‘Classified Information’- Networks & Hierarchical Systems of the Occult

I've never been one to mix words. It’s a cold soul full of self-deprecation and rot that will say things others want to hear just to avoid conflict. Sure, you might have a life of tranquility and peace but in the end you’ll be a broken old miser with a heart of hate. You’ll be a wound. The same goes with governance. Being at the top of the pyramid just isn't what it used to be. Sixty seven years ago a jangly old dope fiend found himself under the headlamp of one of those filthy saucers and whisked away like a leper or convict. And it was just five months previous that one of those silvery shiny disks dropped to earth like a fiery space-rock vomiting tiny spacemen all over the New Mexico desert.

They said that 1947 would be the year we immanentize the eschaton. They said all power would be given to the people and a perfect utopic society would bloom into being. Instead, we got irradiated by an unholy leviathan in the Pacific. A monster so vile so incredibly inhuman and evil that it could end the world as we know it. And to think that it could have gone differently.

There was so much promise coming into the 20^th century. When the little beast Aleister Crowley received his transmission from Aiwass in 1904, things were looking up for occultists. We had momentum on our side. We were tearing through the cosmos in a scarlet red chariot called BABALON ripping through portals and shredding the old paradigm with ‘Do What Thou Wilt’ etched into the bow of our stallion. It was powerful and frightening.

These were fast times. Back when a magical operation could produce an ill-tempered bastard of a demon. Something so inherently foul that it would crouch darkly in the corner of a room and lay in wait for the poor dumb sucker who wasn't prepared. These creatures aren't made to stay long in our reality. They have rotten dispositions and whether it’s the altitude or temperature, no good can come from an ‘extended’ visit. Most come from the Semitic peoples of Assyria, Ysra-el, Babylon- places where Jinn run freely along rubble-strewn streets and can be seen in between tracer fire. I once watched a YouTube video of a demon caught on camera in Aleppo. Amidst mortar shelling and bomb sirens, this entity could be seen walking past an old busted-out window and disappearing. A sniper on the footage saw it too. Nothing needed to be said. It was supposed to be here. When gods go to war, they’re fueled by the people.

It just isn't how it used to be. Oh sure, we can invoke in this day and age and maybe it’s just the idea of having a room full of OTO heavy-hitters lustfully performing ancient rituals while kicking in some new ones just for good measure. But the Occult of the early 20^th century was an exciting time. Anything could take form at any moment. And maybe it was the otherworldly madness of the rituals or the macabre spectacle of going out and being treated like Satan in public. But the birthing of the Aeon that Crowley and his flock worked so hard to create was aborted by none other than they themselves. No one knows quite why yet but the period of renewal that should have accompanied a change in social and spiritual governance was botched so expertly as to appear the work of some strange cosmic archon or dunce criminal.

Systems of governance make up a large part of our social structure and it’s really no surprise. There has to be some way in which populations interconnect and relate to one another. Coinciding with social complexity, different forms of organization earmark the many interactions people have both on the micro (local) and macro (global) levels. The two predominant methods of governance are hierarchical and network. A hierarchic model is ecclesiastic. It is a fixed system structured in a top-down format. Communities are divided into classes, orders, families and so on. Stemming from the Greek ‘Rule of a High Priest’, all the values and categories are arranged in an order that emphasizes ‘higher’, ‘lower’, ‘same as’ in terms of importance or authority.

On the other hand, a network is a system of interdisciplinary scholarly collaboration that views knowledge as largely cumulative. The process emerges from a bottom-up format and individuals function as autonomous nodes, negotiating their own relationships, forging ties, coalescing into clusters. Each node is equal and self-directed.[1] Usually, hierarchical and networked systems coexist. There is often some formal organizational structure plus a network of personal colleagues or confidantes that have no representation in the hierarchy.

Anyway, the differences between hierarchical and networks is clear. Linnaeus’s ‘Systema Natura’ classified living things into classes, orders, families and so on. Based on earlier folk taxonomy, this system hierarchically classified organisms so as to make them easily identifiable. In contrast, George- Louis Leclera, Comte de Buffon’s ‘Histoire Naturelle’ included other characteristics in addition to anatomy to classify entities. He considered schemes that would take into account an animal’s physiology, ecology, functional anatomy, behavior, and geography.[2] Buffon considered the entity’s entire network when approaching classification. In addition, he held that entities were constantly changing and could devolve under adverse conditions. The Comte de Buffon was a natural networking occultist. His approach in the natural sciences isn't unlike the idea that deities and demons also evolve or devolve in certain circumstances.

Although hierarchy seems like a static and effective system for occultists, there is an inherent problem that keeps organizations stagnate and dismays potential members from even joining. In the Masonic or pseudo-Masonic structure of nearly all magical orders, we have a hierarchy that elevates those at the top to guru status while those at the bottom are left with virtually no voice at all. It’s not Freemasonry’s fault. They took their cues from even earlier orders such as the Knights Templar. And it was a working system for a while. But the problem is that culture evolved to match its technological and especially communicative advances whereas magical orders kept the fixed Masonic structure that it has practiced for hundreds of years. Nowadays, it is difficult or even impossible to transmit information on the local problems and potential solutions to central decision makers; and if transmission could somehow be improved, the accumulated local knowledge could never be effectively utilized at the center.[3] It is virtually impossible for Minerva level neophytes to reach top-level members of initiatory orders. And that is the irony of the situation. The world is smaller now than it ever has been. Methods of communication such as email, Facebook, and text messages have made the world more interconnected than it ever has been. Yet the orthodox hierarchy of magical orders has remained a dogmatic aspect of occultism stubbornly resistant to change.

The occult hierarchy tries to assert that there is no ‘problem’. They assert that the local micro-level acts as a network while the hierarchical centralized macro-level stays in the background. But the micro-level is exactly as abstract as the so-called ‘macro’ one from which they came and they now want to leave again for what holds the situation together. And so on infinitum.[4] The fact of the matter is that both the local and macro levels of occult hierarchy have become obsolete. And its most egregious oversight is in omitting the non-human actors, that are, in many ways, the focal point of their operations. Entities hold ‘degree centrality’ when performing an operation because it is they who are contacted during an interaction. If the hierarchy were to be set up truthfully, non-human entities would be the top tier of the system. Moreover, leaders like Frater Sabazius or Hyperion or Alden Jones act as surrogate proxies to beings given form and attributes through interactions with other entities. In the transformations or translations that occur when identifying what provided an entity’s consciousness, subjective experience, and actions, we let loose a network of corresponding assemblages.

This is the failure of Crowleyanity in modern occultism. In their stubborn attempt to break away from the orthodoxy of mainstream religious and Masonic systems, they set up a hierarchy that mirrors its sins almost identically. They have deliberately and blindly denied non-human entities in the system. In so doing, they have undone the creating and empathy they achieved during the ontological process. By negating the very entities with which they seem to communicate, their hierarchy is made null and void. It’s not entirely Crowley’s fault but his claim to be the harbinger of a new Aeon was immediately suspect when he utilized a pseudo-Masonic hierarchical system. A new Aeon implies a new paradigm. A system so innovative, so utterly alien to what came before that it changed the game completely. What Crowley ‘received’ was a compelling method and theory made corrupt by a socio-political structure really no different from the infrastructures of the past.

So where do we go from here? What weird course and trajectory gives credence to the past while charting a path that breaks new ground and takes us to undiscovered places. Perhaps a way to coexist is via peer to peer goal-oriented network. Following the ‘Histoire Naturelle’, considering all aspects of an ‘interaction network’ or magical operation will shape a dynamic set of translations and transformations between occultists and their non-human counterparts. Consistent with a perpectivistic philosophy (McGuire 2004), network theory provides a complementary approach that attempts to make parsimonious predictions that generalize across settings, disciplines, and levels of analysis whenever possible.[5]

I’m not suggesting that magical orders need no leadership. Nor am I implying that administrative duties should be left to some boozed-up malcontent. It wouldn't be a bad gig. Somebody has to organize functions and get-togethers or what are we even doing? I’m simply saying that there is no need to advance through any sort of degree system. Nor should there be a Grand Master and Lesser Master and Treasurer etc within the inner workings of the magical order. People frequently ask me whether this lack of structure is just a call to anarchy. They howl that it’s the order that keeps things tidy and if we can get some tax-exempt status or pilfer something from the Federales, well that’s good too. After all, just ask L. Ron-somebody has to get rich from this deal.

No, I’m just throwing it out there. How about we dump this hierarchical lunacy and focus our efforts on a system that encourages true correspondences. By knowing the perspective of an entity along with its relation to the initiate, other entities, the operation, witnesses to the rite, the liturgy, the temple architecture, and interested third parties, we are given the information needed to achieve the ultimate goal of interaction. This goal-directed network will be brought about by a peer to peer organization. Exactly like Wikipedia or the Torrent network that drove record company executives insane, the network would facilitate a system where occultists interact to form an efficient distribution of information. Peer to peer organization will lay waste to the step-ladder approach of hierarchical structure. No longer will there be a steady climb of Minerva to Adeptus minor to Adeptus Major etc culminating in a 33^rd degree Ipsissimus secret chief grand poobah pontiff and king of the Jews level of coronation. Instead, there will be a sharing network of peers all acting as circulating references in an organelle of knowledge. Now the mysteries will lay in the movements and interactions between networks. As Latour remarked, “This empty space ‘in-between’ networks, those terra incognita are the most exciting aspects of Actor Network Theory because they show the extent of our ignorance and the immense reserve that is open for change.  

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[1] Alex Wright. GLUT: Mastering Information Through The Ages. Joseph Henry Press. Washington DC. 2007. pp.7

[2] Buffon’s ‘American Degeneracy’. Philadelphia, PA; Academy of Natural Sciences- http://www.acnatsi.org/museum/jefferson/otherPages/degeneracy-0.3.php;-

[3] Ed. Fritz Scharpf. Games in Hierarchy and Networks: Analytical and Empirical Approaches to the Study of Governance Institutions. Campus Verlag Westview Press. Boulder, CO. 1993. pp. 135

[4] Bruno Latour. ‘On Recalling ANT’. In Actor Network Theory and after. John Law and John Haggard. Blackwell Publishing. Oxford. 1999. pp. 17

[5] James D. Westaby. Dynamic Network Theory: How Social Networks Influence Goal Pursuit. American Psychological Association. Washington DC. 2012. pp. 7

Potentialities and the Occult

Potentialities and the Occult

“What is potential can both be and not be, for the same is potential both to be and not to be.” –Aristotle-1050 b10 ‘Metaphysics’ Book Theta

            The liminal manifests itself in a myriad of ways. As a transitionary state of Being, it lends itself to the bizarre and macabre. The liminal is an intermediary between what was and what will be. This lends itself perfectly to occult work because, as every practitioner knows, what is ‘becoming’ is more important that what once was and what currently ‘is’. This being said, the concept isn’t exactly new. For example, the stoics also identified an intermediary step between thought and being. They called this state the ‘lekton’ or ‘expressible’. This was a state that was incorporeal or without presence. Lacking ontological form, the state also referred to language itself. The lekton was the event or expressible capacity in-between thought and being. It was liminal. This is exactly the same as the liminal state in an occult rite of passage. In evoking the particular state, the occultist literally communicates the ‘expressible’.

            But there must be a method that transmits the expressible from the occult practitioner. Curiously, the method takes the form of ritual checks and balances. As Benjamin remarked, “Origin, although an entirely historical category, has, nevertheless, nothing to do with genesis. The term origin is not intended to describe the process by which the existent came into being, but rather to describe that which emerges from the process of becoming and disappearance”. [1] In other words, the ritual or ‘interaction’ between the existent and the practitioner is more important that the description of the event. This is because of the ritual checks and balances that forms a permanent empathetic bond between evoker and evokee. Benjamin went so far as to suggest that part of the creator dies in the ritual process. He states that, “The origin of the great work has often been considered through the image of birth. This is a dialectical image; it embraces the process from two sides. The first has to do with creative conception and concerns the feminine element in genius. The feminine is exhausted in creation. It gives life to the work and then dies away. What dies in the master along-side the achieved creation is the part of him in which the creation was conceived…In its achievement, creation gives birth anew to the creator”. [2] Although a part of the magician is lost to the entity summoned, in turn the entity gives something back to the evoker. This something is a gift. In its presence, the magician is re-embodied or renewed by the supernatural exchange.

            Ritual checks and balances is also implied in Aristotle’s ‘ethos anthropoi daimon’. The usual translation of this phrase is “for man, character is the demon.” But ethos originally referred to what is proper in the sense of “dwelling place, habit”. Daimon also meant etymologically “to divide, lacerate”. So daimon was he who lacerates or divides. However, we shouldn’t consider this a negative connotation of the word daimon because only in ‘what divides’ can the daimon also be what destines or threads a fate. The word daiomai first means to “divide” then to “assign” which has the same semantic development as the root “demos”-which meant “division of territory”, and “assigned part”. So ethos anthropoi daimon translates into ethos, the dwelling in the ‘self’ that is what is most proper for him, is what lacerates and divides, and assigns and destines. In other words, for man to be himself, he must necessarily divide himself.[3]

This is reminiscent of the renewal Benjamin discussed but more accurately relates to Cabalistic thought. Gershom Scholem has discussed prophesy as it was described by Jewish mystics in the 13^th century. In his ‘On The Mystical Shape Of The Godhead’, he writes that in a Cabalistic anthology called the Shushan Sodoth, prophesy appears as one’s own doppelganger: “The complete secret of prophesy consists in the fact that the prophet suddenly sees the form of his self standing before him, and he forgets his own self and ignores it…and that form speaks with him and tells him the future. [4] As it is necessary for the prophet to “divide” in order to “assign fate”, the occultist must also separate from himself to exact a successful ritualistic interaction. Also, many occult traditions embrace the idea of the double as part of their teachings. For example, the idea of qliphoth “shells of the sephiroth” is common to many students of the occult. Acting as reversals or inversions of the Judaic ‘Tree of Life’, these dark embodiments are akin to the folklore of a doppelganger.

Philosophically, the double also plays the role of non-being. It is the difference between actuality and potentiality or what ‘is’ and ‘what could be’. As Agamben has remarked, “what is essential is that potentiality is not simply non-Being, simple privation, but rather the existence of non-Being, the presence of an absence; this is what well call “faculty” or “power”. [5] The point being potentiality has an ontological status. It is something.  This faculty that is spoken of is ability. For example, a ritual specialist has the ability or potentiality to perform ritual. But he also has the ability to not-ritualize-or not pass into actuality. It is these changes from potentiality to actuality that embody ontological trajectories of the supernatural. Aristotle also discussed potentiality and actuality. In fact, he asserted that their ontological changes are a harmonizing part of nature. He states that “actuality (energeia) is light and potentiality is darkness (skotos), what is sometimes dark and sometimes light is ‘one in nature’.[6] Even in realms of the supernatural, what is and what could be are integral aspects of status. Moreover, describing these statuses in terms of light and dark is also something very reminiscent of descriptions of those in a liminal state. Victor Turner says that “in many societies the liminal initiands are often considered to be dark, invisible, like the sun or moon in eclipse or the moon between phases, at the “dark of the moon”.[7] As we’ve been discussing then, those in a liminal state are traversing what ‘is’ and what ‘could be’. Their existence explores areas of potentiality and actuality. This is also why the liminal is so conducive to studies of the paranormal and occult. Birthing entities is ritualistic settings goes hand in hand with comparing those in a liminal state to ghosts and gods. These supernatural personages are only critically understood by exploring their ontological changes as they interact or ritualize with mankind.

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[1] Walter Benjamin. Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 1 Pt. 1 pp226

[2] Walter Benjamin. Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 4 Pt 1 pp438 ed. Rolf Tiedemann & Hermann Schweppenhausser. Frankfort am Maini Suhrkamp 1974-89.

[3] See Giorgio Agamben’s ‘Potentialities’ for a more detailed account of Aristotle’s ‘ethos anthropoi daimon’.

[4] Shushan Sodoth-quoted in Scholem. Pp. 253.

[5] Giorgio Agamben. Potentialities. Stanford University Press. 1999. Pp. 179.

[6] Aristotle. Physics. 418b-419e I

[7] Victor Turner. From Ritual to Theatre. PAJ Publications. New York. 1992.

Magus Magazine: Will, Wisdom and the Word: Occult Thought in Moder...

Magus Magazine: Will, Wisdom and the Word: Occult Thought in Moder...: Will, Wisdom and the Word Dilige et quod vis fac Along with wisdom and the word, an operator’s Will is an integral aspect of the ma...

Will, Wisdom and the Word: Occult Thought in Modern Times

Will, Wisdom and the Word

Dilige et quod vis fac

Along with wisdom and the word, an operator’s Will is an integral aspect of the magical equation. Occultists are guided early in their initiations to understand this thrice-fold aspect of the esoteric paradigm. In the Will, initiates acquaint themselves with the architectural framework of intention. It is a skeleton and foundation for what is desired. It is also a mediator with the divine. Schopenhauer considered it the life-force of an individual. He wrote that “it is manifest in every blindly working force of nature; it is also manifest in the considered deeds of man.”[1] An ‘As Above So Below’ concept, the Will as individual energy is also part of the larger whole. It nourishes and is nourished by the universe that surrounds it.

The Will also encapsulates unitive experience. It is representative of completion-when the universe works in tandem with the Will.  It is a liberation from bondage and a negation of duality. It is one, among all possible concepts, that does not derive from the observation of phenomenon, not from visual knowledge, but comes from inside, emerges from the immediate consciousness of each of us: not as a form, not even in terms of the subject-object relationship, but as that which he himself is; for here the knower and the known are the same.[2]

This idea of union is a classic example of religious paradox. In particular, the idea of light in darkness and darkness in light. When consciousness becomes unitive or objectless, we are left with a consciousness not of anything. It is a pure or “cosmic-consciousness”. There is nothing empirical in this state of mind. It is both something and nothing. Sometimes it is described as there and not-there. Philosopher s such as Merleau-Ponty have remarked that this state of being is experienced not from the depths of nothingness but from the midst of itself.

Religions have many names and describe cosmic-consciousness in a myriad of ways. Christians identify it with God. The bible calls it a “desert” or “wilderness”. Dionysius the Areopagite suggested that it is a dazzling obscurity which outshines all brilliance with the intensity of its darkness. Buddhism recognizes this paradox by labeling it the void. In fact, the Tibetan Book Of The Dead speaks of “the clear light of the void.” It is the darkness of god. It is called darkness because all physical distinctions disappear and object-subject duality simply dissolves. Therefore, we can’t really say that ‘there is a light in the darkness’. The light is the darkness and the darkness is the light.

Darkness is also representative of the supernatural world. Like the maw of the earth monster or the belly of the whale, darkness is a symbol of the other world, whether the world of death or of the fetal state.[3] In darkness our Will is able to shine. As it traverses the  boundaries of the profane, it is dissolved into a unitive state and placed on a trajectory of intention. Being both here and there, knower and known, light and dark, the Will manifests our “inner fire” into form.

For many occultists, the Will is best understood in terms of the Greek word Thelema. Thelema is an ideology developed by the magician Aleister Crowley in the early 20^th century. Adherents live by the maxim “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will.” A message dictated to Crowley by an extraterrestrial intelligence in 1904, the ‘Book of the Law’ is the major text that Thelemites refer to. The idea is to follow and live by one’s “true will” in order to find peace and happiness in this life. Part of this true will involves making contact with one’s own Holy Guardian Angel via ritual magic and utilizing this connection to live a better life. The true will is likened to somebody’s calling. It is the raison d’être of existence. In addition, our true will is analogous to the divine will of the universe. By attaining our true will, we also touch the godhead and experience union with the divine.

Magicians have long held that the word is a way to activate supernatural currents. From time immemorial, words have been thought to hold occult virtues. It’s not hard to discern why. The written and spoken word are a direct way to propitiate the gods. They are a way of interaction. The nature of magic demands strict adherence to the original form of the magical name or word because it’s potency lies hidden within its syllables, within its very consonants and vowels.[4] In the shape and form of letters are mysteries of our esoteric past. Many schools of the occult teach extensively the correspondences that letters hold with the creative process. Judaic mysticism holds that the letters of the Torah are literally supernatural essences. They are the sigils of God imbued with mystical prowess. In fact, German Kabbalists of the 13^th century practiced the art of arranging and rearranging Hebrew letters as to discover their maximum potential.

Like more orthodox religious ritual, ceremonial magicians place importance on correct intonation and pronunciation. It’s not unheard of to witness an entire magical rite sung or chanted. The Calls of the Angels are usually sung during invocation. It is thought that singing will more successfully establish a favorable communication with the supernatural. Pronunciation is also important because each divine letter is made up of phonemes that are the very essence of god. Slightly discrepant changes in sound can be what marks the successful occult operation. Some esoteric schools utilize linguistic study as to focus the mind. The Hindu AUM is a practiced meditative technique as well as preparatory focal point of the magical procedure. It is an exhalation into silence.

The word is also a powerfully personal communicator. As any writer will attest, creation with words is a remarkably individual task. This form of conjuration is mercurial. When Man puts pen to page, He is as Thoth scribing the arts of magic. The writer puts form to potential. These utterances create worlds. Within the recesses of ‘self-expression’ and the individual mind is a universe outside of time. The creation becomes autonomous from its progenitor simultaneously as the shapes are given meaning and uttered into existence.  

Once uttered, letters can have a profound number of correspondences of meaning. This is especially true in matters of the esoteric. For example, in Joseph Ashkenazi’s Commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah, we witness how the letter ‘Beth’ as uttered by the Metatron delves into depths where tentacled  phantasms lay in cavernous corners of the abyss. This letter usually signifies “House” and is the physical body of the divine. But in the words of the Metatron to the Holy Qarah:

“He has appointed the letter Bet over life and bound a crown to it and formed [the planet] be it; Sabbatai in the world, and Sunday in the year[ie. In the dimension of time], and the right eye in the person, namely that He elevated the letter Bet so that it is the head on the power of the Keter Eliyon. And he put in it the power of Hokhmah and formed in it the planet Sabbatai, which is beneath the [divine name], ‘ABGYTTz’, and the letter gave wisdom to Sabbatai…And because it is appointed over the weight, it designates darkness and over everything that is black and over the black bile [named melancholy]…and the planet Sabbatai is appointed over them. See and understand that this is the secret of ‘Meshiyah’ YHWH. See and understand that the planet Sabbatai has the crown of Binah, and higher than this is Hokhma. (As Quoted by  R. Abraham Peretz)

Within this commentary is the secret formula for invoking Sathariel. Sathariel is one of the impure husks or shells on the back side of the Judaic Tree of Life. These broken vessels were created when Adam transgressed God in the Garden of Eden. Called the Kelippot, each husk is an emanation of evil and holds a correspondence with the divine Sephiroth of the Tree. Sathariel is the impure correlative of Binah and is characterized as ‘concealment of god’. The operator who wishes to invoke Sathariel must have a conceptual understanding of the entity before attempting an experiential contact. The sorcerer draws forth the spirit of impurity and mixes the clean and unclean together.[5]

Sathariel, the Kelippot of Binah was ‘formed [the planet] be it; Sabbatai in the world. To this planet was assigned the dross or waste of the broken vessel. It designates darkness and everything that is black and over the black bile [named melancholy. When a magician experiences the Sabbatai, they embody the upside down union that is symbolized by the Hanged Man. An inversion or backward reflection of the Holy Tree, this reversal is why St. Peter chose to be crucified upside down in the early years of the Christian religion. The mystery extends with the phrase, Meshiyah YHWY or ‘anointing of the King’. It was requisite for the King to be anointed for him to fulfill the royal role. This is why there is a direct correlation between ‘upside-down’ union and kingly leadership. Sabbatai is appointed over the King who is bestowed the crown of Binah. So as the operator moves through the rite, a mindfulness of crossing over and backward is required to have an audience with Sathariel. Also, the operator must embody the values of anointed kingship. These attributes will prove to be beneficial when Sathariel is invoked within the magic circle.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of Ashkenazi’s Commentary involves Sabbatai itself. As Moshe Idel remarked, “what is significant in this text is the recurrence of the name of the planet Sabbatai, which corresponds to the Latin deity and planet Saturn.”[6] Sathariel- the husk of Binah embodies the restriction, self-unknowing or concealment of the planet Saturn. Its materiality and bile functions as a tester to perfect one’s character through Ordeals. The Latin Saturnus must also be taken into consideration when performing this interaction. A god of wealth, regeneration and time, Saturn must be used as a focal point during the conjuration. I might add that Saturn’s association with time might be the most important aspect of the deity to consider due to the fact that Ashkenazi’s Commentary specifically mentions the ‘dimension of time’ in the text. The festival of Saturnalia should also be kept in mind because this event was characterized by a reversion of social norms. These reversals are identical in principle to the backward paths explored during a Sathariel conjuration.

As stated earlier, words are an integral aspect of the liminal experience. just as Beth uttered in a Commentary can give rise to an interaction with the bile oozing melancholy of Sathariel, the power of the word both conceptualizes and provides an experiential aspect of the occult operation. It’s no surprise that ‘Abracadabra’ is supposedly an Aramaic phrase meaning, “I will create as I speak.” Along with Wisdom and the Will, the power of the Word is an avenue for entering a transitionary state.

Wisdom comes in many forms and through a number of ways. We often see wisdom in our elders and in generations long past. As an archetype, the recluse is always imbued with wisdom. We think of the Old Man alone in the womb cave meditating sixteen hours a day in order to reach enlightenment. Wisdom beckons us to explore our inner vision; to shed our dross shroud and become something anew. We think of the hermit wise one as a scarab- somebody who is self-conceived. The scarab beetle was long worshipped in ancient Egypt as a symbol of transformation and renewal. It is a very alchemic thought process. This creature lays its eggs and rolls dung around them to form balls. These balls hold the potentialities for life and as the beetle rolled them across the desert ground, they were equated with the Sun rolling across the sky. When the egg changed into larval form, the transformation was characterized as the god Khepera who is unknown and who more hidden than the other gods.[7]Like Khepera, the wise man is the scarab beetle that takes form and is a restorer of existence. Just as our wise man experiences a birthing due to inner transformation, the little scarab beetle tirelessly ensures that the sun will be re-created anew every night.  This is the wisdom of the magical operator. It is the wisdom of Khepera; the wisdom of the occultist.

There is also wisdom in the invisible work done between magicians and their conjured entities. As every occultist will attest, magic required work to maintain relations with the Other side. In fact, occultism itself is the opposite of negligence. A practicing occultist takes the care and gives the attention required to maintain spirit rapport. They work at it. The wise magician shows at least a prudent enough responsibility to be in contact with the entities he conjures. It might be something as simple as prayer or being in a mindful state. 

Whatever the case, there is wisdom in recognizing the invisible forces that drive both the operator and the deity. These forces might include the ambitions and fears of the operator. It might be their intuition or even madness. But in every case, the conjurer learns what he is made of from what he created. He is given the insights of his many mediations and the action they so deciduously engage. Human toil becomes the spark of wisdom in any occult exchange. As Mick Taussig has affirmed, the more you reveal the mechanisms necessary to invite the gods to the ceremony during an initiation, the more certain the divinities will be present.[8] It is in the work behind the scenes, in those seeds planted, that we cultivate the wisdom of interacting with the unseen.

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[1] Schopenhauer. Die welt als Wille und Vorstellung, II 21; Samtliche Werke, Vol. 2. pp. 152-153

[2] Ibid

[3] Mircea Eliade. Birth and Rebirth. Harper and Brothers. New York. 1958. pp. 16

[4] Joshua Trachtenberg. Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion. Atheneum Press. 1987. pp. 81

[5] Gershom Scholem. Kabbalah. Meridian Publishing. New York. 1974. pp. 184

[6] Moshe Idel. Messianic Mystics. Yale University Press. New Haven. 1998. pp. 193

[7] Sir A.E. Wallis Budge. The Gods of the Egyptians. 2 volumes. Dover Publications. New York. 1969. 2:15

[8] Michael Taussig. Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative. Stanford University Press. 1999. 

Magus Magazine: Supernatural Sculpting: The Philosophy of Occult ...

Magus Magazine: Supernatural Sculpting: The Philosophy of Occult ...: Supernatural Sculpting:  The Philosophy of Occult Operations Creating the Magick: The Metaphysics of Occult thinking.           ...

Supernatural Sculpting: The Philosophy of Occult Operation

Supernatural Sculpting:  The Philosophy of Occult Operations

Creating the Magick: The Metaphysics of Occult thinking.  

                                               

“Poor idiot! Are you so foolish as to believe

                                                we will openly teach you the greatest and most

                                                important of secrets? I assure you that anyone who

                                                attempts to study, according to the ordinary and literal

                                                sense of their words, what the Hermetic Philosophers

                                                write, will soon find himself in the twists of a labyrinth

                                                from which he will be unable to escape, having no

                                                Ariadne’s Thread to lead him out.”

                                                            --Artephius

The occult as a source of study has traversed a myriad of philosophical schools of thought. Anthropologists and Folklorists have discussed the implications of magic on socio-cultural and religious levels but have largely shied away from individual agency as part of the occult process. The reason is simple. It is much easier to infer the effect that magic and religion has on a group rather than make speculative guesses on the causal and deterministic motives that the ‘individual’ makes use of. That’s not to say that metaphysical quandaries don’t have a place in occult study. On the contrary, much of what characterizes occult discussion is based on solid metaphysical properties. For example, Jan de Vries has remarked that, “If we view magic as an institutional technique, it does seem that the sprinkling of water causes the rain to appear. But the person who executed this act for the first time did not in the least desire to apply, albeit incorrectly, the law of causality. Primitive man had not come that far at all; He laid hold on the expedient of magic because he found himself in one or another emergency” (176). Even if the causal factor is refuted, the fact that causality is included in a study of magic shows the potency of metaphysical thinking on occult study.

           

Even Frazer’s work on sympathetic magic had largely causal concerns. It is no surprise that imitative magic makes use of causation as part of their design. For example, the desired effect of manipulating somebody’s personal hair clippings or clothing was to produce a significant effect in their owner. A classic cause and effect scenario. Often times, the experiential nuances of the occult ritual or much more important to understanding occultreasoning than causation or deterministic structure. Famous folklorist Lutz Rohrich has stated that, “The experiential legend depicts numinous astonishment at the apparent suspension of the natural laws of causality in external reality” (26). The shock of witnessing the supernatural becomes an integral aspect of interpreting the magic experience. But is this all there is to occult philosophy? Are there other paradigms that enter into the occult way of thinking?

Whether it is demonic legends, Old Hag, or even UFO abduction narratives, the occult disregards theories accepted in scientific milieus yet is concerned with science. The occult wants to be legitimate. Many occultists strive for the valid deductive argument form: If [theory + experimental conditions + assumptions] then prediction. The problem lays in the fact that many occult and paranormal researchers tend to affirm the consequence of their predictions. For example, a Ufologist might suggest that:

If a UFO, then presence of anomalous lights.

If presence of anomalous lights

Therefore, a UFO.

However, just because there are anomalous lights does not automatically mean there is a UFO present. There obviously could be another explanation. These invalid deductive arguments are more common in studies of paranormal and occult than you many realize. In fact, even some aspects of Ancient Astronaut Theory is guilty of invalid deductive form. It is known that many aspects of AAT make use of highly complex megalithic structures to prove the influence of extraterrestrials on early Man. They postulate that at sites such as Puma Punku in Peru, early Man wasn’t sophisticated enough to design or engineer such an intricate complex. Therefore, aliens must have intervened. The argument tends to take these forms:

            If ancient aliens, then highly advanced megalithic structure.

            Highly sophisticated megalithic structure,

            Therefore ancient aliens.

Or

            If highly advanced megalithic structures, then aliens.

            Aliens,

            Therefore highly advanced megalithic structures.

Although these examples may seem trivial, you can see the complications that arise when attempting to deductively formulate a sound occult or paranormal prediction. However, that’s not to say that the occult is abhorrent to philosophy. On the contrary, there are other philosophical forms that lend a great deal of credence to the occult.

I would lean towards an experiential phenomenalism that relies on some aspects of materialism for its foundation. This theory would postulate that behavior is based upon the phenomenal qualities or interpretations of experience. The mind would provide input based on experiential happenings and determine whatever output or behavior is appropriate. Subsequently, we negotiate phenomenal qualities based upon our perceptions of an experience. And since we are constantly experiencing, we are constantly digesting new input that affects our behavioral output. This would be conducive to memory as well. Past experience would necessarily effect our interpretations of phenomenal qualities thus potentially altering our behavior. For example, if somebody happens upon a UFO, experiential insights are going to be produced by inferring phenomenal qualities as it happens. This person may have never seen a UFO or indeed have no conception of what a UFO is and yet still experience something on account of phenomenal associations. Whether the behavior is awe, bewilderment, or terror, the experiencer’s mental state will change and produce more mental states. The fact that the experience and its phenomenal sensations are occurring and changing in real time as the experience unfolds is why we see multiple behaviors manifest. (i.e. confusion, to fear, to awe)

Much of what constitutes occult and the supernatural involve reality and how we interpret the world around us. Whereas a realist would say that our world is not dependent on human minds for existence, a post-realist philosopher such as Hilary Putnam would assert that the external world is mind and theory dependent. The world is a human construction. He states that, “There is, then, nothing in the history of science to suggest that it either aims at or should aim at one single absolute version of the world” (228). A relativism concerning ontology and truth, what exists and the nature of what exists is relative to society. As we formulate a theory in society, we construct a world. Therefore, all versions of world-making are equally valid. It’s not hard to see how proponents of the occult and investigators of the supernatural would find this philosophy significant. World-making is a relativism that is

community dependent. A pertinent example can be found in the social organization of Malaysia. As part of the social structure that permeates Malaysian culture, magic is a key ingredient in the belief systems and solidarity of the group. Along with socio-political and economic milieus, the magic that accompanies their religious convictions is an integral aspect of understanding Malaysian reality. Although the Western world largely trivializes magic as something anachronistic or archaic pagan debris, for the Malaysians, it is accepted as part of their everyday reality. Because as a society they make the choice to include magical practices, it becomes true and real. As Goodman eloquently remarks, “If we make worlds, the meaning of truth lies not in these worlds but in ourselves—or better, in our versions and what we do with them” (38). By utilizing a social and religious ecology to make sense of reality, Malaysia has found what works for them as a culture.

Another mediation that occurs in occult practice and metaphysical thought can be found in the ‘paradigm of appearances’. Paul Feyerabend uses this ‘paradigm’ to discuss the idea of god in different societies. He remarks that the god that is worshipped in the Abrahamic religions (i.e. Christian, Muslim, Judaic) is ultimately the same God but described differently. A very new-age concept, this God appears to people in different ways but it’s a same reality. God and reality are ineffable and determined by interpretations of appearances. For Feyerabend, reality is pliable and we sculpt the external world. In regards to the Greek Homeric Gods, he concluded that these otherworldly entities were constructed in the same way that modern society constructed the idea of electrons and protons. He remarks that, “If the entities postulated by a scientific worldview can be assumed to exist independently of it, then why not anthropomorphic Gods?” (34) Indeed, why not? If reality is malleable, then all the demons, ghosts, or entities an occultists can conjure is equally valid and real. They take an autonomous existence.

Another example where concepts of appearance and construction can be applied is in supernatural assault narratives. Folklorists have studied accounts of UFO abduction in terms of their morphology and structural similarity to more traditional supernatural narratives. However, much more work could be done with these stories using a study of ‘appearances’ and social construction. For example, for somebody who has had a first-hand UFO abduction experience, their initial impression of the trauma is a legitimate and more importantly, realoccurrence. However, if the abductee comes to realize that the experience was akin to a liminal rite caused by some extenuating circumstance or personal Ordeal, then that impression is equally valid and equally successful. Because reality is ineffable, both impressions are a manifest reality or experiential construction of what exists.

            

Perhaps what really provides ontological and epistemological credence to occult study is the fact that it can be examined in terms of Actor-Network Theory. Latourian ANT theory makes use of mediations to explain the many nuances that make up a subject. According to Luckhurst, “Actor-Network Theory is the predictive tension between the centered actor and the de-centered network, enabling the critic to move across different scales of explanation” (8). Actor-Network lends itself to the occult so easily because there a multitude of facets that construct the occult. Through the use of translations, transformations, and substitutions, the occult can be re-situated and re-embodied. In what I call the expression of movements, the occult can be made to re-appear in a myriad of forms. These ideas are best illustrated in an example: According to authors, Ruck, Staples, Celdran, and Hoffman,

“A drawing of the 15^th century Frater Vincentius Koffsky, a monk of the Danzig order of preachers, depicted himself draining the sacred blood directly from the wound of a Christ crucified as a Tree of Life, with an alchemical oven shown as a temple in the background, marked with the symbols for male-iron, female-copper, and an encircled dot, which is the sign for the final goal, the elixir of drinkable gold, and also a common motif for a mushroom cap; the oven-temple itself also resembles a cluster of fungal caps. The inscription reads: “Now learn naturally and artfully, to draw from this Catholic medicinal fountain of the living water and the oil of joy” (34).

This beautifully described drawing has all the earmarks of occult thought. For example, a quick list might include: a Frater, sacred blood, Tree of Life, alchemy, symbol, Male/Female, entheogenics, the inscription, the occult process. But we can calculate other movementssuch as Catholicism, the fate of the Danzig preachers, the occult in the 15^th century, the fate of the drawing, the process of creating the drawing i.e. instruments used to create, and so on. If we centralize the drawing and construct this set of mediations around it in a network, we can use a model of substitution and translation to glean the many meanings in the drawing. I say multiple meanings because the drawing can be re-situated in any number of ways based upon mediations and in doing so, take on any ontological status. It becomes re-created infinitely and enjoys autonomous existence. The drawing then is created and re-created just as in Feyerabend’s ‘paradigm of appearances’ or Goodman’s world-making. It is an entity made real and given meaning through the examination of movements and mediations. 

"Dividing in order to Divine": The Occult Doppelganger

It seems incredible that what our minds produce can affect us in such powerful ways but it’s true. Sometimes what ‘was’ or ‘is’ are less important that ‘what could be’. To a magician, what could be is thought of as in the process. It is an intermediary step between thought and being. The Stoics called it the lekton or expressible. It is an incorporeal state lacking presence. Without ontological form, it is liminal or in-between. Just like the middle period during a rite of passage, when an initiate enters this state they communicate the expressible. In addition, the exchange that occurs between the initiate and the deity takes the form of conjuration.  This operation or birthing is always more important than how we describe the process. Origin is not intended to describe the process by which the existent came into being, but rather to describe that which emerges from the process of becoming. [1]

During ritual, there is a permanent bond that forms between the initiate and the deity. Benjamin went so far as to suggest that part of the creator dies in the ritual process. He states that, “the origin of the great work has often been considered through the image of birth. This is a dialectical image; it embraces the process from two sides. The first has to do with creative conception and concerns the feminine element in genius. The feminine is exhausted in creation. It gives life to the work and then dies away. What dies in the master along-side the achieved creation is the part of him in which the creation was conceived. In its achievement, creation gives birth anew to the creator. [2] Although a part of the magician is lost to the entity summoned, in turn the entity gives something back to the evoker. This something is the gift of presence. The magician is renewed by having the entity there and present. It is always the hallmark of a successful occult operation.

Now what do we mean by saying the magician is renewed by losing a part of himself in the ritual? Only that there is a part of himself that must be released when summoning the supernatural entity. Artisotle expressed the idea in his ethos anthropoi daimon. The usual translation of this phrase is “For man, character is the demon.” Ethos originally referred to what is proper in the sense of “dwelling place, habitat.” In addition, daimon means etymologically “to divide, lacerate.” So daimon was he who lacerates or divides. We shouldn’t consider this a negative connotation because only in what divides could the daimon be thought to destine or thread a fate. So ethos anthropoi daimon translates into ethos, the dwelling in the ‘self’ or that which is most proper for him, is what lacerates, divides, assigns, or destines. In other words, for man to be himself, he must necessarily divide himself.[3]  Man must divide and lose a part of himself if he seeks the presence of an occult entity. But in doing so, he becomes renewed by having the entity close.

The idea of division isn’t a new concept. Gershom Scholem has discussed it at great length concerning Jewish prophets in the 13^th century. In his ‘On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead’, he writes of a cabalistic anthology called the Shushan Sodoth. In this work, prophesy appears as one’s own doppelganger. The complete secret of prophesy consists in the fact that the prophet suddenly sees the form of his own self standing before him, and he forgets his own self and ignores it and that form speaks with him and tells  him the future. As it is necessary for the prophet to “divide” in order to “divine”, the occultist must also separate from himself to exact a successful ritualistic interaction. This separation is also the first state of the rite of passage. When the initiate divides, he is then ready to enter a liminal time.

The doppelganger is also the difference between actuality and potentiality or ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’. Potentiality then is the ability to do something. It could happen. For example, a magician has the ability or potentiality to perform ritual. But he also has the ability to not-ritualize or to not pass into actuality. It is these changes from potentiality to actuality that embody ontological trajectories of the supernatural. To refer again to Aristotle, the philosopher called it a harmonizing part of nature. He interpreted actuality (energeia) as light and potentiality as darkness (skotos). What is sometimes dark and sometimes light is one in nature.[4] These stages of light and dark are the perfect metaphor for describing the liminal. In many societies the liminal initiates considered to be dark, invisible, like the sun or moon in eclipse or the moon between phases, as the “dark of the moon.”[5] Those in the liminal state traverse what is and what could be. Describing the initiate in terms of light and dark is only a short step from comparing them to gods or ghosts. It’s essential we understand these various ideas of being when we attempt to understand critically what is happening during the occult process.

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[1] Walter Benjamin. Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 1 Pt 1 pp226.

[2] Walter Benjamin. Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 4. Pt 1. pp438. Ed. Rolf Tiedemann & Maini Suhrkamp 1974-89. 

[3] See Giorgio Agamben’s ‘Potentialities’ for a more detailed account of Aristotle’s ethos anthropoi daimon.

[4] Aristotle. 418. B-419 e 1

[5] Victor Turner. From Ritual to Theatre. PAJ Publishing. New York. 1992.