First is that Gods and higher level beings are beings that exist in more dimensions than we are used to. They have multiple possible futures that they access just like us, but they also have multiple pasts. We do to, but we don't have the capacity to experience them in the same way. Anyway, by calling upon Asteroth you will get someone that is quite different than Astarte despite historical connections. Second issue is that even if the above were not true, by approaching the spirit through a ritual that treats her/him like a demon, and using seals that were developed with that in mind, you will get a much less friendly result than if you went in from another angle. It's the difference between someone approaching

you with an offer of a friendly drink, and someone arresting you and dragging you in for questioning. Think about how you would react under those two circumstances. Treat someone like they are a demon, and you will usually bring out the demonic in them.

NEUTRAL SPIRITS There are a lot of modern Grimoires or books containing names and seals of spirits that I hesitate to categorize as either particularly angelic or wild. Apoxias from my own P&RM is one of these. The spirits and seals in Franz Bardons "Practice of Magical Evocation" is another. The spirits of the 50 names of Marduk from the Necronomicon are yet others. They are more or less neutral. Other beings you may find in Modern Grimoires are demonic or angelic, but not traveling under those names. You need to be able to determine this on your own. Study what has been said about them. Perform divinations. Than invoke them and see what they are like. Sometimes they may be wilder than you thought and you will experience some trouble. That is just the way it goes. If you want to do real magic than you will occasionally get your fingers burnt. If you are looking for a completely safe experience with no bumps in the road, than Sorcery is not for you.

THE STRATEGIC SORCERY RULES OF WORKING WITH SPIRITS I want to establish a concept in your heads about spirits, that is something which most magicians overlook. Whether you are working with Angels, Demons, or anything in between, you are essentially working with an Alien. Even when working with Angels who can generally be trusted to follow your intent in as benevolent a way as possible, it is important to remember that it is not their job to run your life for you. It is your job to run your life.

I will say it again in capital letters: DO NOT ASK SPIRITS TO RUN YOUR LIFE FOR YOU. Not only is it not their job, but they are not very good at it. YOU live here in human society, NOT them. They may be benevolent, but that does not make them experts on human society. People tend to think that because Archangels, and some demons as well for that matter, are repositories for vast amounts of knowlege, that makes them aware of exactly how you want your life to go and savvy in the way that our society works. They are not. If you went to a village in Kenya and found a guy that was the most adept unix programmer in the world, when you flew him back to your country you would have to give him firm direction as to what you wanted. You would not put him in charge of customer service, human relations, or even the overall vision of the product, unless of course you were developing a product for a Kenyan village. It is the same situation with spirits. Let me give an example: When we get into the Individual Strategy portion of the course you will see that I place a lot of value on developing secondary income streams in the hopes of eventually not needing that 9 to 5 or at least being able to retire into something fun. It is pretty common for magicians to focus a lot of magic on these projects. This is normal, it takes a lot more effort to develop a business than it does to report to a job after all. If you are working with spirits, even angels, they may just decide that the best way to help you grow your side business as a T shirt mogul or drop shipper of rare BBQ sauces is to give you more time by getting you laid off from that day job that you never showed any interest in. If your secondary income stream is pulling in 30k a year, and your wage slave job pulls in 70k a year, you may soon find yourself without that 70k. Even in the above example, which BTW has happened to several people, most magicians will interpret this is "the direction they are being led in" and follow it, thinking that just because the spirit opened up the opportunity that they MUST take it. They will dump all their time and money into the side business even if there are no signs of being able to grow it further, all because "the spirit must

know what it's doing" or "the spirit led me here for a reason". This is NOT the way a Strategic Sorcerer thinks. So please remember, the following rules when dealing with any kind of spirits: 1. Angels and other types of Higher Vibration Spirits are good at big picture type things - use them to bless a situation or give you initiations 2. Demons and other types of material realm spirits are good at small details give them short term, well defined tasks. Do not call on them overly much. 3. Do not turn your strategy or decision making process over to ANY spirit. It is your job to run your life, not theirs. 4. Do not feel that you are obliged to take spirits up on every opportunity they present. Use your head. 5. All of these rules may need to be bent or broken in individual situations based on the assessment of the sorcerer. No one can tell you when you should do this but you. NEXT WEEK: EVOCATION TECH AND THE STRATEGIC SORCERY MINI GRIMOIRE

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 30: Grimoire Spirits Part 3 Now that we have established the different approaches to the spirits as well as the different natures of spirits that you will encounter in the Grimoires, it is time to get down to the nitty gritty of how classical evocations work and how we can use the strategic sorcery techniques to make the process easier and more streamlined. Every Grimoire has its own special protocols, circles, seals, and spoken conjurations. I strongly recommend that before you change or even abandon completely any process that you fully understand every part of the original. Preferably you will have actually performed the rite by the book as closely as possible. My own rule is at least three times. One aspect of TSS that caught a lot of attention was the very short Bune Spell that I gave in the Financial magic chapter. Some criticized this as being too short and lacking all the safeguards of a full Goetic rite. I did however take great care in constructing this short evocation and testing it before releasing it. If I had not done Goetia proper, as well as various hacks of the Goetia structure (Dr Rudd's, Paul Husons, Lon Duquettes, Don Kraig's etc) I would not have felt comfortable releasing it. As it is I strongly feel that a simple circle followed by a conjuration containing the Psalm and Shemhamphorash Angel as well as the name of the associated Decon are more than enough. If you have been mastering the meditations, devotions, and psychic skills in this course you will be more than a match for a Goet or any other demon even if you met them in a dark alley, much less the relative safety of your temple. STAGE ONE: SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY We have dealt with this one in Lesson 28. Suffice to say that whether you feel that you have reached a spiritual stage of development that yields permenant spiritual authority or are relying upon the ritual at hand to lend temporary spiritual authority, there is almost always some declaration or reinforcing of this authority at the beginning of a rite.

STAGE TWO: STAGING The evokers circle is probably the most famous visible aspect of Grimoire magic. There are two aspects to any zone rite involving the evocation of spirits: 1. Protection for the magician 2. Creating a conductive area able to manifest the spirit. In rites evoking demons and other rowdy types protection is obviously the primary concern. These zone rites are typically a ground consecration (see lesson 3) establishing a barrier between you and the spirit in question. Fortress Building rites can be used, and are the norm in some systems like the Golden Dawn (LBRP, BRH, etc) and also in some Tantric Rites. Sometimes, as in the case of the famous Goetic Triangle, there is a separate zone set up for the spirit to manifest in. Somehow this set up of circle and triangle became so well known that many ceremonial magicians think that all evocations use this format. Nothing could be further from the truth. In almost all cases the demon simply appears at the edge of the circle. Even in the Goetia itself, the triangle is not called for in all cases. In general unless you are for some reason dealing with a truly and deeply dangerous and toxic entity a ground consecration like the compass round from Lesson 3 will suffice. If you are dealing with something that requires a heavier hand than by all means throw up an Angelic Cube or even the Adamantine Temple. You can even exteriorize and Adamantine Temple as a containment for the spirit to manifest within, just be sure to mark its boundaries physically somehow. In rites where you are evoking angels and other benevolent beings, protection is less of a concern. You may in fact be more interested in sharing the same space with them in what I call a "transvocation", a blending of your zone and theirs that is part evocation and part invocation. For these relatively freindly spirits you will want the zone that you operate in to reflect the correspondences and qualities of the spirit in question. Bardon uses the example of an Evocation of Hagiel where she would not manifest and in a dream suggested a second attempt with seven (number of Venus) green (color of

Venus) lanters set in a Heptagram. This would bathe the space in Venusian Symbolism. Just recently I did a short simple conjuration of Paralda the king of the element air, and made room quite warm and humid to match the qualities of the element air (lessons 9 and 10). I also set up the color yellow, faced east, and posted symbols to match the correspondences of the element (remember the difference between quality and correspondence) to make an environment that he could easily manifest himself in. Think of it like you were preparing somewhere for aliens from another planet to land. If you wanted them to leave their ship and talk to you, you would need to set up a chamber containing an atmosphere that would sustain their life. You would need to provide food that it could digest, and probably want to provide it with as many recognizable signposts as possible. You can do the same in the course of an evocation. The specifics of course differ from spirit to spirit. STAGE 3: THE CONJURATION This is where you actually get into the circle and call the spirit. It is the ritual itself. Again there is a great variance of words and equipment used in different Grimoires. Some require rings, wands, crowns, daggers, etc. The two most essential elements though are the seal and name of the spirit. Purists will say that to dispose of any element called for in a traditional grimoire is to invite disaster. If we are simply leaving out these elements out of laziness or ignorance than they are correct. If however we know how to skillfully replace these items and elements than we can greatly streamline the process. Many of these elements, especially those that are meant to convey authority (ring), protect the magician (protective seal worn beneath a demons seal), or direct/command a spirit (wand) can be replaced by the magician himself if he has done the work of transforming himself body and mind through meditation, prayer, energy work, etc. For the purposes of strategic sorcery it is better to be a person of power and authority than someone simply taking part in a ritual of power and authority.

The name and the seal of the spirit are the two main elements that are most essential and make it into just about every evocation hack and variant ritual. In a very real way the name and seal of the spirit ARE the spirit itself and should be treated with the respect, and if necessary the security, that the spirit itself would demand. Many magicians have experienced contact with a spirit simply by drawing its seal on paper or staring intently at it in a book. Because society at large no longer treats anything as sacred, this has led to some unfortunate incidents of people being negatively effected simply by wearing t-shirts with demonic seals from the grimoires on them. I have even seen a onesie for a baby with the seal of Astaroth from the Goetia on it! Typically you will be wearing the sigil of the spirit as a pendant, even if this is just paper hung on string. Some mages will stare intently at the seal as if they are scrying into it. I do not recommend this method. Wearing the seal is quite enough. Staring at it and fascinating yourself with it can lead to being entranced by the spirit, and even if we are dealing with purely angelic beings, we should not loose ourselves to them in trance. That is not what evocation is about. The words of the conjuration can vary greatly. I have evoked angels, neutral spirits, and even demons simply by repeating their name over and over again. Generally you call to the spirit by the authority of deity or some greater power. This is especially true of rituals involving hostiles. As I already mentioned, I took great care to weave in several layers of constraining forces in the evocation to Bune that I gave in TSS. Some Grimoires give very lengthy conjurations with lots and lots of barbarous words and names of god. One modern interpretation is that these conjurations are intended to get yourself (or the seer if you are using a seer that is not yourself) into an altered state on consciousness that is more receptive to spiritual contact. With all due respect to those that hold to this, I think it's a bunk theory. It simply doesn't work. The human mind is more than capable of reading long pages of pious praises and calls without entering an altered state. Clearly the people that came up with theory have not been to very many church services ;-) The

people that wrote the medieval and renaissance Grimoires were largely low level clergy. While these evocations may seem long by modern standards, they were actually pretty normal in comparison to other religious services by standards of the day. If you have integrated your psychic senses into your normal consciousness, it will not be necessary to enter into an altered state to communicate with the spirit, but even if you wish to enter into an altered state, you can get to different mental states more efficiently by energy manipulation, meditation, breath control, self hypnosis, and a host of other methods, all of which would be more effective than reading names of god and long strings of dog Latin. Another element that might be present in an evocation is the request to appear in a way that we can easily perceive and which will not be frightening to us. These are extradimensional beings after all and can take on shapes that can literally hurt the brain to try and perceive fully. While occasionally a spirit will take on a monstrous or threatening shape, it is more often a matter of requesting that the spirit manifest in 3 dimensions of space and through linear time. By all means, you should remember my rule about at least trying the rituals the way that they were written, but when constructing your own evocations, you should feel free to be much more concise than our churchy predecessors. STAGE 5: THE MANIFESTATION Let me speak generally now to the levels of manifestation that powerful spirits like angels, demons, and gods can take in magic and mysticism . I recognize four types of manifestation that a being can present with and which depend upon how we come into contact with them. From lowest to highest these are: 1. The filling of form: This is what happens when you visualize a god form in a particular place than call the essence of that being into it. In this case the form that the being takes is determined almost entirely by the Sorcerer. Those familiar with the LBRP will know exactly how this works: you spend time visualizing and constructing the form of the angel, than call the angel to inhabit that visualization and act through it. This is also done in

generation stage Tantra, though that process is used only as a stepping stone to deeper contact. 2. Evocation: This is the aspect that this lesson is focusing on. Here you call the being and it chooses its appearance based upon what you asked for or commanded in the rite, and what the environment that you have set up allows for. 3. Habitation/Possession: In this case the spirit has been called into your own body or the body of someone participating (hopefully) in the ritual. You experience the entity sharing mind and body with you. In some cases, your own consciousness evacuates the body and allows the evoked spirit free reign, as in the possession rites made famous by Haitian Vodou. They are not the only ones that practice this however. There is for instance a Vietnamese Kung Fu school in Philadelphia that teaches Kung Fu by allowing the masters of the lineage to possess the students and do Kung Fu through their body. 4. The Full Monty: In this case the spirit manifests as fully and completely as your mind can handle. This is where the descriptions of angels as 500 foot tall pillars of fire, or immense beings with 100,000 weeping eyes on its 50 wings comes from. In cases like this it is usually not the Sorcerer that has sought contact with the spirit, but the other way around. When the archangel Metatron or the Goddess Hekate wants to get your attention, they manifest in ways that are so symbolic, epic, and shaking that it is the stuff that religions can be started from Keeping this in mind, it is of course #2 that we are concerned with in this lesson. We can set up our staging area and conjurations so that we direct the spirit to manifest in a certain place or manner. For instance, if we are dealing with a difficult spirit we can direct it to appear into a triangle such as the one used in the Goetia. We can also direct the spirit simply to appear at the edge of the circle. In other cases we may set up a scrying mirror, crystal ball, or even brazier of thick smoke for the spirit to manifest in. If the spirit is one that we think may be unruly this is best set up outside the circle or zone, if not than it can be set up right on

the altar in the center, which is how it is done in Trithemius's system, updated and simplified by Frater Rufus Opus in his Modern Angelic Grimoire. If you want to try your hand at something traditional, but you are new to the practice I can think of no better system to get your feet wet with. The first copy of the Goetia that I ever purchased was a hardcover Magical Childe edition from a shop set up at a small Renaissance Faire in Lakewood NJ when I was about 17 years old. The guy I bought it from asked me if I knew how to handle myself with it when a spirit gets unruly. I showed him the stronger conjurations in the back of the book as an answer. He then asked what I would do if the spirit caused the book to suddenly fly out of my hand and out of the circle. I hesitatingly answered "LBRP?". "Good Luck Kid" was all he said. The thing about evocations is that they do not always go as planned. You may ask the spirit to manifest in the mirror, but it may decide that it is going to manifest in the air, or in the mind only. You can fight with the spirit and force your way or you can roll with it. Again it depends upon the individual situation. Real magic is not about cookie cutter formulas. The spirit may also not manifest at all. Again you have a choice, keep poking at it using stronger and stronger conjurations involving threats, or let it go. In my experience it is always better to just let it go. It may not be the spirits unwillingness to show so much as it is bad circumstances or insufficient perception on your part. Sometimes a spirit that cannot be perceived during an evocation will show up in a dream or even send omens letting you know that it was there. If it does show up in a dream but you are unsure if it is really the spirit or just a dream an easy test if you are lucid enough to perform it, is to tranform the spirit into something else. If you can, than its just a dream. If the spirit will not transform or immediately transforms back, than it is a good chance that it is genuinely the spirit. It should also be noted that however the spirit primarily manifests it is doing so for you, not because it has to. Most of the spirits called in Grimoires are non-local beings. In other words, unlike ghosts and most spirits of place, where you can point to a corner and say "he is over there", these beings can be everywhere at

once. They are not tied down to manifesting in space. The line between evocation and invocation can be blurry at times, and no matter how tightly you control the space, the exchange will change you to some degree. If something goes wrong, if the spirit is terrifying, or if the spirit manifests in ways that seem to be negativly effecting you, simply ask or command that the spirit take a comely shape that is easy to perceive. If the spirit disobeys than you can exorcise or constrain it or just dismiss it. This has never happened to me, but it has happened to others, so I am mentioning it now. The last thing I want to cover in this section is the use of seers. Some magicians have used seers because they either did not have the psychic capacity to see spirits themselves or because they felt like they would be in greater control if someone else was mediating between them and the spirit. John Dee used Edward Kelley. Aliester Crowley used several different scarlet women. Jack Parsons used L. Ron Hubbard. The tradition of a magician and seer to evoke spirits has a long history and if you want to go that route, than do so. Personally I have done it both ways and prefer to do it on my own. STAGE 6: CONGRESS After the spirit manifests you can ask it whatever you wish and make whatever requests you wish. We went over the kinds of things that different spirits are good for in the last lesson, so i will not waste anymore space on it here. STAGE 7: DISMISSAL Dismissals are pretty easy. Politely thank the being for attending. Ask that it attend you again when you call in the future. My favorite line for dismissals is one I borrowed from Frater R.O.: "As you came in power, so go in peace." You can do further banishings and purifications if you need, but it is not all the necessary. NEXT LESSON: THE STRATEGIC SORCERY MINI GRIMOIRE and THE NEXT HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT! (Finally)

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 31: The Strategic Sorcery Mini Grimoire We hopefully now covered Grimoire spirits to death, leaving you no questions on how to approach just about any Grimoire that you want to pick up. With the name and seal you should be able to follow the books instructions or even hack the system and develop your own. The only question that remains is: how do we work with spirits that do not appear in a grimoire or have not even been discovered yet? I mean, every grimoire was written by someone somewhere. At some point someone received or invented the seals and names: how did that happen? There are several scenarios that are worth mentioning. NAME BUT NO SEAL? Occasionally you may come across beings in sacred texts that have names, but no seal or presence in a grimoire. Can you still evoke such beings? You can sure as hell try! That is the kind of experimental project that grows the art. I did this when I first read the names of the four luminaries (Harmozel, Oroiael, Daveithe, and Eleleth) in a Sethian Gnostic text. These are very high Archai beings intimately related to primary universal functions and the flow of consciousness itself. I wanted to have not only the name, but a seal. So what I did was meditate using the name as a mantra. I astral projected and used the name to travel via symbolic resonance to an area that this beings presence was strong in. I than meditated deeper into the mental body where I formed the aspiration to receive a vision of a seal that I could use to call upon this being with. I was told to open myself up further and meditate up to the causal level (see the lessons on astral planes). Upon descending I received a very clear vision of a seal that I quickly drew to the best of my ability. I repeated the process with the other three names over the next several nights and now have a scroll for each one. Before you ask, at this time, I am keeping those seals to myself.

Now, I can hear some of you thinking, couldn't it be dangerous to just repeat a name and open up communication if you have no seal or ritual or even any history that this being is amenable to being contacted? What is you tried to contact something that definitely hates being contacted? Is this dangerous? Yes. It's dangerous. It is dangerous and exciting and unpredictable. It might end up being a waste of time or it might end up being the basis for a new religion. It might end up being the source of the worst psychic attack of your life or it might end up being the most positive life changing event ever. That is why we began this course with information on meditation energy work and zone rites. Do a few divinations, make sure that you are solid in your regular work, than go for it. That's what the whole "To dare" part of the four powers is about. NO NAME, NO SEAL, JUST PRESENCE? Sometimes you will come into the presence of new spirits that have never been recorded. This can happen in a number of ways: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

They can present themselves during offering rituals. You may encounter them in your astral wanderings They may contact you because of past life, family, or other connections You may encounter than haunting or inhabiting a place or even a person You can request Dieties or Angels to make the introductions You can enter into deep meditation with the intent of making the contact.

In cases like numbers 1, 2, 3 above you can make an offering to the spirit and ask for its name and seal. In the case of number 4 you can make a show of power and demand it. Getting the name of a demon is often a major aspect of exorcism. If you do not have the capacity to see a seal or hear a name, you can use a system similar to the way you create a name and seal for an artificial spirit (lesson 24), and ask it to answer. It may, or it may not.

You can, if you have the power (and the balls...) bind a spirit it to a name and seal. You need to be very solidly tapped into the divine/causal level to pull this off. If you are having issues with your spiritual authority than do not even try. You are very likely to get your ass kicked. On the up side, I will give discounted exorcisms to anyone in the class that does get possessed. In the case of number five and six above, things will be handled more or less automatically. It was the method of entering into the causal level gnosis, than descending with a new set of spirits that gave birth to the following spirits. Without further ado, I present you with

THE STRATEGIC SORCERY MINI GRIMOIRE: On the New Moon of January 2010, I entered the physical temple, generated the Adamantine Temple, and banished all outside influences, malefic or benevolent. I spoke the words of the Mirror Litany and entered into a state of contemplation which knows no symbol or separation . As I arose from the state of non-dual awareness, as my first thought, I generated the intent to attract such spirits as would be allied to the Strategic Sorcery community and be amenable to our methods. Having developed this thought on the causal level, I allowed it to filter down to the mental plane, where I empowered it to become a beacon that would resonate through all time and space. Filtering the work down to the soul level, I tied the beacon to the Seal of Sorcery and entered the astral temple which exists within the eye. I took on the Illumination Body and spoke the following words, beginning with the words of the Meister Ekhart: "My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love".

Therefore let spirit appear before my eye who will serve my intent which is inseparable from the will of the cosmos itself. May they be not the spirits of a star, nor planet, nor element, but rather be the spirits of the very work itself, able to be summoned at any time and any place. May they have hands that reach readily into the matters of the material world, yet require only offerings of scent and light and mind. May their powers be molded to the needs of the modern day. May they be fast allies of those who know have found their fate within the seal and have studied the ways of the hand and eye. May they obey those who possess the joyful and fierce bodies and who call upon them in the spirit of love and wisdom. Amen From within the darkness arose a pinpoint of light in the distance. As it approached I could make out that the light was emanating from a seal that I knew well, one that appeared to me previously years ago when I first decided upon founding the current. The symbol was blazing white flames. The symbol began to emanate rainbow light in all directions, which than reflected back upon it, building a body of light. The being before me appeared in armor of brass surrounded by silks of rainbow color. Upon its breast in glowing white was the symbol that first appeared. The beings feet were obscured by a writhing mass of serpents. From behind him unfolded wings that seemed to be made of peacock feathers. His head was that of a youthful male with no beard or facial hair. His expression was both joyful yet intense. The white hair on top of his head appeared to be being blown upwards and melded strangely with the space around it. He spoke: I am Azophaios and though I have shown you my heart seal long ago, I have revealed myself bodily in response to your call. The spirits that I will reveal to you this night are unconnected to any place or time or arranged according to any planetary or stellar plan. As you have requested they are embodiments of the work itself. They are all under my command, I who am the spirit of light made flesh and flesh made light.

Azophaios than showed me the names, appearance, and seals of the spirits. He also instructed me in how to call them, which must be done in the following manner: The Sorcerer should be dressed simply, preferably in white or light colors. They should wear my symbol engraved in Brass or drawn on Parchment above their heart. Underneath that they should wear the symbol of the spirit that they wish to summon. Enter into as clear a state of mind as you can. Establish the Pillar and mark a simple circle on the floor by using the Rite of the Compass Round. There should be as little in the circle as possible. The Magician should sit or stand in the center of the circle and perform the Universal Centering Rite followed by generating one of the Sorcerous Bodies. Use the body of Joy for works of healing, knowledge, increase, or attraction. Use the fierce body for works of protection, binding, combat, and justice. Those that have not had the vision of the body obtained within the seal must not call upon these spirits. They will not recognize you, and if you succeed in attracting their attention, they will not serve you well no matter what is offered. Once you have established yourself in the Joyful or Fierce body you should perform the rending of space and call the spirits as follows: I cleanse my mind with the waters of crystal clear awareness I burn away all impurity with the uncreated light In the name of the most high and holy power IAO Who dwells within me and whom I dwell within. Close my eyes, that I may see with yours. Shut my mouth, that I may speak with yours In the name of Azophaios the revealer. He who never moves yet who roams the heights and depths of the great pillar. Make me known to the spirits of the work. By your name I call and conjure you, (Vibrate the name of the spirit) By your seal I stir and summon you (draw the seal in the air with a wand or candle flame) Set your services at my disposal and I shall make you an offering and spread your name.

(Repeat again the name of the spirit that you are summoning. You can keep repeating the name over and over again, occasionally adding the words "by Azophaios I call you". ) At this point, the Sorcerer should sit and the spirits will appear in the darkness of the mind. If you wish to use a scrying device like a crystal or mirror you are welcome to but I have been told that these spirits are specifically geared towards appearing in the mind's eye. Upon the first conjuration, you should ask the spirit if it will answer you in less formal situations such as simply by drawing its seal and calling its name or visualizing its form. After you have made your request of the spirit, you should make an offering using the gesture of offering and perhaps lighting a candle or burning an incense in its name. If the spirit asks for some kind of elaborate offering, simply visualize this offering, and send energy to it. Do not attempt to make it physically happen, as that is unnecessary for this group of spirits. After your offering, you can give the license to depart: Thank you (Insert name of spirit here) for your attention this evening. May you be pleasingly fulfilled by the offerings that I have given and may you forever act as a friend and helper to me in the future. As you came in power, so go in peace. THE SPIRITS OF THE CABALS Here follows the description of the spirits that Azophaios revealed. ARMODIAL Armodial appears as a human male with the head of an owl. He reveals nonmagical knowledge that will assist in your goals. He is a master of tactics. If you know what types of magic to use to attain a goal but are unsure of what non magical steps to take to support your efforts, he will put you in touch with the right resources. ELIATH

Eliath appears as a great spider. She climbs the web of psychic lines that exist between all people and all things. If you need to contact a person that you do not know how to get in touch with, or if you are working magic on someone that you do not have a good link to, Eliath can spin new connections on the philotic web. DATHOLIA Datholia appears as a woman clothed in orange robes covered in what I can only describe as interlocking spinning fractal swastikas. She has the power to bend time slightly. If you have to do three days worth of things in a few hours or make something fleeting last she can help. She can also be of assistance in wise time management. Simply visualizing her seal, spinning at varying speeds is enough to slightly bend time. Beware of contemplating how she does this, figuring out how old she is, or looking at her robes too closely - it can cause terrible headaches. PATROTIEL Patrotiel appears as a dark haired blindfolded man in a black overcoat that contains innumerable pockets. His blindfold keeps him from seeing the limits of a situation, and the pockets in his outfit contain keys that unlock almost any lock. If you are faced with a situation that seems hopeless, Patrotiel can possibly help break the chains that bind you and open up doors to new solutions. Try writing a request to him with his seal at the top, than burning the petition while speaking his name and asking for help. SABATOLETH Is appears as a white ghost with features that are hard to make out. He sits in the master position upon the same Philotic web that Eliath roams. Instead of roaming the web and building connections however, Sabatoleth simply transmits and regulates information. He sits at the center of the web of information, a center that is everywhere and no where all at once. If you have a message that you want to get out, a product to market, or a rumor to start Sabatoleth is your man. He also seems to work well on computer related issues, be it broken PC's or bad email filtering. He is literally the ghost in the machine. Try embedding his symbol in a webpage or e-mail. MAXORIAL

Maxoriel appears as a good looking blond man in a white shirt and very expensive camel haired jacket. His face emanates light and is seductive in expression. He is a master of finance. He explained to me that he was once a large overweight spirit like a Dzambhala that was set over financial increase, but was elevated to a more sophisticated spirit by Azophaios. He now not only rules over increase of money, but the holding and spending of money. Because of this he also rules over the seduction of money and the sorcerer needs to take care to not let success with Maxorial overshadow other goals such as illumination or family life. Try carrying his seal in your wallet, and placing it amongst your bills. DAVIAN Davian appears as skeleton who carries shackles. He is surrounded by an aura of cold air. He is a spirit of debt and can be called upon to get those who owe you money to pay up. He can also be called upon to help you get yourself out of extereme debt - be careful though, those shackles he carries may just be placed on you to stop you from spending too much. I called upon him to help me clear a debt and a couple weeks later, when I wasted money on something that was admittedly frivolous, he caused me to get ill and appeared in a dream to show that he was punishing me for working against my own stated goals. Invoke him with care. ASTALETH Astaleth appears as a beautiful young naked woman with pure red skin dancing. Her own limbs are loosely bound in multi colored scarves which spiral out from her to lasso and pull in those that the Sorcerer wishes to influence. She arouses lust in women and men that you target, or can draw someone to you that you would naturally be attracted to. I asked her if she appears as a man to those who would be attracted to men, and she said no, that she is a woman always. When I asked her how that worked, she told me she would show me later. Later that evening I was in the grocery store and saw a woman on a magazine cover that looked like her. I noticed then that women seemed to dominate the covers of men's and women's magazines alike. Go figure.

Try visualizing her seal on someone and extending the curved arms around them like bands that pull them to you. TORIEN Torien appears as a Dominatrix complete with whip and chains. In one role she is perfect for binding enemies. In another she is like the more heavy duty version of Astaleth. Whereas Astaleth influences by guile and attraction, Torien will completely dominate someone for a time, causing them internal and external torment until they acquiesce to your demands. Use this spirit with care as sometimes there is resentment from the target afterwards. Try tracing the seal or embedding it psychically in something that you target will eat or drink. TERTIALAN Tertialan appears as living steel which takes the shape of whatever type of armor or weapon is necessary. He is the ultimate protective spirit and can bestow a special type of psychic shielding that is tailored specifically to you. Terrialan can even envelop you in himself during times of great need. This can however isolate you from others who might be of assistance to you. He can also be called upon when your needs are offensive as long as he is being sent against those that mean you harm. He will not act if you ask him to attack someone that means you no harm. Wear his seal on your right arm or over your chest for added protection during rough times. PNEUMALETH Pneumaleth appears as a whirl of wind and color. She heals by entering the body as breath and applying colors to the various disorders that she finds. She works on both physical and emotional problems. She may show you a particular color to work with, or reveal a particular treatment that you need to try. This is the only spirit of the group with a name that I can make sense of - pneuma being a word for both breath and spirit. Draw her seal in white on a clear glass bottle and fill it with clean water. Breathe her name into the bottle every day for one week to create a healing water. EPINOA

Epinoa usually confines her appearance to the periphery where she can barely be made out as a shadowy lithe female figure. She carries a needle and thread that she uses to sow shut the eyes and ears of those who the Sorceress needs to blind. She is a mistress of obfuscation. She can be invoked to envelop you in her shadow so that you go about unnoticed or to blind the eyes of superiors. She can also make people forget unfortunate events, hiding them deep within the memory. Draw a circle and write down a targets name on the left and an event you would like them to forget on the right. Draw color the right half of the circle in with black, covering the even you want to obfuscate and draw the rest of the sigil out. Keep the paper on you as an amulet against the target remembering that event. Great for getting a boss to forget a mistake you made when you are up for a raise.

NOTES ON THE ABOVE: 1. The Compass Round is in lesson 3 2. The Centering Excercise and Rending of Space are in TSS 3. The instructions for the Joyful and Fierce bodies are in lesson 25 ANNOUNCEMENT Those of you who joined before Halloween 2009 will be receiving the seal of Azophaios in Brass as the promised thank you for signing up early. I will get these out asap. Those interested in purchasing them will be able to do so. More information about that in the weeks to come. HOMEWORK #6 Summon a Spirit and write up a report. Be sure to include what category of spirit you summon, how you summoned it, what you asked of it, what manifestation you got, and what the outcome of the operation was. Next week: Meditation 2 going deeper into Vastness

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 32: Spirit Houses This is the final lesson regarding spirits, and it is one that has been specially requested by numerous students. The Topic is on Spirit Houses, with a special focus on Spirit Bottles. Spirit Bottles have been a staple of my professional practice for years now. Although they are the most expensive item that I offer in terms of remote magic, ranging from $100 to $600, they are also far and away the most popular service I offer by far. So, those of you with designs upon working as a professional Sorcerer should pay special attention. SPIRIT HOUSES The Naga Khang of Tibet, the Pwen of Haitian Vodou, The Goetia’s Brass Vessel, the Honden of Shinto, the Prenda or Nganga of Palo Mayombe. The San Phra Phum of Thailand; all over the world human beings feel compelled to create physical places for non-physical beings to dwell within. These have served one of three main purposes, sometimes all of them at once: 1. To give humans an easy way to relate to the spirits without having to astral project, use special site, or other magic/psychic gifts. 2. To give the spirits a foothold into our reality, by literally handing a piece of it over to them. 3. To constrain or imprison unruly spirits. Statues, tools, amulets, cauldrons, almost anything that has symbolic resonance can be made into a spirit house. Some things however are better than others, and that is what we are here to discuss. Though the practice exists in one form or another all over the world, you do not often see instructions about it in books on magic. Just as the masonic secret words and grips were originally used to protect the trade secrets of building from armatures, this is the kind of thing that dabblers should not be doing. There are two reasons for this. The first is simply business, you do not give away the process

by which you make money. The second is that this is an easily abused piece of tech. There are a lot of spirits that you can place into a spirit bottle that will demand lot 's and lots of high priced offerings and services, usually way more than is worth what the spirit gives in return. If you fail to fulfill your obligations the spirits use the foothold into your life that they have to gain revenge or coerce compliance. While giving certain spirits a more or less permanent place in your life can be rewarding, it can be devestating if you choose the wrong spirit. Ask a Houngan like Kenaz Filan about the trouble that people have gotten into by misusing Djabs in Pwens or spirit bottles... " And it's not uncommon for people to purchase pwens chaud (hot points) in an effort to better their lot. These "left hand" spirits are more demanding and quicker to anger than the cooler "Gineh spirits" but they are also known to work faster and harder on behalf off those who will meet their needs. Those needs, alas, don't generally include souls. They will more typically involve fets and sacrifices of rum and blood. If those sacrifices are neglected, the pwen or djab may decide to feed itself on its owner's family: a baby or old person may die, or the owner may be horribly injured or lose everything s/he gained with the pwen. The spirits aren't concerned with gaining control of their followers after death: they are focused on service in the here and now. Writing your name in blood on a piece of parchment is easy: spending decades caring for a djab that might kill your children or parents if you screw up is a bit more challenging." Kenaz Filan from his Blog http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-post.html So as you can see, some magic should not be wielded by dabblers or real harm can come. Even some experienced magicians have run into problems. In fact, I myself have run into problems and once had to disassemble a spirit pot for a spirit

that was too demanding. When this happens, there can be a bit of a battle, no one likes to be evicted after all, so do try and take care. LOCAL VS NON-LOCAL The first thing that you need to know is whether the spirit that you are working with is local or non-local. I do not mean geographically local, but local as it is used in physics: taking up physical space. For instance, usually when evoking an archangel or even a powerful Demon from a Grimoire, even though they may take on an appearance to facilitate communication with you, if you try to feel for where they are it is not so easy. This is because the being is non-local. They are not limited by time and space, and thus cannot be contained completely in a Spirit House. You can bind one in a spirit house, as per the Brass Vessel of the Goetia, but unless you have the awareness and power of a great Mahasiddha, Demi-God, or Arch-Wizard you are only binding that spirits interaction with you and your sphere - not for everyone everywhere. If you are unsure as to whether you are on that level or not, try to physically fly. If you can't, than you're not. For instance if I was to bind Asmodeus in a Brass Vessel and bury that vessel so he was away from me and my sphere, you would still be able to contact him because he is a non-local being. When you make a spirit bottle for such a being you can look at it as making a window into your life for the being to manifest through, rather than be contained completely by. Another way to look at it is as if your spirit bottle is a candle that is being lit from a central flame. It contains that same fire and is no greater or less than the one it was sparked from, but it is not all fire everywhere. The truth is actually a little bit in between each of these explanations, such are the strange machinations of the higher spirits. Local spirits are non-physical entities that do manifest firmly in space. If you are in a haunted place for instance, you can usually point to where in the room the ghost is. Likewise most nature spirits, though not all, are local beings. I will quote Kenaz again talking about Djabs.

While scholars have generally focused on the more popular lwa, much Vodou magic involves djabs - wild spirits which are often tied to a particular place and which can be powerful allies and protectors. When you're out for a walk in your neighborhood, is there a gnarled old tree which catches your attention? Is there a big rock which looks like a face when seen from a certain angle? Is there a patch of land which makes the hair on the back of your neck rise every time you walk through it? You may be in the presence of a djab: why not try to make it your friend and ask for its aid the next time you want to do some wanga? Kenaz Filan from his Blog http://kenazfilan.blogspot.com/2009/06/vodou-in-yourbackyard.html

With these beings you can create a Spirit bottle or other type of spirit house, that they can either come to when summoned, live in permanently, or be locked into against their will. I hope that I will not disappoint anyone by not covering that last function. If you have a problem with a spirit than banish it or exorcise it or destroy it - if you do not have the power to do any of these than you do not have the power to imprison it. If you do have the power to do any of these, than you can figure it out. If I ever run a class on purely malific magic where I just do not care what students do with the information, I may cover it. That however, would be an advanced class to say the least A NOTE ON NGANGAS Before I get into the specifics of how to make a spirit house I feel compelled to point out that what we are doing is our own thing. You need to be clear that although traditional items like the Nganga of Palo Mayombe are spirit houses, unless you are initiated into that tradition and follow those rules, you are NOT making a Nganga. I mention the Nganga because many people seem fascinated by them and a few have tried to make their own based on published instructions. The published instructions, especially the ones in english, are deliberately incomplete and misleading.

I have been given unprecedented access to handwritten notes on how they are constructed by a friend that is a Palero, and some of these techniques have influenced my work. However I will not be teaching how to make a Nganga. Even though I know how they are done, I cannot make one myself. They are done within a tradition and if you try to work with those spirits outside of that initiatory tradition, you will run into problems. I don't care if it looks like a Nganga and has every item in it that a real Nganga has. I don't care if you have gotten a spirit to inhabit it and make it work. It is still not a Nganga. So now that we have that out of the way... BUILDING YOUR BOTTLE From this point on I will be referring to bottles, rather than spirit houses. In general, whatever I am talking about is also true for pots, boxes, jars, gourds and anything else that you want to use. I dig bottles, so that is what I am teaching. Let's start with the materia. There are four categories of items that go into a spirit bottle. THE HEART LINK This is the main link to the spirit. It might be graveyard dirt or even a bone if you are working with a spirit of the dead. It might be a branch or rock or other item that a nature spirit resides in. It might be a seal from a Grimoire or an image such as a picture or small statue. Sometimes you may have to get creative with your link. After making a spirit bottle for Marie Laveau, she told me to make one for Dr John. The problem is that unlike the widow Paris, no one knows the exact location of his final resting place. In the end I was able to make a successful bottle using nothing but dirt from Congo Square where he surely did some work and his signature that Louis Martine had scanned from his mortgage document at the Smithsonian. Creativity coupled with psychic ability will go a long way. ENVIRONMENTAL MATERIALS

In lesson 30, in the section on staging, I spoke about creating an environment that is conductive to the spirit to manifest within. You need to do this with a spirit bottle as well. The color of the bottle is an obvious one, as are any decorations on the outside of the bottle. If a sigil is your heart link, you can repeat this multiple times as part of the environment as well. Death imagery works well for bottles containing shades of the dead, river rocks for river spirits, sand and shells for ocean spirits, etc. If you are unsure, you should do a divination. A recent wealth bottle I made used a Stelle Artois bottle because it was Green and had four (number of jupiter) horns of plenty on the glass itself. In the center of the bottle was a stick wrapped in blue (color or jupiter) and gold thread that had been soaked in Money Drawing oil to represent the pillar of spirit transmitting the influence to earth. After considering the environment for the spirit, you may want to link this to your own environment. I use dirt for this most of the time. Dirt from my home, my bank, my job, the mountains, the beach, the graveyard, the church. The idea is that you are overlapping the mandala of the spirit (his seal, link, symbolism) with the mandala of your own life. Obviously this gives the spirit a big window into your life so make sure it is a spirit that you want to work with long term. When I do this for clients I only go so far as including a paper with their own name in their own hand. Obviously you can only go so far for people that are not sorcerers themselves. TOOLS AND WEAPONS After your environment is set, provide some tools for the spirit to use. These can be herbs and other items used in formulas for the type of magic you want the spirit to perform or they can be literal tools that help materialize the influence of the spirit. A bottle I made for someone that wanted a spirit to help him influence people for instance contained some sugar, honey, and molasses for sweetening people, some licorice sticks and calamus root for influence, some rope and hooks for drawing people in, a racoon penis bone for arousing lust, and a pair of handcuffs

for binding. Not all items need to be in the bottle. Use your intuition and artistic sensibility to decide what goes in vs on the bottle. Another bottle I made for a soldier was an Archangel Michael bottle. I attached a metal image of a flaming sword to the bottle, along with several other protective herbs inside. It may seem silly to think that a toy sized sword in a bottle will somehow help a spirit manifest its nature, but it does. Efforts made on the physical realm do amazing things to help manifest that magic physically. The client that I gave that Michael protection bottle to reported that they were fired upon at close range but that Michaels sword protected him from being touched. One traditional type of spirit house that I am aware of actually gives the spirit another spirit. Apart from the bones of the deceased person that is the main occupant of the house, there are also bones from a dog so that the dog can go and hunt the targets that the main spirit works against. Again: Intuition, psychic guidance, and creativity OFFERINGS Lastly, you want to include an offering to the spirit. Because my treatment of spirit bottles is so influenced by New Orleans magic, I almost always drape some Mardi-Gras beads on the outside of the bottle as an offering to the spirit. If you have the room to place the bottle on a small plate, you can make offerings to the spirit in the bottle as often as you like. Just keep it simple. If it is food or drink get rid of it when it get old and consider that the spirit has had their fill. If it is an item like a coin or necklace make sure you are prepared to give it up for good - it doesn't belong to you anymore. In most cases some incense or the gesture of offering will work just fine. ATTRACTING THE SPIRIT TO THE BOTTLE Last thing is getting the spirit to dwell in the bottle. This is most often done simply as an evocation of the spirit, and you asking it to take up residence in the bottle. Its that simple. It may ask for more things to be added, or for particular terms, but in the end it will or it won't. There is no one

ritual to get it in there, unless we are talking about imprisoning the spirit, which I have already said I am not getting into. What I will say is that the rite is essentially an exorcism except you are exorcising the spirit into your bottle. With a strong enough link, and a strong enough sorcerer you can even exorcise part of the spirit of a living person into a bottle. When I do get a spirit to agree to dwell in the bottle, there is a gesture that I use. This is the gesture of invocation, and ultimately I want to make a video of it because it is a moving gesture. Until I get it up there try to follow these steps: 1. Link the pinkies of both hands together with the one palm up and one palm down. 2. Twist the hands around each other without unhooking the pinkies As you do this, send out hooked lights in an appropriate color for the spirit that you are working with. 3. Eventually your hands will be switched. Keeping your pinkies hooked, hook your index fingers as well. See the lights hook the spirit and draw it into the bottle. 4. Unlink your fingers and snap them. Imagine that the spirit and the bottle have now become one. If you can master this gesture, you can do amazing things with it, from evoking spirits through gesture alone, to binding other peoples actions. I will try to get a video up soon. HOMEWORK # 7 I had to wait a long time to get the last homework out so I hope you won't mind Homework 7 coming at you so soon. I am sure you can guess by now I want you to construct a spirit house. Do not send it to me, I don't have the space. Send me a picture and a description of the materia used and why. Make sure to include the heart link, environmental material, tools, and offering.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 33: Meditation part 2 The very first lesson in this course was meditation. I stated than, and hold now, that it is the most useful thing to master and that if you only did one thing in this course, I hoped that it would be meditation. Since that lesson we have covered a lot of different topics, but I hope that meditation has remained the root of your practice. Some of you have railed hard against the idea of meditating. Even after I dispel the "I'm no good at it" argument, some of you are just not comfortable with it. Some have argued that they get into a meditative state by other means such as: Taking psychedelics, Ice skating, Running, Astral Projecting, Doing the LBRP, Talking to Angels, Using Sound and Light Machines, Self Hypnosis, Listening to relaxation tapes, Dancing, and so on. The list is endless. All of these activities are good. All of them can bring you into altered states of consciousness such as trance, ecstasy, or deep calm. Some of them can in fact produce the same state of clarity that meditation can. However, even if they can sometimes produce that state NONE of them does what a solid meditation practice does over time. NONE OF THEM. This isn't an opinion thing. It is a fact. All you need to do to verify this fact is meditate for at least 20 minutes a day for three months. Among other things Meditation produces clarity of awareness and the ability to recognize and disengage from distraction. It does this using nothing but the mind itself. You might be able to reach a state of clarity by ice skating, but what are you going to do when your boss is driving you insane? Tell him to hang on while you go ice skating? Of course not. If you can reach the state through the mind alone, than you own that state. You can learn to recall it instantly with enough time and practice. Magicians often have more difficulty with meditation than even normal people do. There are a few reasons for this: • Magicians like to do stuff. Meditation distinctly lacks the doing of stuff.

• Magicians like to see visions and get visited by spirits. Meditation instructs you to ignore those visions and politely tell the spirits and gods that show up to please STFU because you are meditating. • Magicians like altered states of consciousness. Meditation is actually all about your NORMAL STATE consciousness. Pay special attention to that last one. Meditation has NOTHING to do with reaching altered states of consciousness. It ONLY has to do with getting to know your own mind in its most normal and fundamental state. It can help you reach altered states because you know your mind so well. It can help you reach relaxed states, empathic states, or just about any other state of mind that you choose because it is NOT a type of trance or altered state thing. I am quite serious when I state in my books that I would give up every scrBap of arcana, every spell, every ritual, every energetic manipulation and astral venture for the practice of meditation. There is no energy exercise, physical action, ritual, incantation, spell, or mental effort of any kind that can replace your meditation. Period. There are some gifts of mind and spirit that other practices can offer but they are like treasures buried underneath a kings castle. By aiming at these individual effects, you can be like a thief who breaks in and makes off with some of the treasure. By meditating, you become king and do not have to move a single piece to possess it all. Now, on the upside, many of you have been meditating since lesson one. I know this because you have written me with the ways that it has changed your life and your practice. Some of you have even gotten ahead of the lessons and have begun to experience some of the more advanced gifts that meditation naturally brings. Students have reported: • Increased clarity and focus throughout their day • Ability to cut through stress, moods, and negative emotional states

• The appearance of rainbow colored spheres - which is actually your picture of reality breaking down into the five base elements • The Flaring out of central channel at the top and bottom - awareness and energy are linked, thus clarity of awareness leads to absorbing more energy, which naturally expands the channels • Ability to directly perceive multiple dimensions and probability and effect them directly with the mind. • Increased ability to hear and see spirits. • The ability to separate out spirit communications from internal chatter - a lot of you who think you already have this down probably don't. • Moments of ecstatic bliss and warmth. These are great signs of accomplishment. There are more to come if you continue, but remember that these are side effects of meditation. Do not get too caught up in them. THE 9 STAGES OF MEDITATION In general once you decide to meditate and make it part of your life, there are certain stages that you can be sure to go through. These are best defined in terms of the obstacles that they overcome. 1. Deciding to do it. This is harder than it sounds. You need to fight the urge to think that you are wasting time doing nothing: you aren't. You need to fight the urge to think that you are too sick, tired, or stressed to meditate: meditation will help all those things, not worsen them. You need to fight your schedule: even if you steal the time from sleep, 20 min of meditation will be worth losing 20 minutes of sleep. 2. Bringing the Mind Back. You are sitting, and focusing on breath. Than you forget what you are doing and find yourself thinking about something else. You gently bring yourself back to the meditation. Repeat as necessary. This is a vital stage, and if all you ever do is master this stage you will have accomplished something that is truly great and useful: the ability to tame your distracted mind.

3. Reversal of Situation. Before you were distracted most of the time, with only moments of actual meditation. Now the situation is reversed: you sit and focus most of the session with only small thought distractions. 4. Conquering Thought. At this stage you can hold your mind focused on one thing for an entire session without any distracting thoughts. Although you are no longer distracted by specific thoughts, there is still probably some agitation in the background. 5. Conquering Agitation. Now you have focused through even the background agitation. You can sit and focus, but the meditation seems dull. This phase is probably the most difficult and longest to get through. 6. Conquering Dullness. Dullness and boredom lift. Moments of bright clarity and joy are intermingled with your meditation. 7. Increasing of Bliss/Clarity: Those moments of bliss and clarity increase and you begin to recognize that this is actually the natural state of awareness for you. Be careful not to be distracted by beatific visions or the strange manifestations of power that can happen. 8. Single Pointed Clarity: The focus is almost un-necessary now. You can enter into the state quite easily. It is after all, the natural state. 9. Effortlessness. Meditation becomes as easy and as integrated as breathing. These nine stages are not necessarily permanent. You can move from one to another depending upon the level of practice and where your mind is. For instance, if you are on retreat for a few weeks you might get up to stages 8 or 9 but fall back down to stage 3-7 when you return home. Do not be discouraged. This happens to everyone, even me. FROM MEDITATION TO CONTEMPLATION There are many masters from many traditions who speak of the difference between meditation with form, and meditation without form. Single pointed Meditation with form is excellent, but to truly integrate it into our living levels of awareness we need to bridge the gap into meditation without form. Theresa of Avila used the term contemplation, to distinguish this type of clear and perfect openness from focused meditations that require specific focus. These

terms were borrowed by the Dzogchen master, and one of my root teachers, Namkhai Norbu, when he wanted to distinguish between the practice of Threkchod in Dzogchen, which he translates as contemplation and the practice of meditation in the rest of Buddhism. Since these two masters, one 500 old and Christian, the other still alive and Buddhist, are both more eloquent than I am, I will let their words speak about the difference between Meditation and Contemplation. First Theresa "Wherefore, says a holy teacher, Meditation goes its way & brings forth fruit, with labour, but Contemplation bears fruit without labour. The one seeketh, the other findeth; the one consumeth the food, the other enjoys it; the one discourseth, & maketh reflections, the other is contented with a simple gaze upon the things, for it hath in possession their love & joy. Lastly, the one is as the means, the other as the end; the one as the road & journeying along it, the other as the end of the road & of the journeying. From this is to be inferred a very common thing, which all masters of the spiritual life teach, although it is little understood of those who learn it; which is this, that, as the means cease when the end has been attained, as the voyaging is over when the port has been touched, so when, through the working out of our Meditation, we have come to the repose & sweet savour of Contemplation, we ought then to cease from that pious & laborious searching; being satisfied with the simple gaze upon, & thought of, God as though we had Him there present before us, we should rest in the enjoyment of that affection then given, whether it be of love, or of admiration, or joy, or other like sentiment." ~footnotes from "The Interior Castle" (or, aka) "The Mansions", St. Teresa of Avila 16th century When I first ran into the quote from St Theresa below, I actually sent it to Namkhai Norbu because it was so close to his writing. He was of course already familiar with it. Now a quote from him: The distinction between what is meant by the terms meditation and contemplation is an essential one in Dzogchen. The practice of Dzogchen is, properly speaking, the practice of contemplation, which consists in abiding in the

non-dual state which, of its own nature, uninterruptedly self-liberates. This state, which is not conditioned by the conceptual level of mental activity, also encompasses thought and the functioning of what we generally consider to be our ordinary minds. Thought can, and indeed does, arise in contemplation- but, in contemplation, one is not conditioned by it; since the primordial state is inherently self-liberating, by simply leaving thought alone, it liberates of itself. In contemplation, therefore, as the term is used in Dzogchen, the mind makes no effort whatsoever: there is nothing to do, or to abstain from doing. Since 'what is' is self-perfect just as it is, it is left in its own condition. What is meant by 'meditation' in the Dzogchen teachings, on the other hand, is one or other of the very many practices that involve working with the dualistic, relative mind, in order to enable one to enter the state of contemplation. These practices can include the various kinds of fixation of the gaze that are done to bring one to a state of calm, as well as the various kinds of visualization practices, and so on. So, in what is called meditation, there is something to be done with the mind, but in contemplation there is not. -Crystal and the Way of Light, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu RESTING IN CONTEMPLATION Though there are some teachers and some students who can be taught to enter into contemplation directly, this type of instruction usually needs to happen face to face, and even then is only successful when the student is ripe. When teaching a large and anonymous group, it is best to teach meditation first, which is what i did in Lesson 1. I did not weigh you down with information of what to expect at different stages because I wanted you to simply do the work and find out for yourselves. Many of you have done just that, and I am extremely proud. Those of you who have not, should try not to grasp onto these stages and simply do the work. By mastering the method of meditation you quiet the monkey mind down enough that you can transition into a contemplative practice.

If you want to try your hand at this, than adopt one of the meditation positions from lesson 1 and speak the Litany of the Mirror, which is ideal for placing the mind into a contemplative mode. If necessary use a meditation with form to quiet the mind and cut through to at least stage 7 as listed above. When you feel ready, allow yourself to leave the focused meditation and allow thoughts to rise and set in the mind without attachment. Simply be present. Be free from agitation and dullness. Allow both the moments of calm between one thought and another, and the movement of thoughts themselves to be integrated into non-dual awareness. Do not reject or follow anything. Simply relax. When you find yourself attached to a stream of thoughts, speak one word that you have chosen ahead of time. Patrul Rinpoche taught to use the syllable PHAT! Which is spoken as if you are casting it down from a mountain. The unknown author of "The Cloud of Unknowing", a Christian Mystical text, recomends the word "Love" or "Abba". I have used them all and find it doesnt matter much. Whatever word you use should be spoken out loud though. It is only then that it will have the energy to cut through your distraction effectively. Just as in meditation, there should be no judgment about distraction. The difference here is that instead of returning to a structured meditation, you will once again be relaxing the mind and opening up to vastness, clarity, and unvarnished reality as-is. Thats it for this lesson. There will be more on contemplation at the end of the course. Next week we will be starting the "Strategy Building" section of the course and applying everything we have learned thus far.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 33: The Nine Principals of Strategic Sorcery Now that we have covered all the basic skills of the Sorcerer we are moving into the part of the course dedicated to strategic application of all the magic we have learned. There will be more info on how to blend magical and mundane methods together. We will also be introducing some advanced techniques that will only be able to be mastered by those that have worked the earlier lessons. To kick this off I wanted to present the nine principals of Strategic Sorcery. Some of you have read about these on my blog, my article on Witchvox, or even Donald Michael Kraig's comments on them at the Llewellyn blog. We are dealing in this lesson with the same principals, but we will be going a bit deeper and more detailed into them. PRINCIPAL ONE: STRATEGY BEFORE SORCERY This is the most important one to keep in mind. Crappy magic says do a spell and sit back waiting for the result. This occasionally works but it would have to be something that was fairly probably anyway. If you do a spell and do nothing else but wait for someone to call with a job offer you will probably be waiting for a long time. Good magic tells you to make sure you follow up your magic with mundane work. You do the spell to get a job, than go job hunting so that the spell can work. Strategic Sorcery reverses this process and tells you to use mundane methods and magical methods alongside one another at every step. Form a clear strategy to attain your goal and use magic to support the details of that plan. In the case above where you are looking for a job, you would start by studying the current market, employment offering rate, most targeted methods of finding suitable jobs, ways to differentiate yourself in the market, areas that you could move to with better employment rates, etc. You use this knowledge to come up with a strategy for attaining your goal. When weaving a good strategy you should think in terms of macro-enchantment and micro-enchantment.

MACRO-ENCHANTMENT is a general spell or ritual that moves you towards the goal generally. Most magic users ONLY do Macro-enchantment. Summoning and Archangel or Intelligence, doing a Novena, accumulating 10,000 or even 100,000 recitations of a mantra, undergoing a specific initiation, or even performing an egoscaping retreat (which we will cover soon) are all good ways to perform a Macro-enchantment. In this case being general is a good thing. If you work with spiritual powers that you have faith in, this is a time to open yourself up to their guidance and let them open opportunities for you that you perhaps never even considered. In our example of needing to find a job all you need to do is aim at "finding employment" with maybe one or two specific clarifications. For instance, a job that offers sufficient time off to practice magic, and does not entail activities that would run counter to your spiritual values. MICRO-ENCHANTMENTS are specific spells and magical actions aimed at small details of your plan. While your Macro-enchantment might open up new doors of opportunity, you want to use Micro-enchantment to help you walk through those doors. Micro-enchantments often have a domino effect, tipping one small event in your favor that effects other events yielding a large effect from your small effort. You might make a special ink to print your resume and cover letter in. Consecrate your resume to Mercury and your Cover Letter and Thank you Cards to Venus. Create an artifical spirit to sort through jobs for you and call attention to only ones that you have a high probability of landing. Summon Armodial to help you with tough interview questions, or Sabatoleth to make sure that your resumes get seen by the right people. Push positive energy through your power points into the interviewers channels. You get the idea. Don Kraig seemed to think that by "Strategy before sorcery" I was saying that you should exhaust all mundane possibilities before using magic. Nothing could be further from what I mean. You strategy includes your sorcery from the beginning. This should be obvious by the next principal.

PRINIPAL TWO: EMERGENCY MAGIC IS BAD MAGIC Some people claim that magic should only be done to fix problems that cannot be fixed through mundane means. The problem is that by that time, it is usually also too late to do much with magic as well. Strategic Sorcery is done ahead of time and according to a plan, so that those problems don't occur, or at least get fixed before they get out of hand. The biggest problem with emergency magic is that it is much more about keeping the status quo than about actually furthering your goal. It is all too easy to stay trapped in a crap job or living situation by fixing all the emergencies that threaten to take them away. Sometimes what seems like an emergency is actually the universe opening up an opportunity that you might close with your magic. Comfort is a powerful motivator, but if we are really talking about improving our lives, it usually involves a lot of discomfort during the transition. The key is to alchemically change the emotion of discomfort into excitement - another tidbit of tech that we will cover soon enough. Unfortunately even the best laid strategies will have flaws and at some point you will find yourself using magic to fix and emergency. It is almost unavoidable. The key is to make sure that fixing emergencies is not your main occupation and to evaluate each emergency to see if there is a hidden opportunity inside it. PRINCIPAL THREE: MATERIAL NEEDS AND DESIRES ARE NOT UNSPIRITUAL Some systems focus on spiritual growth or religious worship so much that they insist that practical magic is a distraction from the real work. Others are friendlier to practical magic but treat it as a side issue only to be used to support a spiritual practice or to provide aid in dire emergencies. Strategic Sorcery poses the opposite: by focusing on the magic of finances, sex, love, health, and power you naturally get drawn into spiritual work. By having such immediate and material concerns tied to your spiritual practice, your

motivation to actually do the work is often much greater than if it is aimed only at an ephemeral goal like enlightenment or worship. Make no mistake, the Sorcerer is concerned with spiritual fulfillment and enlightenment, he just views his practical magic as the rays of this spiritual light source. If this is news to you, you haven't been paying attention throughout this course. PRINCIPAL FOUR: ALWAYS BLEND MAGICAL AND MUNDANE METHODS In the old days Wizards and Witches used not only supernatural methods as part of their craft, but all kinds of skills that were not widely known to the populace at large: herbalism, illusion, chemistry, linguistics, pharmacology and hypnosis. The modern Sorcerer does the same by learning the hidden skills of persuasion, financial prowess, alternate medicine, computer hacking, media manipulation, and so on. By fusing these so-called life hacking techniques with traditional magic, we arrive at what it really means to be a Cunning Man or Woman. John Michael Greer points out in a recent article that the Wizard spoken of in the Picatrix, which he and Christopher Warnock recently translated and which is probably the most amazing classical Grimoire of them all, was not only a conjurer but a pollymath. By "wizard" here I don’t mean your common or garden variety fortune teller or ritual practitioner; we have those in abundance today. The wizard of the early Middle Ages in Europe and the Muslim world, rather, was a freelance intellectual whose main stock in trade was good advice, though admittedly that came well frosted with incantation and prophecy as needed. He had a good working knowledge of astrology, which filled roughly the same role in medieval thought that theoretical physics does today, and an equally solid knowledge of ritual magic, but his training did not begin or end there. According to Picatrix, the compleat wizard in training needed to get a thorough education in agriculture; navigation; political science; military science; grammar, languages, and rhetoric; commerce, all the mathematics known at the time, including arithmetic, geometry, music theory, and astronomy; logic; medicine, including a good

knowledge of herbal pharmaceuticals; the natural sciences, including meteorology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology; and Aristotle’s metaphysics: in effect, the sum total of the scientific learning that had survived from the classical world. John Michael Greer, Merlin's Time, from the website "The Archdruid Report". Now, perhaps we may not have the time to develop skills in every possible discipline like some of the Renaissance men did, but we can certainly gain a core competency in a wide variety of skills that will assist our magic. Moreover, we can form groups with people that have skills that complement our own. The point is that we must not let magic be the only thing that we do differently than the heard. In the above example of finding a job, simply using a cover letter will make you stand out over 60% of applicants. Sending a thank you card after an interview is only done by 4% of applicants, so you can see how even a working knowlege of simple etiquette can be enormously helpful in magic that is meant to separate you from a crowd.

PRINCIPAL FIVE : APPROPRIATE TECH, NOT SYMBOLS Systems of magic can be broken down into symbol sets, and tech. Symbol sets are usually dependent on culture, time, tradition, and sometimes only available through initiation. Using a symbol set outside of its culture, or initiatory stream can sometimes be difficult, disrespectful, or even downright dangerous. Unfortunately this is the main way that eclecticism seems to manifest. For example I have met several people that have used a Tibetan Phurba as an Athame and claimed somehow to be doing Tibetan magic. Not only are they not doing Tibetan magic, they are actually disrespecting the power that the Phurba represents. Another example that I have given in my books is the person who used the orishas instead of the Archangels for the LBRP, placing Yemeja and Ojya next to each other in the quarters. While this made sense according to the elemental correspondences, it makes no sense in the context of Santeria where Yemeja and Oya are known to hate each other

Perhaps the saddest thing about this type of eclecticism is that it serves no purpose other than to feed the feeling of being exotic. Chogyam Trungpa used to call this "decorating the cage". Rather than using your spiritual practice to liberate yourself from the cage of ignorance, you simply decorate the bars of the cage with exotic spiritual trappings. Tech on the other hand works because it works, and thus can be looked and examined from outside of any specific tradition. In this way you can find the most effective techniques without falling into the trap of making an eclectic mess. In this course we have borrowed tech from Tibetan Buddhism, Palo, Hoodoo, Christianity, Vodou, Hindu Tantra, Hermeticism, Taoism, and several other traditions and paths. Because we are borrowing the techniques, and as much as possible leaving the symbol sets alone, it all works together well. If we were invoking Papa Legba to summon General Quan so that he could stand in the south quad of our wiccan style circle however, it would not be so smooth. PRINCIPAL SIX: BE ACHRONISTIC The Strategic Sorcerer does not value old magic because of its ancient roots, nor does he value new magic because it is supposed to be cutting edge. Value is based on whether something works and how well it works. Some things work well because of their age. There are powerful lines of transmission out there that go from person to person back hundreds or even thousands of years. There are a number of people who suspect that since the grimoires were written largely by and for Catholic clergy, the key to working them properly is the receiving of Holy Orders. I can tell you from experience that even if you have the Sadhana, you are not really working a Tantra unless you have received abhisheka for it. The baraka passed down through these lines can be a huge advantage to a magician. Rituals also have a cumulative power in and of themselves. When many people perform them over and over again they build up an energy that marks it as different than the spell you just came up with twenty minutes ago.

Old things can atrophy though. They can get weighed down in dogma and lose their relevance to the modern world. Lines of transmission can become corrupted by misuse and old instructions can get garbled as they pass through the generations. New practices also have a power. Sometimes things are more potent near their genesis than they are down the road. In the Nyingma tradition for instance, we value Terma, recently revealed treasure practices, more than we do Kama, the practices that Padmasambhava actually practices in the 8th century. While the Kama has the blessings of age, the Terma are specifically for the modern day and have a shorter and thus probably less corrupt lineage. Even if the practice is not received by some kind of spirit or avatar though, modern day human invented practices can be quite potent. I know of several spells that are based on computer functions that could never have even been considered in the past, and which are amazingly effective and applicable to modern needs in a way that older magic really has to strain for. I keep my feet firmly rooted in the ancient practices and lines of the past, but I keep my hands actively adapting, reconfiguring, and creating anew in the present. PRINCIPAL SEVEL: MAINTAIN A BALANCE BETWEEN TEMPLE MAGIC AND FIELD MAGIC Most systems do not maintain a balance between magic done in a circle or temple and magic done in the field or on the fly. Just like the interaction of Macro and Micro enchantment, the interaction of temple magic and field magic yields a greater result than any one used alone. The magic of the constructed circle and ritual is someplace that you can build up internal power, do large scale evocations and spells, and power up items for use in the field. When you perform your field magic in the workplace, nightclub, bedroom, courthouse, or street, you can bring back both material and psychic bits to do even more temple magic.

In the case of the job magic, you could be consecrating some talismans and sigils at home that you than bring with you the next day to the interview. At the interview you grab a business card and a good read of the persons psychic signature so that you can tap into them again from the temple. PRINCIPAL EIGHT: MAINTAIN A BALANCE BETWEEN THE LEVELS: In TSS and in the public articles I talk about the three levels. Those of you in the class though may want to think in terms of the seven levels: MATERIAL, ETHERIC, ASTRAL, SOUL, MENTAL, CAUSAL, PERFECTION. Lets take the example of a very powerful and nuanced talisman or spell bottle for getting that hypothetical job. MATRERIAL: We start with the proper materia: herbs, oils, fluid condensors, metals, colors, etc all in accordance with the qualities and correspondences that we work with. ETHERIC: Now build up power in the etheric body and dump it into the talisman loading the materia with tangible power. Those of you who are familar with martial arts can generate Chi with your forms and then force it into the amulet. ASTRAL: On the astral level you may want to re-shape the talisman so that it contains some extra elements like lines that extend from the talisman and "plug" into a target that is to be influenced. SOUL: On the soul level, we link the astral form to a higher process such as pure Venusian power or perhaps even psychological processes like an ecstacy response. MENTAL: On the Mental Level, we can similarly pattern the onject to constantly release a signal for whatever we want. CAUSAL AND PERFECTION: At the causal level and perfection levels we appeal to the highest spirit either through moving to that level through contemplation and consecrating it ourselves, or appealing to powers representative of that level of transcendent wisdom. A piece of magic truly linked to this will always work in accordance with the big picture and safeguard us from harming ourselves with our own shortsightedness.

PRINCIPAL NINE: KNOW THAT MAGIC DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK: Learn from what you do regardless of the outcome: Some say that magic done well always works. I agree that all magic done well has an effect - but sometimes the effect meets insurmountable obstacles such as poor magical links or overwhelming odds. One of the reasons to do multiple types of magic towards any goal is so that if one spell fails, another will work. You can often learn more from doesn’t work than you can from what does. Thats it for this week guys. Next week we will talk about the Set Point and How to Move it.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 35: The Set Point and How to Move it. In 1982 William Bennett M.D. and Joel Gurin were looking for an explanation as to why repeated dieting is unsuccessful in producing long-term change in body weight or shape. What they came up with is called Set Point Theory. According to the set-point theory, there is a control system built into every person dictating how much fat he or she should carry – a kind of thermostat for body fat. Some individuals have a high setting, others have a low one. Whatever attempts at dieting are made revolve around the gravity of this set point. Though Bennett and Gurin were speaking about a physiological process related to weight, psychologically speaking we have all have set points relating to a wide range of things. Most of us have a surprisingly firm set point regarding our station in life. We get programmed to expect certain things and no matter what we say we want, we tend to gravitate around those expectations. This field of gravity is more difficult to escape than you might think. No matter what we may want, somewhere deep in the mind is a nagging thought of what we are "supposed to have" or what we "deserve". When you realize the truth of this, and take a look at your own set points, you realize that the power of these points is immense. If we do not work directly on these set points, their gravity will keep all your sorcery circling in tight orbits around them. Let's take a look at set points in various areas and how they can both hold us back or propel us forward through life. WEALTH SET POINTS We all say that we want to be wealthy, but that is just at the most surface level of conscious thought. The non-conscious mind tends to have a lot more a sway in these matters and unfortunately, no matter what you say you want, this part of the mind usually has a different idea of what you should have. Nowhere is the action of the set point more visible than in High School. For many of us other than the occasional trip to the DMV, high school is the last place

where you are exposed day in and day out to a cross section of society. Remember the kids from rich families who lived in the house up on the hill whose parents were all doctors, lawyers, or bankers? Even if in college they thought they might like to be an artist, chances are their set point overtook them and they gravitated into being a doctor, lawyer, or banker. They accumulate assets just like their parents did and are generally progressing down the same road. Down a notch are the pretty much average middle class students from average suburban homes. Their parents were white collar with mid-level jobs or perhaps were even small business owners. Chances are that those kids make the same, or even a little less than their parents did (adjusted for inflation). The lure of comfort, and the illusion of security helped reinforce their set point. For the most part, no matter what they say they aspire to, what they actually aspire to is the same level of suburban comfort and security that their parents have. They avoid most financial risks, and thus reap no rewards thereof. If they lose a job and fall beneath the level of comfort, than they work hard to get back to it, but once they et back to the level of equilibrium, they more or less just work to keep the status quo. There are also the middle class blue collar families. These kids maybe went to vocational school and became electricians, plumbers, mechanics, etc. On one hand they will talk about the desire for wealth just as much as anyone else. On the other hand they take extreme pride in being blue collar and not to educated which can be seen as elitist. At the bottom of the barrel are kids whose parents just did not give a crap or were overtaken with problems like alcoholism, drug abuse, or simply terrible poverty. Sadly there are entire cities where this is the norm and high schools where you might never rub shoulders with any of the people that I mention in the above paragraph. Here to there is a certain pride that can manifest either positively or negatively. On the positive side, pride can reinforce the idea that no matter where you are from, there is beauty to your culture and you have the capacity to do almost anything. It can be this pride that forces you to move your set point, and fire up the determination to manifest better things for yourself and your family. This is why some parents will sacrifice and save and go to extreme measures just to

move out of a bad neighborhood. Even if they never got an education or a high paying job, they know that just being raised amongst others that have that as an expectation will be good for their kids and move their set point beyond what it would be. On the other hand pride can manifest negatively. I know kids from primarily black schools who were beaten up "talking white", and kids from poor white neighborhoods who were beaten for doing their homework and trying to "put on airs.". In this case, pride in their culture manifests as reinforcing poverty and punishing education. Of course this doesnt just exist in America. I remember being at a restaurant in Kathmandu and talking to a friend about a recent scandal with the King of Nepal. The waiter overheard us and reminded us that "We Nepalese love our king. Only the educated don't like the king." In all these cases sociological and psychological factors impact the set point and set a baseline where you will more or less feel that everything is OK financially. For most of us, if we are in debt or lose a job, we work night and day to better our situation and get back to where our set point says we should be. If however we are making the average wage for someone in our peer group, but would like to be earning 6 or 7 figures - we tend not to work all that hard at it, and leave our dreams as dreams. That is the power of the set point. If you show an investment to someone from a wealthy background, they will take a look at it and see how they might make money with it because that is what their set point tells them is possible. If you show the same investment to someone from the middle class white collar group, they will see all the ways that they might lose money with it because that is what their set point tells them to expect. This may seem obvious to some of you, but you should spend some time mapping your own set points, so that you can eventually move past them. HEALTH My parents and grandparents are all overweight. Not terribly overweight, but enough that it is not healthy. Where am I? Surprise! I am also overweight. I am

thin enough to go to the gym, run around with the kids, ride a bike for a few miles, and swim a few laps, but I carry enough extra baggage that I get winded faster than I would like, suffer from occasional acid reflux, and am putting myself at risk for heart disease and all kinds of other problems. I have been between 40 and 80 pounds overweight since I was about 23. I would like to be back to my idea weight, but my set point is comfortable being overweight, so it doesn't get prioritized. Sad but true. At the beginning of the year I started a project to lose the weight, and I lost 25 pounds pretty quickly. That put me right at the outer rim of my set points field of gravity, at which point I became complacent and yielded to temptation more, and prioritized other workings, etc, etc, etc. As soon as time allows, I will begin to move my weight set point using the same methods that I used to move my wealth set point - the same methods that I will be teaching you at the end of this lesson. LOVE Ever hear someone say "She's out of my league"? She wasn't, you just thought she was because your set point dictates what you think you can attain and what you think you can't attain. Ever see Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich? That my friends is a man who did not let his set point dictate what was possible. Of course it works both ways: a man or woman who knows that they are a 10 in the looks department may not allow themselves to date someone who isn't even though they secretly find them attractive. Other than looks though, our set point can make us think that someone is too good for us. We get into a good relationship, but we sabotage it because we are just waiting for our partner to realize that we do not deserve them. You may say you want a partner who puts you on a pedestal, yet find yourself always with controlling and abusive people. Again, there is a disconnect between what you want, and what your set point is.

SPIRITUALITY There is a story about the great Tibetan Master Milarepa being questioned by his students about his former lives. Milarepa was known to manifest many different magical powers that defied explanation. Because of his magical and spiritual attainments his students figured that he must have been someone important in a previous life. They insisted he tell them what Siddha or powerful Buddha he was in his past lives, or what Yidam or spiritual power he was an emanation of. Milarepa scolded them for not having faith in the Vajrayana, for if they did, they would realize that you did not have to be someone special from birth. Anyone who follows the path could attain Buddhahood in this very life. Milarepas students had a set point that told them that only very special people marked at birth could attain high spiritual states. Some of us have the same attitude. It is true that we are all gifted differently and that some people have natural advantages either from past lives, family lineage, special environment, and such, but these only get you so far. I know a few very important and famous Tulku's (reincarnations) who honestly are not spiritually fit to shine the shoes of other Lamas that have no special birth and were raised in American Suburbs. Everyone in this course should move their spiritual set point to "Full Enlightenment" or not even bother. STEP ONE: RELEASING THE POINT Your set point is largely the work of your past. How you were raised, your genetics, the neighborhood you grew up in, the school you went to, the friends you kept, the college you went to, the people you dated, the food you ate growing up, etc etc. At a deep level, almost every action and reaction that you have is the result of patterning which stems from this list. The work of escaping these patterns entirely and living solely according to our own naked un-patterned awareness is the work of enlightenment itself. At the moment though, we are only concerned with breaking free from negative patterns and self sabotaging actions so we can move our set points. Begin by looking back at the past, not for what you think may be the causes of your set point, but for examples of you giving in to your set point.

• The time you were going to buy that rental property but chickened out • The time you thought that girl was giving you signals but you were too afraid of being wrong to act on it • The 12 times that you bailed on a new diet These events happen to all of us. You should come up with at least 9 examples of real life regrets and make a list. Once you have your list perform the following ritual: 1. Perform a zone rite of your choice. I recommend the Adamantine Temple for this one. 2. Within that space perform the pillars and spheres exercise. 3. Use the bellows breath to increase the fire element in your body. 4. Hold your hands in front of you and emanate an single tetrahedron just as you did when you began to create the adamantine temple. Multiply the atom-sized tetrahedron into a small adamantine temple in front of you. The size is up to you, but it should not extend past the barriers of your zone. Just like the adamantine temple, anything which touches the fire razor edge of the tetrahedrons gets split apart and falls into a space of never ending splitting. 5. Enter into meditation and keep at it until you can reach a stage where you feel the "Witness" - ie: you can sense that you are not your body, emotions, thoughts, etc, yet when you look for the source of what is looking you can find nothing firm that is: only the stream of your awareness itself: which is the witness. If you want to, you can use the image of the tetrahedron in front of you as a focus of the meditation. 6. Call to mind an image of the first event on your list. You should see it clearly in the mind but because of your meditation, you should feel somewhat more distant and dispassionate about it. When you are ready, fold that image mentally into a cube and cast it into the razor fire of the tetrahedron. As you do so, say something along the lines of: I release myself from the bondage of the past.

I cast my failure and my feelings about that failure into the razor fire. In the space of spontaneous awareness not even name of obstruction exists. PHET! 7. Repeat this process for everything on your list. 8. When you are complete, you should quickly again perform the pillars and spheres ritual to re-balance the elements within the body. 9. Lastly, turn your attention upward through the central channel to the Star Center above the body, which you will remember from lesson 7 as being above the crown center and above the physical head. Sound the syllable: HUE Pronounced just like the word hue but stretched out over several seconds. Feel the energy of this center, which is connected to all stars everywhere, unlock and descend through the body, sealing the work done. This syllable is part of a system of syllables for what I call "Facets of the Flow". In this case the syllable represents the primordial flow of Spirits constant descent into matter, which is relevant here because we are filling the energetic void left by our releasing of the past. 10. Close as normal. You should perform this ritual for 9 consecutive days in a row. You may feel very free after the first performance, but that is just the beginners high. These are very difficult psychic programs to remove, and one session will never cut it. In may bring you into a mind state where you think you have got it, but it will not bring you to the next mind stage unless you have made it concrete by multiple performance followed reinforced by real life actions. STEP 2: MOVING THE POINT

We have dealt with the past, now we must deal with the present. I am not going to suggest a ritual here because once you release your past and decide to move the set point, the only thing that really moves it is a more or less all-consuming passion for attainment. You can work this into a ritual of your own design, but it is vital that that ritual only be PART of an overall working that interpenetrates all parts of your life. It has been said that we are what we think about all day, and your task here is to build a natural resonance between your current self, and the self that you wish to be. Your actions can and should include: • Role Model Study: When Nail Strauss wanted to become the worlds best pick up artist, he shut himself up in the house so that he could read the biographies of famous ladies men, watch movies of the all time greatest leading men, listen to tapes of people that had gone where he was headed, and generally consume himself in models that he could draw from. No matter what you are aiming for, there are people who do it and do it well. Consume yourself with their wisdom. • Surround yourself with those who already have their Set Points on target: In many magic traditions there are vows not to surround yourself with heretics and disbelievers. The usefulness of this has nothing to do thinking that heretics are evil, but the simple truth that who you hang out with rubs off on you. If you want to be a Buddha, it works against your goal to surround yourself with people who do not believe in Buddhism or think that spirituality is dumb. You may think its callous to find friends based upon things like money, love, attraction, etc, but the simple truth is that if you want to get rich, you should try to develop a friendship with some people who actually are rich. Not to ask them for money mind you, but just to learn some of the things they know about it, and have people to talk with. If you tell your poor friends that you are buying a rental property near the beach, they will tell you all the reasons that you will lose your shirt and how people never get rich from "schemes". If you tell your rich friends that you are buying a rental property, they will ask you about whether you are using the right tax loophole, what property manager you are using, and other things to make sure that you do not lose your shirt.

When I tell other friends that are overweight that I want to lose weight, they share all the times they tried and failed, than make sure to ask me out for a burger. My changing is actually a threat to their comfort at being overweight. When I tell healthy friends they ask questions about my diet and make sure that I am getting good advice about nutrition and overall well being. I am not saying to abandon old friends, just to find some new ones to add to the mix. It's not that your other friends are not being true - they just lack the knowledge and perspective to do anything different. • Thought Management: Go back and re-read lesson Four. Everything in it should be kicked into high gear. Spend time every morning projecting your success, every afternoon killing excuses, and every evening replaying the day in a better light. Don't forget the cutting and pasting of thought qualities. • COPY and Pasting from others thoughts: If you have the Cut and Paste technique from lesson four down where you cut and paste feelings from one thought and paste it onto another AND you have developed your sensing of energy enough that you can feel the energy patterns in other people, you can do a really neat trick and make a psychic copy of their energetic signature and paste it onto your own. They should be displaying the quality you want to project when you actually copy it, but often a memory of them doing so is enough to have an effect. There is no way for me to describe exactly how to do this. Its not a ritual, it is a subtle key. Those of you who have been meditating and working the subtle body will have no trouble working this one out. Those of you who havent probably will not understand what I am talking about. • Hypnosis: Hypnosis is a powerful tool for moving self perspective and releasing habits. I do recommend self-hypnosis, but only after an initial session with a hypnotist. I do use some hypnotic methods in my work, but since I am not myself a licensed hypnotist, I have chosen not to share them. There is plenty of material out there and I urge you to investigate it for yourselves.

STEP 3: RE-SETTING THE POINT Again, no ritual alone is going to do this. No spirit is going to make this happen. They may take you into a mind state that is helpful, but it takes your hard work to actually reach the stage that you want. Magical workings can be part of this process, but always remember: "First comes the working, than comes the work.". So what actually does the trick? Success does. You must go out and apply all the knowledge and perspective that you gained in the last step. You must go out and apply it AND FAIL. Than you must go out again and again until you succeed. There is no other way to do this. People claim that there is, but there isn't. If it is wealth, than you must apply your knowlege to get out of debt, invest, come up with a second income stream, etc. If it is health, you must get checked out by an MD, join a gym, take a martial art, change your diet, do accupuncture, learn vortex healing, do Chi Gung, etc. If it is love than you must go out there and approach people that you desire, not wait only for those who desire you. If it is spirituality, than you must do the real work. The moment that you start getting results, your set point will be re-set. You will no longer look at a job as the only way to make money. You will no longer think that you are just "supposed to be" overweight of unhealthy. You will no longer think that the hot young girl or guy is out of your league. You will no longer think that you have to be the reincarnation of an egyptian priestess or born on Halloween to attain spiritual heights. You will have released yourself from the past, learned the necessary skills, shifted the necessary perspectives, and actually succeeded in the first step of your new venture. You will not have to believe you can - you will know. NEXT WEEK: TACTICAL TIMING!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 36: Tactical Timing Next up in our discussion of strategic application is the matter of timing. When magicians think of timing their magic, they are almost always thinking in terms of astrology. This can be a touchy subject because on the one hand much of western astrological magic is based entirely around the idea of finding just the right time to do something. Other types of magic such as Hoodoo and Psionics disregard timing almost entirely. As you probably can guess I do not fall into either of these extremes. While I do take some astrological factors into account, my own concern with magical timing has much more to do with psychic tides, tactical advantage, and good old time management. Below are some guidelines that I use to plan my work. TIME OF DAY In Tibetan magic, attainments are spoken of in terms of supreme attainment towards enlightenment or mchog gi dngos-grub, or "ordinary" attainments relating to practical magic or thun-mong gi dngos-grub. Within the context of the latter, tibetans divide these lower actions into four categories known as the phrinlas bzhi. Though they can be performed at any time, there are times of the day said to be the most conductive to each of the four types: White magic or Shantika-karma (zhi-ba’i ‘phrin-las) for pacification and healing is best performed in the morning before noon. Yellow Magic or Paushtika-karma (rgyas-pa’i phrin-las) for increase is best performed around noon or when the sun is at its highest. Red Magic or Vashya-karma (dbang gi phrin-las) for enchanting or influencing others is best performed in the twilight of late afternoon and early evening Black Magic or Raudra-karma (drag-po’i phrin-las) for wrathful action against obstructions or enemies is best accomplished in the dead of night.

I have found this division of labor to be very useful in how I plan my magic. Of course there are times when it makes sense to use other times for psychic or tactical reasons. For instance: Right before a date or before going "sarging" (slang for going out to pick up members of the opposite sex) is a great time to launch some magic that increases your influence and sex appeal. If however you want to do some influencing work directly on the mind of another person sometimes it is best to wait until they are deep asleep and easily influenced psychically. 3am usually works well. Similarly if you know that a crucial business meeting is happening at 8pm your time, that might be a better moment to do your work than in the early afternoon. When we start talking field magic than the rules get even looser - situations dictate when you lay your powder, drop conversational anchors, throw up specialized shields etc. That said, if like me, there is no end to the work that you are doing for yourself and for others, the four times of day can be a useful way to structure your time on a daily basis. Even if there is not any particular goal in mind, doing a simple invocation during those four times of the day can help keep your life moving smoothly. For instance, you can use the following four invocations as sort of a Sorerers Daily Office: MORNING LITANY FOR PACIFICATION AND HEALING HRI I unite with the flow of matter ascending into azoth HUE I unite with the flow of azoths manifestation into matter HO I unite with the spiral flow of evolution towards perfection profound I set the prism of awareness into the flow, and generate a field of wellness. May it radiate inwardly the rays of vitality, youth, and well being So that my channels flow with the unobstructed wind of wellness. May it radiate outwardly rays of offering and pleasantness So that all who encounter it are pleased and at peace.

SHREE AH HMMM

AFTERNOON LITANY FOR INCREASE HRI I unite with the flow of matter ascending into azoth HUE I unite with the flow of azoths manifestation into matter HO I unite with the spiral flow of evolution towards perfection profound I set the prism of awareness into the flow, and generate a field of increase May it radiate inwardly with magnetism that draws wealth and opportunity So that my channels flow with the unobstructed wind of prosperity May it radiate outwardly with oceans of blessings and gifts So that all who encounter it are brought into good fortune IAO HMMM

TWILIGHT LITANY FOR ENCHANTMENT HRI I unite with the flow of matter ascending into azoth HUE I unite with the flow of azoths manifestation into matter HO I unite with the spiral flow of evolution towards perfection profound I set the prism of awareness into the flow, and generate a field enchantment May it radiate inwardly bestowing the glamours and influence So that my channels flow with the unobstructed winds of persuasion May it radiate outwardly with hooked lights and bindings of silk and chain So that those I desire are brought under my sway. AH EE AH HMMMM NIGHT LITANY FOR WRATH

HRI I unite with the flow of matter ascending into azoth HUE I unite with the flow of azoths manifestation into matter HO I unite with the spiral flow of evolution towards perfection profound I set the prism of awareness into the flow, and I generate a field of wrath May it radiate inwardly with power to overcome all obstacles of ignorance, anger, and delusion So that my channels flow with the unobstructed wind of sharpness May it radiate outwardly as whirlwinds of razors and consuming flames So that all obstacles and enemies are reduced to atoms and scattered accross the worlds. PROOM! PHET! HA! Notes: The three flows are an expression of the ultimate that were introduced to me very recently while on retreat in Vermont just this summer (July 2010). It has proven to be a very potent expression of the ultimate, and these lessons are the first place that I am sharing them. The sounds at the end of each litany are sounds that were spoken by Dakinis, female wisdom spirits, connected with each of the four actions. You can repeat the syllables as many times as you like either collectivly or individually. They each have their own energetic trigger. As with anything in the course that arises from my own spiritual contact, it will not be required for homework. Students are free to use these, invent their own, or skip such litanies as their own intuition guides them. They have proven exceptionally potent for me. PLANETS AND MOON PHASES In earlier lessons I had provided various systems for figuring out which times to work with which planets. The system of planetary days and hours is one method. I personally prefer to simply wait for the planet to be above the horizon, and if

possible overhead. Those that have spent a lot of time working with the planetary hour and day system however are deeply steeped in its egregore - so if you suddenly decide to switch systems, do not be surprised if you have a little trouble at first, the egregores of various methods are quite real and it is not that easy to step into a different paradigm if you have been deeply involved with one over time. This is yet another reason I stress the importance of qualities vs correspondence. Apart from the movements of the planets, I also try my best to observe the moons phase, working on building things in the waxing days and repelling or diminishing things in the waning days. The moon is of course not a real planet but a satalite, as such it is a collector of light and rays not only of the other planets, but of other stars as well. Its gravity is particularly weighty on all matters. That said, when you need to get something done now, it is not worth waiting for the moon to be right - it is still only one factor amongst many. ECLIPSES Another way that the sun and moon factor into my timing is eclipses. This is again something I picked up in my training as a Ngakpa and which I apply to all kinds of magic. The idea is that positive and negative actions are multiplied during an eclipse - 1000 for a lunar and 10000 for a solar according to Tibetan Astrology. The reason for this is that when the eclipse happens, the influence of that planet is blocked and creates a vacuum which allows your own influence to have greater sway. Not only are your actions more powerful at this time, but they are more needed by the world because the eclipse is seen as moment of ill-omen leaving a gate open for negative influence. According to Tibetan Shamen, the eclipse is caused by Rahulas, demonic planets, temporarily devouring the sun or moon so that they gain more power. I try to use eclipses to plant the seeds of long term work. This could be something like power raising and initiatory work or it could be the start of a long term wealth building plan involving the acquisition of assets and planning for retirement.

RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS Apart from the above, if you work within a religion chances are that there is a calandar that you can exploit for figuring proper timing. In the Christian Church for instance we have numerous feast days and seasons that lend themselves well to different workings. I for instance always do a yearly empowerment and house blessing on July 6th - the feast of the Epiphany when the Magi are said to have visited Christ commemorating the moment that Grace was extended to all people everywhere. In the Tibetan Lunar Calendar there are Guru Days, Protector Days, Dakini Days and such every month, as well as days that certain spirits do not like to be contacted other than to receive basic offerings. The neo-Pagan calendar of course offers its system of Sabbats and Esbats, which has also served me well over the years. Traditional Pagan calendars will offer feast dates for particular deities that will be delighted you remembered them. I don't want to get too deep into the religious calendar because everyone practices it in their own way. I only mention it as a convenient way to arrange your year and month. SECULAR HOLIDAYS Just because there is no overwhelming religious or spiritual origin of a holiday does not mean that it doesnt carry a certain weight. Many people for instance go to great lengths to find what they consider their spiritual new year such as Halloween or Chinese New Year. I personally consider New Years day to be my new year. I used to think that this was a great holiday to start new things, but I have found after much experimenting that efforts began on New Years day tend to be short lived. You are piggy backing your effort onto everyone else declaring resolutions for renewal which is great, but being so linked you also suffer the psychic drag of everyone who fails, which as it turns out is almost everyone. Memorial Day is a great day to work with the shades of soldiers who may be allies. Labor day is a great day to make a spiritual retreat. Etc. Any event that lots

of people acknowledge has a huge psychic weight that can easily be as powerful as what Saturn happens to be doing at that moment. TACTICAL ADVANTAGE If you are working magic on a target, you should be extra observant and look for a time that your work will have the most effect. If you are trying to bless someone or bolster their health, frequently if you can schedule a healing session at a time that you know they will be feeling their best, or at least in a good mood, this will be a big boost. This also works for influencing. It may be the day and hour of venus, but if your boss had a fight with his wife last night and had to sleep on the couch, your request for a raise is not going to fall on very sympathetic ears, whereas even if it is the day and hour of mars, if his secretary just gave him a hummer than chances are he may be VERY happy and likely to grant any request. Similarly if you are trying to bind someone, figuring out when they are at their worst is a great time to do it. I have always found that Mondays and Tuesdays at about 3pm are a great time to do some binding on someone that your work with, assuming that you work a normal 9-5 mon-Fri schedule. TIME MANAGEMENT The last thing I want to talk about in this lesson has nothing to do with special timing of spells, but with how you even find the time to fit significant practice in your life. If you are a successful and fully actualized human being, than chances are you are busy even without all this Sorcery! If you have been giving your all at work, and playing with your kids, and giving quality time to your spouse, it can be difficult to schedule in regular time for meditation, offerings, energy work and rituals. I feel for you and want to share some methods that I use. First thing you need to get under control is your meditation and your offering. If you feel a time crunch for this, than there is really only one solution: steal the

time from sleep. 20-30 minutes of meditation and offering will do more for you than 20-30 minutes of sleep. Now, people that I tell this to, often moan and say they do not get enough sleep as it is. If that's the case than steal the time for sleep from entertainment. Shut off the TV and the computer and get a go to bed at a reasonable hour. When you get serious about magic you will need to take a hard look at your entertainment schedule anyway. We all consume media and entertainment, and we all produce output in the things that we love. The question that you need to ask yourself is: are you primarily a producer or consumer? Chances are if you are taking this course you want to be primarily a producer. You want secondary income streams, powerful spiritual experiences, artistic expressions, and of course meaningful relations with lovers and family. This is all produced by you and needs to be counter balanced with what is consumed by you. If you are watching TV together with the family, than great you are doing both. If your family is all in separate rooms watching their own shows than you are just consuming. I love TV and Youtube and even e-mail discussions, but if you are letting business opportunities and serious magical practice pass you by because you are spending 3 hours watching netflix and youtube every day than what do you really value? Unfortunately I do not have space here for a full treatment of time management techniques. I strongly recommend picking up a book on it and making a study. "Getting things done" by David Allen and "The Four Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferris have both been instrumental in helping me pack my life full. THE PARETO PRINCIPAL The last bit of advice I need to pass on regarding Time Management also applies to Sorcery itself. In fact it applies to almost anything. It is called the Pareto Principal also called the 80/20 rule. Basically it states that 80% of effect of something is generated by 20% of a cause.

This was established by an economist (Pareto in case you couldn't figure that out) as a rule of business: 80% of profits tend to be generated by 20% of customers. 80% of problems tend to be generated by 20% of customers. Thus if you can identify and handle the appropriate 20% accordingly you will increase effectiveness. The rule holds true elsewhere - almost eerie in its universality. 20% of almost any languages vocabulary will allow you to handle 80% of conversations. 20% of the seeds planted in a garden will generate about 80% of the plants that grow. 80% of Crimes tend to be committed by 20% of criminals. 80% of Health Care resources are eaten up by 20% of the population. Chances are the 20% of this very course are going to generate 80% of your success. If you know where to look for that 20% you can increase profits, reduce hassle, and establish skill competency way faster than if you don't. It was the 80/20 rule that led me to realize that phone consultations were about 20 percent of my business but about 80% of my hassle. I don't do them anymore. Look for the important 20%. That's all for this week.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 37: Will The next several lessons will all be strategies for specific goals, building upon the ones already presented in part 2 of TSS. I was going to start that tonight but I realized that there is one essential strategic element that I have yet to cover: Will Here is the deal: We are all fucking robots. Thats right. Robots. You, me, everyone you know. 99.9% of the time, we simply carry out the mechanistic patterns that have been ingrained in us by genes and experience. Someone says something nice, we like them. Someone says something mean, we get angry. Etc. Press button, get response. If you have been meditating regularly, you have had your own mechanistic patterns revealed to you by now, as well as some insight into the patterns of others. As long as most of what you say think and do is ruled by cause and effect patterns you are a Robot. Though it is certainly possible to do practical magic as a robot, I am hoping that serious students of this course aspire to be something more: Human. Mystically speaking the Human is someone who is in possession of two things: knowledge of their true will, and willpower to take action. TRUE WILL True Will is essentially the will of your innermost self, god, the universe, etc. In western magic this is often expressed by the word Thelema.. There has been a LOT written about will in relation to magic. Aleister Crowley of course famously began what is now a small religion called Thelema. Many magicians, including Franz Bardon, William Gray, and Gergor Gregorius, have come after him and offered several variations of his Law: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, Love under Will." Even those that don't get into the Thelemic spin on things often define magic as "Change according to Will" or some variant thereof.

Now, despite what some people think, this word has a much older usage than Crowley. I myself view Crowley as only one person in a lineage of Thelemic thinkers and magicians and it is worth looking at how this idea plays out in various situations. In the Lords Prayer, we hear "Genetho Tou Thelema Sou", or "Thy Will Be Done". Theistically minded magicians have, right up unto the present, ended rituals prayers and spells with a statement along the lines of "as long as it does not conflict with your will o lord." Some modern mages see this as groveling, but really it is not. It is an acknowledgement that most of what you say think and do is confused and based on attachments and aversions that are not healthy. If you acknowledge the aspect of azoth that manifests as Being or God, than it makes perfect sense to say: "this is what I want, but what the will of the universe is, is more important, so if it is counter to that, than never mind". After all, your own true innermost will, will not run counter to the universal flow. When I do work with the Sangreal Sodality we still do something like this and I do not feel like I am groveling at all. While it is not groveling, it does reinforce a view of reality where you are relying upon a force outside yourself for guidance rather than seeking the direct knowledge of true will yourself. In modern Thelemic circles the emphasis is on finding your own true will rather than simply asking God to keep you from running counter to it. This I think is a good thing. Crowley of course borrowed the Law of Thelema from Francois Rabelais, who wrote in his book Gargantua and Pantagruel about an Abbey of Thelema where men were free to pursue their Will. More than simply the injunction to find ones true will, Rabelais was writing about the freedom necessary to accomplish that work: "All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a mind to it and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do

any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule and strictest tie of their order there was but this one clause to be observed, Do What Thou Wilt; because men that are free, well-born, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spur that prompteth them unto virtuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. " One of the points here that modern Thelemites sometimes loose sight of is the line "men that are free, well born, well bred, and conversant in honest companies". In today's terms we can think of this as people that are intelligent, respectful, and polite. In other words, it is all well and good to say that the only rule should be to do what you will, but until everyone in the world can say they possess their true will, or at least conduct themselves in smart, respectful, and polite manner, we will still need laws and rules to make society run. Of course Rabelais was inspired to write about Thelema by a Dominican Monk names Francisco Collonna and his mysterious book: The Hypnerotomachia Polifili (The Strife of Love in a Dream). In this work the hero Polifio, is taken guided by 2 nymphs named Logistica (Intellect) and Thelemia (Will). They guide him to three doors symbolizing the three love paths to mystical truth: Theodoxia or the love of god, Cosmodoxia or the love of the world, and Erotodoxia - erotic love. Logistica, representing his intellect, urges him to either of the first two doors, but Thelemia, representing his true will urges him towards the door of erotic love. When he chooses this door, Logistica leaves him enraged. This story not only shows the importance of True Will as something beyond our limited intellect, but also points to the path of sex magic and the skillful use of sensation to achieve the knowledge of truth and union with all. We will revisit this story again when we cover sex magic towards the end of the course. I hope you forgive this little dalliance into history, but as modern sorcerers whether you have a leaning towards Crowleys Thelema or not, it is important to have a concept of what the term True Will indicates and a bit of history of how the idea has evolved. In the lessons on spiritual authority, most of

the methods work by placing you in, or at least linking yourself momentarily to, your true will. If you act in accordance with your true will nothing can stand in your way. Some people treat the idea of their true will as if it was a specific thing that could be easily named. For instance someone might say "it is my true will to be a doctor". That may be true, but there is more to it than that. True will is a state acting in harmony with the flow of the universe, not a simple thing you can place your finger on. I have been a member of several Thelemic groups and spent a good deal of time thinking about the true will. In the end, the true will is best revealed by dwelling in un-fabricated awareness. The best way that I know to discover and dwell within your true will is of course to Meditate. WILLPOWER Ok, now if I lost you a bit on the last section it is time to listen up again because what is actually more important than true will is WILLPOWER. You can be a Sorcerer and never find your true will. Most Sorcerers don't in fact. You will simply be a robot who uses magic to accomplish all the mechanized desires and aversions that you are programmed with. Sometimes freedom means the freedom not to worry about that kind of mystical journey in this lifetime. That's ok by me if it's ok by you. Be a Robot if you want to. Or don't even that you are a Robot - that's pretty much what a robot would do. Willpower on the other hand is not an option. Unlike true will it is not found, it is cultivated. If you do not cultivate your willpower you will FAIL in your strategies. Your individual pieces of magic may probably still work to some extent, but your overall strategies for change will fail. The reason for this is that any strategy for change involves a change of habits on your part and habits are hard to change. If you want to get out of debt, you can do all kinds of money drawing magic and all kinds of bindings on your debtors. In the end though if you cannot resist buying the newest Blueray release, drinking a Starbucks Latte, and buying every new occult title at the local bookstore you will

fail to get out of debt. Willpower is the ability to make yourself do things that you know you should, in the moment that you least want to. I will state it again. Willpower is the ability to make yourself do things that you know you should, in the moment that you least want to This morning I knew what I should eat to be healthy and act according to my best interests and true will. At lunchtime every ounce of brain matter was screaming for a Bacon Cheese Burger. Today the willpower won. Tomorrow, who knows. Think that sucks? It's worse than that: There is no spell or ritual for cultivating willpower. None. Make no mistake, there are things that help: • If you meditate or can rest in the contemplative state knowing your true will, than willpower can be easier to cultivate. • If you use the thought management tech, willpower will be easier to cultivate. • If you do daily offerings and devotions willpower will be easier to cultivate. The thing is though that willpower is exercised in the moment of weakness, not on the meditation cushion, temple, or altar. Even if you know how to do these things instantly and without any external sign like I do - the moment of weakness makes you forget or not want to use them! In the end it is sheer willpower that must be exercised in order to even reach for these tools! Some claim that there are spells or spirits that will develop willpower for you, but I urge you to go ahead and test them. There are initiations that humans and spirits can give you that will temporarily bolster your willpower. There are also motivational materials you can read, classes you can take, and shows you can watch to help get fire up the will. On New years day everyone dusts off their willpower and uses the psychic force of that day as a catalyst for their new habit. The problem is that these are all temporary -

a catalyst to your efforts - but soon the glow wears off and the piss and vinegar you worked up in yourself runs out and you find yourself the same lazy bum that is still a slave to his old habits. Some people claim that everything is a matter of simple choice. One Guru that I met suggested to a student that obviously they loved smoking more than living longer because they still smoked. The same would probably apply to me. I must love junk food more than being thin because obviously I still choose to eat it. Sounds like common sense right? The thing to remember about common sense is that it made people think that the world was flat. Common sense not always correct. Changing habits is not just a matter of simple choice. The more you do something, the more your brain accommodates and craves it. If you eat a lot of fatty greasy foods like me, your brain develops neural connections to support those habits. Soon those connections get stronger and deeper and make you crave more of the same. Meanwhile the ones that don’t get used, the connections that deal with you eating healthier foods, shrivel up and disappear because they don’t get used. When you try to stop using the well worn pathways and start carving out new neural connections it hurts. Just as sure as muscles burning on a weight lifter, you must endure the pain. This is largely a problem with your brain. Your brain has four sections, listed in terms of age and power these are: • Brain Stem: oldest and 1st developed part of the brain that controls breathing and unconscious functions. \ • Reptilian Brain or Limbic System: Primal functions of anger, revenge, fear, sex, etc. • Cerebellum: Coordination and Motor control • Cerebrum: Newest and last developed part of the brain which controls all Sophisticated functions including those focused on noble, altruistic, and long term goals. The problem comes in that the older parts of the brain have veto power over the newer parts of the brain. It is you Cerebrum that develops the aspiration for

enlightenment, good health, prosperity, and equanimity. It is your Reptilian brain that wants immediate gratification, and to flee from possible failure. More often than not our Strategies involve aspirations of the cerebrum that need to over-ride the mechanisms of the reptilian brain. The brain is not set up this way. Evolution was more concerned with survival than nobility and set the reptilian brain up to over-ride the cerebrum. The Sorcerer must train his brain to work according to his will. This is willpower. The reptilian brain fears failure: When you are so afraid of public speaking that your body rails against it this is the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain loves comfort: When you sabotage your interview at the last moment, this the reptilian brain fighting against the unknown factor of a new job. The reptilian brain like instant gratification: When you buy the new Movie on DVD the day it is released rather than wait 3 weeks when you can get it for 13 bucks, this is the reptile brain.

The reptilian brains only values what is here and now: When you do not make an investment in education because you don't want to lack the money now, even though you know it will pay itself back 100 fold, that is the reptilian brain. Sometimes you can use the reptilian brain against itself. For instance, the only reason that I can complete a book is that I manage to sell them to a publisher first and get paid an advance. In this case the reptilian fear of being sued by the publisher is stronger than the reptilian brains need to avoid the massive amount of work it takes to write a book as well as the fear of the book failing. Most of the time though you need to just cultivate the willpower and use my secret mantra: Suck it Up Bitch THE PAIN PERIOD Now that we have the bad news, here is the good news. The brain is very adaptable. Everytime you do something you develop new neurotransmitters that

are dedicated to that task. Everytime you avoid something, you lose those neurotransmitters. Its called Neuroplasticity. What this essentially means is that the more you do something, the easier it will get. In fact, if you are dilligent about something, you can reach a point where a pattern is easy to repeat pretty quickly. The problem is the period of time before that, known as The Pain Period. Here is a quote about the pain period that I love: “The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That's what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they'll go through the pain no matter what happens.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger While some may be surprised to see a quote from the Governator in a class about Sorcery there is a simple spiritual truth that he expresses quite well in the quote above: whenever you are adopting a new habit there will be a period of pain that you need to suffer through. If you suffer through the pain, you win. If you don’t you lose. Simply trying isn’t good enough. I could have chosen a quote from a Lama or Saint that says something similar, but I chose Schwartzenegger to illustrate how universal and far reaching this principle is, and how bluntly we need to deal with it. Whether you are lifting weights, changing your diet, learning to pick up chicks, getting through med school, writing a book, or taking just trying to fit the exercises from this class into your life, there is a period of pain that you must suffer through as your body and mind adjust to the new habit. Excercises like the ones I listed above help, but in the end you must do suffer through the pain period. In other words: Suck it up bitch! This is the point where you just have to buckle down, not give in and simply WILL your way through it.

There is another quote that I really like about the Pain period. It also makes a good mantra for suffering. It’s a piece of propaganda from the Unites States Marines: PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY I love that. The next time you are suffering the pain from trying to instill a new habit say it to yourself. It doesn’t make the pain go away, in fact it puts it front and center. Rather than letting it creep around the edges of your mind making justifications as to why it’s ok to give in just this once, it shoves the spotlight on the pain and provides a role for that pain: it is the sign of your progress. Whether you are learning to run 15 miles a day or sit in meditation for 30 minutes in the morning, the more you do it, the better you get. The same neural connections that make the bad habit hard to give up make the new one easier to maintain the more you persist at it. Just get through the pain period and cultivate your willpower. Thats it for this week. I could have attached some additional spells or tricks, but that would have defeated the point. To much of that stuff gives the impression that all you need is the right tools and everything is smooth. All to often we have plenty of tools, we just lack the tenacity and will to use them. HOMEWORK:

Pick one habit that you want to change and do it. Move your set point, cultivate your will, and use any and all tricks and spells that you wish. You must actually succeed in changing the habit and have it stick for 3 weeks for this assignment to be complete. It could be anything from stopping smoking, quitting caffeine, limiting spending to a set amount, whatever. Just do it, and write me a report of what it was and how you did.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 38: Intelligence Gathering For the next several lessons we will be revisiting and expanding upon the strategies for specific goals that were presented in The Sorcerers Secrets starting with Intelligence Gathering. Before you read this lesson you should go to page 71 in TSS and re-read that chapter. If you are anything like me you have gotten or performed many readings throughout your life that have come true. These always seem amazing in retrospect, but somewhat vague when the reading is first done. It is rare that you actually have enough confidence in a reading that you will make drastic life changes, or even slight changes to a daily plan. The essential points that I wanted to make in the chapter are that as always you should blend information obtained through mundane methods (conversation, asking questions, eavesdropping, espionage, etc) with different categories of divination types (Sortilage, Augury, Direct Vision, ect). By doing so you can turn the pure data that is yielded by a reading into actionable intelligence. There are really only two times that you do not want to mix divination and mundane information sources. The first is if you are being paid for a reading. In that case, relying upon non-magical methods is dishonest because your client is paying for a psychic reading. The other reason is if you are one of the rare people in this world that has the gift of true prophesy. This is an ability beyond mere divination. I am talking about the ability to see the future so clearly that you can give names and dates with pinpoint accuracy. If you are one of these people, than the weight of such readings will outweigh even mundane information to the contrary. Unfortunately almost no one is really born with this talent, and it takes years and years of single focused retreat work to cultivate it. You would be lucky to even meet such a person in this life, much less be one. THE ROLE OF DIVINATION IN STRATEGIC SORCERY

Now, I am going to let you in on a little secret of mine. Something I hinted at in the book, but did not spell outright. The truth of the matter is that I use divination WAY less than I indicated in the book. To be fair I was trying to present a good strategy for intelligence gathering, not simply get people to do things like I do. What I present in the way of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly divinations however is nothing like my own practice. I myself find untargeted divination to be pretty useless unless it comes in the form of visions, omens, or the like. That said, when I have very specific questions, especially about a magical undertaking, I almost always do some kind of divination - usually more than one kind just as I indicate in TSS. PROBABILITY ASSESSMENT One of the most important things to get a handle on with Strategic Sorcery is figuring out probability. One of the reasons that winning millions in the lottery is a bad strategy is that even with magic it is so improbable. The average probability of hitting the big jackpot is about one in 18 million. Even if you cut it in half, that is still one in 9 million. On the other hand, if we only use magic on things that have a better than even chance of occurring on their own, what is the point of magic at all? Clearly the Sorcerer must seek a balance between the two. By using divination methods and skillfully phrasing our questions, we can ascertain what events are too improbable to bother with, which ones will not need any magic, and which will take some work but are within the realm of possibility. For instance, rather than asking the "Should I do X" question that most people ask, you might want to ask "what would occur if I do X" or "is X within the realm of naturally occurring possibility?" If not, than ask "What would happen if I did Y to influence the probability of X occurring?" - All this is a lot better than asking "Should I do X". The "Should I" places an unfair burden on the reader and the method of reading. I myself will not do a reading for someone asking a "Should I" question. If you are reading for yourself, you need to ask who you are asking advice of? The spirit of

Mercury? God? A pack of cards? When you start letting a pack of cards dictate what you should and should not do, you are WAY off the path of Strategic Sorcery! If its God than fine, but even then I consider Divination to be a shaky method of communication. I once met a published and famous occultist who suggested that people form their moral and ethical decisions based on card readings, assuming that it is the Gods that are speaking. That thought scares the crap out of me. If it is the Gods or even the higher self that is guiding the divination, than I recommend strongly that you make direct contact through meditation and invocation for the "should I" questions. Divinations are a lower but more accessible type of intelligence and work best with the "what would occur if..." type of question. TEMPORAL SLING SHOT TECHNIQUE When contemplating a particularly vexing question that requires a good and direct vision of several probable futures all at once, I use a method I call the Temporal Slingshot. I should note that I have never written of this technique, and of the five people I have taught it to, only two have gotten it to work for them. It may be a highly personal technique, but it is useful enough for me to share here. Before settling down to do this technique, you need to prepare a mental slideshow of your life. Simply pick two or three events from every year that you were alive and take a mental snapshot of those events. You should do this for every year extending back to when you were five or six. Make sure that you have these snapshots crystalized in the mind and are able to easily recall them in order. Begin with a short prayer or invocation of a Time related Spirit or Diety and ask them to allow you to move freely through the dimension of time. I have used Cronos for this as well as Zurvan (Persian Time God), and more recently I have performed the technique with Datholia from the SS Mini Grimoire. All of them have worked so feel free to use whichever being you like. The trick is to get them to distrub the flow of time around you.

Next perform the Rending of Space from the TSS pg 42. When you are finished see if you can psychically feel for the flow of time, and mentally rend that as well. I wish there was a more firm description I could give of this, but there really isn't. You just have to be able to feel it. Whether you can rend time or not, rending space is still important for this technique. After these preliminaries, Sit in the Dragon Pose. This is the post that Japanese Samurai meditate in. Place your legs together and sit on your feet so that your feet, shins, and knees are on the ground. You bottom should rest on your heels and your back should be straight. You can hold the hands in your lap in any position that is comfortable. This posture naturally excites the occular centers and gathers energy in the two physical eyes as well as the third eye. You can use small pillows to make this position more comfortable. If you still cannot hold the pose, you can try your normal position. Take a few deep breaths and clear the mind. When you are sufficiently focused, call up the most recent mental snapshot and feel yourself in that position. Than the next and the next. Do not spend more than a few moments on each moment. Keep going until you get to the earliest snapshot where you are about 5 ot 6 years old. If the technique is working, you will feel a tension build the farther back you go. When your mind is as far back as you can go, release your mind command it to move into the present and beyond. You do not need to specifically focus on each snapshot again, simply let it go. Unlike meditation you should not force the mind into anything at all. Simply look ahead. When I do this method I get a pretty solid vision of some snapshots from the future. Even better when I mentally peer to the left and right I can see alternate possibilities fanning out. The very probable ones are close to the center, the less probable ones fall away into the grayish dark at the edges. The further I try to see into the future the more varied the possibilities. I have built other techniques upon this one that I am currently experimenting with that insert these images of possible futures into the glyph of Metatrons Cube

to actually steer yourself from one probable outcome to another. The details of the technique are even harder to grasp than the method above though, so for now, play with the slingshot. If you get really good at it write me with the header SLINGSHOT and ask for more. THE STRATEGIC SORCERY QUICK DIVINATION SYSTEM The following method of divination is one that I have recently had very good results from and which is just as easy and down to earth as the slingshot method is subtle and hard to grasp. This system is based on one of the Tibetan systems of MO that use dice. Specifically a text known as Mo-rtsis and attributed to Shanti-deva. When I wrote TSS and was looking for a good system of fast divination to compliment card readings with I was guided back to this text. With guidance from Tiriel, the intelligence of Mercury, I streamlined and updated the system for this course and have been using it with great effect. All you need are three Blank Tetrahedron Dice, which you can purchase through specialty gaming stores or make yourself. Inscribe or paint symbols of the four elements on the dice. These can be the traditional triangle designs, but I use the specialized seals that are attached to this lesson. You can consecrate the dice in a ritual of your own making, using the guidelines in the lesson on tools. Perform a short invocation such as: I Invoke IAO to empower these dice, that they may reveal true answers about the three times. I than repeat the word IAO over and over as a mantra, letting the power of the mantra accumulate in the mouth, than blow the power onto the dice. I ask my question and toss them. I than turn the dice over so that the side that hit the table or ground, is now facing me. You can either throw the dice one at a time so you have a clear order

or you can simply take them from right to left, which is what I usually do. It doesnt really matter, only that you pick one method and remain consistent. Once you have the three elemental symbols, you can refer to the following for interpretation. FFF: You shall overcome all adversity. Your power is strong. Listen to the council of friends FFE

No Chance of Success. Too Many Obstacles.

FFW Something will occur that will cause you problems, but if you remain calm and do not panic, you will prevail, though not as fast as you hoped FFA

Your past actions have come to nothing and you are frustrated. Disregard these efforts and be open to an unforeseen occurrence will assist you and lead you to victory.

FEF

The present moment calls for action. Do not delay. Act immediately

FEE

Act boldly and without fear.

FEW Be aware of old enemies and heed what they say. Forgive them and move forward boldly. FEA

Many problems but you will eventually succeed after a long period.

FWF Do not worry so much about it. It will come to pass. Give thanks for what you already have to reinforce this outcome. FWE This is ill-conceived. Hold off until another person gets involved. Then it will be time to act. FWW Be Patient there will be many delays. FWA There will be no success. Friends are becoming adversaries. FAF

This will not be easy. Rely on friends to add chances of success.

FAE

Abandon this immediately. It will cause you harm

FAW You are close to success but getting confused. Meditate and take good council. FAA 50/50 chance. EEE

This matter will be accomplished, as will future matters that derive from it. Many blessings are upon you at the moment.

EEF

Keep your plans secret, you have an enemy.

EEW There is no hope and it will be difficult even to let the matter drop. EEA

Difficult, but in time the matter will yield material wealth.

EFF

Almost done. Pay attention to details. Someone working against you will fail, so take heart.

EFE

The matter is too improbable to manifest. Re examine it. If you continue not only will you fail, but it will cause much harm to you in other ways.

EFW Swift results. Listen to advice. EFA

Heed your intuition

EWF Do not be alarmed, you will succeed if you remain calm. EWE Finish up and relax. EWW You will prevail without any effort and even make unexpected gains. EWA Listen to others advice, but do not react or share your future plan. Conceal your inner thoughts. EAF

You are uncertain. Focus on noble pursuits and strive hard. You will succeed.

EAE

You want to travel somewhere. Go and all will be made clear.

EAW Act with kindness. Know you have an adversary, but pay him no mind. Fate is on your side.

EAA Inauspicious. Abandon the matter as soon as you can. WWW If you are benefiting others, the matter will succeed WWF You will succeed but only after great difficulty. Be sure that it is really worth the time. WWE Too much discussion and many obstacles. Treat enemies as if they have always been allies - this is the route to success WWA Draw on your ingenuity. You will need to be clever to succeed. WFF

You will eventually be successful, but not now. Come back to it later.

WFE

Do not worry about minor details, but do not move on to other matters either. Stay focused and you will prevail

WFW The matter will be accomplished although it will take longer than you wanted and you will be weary by the end. WFA Travel to another place and look for something small to help you along. Details are important WEF You need a short rest. After which, if you need to go into matters that are distressing than you should. WEE You can succeed with great effort, but there will be many hinderences. If you wait and listen for the right time, a better time will appear. WEW You have already succeeded for the most part. If you have enemies, than you can act against them, but they will only be a minor problem anyway. WEA Go on a journey. Fortune is with you WAF Give it up. Every effort will only yield further harm. WAE Do as you feel WAW You are of two mind. Pick one now. Do NOT rely upon the council of friends at this time.

WAA No Chance. Do something else. AAA Matter is easily achieved. AAF There are false signs of success. Think first than act. AAE Invoke noble and altruistic forces and you will succeed. AAW You will not attain what you think, but you will attain something else that you desire. AFF

You are worried that you have gone astray. Go back to spiritual sources and meditate on the matter

AFE

Others will not act as you hope. Keep an eye out for good news that is coming.

AFW This is a difficult matter but one of your associates is looking out for you AFA This matter will end up favoring others and not yourself. Do not continue trying AEF

Invoke and place trust in your spiritual contacts. Otherwise you will go astray

AEE

You have a false friend acting as a rival. Pay attention and you can succeed.

AEW You will not succeed immediately. Try again in a few months. AEA Take your time. Things will happen but not necessarily as you want them. Go with the flow and you will come out on top. AEF

This will take a long time and be uncomfortable as it unfolds.

AWE You cannot succeed in this matter. There are however other matters you can succeed in that need your attention AWW This will tire you out and take a long time. There is someone blocking your efforts. You will be effortlessly successful at a later date

AWA You are in a bad situation of your own making. Time alone can help.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 39: INFORMATION SORCERY In The Sorcerers Secrets I suggested a three layer model of magic which is suitable for most purposes. Level 3 is the dense material world, leve2 is the astral world of spirits and energies, level 1 is the subtle realms of archetypal forms, divine essence, and transpersonal realizations. In lesson 2 of this course I broke this it down further and presented a system of seven bodies or levels. So far we have really only touched on the magic related to the first 4 of those levels: the material, etheric, astral, and soul levels. Of course no matter how you divide up the dimension of manifestation that runs from the dens to subtle, you can always divide it up further if it suits your sorcery. There are no real levels, it is a seamless transition and you can paint the lines to divide it up 3, 7, 100, or 100,000 times. When dealing with very detailed material magic it can be helpful to think about the difference between: inorganic, organic, ecto-organic, and etheric levels. Each of these works slightly differently in practical magic. The Astral planes of course can be divided multiple times as well to reflect the different levels of subtlety that exist between the etheric and mental levels. I want to stress here two points that I think are important: understanding the role of different levels is one of the main keys to understanding the Strategic Sorcery Approach. As I mentioned in TSS most established systems touch on one or more of these levels but tend not to think much about the levels that they do not focus on. The Strategic Sorcerer is constantly examining his or her own techniques and results to find ways to make their work more effective and potent. Seeing what levels you might not be integrating into your strategies is often a key to this kind of improvement. THE MENTAL LEVELS

In this lesson it is the Mental level that we are primarily concerned with, and it is that level that we need to look at more closely. Just as behind the physical levels, the astral levels contain the energetic forms of your own subtle bodies, the bodies of spirits, and various manifestations of all the subtle types of energy that a Sorcerer may use, the mental levels contains is the patterns that are behind the energies of the astral levels. Within the overall heading of the Mental Level are what I call the Information Level, the intuitive level, and the transpersonal level. The information level contains what might be called the “code of creation”. It is the DNA of everything. Unlike the astral levels, the information level is non-local. There is no space to be navigated, only pure information. Behind the information level is the intuitive level is pure knowing. Here the information is not only outside of space and time, but is trans-rational; beyond the ability for words and signs to express Behind this is the transpersonal level, which is similar to the intuitive except that we begin to cross over into things that are very removed from any possible expression in terms of an ego or even a self. These levels are archetypal, and deal with fundamental expressions of reality and consciousness itself. If all of this seems a bit to heady or removed from your everyday experience, that is ok. If you keep meditating and working with the subtle body it soon won’t be. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF INFORMATION MAGIC It is the information level that we specifically want to deal with in this lesson as it is this level that has the most bearing on practical magic. In fact you have already used the magic of this level quite a lot! Any time that you channeled energy through your body and willed it into a specific shape or commanded it to have a particular purpose, you worked magic on the information level. Any time that you told a mojo bag what to do, or consecrated a talisman, you worked with the information level.

The material and the energy used in magic is a blank slate in and of itself. You use the information level every time that you, or a diety or spirit acting on your behalf, vivifies them with purpose and directs them in some way. All this is more of less right in line with traditional thinking of one kind or another. THE AKASHIC RECORDS Most magicians are familiar with the concept of the akashic records, a level of the astral that contains a record of everything that has ever happened. All futures, all pasts etc. The Akashic Record is the information level . In the past mystics and magicians understood and worked with it as best they could based on the connections that they could make. There is a funny thing about the relationship between magic and science though. Sometimes magic holds secrets that science and technology can unlock to get a deeper look at reality and sometimes science and technology provides the language that we need in order to think about magic more clearly. Since the advent of the digital age however humans have started to think about information and the movement of information in new ways. A side effect of this is that the cybernetic control systems of computers provide analogies for biological, psychological, and spiritual processes that we would have had trouble considering before. For example in the late 90’s when the Matrix came out, many Buddhist teachers used it as an anaology for the Buddhist view of Samsara and also for the generated pure land of the Tantric Mandala. Even Penor Rinpoche, who was at that time in his 70’s was urging people to see the movie because it explained some Tantric concepts about reality very nicely. In the case of the classical Akashic record, magicians have claimed to be able to access this information in certain pools of information located on the astral planes or in temples containing mirrors, or even vast libraries filled with infinite books. In a way you can think of these pools, mirrors, and books as a GUI (graphical user interface) for people who cannot read the code of the information level directly.

Like in computers you can do some things through the GUI, but if you can work with the code directly, the possibilities are endless! ACCESSING THE INFORMATION LEVEL If understanding of the many levels that magic can be performed is a key to understanding the Strategic Sorcery approach, than being able to access those layers directly is the key to its practice. We can all see and feel the material level, so it is easy to give instructions that require the direct handing of materia, spoken words, and bodily gestures. The work of the Astral and Energetic levels are not as easily approached because they are invisible to the untrained or ungifted eye. Still we approach them indirectly. At first we use rituals, visualizations, and poetry. Later we train ourselves to see and sense energy directly, and to see and hear the spirits that we commune with. When we can sense them directly, we can work with them directly, just as easily as we work with material level. So too we approach the information level indirectly by material, energetic, and spirit methods. Eventually though, if we can clear our minds through meditation enough, we can sense the information level directly and work with it directly. This is true information magic, or what has been called “cybermagic”. Cyber here refers to control systems, not to computers or the internet. I wish that there was a ritual or spell that I could teach that would give you instant access to the information level, but there isn’t. Some can access it because they are naturally gifted, but most people need to reach it through ever increasing mental clarity and meditation. Richard Smoley notes that the difference between the mystic and the esoteric is that the mystic is concerned only with getting straight to the final goal of enlightenment whereas the esoteric paths are concerned with mapping the route in as much detail as possible. If you persist at the basic meditation methods, and keep an eye out for these subtle layers of awareness that many people miss, you will eventually come to be able to access this level of awareness soon enough. There is however a faster way: Sandpiling.

You will remember the Sandpiling technique from lesson 23 in the section about Vibrational movement. It can be a subtle thing to grasp, especially when you rise up past the lower astral levels, but it is very effective if you can get it. You start by spending a moment or two "feeling" for the scope and breadth of your own awareness. Then, when you psychically have a grasp on this, you "pull yourself" towards the center. This action is like gathering sand from the sandbox and piling it high on top of itself. After a time, if you have been doing it successfully, this sandpile of self reaches a a new level. These levels always seem to be marked very dramatically in this style of meditation. You may feel this in a few different ways, for instance the pile may crash and spread again, but at a higher state than you started in. Eventually with practice you will be able to access a state of awareness that perceives information directly EDITING THE INFORMATION LEVEL I have talked in the past about how when you invoke different gods and intelligences you get not only the qualities that you are seeking, but ALL their qualities. The many pantheons of Pagan gods represent very cosmic and archetypal forces on the higher levels, if we look at the mythology that surrounds them however, we can see that they are also the archetypal dysfunctional families. After every invocation, a being leaves a resonance that can be treated much like an information packet that is integrated into your being. A being like Thor or Horus may grant amazing martial prowess, but they also may confer more anger or wrath than you would like, there may also be a thirst for Chaos in the case of Thor and a thirst for revenge in the case of Horus. If you can access the information level directly, you can actually edit the information that a deity leaves behind. What is the exact process for doing this? Difficult to answer that question. All I can say is that if you can relate to the information directly as information, you will see the ways in which it can be edited. COPY AND PASTE

If you remember back in lesson 4 I gave a short exercise called Cut and Paste thought qualities. In that practice you examine the images, feelings, and emotions that accompany certain thoughts that you feel confident about and copy and paste them onto thoughts that you feel unconfident about. For instance if you know you are a great poker player you conjure that thought in the mind and note all the feelings, sensations, and psychic imagery that accompanies it. You than copy and paste those to something that you feel unconfident about like public speaking. The result is a transference of the feeling of confidence from poker to public speaking. When you can work with the information level directly you can actually begin to pick up on the sensations and psychic impressions of thoughts and feelings from other people, not just yourself. The reason that you can do this is that at this level information is not intrinsically connected to the points in space/time that it directly effects, instead it is a large interconnected web, much like the philotic web in Orson Scott Card's "Enders" Series of books. To accomplish this, simply observe the target physically or astrally, link up with them on the information level, and copy and paste qualities just as you would from your own mind. Of course this information gets absorbed and integrated with the rest of your persona and than filter down into the energetic and physical levels, so it is not an instantaneous and perfect copy like you would have in a computer. Is someone can bowl a 300 every game and you perform this type of copy and paste on that skill, it may improve your game, but not make you perfect. PHILOTIC VIRUSES Obviously there is also the potential for attack here. Accessing other people on the information level is even easier than on the energetic or astral level, so the same skills that you might use to copy and paste a positive quality can be used to paste a negative quality, or simply remove information from a target. TO WEIRD FOR YOU?

As I write this lesson I can almost feel some of you shaking your head and thinking that this is silly or just far-fetched. Remember though that I am using the language of computers and technology as a metaphor to talk about a level of reality, I am not saying that it is the same thing. Just as I can feel some of you shaking your heads, I can feel some of you nodding yours. If this lesson has got your gears turning, thinking about what is possible than you should experiment and get back to me. You should also read a few other writers who talk about the magic or information such as Frater U.D. and Patrick Dunn.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 40: Persona and Influence Work Originally I was going to make this segment of the course mirror the chapters in the book and have each lesson present an advanced version of each of the main strategies presented in TSS. As I started to write that lesson I realized that was not what the course needed. Instead we are going to continue the theme of the last several lessons and go deeper into subjects and magic related specifically to our strategic approach. In this case: Identity Sorcery. IDENTITY SORCERY Identity sorcery is the practice of consciously shaping your persona in accordance with your true will and desire instead of letting it be shaped by circumstance. A lot of people do not like the idea of identity sorcery because it seems to violate or the notion of “being yourself”. It is as if adherence to the set of likes, dislikes, and mechanistic behavioral patterns that you have accumulated in life thus far is somehow a virtue in and of itself. Liking who you are is all well and good, but it can also be an excuse. Lazy, angry, and egotistical people always seem to use the phrase “it’s just how I am” as an excuse for bad, counter-productive, or just rude behavior. When you get caught up in trying to “be yourself” you lose lose sight of who you can become. From the Sorcerers perspective, it is far more useful to create yourself than to find yourself. I know that I have said this before but I want to say it again: all the things that you think of as being your “self” are really just an accumulation of patterns that are no more integral to the real “you” than your left shoe is. When you search for what is essentially you, it can actually be quite hard to identify. We tend to think of ourselves as being contained by our bodies, but if we deconstruct this a bit we can see how silly it is. There is hardly a cell in your body that you had when you were born. Every day you take in food and water that is not part of your body and make it part of your body. At what point does the cheeseburger become you? Every day you expel feces and urine that was in the body? At what point did that stop being you? If you cut off your arm and threw it across the room, are you in two places at once? If not, do you have less self now

that you are down an arm? Of course not, which is why when we exhaust the possibility of the self being in the body we turn to the thoughts. “I think therefore I am” and all that. Of course the thoughts are deeply influenced by the physical brain. I think that everyone can agree that you would not have the same thoughts if I gave you a frontal lobotomy. Of course you probably also would not have the same thoughts if you took a couple hits of LSD. For that matter you would not have the same thoughts if you drank a bottle of scotch as you would if you did not. Following the logic further you can see how the difference between drinking coffee or tea might radically alter your thoughts. If these small physical things can effect the thoughts you have, we need to ask ourselves what else can. When we look we see that the air we breathe, the water we drink, the neighborhood we live in, the way were raised, the traffic we drive in, the genes we inherited, and the random firing of synapses that impact every single thought that we have can we really say that our thoughts are reflective of a self? If you have been meditating regularly than you already know the answer is NO. KNOW THYSELF Indeed meditation is the necessary first step in accomplishing true identity sorcery. If you are going to shape your identity according to your will and desires you first need to know how fluid and volatile your identity is. Not just know it by reason, or by belief, but know it through deep experience. The only way that I know how to do that effectively is through meditation. As sure as I am writing this I know that some of you will write me and tell me that you can gain this knowledge by blessings from angels, traveling to astral planes, talking to Gods, undergoing initiations etc etc. These things can help, but are only door openers, it is you who must walk through the door and know your own mind. There may be other ways to do it, but I haven’t found an effective one. The saying “Know Thyself”, which was famously inscribed on the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi is not about knowing your likes, dislikes, habits, and style, but rather a charge to cut through all that and reveal what is underneath.

When you are able to cut through all the content that arises and sets within the stream of “self” and instead reflect upon the nature of the stream itself, than and only then can you control the content. To simplify it, as with so many other things in this class, meditation is the cornerstone. ONE PERSONA OR MORE? There are a few magicians who engage in this type of work and talk about developing several different identities that you can adopt and wear like clothing; different outfits for different situations. I know a few people who have done this and I experimented with it myself. I do not recommend attempting to develop multiple personas for the following reasons: • It can cause cognitive dissonance when you switch back and forth as each persona tends not only to have the qualities you gave it but to accumulate new habits and patterns just as you normally do. When you compartmentalize things to such a degree that you think in terms of different personas you can have conflicting habits. • People that have done this kind of thing have been observed by others to be shallow or even duplicitous and two-faced. It can be especially jarring to people in your life who observe you to display multiple personas. • If you have a need to develop separate personas for different situations you are reinforcing the idea of the personality as a firm and crystallized thing rather than a fluid and illusory tool that it can be. Although we cannot find a firm self anywhere that we look, we still manifest and operate as a singular being in this life. One persona is more than enough. It may seem contradictory for one persona to be a peace loving paragon of uber-calm while still having the capacity to get aggressive or even effectively threatening when needed, but when you recognize how fluid the self is, you will see there is

no problem. As Walt Witman once said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” ESCAPING YOUR TYPE Go grab a pen and paper and write down the following words: I Am the Type Of Person Who… Then fill the rest of the paper with all the ways that you can finish that sentence. Write that you are the type of person who: likes coffee, hates tea, drives a BMW, likes it rough, gets off on mind games, pays no attention to sports, talks to loud, babbles all the time, is an attention whore, is not confident enough, is overbearing, etc etc. Fill as many pages as you want with this. No one will see it so go ahead and be honest. When you are done go through it and find the things you would like to change. Write the new habits and qualities you would like to have on a separate sheet of paper. Keep this for later. Take the first paper and get rid of it. You can burn it, toss it in a river, or bury it in a graveyard. By doing so you are not rejecting the qualities you wrote down – after all some of them are probably going to be great qualities. It is the first sentence that you are rejecting “I am the type of person who…” From this day forward you are not going to be chained into being ANY type of person. Take a vow to never use the excuse of “I am the type of person who…” ever again. You can be who you want to be. SELF-SCAPING Take the list of habits and qualities that you want to develop and pick a few of them. Perform the “Prayer of the Perfected Self” from the influence section of TSS to integrate these qualities ritually into your persona. Do this within 24 hours of getting rid of your “type” list. You can and should begin immediately adopting these qualities by force of will alone. No doubt you will find this difficult even with the ritual to catalyst you. Again, in any kind of work that strives for long term

change within the psyche, rituals and initiations can only help you out. The rest is just grueling work of willpower. As we learned in the willpower lesson however, once we force ourselves to develop a habit, it gets easier every time because of neuroplasticity. I am currently on a business trip and am working on changing the habitual patterns I have about eating out for lunch, as I am now going to be eating lunch out quite often. Last week it was difficult to be a person who ate a healthy lunch. It was a fight of grilled chicken Panini and yogurt parfait vs Bacon Cheeseburger and Fries. I lost that fight Monday and Tuesday. I won it on Wed, Thurs, and Friday but it wasn’t easy. This week it is so easy that I am almost to the point where I don’t think about it. Faster than even I expected, my brain formed new neural connections that supported the new habit. WHAT WOULD DALE COOPER DO? Another great way to change the persona is through the process of Modeling. We touched a bit on this technique when we talked about doing the Role Model Study in the Set Point lesson, but here we want to take it to a new level. In Magical Modeling you choose a real life person or even a fictional character to emulate. This person of course embodies the qualities that you wish to adopt. Begin by taking a weekend or so and study this person. If it is a real person, try and get some face time with them. If it is a famous person or TV character, than watch everything you can that they appear in. Here is the trick to modeling: you do NOT try and figure out what makes them have the quality or habit that you want. You just simply emulate them as close as possible. If you try to reason at the outset what makes someone attractive to women for instance, you may pick the wrong things. If however you model them and their behavior as close as possible for a time, you will quickly find out from direct experience what is successful and not. Than you can drop different qualities and see which ones effect performance.

I have never written about this before as many people would find it silly, but years ago when I was just starting at AIG, I did a modeling working focused on Dale Cooper, the fictional FBI Agent from Twin Peaks. This was the first “real” job I had, and was a bit daunted by how formal everything was. I chose Dale not only because I loved Twin Peaks, but because to me he embodied all the habits and qualities I would need if I were going to succeed at that job: • Dale was well dressed and professional everywhere he went. At the time I dressed in a style that was once referred to as “an unmade bed”. • Dale was an obsessive record keeper, recording every detail for his secretary Diane in his microcassette recorder. My record keeping and organizational skills were nearly non-existant. • Dale was kind but frank with people. I seemed to vacillate between being kind and a pushover or assertive and mean. • Dale was a mystic and spiritual person, able to use those tools in his work, yet did so in a way that other people could understand or at least not find off-putting. At the time I wore my “differentness” an badge and would often talk at length about magic and the occult to people who found it borning or fightening. I got off on thinking of magicians as elite, but recognized that as a problem. So I watched all the episodes and woke up every morning with the thought “what would dale cooper do”? I dressed in a suit and tie for work, and made sure they were pressed and clean. I carried a microcassette recorder and recorded everything everywhere. I spoke with authority and mimicked Dales speech patterns and gestures. I modeled him. The results were great. Many of those habits changed and adapted to circumstance. I traded in my cassette recorder for a PDA and eventually for a Moleskine notebook. I still however hold some of his speech patterns and gestures unconsciously. No one notices because 15 years later, they are now my patterns.

CUTTING AND PASTING FROM OTHERS I spoke about this very technique in the last lesson. This is true cyber-magic, cyber in this case referring to the mind and to control systems. To do this you need to be able to develop a connection to a target individual on the mental or information level. To do this you should first make sure that your winds and channels are clean and that the energies of the body are well balanced. If you can perform even a short and silent version of the pillar and spheres exercise, that will help immensely. It is best if you can watch the target displaying the quality you wish to absorb while doing it, but not strictly necessary. To do this you simply shift your awareness up to the mental/information level and observe the target on that level. Since this type of cyber magic works at a non-local level, there is no need to energetically link or breathe in the quality as per pore breating. Simply copy the signature of the target into yourself. You will know you have it immediately because it will ripple down to the lower levels. The new pattern will cause shifts in the Astral and Etheric bodies, thus the need for energetic balance. It will also probably make some strange physical sensations. This is normal. Your mind will adopt the pattern and make it your own in short order. IDENTITY MAGIC AND INFLUENCE Since a lot of persona work is done with the intent of making ourselves more influential to others I thought this would be a good lesson to share a couple important points about influencing magic. In the chapter on influence in TSS I present two facets of the art of enchantment. The first is direct influence, or work done directly upon another person to effect their mind such as a binding spell, love philter, or confusion spell. The second is indirect influence or work done on the self which is aimed at making you more of an influential person. Other than what I wrote about in TSS I find myself having very little to say about direct influence. There are certainly oodles of spells that you could perform that

aren’t in the book, and many more NLP tricks, marketing ploys, and energy manipulations that you can use, but the basics are all there. You can and should follow up with specialists in fields that interest you. One thing I wish I had more of a point of in the book is the superiority of inner influence over direct influence. While spells to bend the minds of others make really great reading in books on witchcraft and magic, and certainly have their place in your toolbox, they tend to produce short term and shaky results. This is fine if you only need to deal with someone for a day or two, but most of the time we will be seeking to influence people that will be in our lives a lot longer than that. Most of the direct influence stuff only works well when you are also working the inner influence as well. If you are not doing the work to become a more confident, actualized, upbeat, and fun person than any attempts at making people fall in lust with you, or give you promotions at work that rely upon effecting their perception will almost always come off as creepy. If you are doing that work when you develop the inner self to naturally and spontaneously project the type of influence that you want, sometimes the application direct influence tech simply gets in the way. As you can see, influence magic can be tricky. That is why I am going to share a secret with you that I did not put in the book. THE FIRST SECRET TO STRATEGIC INFLUENCE The secret to influence is this: Make sure that you exercise your influence for someone, not on someone. If you want to exercise your influence on someone you would like to sell a product to without coming off as shady and manipulative, all you really need to do is believe that your product will actually make the life of customer better. If you want to influence a guy or girl at a club to give you their number or go out on a date with you without seeming creepy or needy, you need to believe that their life will be enriched by knowing you.

If you want to get promoted at work without seeming like a manipulative dick, you need to believe that promoting you will be good for the company. If you believe that you are doing the person a favor by influencing them your way, rather than manipulating them. You should make sure that any changes you make to your identity for inner influence reflects this philosophy. Of course you also need to know how to let go. You may believe that things going the way you want are the best for everyone, but sometimes no matter how much work we do, others will not see it our way. This is not their fault. If you are trying to hard at anything it will work against you. For instance, while it is true that confidence is probably the single biggest thing for men to work on in order to attract more women, you must not let it get to your head or create unrealistic expectations. If she doesn’t want to get to know you after you gave it your best shot, you back off. Telling her snidely that she doesnt know what she is missing is not going to get you anywhere and is honestly just going to prove what a dick you are. Next week: Time Management and Life Extension Magic.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 41: TIME MANAGEMENT If you are implementing the lessons of this course and becoming a true Strategic Sorcerer than there are two things happening to your life right now. First, you are doing a lot of work in terms of meditation, energy work, experimentation, and practical magic aimed at your long and short term goals. Second, you are doing all the other shit that everyone else also does. Thus the need for a lesson on Time Management. If you do all the living that others do AND have a productive magical practice on top of that, you are going to get busy fast. If that isn't enough, if you are really actualizing these teachings, even your mundane workload is probably bigger than most peoples. Face it, sorcery aside: if you are plotting your next promotion at work, developing a side business, having sex with your loved one (or at least your lusted one), etc; chances are you are not spending a lot of time playing World of Warcraft and watching American Idol. You are a busy person with real living to do. So with this in mind, I feel compelled to put in a lesson about time management. A STORY In 1996 I made contact with my Holy Guardian Angel. One of the first things that I brought to my angel in terms of a request for something practical was to not have to work so that I could dedicate more time to magic. My angel told me to examine how I spend my time for the next couple weeks, and that if I was putting all the time I had free to good use I should make the request again. It did'nt take long for me to realize that my job was not really the problem I made it out to be. The reality was that I worked 40 hours of the 168 hours in a week. I sleep another 42-44 or so a week. That is only half of the week! I still had 84 hours a week to myself. I was not married. I had no serious commitments. I did'nt even have a bank account or a car. I lived in a major city and was more or less care free for 84 hours a week. Did I use that time for magic? A little. But like most people I watched a lot of TV, went to bars and parties, and just generally "hung out".

Nothing wrong with hanging out of course. Downtime is essential to opening up the inspiration and giving the universe a little room to work for you. But the point that the angel made was a good one, would I really put the time I normally spent at work to better use than the rest of my time? I began to be more aware of my free time and how it gets spent. I started to look at productivity and efficiency both in magic and other areas of my life. I began to think about goals, purpose, and process. My time was precious and I began to treat it as such. In 2005 I started exploring different formalized systems of time management and lifehacking, this is in part what gave rise to the very concept of Strategic Sorcery. When I discovered some of the secrets of time management, it totally transformed my life. In fact I like to think of it as granting me more life. To me, it's way more important to use the time you have well, than it is to extend your elderly years of being nearly incapacitated into your hundreds. If you measure life by experience rather than by years, the following truth becomes apparent: Time management is life extension. GOALS If you do not know your goals than there is nothing to aim your strategy at and no need to manage your time. The very first homework assignment of this course was to set a goal for yourself. Some of you came up with great things right off the bat. Others gave goals that were highly improbable ("I want to win Mega Millions"), completely impossible ("I want to become a Vampire and live for hundreds of years"), vague ("I want to develop my potential") , or too small ("I want to get move out of my moms house") We have dealt in a previous lesson about improbable goals and how to assess probability with intelligence gathering techniques. I am not even going to go into the impossible goals. Vague goals are no good for strategic sorcery. If I walked up to you on the street tomorrow and asked you what your goals were, you should be able to give a very

specific list of measurable things that you can attain. The key is here is "measurable". It is all well and good to want to be fit, be rich, or be attractive but those are too subjective. Don't tell me you want to be fit: tell me how many pounds you need to lose, how much muscle you want to gain, how much heart function you want to recover, how many miles you want to be able to run. Don't tell me you want to be rich. 90% of the planet makes less than $25,000 a year - you already are rich! Tell me how much money you want to make this month. Tell me what you need to make this year and how much you want that to increase next year. Tell me how much you want to make from your job and how much you want to make from passive income sources. Tell me how much you want to invest and what ROI you are looking for. Don't tell me you want to be attractive. Tell me the kind of mate you want to have. Tell me what she looks like. Tell me what he does for a living. Tell me how smart she is. Tell me how kinky he is. Tell me if you want just one person how soon you want to find them. Tell me if you want a different person every week. Just have some idea in mind of what the hell you want so that you can work towards it and know how you are doing! If I say "I want to be fitter than I am", than I go to the gym once and stay of soda for a week, guess what? Mission accomplished! I am fitter than I was. I am not however anywhere near where I want to be. On the other hand if I want to be "fit" rather than fitter, do you ever really get there? Everyone has some problems. If your Goals are vague or general, you should at least figure out the next few specific steps and make them your specific goals. I may want to "attain enlightenment", but if I don't know what the next step is towards that goal, than there I am not going to get very far. The other problem I listed above was goals that were too small. Our goals must be worthy of our efforts, it's that simple. The Goal must inspire us to greatness. People achieve amazing things every day with or without magic. Many of you

have already blown me away with your accomplishments. You have chosen goals that were difficult and made them happen by the strategic application of mundane and magical means, exactly the way it should be done. If the best you can dream of for your life is a promotion to middle management, or to move out of your mom's basement, now is the time to aim a bit higher. Shift your set point and go for what seems just out of reach. On the other hand if you are thinking that you want to become a vampire and live for 400 years, maybe it is time to reel it in a bit, yeah? USING THE PARETO PRINCIPAL So now that you have some goals you can making time for the effort it will take to realize those goals. Like most things, this starts with a bit of observation. If you want to you can get a little notebook and make a record of everything you do and how long it takes, but honestly it doesn't need to be that complicated. Just pay attention to your time. Pay attention to the times that you are able to get things done and the times you can't. See what stops you. Pay attention to the people that supportive of your efforts and the people who are not. Just pay attention and take action to manage accordingly. The biggest help for this process is awareness of the Pareto principal. Some of you have seen me write about the Pareto principal on my blog. Others have read about the principal in books like The Four Hour Work Week. I am passionate about the Pareto principal. It has changed my life radically and is definately one of the occult laws of the universe. The Pareto Principal is also called the 80/20, and basically states that 80% of outcome is generally accounted for by 20% of cause or effort. The rule was first stated by an Italian economist names Pareto who observed that about 80% of the profits of any company came from about 20% of the customers. Similarly 80% of the problems came from about 20% of the customers. This realization is huge because if you can chart which 20% causes problems and which causes profit you can focus on one and eliminate the other! It's that simple

An example of this from my own life is how I run the "Sorcery Services" section of my business. I notices that about 80% of my time suckage was caused by people who wanted to contact me by phone or who wanted extensive divinations covering the background of their problem. I started only taking work via e-mail and told people politely that I do not work by phone. Most people were fine with that. The only people that were insistent that I work via phone were people who insisted that their problem was "too complicated to write down". I point out that if it is too complicated to write down, it is WAY too complicated to listen to on the phone. Besides, it is best if I have a written record of everything. Now, for sure I have lost a few clients over this, but that is ok, they were from the 20% that was causing 80% of the problems. As for the extensive readings, some people really like those. I do not. I am a Sorcerer first, not a reader. I do readings in conjunction with work, but I am not interested in giving readings for the sake of readings. I respect readers who do, it's just not what I enjoy and not what I am good at. I especially loathe readings about psychic or magical trouble where the client is far more interested in the names and motives of everyone that has ever worked against them than they are in a solution. I want to do magic to solve a problem, not just be another in a long line of readers who tells you that everyone in your life has cursed you. I eliminated this kind of reading, and again I lost some clients, but they were clients that I was not serving well anyway and who were causing me grief and eating time. Other things to keep in mind when it comes to economics: • 20% of products produce 80% of sales. • 20% of staff will cause 80% of problems. • 20% of society holds 80% of wealth The beautiful thing about the Pareto principal is that it has applications way beyond finances. Here are just a few that people have observed and which can be exploited to manage time and resources effectvely: • You wear 20% of your wardrobe 80% of the time.

• 80% of conversations are spoken with 20% of the language. • 20% of your activities produce 80% of your stress • 20% of your shelves hold 80% of your useful stuff - you can free up a lot of space with this one • 20% of the seeds in a garden produce 80% of the flowers. • 20% of the information you take in produces 80% of the vital info you use • 20% of the spells you cast will effect 80% of the change in your life. • 20% of a particular ritual accounts for 80% of its effectiveness. I hope you can see that using this rule you can begin to discern what is important and what is not. The more you use it, the more you will see the pattern in your life and the more apparent it will be that you how to manage time and resources based upon the principal. PRORITIZING After you have used the Pareto Principal to cut time wasters and increase efficiency down to what is truly important chances are you will still have a lot left on your plate. Now it is time to prioritize what is left. There is a commonly told story about a Philosophy professor who one day picked up a large empty jar and proceeded to fill it with small rocks. He then asked his students if the jar was full? They unanimously agreed that the jar was full. So professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. He then asked his students again if the jar was full. Again, they unanimously agreed that the jar was full. Then the professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked his students to interpret the meaning of what he showed them. One of them stood up and said that the lesson must be that even when things seem full, there is always room to cram in more.

"No" said the professor. "I want you to recognize that this is your life. The rocks are the important things: your family, your partner, your friends, your health, your children, and things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else. If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you." Now, I can imagine that some of you might have chuckled a bit that I even wrote a lesson on Time management. This 52 course is after all going on its 58th week and we are still only on lesson 41! I took orders for a special batch of financial hands in April that have only just been mailed! I haven't made a decent blog post in weeks! Yadda yadda yadda. What you may not know is that all of the above is calculated according to priorities. I am a father of one year old twins, the come first. Wife comes second. Other family follows. When I started this course I had a day job. I did'nt for most of the middle of it, now I just started a new career apart from the magic stuff, so that is also quite important. After that comes emergency sorcery clients, since I am the "Protection and Reversal Magic" guy I have more clients that fall under this heading than you would imagine. Next comes the course and my in person appearances. Then comes less time sensitive client issues, blog writing, etc. After that comes the occasional television show - usually less than three hours a week and only when I am too tired to do anything else. Of course this all falls around my regular day to day and weekly routine which includes the gym, meditation, prayer, and offerings. The point here is not to know how busy I am (well, not the main point any way :-) but to give an example of prioritizing. Know what is really really important, what is important, and what is just kinda important. Put it in order and deal with it in that order. Keep your priorities in line, it is way too easy to let small but aggravating situations or loud people seem more important than they are. Get your priorities straight.

LET SHIT SLIDE As you prioritize you will eventually run into situations where you will simply have to let shit go. Some of it will be important stuff. Some of it will be stuff that you miss out on: good opportunities to make money, have sex, travel, and otherwise do all kinds of great stuff. Know how to let go what you need to let go of. Try not to make promises you cannot keep, but know that you probably will do that too. Forgive yourself and ask for forgiveness from those that get slighted. Do not justify your priorities to anyone else. This is VITAL. It may be vital to your well being that you take a week off and do not log onto the internet, take any phone calls, or talk to another living soul. It will not seem so vital to the people you piss off by doing so. Don't try to justify it to them it will just piss them off more. Be accountable to yourself. MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE SPACE Ever notice how sometimes great ideas and insights come when you are performing simple repetative tasks like mowing the lawn or washing the dishes by hand? Our lives are so filled with activity and information that these are sometimes the only moments that the mind is simply at rest. The body is busy enough to be occupied with something simple enough to let the mind wander. Apart from the many practices of meditation and ritual, it is also important to have these moments where your mind can just wander. Though ritual and meditative practices are invaluable, they do not really provide the mental free time that is necessary for the mind to express itself. Anyone can do this no matter what your schedule. Here are some ideas: •

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Drive with the radio off - I like NPR and loud music as much as the next guy, but I try to make at least one car trip a day in silence. Fake a habit. Hopefully you don't smoke, but that doesnt mean that you cant take a break like the smokers do. Excuse yourself, go outside and just stand or walk a bit. Leave the Ipod at home when running or walking in the morning. Excremeditate - thats right, just linger a bit longer in the can.

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Tack on 10 minutes to just about anything. Running a quick errand on a busy day? Take 10 and just relax. No one has to know. 5 minutes after a meditation session. Best one yet, after meditation, take 5 minutes to just walk or sit without any thought as to meditation instructions, breath, or asana, just hang and let your mind grasp onto all those thoughts that you have been setting aside during your formal practice. One of them might just be the next big thing.

Always remember that you as a Sorcerer you are building relations with people, spirits, and the universe itself. Your own efforts are important, but so is leaving space for the universe to act on your behalf. DO OR DO NOT DO If you are going to be productive than be productive. If you are going to relax, than relax. If you are going to spend quality time with friends and loved ones, than spend that time. Whatever you are doing, do that thing and know that is what you should be doing at that moment. Sounds simple enough, but most people do not actually spend a lot of time doing this anymore. We always have our minds on a million different things. We get into a state where we are not really relaxing or being productive, just feeling anxious about both. The best way to eliminate this is situation to have a handy data capturing device around at all times so that you can get what is in your head onto paper or a recording. If you have a regular time a couple times a week to review the data that has been captured and schedule time for what is important enough to warrant attention than you will find that your mind rests much easier on whatever task is at hand. This helps you both to relax more fully when you relax AND avoid the trap of work for works sake - the state of being busy but not really doing much. I could go on and on about Time Management here, but you have a good start in this lesson. Check out some books like "Getting things done" and "The Four Hour Work Week" for more tips. Do not discount the importance of time management

for a Sorcerer, often it is the thing that separates those who really thrive in the field and those that simply read about it.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 42: STRATEGIC SORCERY GROUP WORK So far everything we have discussed in this course has been solitary work. It was meant that way. I firmly believe that every Sorcerer, if they are to be worthy of the title, be able to perform the works of sorcery themselves. I have met many socalled magicians and witches whose only qualification is that they belong to an order or a coven. Membership to a group and participation in group rituals does not make you any more of a magician than attending mass on Sunday makes you a priest. All that said, as long as the individuals are competent in their own right, there can be great advantages to working with a group or even several. I myself have belonged to covens, magical orders, training schools, cabals, and sodalities over the years. Some have been great experiences, some have been train wrecks, and some havent lasted long enough to be much of anything at all. NETWORKING Groups are great platforms for meeting other likeminded people. I have met my most important mentors by participating in occult groups and magical orders. I have also developed a strong stable of friends and allies that are capable magicians upon whom I can depend in a crisis. It is good to be able to be selfsufficient when you have to be, but that doesn't make it desirable to always be so. On the flip side of this though, when your relationship with others is defined by initiatory ties you may find yourself with a "brother" or "sister" that you cannot stand, do not want to associate with, or who even is dangerous. For two years I ran an OTO group out of my living room, and I can tell you for sure that there were people that I regret ever letting into my home despite them being a "Frater". While I would not trade those years for anything, I also would never open my home like that anymore nor call anyone that managed to get two people to sign a minerval application "brother". The other downside of group networking is that they can sometimes close you off to people not in the group. I have met way too many people high on their own

specialness or claiming to be "elite" (looking at you Temple of Set :-) because of their initiatory status. Many of these folks are actually functioning at sub-normal levels, not super-normal levels. Personally, you can have all the silly titles that you want, if you can't generate wealth, act with compassion and understanding, avoid self destructive behavior, and find people to love than I will be unimpressed with your initiations. The fact that you know the secret of the 9th degree, are a Magister Templi, Tantrik Shaman, and Gnostic Priest does not excuse the fact that you are 30 and live in your moms basement. By all means, take the title, just don't let it go to your head. TRAINING Another function of orders is the training of initiates. Not all orders are teaching orders of course, but many are. Certain people benefit from the structured training offered at the initial stages of these groups but from what I have seen people quickly fall into one of two camps. The first camp are those who have a real hunger for knowledge, wisdom, and power. The order systems usually do not run fast enough for these folks and they end up learning in spite of, rather than because of, the order. Often, as was the case with me, they find people within the order to mentor them personally and more or less leave the orders training plan in the dust. The second camp are people who do the bare minimum to reach the next degree because all that really matters is the title. These are often the same title-happy "elitists" that I poked fun at above. Who do people usually end up in one of these camps? Because having training linked to initiations that are received at a semi regular basis tends to create a false structure and timeline that will simply not fit all people. This is one of the reasons that the SS course is so loose in its approach - you can speed through or take your time, or do both. You work at your own pace. Covens often do not suffer the same training issues that Orders do because the coven is smaller, less rigid, and more personalized than the order structure.

People that I have met who have been training in Covens run by genuine elders that have been working the tradition for a while are some of the best trained occultists that I have met. Unfortunately such covens are getting harder and harder to find. Today I keep meeting people in covens where the HPS or HP has done nothing more than read more books than her underlings. This type of group is a recipe for disaster. I am a big believer in mentorship. The best things I have learned have all been from direct mentors with whom I have a personal relationship. Often it is worth joining an order or coven just to find such a mentor. Of course sometimes it is hard to find a mentor, and some people may not have enough base knowledge to take advantage of the rather free-form teaching that typically happens in the mentor-student relationship. That is one of the reasons that I decided to set this course down, so that I could be greater benefit to more people. I cannot be a mentor to all of you, but I have already seen some of you mentor others in the course and this is good. One of my mentors, Cliff Pollack once told me that the best we can do is initiate each other into our own personal magical systems and I couldn't agree more. Of course the ultimate expression of mentorship is the Guru-Chela relationship. Done well, with a Guru who is truly realized and a student who is aware that ultimately the view of the Guru represented their own mind, this can be an extremely beneficial relationship. In practice however it often falls even shorter of its goals than the order or coven ever could. Obviously unscupulous Guru's can easily abuse a system where students view them as enlightened beings abd have taken vows of obedience. On the other side of the coin, students in Guru based systems are so hungry for a teacher that they very often will place anyone who shows even the slightest interest in them up on that impossibly high pedestal. Even when the Guru is sincere, the students often attribute powers and knowledge upon them that they simply do not possess. For instance I remember talking to someone who was going to see the Lopon Tenzin Namdak for advice about his marriage and his business. I pointed out that the Lopon is a monk and while he knows a lot of things, two things that he probably does not know

ANYTHING about would be running a luggage store in Jersey and being married. I was told that since he is the Guru, he knows everything. Period. The store has since closed down and this person is now divorced. I'm just sayin... POWER IN NUMBERS One reason that people join magical groups if simply for group workings. Common wisdom states the more people that participate in a working, the more powerful it becomes. Donald Michael Kraig goes so far as to suggest that the sum is greater than the whole of its parts when it comes to group magical workings. Personally I am less than impressed with the results of most group workings. I would put my money on one well-trained Sorcerer who can access the various levels of magic and co-ordinate them well than any group I can think of. While you can certainly get a lot of energy moving with many people, the focus is never as sharp as it is with one person. Also the whole circuit is only as strong as its weakest link, so one bad person can ruin a group working. Really good magic owes its success much more to strategy, nuance, realization, and skill than it does sheer power. There is no need for a Bazooka to swat a fly. If you are going to take advantage of the increased energy of group workings I recommend choosing one person to be the focus of the ritual. Others in the group can raise energy by any means: breath, will, dancing, chanting, drumming, etc but at teh climax all that should get sent to one person who handles it all for the group. That person handles the materia (if any) and programs it on the informational level, and guides it by tapping into the divine/causal level. This runs against the method of a lot of groups who want to make parts of rituals so that everyone can feel equal, etc. This may be good group dynamics but it makes for sucky magic. Even something as simple as visualizing a Servitor can get screwed up in the details: different people focusing on different sizes, colors, textures etc. It is much better for one person to act as the catalyst for the groups work. When organizing a group working with a practical result you need to ask yourself: are the people you are adding bring enough power to the table to make up for

the loss of sharpness in focus that one person can achieve? Sometimes it is, but very often I have found that it is not. STRATEGIC SORCERY MASTERMIND GROUPS I really don't want to rag on any particular organizations or styles of working. They all have their pro's and con's depending upon what you want to achieve and what you need at your particular juncture. I guess the one thing that I want to everyone of my students to keep in mind is that no spiritual or magical path is as easily broken up into stages as some groups pretend it is. There is no universally applicable approach that works for everyone. Even if you find one that works for a while, it may not work forever. If that occurs, there is no need to reject your past work or hold it against the group you were in. Just move on and wish others well. Now in our specific case Strategic Sorcery is largely concerned with personal empowerment and life-design. The changes that we are looking for are largely measurable. It is my opinion that any kind of masonic style order with grades, and badges, and titles would be counter-productive to our work. Your progress can be easily measured by your increase in money, love, health, peace of mind, and overall well-being. When these are your benchmarks, what good would a grade and title do you? If your Sorcery does not make you a Sorcerer, how could a certificate ever do so? With this in mind I want to talk to you about a group model that I have found works EXTREMELY well with the Strategic Sorcery approach: The Mastermind Group. Mastermind Groups were first suggested in 1937 by Napoleon Hill in his book "Think and grow Rich". Basically they are small groups of people with common goals and interest in mutual success. In the book Hill writes: "No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind." I have been a member of several small circles that are like mastermind groups, and more recently a member of a couple groups focused on facets of financial success that are actually modeled as mastermind groups. I found them to be immensely helpful - more so than ANY occult group

that I have ever been a part of. In fact, the times that the occult groups I have belonged to have been at their best is when they were functioning more or less like mastermind groups. The basics of the Mastermind group are simple: it's just a group of people that meet to give advice and support to one another, keep each other on target as far as their long and short term goals, and brainstorm solutions for each other. The main differences between a mastermind group and a traditional occult group is that most occult groups are focused on some larger agenda than any one individuals needs. The OTO spreads the law of Thelema, The Golden Dawn trains magicians in that specific system, Buddhist Lamas train their Sanghas in the Dharma and in the Tatrick systems, Wiccan Covens teach and spread their religion, etc. Sometimes Cabals of mages might form to achieve specific ends such as influencing politics, exploring a particular arcana, or protecting a sacred place. The mastermind group however is totally focused on the personal needs of its individual members, making it the ideal format for Strategic Sorcery work. WHO AND HOW MANY Mastermind groups can consist of anywhere from three to twelve people, but most people try to keep the number between five and seven. Any less than that and you have no real group dynamic. Any more than that and you loose coherance, risk creating factions within the group, and run into issues with time. Even more important than the question of how many is the question of who to invite. Choosing members for your mastermind group should be a bit like choosing members of a professional music group - it is not a collection of your best friends, it is a collection of people who play their instruments well. Some factors to keep in mind are: • You should all have a relatively close level of ability and commitment. This is a peer based group, not a group of students gathered around one or two gurus.

• You should all have enough in common that you can understand each other yet be diverse enough to bring something unique to the table. You want to hear ideas and proposals that you would not have thought of yourself. One friend in one of my mastermind groups describes it as like being in the Justice League - we all are focused on similar ends, but each have different "powers". In the Strategic Sorcery context, this could be quite literal. • No yes men. You should be able to call each other on your shit. Another reason to avoid masterminding with close friends is that you should all like each other just enough to get along and want to help each other, but be so invested in each other's feelings that you withhold honest opinions. Your best friends may tell that you opening up an occult store is the best idea ever because they want to be supportive, but your mastermind group should be able to bring up all the reasons that they usually fail and make you explain how you are going to avoid them all. If you can't it is their job to tell you that you are doing something dumb. If you insist then they will still help you, but honesty and trust is key. VIRTUAL OR MEATSPACE? You are all members of a virtual group in this course. You are probably members of many other forums, yahoogroups, and blog-cabals. Many of these groups can be quite close knit. I think you will agree though that these communities differ a bit from people that you know in real life and face to face meetings with. There is just something rawer about the experience you have with people face to face. One the one hand you have an intimacy and closeness with people that can look you in the eye on occasion and have actually witness how you look, speak, and react. On the other hand, your base of people online is much wider and you are much more likely to find five other people who will fit the above criteria if you have the world wide span and sorting power of the net.

Often even the group of people that you know personally may have to meet in virtual space, but hopefully this can by phone or even video phone rather than in a chatroom. Even when you cannot meet in person, having the face to experience of each other can make it quite a different experience. I recommend being a member of at least two mastermind groups: one virtual and one with local people. The local group can be a more general strategic group bound together by location. This leaves the opportunity to form the virtual group along much more specific lines such as facilitating passive income streams, love and relationship issues, astral exploration, health and appearance issues, etc. Anything is possible. No matter what you do there are some procedures that you should follow to make sure that things move smoothly and remain focused rather than devolve into just another conversation TRUST It is essential that everyone in the group be committed to secrecy. This type of group can only be useful if you can be honest with everyone and you can only be honest with everyone if you trust them. You can certainly impose dire magical oaths like many masonic orders do, but let's face it, not a one of these has not been broken at one time or another. I am strong advocate of non-disclosure agreements. These can be informal sometimes just getting something in writing is enough, or if you take the trouble to register your group as a non-profit corp or other legal entity, you can make them legally binding. This may seem like a lot of hassle, but think about the types of things that you might want to reveal and get advice on. Very often members of a mastermind group will have details about your income, love life, medical issues, and even questionably moral or marginally legal behavior. You WANT to be able to reveal these things and sometimes an NDA is the best way to insure you can. Of course if someone reveals information about a serious felony, you can and should report it to the proper authorities regardless. Being in a mastermind

group does not grant attorney-client privilege, Doctor-patient privilege, or even Priest-Penitent privilege. WHEN How often you meet is up to you, it should be at least once a month but no more than once a week. There can be a social element to it, and certainly you all may see each other outside of the group, but when the actual group convenes it should have an air of professional formality about it. STRUCTURE OF MEETINGS The premise is quite simple: one person gets to speak on their issue, followed by a period of input from the other members. When that is finished the next person goes. At the end of the meeting, you re-cap the meeting, and briefly discuss any action items that the group decides to undertake together, be it a ritual working or a group investment. In practice it can get a bit more complicated than that. Opening with an invocation or meditation can be very helpful. This should be short, but can help set the tone. I recommend something like the Litany of the Mirror from lesson 1 as a suitable opener. Every person should be responsible for re-stating their long and short term goals, reporting on what they have accomplished since last meeting as well as reporting failures or mixed results. Every meeting should flow from the last. You will need a timekeeper. This is essential. Everyone should have allotted time to speak, and a reasonable flexibility to finish when time is up, but no one should be able to fillabuster or babble endlessly. There should be a general rule about empty comments, especially negative ones. Positive empty comments may sometimes help bolster someones confidence, but negative ones like "well that is just stupid" are almost never useful. You should be critical when it serves a purpose - that is what the group is for - but it should always be constructive. A good rule of thumb is to try and question someone into a realization rather than simply coming down hard.

In all things the group should hold high standards of accountability to one another and strive to keep each other on target. If someone says they will do something and by the next month they have taken no action, they should have a reason why. Remember that this is supposed to start as, and remain, a group of peers. If one person is slacking in the area of focus, than it can hold back the group. Using some kind of tracking system for this can be ideal. Web based tech that everyone has access to is ideal. These groups need not be filled only with people in the course, or even only magicians. As long as the other members respect what you do, there is no problem being the only Sorcerer in the group!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 43: HEALING If I had the time and opportunity to write it over again, there is a lot I would change about The Sorcerers Secrets. One of the top amongst them is that I would give the topic of Healing a chapter of its own instead of the short few pages in the "further strategies" section that I devoted to it. The problem is that the scope of practices that fall under the heading of Sorcerous healing is so vast and complex that even a chapter would seem woefully inadequate. Reiki, Acupuncture, Moxibustion, Herbalism, Ayurveda, Shen Balancing, Chi Gung, Homeopathy, Unani Medicine, Vortex Healing, Massage Therapy, Crystal Healing, Magnetic Therapy, Reflexology, Pranic healing, and so on. The list is endless. Lik Astrology, while they may fall loosely under the category of "magic" or "supernatural", if you are going to really master any one of them it takes a lot of time and devotion. If you want to really call yourself a healer, you need to choose to focus on that and less on the wider spectrum of Sorcery that the rest of this course details. The bonus for you here is that unlike money spells, love workings, astral projection, and divination, mainstream society gives a lot more credence to magic that gets presented as "alternative healing". One reason for this is that healing work tends to manifest in direct and measurable ways much more than other types of magic. Patient X has something done and gets better time and time again, and it is pretty hard to refute the effect. If healing is your thing than I strongly suggest devoting the time, energy, and money into proper training and work in whatever field you choose. That said, even those of us who do not focus on healing as a specialization can still do some effective healing work. DISCLAIMER This lesson will focus on some sorcerous techniques that you can use for healing yourself and others. They are not meant as a replacement for proper and full

training in a healing discipline and are certainly not meant as a substitute for seeing a doctor when one is needed. Discretion is a vital quality for the Sorcerer. I have met some people with some skill in psychic and energetic healing attempt to use it as a replacement for standard medicine. One such case even involved a broken limb. You must realize that while most alternative medicinal procedures can be used to prevent health problems, and some can be used to in conjunction with medicine to cure problems, there is a point where you need to just drag your ass to the doctor. WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW I want to try and avoid repeating any material anywhere in this course. I do however feel the need to point out that you already have a lot of the tools you need to do healing work. For instance you can Pore Breathe elements to address elemental imbalances or strengthen elements in the body. Earth strengthens the flesh and bone. Water controls the blood and encephalic fluid as well as lubrication between the bones. Fire is of course key for body temp, and color in the skin as well as body growth and metabolism. Air relates to mobility and breath. Azoth gives space for growth and development. Just attune to the proper qualities and correspondences and apply the elemental remedy. Bone disease, strengthen the earth element. High fever, pore breathe water. Another thing that you all already know is how to summon spirits. Certainly there are plenty of spirits that you can contact who can aid in your efforts. There will be yet more at the end of this lesson. A very effective tool that has been studied in universities is the use of visualizations to aid healing. These are not simple visions of being well, but detailed visuals of the disease breaking up and dissipating. I have also heard of patients visualizing small beings inside them breaking up cancers and repairing organs. This is not very far from some actual Tantric healing practices that I have been taught. Given your instructions on the subtle body and astral constructs it

would be very easy to create small constructs or servitors to enter the body of a patient and aid in repairing damage. While working with Thelesis camp in Philadelphia we did a group working to raise power and send it to one person who then patterned it to blast away calcification from adrenal glands. At the patients next test, the calcification had completely disappeared! DIVINE HEALING TOUCH My first experiences with healing people were very simple. I was still in high school and doing the daily practices from Modern Magic on a daily basis. One day after ritual I went downstairs and my mother had hurt her arm. Without thinking about it at all I extended my two active fingers (index and middle fingers) and started sweeping the area while gently touching it. I sent no energy to the spot, nor did I attempt to absorb any of the pain. I tapped into the divine presence that I experienced during the LBRP and let it simply be present. At certain periods I would feel a heaviness in my hand and I would take it off and shake it, but for the most part I did everything I could do simply get out of the way of the divine doing its thing. I used the touch a lot over the following months on anyone and everyone I could find that had any ache, pain, or malady. Almost all positive reports, even from a teacher at school who was a skeptic. Eventually the novelty of the healing touch wore off and I began to focus on other things. I should note that it never worked on myself, only on others. Those of you who feel a strong connection to the divine should try it. Simply tap in and get out of the way. Be the person who is facilitating a power transfer that you do not own. Do not try to send or receive instead let the divine do both. Encourage your patient to turn their pain over to the divine and accept the healing touch. Some of you will be able to do it just like that. Some of you won't. Whatever you do, do not try to force anything with it. In some cases the best strategy is simply to stand in the path of power.

CHROMATIC BASED ENERGY HEALING When I was studying in Nepal I hung out with a psychic healer from Australia that worked a system based entirely on applying energy in different colors. She did some work on me and it was quite amazing. One nights she taught me her method, which I wrote down but did not really think about afterward for a long time. About three years ago I was reading through Taoist Cosmic Healing by Mantak Chia. Chia of course is the leader if the Healing Tao organization which has its own very complex but effective systems of healing and wellness. This color system in his book seemed almost to stand outside the main bulk of his work and I found it to be remarkably similar to what my Aussie friend had taught. Chia in turn has a note in that section crediting Indian vedas, Choa Kok Sui and Darius Dinshah. Darius Dinshah is the son of Dinshah Ghadiali who invented (or discovered) the Spectro-Chrome healing devices that would bathe patients in particular colors generated by colored lenses in front of a lamp for 30 minutes at a time. If interested in using this method of physical light and lenses you can get a set of Roscolene Color Filers and a copy of Darius Dinshas book "Let there be light". It's a very interesting and simple method that anyone can use. The method that my Aussie friend taught me however does not rely upon lenses and lights. Her system requires that you breathe in life from all around you. She insisted that you not suck it in from specific people or places, simply that you breathe it in and start it moving through you faster and faster as you breathe. In Strategic Sorcery terms this is the same type of thing that I taught in the lessons on planets, elements, and azoth. You do not use your own energy, but that of the universe itself, you become a conduit. You are in fact always naturally a conduit for this energy. In this case you are simply paying attention to the flow, patterning it on the informational level with your intent, and moving it faster and faster through your system. Feel it circulate within you and around you faster and faster until is is moving so fast that your mind cannot keep up.

When you have the energy moving as fast as possible, shoot it up through the crown of your head into the Star center that is about a foot above the head. If you forget what this is, go back to lesson 7. In the star center you let the energy multiply many times over as it also becomes purified and cleansed. When you are ready, draw the energy back down through the central channel and send it down the arms and into the patient, either on an afflicted area, or over the patient generally depending upon the situation, you direct the energy through the hands and into the patient and see it in the specific color, combination of colors, or series of colors that you wish. As you do this you should move your hands as your intuition guides you. Several common applications include: Simply laying the hands and sending through the palms Using two fingers to project a psychic beam or blade Using the hand or two fingers to sweep and area Use the hand to push and pull the energy through troubled areas. You will actually feel the resistance as you do so. • Scooping out is a technique that some have reported great success with. Personally I have never gotten it to work well, but I mention it here for those that wish to try it. • • • •

As to the specifics of the colors and what they do, the following guide is a mixture of information from my Australian friend, Mantak Chia, Darius Dinshah and my own experiments. WHITE: We discussed this a bit in lesson 13 on the Azoth. White light is a mixture of other colors as well as the root from which they al derive. It is calming and sublime. In this system white gets worked with in a number of ways: • It can be used alone when you have no idea what is wrong with a person or what they might need. While may not rock their world, but the energy is easily absorbed and flows to where it is needed most.

• It should also be used alone when treating infants, the elderly, or the very weak. • It can be used as a calming agent and mixed with other colors that have stronger effects and also makes them easily absorbed by the body. Red becomes Pink etc. • It can be used as a containment field for other colors - focusing on a strong color surrounded by white light will keep its effects targeted without spilling over into other areas of the body. BLUE: This is a cooling, numbing, and harmonizing color. I have used it to help my babies to sleep on rough nights. I have also used it to dull the pain of injuries and reduce fever in myself and others. It can help reduce swelling and supposedly helps in the clotting of blood and slowing the spread of infection. RED: Pretty much the opposite of Blue. It is a strengthening agent and just as white can surround a beam of another color to contain it, red can surround another color to strengethen its effects. It is never used on its own. The color should be seen as fairly light. Dark Red is so strong that it can damage and should never be used in healing unless you are working to destroy something. Red increases bloodflow, and can support all systems in the body. It can vitalize and drive away feelings of laziness and lethargy. It can increase the sex drive. Bathing myself in red energy is one of the techniques I use when I need to stay up all night (among caffeine naps, drumming the jade pillow, and other methods). According to Chia, Red energy will also help revive consciousness and prolong life. He also claims that it multiplies the microbes of all kind of STD's. GREEN: Green energy is a sweeper. It loosens any kind of negativity and helps it move on. I have used it to help clear my sinuses before intense breathing practices. It can be safely concentrated in any organ that needs to be decontaminated without any fear of damage.

Any procedure that drives toxins from the body is aided by green energy. The darker it is the stronger it is. Be careful with this. In some cases you will want to temper this with blue to help aid the pain and swelling that can be caused by the release of these toxins. Green also helps disperse blood clots. Chia recommends a simultaneous use of pale green, pale orange and white in a 2:1:7 ratio for treating stubborn ailments. I used this exact method for ditching a caught that lingered after a cold this year and troubled me for weeks. It worked like a charm. I have also used Green and red to attempt to shrink a tumor in a terminal patient. She is still alive and kicking. The tumor is not much smaller, but also has not gotten larger as was expected. ORANGE: Orange promotes life and growth and drives away illness and disease. If you follow the use of Green with Orange, you have a potent 1-2 punch for shaking loose stubborn toxins and sick energy with the green than flushing them out with the orange. As with red, orange needs to be used with care. Chia advises not to use orange on the eyes, heart, head, throat, brain, spleen or appendix. Anything that needs to be cleared with some serious energetic drain cleaner can be helped with orange. I have used it on bowel issues and recommended it to a person I know with serious IBS. YELLOW: Is for the nerves and bones. Ideal for helping heal broken bones and physical injuries. When i get cut, I use green and white to sweep and area clean, than apply yellow to repair damage. VIOLET: Violet is said to contain all qualities just like white does, but can be more active and responsive to the personal will than white can. If you remember the lesson on Azoth, I spoke about Electric Violet as a color for Azoth. Whereas white is light purifying, calming, passive, and ennobling; Electric Violet is empowering, exciting, invasive, and atavistic.

Electric Violet used in co-operation with other colors is another intensifier, so much so that it is said that it may be too much. If you do use it, use it in a very light tone with other light colors. Dark colors of electric violet and another color would amount to an attack. It is an excellent color to revitalize an area after treatment and like yellow can assist in regrowing nerves and tissue. To much and you may grow more than you want! My friend told me a story of someone she healed using it that experienced unwanted bone growth along the breakage that caused more problems than the original break. GOLD: This is the color of spiritual evolution and divine presence. I knew one practitioner that was not only a healer, but a police officer and personal trainer. He used to seal all his practices with a dose of Gold energy. Unlike the original divine healing touch, I have used the color system on myself with great effect. I welcome you to experiment with the above info yourself and see what different combinations are effective for you. There is a lot more that we could talk about with healing, but as said, it would almost require a course in and of itself to get anything close to satisfactory. I do strongly suggest investing in training one on one with a healer if that is a field you are interested in.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 44: ATTACK MAGICK Last lesson we covered healing magic, so this week it seems a pretty natural place to insert the lesson on Attack Magic. I was very lucky when I wrote Protection And Reversal Magic because they let me go quite a bit further into the gray area between defense and attack than most mainstream pagan/occult publishers were willing to allow at the time. I can tell you that it certainly upset more than a few people at New Page that they were publsihing a book that had instructions on not only reversing harm upon a sender, but actually going out and sowing confusion, binding, and expelling a target, all of course in the name of defense. But of course if we are to really have a full grasp of the issue of magical combat we need to be versed not only in the defensive, but the offensive side of the issue. Obviously the expelling, confusion, and binding section of protection and reversal magic can all be put to offensive use, and in most cases I hope that you resort to those tactics rather than the ones I am about to teach. In this class though we are not going to be only concerned with causing confusion, stopping someone from doing something, or getting them out of our lives. We are also concerned with causing harm pure and simple. WHY COVER ATTACK MAGIC AT ALL While I have used magical attacks myself a few times, I genuinely think that there are usually better options if one has the wisdom to see them. Given the fear that curses instill in some people, and the potential for misuse of information it is a fair question to ask why we should cover the topic at all. Certainly much of the pagan/occult publishing over the last 50 years or so has ignored the topic of curses entirely to the point that many still claim that they are almost never used. There are a couple reasons that this lesson appears in the course. The first is simply that curses and magic for attack has been a part of magic throughout history and to pretend that it is otherwise damages the integrity of the transmission of the mystery throughout time. The second reason is that like most

tools, it can be used for good or ill. A skillfully placed curse can save lives, a poorly placed healing can cause great harm. While this is not usually the case with either one, it is the human mind and soul that has to evolve to use the tools properly, not the tools that have to change in order to be safe for our undeveloped mind and soul. MOTIVATIONS FOR ATTACK In protection and reversal magic I think I made a convincing argument that curses happen a lot more frequently than some people would like to admit. The question that follows then is "ok, but why?". Why would someone use magic to harm with the express purpose of harming or killing another human being? I have thought about this and break it up into five basic reasons. 1. To prevent harm. This is by far the best and purest motivation for attack of any kind. In some cases protection, binding, etc is not enough. There is a story that the Buddha told of a former life where he detected that someone was going to kill everyone aboard the ship they were sailing on. The only way that he could stop this person was to throw the would be murderer overboard, killing him in the process. The Buddha defended this as a compassionate act because though he did kill someone himself, he saved many lives on the ship and saved the killer from the negative karma of murder. If you know someone who is going to harm your loved one and friends do you sit idly by or do you act? Not ever case calls for a curse, but it is something to consider. 2. Justice: This is an imperfect world. Great and terrible evils can go unpunished. Certainly it seems the rich and ruling classes are able to live by almost completely different laws than the rest of us do. Some people resort to magical attack because they feel compelled by Justice. I do not curse people for this reason, but I understand and will not condemn those that do. 3. Pre-emptive jinxing. Do unto others before they do unto you! On the surface this may seem a lot like the "to prevent harm" reason. In this case though I am not talking about preventing rape and murder. I am talking

about the person who is sabotaging you at work so he gets promoted over you. I am talking about the person who is looking to take over your company and downsize you. I am talking about the town official that wants to use Imminent domain laws to toss you out of your home so he can put up a Mall. These are more petty reasons, and hopefully if you get into a situation like this you do not go for the kill. Still, fights are most often won by the person that throws the first punch, and if it is important enough to you and yours you may decide that it is a necessary evil. In this category you aren't defending anyone or doing anything moral. It's just business. 4. Coercion. There is a whole category of influencing magic that relies upon the threat of harm. The famous Omnipresencia De Dios candle and Intranquility Oil Spell fall under this category. It is almost always a love spell and has sometimes been called the "Love me or Die" method. While it is traditional enough, and is in fact practiced widely enough for the candles to be carried at mainstream grocery stores, it is a repugnant practice. If you resort to this kind of thing for love than you really have no idea what love is. Just because it is tradition doesnt make it good. 5. Because they can: Simply put, some people have no ethics or moral compass. Whatever is right for them is "right" and it is that simple. Some people like to take their misery out on others and for no other reason than jealousy or spite will launch a curse. There are more of these people out there than you would think. You don't even want to see some of the requests that I turn down. Whereas they would probably get caught and thrown in jail for physically assulting someone, the nature of magic and society is such that they can act without any fear of reprisal. TO NOTIFY OR NOT NOTIFY THE TARGET Peter Carroll and other Chaos Magicians tend to think that belief plays a major role in magic, and thus for a curse to work, the target should be informed of the curse so that they worry themselves so much that no matter what the magic behind it, the curse becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.

A Santera I know was having problems with her neighbor being loud and obnoxious at all hours of the night and leaving garbage on her lawn a few years back. She asked her Madrina (her teacher) what she should do. The Madrina told her to make a doll that looked like the neighbor: blindfold it, tie its arms and legs, and nail it to the tree in her yard facing her neighbors front door. My friend was a bit shocked and said “Good Lord! I don’t want to hurt him! What will happen?” “Nothing” replied her Madrina “but it will scare the living shit out of him!” A few days after my friend followed her Madrinas instruction, the neighbor came over begging forgiveness swearing up and down that he was experiencing the worst couple days of his life. Of course it is quite true that suggestion is a powerful thing and if you can convince someone that they are under attack, they can manifest powerful symptoms. The effect in this case is a Nocebo, the opposite of a Placebo, someone thinks that something is terminal and it becomes a terminal case. The phenomina is well documented in medical journals where people have literally died from cancers that they did not actually have. If you want to cast a Nocebo curse, than go for it. Just tell the target that they have been cursed. Do not however do any actual magic work. Just let it go. If you actually plan on doing magic that is intended to have an effect on the target you need to keep them in the dark about it for the simple reason that you do not want them to get help! You wouldnt tell someone ahead of time that you are planning to punch them in the face would you? If they know that you cursed them, they may try to reverse the spell, or even more likely hire someone to do it for them. Your actual curse will be much more effective if they do not see it coming and cannot defend against it, than if they know it is coming. You need to choose whether you want to scare someone or actually harm them. Do it or don't. CURSING IS EASY Don Kraig has repeatedly made the point that magic takes skill and that includes magical attack. His argument is that magical attacks may be launched by ignorant

and unskilled people, but these are ineffective because they are not trained magicians. If they were trained they would not waste their time on such endeavors because they would know about the laws of karma yadda yadda yadda. This is a silly argument. Let's set aside the obvious point that people need not use complex ceremonial and kabalistic methods for doing magic. I have seen totally untrained people do amazing magic with a spell kit that they bought at the local botanica. The truth is that attack magic takes WAY less skill than other types of magic. The last time this question became an issue in a class I was giving I held up a knife and asked how many people in the audience had the skill to perform a medical operation with the knife. One person raised their hand. I than asked how many people thought they had skill enough to kill someone with it. Everyone raised their hand. Just take the knife and stab the target. Repeat as necessary. Sooner or later that little fucker is going down! Its like that with magic to, if you can link with someone at all, all you really need to do is psychically and energetically go ape shit on them and your curse will have effect. It may not be graceful. It may not be as effective as something applied with strategy, but harm WILL result. BE PREPARED FOR WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO DO Are you prepared for your target to die? Are you prepared for them to break or lose a limb? If not, than let me STRONGLY urge you not to curse them. Even in the case of a confusion spell or binding, there can be devestating effects. I once did a binding spell to stop someone from stalking my client. It eventually did stop him by his falling off a ladder and breaking both legs. I was ok with that, given the level of threat. If you would not be, than I would not recommend you do it. Its not easy or effective to pull punches with your cursing, Doing a spell to cause harm, than following it up with qualifiers like "but not TOO hurt. Not damaged or killed etc" will only weaken your efforts to the point where they are ineffectual.

Being a Sorcerer means taking ownership and responsibility for your work. You cannot micromanage the results of everything so if harm or even collateral damage scares you, than stay away from type of magic.

GETTING PAST GUARDIANS AND DEFENSES I wrote an entire book on protection and defense magic, and than followed that up with a chapter in The Sorcerers Secrets. I have said all I need about defending yourself from magical attack. Now it'e time to talk about how to get past those defenses. I have met many people who have slung curses, but amazingly I have met very few that have even considered what kind of defenses they would run up against. Those that have only seemed to be concerned if they were cursing other practitioners. This is a HUGE mistake. You should not automatically assume that because someone calls themselves a magician or witch that they have psychic defenses that are worth a damn, and one should certainly not assume that because someone is perceived as a nonpractitioner that they do not. Practitioners without adequate protection it just stands to reason that if many mages and witches feel that magical attacks do not occur, and that spirits are generally friendly that they will not devote much time to defensive measures. On the other side of the coin people who are not practitioners of magic often do wear amulets from their church or culture as well as engage in regular prayer which can be a pretty potent act of protection in and of itself. In addition to this it is important for those of us who are white protestants to remember that it may be the cultural norm for some other people to take extra magical precautions such as doing a protection Novena when they feel attacked or even consulting a practitioner for protection. Even without any of the above, your would be target may simply have strong natural gifts and/or family spirits that protect them. Just like there is no one fool-proof method of defending against psychic attack there is also no fool-proof way of over-riding protection efforts. There are however several things that you can try.

• BRIBES: Make offerings to your targets protectors. Big offwerings with lots of physical supports. This should be an impressive show. The idea is exactly the same as bribing a human guard. It way work, it may not. • APPEAL TO DIETIES: If you feel that your case is justified you can appeal directly to the forces that they work with to let your attack go un-defended. I have a Santera friend who claims that when there was a disruption in her community, both people do their spells and rely upon the Orishas to sort out who will come out on top. If you think you have a case, there is no reason not to do the same. • ATTACK FROM LEVELS YOUR TARGET IS WEAK ON: This is yet another reason that I keep pushing this concept of levels in Strategic Sorcery. I have pointed out that different traditions tend to focus on different levels. Hoodoo for instance does a lot with divine prayer and also with materia. If you launched a primarily energy or astral based attack on a Hoodoo practitioner you would have a better chance of success than if you attacked with what they are already familiar with. Similarly, Golden Dawn and Thelemic types do a lot of energy work with the LBRP and such, but tend to be very susceptible to physical powders and other types of materia based magic. I have tested this a couple times in fact. If you can access the causal level before an attack, you can bypass almost all but the best magical defense. • ATTACK USING CULTURAL MAGIC THAT YOUR TARGET IS UNFAMILIAR WITH: One of the great advantages of the current age is that the world is now very small. You can learn the magic of another culture quite easily starting with books and the internet, and eventually hopping on a jet and going there yourself. If you really take the time do this you will see that all systems of magic are NOT the same or leading to the same place. Sometimes traditional magic is very geared towards defending against magic that is narrowly defined within that tradition. If you know a system of magic that operates on different principals, it can sometimes easily get through.

• SHOCK AND AWE: Sometimes the best offense is a really really overwhelming offence! Go in with everything you have and do it again and again. The strongest and most resilient will be left standing. Just make sure that it is you. CATHARTIC CURSES When choosing a curse there are a lot of options, you need to assess your strengths and your targets weaknesses. You also need to assess the level at which you are hoping for this to be a psychologically fulfilling exercise for you. I know that I argue all the time about magic being psychology, and I stand by that, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get some psychological benefit from your work. Sometimes what you are looking for is an outlet for your rage more than any specific result of the attack. That's ok. Some of the strongest curses are driven more by emotional release than by accessing specific energies and using complicated tech. Sometimes your best option is staying up until your target is asleep, holding their link over some DUME incense or stabbing a doll, while chanting to the powers that be about how much this fucker deserves to be destroyed. Personally I try to use my own words for this kind of thing but if you want a good invocation to get you started I always enjoyed the invocation for Destruction in Anton LaVey's Satanic Bible. Remember that emotions are energy, and anything that fills the mind with rage is a good invocation. Not only do you get to curse, but you get to gripe while doing it! Its a win-win! MY FAVORITE MALIFICA I do not really like to do this kind of work, nor do I think that it should be a major pre-occupation of any truly strategic sorcerer, therefore I am not interested in providing a long extensive list of curses to choose from. Some methods I use would be initiatory secrets of one tradition or another such as the "Severing the Life Channel" Sadhana connected to the dharmapala Rahula.

That said, there are a few methods that I can talk about and which will be good enough to get you started. DREAM CURSES: If you can Lucid Dream or Astral Project, you can enter into the body of the sleeping target. Come up behind them and look through their eyes. Create all kinds of vision and terror and distorition for them to see and it will deeply effect their mind. This is a great adjunct to traditional confusion spells. DEFIXIONES TABLETS: These are letters written to underworld dieties like Hekate and Erishkigal that detail the misdoings of your target as well as your request for harm to be delivered upon them. They are traditionally etched on lead, stabbed through with a nail from a shipwreck, and either thrown into the ocean or buried, where it is assumed the underground mail network will deliver your request to the appropriate authority. Check out the book "Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World" for a whole catalogue of classical Defixiones tablets. SNUFFING: You have a candle representing the target. Use your toilet as an altar and burn it for nine nights while cursing the target verbally. At the end of your curse, take the candle and snuff it out in a bowl of goofer dust. At the end of the nine nights take the candle and toss it in a river or bury it in a grave. Take the goofer dust and powder the targets doorway or car with it. BLACK FUNERAL: Everyone talks about black masses, but what about black funerals? Create a poppet or place your object links into a miniature coffin lined with appropriate herbs and materia. Go to a graveyard and dig a hole for your coffin. Line the hole with powdered sulphur. Say a funeral rite over the coffin except instead of commending the soul to heaven, condemn it to hades. At the end of the funeral lower the coffin into the hole and light the sulphur on fire, making the grave itself the inferno! ALMOST ANY TYPE OF MAGIC CAN BE USED TO ATTACK SOMEONE Chuck Paklaniuk, the author of Fight Club, once wrote a story about New Agers that used their skills at reflexology to kill people for money instead of heal them. There is a little bit of truth to that. Any discipline that can be used to heal can be used to kill. Certainly in the chromatic healing method in the last chapter at least

a few of you reading about red and orange energy thought to yourselves "so if I load someones eyes with red and orange energy maybe that will make them go blind!" If Feng Shui can be used to induce wealth and health than it just stands to reason that you could follow the same guidelines to induce poverty and illness. Perhaps there is a way that you can arrange the furniture in your house that it would kill everyone who sat down! If massage can remove stress and pain, than the same points should also be exploitable to cause harm. Dim Mak the infamous method of "poison touch" in Chinese martial arts is supposedly based on acupuncture points that are used in that art to heal. It only stands to reason that if you can repair chi meridians, that you can damage them. "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique" here we come! THE COST OF CURSING There are some types of magic that I know about, that I honestly wish I did'nt. Ways to corrupt the information level of a person's body, ways to trap a departed persons spirit and keep it from moving on. Ways to ensnare it while the body is alive and turn the soul against the body. There is some dark shit out there boys and girls, and most of it is totally unnecessary. It's darkness for darkness sake and is best avoided. There is a cost to cursing. Some will be argent supporters of the Karma and "it will come back upon you" view. Others deny that there is any such force operating in the universe. That is up to you to decide. What I can tell you for certain is that like attracts like and if when you do malific work it attracts the attention of spirits that resonate with that work. Hyssop Baths and cleansing rituals for post-cursing work help reduce the amount of influence these forces have, but if you engage in this type of work too often, nothing will be really effective. Magicians that curse a lot eventually get obsessed with it. They become embroiled in endless magical wars and psychic soap operas. Don't let this

happen to you. Do what you gotta do than be done with it and move on. That is my advice to you.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 45: THE CAUSAL LEVEL One of the recurring themes of Strategic Sorcery is the concept of integrating the different levels of working into your strategies. If we are making a spirit bottle or laying powders we know that we are working the material level. If we are moving energy through our channels and centers with the breath, physical exertion, and perhaps even physical implements like acupuncture needles we know that we are working the etheric level. If we are moving energy through the channels by use of will and imagination, dealing with spirits and other entities we are working the astral level. If we are work on the level where energy seems to move freely outside of our channels, where forms change easily, and where we begin to be freed from some of our lower ego clingings, we know we are in the soul level, also called the upper astral. When we move past the point where there is any concept of forms or space at all, we know we are on the mental or information levels. Each of these levels overlaps and interpenetrates the other. There are no firm barriers between them, and the only reason to even think of them as levels is to make them useful for magic. Beyond these five levels there are two more that are vital for the more advanced workings of Strategic Sorcery. These are the Causal Level, and the Perfection Level. It is the causal level that we are concerning ourselves with tonight. The causal level is a state of being or awareness that is just beyond subject and object. It is the point at which all things move from the complete non-duality of the perfection level into being subject and object. The very cusp of creation! THE CAUSAL REALM AND THE TREE OF LIFE For those of you who love the Tree of Life and map everything onto it, you can think of the abyss and the celestial triad Briyah and Chokmah as the mental levels, and Kether and even the Ain Soph Aur (Limitless Light) as the Causal Realm. This raises a lot of questions for people who are steeped in Khabbalistic and Hermetic systems. "But wait a minute, doesn't that mean I have to be an

Ipsissimus to access that level? Isn't that like the last and final degree? Don't I have to pass through the terror of the abyss first?" etc etc etc. STATE VS STAGE Some of these questions arise from the confusion between a state and a stage. All of you have very likely had access to the level of awareness that I am speaking about for short fleeting moments. Through meditation, or even other activities like sex, sports, drugs, and simple relaxation you can slip into the mind STATE necessary to use the magic of this level. To say that you have reached this STAGE of awareness however is quite another thing. It would imply that this state of awareness is your normal consciousness and that you have integrated thought and action of all lower levels into this level of consciousness without disturbing your awareness. Think of it like this. If the causal level were Russia, the experience of being in the state would be like visiting Russia on vacation. You come there and experience it and you leave. It forever colors the rest of your life, and you may go visit again, but you do not reside there. If however during one of your visits you purchased a house and became a citizen, you would be in the STAGE. The State is a day trip. The Stage is permanent residency. I have met a lot of people who have had the direct experience of trans-abyssal consciousness and non-dual awareness. I myself have had these experiences. I do not however claim to live in this state permanently. I have met very few people that live in that state as their normal awareness. The few I have though, have proved that it is possible. When I was a kid and took Karate my sensei told me that being a blackbelt was not in any way the end of the journey. It simply meant that you had accumulated the necessary skills to start the journey. It is a bit like that with the Causal Realm. Once you attain the state of being able to rest your mind in the Causal Level your life will never quite be the same, but it also should not be thought of as any great accomplishment. The real work is returning to the state over and over again until your brain forms the neural connections necessary return there at will without

any need for meditation or method. The next stage is remembering to be in that state so often that eventually it becomes your normal state of awareness. After that you integrate every kind of activity into the state. When you finally stabalize that awareness, than and only then have you reached that Stage of awareness. Get it? When people tell me that they have crossed the abyss, like it's the ultimate attainment in magic I kind of chuckle to myself and just welcome them to the club. It's not about day-tripping across the abyss. It's about building a home for yourself there and moving in. Thankfully for the purposes of Strategic Sorcery we don't need to be in the Stage, only able to dwell in the State for a while and have it stable enough to integrate activity. THE MYSTIC VS THE ESOTERIC APPROACH So now we are left with the quiestion of how best to access the Causal Level. Just a little warning here: I am probably going to piss off a couple people in this section. Richard Smoley has made an interesting distinction between esoteric vs mystic paths. Since he was writing specifically on Esoteric Christianity I will paraphrase him here. He says that Esotericism is characterized by an interest in the different levels of consciousness and being. Mysticism is not quite so concerned with these intermediate states; it focuses on reaching the ultimate realizations in the most direct and immediate way. The mystic wants to reach his destination as quickly as possible; the esotericist wants to learn something about the landscape on the way. Moreover, mysticism tends more toward passivity: a relaxation into awareness or a quiet "waiting upon God" rather than active investigation. It's an interesting distinction I think. This is reflected in the west in the various esoteric systems of moving through paths on the tree of life or hermetic spheres vs the mystical approach of people like John of the Cross and Ibn Arabi. In the east

this distinction also exists. In Buddhism for instance you have the esoteric Tantric paths with various gradual stages vs the non-gradual paths of Zen and Dzogchen. With just this info in mind, you might be confused about the approach we have been taking in Strategic Sorcery. On the one hand we have been talking a lot about these various levels and how they get used in practical magic. On the other hand I have been pushing a fairly mystic approach to attaining the realization of these levels. There is no pathworkings, no conjuring of angels to grant passage to the next plane, no secret codes to move through gnostic spheres. None of the traditional trappings of the esoteric journey at all: just meditation and contemplation. I have modeled the way that Strategic Sorcery approaches this issue after the way that Namkhai Norbu has handled the interaction of Tantric techniques within his Dzogchen teaching. Norbu insists that because the main method of Dzogchen is the highest vehicle for attaining enlightenment, you may take advantage of all the methods of lower vehicles for addressing individual issues along the way. The idea is simple: Get to the top of the mountain quickly because from that standpoint you can see all the paths below it with greater clarity. If we keep with the mountain analogy you might say that while the Esotericist is concerned with mapping and exploring the levels on the way up, and the Pure Mystic is concerned only with getting to the peak, the Strategic Sorcerer's approach is to use the mystic method for getting to the peak, and to explore and exploit the levels on the way back down. The reasons for this approach are purely tactical. It is best to do as the mystics do an get right to the ultimate realizations as quickly and directly as possible. The simpler the method the better because ultimately whatever method you use will need to be dropped in order to realize the higher states. This is the biggest problem with the esoteric paths. If your entire journey has been defined by a process of moving through various spheres that manifest as locations, and interacting with various Angels, Archons, or Governors, you will be seriously handicapped when it comes time to enter into the mental level where

there is no form, and the causal and perfection level where there is no subject/object. In some cases (though certainly not all) there are esoteric paths with a stated aim of divine union, but which practically guarantee by their very nature that the aspirant will never attain it! In addition to this it has been my observation that people who practice the direct and mystical methods of meditation/contemplation have more to show for in terms of their behavior, expression, and wisdom than the esotericists do. You may disagree with that assessment and that is fine by me, but I stand by it. In other words when you apply the 80/20 rule to spiritual practice, I have found the meditative methods to be in the 20 percent of effort that generate 80 percent of the benefit. THE CAUSAL REALM AND PRACTICAL SORCERY Ok ok ok. Enough with all the spiritual enlightenment mumbo-jumbo already. This is a class in Strategic Sorcery and the real purpose of this lesson is to talk about the causal realm as it relates to practical magic. The basics of it is this: when the seat of your awareness is at the causal level, you are not affected by the normal rules of cause and effect. This is what is meant in the Hermetica when it says that those who dwell in the state of Henosis (Divine Union) are free from the Twelve Governors of Fate and what is meant in Dzogchen when the Lamas say that someone dwelling in a state of Rigpa (primordial awareness) do not generate karma by their actions. This is a HUGE deal in practical magic, but it doesn't get spoken about a lot because most people only think of these states in the context of purely spiritual and illuminative persuits. Most people who are concerned with practical sorcery do not concern themselves with these states of awareness at all. Those that have genuinely attained the stage of dwelling in the causal state while being able to act on all lower levels of being are the miracle workers of history. These are the guys that walk on water and make hand imprints in rock. They can

bend the laws of reality because from where they stand, the laws of reality simply are not a very big deal. For most of us however we can only dwell in his state for moments at a time and have a difficult time integrating even movement of thought and emotion without falling from the state. That is ok though, even just a few moments dwelling in the causal state are enough to do amazing things. For example, if you are experiencing an unwanted emotion and can shift your awareness to causal level, you can instantly strip that emotion of its patterning revealing its pure-unpatterned potential. Than as you shift down to the information level, you can re-pattern the energy into something useful or simply integrate it. This may not seem like any big deal, but having this kind of control over the emotions is huge benefit when implementing deep personality changing life design strategies. Another use of this state is that any spell, or indeed any undertaking whatsover, is greatly enhanced by shifting awareness to the causal level and uttering the intention. After such an uttering you shift down into mental/soul/astral/etheric/material levels and work to manifest your intention. The uttering of the intent on the causal level gives tremendous weight and power to it. It is after all the primary level of creation. It is exactly this kind of utterance that gave rise to the Strategic Sorcery grimoire. I simply shifted and rested my mind in the causal level, than allowed the rest to unfold based upon that utterance. When greater men and women than I give similar utterances, they give birth to the great symbols and figures of religion. The imagery of Tantric Yidams and Angels and Gods arise from such workings. SUMMARY There is not exactly a lot of specifics that I can give about the Causal Realm Sorceries. If you attain the state than you will know how to use it. What I want you to take home from this lesson is an explanation of the state and how spiritual and illuminative work are important in Practical Magic. When you master this kind of work, you are much more than a Sorcerer

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 46: Financial Strategies Part 1 More than half of you listed a financial goal as your primary goal for this course. There are some spiritual and magical teachers that would be upset by this, feeling that it is distinctly unspiritual. I am not disappointed, I am thrilled. All teachings on the spiritual virtues of poverty aside, unless you plan on following through and becoming a monk, nun, or homeless mystic, I am a big believer in financial growth and stability being a contributor to spiritual growth and stability. I am of the opinion that all adults should have a basic financial education before they go out on their own. Unfortunately real knowledge about how finances work is not taught in schools. It should be but it isn’t. If it was we would all be able to read balance sheets, income statements, and the small print in the Wall Street Journal. Instead of that financial education we were offered a deal. The deal was that they teach us how to be mediocre and not make too much of a fuss. You get taught how to get a good job with good security and how to show up on time, and clock in and out until you are 65. In exchange we get enough money to make us comfortable enough that we won’t start asking too many questions, or do a re-run of the French Revolution. A friend of mine once made posters and stickers that read "Your Paycheck is Hush Money". In a very real way, that is exactly what it is. That was the deal we were raised for, and for the most part the deal worked. Until now. The problem is that the deal we were educated for is NO LONGER THE DEAL. Right now the deal is: No Job security. No living wage. No pensions. No help. It sucks, but that is where we are. In this day and age it takes major skill and sometimes a little sorcery just to keep your head above water, much less lead a better life than your parents did. It is because of this new deal that I have devoted so much of my teaching over the last several years to the topic of financial magic. I am quite proud of the financial magic section of The Sorcerers Secrets, and would appreciate it if you would give it a quick re-read before reading this lesson.

In that chapter I went over the basic ideas of financial magic, laying out the five common sense rules that lead to financial wellness. 1. Earn more than you spend 2. Earn More 3. Spend Less 4. Manage your money wisely 5. Consider what you really want. Since I wrote that chapter and began seriously employing those strategies for myself, my financial life has improved drastically. Despite the introduction of two children, and both my wife and I getting laid off, I am more financially stable and well off today than I was before I wrote the Sorcerers Secrets. Those five rules are excellent as a start, but there is much more to say. In this chapter I want to go deeper into financial sorcery and lay out clear strategies for those aspects of financial magic that have been the most needed and useful: job finding, promotion seeking, entrepreneurial magic, Investment magic, and retirement. Lets start with Jobs. JOB SEARCH SORCERY There are more than a few of you who are currently out of work. You are on course not alone. On the cable talk shows and radio programs you constantly hear talk about the unemployment rate being over 10 percent. Let me tell you folks, the unemployment rate means NOTHING. Think about it. In 1984 the unemployment rate was 14 percent. It could be 50% and everything can be ok - as long as there are jobs for all those people to move into. The number that matters is not the unemployment rate but the employment offering rate. Its not how many people that are out of work that matter, it is how many jobs there are out there to be filled. Make sense? Unfortunately the employment offering rate is even worse than the unemployment rate. It's actually scary. Right now if we filled every open job in America only one in 6 unemployed people currently collecting unemployment

would have a job. Currently in America it is pretty common for people to exhaust their 99 weeks of unemployment insurance and still not find a job. The situation is grim. Hopefully the following step by step strategy can be used be adapted by some of you to find work. STEP 1: THE MACRO-ENCHANTMENT. Start out by doing a Macro-Enchantment aimed simply at finding work that is appropriate for you, brings in what you need, and does not conflict with your spiritual/magical efforts. What you do exactly is up to youYou should rely upon your own intuition, divinations, and spiritual guides to decide exactly what form this takes. . I have used the following technques at different times: • Accumulate 10,000 Jambhala Mantras over the course of several days • Invoke Tzadkiel the Archangel of Jupiter • Meditate daily upon the Jupiter Seal that I gave out in the planetary lessons and state my intent to get a job. • Perform a Novena of the Miraculous Medal for Employment All of them have worked for me in different ways. Whatever you do, it should set up the overall quality of the work, and serve to attune you to powers that are genuinely spiritual as well as material. Go back and review the lessons on Angels and Demons if you do not know what exactly I am talking about. After you do your macro-enchantment it is time to focus on the microenchantment. STEP 2: Put the word out People place an enormous amount of energy into searching through ads and job websites. That is good to do, but it is nowhere near as important as getting the word out to your personal network on contacts that you are looking for work. 75% of the jobs in America are filled by people who were found through interpersonal relations, not by people who answered ads. Putting the word out about being laid off should be your first and most vital step to finding new work. Obviously you will call your close friends and family, and perhaps use linked-in and facebook to send the word out to your wider network,

but as a magician there is a lot you can do to amplify and even more importantly refine this effort. Those of you who have been meditating and can access the information level easily should have no trouble creating a beacon in the ether about your need for work. Sending this through the web of philotic lines will prompt people to think harder about your situation, and perhaps contact friends of friends of friends on your behalf. Spirits can be used for similar situations and in fact Eliath or Sabatoleth from the SS Mini Grimoire will work quite well for just that purpose. STEP 3: THE CUSTOM RESUME OF MERCURY Right now for every professional job in America there is currently an average of 800 applicants. Unless you have a personal advocate in the company to speal for you, you need to have a plan that will get you noticed. You need to reduce yourself from being one in 800 to just being the one. Thankfully even without magic you can reduce the odds against you just by taking some common sense steps and doing the things that others dont. First step is simply making sure that your resume is tailor made for the job that you are applying for. There was a time when everyone would have one resume that they would send out to all jobs - that time is long gone. Given the manner in which companies need to sort applicants just to get down to manageable levels of, todays job seeker needs to re-edit or even re-write their resume to reflect exactly what the ad or contact says they are looking for. It should literally be a mirror of what they are asking for. If the ad says they are looking for "a/r" experience and you write on your resume that you have" accounts receivable" experience this simple change may get you in the trash pile even though a/r means accounts receivable! Why? Because the person going through the pile of 800 resumes is not the boss or even someone in that department. Its the secretary. This person may not have any knowledge of the job whatsoever, they are just going through the applications getting rid of all the resumes that do not have what the ad asks for. They don't know that a/r means accounts receivable. All they know is that your resume doesnt say what the ad does and these others do. It's that crazy out there folks, companies look at anything and everything to weed down just to the few applicants that they will meet with. If you custom

write your resume for the job you are applying for, and of course have no mistakes or formatting errors, you just went from being one in 800 to one in 400. STEP 4: THE COVER LETTER OF VENUS Next step is the cover letter. Think of your resume as your mercurial talisman - it tells them that you are qualified for the job. Your cover letter is your venusian talisman - it tells them why they will fall in love with you when they meet you. The ideal cover letter takes an item from your resume and places it within a story. It shows you in action. Unless you are at the executive level, it should be short and to the point. Look at examples online, but for gods sake do NOT copy them. They will have gotten a dozen of those already. Only 40% of applicants send out a cover letter. Just by sending one out with your application you went from being one in 400 to one in 160. Not bad for just doing what everyone should be doing anyway. Of course we are Sorcerers. When I spoke about the resume as mercurial talisman and the cover letter as venusian talisman I was not just being poetic. You should actually charge them as such. On the forums and on my blog there has been a lot of discussion about how best to do this, most of these discussions have focused on the use of materia. Some people have written me with suggestions about using oils, and invisible inks, and powders, etc. There are two problems with this line of thought: First, what year is this? Where are you applying for work, chess king ? By all means bring a hard copy of your resume to your job interview, but they will already have read it because you will have e-mailed it in along with your cover letter. Second, never ever do anything with magic that will work against you on the nonmagical level. In this case, any perceptible weirdness on your resume will automatically make you look like either a boob or a serial killer. Oil will make it look like you wiped up grease with it. Invisible ink will show up in certain lights and those sigils you are drawing will definitely creep the hell out of someone. Powder is possible if you get it ALL off the resume, but the benefit is not worth the chance of making it look like you are handing them a paper dusted with anthrax or cocaine. So far the only idea that I have heard that is really that good is

using refillable printer ink and adding dragons blood to the ink, but do you REALLY need to do that? No. There are plenty of other ways to charge your documents. First and foremost is a ritual reading of your resume and cover letter to charge the words themselves. If you can enter into a sufficient state of awareness this act alone will charge them on the information level and will activate your intent when someone reads the same words. If you are not yet at the level of doing direct infomation magic, you can call forth a spirit or even group of spirits, and read it to them asking them to empower your words and effect the minds of those that read them. Angels incidentally are IDEAL for this, they are messengers after all. You can also keep a master copy on your altar that you dress with all in incense, oils, and mago-jizz that you want to. The idea being that what you do to that master copy effects all other copies, electronic and otherwise. If you can get links to the person you know will be reading the resume, you can build a honey jar or do some other type of materia on your altar. Finally, you do not need to dress a paper with materia for it to be charged. Passing it over a candle flame, tracing energy sigils in the astral, and other types of magic will work quite well. I am all for magica, but not when it will make your mundane efforts look sloppy. Using effective sorcery, you will get yourself down from one in 160 to one in 20 or so. Enough to land you that interview. STEP 5: THE INTERVIEW AND THE THANK YOU The interview you will of course use all the tricks of the trade both magical and mundane. You will wear your talisman, employ your conversational sorcery, smile and be charming, dress like you are interviewing for a position two steps up from yours, and otherwise use as much influence as you can without going over the top. Again, looking like you are trying to hypnotize the interviewer will NOT land you the job. Unless you know how to use NLP and Conversational Sorcery without looking like a creepy boob, avoid those methods. There is however one thing that you must not avoid: the thank you letter. Remember that only 40% of applicants send a cover letter? Well only 4% send thank you letters after interviews. If your interview was over the phone, an e-mail thank you is acceptable, but if they took the time to meet with you in person, you

should drag your ass to the post office and mail the interviewer a proper thank you card. Do it on the way home from the interview. It shows you have class and that you follow through. This one move alone can move you from being one in 20 to being just one. As with the documents above - do not dress the thank you with smelly or messy materia. Breathe a prayer onto it and let it go. As I mentioned in TSS, being an author/writer/teacher of the occult is not my only job, I also have a career to provide a steady base income. In January 2010, I was laid off from that job. While this did afford me the opportunity to spend more time with my children and to work on projects like this course, I knew that I wanted to find a job again before too long. Apart from that, I knew I wanted to work in a different field than I had been. Using the strategy below I found a job in a more exciting field about 9 months after I was laid off. In fact during those 9 months, I only applied for two jobs. I got both of them, turning the first one down because it did not pay enough. I mention this only to show that the strategy works. PROMOTION MAGIC Another useful strategy to have a grasp on is the art of getting promoted once you have a job. Here again is a basic sample strategy that I have used. STEP 1: MACRO ENCHANTMENT Same deal as the job. Choose one prayer, puja, mantra, novena, spell, Angel, God, whatever, to oversee the whole arc of the operation. You make it known that you want to get promoted and what position you are seeking. It helps sometimes to make a statement not just detailing that you want the position, but what you plan to do in said position and how you intend to use the newfound power and wealth. Some people use this to make a promise of future offerings like tithing a certain amount of the increased income or something like that, but I would recommend against it. Too often those deals get forgotten the first time that it becomes inconvenient to keep them, unfortunately the spirits do not forget... STEP 2: DO YOUR DAMN JOB

Don't just do it. Do it really really really well. Better than ever before. Do all the cliche things that they tell you to do: Dress for the job you want not the job you have, come in 15 minutes early, never leave before the boss does, under-promise and over-deliver, know how to look as if you gossip without ever doing it, do not divulge information unnecessarily, have a game plan, etc. You should know all this already. If you don't than you need to read a book on how to behave at work. I recommend "The Rules of Work" by Robert Templar. On the magical end of things you can do whatever you need to make you projects run smoothly but in the end you shouldn't need much magic for this step. You can either do your job or you can't. If you can't do your job well, than it is time for a job change. There is an corporate theory known as "The Peter Principle" which simply states "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence". While it seems silly on the surface it actually makes perfect sense. Since doing your job should get you promoted, it only makes sense that you will continue to rise until you reach the job that you can no longer excel at. If you find yourself in a job that you are barely competent at, it is not time to worry about getting promoted - you will simply down. Instead you should worry about mastering your current position or finding a new job. STEP 3: GET YOURSELF NOTICED Unfortunately it is entirely possible for you to do your job, make everyone around you look good and not get noticed. Thankfully we are sorcerers and if you re-read the chapter in TSS on influence and persuasion, you should have no problem thinking of spells and techniques that will spread your good name like wildfire. Combine this with offering ideas, volunteering for projects, and making the right network of friends and you can quickly make a name for yourself. One mundane technique that always has worked for me is the unsolicited report. Find something that no-one is tracking and track it. It doesn't really matter what it is, management is about measurement and if you show that you are capable and interested in measuring what is going on in the company, and that you have the initiative to do something that is not your job, in addition to your normal duties of course, it will help you get noticed quickly.

If you can magically prime up a boss and boss's boss with some late night influencing magic, than hit them up with a spreadsheet of how many of their web-ads actually converts into a sale, you will be well on your way. STEP 4: HAVE A REPLACEMENT FOR YOURSELF In a shaky economy this is kind of a controversial move, but in many cases unless there is someone that is able to move into your position, you cannot move up. You do not want someone who does your job better than you. Just someone who can do it when you rise out of that position. STEP 5: MAKE YOURSELF A LINCHPIN Seth Godin wrote a new book called Linchpin that has a simple premise: You should make yourself indispensible by doing something that no one else can do or at least do anywhere near as well as you are. Be an artist at what you do, not just an employee. While I do have some disagreements with some of the sentiments in the book, the overall idea is a good one. Pick up the book for more info on the Linchpin philosophy. You will immediately see how not only can magic be applied to becoming a linchpin, but becoming a linchpin is magic. STEP 5 ALTERNATIVE: DO THE WORK OF THE POSITION ABOVE YOU Some people just are not going to be linchpins. Despite what Godin says, THIS IS OK. Maybe you have a nice stable government job with good benefits. There is nothing wrong with that. Maybe you just dont find yourself in love with what you do for a living anymore, but do not want to start up a new career, nothing wrong with that either. If you cannot let your passion drive you into becoming a Linchpin, than the alternative is to let your ambition drive you into the position above you. The most simple move here is to find opportunities to perform the work of that level. Every boss takes vacation sooner or later right? Perhaps you can step in for a week and pick up some of the slack. Whatever the circumstance that you can create (magically if necessary) the idea is to show without a doubt that you can do the work of the job that you want.

That's all for this week. Next week it's Financial Strategies Part 2!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 47: Financial Strategies Part 2 Continuing on from our last lesson I want to present an extensive strategy about debt. I actually hope that this lesson is not needed by most of you. I hope that when you read it, you will say "pffft, duh, who doesnt know this stuff!". A lot of it seems like it should be obvious. If you have that reaction to this lesson, I commend you on your finbancial prowess. I only ask that you suffer through it because I know for a fact that more than a few people in the course do not know these things and are in desperate need of this type of strategy. Even when you know the basics of it, it sometimes helps to have it all spelled out.

DEBT KILLING STRATEGIES

Debt makes all the difference in financial health. You can make just a hare above the poverty line, and if you manage to live without debt, you can still build real wealth. On other hand it is possible to have an income in the millions and loose it all in a flash because you are living beyond your means. It all comes down to those two piles of money I talked about in TSS: The one coming in has to be bigger than the one going out or eventually, no matter how tricky your math, you will get screwed. Duh.

Unfortunately it seems that this simple lesson is lost on more of us than not. Annie Leibovitz, MC Hammer, Nicholas Cage, Ed Mc Mann, Don Johnson, and I am sure soon to be Charlie Sheen are all on the list of rich and famous who lost everything because they had more debt than income. I myself have been in debt, and I am willing to bet that some of you are carrying more than a healthy amount of debt as well.

Thankfully Sorcery can help, especially if we have a strategy.

STEP 1: Assess where you are.

Before we can do anything to advance ourselves from our current position, it is usually advisable to know where you are. In other strategies I treat this more or less as a given, but not in Debt Magic. Debt is usually created and perpetuated by people not having a fucking clue about where they are. No one I have ever met that was in significant and long term debt or money problems had a clear picture of what they earned or what they spent. Not one. That includes me when I had those issues myself.

I am going to speak frankly here, in most cases the ignorance is purposeful. Bills remain unopened because you know you can't pay them and looking at the actual number is just too depressing. Bank accounts get overdrawn regularly because actually looking at the balance before using the debit card can be just as bad. Taxes, utilities, credit cards, all because subjects too daunting to deal with today. You tell youself you will cope with it another day, but not today. Today you will ignore the calls and leave the enveloped unopened.

I have a special homework assignment here. If this person I am describing above is you, I want today to be the day that you deal with it. Today you are going to nut up and be a man (unless you are a woman, than you'know, just do whatever the equivalent is...). Before you read the next strategy I want you to open your bills, look at your paychecks and gather as much info as you possibly can about the money you have going out and the money you have coming in.

Start with the monthly bills that should be easy to look up: this includes: • Mortgage/Rent • Car Loan

• • • • • • • • • •

Any and all loans All Credit Cards Insurance Electric Gas Water/Sewage Trash Collection Telephones - all of them Internet Cable

Over the next few days keep every receipt and examine how much you have been spending on incidentals: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Gasoline Groceries Eating Out Coffee Dry Cleaning Gym Membership Vacation Clothes Entertainment of any kind Personal Care and Grooming Vices Charity Pet Care Magick Books and Supplies

Now its time to measure this against the money you earn. First take a look at what you have: • Cash in your wallet • Checking Account

• Savings Account • Money owed to you • Stocks/Bonds Than look at income: • Paycheck • Assets (yields on investments, payments from businesses owned, etc)

If you are like most people, you will be very surprised by the numbers, especially the numbers going out. Even if you are not in debt, the exercise is worth doing every now and then. I am not in any particularly drastic debt at the moment, but I figured I would check out how much I spend at Starbucks. It's about $150 a month or $1800 year. I am ok with that for now, I make enough to indulge myself. If I was in debt however, that would be one of the first things cut out.

I was serious about that being an optional homework assignment BTW. If you are in debt and actually do that you can replace any other assignment in this course with a short write up of your findings. No specific numbers - I dont need or want to know how much you make or how much debt you have. I just want to know what you learned from the excercise. What gets measured gets managed and often the simple act of measuring will be enough to make a change.

STEP 2: Macro-Enchantment

Now that you know where you are and where you need to be you can perform your Macro Enchantment to help you get there. This is again, your overall spell for getting out of debt. It can take many forms. Appeals to Saints, Gods, and other

figures for assistance are popular. Invocations of the HGA or personal Genius are particularly effective in this type of work.

Whatever it is that you are doing, I strongly recommend picking something that is short enough you can make a daily practice out of it. This is so that it can be something that reinforces your daily efforts.

One simple prayer made popular by Bruce Wilkinson is the Prayer of Jabez. Though I knew about the book and the passage from Chronicles from which it is drawn, it was most recently brought to my attention by Robert of the "Doing Magic" blog.

The prayer is simple: "Oh that Thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thine hand might be with me, and that Thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!". You could even change the word evil to debt. This simple prayer is so potent precisely because it takes divinity and places it squarely in the center of our material lives - precisely what Strategic Sorcery is all about. Thanks to Robert for reminding me of this prayer.

STEP 3: Instituting Discipline

With your Macro Enchantment taken care of, now it's time to focus on developing the discipline that you have been lacking. Go back and read the lesson on Will and Willpower. You will need to constantly remind yourself to act according to your will and not your whim.

Specifically you need to stop bleeding money. To do this you need to take a hard look at the above and isolate bare minimum expenses for Shelter and Food. Your Shelter should be easy enough to figure - it costs what it costs. Some of you may be in situations bought more house than you could ever afford. In those rare cases you will need to explore your options, otherwise I just set that money aside every month and move on.

Food is another matter. If you have been eating out all the time, it's time to eat in. If you have been eating in, but spending as much or more as you would eating out, it's time to learn to spend frugally. On the one hand this might be a great thing for your body, an opportunity to cut out fatty foods and greasy snacks and such. This was classic for people in debt, buying cheap pre-made meals either at the store or at fast food restaurants. Lately however I have met a few people in debt that eat on the other end of the spectrum. It is wonderful to shop at Whole Foods, Artisianal Farmers Markets, and other locally produced and organic foods. Unfortunately the prices of such items keep going up and up, meaning that eating local and organic artisinal foods is increasingly an option of the rich - which if you are in debt, you are not. I am not suggesting that you eat crap, only that you find things at a regular food store that are relatively healthy and save the 9 dollar whole foods salsa and $5 loaf of organic cinnamon bread from the farmers markets for when you get out of debt. In TSS I mention Evan Lansing, who lived for a month of just $30. If he can do that, you can at least manage to cut your food budget in half for a while.

Other than these necessities, you need to figure out the bare minimum that you can live with and live off of it. Get inventive about it and challenge yourself. Figure out what gives you the best bang for the buck, for instance. Some books strangely identify computers and internet as an expense to cut, but that just shows the age of the person writing. Your computer and internet connection probably provide you the biggest entertainment bang for your buck. In fact if you are using your computer wisely you can get rid of the TV, Newspaper, Books, and even House

Phones with WAY Less hassle than you used to and still be able to enjoy all or most of these things online.

A few other good tips from a friend that just paid off $40,000 of debt: • DO Go to the library and check out books. • DO NOT buy more books. • DO work out at home or outside, even if you have a to but some cheap weights. • DO NOT join a gym. If you belong to one, cancel asap • DO invite people over and entertain with pot lucks and parties • DO NOT go out to Dinners with friends more than once a month • DO join netflix • DO NOT purchase a DVD at any price. • DO but yourself something new once a month as a treat • DO NOT buy lots of small things that are on sale because you are "saving money by buying it on sale".

But of course its not just what you buy, but how you buy it, which is why.

When I have suggested this to people the past, they have always balked as if it would ruin their life. The things to keep in mind are:

1.These are not permanent changes. They are changes to make until you are out of debt, at which point you go ahead and re-introduce some things.

2. You will find that your enjoyment of life doesnt hinge as much on anything outside of yourself as you thought it did. You will be stronger and better at the end in ways that have nothing to do with money - I guarantee it.

As for magical support for this step, make a mojo for Debt Killing: High John for Self mastery. Loadstone for attracting Money. Sassafras root or leaves for holding onto that money. You can embellish it as you will: slippery elm to aid in talking with creditors, cinnamon bark for bringing money, cascara and galangal for sorting out lawsuits, Master of the woods for self control. Use your imagination and ask for guidance.

Meditate. Do energy work to clear your channels which will in turn keep your mind clear. Use the Thought management exercises to keep yourself on target. And, finally, just nut up and do it.

STEP 4: DEALING WITH CREDIT CARDS

Folks I separated this out into another step because it needed it. Credit Card companies are evil. They could not be moreso if they were staffed by actual demons. In the old days you used to have to work up to getting a credit card. They would only give you a credit card if they thought that you would use it wisely and pay your bills. Somehow in the early 1990s the model changed. They figured out they made more from fees than from actual business, so they started giving cards away to anyone and everyone, specifically targeting people that they knew would not or could not pay: this includes college students, the elderly, the poor, and yes people already in debt.

In short, if you are using a shovel to dig yourself a hole, they will be happy to give you a backhoe.

Most people in debt make their regular minimum credit card payments. Some people who are just starting to claw their way out of debt feel that this is what they should be doing: paying what the company says that they owe, even taking pride in being able to handle that.

If you have a high balance and are in debt, you will NEVER get out of debt paying the minimum, and you will end up paying more in the end than you ever dreamed!

Lets say you had a balance of $5000 with 17% interest. Your credit card minimums are typically 3% of your balance. Paying only the minimum every month (which is 150 for this month) it will take you 13 YEARS and 2 Months to pay it off! Worse than that, the final amount that you pay will be $9031! You will pay an extra $4031 on that $5000 just for the pleasure of having Visa hold your debt for you.

If however you could squeeze $300 from your budget every month you can have it paid off in 20 months and pay only $700 in interest. Big difference right? Than you are done. It's over. You will have that $300 extra in your budget to use wisely.

If you have heavy Credit Card debt go Here: http://www.creditcards.com/calculators/ and plug in your numbers. Than find a low interest card to transfer the balance to and get it done.

As a side note: you can use these same calculators to figure out car payments and home mortgages. The same dynamics apply.

With all that said, I am not advocating getting rid of the credit cards. You need them for emergencies, for car rentals, and for a bunch of other activities. What I am advocating is that you stop using them for anything other than emergencies for now and that you pay them off quickly. They are a necessary evil but you should never forget that they are evil

STEP 5: CREDITORS

If you are deep enough in debt that you have stopped paying your bills and have people calling your house, this step is really very simple. After you have completed step one thru three you should have a good idea of what your finances are like. All you need to do now is pick up the phone and talk to them.

One by one, talk to them and set up a plan that you can actually stick to. It's amazing how nice they can be when you make even the smallest effort. That goes for the IRS as well. I have had to deal with the IRS three times in my life, twice for me and once for my parents business. Each time they were very understanding and easy to make a plan with. You tell them what you can do, and chances are they will agree to it.

Try to avoid these outfits that make it seem like they will do everything for you. Their ads suggest that they can reduce your debt to almost nothing and when you are desperate that seems like a good idea. Its almost always NOT a good idea. They rarely can reduce your debt less than you can on your own, and the fees that they charge will usually make up for the difference.

If things are so bad that Bankruptcy seems the only option, all I will tell you is to speak to a couple lawyers. Don't take the step lightly, there is a lot that Bankruptcy will not cover anymore, and the damage it does to your credit is harder to repair than you think.

STEP 6: CREDIT REPORTS

Now that you have handled the people that are knocking down your door, you need to check your credit report so that you can find out if you owe anybody anything else, and to make sure that there are no companies reorting on you in error, which happens more than you would think.

Put the stupid commercials out of your mind though, you do not need to go to freecreditreport.com or some other outfit and pay them money. The AnnualCreditReport.com website was set up to comply with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act), legislation that requires the credit bureaus to provide consumers with a copy of their credit report once per year. It is the only official site to get a free copy of your credit report from the three major credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Its free once a year. Use it once a year.

STEP 5: SELF-CURSING AND BINDING

What I am about to suggest here is controversial at best. It is NOT for everyone. It is not for the week of heart, and is definitely not something you should attempt on your first try. It is a last resort.

There is a type of influencing sorcery that works on the basis of "Do this or else". The most famous example is probably the "Intranquility love spell" that sends a demon or shade after the person you want to fall in love with you, the idea being that if they dont fall for you, they will suffer and eventually die. Its a strong motivator.

In matters like love, I find this kind of work detestable. I reserve that kind of work for two instances:

1. Dire situations where I need an enemy or obstacle to do my bidding and nothing else is working 2. Situations where I cannot seem to force myself to do something that I know I need to do.

In that latter instance, the target is of course me.

I recommend using angelic powers or benevolent guardians for this kind of work. Do not just do a general spell, and do not use demons, sub lunarary spirits, or entities of questionable nature. The entity should have your best interests at heart, or it will take the opening and exploit it to the fullest. That said, if you tell an angel to fuck with you if you break your vow to accomplish something, rest assured that angel will fuck with you hard!

I am not giving a specific ritual for this because it is way to personalized, or at least it should be. I have done it only once, asking a Dharmapala to help me stick to a particularly difficult Tantric program. When I eventually started to fail at my vow, I was awoken at night with terrible reflux attacks and later with nervous attacks. It is no joke, but it got the job done.

Step 6: Spending Wisely.

The last step of any debt strategy has to not be about saving money, but about spending it.

At the early stages of debt killing you will not have a lot of money to play with at all. What you have will have to be spent judiciously. You will shop with a list and learn to stick to it. You will learn how to resist impluse purchases and how a couple hours or days later, you will feel like you didnt really need it that badly after all.

As your debt starts to disappear you will have more and more money each week. The trick is not falling back into old habits. Continue to wait and evaluate whether you really want to need something. Think about the real pleasure it will give you and yours.

More than that, learn what money saved and invested can build up to. Things that you would ordinarily whip a credit card out for like a computer or even a car, can be saved for and purchased without spending a nickel in interest more than you have to. Education, training, etc all becomes possible when you have the ability to hold on to money and do something productive with it.

We will be covering a few strategies for doing just that in the next lesson!

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 48: Financial Strategies Part 3

First let me assure you that this is the last financial lesson for this course, and the last lesson that is 90% non-magical/occult material. Some people were really expecting me to just pay lip-service to the "mundane" aspect of the strategies; writing nothing but spells and spirits and energy workings with a little "don't forget to do that mundane stuff along with it" at the end. That is not what this course is about though. Its not enough just to leave that mundane stuff unspoken. We need to be as skilled with the mundane as we are with the magical or our practical efforts will get us nowhere. In fact, if you are still separating the two in your head, than you really are not grasping what the approach is all about. So without further ado, here is Financial Strategies Part 3 - Doing the Exceptional! So far we have only talked about what is involved in establishing the base level of financial survival: getting a job, getting promoted, getting out of debt. Some of you that I have spoken to need to focus on these lessons for the immediate future. Getting these aspects of your financial life under control is great, and if you can master it and maintain it long term you have accomplished something to be proud of. You are living up to your end of the deal, at least the deal as it was. THE DEAL The deal was that society would educate you well enough to work for someone else, show up on time, not make too much of a fuss, and basically do what everyone else does. In exchange for this you to make enough money to be comfortable, have a few luxuries, retire at the age of 65. You spend your time at your job by day and in front of the television at night, and they get to avoid a rerun of the French revolution. I can be as cynical about it as I want but the truth is, all in all as far as the history of human society goes, it was one of the best deals the public at large ever got. The problem is that the deal we were educated for and promised is no longer the deal. Right now, here is the situation:

No Job security – Everyone talks about the unemployment rate being 10 percent. Let me tell you folks, that means NOTHING. In 1984 it was 14 percent. It can be 50% and everything can be ok as long as there are jobs for all those people to move into. The number that matters is the employment offering rate. Right now if we filled every open job in America only one in 6 unemployed people currently collecting unemployment would have a job. With numbers like these, almost noone has job security. No Living wage – Chances are that if you had to find a new job it will only be paying half of what you were making before. If you managed to avoid a lay off, you might have had to take a pay cut. With so many people looking for work, corporations are not looking to hang on to people that they could replace with lower wage workers. No Pensions – These have been gone for a long time. Even your 401k matching contributions are slowly going away. Most people I talk to, especially occultists have NO PLAN AT ALL FOR RETIREMENT. This is the new economy and it is the result of what happens when Money becomes the master of its handlers rather than the other way round. The old deal was that if you got a job and watched your debt you could survive in comfort by doing the minimum. The minimum is not good enough anymore. That’s the bad News. Here is the GOOD NEWS: We are living in a time of unprecedented opportunity for building prosperity by throwing off the old deal and making our own. The minimum is not good enough anymore, but I like to think that Strategic Sorcery is about more than just the bare minimum. It is about becoming exceptional. I think that most of you have a good grasp of how to build a strategy at this point. If there was any question, the last two lessons should have cleared it up. Exceptional actions tend to be more personal than the types of strategies that you need for finding a job and getting out of debt. So rather than give step by step cookie cutter strategy, I am going to be covering what I think are the biggest steps that you may want to weave into a strategy of your own.

OPTIMIZING If you are doing the minimum than chances are that you have a checking account, a savings account, and a credit card. Your first step to exceptional financial sorcery should be to optimize these. Really there is not much magic that you need for this. Just spend a little time investigating your options. Let's take a quick look: Checking Account: Remember your checking account is your mercurial extension of financial magic - its where the action happens. Whether you literally invoke Mercury or another power to help oversee the account or not is up to you (I don't, its just overkill) you owe it to yourself and the spirit of Mercury to make sure it is optimized. Make sure you have no fees and no minimums. If you do, ask them to be waved. If they won't find a new bank. Make sure that you have good access to your money at all times. Some on-lince checking accounts can be a hassle with ready access to cash. Make sure that you do NOT have overdraft protection. The idea is that if you overdrew your account by using your debit card than bank would do you the favor of covering the charge for a small overdraft fee of $35-$50. This happened to me once because of a simple mistake and I got charged 40 dollars for a cup of coffee and then another 40 dollars for a sandwich. This is something that many banks drafted people into automatically and then had to take people out of this past April because of the new fairness laws in the US. They are now trying to get people to sign up for it on their own by presenting it as a service. It is a scam. There are too many good banks out there to tolerate a bad one that is trying to scam their customer. Just because it is legal, doesn't mean it's not a scam. Savings Account: Some people think of their savings account as the main place for long term savings, but it shouldn't be. That would be IRAs and other types of investments that have better interest rates. Your Savings Account is first and foremost where you need to park about 3 months of living expenses in case of emergency. It is also where you want to park money that you are saving for special purposes like vacations, down payments, and other large ticket items. While I recommend using a brick and mortar bank for checking accounts, online

savings accounts have consistently better interest rates than traditional banks. If you are going to put 10,000 somewhere, why not put it somewhere that it is going to earn 3% ($300 a year) rather than 0.5% interest ($50 a year). Credit Card: Ok, I know in the last lesson I basically told you that credit card companies were evil and out to get you. I still hold that is basically true but I also acknowledge that you need a credit card in today's world. Want to rent a car, take a cruise, or stay in a hotel? Unless you are willing to pay wads of cash as a security up front, or have a thousand dollars or more frozen in your checking account, you need a credit card. Not a Visa that draws on your checking account, and real card. Just make sure that you optimize it. Negotiate a low APR or find a card with a low APR. If you choose a card with rewards, make sure that they are rewards that you will use. Travel cards often offer great rewards on flights and hotels and excellent terms. Often cards will extend the warrantee of electronics and other appliances beyond the factory warrantee. Another great thing about good cards is Concierge service. These are people you can call to basically do just about anything that a concierge at a hotel would do: look up information, make reservations, find flights, book tickets, provide reviews, etc. Apart from paying your complete balance on time every month there are just two rules I want you to remember. First is avoid the card offers that come in the mail, they rarely have the best terms, do a little research and you will be rewarded. Second: do not open more credit cards than you need, especially retail cards. NEVER take advantage of the extra 10% off for opening a store card. These cards have terrible terms and awful rates. You will pay more in the long run, trust me on this. Credit Score and Report: Your credit score and report effect a lot of your life. If you want a loan for a vehicle, house, or new business it will be the single most important factor. If you were in debt, you probably have a bad credit score. Even jobs are looking at credit scores as a condition of employment. Now that you have paid off your debt (and not before) it is time to work on raising that number.

Your credit score is broken down as follows: • 35%Payment history - Pay your bills on time. • 30% Balance owed vs available credit - Get your credit limit raised and keep your balances low. Once out of debt you should never carry a balance month to month on a card. • 15% Length of credit history - If you dont have any bills to pay, get some. If you have a bad history, start making a good history. No fix but time • 10% Length of Credit accounts- Value your older accounts they show reliability • 10% types of credit - Having a credit card is good. Having a car payment is good. Having a house is good. Provided of course that you are actually keeping up with everything. Variety is key Work on it. It takes time. Its hard work but the rewards are many. With a good credit score you will get better mortgage rates, better credit card rates, better insurance premiums, even possibly a better job. You actually save money by paying your bills on time and having a good score. I have met people who have summoned spirits in an attempt to lower their credit score or get loans despite their credit score, but other than the occasional oversight from a banker, there is not a lot the spirits can do. Somethings you just have to do for yourself. ENTREPRENUERIAL SORCERY: SECONDARY INCOME I am a huge believer in multiple sources of income. There is quite simply too much that can go wrong with any single one: sacked from the job, portfolio gets wiped out in the recession, business you own goes belly up, etc. If any of these things happen to you and you have multiple sources of income, than you will probably be able to weather whatever the financial storm brings with very little difficulty. More important than the security though is the potential for real wealth. In TSS I spoke about earning more and spending less as if they were equally important. They are not. The reality is that you can only cut spending so much. There are however no limits on how much money you can earn. You cannot frugal yourself to riches, but you can earn your way there.

Owning your own business is the American Dream for a reason. While some people like to fantasize that rich people inherit all their wealth, the truth is the 80% of American millionaires are first generation affluent - they made their way there themselves. In this section I want to talk about Entrepreneurial magic as a secondary income. In the next section, I will talk about it in terms of being a primary income. When people start their own business they are motivated by two things: passion and money. Although both of these are important, I think it is key to know which of these two is your primary motivator. MONEY MOTIVATED: If money is your key motivator it makes life simple. Find something profitable and do it. It could be as simple as building a website for the Kosher Candy mom and pop shop with no web presence and drop shipping their product while taking 10-30% of the profit. It could be as complicated as an iphone app or a new type of medical device that you invented. My point is that in today's world you can crash test a new business for very little and see if it works. If it doesn't, just try something else. The passion is there, but it's the passion for business itself and making money (not to be underestimated!) that drives you, not the passion for the product. It is pure business. Of course, that is not what most of you will gravitate towards. Most of you will be... PASSION MOTIVATED: This is where you are following a passion as a side business and making money doing something that you love. This is what I am doing even now as a I write this. This is what most of you want to do with your own businesses. I am very supportive of this, especially as a secondary income stream. If you have a primary job that you don't necessarily love or even like, this is your chance to make money at a passion and maybe even transition away from your day bob eventually. There are however a few downsides that I want you to take into account: • The biggest danger you face is taking something you love as a hobby and ruining it by turning it into a career. Remember as a hobby you do it when you want and how you want. As a business, it will not always or even often

work out that way. Do let your business destroy your passion, by making it just another crappy job. Trust me there are days that I would rather watch a movie than do a protection spell for a client. • The next biggest danger, and the reason that most passion based businesses fail is, letting their passion blind them as to the viability of their business model. You may want to open an occult store with all your heart and soul, but unless you have one hell of an angle, it will fail. It's almost a guarantee. We are magical thinkers, but if an idea is bad enough, all the passion and sorcery in the world will not force it to succeed. • The last really big danger is confusing love of product with love of the business of that product. In the last few years I have talked to a lot of people who have wanted to open occult stores. All but one of them had no knowledge of sales or retail. Whether you are selling books, video games, or oils - no matter how much you love these things, in the end they are "units", and if you hate the idea of selling units, you will hate selling what you love as well. Whether you choose to turn a passion into a profit or go for the money for money's sake does not matter. What matters is that you do something and make it happen. THE IDEA: The biggest problem that people have getting a business started is generating an idea in the first place. This is a huge advantage of being a Sorcerer. When searching for an idea for a product I first make sure that I am meditating regularly. The mind should be sharp. Then I very simply perform an invocation to an idea to me. This camn be aimed at your HGA or Agathodaimon, at a personal saint or supreme power, or at a jupiterian or mercurial power. In my case I most often use Manjushri, but I have used Tiriel as well. Once you perform the invocation and send that call out to the universe for a good and profitable idea (please do not forget to ask for it to be profitable! "Good" is too vague) I make sure to pay special attention to omens and readings. If you really have no idea of what you might like to do take a look at your own hobbies and interests and make a list of skills - any skills.

Often it is best if you can take two or more interests and combine them. This often not only makes for something unique, but for something that is marketable to a specific group rather than the whole world (which is too expensive to market to effectively). For example a person in one of my Financial Magic intensives wanted to become a pro astrologer, but was getting nowhere. I asked her what other interests she had and the first thing that came up was horticulture. It is hard to distinguish yourself as an astrologer - your ad appears aside a dozen others in a New Age mag. An ad about Astrology and planting in a horticulture magazine however may garner more attention. There is a niche that you can reach. Remember though, your idea does not have to be perfect. It does not have to be sublime. It just has to be marketable and profitable. You need specifically who you will be marketing it to. This group should be narrowly focused so that you can market to them, have the desire for the service you provide, and have an ability to pay. If any one of these three factors are missing, its not a good idea. NO MLMS! A word of advice: there are a lot of scams and dead ends out there. Watch out for expensive classes on how Social Media will make you a killing, how you will become rich self-publishing your own book, how you will use system X to sell real estate or trade stocks. Most especially watch out for Multi Level Marketing companies including Quixtar, Amway, Shaklee and other companies. Some people manage to make a couple hundred bucks or so extra a month but work their ass off for it. Most people actually lose money buying motivational material and bogus trainings. Apart from the money and time suckage, have you ever had a friend try to sell you on one of these? Their eyes glass over and they start repeating the script they were taught verbatim. They almost refuse to mention the name of the company up front, and their pitch is defensive off the bat before you even get to ask them about it. Its fucking creepy. Besides, turning all your friendships and personal relationships into customer service relationships is a good way to lose all your friends. I won't even get into the silly idea of collecting off people working for you downline. Avoid these they are not worth it. If it sounds too good to be true, and comes to you all wrapped up in a nice neat package, avoid it because it is designed to make someone else money!

THREE KEY FACTORS: Ideally your idea should be something that you can test cheaply, has low overhead, and generates enough profit to be worth your time. Uisng this course as an example: TESTING: Before I started this course, I let people know I was doing it and took payment from people for a month before I wrote the first word. If a certain amount of people did not sign up in 30 days, I would have refunded their money and scrapped the idea. OVERHEAD: I bought a new computer to do it on. That's about it PROFIT VS TIME: The course takes a lot of time to write, but once the course is written it is done. Other than marketing, I will spend hardly any time on it, yet continue to make a profit. As of this writing there are 261 people in the class. Another example is from a student that invented a new type of showe curtain/product dispenser. TESTING: She made several of them for friends that wanted them, than contacted Guthy Renker to see if they were interested. They tested it and made her an offer. OVERHEAD: A hundred bucks or so for the materials for the first few that she made: most of which she got back by selling to friends. PROFIT VS TIME: not much per unit because now Guthy Renker gets the largest cut, but with the amount of product they move, she makes a few hundred dollars a month for doing absolutely nothing. Sometimes, especially if exploring a passion, this ideal is not always possible. Take for instance the many, many, many students that want to open occult stores TESTING: Not really any way to test it until you actually do it. Asking people whether they would shop there is not testing - selling is testing. You can open a kiosk or booth at a flea market, but that is not the same and usually ends up being its own dead end. OVERHEAD: Enormous! If you are in a good town with lots of hip and interesting shops than the rent is probably thru the roof. If you are not in such a town you probably do not have the traffic to support your business. There is a reason that almost all of them fail. PROFIT VS TIME: You have to be there for it to work. Ask a proprietor of a shop if they think it is a profitable venture... It is an enormous time suck with not a lot of

payback in profit. It must be a labor of love, which is fine, but you might then find you need yet another source of income. NOTE: I love occult stores. I do. More than that I love the people that run them, especially those savvy enough to do it successfully. It can be done, but it takes a lot of things to line up right. If however you think that owning an occult store is your ticket to easy street, I know a few shop owners who will tell you differently! I could gab on and on about starting your own business, but really you ought to read a few things in depth about it. I recommend starting with The Four Hour Work Week, and going from there. MAGIC THAT SHIT UP! Suffice to say on the magical end there will be oodles of opportunity for magic. In my endeavors I have collected graveyard dirt from recently deceased town officials to use in spells that grease the wheels of bureaucracy. I have used confusion spells on competition. I have used conversational sorcery such as I taught in TSS for sales and promotions. I have planted sigils in plain sight to bring in business. I have summoned archangels and gods to save dying businesses, and on two occasions had to follow that up with magic to facilitate their sale and limit debt. The amount of issues that can arise is staggaring - just apply what you have learned and meet the challenges with a combination of magical and mundane tactics. WARNING! One warning about using magic to support a side business: keep your primary job in mind as well. If all you do is magic for the secondary job you eventually reach a point where you may summon a spirit to help you increase profits, and the easiest change for them to make us give you more time to work on your side business by getting you sacked from you main job! This is not an omen, or a power telling you what you should do, this is you being shortsighted. If the archangel has never heard a word about your primary job, but hears all about your side business making condition oils they have no frame of reference for how important that primary income is. Remember, its not their job to run your life. You run your life!

INVESTING If you are an adult and you only have money in a checking account and a savings account, you are screwing up. Royally. Everyone should have money set aside to invest. If I could travel back in time to my 18 year old self and only had 2 seconds to transmit a message that I knew he would follow it would be to invest early. Unfortunately I, like a lot of you, thought that my late teens and early twenties were not the time to worry about that kind of thing. By my late 20's everyone I knew was more or less a slacker and still living like we were in our early 20's. By my early 30's I started investing here and there, and now, in my late 30's I am kicking myself for being so stupid. Why am I stupid? Compound interest. Compound interest is magic. It's beautiful magic. If you are in your early 20's I urge you STRONGLY to scrape a few bucks together to invest. When I was that age I did not make a lot of money and thought that I did not have enough to make a meaningful investment, yet when I wanted a guitar, a computer, or a car I somehow found the money. You can do the same thing with investing. You can do it. Your 38 year old self will thank you for it. Your 65 year old self will kiss you. For those that have no idea what I am talking about, the idea is simple: the interest on an investment is added back to the principal so that you earn interest on the principal AND the interest earned up to that point. So if you invest 2000 in a year in an IRA or Portfolio that pays 10% interest (around the average for an index fund) you will have $2200 the following year which pays interest. It grows exponentially every year - thus the need to do it early. Let's take the example of $2000 invested in an Index fund when you are 20 years old, which is then left on its own. You do not contribute anything else but that original $2000. Lets take a look: • 1 YEAR - AGE 21. As I said, at 10% interest, you wind up with $2200. • 2nd YEAR - AGE 22: Your 2200 earns interest and becomes $2420 • 5th YEAR - AGE 25: In five years you have $3221.02, you made $1221 for doing nothing but leaving 2000 to sit. Of course it gets better!

• 10th YEAR - AGE 30: In ten years at age 30 you will have $5188. You made 3188 by letting 2000 sit untouched. Talk about easy money. • 20th YEAR - AGE 40: In another 10 years at age 40 you will have $12,231. You made ten grand for not doing a damn thing! But wait, what if you wait the full 45 years until you retire at $65? • 45th YEAR - AGE 65: you now have $145,780.97! Now here is the rub. If I wait till 25 to make that initial $2000 investment, just 5 years later - I only have $90,518.51. That five year wait cost me $55 grand! If I start now at 38 and want to make that 45 year investment I will be 83 by the time I make my $145,780.97! I hope I have made a good case for investing. I am not going to get into specific stocks or bonds or anything like that. Worry about that when you get really into it. For now focus on the following: • 401k - Your 401k at your job is the first place to invest. Max it out. You are investing money before income tax and only pay taxes on what you withdraw. This is especially true if your employer does matching contributions. If you are not maxing it out, you are missing out on free money! • Roth IRA - I know some of you are not American and some of this is not relevant to you, but please forgive me. Tax wise Roth IRA's are even better than a 401k. You pay money on what you put it in, but pay nothing on what you withraw. Looking at out example above, you would pay taxes on the initial $2000, but pay NOTHING on the $145,780.97 at age 65! That is HUGE. • Stocks - Now we get into targeted investing. Different people give different advice here, and I do not want to get out of my depth. Some will tell you that you should have a financial advisor or fund manager. Others will point out that most of the time these advisors fail to beat the market average, and get paid for doing it. Some will tell you to diversify heavily so that during recessions and crashes you do not get wiped out. Others will tell you that focusing on a few investments will force you to look closely at the

market and make decisions that will ultimately yield more. Whatever you do is up to you. Get educated and get invested! As you get older your asset allocation will change because you will start accessing your investments and will need them to be much more stable than when you are younger. This is where the mix of bonds vs stocks vs cash comes in. When younger you want a higher percentage of stocks to bonds and cash because they earn higher interest. As you near retirement you want a higher percentage of your assets in cash and bonds because they are safer than stocks. I have been experimenting with divination and the market, but to be honest I have not had stellar results. In general I think it is best to do macroenchantments for your investments and leave them be. If you get the yen to become a daytrader or forex trader, you are getting more involved than I want to be :) KNOWING WHEN TO QUIT The last thing I want to talk about in this class is knowing when to quit something. In America especially we have a real "never quit" attitude towards everything, even when the smartest option is to quick, lick your wounds and come back fighting. The list of Billionaires that have in the past had businesses fail and even had to declare bankruptcy is truly long and illustrious. It is ok to recognize when something is not working. My own families business that was open for 94 years closed down in 2002 because of competition. Although we were able, with the aid of a LOT of sorcery, to transform it into a smaller and sellable business, if my parents had recognized about 7 years earlier that it just was not going to make it, they would be much better off today. Sometimes the best thing that can be accomplished is to throw in the towel and stop throwing good money after bad. If you are in over your head and summon Jupiter to increase your wealth, do not be surprised if the best that

he can do is help you cut your losses. A bad idea is a bad idea, and no amount of magic will hold it together for long. This extends to homes as well as businesses. I know a few people that drained their investments and retirement accounts, incurring HUGE tax penalties in the process, in an attempt to save their homes when times got bad. In every case they eventually they lost their homes anyway and regretted not walking away sooner. It can be tough to abandon a dream, but sometimes that is exactly what needs to happen in order to build a bigger and better dream. HOMEWORK 8: Pick one financial Goal : Job finding, promotion, debt reduction, starting a business, making investments, and weave together a strategy to success. Tell me what you are doing or have done and how it worked out. For those that were bored to tears during the last three classes because there was not much occult in it, we will be returning to more occult specific topics for the rest of the course.

NEXT LESSON: WORKING FOR OTHERS>

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 49: Working for Others After you have gotten the basics of your life taken care of, and established a solid spiritual practice for yourself, you will find that your need for practical sorcery for yourself is greatly diminished. Ideally your inner plane contacts, spirit allies, and discerning wisdom that you develop over time will make smooth enough that you are not running around fussing about with this and that spell for yourself. It is at this point, when your life is on track, that people usually start popping out of the woodwork asking you for assistance with getting theirs on track. This is the point that you need to make a decision: retreat from doing practical magic and focus on spiritual attainment and enjoyment of your own life, or getting your hands dirty and allowing the light of your gnosis to radiate outwards through good works. This lesson is about how to do work for others and how it is different than doing work for yourself. WHY BOTHER? Strategic Sorcery is about nothing if not creating happiness and a better life. I am convinced that a key part of happiness is service to people other than yourself. In fact my largest criticism of occultism since the Crowley era is the over emphasis on the self without any real understanding of what the self is and its interconnected nature. Don't get me wrong, I think that the sort of spiritual revolution that occurred in the 20th century, which focused attention away from the will of an unseen deity or society at large to the will of the individual, was necessary stage, but it was only one stage. Time to move on. I am not going to spend a lot of time convincing people of this point, but using ones abilities to assist others truly does offer a level of fulfillment that you cannot get in any other way. It will cause headaches, and heartaches, but in the end it is worth it. You also learn a facet of your craft that you will not really grasp if you only work for yourself. ETHICS OF WORKING FOR OTHERS

I have not spent a lot of time on ethics in this course because honestly, I feel like they are over-covered in other books and courses on magic. Generally speaking most people are good and will do primarily well meaning things with magic. Those that wouldnt will not be convinced by a lot of platitudes. In general I judge individual situations individually and act accordingly. I trust that most of your are doing the same. When working for other people however, you have to think a bit more about this and establish some policies about what you will and will not do. There are four specific types of situations that you want to have firm policies for: 1. CASES INVOLVING THINGS YOU JUST DO NOT WANT TO DO PERIOD. The obvious is magic to cause death. Most people would also avoid doing magic for others that causes serious harm like maiming and disfiguring to a third party. Many will not do any kind of magic that causes any kind of harm whatsoever, and some will not do magic that even is aimed at causing inconvenience or influence. It may seem simple to avoid the death, and not think much about the inconvenience but it is a slippery slope between them. Those that just do anything usually wind up twisted, those that avoid anything wind up ineffectual. You should have an idea of what you will work on and what you wont and for who. I for instance, will not do outright curses for clients, but I might for close friends. I never work on issues that involve kids, including custody cases, unless I actually know the people involved. I will not do break up work on couples unless I think that there is abuse involved. 2. CASES WHERE YOU ARE UNSURE OF THE TRUTH. In many cases there are people who will come to you with stories accusing someone of something and you are unsure of the real truth of the situation. You can do a divination, but as I mentioned in the intelligence gathering lesson, I am less convinced of the reliability of divinations than I am in the efficacy of most types of magic. I think people, even accomplished magicians, can too easily spin stories. Also people tend to confuse the ability to effect reality through sorcery with the ability to read reality - they are two different skills.

There tends to be two attitudes towards these situations. One attitude places the Sorcerer in the position of having to judge right and wrong against their own ethics and their own assessment of the situation. The second attitude places the Sorcerer in the position of being an advocate for their client. Both are reasonable positions to take. For example, in the case of a custody case, the Sorcerer who judges for themselves needs to have his or her own idea of who the child would be better off with, and act accordingly. The advocate only cares that they are providing the best service to their client; shifting the moral responsibility for the situation onto the parents themselves. 3. CASES INVOLVING MENTAL INSTABILITY. As a practicing sorcerer you WILL be approached by mentally unstable people looking for assistance, most often with psychic attack. Most people dismiss these requests out of hand because they assume that the psychic attach is a delusion and a symptom of their problem. The problem though is that if someone were under serious psychic attack, one of the first ways it would manifest is mental instability! You should assess your level of comfort in these situations and work accordingly. My own guide is that if the person just seems a bit off, I will still offer a cleansing and protection (most people can use thia anyway) but send them on their way if they keep coming back with repeated requests attached to new dramas. If someone clearly has a deeper issue I will work with them as long as they are also seeking psychiatric help. 4. CASES INVOLVING BENEVOLENT WORK ON UNSUSPECTING CLIENTS. There are those who will not heal, bless, or even pray for someone without their permission. There are those who will step into other peoples lives with reckless abandon under the assumption that because they only mean well, they will only do well. I myself seek a happy medium. If I think someone,

espcially a close friend, needs intervention and would be unlikely to ask for help or perhaps even aknowlege a problem (such as with drug abuse, abusive relationships, etc) I generally feel ok sticking my nose in. If its an aquantance, or an aquaintance of an aquaintance, than I get permission. In all the above situations, you must decide for yourself. STRATEGIES VS SPELLS Throughout the course I have been endorsing a particular approach to practical magic wherein you work on problems from multiple angles using a combination of mundane methods, ritual magic, spirits, energetic work, thought management, meditation and other methods. This is a difficult method to use on other peoples behalf. If you did offer the full Strategic Sorcery Treatment to a client (I will be using the term client simply to indicate a person you are helping, not to indicate whether you are doing it professionally or not), you would be offering a service well beyond the normal range of magical services. More like an occult life coach than someone that casts a spell. The problem with this approach is that it more involvement than what most people are looking for or desire. Most people come to you with a single problem that they want help with: psychic attack, help finding a job, help in a courtcase, etc. You may see that the reason that your client doesn't get much work is that they dress like a slob and act like they were raised by wolves, but teaching them manners and style is probably not what they want or will accept from you. You can mention it to them, but most of the time they just want their talisman thank you very much. In cases like this, I tend to give people what they are looking for: a spell to help them get through whatever the immediate crisis is. It is important to remember that the client has asked you for help with a problem, they do not want to become you. I have seen people in the OTO and GD insist that clients who are being attached need to learn and practice the LBRP daily because that is what they do. Of course normal people have no interest in learning the LBRP and have no intention of doing a ritual everyday. Even though

the regular performance of a zone rite would be more effective than an amulet, most people would be better served with an amulet because they will actually wear it as opposed to a ritual that they will not do. In short, what is most effective is based on what your client will actually follow thru with, not on what would work best for you. MATERIA I have in my books and course stressed the importance of materia in Sorcery. I have actually sometimes over stressed it, and I admit that. One area where I cannot stress the importance enough is when working for clients . It is of course useful, if they are not present at the time, to have a personal link to your client while you are working for them, but even more important than that, I almost always try to have my clients walk away with something physical from anything I do for them. A material object is the best way to link a working to a client and make it concrete in their life, especially non magicians. Even if you have a client that does the work with you, or if you are doing some kind of healing work on someone physically present - the sensation of the energy and spirit will fade with time, having the physical object will insure that they know where and how to access the experience, and if appropriate the power or spirit. It is also the case that when working remotely some people will doubt that the work is even being done, the sending of a physical object is not proof of work but it is at least an indication. In many cases the materia may not be necessary to the work at hand - it never hurts to work it in anyway. REMOTE VIEWING AND ASTRAL REMOTE WORK A lot of remote work is done simply the doing a ritual using an object link to the target or client, or crafting something to send to the target or client. In some cases you might summon a spirit and use the link or even just a psychic connection to make a connection to the client. If you have developed your senses well enough however, you can certainly work on clients at a distance through the

astral. How you do this will depend upon your own talents, but here are a few of my favorite methods. SCRYING MIRROR: Way back in lesson 18 I encouraged everyone to make convex scrying mirrors because more than just a surface to skry on, their depth seems to create a portal right to the target or client. The first time I ever used this was to direct the type of chromatic healing power I spoke about lesson 43 in an emergency. It worked so well that it remains a regular part of my repertoire still. I use the mirror to do everything from place shields on people, infuse clients with energy, and check for infesting spirits or attack. LUCID DREAMS: If you have Lucid Dreaming mastered you can very easily will yourself to find the dream body of a client or target and interact with them that way. If someone is under attack, the signs will often be quite visible on their dream body, appearing as discolored, wounded, or even missing segments. A great trick if you can pull it off is to enter someone elses dream body and look through their eyes. From this vantage you can implant good thoughts and feelings, boost confidence, or use the pattern of your own healthy subtle body matrix as a map for healing a damaged one. This touches on more complex work and will be fleshed out in full when I do an advanced course on mind/energy work. PHILOTIC LINES: We have spoken in the past of the philotic lines that conncect all beings. One amazingly effective method for reading and traveling these lines was taught to me by a Sorceress named Mishlen Linden (who is also partially responsible for my interest in Tibetan magic). It involves shapeshifting your astral body into that of a spider and sensing the web of lines above your head. Take your hands/spider legs and draw them into your body, allowing yourself to sense them and read what is transmitted though them. Now focus on the person that you want to effect and isolate that line. You can communicate mind to mind with them transmitting information, especially emotional patterns, or you can use the spider body to travel the lines and go for a visit.

ASTRAL PROJECTION: Do I really need to mention this? OF COURSE you can astral project to the client or meet them on the astral. The question is, what can you do when you get there. This largely depends upon your capacity. • You can summon beings to have their influence • You can graft sigils and wards onto the astral body of a client. • You can install more complex 3-d shapes and machines within peoples channels. Mantak Chia does this with vortexes to purify chi before it enters the organs. • You can tap people into specific astral spaces that will feed them healing, increase their prosperity etc. • You can shield clients. The type of shield can range from anything from simple defense, to targeted shields that manage the effects of astrological conditions (see the heptasphere rite for ideas on how this is done). In all types of astral work you are limited only by your own abilities, connections, and imagination. PROFESSIONAL WORK Some of you want to do sorcery professionally. Some of you already are. I hope that this course serves you well in that regard - there is no shortage of work to be had. Here are a few pieces of advice for going pro: HOW DEEP TO GET INVOLVED: Decide how involved you want to be with people that you don't know. I used to get deeply involved with more people than I do now. If you want to make talismans, spirit bottles, and cast spells for people, you can pretty much take as many customers as you want. If you want to get deeply involved with strategies and fundamental life changes than that you will have to limit working for only one or two people at a time and charge them accordingly. You will also have to be much more choosy in who you take as a client. METHOD OF CONTACT: Choose how you can be contacted and hold people to it. We are all connected in lots of different ways. Most of you have home phones, cell phones, facebook mail, facebook IM, AOL IM, Gmail, Gmail Messaging, etc.

This can be a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because with so many modes of communication you can dedicate one or more to your professional occupation. It is a curse because clients can and will find other modes to contact you and use them. It is imperative that you decide what is the right modes of communication and hold people to it. I have gone through three stages with this, shifting from extremely open to extremely tight. When I was single and young, I pretty much didnt care when or how people contacted me as long as it was not at my day-job. Even then, the dayjob was sacred, apart from not wanting to be outed, there is also the conflict of conducting business for yourself while you should be doing it for someone else. The only time that someone ever violated this, I pretended not to know the person and cut ties completely. When I got married, I had to get strict about hours. People could not just call at all hours and start talking. I worked only through word of mouth, but had very limited phone hours. Eventually I realized that 80 percent of my hassles with crazy or obsessive people were caused by the 20 percent of clients I took over the phone. I stopped taking phone calls entirely, and now work only through e-mail. This gives me a written record of everything, which is nice. There are some clients, very few, who feel like they want to talk to someone and hear a voice. I respect that, but send them elsewhere because of my policy. There are other clients who simply insist that they need to talk over the phone because it is "too complicated to write in an e-mail". Yeah, like I want that call. If it's too complicated to even write down than it is WAY too complicated for me to follow on a phone call. IM's similarly are right out. While I did not make many, I did make house calls in dire circumstances before I had children. Now I do not do that either, and again will send people elsewhere for that kind of service. I respect that customers want someone physically at their home for some things. There are some jobs that flat out require it. This kind of work can be very fulfilling and fun, but you have to be safe about it and realistic about your time constraints.

Eventually you may get VERY popular. I am almost embarrassed to admit it, but as many of you have found out, I simply get too many requests for me to handle these days. I am backed up and cannot even answer every e-mail within a few days of its arrival. Make no mistake, this is not a complaint, its a joy - a sign of success. Still even champaigne problems need to be dealt with and so I will eventually be hiring an intern or something to help with the load. The last issue I want to talk about is the ethics issue again. I went over it above, but I want to doubly stress the need for firm policies when you are dealing with paying clients. If you don't, than you may run into the situation where a client is asking you for somethingt that you would rather not do, but which would help pay the mortgage. I urge you NEVER to give in to this temptation. Sorcery is not like another craft. It comes from your heart and soul and when you corrupt your spirit, you corrupt your magic. Thats all for this week. HOMEWORK# 9: Work for client, paying or not. Write up a field report. EXTRA CREDIT: Have the client write up a field report!

NEXT LESSON: MIND, ENERGY, AND SUBTLE BODY WORK 3.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 50: An Introduction to Sex Magic WARNING: This lesson contains a free and frank discussion of sex and sex magic. It touches on topics that are not only sexual, but kinky or disturbing to some people such as material on Bondage Dominance and Submission. If you have issues around sexual material and might be upset by reading about it, please skip this lesson, it will not count against you. 2nd WARNING: I am a heterosexual male. Most of what has been written about sex magic in the east and west has been written by and for heterosexual males. If you find the material that relates to your sexual orientation or gender lacking, I apologize. It is not intentional. I am supportive of everyone expressing themselves sexually however they like. I am supportive of people playing with gender however they see fit. As long as it is between consenting adults, it is not just ok, it is GREAT. That does not mean however that I can re-write history to reflect that view or make the material balanced and even. Some things can be transferred to homosexual relations, some things can't, at least to my knowledge, which is limited. I leave that up to you to decide. As a default I am going to occasionally refer to pairings using male/female pronouns. I do not intend to follow this every time with a disclaimer that reads "or male/male female/female". Please just assume that I mean it that way. ok, with that out of the way, lets get on with it! A STORY One of my favourite Buddhist stories is the origin of the sexual yogas. Almost the same story is told about the Guhyasamaja and Kalachakra tantras. The story is that King Indrabhuti, the king of Uddiyana which is now Afghanistan, happened to notice a strange flock of yellow birds flying north to Mt Kailash every evening and returning south to Varnassi every morning. He asked his ministers about it and they informed him that those birds were in fact the Buddha and his Arhat followers who would go north to practice meditation at night and south to teach during the day. The king, being understandably impressed by this, decided to

invite the Buddha to teach the Dharma, which he did. The Buddha spend several days teaching on the four noble truths, the eightfold path, and the benefits of renunciation. The king finally stopped him and said something along the lines of: "Look here Buddha, this is all well and good, but I cannot become a monk. I have a kingdom that depends upon my leadership, I am a father to many children, I have 50 wives! Is not there some other way for me to attain enlightenment?" The Buddha smiled and transformed into a Tantric Diety (Guhyasamaja or Kalachakra depending upon which version of the story you are getting) that was naked and in sexual union with a female! Pretty much the opposite of what he had just been talking about. It was in this form that the Buddha explained the yogas of sexual union, and other tantric techniques that transform the passions of the mind into enlightenment rather than renouncing them. Of course the Arhats and Ministers all fainted from shock, which is a convenient explanation as to why these teachings are not amongst the Sutras :-). Now, while the practices might lack something without 50 wives, the general idea behind tantra and sex magic is a fairly simple one: The orgasm is a primordial and cosmic event. At least it should be. It can be exploited in a variety of ways. In terms of spirituality you are not as far from enlightenment as you think, you can get a window into the enlightened mind by having a good orgasm, extending and exploring that mind space of bliss and emptiness through skillful means, and blending that state into the natural waking state. The ego shattering nature of the orgasm is well known throughout the world, which is why the French call it "Le petite mort" or the little death. No stages or spheres or grades necessary, the orgasm is the window past the abyss. From the practical magic standpoint the sex act grants conception to whatever idea you hold at the time of orgasm. You can launch sigils, give birth to spirits, or use the fluids (either solo or combined) as powerful materia.

From the health and vitality standpoint you can preserve your energy by conserving your fluid releases and channelling sexual energy it in certain ways back throughout the body. DANGERS OF SEX MAGICK Sex Magic is at once an extremely advanced magical technique with many variations, and a fairly simple straightforward thing that is no longer served well by the secrecy, arcane terminology, and barriers that surround it. Certainly there was a need at some point for secrecy about anything concerning sexual practices, especially in the west. A few hundred years ago one could be imprisoned or killed just for discussing such thing. In Crowley's day, the topic was titillating enough to attract people when it was discussed openly, but taboo enough to get one expelled from a foreign country or into some hot water with some idecency charges. We have come a long way since then. For good or for ill, sex is discussed openly in public. Not only sex, but every variation imaginable. The only people that really think sex magic or sacred sex is taboo are dilettantes that want to feel that they are cool and transgressive by being sex magicians. I would submit that in a world where we have video's like 2girls1cup*, can we really seriously think that sex magic is taboo? Throughout its history in both the east and west the validity of sex magic has been questioned by those prudish mages and religious types who claim it is merely an excuse to have sex. I would argue that people have never, in any time, needed a big excuse to have sex, much less one as esoteric as magic. Yet, sex magic IS dangerous, and I urge extreme care in its practice. The dangers of sex magic are the same as the dangers of energy work: the emotions and passions are linked to the energy of the body, by increasing the energy that runs through the body, we turn up the volume on everything in the body and mind, including emotions that can easily become unbalanced. Because sex is such a charged issue in the mind of most, well actually just about everyone, the problem is greatly compounded. The rewards are great, but so are the risks,

which is why sexual methods of spirituality are usually not pushed to the populace at large. So how do we avoid these dangers? If you have been paying attention at all, you already know the answer: 1. Meditation meditation meditation. I am quite serious about this, if you cannot spare the time to meditate, this work is NOT for you. Sure you can mess around with the simple stuff like launching sigils through masturbation, but when it comes to the ongoing work of sex magic as a path, it is best not to even attempt it if you do not meditate. It's that simple. If you cannot learn to control the mind under calm conditions you don't stand a shot at controlling it in the throws of passion! 2. Channels, Power Centers, and Elemental Practice. Go back to those lessons and re-read them. I laid out a pretty detailed description of the etheric body and told you to move energy around. I gave a few exercises, and in the next lesson I will give a few more, but the simple practice of just playing with energy and channeling it through the body strengthens and expands the pathways in the body and allows them to handle the increased generation of energy caused by sex practice. If you are doing meditation and energy work regularly than you are probably going to be ok. Yes there are still dangers. You can overload your system, but as long as you are doing the work above, this danger is no greater than in any other facet of work. You can become obsessed with certain types of sex, masturbation, or even particular people, but if you are doing the work above, the danger is no greater than if you were having a normal sex life. GODS GETTING IT ON. Ok, the first simplest and primary piece of sex magic that you should learn does not require any great physical feats or massive shifts in energy. It is simply to invoke the presence of divinity into yourself and elevate your sexual embrace to the level of cosmic happening. Become intoxicated for worship with one another!

This practice is traditional in both the east and west. The following quote is from the Chandamaharosana tantra: "Therefore, one who desires Enlightenment Should practice what is to be practiced. To renounce the sense objects Is to torture oneself by asceticism-don't do it! When you see form, look! Similarly, listen to sounds, Inhale scents, Taste delicious flavors, Feel textures. Use the objects of the five senses You will quickly attain supreme Enlightnment The man [sees] the woman as a goddess The woman [sees] the man as a god. By joining the diamond scepter and lotus, They should make offerings to each other. There is no worship apart from this. " - The Candamaharosana-tantra The next quote is from Rabbi Moses Cordovero's commentary on the Zohar: “Their desire, both his and hers, was to unite Shekinah. He focused on Tiphereth, and his wife on Malkuth. His union was to join Shekinah; she focused correspondingly on being Shekinah and uniting with her husband, Tiphereth.” - Rabbi Moses Cordovero in the Or ha-Hayyim, Azulai. Thanks to David Rankine for pointing this out on his excellent blog http://ritualmagick.co.uk This transformation into the divine can be accomplished in a number of ways. You can perform full invocations of particular classic aspects of the divine. If you do, I strongly recommend starting with couples that were paired traditionally and from

the same pantheon. Starting off with Kali and Jesus having sex is just going to cause more discord than you want to deal with. If you do break out of the mold of mythology and history, you should have excellent reasons for doing so. Another option is to take on the joyful or fierce bodies that you discovered for yourself in earlier lessons. These are manifestations of your own divine nature as seen solely through the filter of your own mind, and are exceptionally potent when worked with regularly. Yet another option would be to use the universal centering excercise in TSS and simply rest in your own divinity as the center of all, and consider the mating of two universes. The meditations can be intense if they are held well, the trick is not allowing the passion to overshadow the divine pride, nor the meditation to dull the passion. If you can manage it, the moment of orgasm will help cement that gnosis into your awareness. Simply dedicating such a rite to the accomplishment of something important is often enough to make such a thing happen as the "child" of the union. This practice can also form the basis of other more complex workings. GOD AND WORSHIPER IN UNION Another alternative to the above is the relationship between God or Goddess and worshipper. One person hold the role of divinity and another holds the role of servant or disciple. This is an option that works well with people that want to explore the sacred sexuality of an Dominant/Submissive relationship. One gets to exercise divinity through control and experience divine pride, and another get to exercise submission to the divine in the form of a being that is there physically in front of them. There is a fine line between the way a worshiper sets their own ego aside in worship and how a submissive enters sub-space in certain conditions. These are mysteries that are worth exploring for some, and not without traditional precedent. In the Himalaya for instance there are shaman that worship their wives as Shakti, placing them on an alter that they subjugate themselves before.

REVERSAL OF ENERGY FLOW - PLUGGING YOUR GENETALS INTO YOUR BRAIN Once you get used to having sex as the union of two divine beings you can deepen the experience through a number of steps. The first is to train to have simultaneous orgasms. Most people think of their orgasm as something that simply comes when it comes, but really with just a small amount of effort we can exercise great control over when it arrives. Women tend to be able to do this through sheer willpower, men need a bit more help. In fact one reason that much of traditional sacred sex instruction focuses on men is that men need more assistance regarding orgasm control. The easiest and best way for men to hold back orgasm, and in fact to hold back fluid during orgasm itself, is to exercise the muscle in the perineum. This is as simple as stopping and starting the flow of urine every time you pee. Exercise this muscle for 10 reps or so several times a day and you will soon gain the ability to flex it with strength enough to hold back orgasm and even to stop the flow of semen during orgasm itself. The next step after learning to orgasm at the same time is learning to reverse the downward moving energy flow in the body. This is done through a combination of willpower, and lifting of the pelvic floor during the moment of orgasm. Be GENTILE with it. You are not on retreat with a master overseeing your every move so it is important to not force anything. If the male holds the fluid, and both sexes clench their buttocks slightly and draw up on the pelvic floor, while willing the flow of energy to flow up the central channel, that is all that is needed. The next step is to reverse the upward moving flow of energy in the body. Inhale and swallow a little spittle. Turn your chin inward and press the breath downward while willing the upper winds of the body downwards. If you can accomplish this, the feeling is quite amazing. It is a full body orgasm that connects the whole of your being and bridges the link between all the chakras, plugging your intellectual center of the brain into the passion center in

the genital region. You won't have to visualize or contemplate divine presence. Divine presence will overwhelm you... You can take this further with different locks for the stomach, more intense breath retentions, and energy practices such as withdrawing the star center and earth center into the body to accompany the winds. (See lesson 5). But this is enough to get you started. What is important is that after any session where you retain fluid or reverse the flow of energy in the body, you circulate the energy through the body channels. Let it flow around the front and rear channels first, than down central channel and up the left and right channels. Finally move it around the belt channels and back into the central channel, letting the energy distribute around the body nornally. ON FLUIDS Traditions hold that the fluids have special potency, especially when accumulated during sacred sex. Fluids can be used solo as in the now famous Chaos magic style wank and launch style sigil work. The mixed fluids of male and female are especially potent, especially when mixed together in the vagina itself. For masters who are very talented at semen retention, the fluid can be gathered by withdrawing the mixed sexual fluids into the penis itself by using certain breath and lock techniques. These really need to be taught in person and a great deal of time spent mastering them. I would be lying if I told you I have mastered the technique to that level. The alternative is to lick the combined elixir of fluids out. As Don Kraig pointed out in Modern Magick "First he loves her, than elixir!" Or a little more poetically, from the Chandamaharosana Tantra again: “She should have him suck her Lotus and show his pleasure. Inhaling the fragrance, he should enter with his tongue, searching for the Red and White secretions. Then she should say to him: Eat my essence! Drink the Waters of Release! O Son, be a slave as well as a father and a lover. This is the best diet, eaten by all Buddhas.”

The fluids can then be consumed as sacrament, placed as offerings, or used as materia. SPECIALIZED STATES OF MIND In addition to the above, there are specialized states of awareness that people can reach through sex magic. One of these is the famous eroto-comatose lucity which is arrived at through prolonged sexual arousal without climax, a process more commonly known these days as "edging". Crowley wrote about this in terms of being worked on by a variety of people over the course of a session, which I suppose is nice enough if you have the means, but it is definitely something you can arrive at with just one partner working diligently. Because eventually you will reach a point where it is almost impossible to resist making yourself climax, many people incorporate light bondage and restraint into this process. Bondage has also been classically used to bring on states of trance by sensory deprivation, such as the famous witches cradle that Ray Buckland writes about. While these games can be fun, I myself have never found the trance state brought on by such techniques to be superior or more useful for magic than other types of trance that are brought on in a less complicated manner. VOWS AND COMMITMENT The last thing I want to cover is the topic of vows in sex magic. If you get very serious about sex magic as a spiritual path, than you may want to make certain vows to make that path more potent. For instance, when you reach a point where sex is a major tool for transformation, just screwing around becomes counter productive. It not only does not accomplish your ends, but makes the act itself less connected with the great work. Most people who take sex magic seriously eventually come to a point where all sex must be seen as sacred. Different traditions have different spins on this, but this is the essence of it. Once sex for you becomes something that is divine, you might want to think about making a vow of keeping it sacred.

The other major vow that is taken by some men is that of never dropping semen unless it is for procreation. Some Taoists feel strongly that this is an important practice for maintaining longevity and certainly some Tantric initiations require the same vow in one form or another. I leave that one however up to you. This turned out to be one of the longer lessons in the course, but is really only an intro - a tip of the iceberg. The subject is deep and complex but very rewarding.

*If you don't know what 2girls1cup is, do yourself a favor and don't look for it.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 51: Advancing the art of magic. There are a lot of definitions of magic. When I started this course I thought that I should probably come up with my own, since that is what all the cool authors and tradition starters seem to do. The problem is that I had a hard time coming up with a better one than Andrew Chumbley: "Magick is the transmutability of the Quintessence of all nature ... Sorcery is the knowledge of the universal points of transmutation. Its Art is to cultivate the ability to manipulate these foci of power in accordance with Will, Desire and Belief." Never forget that magic is not tied to any culture or tradition. The root tradition of magic is the transmutability of reality itself. To find it one does not need to study all the traditions of the world and draw correlations, one simply has to apprehend reality as it is and express oneself. Unfortunately this simple act is most often to subtle to grasp, so we have Sorcery, the knowledge of the universal points of transmutation. Read that again. The points are universal. No one owns them. They are beyond time and place. The way that these points of transmutation surface within time and place is through the various works of magicians who know them. The revelation of magic is ongoing and the expression of sorcery is ever changing according to the needs and understanding of time and place. It is the job of Sorcerers not only to advance in the art, but to advance the art itself. In this class we have gone over a lot of different topics that sometimes may not have always seemed to fit coherently together. This is somewhat by design. I did not learn magic in one straight line according to one straight program. Most of the magicians I know did not learn it that way either. Even when we look at systems that are laid out in steps and graduated levels, the founders of those systems most often did not follow such a program themselves. In some cases the greatest successes that certain magical orders can claim are the people who have left those orders to go on and found their own work and programs themselves. Those of you who have the zeal and drive to succeed in sorcery and in life in general, have already assimilated the material and worked it. Those of you who

have been waiting for someone to hold your hand and tell you what to do at each step have probably been disappointed because that is not how I teach. This lesson is about taking what we have learned thus far and taking the next step. In some cases below I will be outlining that step explicitly with new methods and rites, in others I will only be hinting at the direction the next step should be in. In either case, the step after that will be up to you... SPIRITUAL ADVANCEMENT You can practice sorcery without any spiritual goals in mind, but it is a complete waste of time. If it is money you are after you will get further with an MBA and a career in banking than with magic. If it is sex you are after, spending your time mastering the art of seduction will get you farther than practicing magic. If it is health you are after you will get more out of nutrition and physical training than out of magic. If you are mastering the magical arts, you can and should use magic towards all these ends, but you should do so precisely because spirituality, or at least investigation into the unknown is your main drive in life and you wish for that to be reflected in the success of your outer life. Many magical systems rely upon a type of spirituality that is based on moving through different stages represented by various worlds, spheres, planes, sephira or whatnot. The main metaphor is ascending (or descending) towards spiritual attainment. Strategic Sorcery does not use this metaphor. The main spiritual method that I teach is spiritual growth is not so much a matter of traveling somewhere or encountering something as it is a process of ever increasing clarity revealing the truth of what is already there. There is nowhere to go. There is nothing outside you that you need to get. You simply need to refine awareness and see what is there clearly. It is as if the mind is like a body of water that is always agitated and swirling. The water is too full of dirt and movement to see through. If however you can let the water settle, the dirt will settle and the water will reveal its true nature, which is crystal clarity.

To accomplish this, I have laid out Meditation, Contemplation, and Prayer as the central mode of spiritual practice supported by active energy practice, innovative thought management, and guidance from others. Each of these has a job in this clarifying process: Singlepointed Meditation: Forces you to learn the terrain of your thoughts and your mind. By constantly recognizing and disengaging from distraction you will learn how your brain adopts patterns and gain the ability to instantly free yourself from them. The trick is remembering to do so. Contemplation: Singlepointed meditation will give way to periods of openness and clarity. It is within these periods that the uncreated light of true reality can shine and be apprehended as the fundamental basis of world and self. It is important to remember to leave space for contemplation, but never to forsake singlepointed meditation either. Without the discipline of meditation, contemplation can drift easily into fantasy, without the openness of contemplation, true clarity gets edged out by effort. Prayer: The fundamental reality is not just empty of everything. It has qualities and consciousness and, I believe, a very deliberate movement. It is because of this, the west has primarily related to the ultimate as God. Even some types of Buddhism have acknowledged that ultimate nature is not empty of Buddha qualities of love and compassion (see Zhentong). Prayer enables us to relate to this side of the equation in a way that meditation and contemplation do not. Meditation is quieting things down enough to hear. Contemplation is about being able to hear and see. Prayer is about being able to hold a conversation. Energy work enables you to change your subtle body, and even physical body, to accept these greater levels of reality, assimilating them and making them useful. Though I myself have not done enough with it, I would encourage people to work with the physical body as part of energy work as well. Finding a time tested method that connects to etheric and astral work is ideal: Tai Chi, Hatha Yoga, Qi Gung, and a host of other practices qualify easily, but I have also met magicians

who work with the physical temple in less overtly magical ways such as weight lifting, running and boxing. Thought management is important because we acknowledge that it is not our role to simply sit in meditative quiescence and disengage from the world. Though we will be plugged into the layers of mind behind thought, thought still occurs. Therefore we must make use of it on the path, and make it support our practice rather than distract from it. Some of you will note that I do not count the advice and guidance of non-physical entities such as angels, Gods, and other sundry non-physical entities as a core spiritual practice. For Strategic Sorcery I firmly believe that advice from others should be a supportive and secondary to the main methods. You can take advice from all manner of beings, but you should evaluate it just like you evaluate advice from people, which is why I listed it as guidance from others rather than just spirits. Not having or body does not make a being clairvoyant, and being powerful and ancient does not automatically make one wise. The same is true for human Gurus. You can make amazing strides by following the advice of a teacher, lord knows both I and this course owe a debt to human and spiritual teachers that I can never fully repay. To evaluate those beings and that advice properly however, one must themselves be sovereign and know their own mind. Advancing in each of these will be the work of a lifetime. You will doubtless explore many variations on these over your lifetime and I encourage that experimentation. Just do not lose sight of the essential and simple practices. Below are some more advanced methods that you may find useful. THE FACETS OF THE FLOW A practice that has deepened my spiritual life immensely is called "FACETS OF THE FLOW". I have mentioned this practice a couple times in lessons 35 and 36 but never went into it in depth. I received this practice while meditating in the Green Mountains last year, I have shared it with a small group of people and the consensus is that it's a pretty useful practice. You can think of it as a sort of

advanced centering exercise designed to give you awareness and a tactile feel for how the quintessence of magic flows. The idea behind the practice is that rather than viewing ultimate nature (God, Divinity, The Holy Mystery, etc) as something static and unchanging, we should instead see it as consciousness in perpetual motion. A verb rather than noun. The task then becomes to chart the paths of its movement so that we can recognize and orient ourselves to it. The flow that I perceived was multi-dimensional, yet must be understood to be all one flow. For understanding the practice I have broken it down into vectors that can be moved along in two directions. In other words a line on the table would be a vector, and you can flow along it moving right or left. In this case the flow moves both ways simultaneously. The first vector of movement is pretty easy to guess. It is the dimension of movement between material and subtle/spirit and we have been calling it the current of manifestation. In fact you have already been orienting yourself to it in the pillar rite, this is the dimension of movement between spirit and matter. It is important to acknowledge that this is a two way flow. Matter yearns to ascend into spirit, to become elevated and ennobled in its rise. Spirit also yearns to descend into matter to become tangible and visceral. Some traditions see the flow of spirit to matter as something that occurred at the beginning of creation, and the ascent of matter into spirit as something that will finalize at the end of creation. I tell you now that creation is ongoing, and that this flow is always occurring in both directions simultaneously. Right now, sit with your back straight and feel for this flow. Don't link it with a column, or lights, or any kind of visualization. Sound the syllable HRI (HREEEE) and feel specifically for the ascention of matter into spirit. Sound the syllable HU (HUE like the hue of color) and feel specifically for the materializationof spirit into matter.

Feel the tension of this flow as it exists within your mind, your cells and the world around you. Feel the eternal movement of matter into spirit and spirit into matter. The second vector of movement is the flow of consciousness forward and backward through time. We have been calling this the current of evolution. The forward flow, from the universes beginning to the universes end is not only the flow of time, but the evolution of consciousness, from the appearance of life, to animal intelligence, to human intellect, to beyond and beyond and beyond. Space itself is awareness and this awareness has a direction and quality. Most magicians can sense this flow within them fairly easily - the evolution of consciousness is sort of what we are all about. The flow in the other direction is not as easily grasped... Imagine if you will a universe where consciousness is not only there, but a major building block. Imagine that the final evolution of consciousness needs to direct itself backward through time to oversee the beginning of the universe, to insure that it is created and guided in a way that results in that final evolution. This sounds a bit like Terminator or Dr Who, but it is an idea that not only has some traction on mystical schools, but scientific ones as well. For instance, the idea is hinted at in "The Cosmic Jackpot, Why The Universe is Just Right for Life" by Dr Paul Davies. Again right now, wherever you are reading these words, sit with your back straight and feel for this flow. Don't link it with a column, or lights, or any kind of visualization. It is this flow backward through time that gives rise to many of the world's great Avatars that seem born with miraculous powers and spiritual wisdom already in place. It is also this flow that some people attribute the Guardian Angel to, and why Crowley referred to Asar Un Nefer as "myself made perfect". Ebony Apu makes extreme use of this flow in his Hawk and Jackel system, even charging tools with the ritual energy of mages that come after them in the future, and sending their energy back to previous workers.

Sound the syllable HO and feel specifically for the spiral of matter and spirit forward through time. Feel for the manner in which this is guided along a route of evolution. Sound the syllable HMN (Kind of like a hum with your mouth closed) and feel specifically for the flow of that enlightened nature backward through time, guiding its own manifestation. So now we have the movement from subtle spirit to matter and back, and the movement from beginning to end of time and back. The third vector of movement is the current of probability. This one is even harder to explain, but relates to the almost infinite possibilities that exist in every single moment. It is easy to imagine variant possible futures laying out before you, several in the next few minutes and hours that are only slightly different from one another, to avast array of billions of possibilities that extend a few days from now. It is not quite as easy to imagine the same thing about the past, but that is in fact how it is. The idea of multiple paths is yet another magical truth that has some traction in science, at least as far as sub atomic particles go. The expansion is ever variant futures and pasts from the current moment is one direction of the flow of this current. The other is of course the flow of all these variant possibilities collapsing into just one. This current is by far the hardest of the three to perceive and align with, but for the Sorcerer, it can be one of the most rewarding. If you can develop the ability to step into this flow and manage it, you will develop the ability to work with magic that effects the outcome of probability directly without ritual or spirits or energy. You will be guiding the collapse of probability itself. When you work with spirits you will be able to observe how they do this themselves. One of my students that I have been experimenting with this said "If you have been doing the work, this is not really that difficult to wrap your mind around. If not, it will sound like science fiction twaddle". Sound the syllable HRA (HREEEE) and feel for the array of probable futures and pasts that surround you.

Sound the syllable HUM (either Hoom or like Hue, but with the M at the end.) and feel for the way in which these probabilities collapse into one another until the present moment is experienced as a singular event. After contemplating these facets of the flow, perform the universal centering excercise. It should take on a whole new At the end of this, dwell in the mindspace created and let go. Shift into contemplation. I want to reiterate that I have been talking about separate vectors of movement, but that is an illusion, it is all ONE flow extending in multiple dimensions. These are just different facets of that flow. In fact there are other facets of the flow, and a few of us are mapping these, but they are a bit to tenuous to write about at this time. The sounds that I connect with these different facets are all sounds I heard as I explored them at different levels of the astral and causal levels. I should really say that they are approximations of the sounds. Like angelic names, unless you have 12 vocal chords you can only just hint at it :-) All you really need to do for the practice to work is feel these facets with your awareness. First think about them, than attempt to sense them, than attempt to feel yourself within them and how at this very moment you are in that flow. That's it. DO NOT link this with columns of energy or anything like that. Just be. If you are doing it right, you will have a strange sensation that is like being suspended in space and you might actually feel physical or psychic pressures from the flow, as if you are being pushed or pulled by them. This is normal for the practice. From this stage you can enter into a meditation or contemplation session, or perform other types of magic such as CUBE RIDING. CUBE RIDING

At the end of the meditation session where I understood the Facets of the Flow I was shown a diagram that I already knew well, the Glyph known as Metatrons Cube. Shown Here:

Within the lines drawn between the 13 circles of Metatrons cube can be seen the outlines of most of the platonic solids, with the notable exception of the dodecahedron (some claim that the dodecahedron is there as well, but every attempt I have seen to include it relies upon extra lines that do not connect to the center of one of the 13 circles). The way in which these shapes jump out at you really make the diagram come alive, and if you can observe it with more than just your physical eyes you will get a real sense of the full dimension of this potent glyph. Those of you familiar with New Age guru Drunvalo Melchizideck and the Flower of Life books will be very familiar with this glyph. After seeing this glyph I deliberately decided NOT to investigate Melchizidecks work on the subject. and instead invoke Metatron. Once I did that and used what he taught me, I did go back and look at Melchizidecks work. I do not follow or believe most of his cosmology and stories, but I have to say that at very least his work with using the

Star Tetrahedron ( which appears twice in metatrons cube) as a vehicle of spirit is VERY effective for riding the vector of manifestation from matter to spirit. I do use a version of it that links more closely to the Strategic Sorcery view, but that is not what Metatron told me to look at. Metatron told me to look at the Tesseract within the glyph. This is a 4 dimensional cube, and if you look at the glyph you can see a cube within a cube, that looks more or less like this:

The Drawing above is taken from a website that took it from the book "Theosophy and the 4th dimension" published in 1928 by Alexander Home.

While concentrating on the tesseract within metatrons cube I suddenly found myself experiencing reality from within it. All of the present was located in the central cube, and the cubes in front and back of me represented the future and past on the trajectory that I was on, ie the most probable past and future. The cubes surrounding me and those cubes all represented other probable futures pasts and presents. Through sheer Will, Desire, and Belief I found myself able to "steer" the cube I was in into one of these alternate probable futures. This can be done in a split second without any further ritual or magic. We have called this practice "Cube Riding". There are no sounds or words necessary. NOTE: someone recently pointed out the cool Tesseract Gif that shows it in movement Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:8-cell-simple.gif One thing: though I am not sure why, it seems that simply visualizing a Tesseract is not as effective as seeing it arise from within Metatrons cube. I recommend either looking at the glyph, or visualizing it in detail, and meditating on the tesseract within it. Letting it appear in 3d, than envelop you. Also, it is important to use the 2-d drawing of the Metatrons cube. Any attempt I have seen to actually make a 3-d representation of Metatrons cube has has lacked the ability that the 2-d drawing has of showing deeper dimensions beyond. FACETS OF THE FLOW AND MULTIPLICATION OF MAGIC Another practice to arise from the Facets of the Flow experimentation is Magical Multiplication. This was noticed first by my friend Jow when reciting mantra. Jow is one of the few people I have been tinkering around with the facets of the flow stuff with . He describes it like this: I usually start by beginning the Mantra here, but you can slip into the facets of theflow first. After a few recitations I start to think back on the many times I've said them before.. All those times were now. All those times ARE now. Awareness spans all times and dimensions. Awareness filters through the chain of causality that brought us here. Awareness is the point of NOW that punctuates every moment.

That same Awareness punctuates every moment in every other line of causality. Feel the forward flow. Think of the events that brought you to this moment: the physcial actions ofsitting or kneeling, walking, etc. Move your mind backward along the flow and feel allthe choices you could have made, all the paths it could have taken. Going backward and forward at once feel time and causality BRANCH, and KNOW that Awareness is there, the Mind of God, your own Mind. As you say your Mantra, know that your Mind NOW effects of your other branching possible Minds. They are One Mind. As you recite, KNOW that your other selves recite as well. One Mind recites, and it echos down through many Minds, ones that may not even know they are reciting, but are still recieving benifit. You can reach back even farther along the chain to childhood, infanthood, and before into (possible) past lives, and ahead into old age and future lives. Once you can go forward and back as far as you can, you can push outward in all directions to.. something else. I have no idea how to describe it, honestly. You are already all these places at once, and the smaller, temporal versions of you can get benefit from your work in the flow, as well as past and future versions as well possibly. To encapsulate, once you have a feel for the facets of the flow you can reach into the "you" that exists into the past future, and alternate probable realities and to some degree activate your spell in those other beings, which will allow it to gain power and traction, and reflect back upon you. If you view is big enough, you can extend this to other incarnations. I did warn you that things would get a bit weird didnt I? A few years ago I might have poked fun of someone giving these exact teachings and accused them of drifting into Lala land. I only ask that you approach with an open mind, a willingness to experiment, and a solid foundation in what was taught in earlier lessons. If you start here with no grounding in meditation, contemplation, astral work, or anything else, you will get no-where with these techniques.

I should also note that this sounds like it has some similarity to the Quantum Jumping program that I see ads for all over the net. I have NOT investigated that program or in any way experimented with it. CLOSING This lesson could have gone on much longer. I could have talked about how to withdraw the star and earth power centers into the body and have them integrate at the heart. I could have talked about how to use the information level to integrate invocations of multiple beings into yourself at a time. I could have talked about my own version of the Star Tetrahedron meditation, or the creation of 4D structures in astral space. There is always more to teach, and I probably will in specialized advanced courses in the future. For now though, you have enough information to be able to make your own research and make your own advancements, which brings me to your final homework assignment: HOMEWORK 10 - THE FINAL ASSIGNMENT You last homework assignment is to advance the art of Strategic Sorcery. Specifically I want you to take any of the practices that I have laid out in this course and take it one step forward. Add something or subtract something or combine it with another principal or use it in a way that I never expected. Advance the art of magic. Write me a report showing the following: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The SS method or ritual that you based the work on Your addition to it or the way that you advanced it How you deployed it in the field The result - good, bad, or indifferent.

NEXT WEEK IS THE FINAL LESSON: The Strategic Sorcerer.

STRATEGIC SORCERY LESSON 52: The Strategic Sorcerer THE STRATEGIC SORCERER Krishnamurti once said that the greatest art is the art of living. Greater than all things that human beings have created from mind or hand. Greater than all scriptures and their gods. The practice of Strategic Sorcery is the a tool for perfecting the art of living. The Strategic Sorcerer knows that life is perfected only through perfect awareness and perfect freedom. For some this means turning off the distractions of worldly life and retreating into the inner realms. Whatever benefits that method may or may not have, it is not the Sorcerers way. The sorcerer is no less a spiritual being than the monk or the yogi, but he chooses to shine the rays of his illumination outward through skillful means and strategic action. PURITY Most magical traditions advise that magic be worked in a state of purity. Outwardly is attained through outward appearance: by keeping clean, wearing white, treating holy objects with reverence etc, taking special purifying baths. The Strategic Sorcerer will employ the methods of outer purity during certain workings or during special periods where an outer sign is needed. Inwardly, purity is attained thru proper physical health, cleansing of subtle channels, thru speaking truth, and maintaining emotional well-being. The Strategic Sorcerer strives to maintain inner purity as a matter of lifestyle, and though he will fall from the ideal many times throughout his career, he never forgets its importance. Secretly, purity is inherently present in all things at all times. Whether it be a rose or a pile of feces, its nature is pure. Being aware of this the Strategic Sorcerer rests in the awareness that all phenomena are the play of the uncreated light. Abiding thus, the secret purity is spontaneously and naturally accomplished.

EFFORT AND OPENNESS There are those that seek to use Sorcery to control every aspect of their lives. Weaving spell upon spell, and plan upon plan they tirelessly and relentlessly hold themselves to a vision that they only think they desire. Others seek to turn their lives over to Gods and Spirits for guidance, accepting whatever direction and omen is provided for them. Wandering from omen to omen, they drift through life without ever realizing that they were gifted with intellect and will so that they could forge their own path. The Strategic Sorcerer practices discernment. He does not turn his life over to Angels and Gods. Nor does he grasp onto his own strategies so tightly that he cannot see greater plans at work. The Strategic Sorcerer knows that when the true will is discerned that "Thy Will be Done" and "My Will be Done" are the very same thing. Thus he allows room in his life for providence and destiny, without yielding his direction and drive. THANKFULNESS The Strategic Sorcerer is thankful. In the morning he wakes up and gives thanks to the universe for all he possesses and all he has achieved. He thanks his angels and spirits for their assistance, he thanks the world around him for its very manifestation. He thanks his friends and family for their love. He thanks his allies for their comradery and sacrifice in battle. He thanks everyone and everything. In the evening he kneels and gives thanks for the boons of the day, for the protection he has received, and for the opportunity to learn and to reflect the light of his Gnosis. LOVE AND HATE The Strategic Sorcerer does not fall into the error of thinking that love and hate are two sides of the same coin, both equally divine. He knows that love is tied to knowledge and that hate is tied to ignorance. It is impossible to grow in knowlege and not grow in love. Perfect knowlege IS perfect love and compassion. This is at the heart of Christs message of Agape and Buddhas teaching of Compassion.

Though the religious lose sight of this secret, the Strategic Sorcerer must always remember. EGO The Strategic Sorcerer does not seek to dissolve or destroy his personal ego. He knows that such an endeavor is not only undesirable while living, but quite impossible. Rather than destroy his ego the Strategic Sorcerer seeks to transcend his ego. While trapped within the ego a person is slave to the chains of cause and effect. Once the ego is transcended, it ceases to be an instrument of bondage and instead becomes a useful tool. Like a cage on a deserted island, your first duty must be to free yourself from incarceration. Once free however, you might find that the cage is the best shelter on the island, and that the bars provide the strongest material for forging tools. Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, Lao Tzu, and all great spiritual figures ALL had ego. They had large world shaping ego's! The issue is not the existence of the ego, but whether you are in possession of it, or it is in possession of you. COMPASSION AND RESPONSIBILITY The strategic sorcerer knows full well that most of what can be called a self is really just the result of causes that originate from outside the self. Your genetics, how you were raised, the town you grew up in, the friends you kept, the things you ate, your genetics from the previous 100 generations, the random firing of synapses. All of this has much more to do with the patterns of likes and dislikes that we tend to call the self. Because of his understanding of inter-relation and cause and effect, the Strategic Sorcerer has compassion for all. The Strategic Sorcerer also knows that to be human is to have the potential to overcome your programming. Thus, while remaining compassionate, the Strategic Sorcerer still hold people responsible for their actions. Himself most of all. Reasons are not excuses. WRATHFUL ACTION

The Strategic Sorcerer knows that if he is to live in the world there will be times that call for wrathful action. No matter how serious the action, it does not have to emanate from hatred. Just as a child can spank a child out of love and compassion, a Sorcerer can recognize the need for wrathful action, even killing, and perform what is necessary out of love MONEY Christ said you cannot serve both god and Mammon. For some this means that money is best avoided entirely. The strategic sorcerer recognizes that validity of the path of poverty, but it is not his path. So if we cannot serve Mammon, and it is not our path to avoid it entirely, we are left with only one choice: master it. There is no other option. The Strategic Sorcerer therefore knows the value of money, both to himself and others. High titles and astral initiations mean nothing if there is not a stable living situation. Freedom of the mind is nothing if it is not reflected by financial freedom. The power of money is one of the Sorcerer's primary tools. The Strategic Sorcerer provides for himself and his family. He has monetary plans for next week, next year, retirement, and even death. There are paths that do not require this, but it is not our path. COMMITMENT There are those who treasure freedom and lack of attachment so much that they avoid all commitments that life offers them. The freedom to always change one's mind is itself a type of prison because it bars you from the deeper experiences of life. The insistence on non-attachment at all costs, is itself one of the most insidious forms of attachment. There is a price to pay for the chains we refuse. The Strategic Sorcerer enjoys freedom, and seeks non-attachment to the illusions of the mind, but he also is unafraid to commit to a cause when spirit directs him to do so. PERSISTENCE

The Strategic Sorcerer knows that in his practice there will be long periods of dullness. He will meditate and have no insights or moments of illumination. He will invoke the presence of his angel and no conversation will be had. He will call upon the presence of the highest and feel no light. He will make offerings and sense no-one at his feast. The Strategic Sorcerer persists in his work. He knows that these periods are the result of the newness of whatever state he has been enjoying wearing off. He knows that if he ceases his work, or takes up a new practice in an effort to recapture the excitement of newness, that he has failed the test. If he persists in his work it will not be long before the sorcerer experiences deeper insights than ever before, clearer communication with his angel, and a warmer and more powerful light than he ever imagined. EXTERNAL WORK Emmanual Swedenborg wrote that "one should not omit the practice of external worship. Things inward are excited by external worship, and outward things are kept in holiness by external worship." As the Strategic Sorcerer progresses the volume and importance of his inner life tends to grow. He is able to accomplish many things using mental methods alone. Still he does not neglect exterior magic. He works with materia in his spells to fully give his magic a foothold into the material plane. He prays and speaks out loud to the spirits knowing that it presents his words fully on all levels. MATERIAL ATTAINMENTS The Strategic Sorcerer will often apply his trade to attain material things, but he never mistakes this as the point of his craft. If a Sorcerer becomes obsessed with material attainments to the point of overshadowing the spiritual work, he will always be disappointed. Sorcery can bring in financial wealth, but probably not as much as a career in banking. Sorcery can attract sex and love but probably not as much as a career in the Venusian arts. Sorcery can grant worldly power but not as much as a career in politics.

The Strategic Sorcerer knows that there is nothing wrong using his powers to serve his own material desire3s and the desires of others. If that is all he focuses on however, he will be disappointed in his results. SILENCE The Strategic Sorcerer knows the power of silence. He reserves some time every day for moments of silence. This is not meditation, or even contemplation. Simply making room for his brain to process that which cannot be processed at other times. All people experience this. They have business ideas while driving with the radio off. They have insights into love while mowing the lawn. They realize the solution to their problem during the morning run. The only difference between the Strategic Sorcerer and the normal person, is that the Sorcerer knows that this is likely to occur, and has a pen or recorder at hand.

FAITH The Strategic Sorcerer does not work on blind faith. He remembers the Buddhas words to the Kalamas: " Do not go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought that the master is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves from experience that, 'These qualities are skillful and when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them." At first the Strategic Sorcerer only has a few strange experiences, an open mind and a sense of calling. This is enough to devote time and effort to the path. After a while the Sorcerer develops faith in the path through his own success. Though he experiences failure, he experiences far more success. He learns from his work and gets better at his craft. Wisdom, Money, Love, and Health all appear because the Sorcerer expexts his work to manifest result. This is true faith.

Proceeding in this manner Pistis (faith) leads to Gnosis (knowlege) which yields to Theosis (becoming) FEAR OF DEATH The Strategic Sorcerer does not fear what comes after death. He does not feel any ill feelings about the 10,000 years that came before he was born, and suspects that he will not mind the 10,000 after he has passed. Whether he leans towards ideas of reincarnation, or heavenly reward, or simple non-existence, the Sorcerer keeps and open mind and has faith that the fate that has met every single living organism in the universe thus far is not a terrible one. USING DEATH Though he does not fear death, the Strategic Sorcerer does use it in his work. He Meditates on his own mortality and reflects upon the preciousness of his current circumstance. He knows that the luck of being born human, in a situation that leads him to have enough comfort and wealth to even hear these teachings is an incredibly improbable thing to happen. Knowing that this chance may come again he vows to make the most out of this life. SEX The Strategic Sorcerer has respect for sex as one of the most primordial magics that a person can engage in. Done with wisdom and skill sex can, in the words of Glen Duncan "cast the divine fragment back into the divine whole for a moment, than reel it out again razed, beatified." Once the Strategic Sorcerer begins to use Sex skillfully, it is never a crass or gross act again. It will forever remain the most sublime alchemy of worship. DREAMS AND REALITY The Strategic Sorcerer trains to become Lucid in his dreams so that he can use them as a training ground for the Astral planes. If he can learn to see the illusory nature of a dream, while remaining lucid within it, he will eventually be able to do

the same in the astral realms. If he can bend the laws of physics and reality in the dreamstate, eventually he will learn to do the same in the astral. The Strategic Sorcerer also knows that he Astral is a training ground for the material, and eventually it is possible to cut through the illusion completely and become truly lucid on all levels. This is enlightenment. THE ELEMENTS The Strategic Sorcerer trains in knowing the "five tendencies" that are Azoth, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. While working with these, he always remembers the difference between their qualities and their correspondence. In his system the elements may have directions and colors and gods associated with them. They may have symbols and sounds such as A (Azoth), Ha (Air), Na (Water), Ra (Fire), and SA (Earth). The Sorcerer knows that these correspondences are tools that have arisen from the quintessence in order to work with the qualities of the elements. The Sorcerer used the correspondences to gain direct knowledge of the qualities. Once the qualities are grasped the Sorcerer can internalize them and recognize them within his own being. OF SOVEREIGNTY The Strategic Sorcerers life is his to live. He does not turn responsibility or decision making over to angels, spirits, demons, or anything else. The spirits do not live here and do not know all the rules of life on earth - that your job. Evaluate non-human advice the same way that evaluate human advice. Like people some are wise and give sublime guidance, while others delight in leading astray, and others are simply ignorant but speak anyway. Even when the Strategic Sorcerer decides to give himself over to another, he knows that it is him that makes the decision to do so. The Sorcerer maintains his sovereignty. EVALUATING RESULTS The Strategic Sorcerer goes beyond asking if something worked or did not work. That question is too simplistic. Instead he seeks to learn from every operation regardless of the outcome. He asks: How fast did it work? How strong was the

result? How did it fit my needs? Did I benefit from it? Was there any fallout? If it didnt work, why? What were the obstcles? In this way, the Strategic Sorcerer refines his tactics and expands his art. THE MAGICAL AND THE MUNDANE The Strategic Sorcerer makes no difference between so called magical and mundane methods. Even if his strategy contains no elements that are occult in the traditional sense, it is still Sorcery if it serves his ends. SYSTEMS The Strategic Sorcerer is not a slave to any path save the path of truth. He knows that the hidden keys of the quintessence of magic have themselves been hidden amongst other hidden keys. He does not seek out foreign systems to be exotic, or even to compare and contrast what he already knows. He engages these other systems because in a very real way these systems engage him. In ancient times a Sorcerer would only ever be exposed to one or two systems of magic and mysticism. In the modern age the doors of every path on earth have been thrown wide open and it is perfectly natural for a Sorcerer to encounter dozens of systems throughout his life. Furthermore as the Sorcerer's body becomes a beacon of light in the worlds of spirit, and as he continues to make allies with gods and spirits and deliver prompt offerings and payments, he will gain the attention of Gods and Spirits from other systems. That said, the quintessence of magic is not reached by mixing and matching traditions and symbol sets, but reaching through them to the innate source from which they emanate. Krishnamurti said that "Truth is a pathless land". While being respectful and careful, the Strategic Sorcerer is free to investigate wherever his personal quest takes him. TRADITION VS SELF-KNOWLEGE

Though he is not a slave to tradition, the Strategic Sorcerer also does not make the mistake of trusting his own experience unquestioningly. Because he meditates, the Sorcerer knows how self-deceptive the mind can be. Sometimes the exact thing that will take the Sorcerer to the next stage of his path is the thing that challenges all his beliefs and feels so wrong at first that his very body rejects the idea. Sometimes the thing that offers the most comfort to the Sorcerer is the exact thing that is holding him back. The Astral plane produces mirrors upon mirrors and will reflect back anything that you project upon it. Extremely powerful spirits that live for thousands of years may seem from our perspective to be immortal gods. The Strategic Sorcerer weighs his own experience against the wisdom of tradition and the input from trusted mentors and peers. To those that say that their path consists of doing whatever feels right, the Strategic Sorcerer considers them just as lost as those who stick to traditional dogma as truth. The Strategic Sorcerer practices discernment. HARMONY Like the strings of a guitar, the methods and instructions of sorcery must be held in harmony with the moment. Held to tight, there is no room for inspiration or adjustment. Held to loose and there may as well be no work at all. When the strings are out of harmony with the guitar, there is no music. When the methods are out of harmony with the moment, there is no magic. DARING Even with the best intelligence, the Strategic Sorcerer knows that he cannot forsee all consequences of his actions. Knowing that despite his lack of prescience he is responsible for all of these, he chooses to act anyway. He knows that he will not always make the right decision and pays the price. He does this without surprise or complaint. He learns from every action and comes away transformed.

Others sit back and let the possibility of failure paralize them into passivity. They complain about the actions of others, while never making their own moves. The Strategic Sorcerer spends time planning his approach, refining his tactics, and plotting his strategy, but when it is time to act, the Sorcerer acts. WORTHINESS The Strategic Sorcerer will almost always, either formally or informally, end up mentoring or teaching others. At times he will feel hypocritical doing so. He will think "How can I advise people about financial magic, when I just lost money on an investment." "How can I advise people on love magic when my own marriage ended in divorce", How can I advise people in meditation, when I myself cling to thoughts and negative emotional states". The Strategic Sorcerer integrates this into his teaching. He knows that life is never perfect for anyone. Life presents everyone with cycles of love and loss, wealth and poverty, illumination and ignorance. The Sorcerers work is to take these circles and make them into spirals, so that each time the cycle repeats, it does so at a higher level. THE LAST WORDS The Strategic Sorcerer knows that the only perfection to be found is in the striving for perfection. There have been many times in human history that, though science or religion, we have thought we were coming close to a full understanding of reality. Every time that we got to that point, we found out how much larger and mysterious the world is, and how much we still did not know. The Strategic Sorcerer knows that the success of any given system of approach is not in how many followers it has, but in how many new approaches it spawns either through evolution or schism. In the end, there are as many paths as there are people. The 84 traditional Indian Mahasiddhas all had only one thing in common: they all attained enlightenment in a completely different way from one another.

Long after the oceans have dried up and the sun has become a Red Giant, the Quinessence of Magic will be expressing Sorcery in new ways, but the principals and innate nature of existence will remain unchanged.

**********************THANK YOU***************************** Though the class is now officially over, you will be receiving a few more things. First, is the Strategic Sorcery Glossary which I am working on at this very moment. Next, this class is going to be re-edited and re-arranged into its final form. You will all receive a copy of the final version as well as the one that you have been working through. It is important to me that everyone be on the same page. Lastly you will be receiving invitations to some specialty courses that are shorter in length and which will only be open to those that have received all 52 lessons of this course. Thank you for taking this course, I hope it was helpful for you. I hope that you integrate the lessons and make it your own and that you use the methods to leave the world a better place than when you found it.