Words to the Cosmos

Images from Old School Freestyle BMX Days!

// May 25th, 2006 // 3 Comments » // Uncategorized

http://www.thumbprint.net/BMX.htm

okay…it’s an ugly page. I threw it together in about 20 mintues and for me to make a template, menu and load all those images into HTM pages by HAND in 20 mintues is pretty damn good! I’ll make it pretty later, but if you want to see some images from 1986-1989 freestyle BMX days…

Enjoy!!!

I made a header for this page…

// May 25th, 2006 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Hi there I made a header image for this page. I even loaded it. You can see it right behind the sidebar and the main content panel. However, I haven’t found the magick-blogspot CSS definition that allows it to appear on the top of the page…centered…in front of everything else. I’ll keep poking…but in the meantime, enjoy the new header image…I’ll just pop it into my posts for now until I get the hand of this thing.

Tedium

// May 25th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

This week has been draining. There have been a few events which have “shaken things up,” but nothing that really would rattle my cage, considering some of the things that I’ve dealt with. I stood up to a few petulant children in adult male bodies this week, although I’m sure if you spoke to them they would say that I was being the self-centered bully. Grown men, who are still babies, often feel this way when someone tells them their being pouty and they have no reason. Get over it.

The kid had a note from someone in her class saying “I love to have sex.” So I had to write MORE notes to principal and teacher and sit and talk with her about having respect for the special person you are and NOT letting others put you in a degrading position. Sometimes moms get to do very uncomfortable things. I’m handling things like this better. I’ve healed a lot in the past three years.

It’s hard to shake me from my center.

But I’ve been t I r e d again… Drained. Life drains me. I have so many things I want to get done, but I have to realize that I can’t get them all done at once. I’m NEVER bored though.

I’m in the middle of a magickal working in Enochian. I’m not very skilled at Enochian but it’s good practice for me and I’m still getting what I would consider “decent” results. I’m finding it interesting that I’m also being misled by some of the information. It’s not wrong, or lies, but it’s almost like the information is being delivered in a way that is ambiguous, so I’m forced to draw conclusions and the conclusions that I’m drawing are not correct and deliberately designed to flow my thoughts in a certain way.

I went to NOLA over the past weekend. St. Charles is beautiful. The Quarter is beautiful. The rest of the city is in rough shape. I have survivors guilt. I feel horrible that my beautiful Babylon has taken such a beating. She echoes the vibe of a rape victim. She is humiliated at her present state and wants to slink under the stairs and lick her wounds. I can understand why she would want those who love her to stay away. She doesn’t want us to see her like this. But know this Lady Babylon. I love you for you, no matter what. My energy is yours for your rebuilding. I may not be able to find a way to relocate my family to you lands, but I will visit often and I will spend my money at the businesses of those who do live there and have a vested interest in resurrecting your Will. I will keep my finger on your pulse and send you my mojo daily. I will do what I can, with my strong skills to aid and abette you.

Don’t fret lil’ trooper…It’ll be okay. In time. Keep your chin up.

Four Hours until Lift off and I'm going HOME!! NOLA

// May 19th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Yeah…I haven’t been back since the storm. No, I no longer reside in New Orleans, but she will always have my heart. She is the only city I’ve EVERY been in that felt like “home” and no matter, in the words of the Almighty Robert Smith from the Cure has he warbles in “Love Song”; “However far away…however long I stay…whatever words I say…I will always love you.”
Tonight, I get to go back for the first time in quite a while. I’m fidgeting’ around in my work chair like I’m hopped up on goof-balls and I feel like I have to pee all the time! It is safe to say that
I’m ‘cited. Very, very ‘cited.

One another front I am NOT traveling with my current paramour I will miss him. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve invited love into my heart and it likes the feel of it. It likes other things as well, but as this is a PG rated blog, I’ll leave that up to the imaginations of the masses.

Mia lost her first tooth and her legs are getting as long as a filly! She’s turning into a remarkably, beautiful young lady, but I always knew that would happen.

Toru B. is going to be in town for a wedding and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to coordinate schedules for 10 minutes or so. I’d love to see the old Capt.. Rent Boy is out of town. Tim-o-Tee and Satori are both on the direct opposite end of the Mississippi and won’t be able to join us, but Tedd and Stybbi and Loki and Chase and Argent and Angelo and Camille are all sitting pretty like the blackbirds being baked in a pie.

I can’t wait to see y’all. Live sure has changed since our 1996 days hasn’t it. Hell most of us are married, spawning, have slightly-respectable occupations, and don’t fall of the edge of the world on drug or alcohol binges anymore…well, most of the time.

Life is good. Life is beautiful. Even for us black-hearted, infernally inclined… May Babylon live on in our hearts and minds as she recuperates her strength and magick and will shine once again… We celebrate her in all her incarnations…

As it is…So Be it.

Hummingbird Totem

// May 19th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Hummingbird: messenger, timelessness

Hummingbird – the tiniest of all birds – brings special messages for us. It is the only creature that can stop dead while traveling at full speed. It can hover, or can go forward, backward, up or down. It lives on nectar and searches for the sweetness of life. Its long tongue lets it bypass the often tough and bitter outer layer to find the hidden treasures underneath. Hummingbird is loved by the flowers and plants, for as it sucks the nectar from the flower, the plant reproduces and more of its kind are created. In many traditions, Hummingbird feathers have been prized for their almost magical qualities. It is said that Hummingbird brings love as no other medicine can, and its presence brings joy to the observer.

If you have Hummingbird medicine, you adapt easily to whatever situation you may find yourself in, and make the most of your new circumstances. You don’t waste time looking back and wishing for “what was” for you are concerned with making the most of “what is”. Also, you could never become addicted to any artificial stimulants, for you find joy in your own heart. You take great pleasure in spreading joy and love and beauty to all around you, and have the gift of taking that inner joy into new and different surroundings. You have a talent for finding the good in people, and are not put off by a gruff or abrupt exterior, for you know that, if you can only get beyond that tough outside layer, you’ll find goodness and beauty inside. You may have a gift for working with flowers, maybe growing them to share with others, or using flower essences for healing. Aroma therapy may be your calling. You have high energy and a spirit that must be free. To restrict that wonderful, free, loving energy is to suffer great depressions and feelings of uselessness. Hummingbird must fly free in search of beauty, spreading joy and love to all it touches.

Being Poor Like the Nolas By Boyd Blundell

// May 17th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/28359

When I’m talking about poverty in my ethics classes, I’ve always felt like I’m missing something. I cannot successfully communicate the sense of helplessness that goes along with it, the sense of being the victim of forces to large to understand. But above all, I cannot communicate the sense of humiliation that comes with accessing an impersonal system, or in receiving charitable support for one’s family in order to survive. I myself have never been in that position.

No longer. To be part of post-Katrina New Orleans is to understand something of the helplessness and humiliation of poverty, regardless of your personal income. Let me tell you about the Nolas.

New Orleans is the equivalent of a family (let’s call them the Nolas) that lives in a very affluent neighborhood (let’s call it Bush Gardens). The Nolas have always been a bit of an oddity among the other families in Bush Gardens. They’re not all that well off, but that’s not it. Their closest neighbors on the southern edge of the neighborhood are no better off, but they never seem as unkempt, never quite as scruffy as the Nolas. The Nolas are justweird, but in the eyes of the neighborhood, it has always been a good weird. They are a hospitable family that throws great parties with the best food and spectacular music, and pretty much the whole neighborhood has fond memories of the Nolas and all their weirdness.

It’s been a very bad year for the Nolas; as disastrous a year as anyone can remember. Their house burned to the ground, the entire property is destroyed, and they can’t even think about the expense rebuilding the family house until all sorts of even more expensive repairs are done to the property. Much of the family is bunking with neighbors. Some died in the fire, and a few are unaccounted for. And while the fire department and other emergency services haven’t done such a great job, most of the people in Bush Gardens are great. They seem to feel really good about helping the Nolas. But when it becomes clear that the help needs to be ongoing, the enthusiasm of many starts to wane. Because the causes of the Nola’s sudden “poverty” are very complicated and not easily fixable, many quickly become distracted by other things. Some are actually quite hostile, as though the Nola’s flagrant suffering is an insult to their sense of propriety.

This last group can be awfully brazen, and turn out to be very influential. This poor family, asking for help in its tragic circumstances from a neighborhood it helped build, suddenly finds itself being lectured on all its faults. The Nola’s begin to hear mutterings that they’re asking for handouts. The well-to-do Cato family offers a hectoring lecture on the Nola’s lack of sensible financial preparation. (Of course, they were wrong. But then, the Catos think that the failures of the fire department only goes to show that there should be no fire department. The Nolas think the Catos need to get out of the house more.) Other families launch aggressive attacks on the Nolas’ character, and some on the neighborhood council oppose any financial aid to a family so dysfunctional. (The Nolas think the council is pretty dysfunctional itself). The Nolas are asked, with no irony whatsoever, why the neighborhood should chip in to help them.

The Nolas, when they have time to think about it at all, are mystified by all this. “When did we become a them?” they wonder. Less than a year ago, the Nolas were part of the “we”. The Nolas were so cool that they made the whole neighborhood look cooler. Despite the neighborhood’s impressive wealth, travelers would often choose to come to hang out at the Nola’s messy and slightly dilapidated house. When the neighbors traveled, they were proud to claim the Nolas as their own, and were pleased to accept that the coolness of the Nolas were part of what made the neighborhood so great. Those crazy Nolas were firmly in the “we” column.

But now the Nolas are finding out what it’s like to be a “they,” to be “those people.” It’s not a whole lot of fun. The Nolas never had the most polished social skills, and have a difficult time in the other neighbors’ houses. Nor are they the most articulate people, so they have trouble explaining why they think they should be still part of the “we,” or how hurt they are that they’re not. They know that historically they were the gateway to the neighborhood’s wealth, and that the process of getting energy to the neighborhood houses had destabilized their property and made their plight that much worse. They had contributed. The Nolas find it a cruel irony that they became a “those people” at the precise moment that they most needed to be a “we”. And they find that their less savory relatives want to cooperate with the neighborhood and let most of the family property rot. On the nicest corner of the property, they want to build a banquet hall that will be a brighter, shinier version of the Nola’s old, rambling house – and people will come to the banquets and pretend that they’re at one of the Nola family’s amazing parties. But the Nolas won’t live there anymore.

The Nolas are a complex family. The younger and more idealistic Nolas are just waiting for things to go back to something like the way they were. Older and more experienced family members understand that things will never be the same, that their family will never fully recover from this. They hope that if they work hard and learn to make do, they’ll salvage the most important parts.

But the wisest members of the Nola family are the ones most worth watching. They’re heartbroken, and you can see the impending sense of doom on their faces. Every day, they become more and more convinced the neighborhood will abandon them, that they are the poor that the neighborhood wants out of sight. They work on the property alongside their family, but they are humiliated, and they work without hope. In their darkest moments, they have come to suspect something awful: There is no neighborhood. They realize that the if Bush Gardens could do this to the Nolas, who had been such a celebrated part of the neighborhood, then it could do it to any other family in a similar plight. It is dawning on these wise Nolas that not only will they be abandoned by Bush Gardens, but that the neighborhood they were always so proud of is nothing like they thought it was. And that hurts even more.

I fear for the Nolas.

I fear for the neighborhood.

So…How does one obtain the Knowledge & Conversation of their HGA?

// May 17th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Liber OS ABYSMI
vel
DAATH
sub figura CDLXXIV
A.·. A.·.
Publication in Class B.
Imprimatur:
N. Fra A.·. A.·.

This book is the Gate of the Secret of the Universe.
Let the Exempt Adept procure the Prolegomena of Kant, and study it, paying special attention to the Antinomies.
Also Hume’s doctrine of Causality in his “Enquiry.”
Also Herbert Spencer’s discussion of the three theories of the Universe in his “First Principles,” Part I.
Also Huxley’s Essays on Hume and Berkeley.
Also Crowley’s Essays: Berashith, Time, The Soldier and the Hunchback, et cetera.
Also the “Logik” of Hegel.
Also the “Questions of King Milinda” and the Buddhist Suttas which bear on Metaphysic.
Let him also be accomplished in Logic. (Formal Logic, Keynes.) Further let him study any classical works to which his attention may be sufficiently directed in the course of his reading.
Now let him consider special problems, such as the Origin of the World, the Origin of Evil, Infinity, the Absolute, the Ego and the non-Ego, Freewill and Destiny, and such others as may attract him.
Let him subtly and exactly demonstrate the fallacies of every known solution, and let him seek a true solution by his right Ingenium.
In all this let him be guided only by clear reason, and let him forcibly suppress all other qualities such as Intuition, Aspiration, Emotion, and the like.
During these practices all forms of Magick Art and Meditation are forbidden to him. It is forbidden to hi to seek any refuge from his intellect.
Let then his reason hurl itself again and again against the blank wall of mystery which will confront him.
Thus also following is it said, and we deny it not. At last automatically his reason will take up the practice, sua sponte, and he shall have no rest therefrom.
Then will all phenomena which present themselves to him appear meaningless and disconnected, and his own Ego will break up into a series of impressions having no relation one with the other, or with any other thing.
Let this state then become so acute that it is in truth Insanity, and let this continue until exhaustion.
According to a certain deeper tendency of the individual will be the duration of this state.
It may end in real insanity, which concludes the activities of the Adept during this present life, or by his rebirth into his own body and mind with the simplicity of a little child.
And then shall he find all his faculties unimpaired, yet cleansed in a manner ineffable.
And he shall recall the simplicity of the Task of the Adeptus Minor, and apply himself thereto with fresh energy in a more direct manner.
And in his great weakness it may be that for awhile the new Will and Aspiration are not puissant, yet being undisturbed by those dead weeds of doubt and reason which he hath uprooted, they grow imperceptibly and easily like a flower.
And with the reappearance of the Holy Guardian Angel he may be granted the highest attainments, and be truly fitted for the full experience of the destruction of the Universe. And by the Universe We mean not that petty Universe which the mind of man can conceive, but that which is revealed to his soul in the Samadhi of Atmadarshana.
Thence may he enter into a real communion with those that are beyond, and he shall be competent to receive communication and instruction from Ourselves directly.
Thus shall We prepare him for the confrontation of Choronzon and the Ordeal of the Abyss, when we have received him into the City of the Pyramids.
So, being of Us, let the Master of the Temple accomplish that Work which is appointed. (In Liber CDXVIII. is an adequate account of this Ordeal and Reception. See also Liber CLVI. for the preparation.)
Also concerning the Reward thereof, of his entering into the Palace of the King’s Daughter, and of that which shall thereafter befall, let it be understood of the Master of the Temple. Hath he not attained to Understanding? Yea, verily, hath he not attained to Understanding?
And that my friends…is all there is to it! So get going. Your True Will awaits!

Enochian – 4 Aspects of "God"

// May 17th, 2006 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

For anyone who doesn’t know I’m working in Enochian for this month…
Author’s Post: This month, since the 8th I’ve been charged with becoming more familiar with the Enochian system of Magick. Enochian is considered the language of the Angels and the Enochian system of magick was pioneered by Kelley and John Dee in the 1500′s. The Golden Dawn has expounded on this and many other have followed suit. It is an incredibly complex and veiled system and I find it challenging. One thing that I came across today that struck me was the four aspects for of “God.”

Someone relayed the information when I voiced my concerns about the Xtian alignment of the First Call, and how could someone with my black little heart, in good conscious say to these angelics “oh yeah, I’m aligned with you and yours. ” This person said “don’t confuse the First with the Third, pretending to be the First.

I’ve thought A LOT about this statement this week. I will have to remind myself that my original source is the First, that is aligned with my True Will indeed. The Third is the face of GOD that has already divided and now brandishes his poorly directed Will with impunity. Bah. Ptooy! I defecate on the face of that charlatean. Yeah, yeah. I’m perfectly aware that it would do the same to me. I’m used to it though…I’m a soldier. The fractured face of the Divine is a doddering, old relic with dementia having tantrums and not even able to realize why.

I must remember the Source…and the Will.

LVX baby…
As it is…So be it.

~Chinagrrrl

We see this gradual evolution in God’s self-awareness as a result of his increasing collisions with man in the names by which He is called in the Hebrew Bible:

Elohim — undifferentiated “God-ness” prior to mankind YHVH — partially differentiated, but still “meaningless,” after his first encounter with man El Shaddai — still-more, but not fully differentiated “Almighty” upon encountering Abraham Eheyeh — the fully differentiated “I Am” upon His encounter with Moses

Everyone suffers – sorrow of the Tzaddik

// May 17th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Everyone suffers — everyone “sighs and groans” — but the Tzaddik, by
virtue of being a Tzaddik — by virtue of being “a man of sorrows,
familiar with suffering” — suffers more, “sighs and groans” more, than
others do and, therefore, is more of a an instrument for the “fulfillment
for what they are lacking” than they themselves are.

This is not because of holiness or piety or purity, but proximity.
Because the Tzaddik, by definition, is closer to God than others, he is
more sensitive to God, more attuned to God’s own suffering, God’s own
loneliness, God’s own sorrow than they are. Because God is despised, he is
despised; because God is betrayed, he is betrayed; because God is
denied, he is denied, because God is misunderstood, he is misunderstood;
because God is reviled, he is reviled.

This is the both the burden and the blessing of the true Tzaddik — to
be reviled because God is reviled; to be misunderstood because God is
misunderstood; to be denied because God is denied; to be betrayed
because God is betrayed; to be despised because God is despised.

Disinformation :: UN Troops Continue Sex Abuse (s'more for my Circle of Hell)

// May 17th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

UN Troops Continue Sex Abuseposted by crowleyon May 17, 2006 – 08:01 AM

‘UN peacekeepers and humanitarian staff are having sex with Liberian girls as young as 8-years-old in the very camps where their families have sought protection, according to a new report by Save the Children UK. Along with UN peacekeepers,

Exploitation and Sex Abuse of Children by Humanitarian Workers

// May 17th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Exploitation and Sex Abuse of Children by Humanitarian Workers

‘Sexual exploitation must not be tolerated’
date published: 09/05/2006
Following a study in Liberia Save the Children UK has found the exploitation of children by humanitarian workers, peacekeepers and local businessmen to be prolific. The study was conducted in temporary camps for those displaced by the civil war and amongst those recently repatriated to their towns and villages of origin after the end of the war. Despite commitments made in 2002 by NGOs, the UN and peacekeepers to improve the worldwide monitoring of recruitment and staff conduct, vulnerable children are still exchanging sex for basic necessities such as money to attend school or food to feed their families. During the study in Liberia the children and members of the community consistently reported that a high proportion of girls in their camps were being sexually exploited by adults in positions of power. They reported that adults providing humanitarian assistance, peacekeepers and wealthy individuals regularly buy under-age sex. Save the Children UK Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread today emphasized that this must not be tolerated. “ This cannot continue. It must be tackled. Men who use positions of power to take advantage of vulnerable children must be reported and fired. More must be done to support children and their families to make a living without turning to this kind of desperation.” Save the Children welcomes the new Liberian Government’s commitment to stamp out corruption and rape, and urges President Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf to tackle the high levels of sexual exploitation of children. Representatives of Government Ministries, International NGOs, UN agencies and UNMIL representatives in Liberia have gathered last Friday to urgently and collectively address this issue. In March 2006 a collective of international NGOs, of which Save the Children is a key partner, launched a new set of materials (“Keeping Children Safe”) to enable all NGOs to attain high standards of child protection. Child charity work, fundraising & volunteering UK with Save the Children

Hell & High Water – CHAPTER 3: FROM CALM TO CALAMITY: PRAYERS FOR STRENGTH

// May 12th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Happy Mothers Day to ME!

// May 12th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

CHAPTER 2: TWO FORTRESSES AGAINST THE STORM By Jan…

// May 12th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

New Orleans — The news stunned Susan Sanborn on Saturday morning: Hurricane Katrina, on its way to becoming a catastrophic Category 5, was hurtling toward her beloved city like a heat-seeking missile.

The professional dancer-turned-student nurse didn’t consider evacuating. She had totaled her car and used the insurance money to pay for nursing school. Her only transportation was a bicycle. If Katrina really did have New Orleans in its cross hairs, she figured her workplace — the fortress of the venerable Charity Hospital — was the safest place to be.

Like many hospitals, the building had served as a civil defense shelter during the Cold War, and in its 60-plus years had sheltered patients — among the city’s poorest — through dozens of storms. No emergency plan had ever called for a wholesale evacuation of the 20-story hospital. Charity remained open for business, come hell or high water.

If hospital administrators called a code gray — the term used to signal a weather emergency — Sanborn planned to be there. The 37-year-old Ohio native had volunteered for the activation team, which would report to work with enough food and water to last three days. They would tend to Charity’s 347 patients in 12-hour shifts, and once the emergency ended, a recovery team would relieve them.

By Saturday afternoon, the storm’s path and intensity spurred hospital administrators to activate the code, a decision that would cost about half a million dollars in staffing and supplies. It would take effect at 8 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 28.

Another nurse offered Sanborn a ride to work. She’d have too much stuff to carry on her bike. Although this was Sanborn’s first code gray, she was in the company of experienced Charity staff, such as Dr. Ben deBoisblanc.

Since coming to the hospital as a medical student 28 years earlier, deBoisblanc had soldiered through a half-dozen code grays. A passionate, emotional man with thinning reddish-blond hair, the New Orleans native looked like the actor Ed Harris of “Right Stuff” fame. At 50, he was director of the medical intensive care unit. Staff and patients called him “Dr. Ben” — far easier than pronouncing his French name.

Several months before the storm, his wife of 20 years had left him. He was shocked; never even saw it coming. A sailor from childhood, he moved out of their home in New Orleans and onto his boat, Creola, moored at a marina on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

Before leaving Sunday morning for Charity, Dr. Ben prepared the boat as well as he could, then grabbed his children’s pictures and other mementos. One prized possession was his only photo of his late father, who had instilled in him his love for the water. His father had never graduated from high school, and more than anything had wanted his son to get a good education.

As he started to take the picture off the wall, Dr. Ben felt his father’s presence. Somehow, he believed, his father’s spirit would watch over Creola. He left the photo behind.

Over the years, with every major storm, Dr. Ben had heard the dire predictions: With the right conditions, the storm surge would put this bowl of a city that sits below sea level under water.

Each time Charity had braced itself, and each time the storms petered out or veered away from the city. This time, Katrina promised something more.

As Dr. Ben reported for duty on Sunday morning, he told himself he’d be on lockdown no more than a day or two. But he also couldn’t help thinking:

This could be the big one.

Three hundred fifty miles away in Houston, Sharif Omar collapsed in bed after a Saturday night spent celebrating. Tall and slim, with bushy black hair and long eyelashes, the young man was getting married the next weekend in Virginia, and his bachelor’s party had stretched past midnight.

At 26, Sharif Omar — named for the star of the movie “Doctor Zhivago,” only in reverse — was
associate vice president of operations at Tulane Hospital, located across Tulane Avenue from Charity. It was his job to ensure that there was plenty of food, water and blood on hand. He also was in charge of transporting patients. It was a big job under normal circumstances, and critical when a storm threatened.

Before falling asleep, Omar checked the news: Still churning several hundred miles away in the

Gulf, Katrina was a Category 3. When he awoke the next morning, it was a 5.

As traffic snaked out of New Orleans Sunday under a mandatory evacuation ordered by Mayor Ray Nagin, Omar sped in the opposite direction, sometimes topping 90 mph as police just watched. He arrived in the city around 5 p.m., grabbed some clothes at his house, then headed to the hospital. The hurricane’s initial bands of wind and rain were starting to blow in.

While other businesses boarded up their shops, the city’s hospitals prepared to hunker down and remain open. Critical patients could not be safely moved without tremendous risk, especially those on ventilators and other life-support equipment. The hospitals’ emergency power systems — gas- and diesel-fueled generators — would keep the machines going if the city’s power failed.
At Tulane, administrators made routine preparations, taking inventory and deciding on staffing for their 178 patients. Owned by the Hospital Corporation of America, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country, Tulane was one of four HCA hospitals in the path of Katrina.

All were the responsibility of Mel Lagarde, president of HCA’s Delta Division. Lagarde decided to base his command post at Tulane because it was centrally located. From there he would help the hospitals secure resources through the company’s headquarters in Nashville. He too was familiar with the decades-old models that predicted total devastation if a big enough storm overwhelmed the city’s levees. He had a particularly bad feeling about Katrina.

Lagarde looked younger than 48, with a boyish face and dark hair parted on the side. A graduate of the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, he had become a hospital CEO at 26, one of the youngest in company history. He was division president by the time he was 37. Like Dr. Ben, he was a New Orleans native. But after more than two decades with HCA, he epitomized corporate culture; he knew how to follow unspoken rules and respect the hierarchy, which he himself had climbed quite high.

It was little surprise that he and Dr. Ben would eventually collide.

Sunday night, as the winds intensified, residents a
nd nurses on the day shift at Charity gathered in the on-call room on the 16th floor. Off-duty, they cooked hot dogs, ate chips and dip, and played poker. There was nothing they could do but try to relax, so most avoided television coverage of the storm and played video games on the Xbox.

At about 3 Monday morning, both hospitals lost power and the emergency generators kicked on.
Katrina made landfall at 6:10 a.m. with 125-mph winds. Palm trees were uprooted; light poles broke in half; trees bent to the ground.

As the storm’s eyewall passed through the city, the windows at Tulane bowed inward. Staff moved patients out of their rooms and into the hallways. Jim Montgomery, Tulane’s president and CEO, looked across the street and watched Charity’s awnings rip free of the moorings and fly away.

If God’s ever angry, we’re going to lose big, he thought.

The storm blew out windows on Charity’s upper floors and destroyed the roof over the operating rooms. Charity was so old that its ORs had been built on the top floor of a 12-story wing, some say to take advantage of sunlight.

Now the hospital was without an operating room, sterilization equipment or critical laboratory equipment. Doctors and nurses could no longer do blood or urine analyses or conduct other tests. They converted an outpatient clinic on the second floor into a makeshift operating room.
On student nurse Sanborn’s unit on the fourth floor, staff secured sheets over the windows to protect patients from flying glass. They couldn’t see out, but they could hear debris bouncing off the roof. They heard windows on the floors above them blow out and shatter on the ground below.

In the sixth-floor medical intensive care unit, where Dr. Ben cared for critically ill patients Hunter Reeves and Preston Johnson, water poured through the ceiling, pulling down tiles and light fixtures.

Suddenly, the emergency power shut down in their wing. Medical staff knew the drill: They ran to connect bags to ventilator patients — including Hunter and Preston — and began squeezing them, manually pumping air into their lungs. Later, the staff ran extension cords to a Coke machine outlet in a wing that still had power. At least for now, they were able to restart some ventilators.

Soon after the eye of the storm passed through, Dr. Ben’s team mopped up the inch-deep water. With power temporarily restored, calm settled over the ICU.

At Tulane, Mel Lagarde surveyed the building. The hospital had suffered minor roof damage and broken windows, but not much else. He turned his attention to Garden Park Medical Center in Gulfport, Miss., the HCA hospital that had sustained the most structural damage.

By midday on Monday, Aug. 29, the sun peeked through broken clouds, and hospital employees poured out of their safe harbors to inspect the surroundings. Sharif Omar and others walked five minutes away to the Superdome, where parts of the roof were gone. The Hyatt Regency hotel reminded them of the federal building in Oklahoma City after the bombing, its face sheared off, curtains flapping in the breeze like surrender flags.

The damage to the city was evident, but nothing close to the doomsday scenario the models had predicted.

Many people said the same thing: New Orleans had dodged another bullet.

From a walkway, Sanborn saw a homeless man curled under the steps of the historic St. Joseph Catholic Church on Tulane Avenue. It struck Sanborn that the church had somehow protected the sleeping man in the storm, as if surrounding him with a magnetic field.

That night, the student nurse ducked outside to smoke a cigarette at the bottom of Charity’s emergency room ramp. Her hospital was on emergency power, but the rest of the city was black and quiet. There were no cars, and the stars shone like never before. Sanborn sat on a bench and curled her feet beneath her. She figured the worst was behind her. The recovery team would arrive in a couple of days, and she could go home.

About 10:30, Sanborn stood up to go back inside. For the first time, she noticed it: Where the ground had been dry, she stepped into water.

Where had this come from?

ON TUESDAY: The white noise falls silent — a frightening realization. Chapter 3 of 22.

Hell & High Water – Part 1 of 22 – CHAPTER 1: THE EPIC STRUGGLE OF TWO HOSPITALS TO RESCUE THE ABANDONED

// May 12th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

New Orleans — It wasn’t the dark that scared Sherry Hebert. It was the silence.
The whir of the machines keeping her son alive at Charity Hospital suddenly shut off, signaling a failure in the backup power system. Sherry stood over her son’s bed in the intensive care unit where he lay unconscious. A ventilator had been breathing for him, an infusion machine pumping in his medication, a dialysis machine cleansing his blood.

Pointing a flashlight at a clear plastic tube attached to his bladder, she watched helplessly as thetubefilled with blood. Sherry knew what that meant. Hunter, her 23-year-old son, would soon die.

I have to get him out. I have to get him help.

Across the ICU and behind a curtain, Carolyn Lewis read Scriptureto her son Preston, and sang “Jesus Loves Me” and “At the Cross,” his favorite hymns. Like Hunter, Preston was on a ventilator. With the electricity off, he gasped for air. It seemed to Carolyn that her 25-year-oldson was choking to death.

How is my child going to survive? What are they going to do?

The day before, on Monday, Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina had roared through the city, snapping telephone poles, flipping cars, ripping off the hospital’s awnings and blowing out windows. When the power went out, the hospital’s backup generators kicked in. Now those were dead, too, the switchgears drowned in water that had appeared out of nowhere.

The two mothers had feared for their sons more than they worried about the storm. They’d met the week before in the sixth-floor waiting room of the medical intensive care unit the day Hunter was admitted. Carolyn, who had been there nearly a month with Preston, was a seasoned hand at the routine of living in the waiting room of a hospital; Sherry was the bewildered newcomer. They bonded quickly — two strangers united by the struggle to save their sons, then bound forever by Katrina.

It was not coincidence that brought Hunter Reeves and Preston Johnson to Charity Hospital. The young men were among the 23 percent of Louisiana adults lacking health insurance.
Charity was like Atlanta’s Grady, Chicago’s Cook County, New York’s Bellevue. One of the nation’s oldest continuously operating hospitals, it was a grand institution of an earlier era that rose majestically 20 stories above the city. Like the Statue of Liberty, it stood as a beacon for the poor and downtrodden.

For many in New Orleans, Charity was the only place they ever went for medical treatment. They were born there, and they would die there. In between, they relied on Charity’s emergency room, where they trusted they would get the best of care. A deeply revered place, the hospital was a wormhole between the parallel universes of those who could afford health care and those who could not.

Sitting diagonally across the street — and worlds apart — was Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, owned by the Hospital Corporation of America, or HCA. Built largely in 1976, the Tulane hospital was a seven-floor sterile-looking conglomerate of brownish brick buildings. No glorious art deco flourishes like those at Charity.

After Hurricane Katrina struck, the patients, staff and family members inside Tulane were just as desperate as those inside Charity. But the two hospitals could not have been more different. Tulane belonged to the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country.Charity depended on the state. One private. One public.

What happened to these two hospitals — and the hundreds of patients like Hunter Reeves and Preston Johnson marooned inside — is a metaphor for what happened to the city itself. The private hospital had lifelines and outside resources, as did many New Orleanians who escaped that week. The public hospital, an institution for the needy, had to rely on the government for help and wound up stranded, as did so many of New Orleans’ poorest. For the sickest patients at Charity, the government never arrived.

But the story of what unfolded inside Tulane and Charity is a tale not just of what went wrong, but of all that went right.

It is a chronicle of human goodness and ingenuity. Faced with an unprecedented loss of emergency power, medical professionals frantically rigged up crude devices and used their own hands to pump life into their patients. Stripped of the medical technology they had come to rely on, they could offer only Third World health care. Yet the result was a profound reconnection to the humanity of their patients. Each was no longer just a diagnosis.

It is also the taleof a daring helicopter rescue, a clash of hospital cultures,and a company that acted decisively andcreatively, sparing no expense to save its people and patients.

The rescue operation was not perfect. People died. But many more lived. The perception of what happened depended on which side of the street the viewer was on.

But one thing is indisputable: More people would have died had individuals on both sides of Tulane Avenue not risked their own lives to save them.

Post-9/11, and now post-Katrina, there are lessons to be learned for when the next disaster strikes.

How had this happened? Sherry asked herself in the hot, dark hospital room. And why?
Hunter had always been healthy, so full of life, a tall, thin mischievous young man with wavy dirty-blond hair who had once dreamed of going to college on a baseball scholarship. He’d been that good.

Now he was on life support.

At 53, Sherry was a small, thin, reserved woman with shoulder-length blond hair and clear blue eyes that crinkled into slits when she smiled. She’d learned her son was gravely ill only a few weeks earlier. At first, she thought he had the flu. But when he coughed up and urinated blood, his family had taken him to the hospital near Sherry’s home in Robert. There, he was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder called Goodpasture’s syndrome.

On Thursday, Aug. 25, an ambulance had transported him across Lake Pontchartrain to “Big Charity” — the large public hospital that has served as a lifeline to generations of New Orleanians. Hunter had no insurance, and it was there that he could get the treatment that could save his life.

>By Saturday, two days before the most destructive storm in U.S. history would make landfall, Hunter was showing signs of improvement: His lungs and urine were clearing of blood. The treatment was working. But soon the unthinkable would happen.

Preston’s illness puzzled doctors. They couldn’t figure out what was going on.

His mother thought he looked like a skeleton. He had always been slender, with a strong, athletic build. Now even his nose was skinny and pointed. His skin was yellow. He was on dialysis and couldn’t breathe on his own. But he was conscious. Sometimes when Carolyn appeared by his bedside, he opened his arms for a hug.

He had been healthy, working and living in Houston with his girlfriend when he became ill six months earlier. The cause wasn’t clear, but Carolyn suspected it was linked to a fight that broke out during a pickup basketball game. Preston took a blow to the gut from a metal pipe. When he didn’t recover, he moved back home to Lake Charles in southwest Louisiana to live with his mother and stepfather.

By then he was throwing up and losing weight. He refused to go to the nearby hospital. But when he passed out one night in the bathtub and nearly drowned, his family took him to the emergency room. Doctors said his stomach was engorged with blood, his pancreas damaged.

After nearly three weeks, they recommended that Carolyn take her son to “Big Charity” in New Orleans because it was a research and trauma center. She believed the real reason was that Preston lacked insurance. He had let the payments on his policy lapse.

The family couldn’t afford to pay $4,000 for an ambulance, so they laid Preston down in the front seat of their 9-year-old Lincoln Continental for the three-hour drive. He was hallucinating by the time they reached Charity.

Now Carolyn watched as her son wasted away.

Mama promises I’m not going to leave you, she assured him.

At 54, Carolyn was short, with a full face, brown eyes and a deep religious faith. Every now and then, she walked to the other side of the nurses’ station to see Hunter. The medical intensive care unit held only 11 beds — and some of the hospital’s sickest patients. Hunter was in an isolation room, a small beige cubicle with a fluorescent light that no longer shone. She stood at the window looking in and prayed for Hunter and his family.

Taking breaks in the waiting room, the mothers shared stories about their sons. Sherry told Carolyn it seemed like yesterday that Hunter was fine — playing golf with her husband, Hunter’s stepdaddy. Earlier, she had introduced Hunter’s pregnant fiancée and told Carolyn how excited she was to be expecting a new grandbaby.

Carolyn told Sherry about Preston’s life in Houston and his two little boys. She saw so much of her son in her two young grandsons, Preston III and Jaden. Preston had a key chain with their pictures on it. When the nurses changed his bed, they hung the chain from the lamp overhead so he could see his boys, along with the wooden cross someone had made him.

The women felt close, and Carolyn even thought to herself that it was as if they were the same color. One black, one white, the two families took care of each other. They brought one another food, water and comfort. Carolyn told Sherry she was praying for Hunter. Sherry was doing the same for Preston.

Both young men already had come close to dying. Now the storm, and the power failure, threatened their survival. Their mothers would have to wait and see.
In places all over New Orleans, Katrina was raising a question:

Who would live and who would die?

ON MONDAY:Before Katrina hits, two hospitals hunker down, assuming the buildings will be safe. Chapter 2 of 22.

Liber Samekh

// May 12th, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

POINT I
Evangelii Textus RedactusTHE INVOCATIONMagically restored, with the significance of theBARBAROUS NAMESEtymologically or Qabalistically determinedand paraphrased in English.

Section A.The Oath
1. Thee I invoke, the Bornless One.
2. Thee, that didst create the Earth and the Heavens.
3. Thee, that didst create the Night and the Day.
4. Thee, that didst create the darkness and the Light.
5. Thou art ASAR UN-NEFER (“Myself made Perfect”):Whom no man hath seen at any time.
6. Thou art IA-BESZ (“the Truth in Matter”).
7. Thou art IA-APOPHRASZ (“the Truth in Motion”).
8. Thou hast distinguished between the Just and the Unjust.
9. Thou didst make the Female and the Male.
10. Thou didst produce the Seeds and the Fruit.
11. Thou didst form Men to love one another, and to hate one another.

Section Aa.
1. I am ANKH – F – N – KHONSU hy Prophet, unto Whom Thou didst commit Thy Mysteries, the Ceremonies of KHEM.
2. Thou didst produce the moist and the dry, and that which nourisheth all created Life.
3. Hear Thou Me, for I am the Angel of PTAH – APO – PHRASZ – RA (vide the Rubric): this is Thy True Name, handed down to the Prophets of KHEM.

Section B – Air

Hear Me: -
AR
“O breathing, flowing Sun!”
ThIAF 1
“O Sun IAF! O
Lion-Serpent Sun, The Beast that whirlest forth, a thunder- bolt, begetter of
Life!”
RhEIBET
“Thou that flowest! Thou that
goest!”
A-ThELE-BER-SET
“Thou Satan-Sun Hadith that goest without
Will!”
A
“Thou Air! Breath! Spirit! Thou without bound or
bond!”
BELAThA
“Thou Essence, Air Swift-streaming,
Elasticity!”
ABEU
“Thou Wanderer, Father of All!”
EBEU
“Thou
Wanderer, Spirit of All!”
PhI-ThETA-SOE
“Thou Shining Force of Breath!
Thou Lion-Serpent Sun! Thou Saviour, save!”
IB
“Thou Ibis, secret solitary
Bird, inviolate Wisdom, whose Word in Truth, creating the World by its
Magick!”
ThIAF
“O Sun IAF! O Lion-Serpent Sun, The Beas that whirlest
forth, a thunder- bolt, begetter of Life!”
The conception is of Air, glowing,
inhabited by a Solar-Phallic Bird, “the Holy Ghost”, of a Mercurial Nature.Hear
me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me; so that every Spirit of the Firmament
and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth, on dry land and in the
water; of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire, and every Spell and Scourge of God
may be obedient unto Me.
1 The letter F is used to represent the Hebrew Vau
and the Greek Digamma; its sound lies between those of the English long o and
long oo, as in Rope and Tooth.

Section C.Fire

I invoke Thee, the Terrible and Invisible God: Who
dwellest in the Void Place of the Spirit: -
AR-O-GO-GO-RU-ABRAO
“Thou
spiritual Sun! Satan, Thou Eye, Thou Lust! Cry aloud! Cry aloud! Whirl the
Wheel, O my Father, O Satan, O Sun!”
SOTOU
“Thou, the
Saviour!”
MUDORIO
“Silence! Give me Thy Secret!”
PhALARThAO
“Give me
suck, Thou Phallus, Thou Sun!”
OOO
“Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust!” Satan,
thou Eye, thou Lust! Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust!
AEPE
“Thou self-caused,
self-determined, exalted, Most High!”
The Bornless One. (Vide supra).
The
conception is of Fire, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic Lion of a Uranian
nature.
Hear Me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit
of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry
Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire, and every Spell and
Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.

Section D.Water
Hear Me:
-
RU-ABRA-IAF 1
“Thou the Wheel, thou the Womb, that containeth the Father
IAF!”
MRIODOM
“Thou the Sea, the
Abode!”
BABALON-BAL-BIN-ABAFT
“Babalon! Thou Woman of Whoredom. Thou, Gate
of the Great God ON! Thou Lady of the Understanding of the
Ways!”
ASAL-ON-AI
“Hail Thou, the unstirred! Hail, sister and bride of ON,
of the God that is all and is none, by the Power of
Eleven!”
APhEN-IAF
“Thou Treasure of IAO!”
I
“Thou Virgin
twin-sexed! Thou Secret Seed! Thou inviolate Wisdom!”
PhOTETh
“Abode of
the Light ……………..
ABRASAX
“……of the Father, the Sun, of
Hadith, of the spell of the Aeon of Horus!”
AEOOU
“Our Lady of the Western
Gate of Heaven!”
ISChURE
“Mighty art Thou!”
Mighty and Bornless One!
(Vide Supra)
The conception is of Water, glowing, inhabited by a
Solar-Phallic Dragon-Serpent, of a Neptunian nature.
Hear Me: and make all
Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether:
upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling
Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient
unto Me.
1 See, for the formula of IAF, or rather FIAOF, Book 4 Part III,
Chapter V. The form FIAOF will be found preferable in practice.

Section E.Earth
I invoke Thee: -
MA
“O Mother! O Truth!”
BARRAIO
“Thou Mass!” 1
IOEL
“Hail, Thou that art!”
KOThA
“Thou hollow one!”
AThOR-e-BAL-O
“Thou Goddess of Beauty and Love, whom Satan, beholding, desireth!”
ABRAFT
“The Fathers, male-female, desire Thee!”
The conception of of Earth, glowing, inhabited by a Solar-Phallic Hippopotamus 2 of a Venereal nature.
Hear Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon The Earth and under the Earth: on dry land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.
1″Mass”, in the sense of the word which is used by physicists. The impossibility of defining it will
not deter the intrepid initiate (in view of the fact that the fundamental conception is beyond the normal categories of reason.)
2Sacred to AHAThOOR. The idea is that of the Female conceived as invulnerable, reposeful, of enormous swallowing capacity etc.

Section F.Spirit
Hear Me:
AFT
“Male-Female Spirits!”
ABAFT
“Male-Female Sires!”
BAS-AUMGN
“Ye that are Gods, going forth, uttering AUMGN. The Word that goeth from (A) Free Breath. (U) through Willed Breath. (M) and stopped Breath. (GN) to Continuous Breath. thus symbolizing the whole course of spiritual life. A is the formless Hero; U is the six-fold solar sound of physical life, the triangle of Soul being entwined with that of Body; M is the silence of “death”; GN is the nasal sound of generation & knowledge.
ISAK
“Identical Point!”
SA-BA-FT
“Nuith! Hadith! Ra-Hoor-Khuit! Hail, Great Wild Beast! Hail, IAO!”

Section Ff.
1. This is the Lord of the Gods:
2. This is the Lord of the Universe:
3. This is He whom the Winds fear.
4. This is He, Who having made Voice by His commandment is Lord of all Things; King, Ruler and Helper. Hear Me, and make all Spirits subject unto Me: so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land and in the Water: of Whirling Air, and of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God may be obedient unto Me.

Section G.Spirit
Hear Me: -
IEOU
“Indwelling Sun of Myself”
PUR
“Thou Fire! Thou Sixfold Star initiator compassed about with Force and Fire!”
IOU
“Indwelling Soul of Myself”
PUR
(Vide Supra)
IAFTh
“Sun-lion Serpent, hail! All Hail, thou Great Wild Beast, thou I A O!”
IAEO
“Breaths of my soul, breaths of mine Angel.”
IOOU
“Lust of my soul, lust of mine Angel!”
ABRASAX
(Vide Supra).
SABRIAM
“Ho for the Sangraal! Ho for the Cup of Babalon! Ho for mine Angel pouring Himself forth within my Soul!”
OO
“The Eye! Satan, my Lord! The Lust of the goat!”
FF
“Mine Angel! Mine initiator! Thou one with me – the Sixfold Star!”
AD-ON-A-I 1
“My Lord! My secret self beyond self, Hadith, All Father! Hail, ON, thou Sun, thou Life of Man, thou Fivefold Sword of Flame! Thou Goat exalted upon Earth in Lust, thou Snake extended upon Earth in Life! Spirit most holy! Seed most Wise! Innocent Babe. Inviolate Maid! Begetter of Being! Soul of all Souls! Word of all Words, Come forth, most hidden Light!”
EDE
“Devour thou me!”
EDU
“Thou dost devour Me!”
ANGELOS TON ThEON
“Thou Angel of the Gods!”
ANLALA
“Arise thou in Me, free flowing, Thou who art Naught, who art Naught, and utter thy Word!”
LAI
“I also am Naught! I Will Thee! I behold Thee! My nothingness!”
GAIA
“Leap up, thou Earth!” (This is also an agonising appeal to the Earth, the Mother; for at this point of the ceremony the Adept should be torn from his mortal attachments, and die to himself in the orgasm of his operation.) 2
AEPE
“Thou Exalted One! It (i.e. the spritual ‘semen’, the Adept’s secret ideas, drawn irresistibly from their ‘Hell’ 3 by the love of his Angel) leaps up; it leaps forth! 4
DIATHARNA THORON
“Lo! the out-splashing of the seeds of Immortality”

1In Hebrew, ADNI, 65. The Gnostic Initiates transliterated it to imply their own secret formulae; we follow so excellent an example. ON is an Arcanum of Arcana; its significance is taught, gradually, in the O.T.O. Also AD is the paternal formula, Hadit; ON is its complement NUIT; the final Yod signifies “mine” etymologically and essentially the Mercurial (transmitted) hermaphroditic virginal seed – The Hermit of the Taro – The use of the name is therefore to invoke one’s own inmost secrecy, considered as the result of the conjunction of Nuit and Hadit. If the second A is included, its import is to affirm the operation of the Holy Ghost and the formulation of the Babe in the Egg, which precedes the appearance of the Hermit.
2A thorough comprehension of Psycho-analysis will contribute notably to the proper appreciation of this Ritual.
3It is said among men that the word Hell deriveth from the word “helan”, to hele or conceal, in the tongue of the Anglo-Saxons. That is, it is the concealed place, which since all things are in thine own self, is the unconscious, Liber CXI (Aleph) chap. Delta-Zeta
4But compare the use of the same word in section C.

Section Gg.The Attainment
1. I am He! the Bornless Spirit! having sight in the feet: Strong, and the Immortal Fire!
2. I am He! the Truth!
3. I am He! Who hate that evil should be wrought in the World!
4. I am He, that lighteneth and thundereth!
5. I am He, from whom is the Shower of the Life of Earth!
6. I am He, whose mouth ever flameth!
7. I am He, the Begetter and Manifester unto the Light!
8. I am He, The Grace of the Worlds!
9. “The Heart Girt with a Serpent” is my name!

Section H.The “Charge to the Spirit”
Come thou forth, and follow me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether, upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land, or in the Water: of Whirling Air or of rushing Fire, and every Spell and scourge of God, may be obedient unto me!

Section J.The Proclamation of the Beast 666
IAF:SABAF 1Such are the Words!
1See explanation in Point II.

POINT II
Ars Congressus Cum Daemone

Section A
Let the Adeptus Minor be standing in this circle on the square of Tiphereth, armed with his Wand and Cup; but let him perform the Ritual throughout in his Body of Light. He may burn the Cakes of Light, or the Incense of Abramelin; he may be prepared by Liber CLXXV, the reading of Liber LXV, and by the practices of Yoga. He may invoke Hadit by “… wine and strange drugs” if he so will. 1 He prepares the circle by the usual formulae of Banishing and Consecration, etc. He recites Section A as a rehearsal before His Holy Guardian Angel of the attributes of that Angel. Each phrase must be realized with full concentration of force, so as to make Samadhi as perfectly as possible upon the truth proclaimed.

Line 1
He identifies his Angel with the Ain Soph, and the Kether thereof; one formulation of Hadit in the boundless Body of Nuith.

Line 2,3,4
He asserts that His Angel has created (for the purpose of self-realization through projection in conditioned Form) three pairs of opposites: (a) The Fixed and the Volatile; (b) The Unmanifested and the Manifest; and (c) the Unmoved and the Moved. Otherwise, the Negative and the Positive in respect of Matter, Mind and Motion.

Line 5
He acclaims his Angel as “Himself Made Perfect”; adding that this Individuality is inscrutable in inviolable. In the Neophyte Ritual of G: D: (As it is printed in Equinox I, II, for the old aeon) the Hierophant is the perfected Osiris, who brings the candidate, the natural Osiris, to identity with himself. But in the new Aeon the Hierophant is Horus (Liber CCXX, I, 49) therefore the Candidate will be Horus too. What then is the formula of the initiation of Horus? It will no longer be that of the Man, through Death. It will be the natural growth of the Child. His experiences will no more be regarded as catastrophic. Their hieroglyph is the Fool: the innocent and impotent Harpocrates Babe becomes the Horus Adult by obtaining the Wand. “Der reine Thor” seizes the Sacred Lance. Bacchus becomes Pan. The Holy Guardian Angel is the Unconscious Creature Self – the Spiritual Phallus. His knowledge and conversation contributes occult puberty. It is therefore advisable to replace the name Asar-Un-Nefer by that of Ra-Hoor-Khuit at
the outset, and by that of one’s own Holy Guardian Angel when it has been communicated.

Line 6
He hails Him as BESZ, the Matter that destroys and devours Godhead, for the purpose of the Incarnation of any God.

Line 7
He hails Him as APOPHRASZ, the Motion that destroys and devours Godhead, for the purpose of the Incarnation of any God. The combined action of these two DEVILS is to allow the God upon whom they prey to enter into enjoyment of existence through the Sacrament of dividual “Life” (Bread – the flesh of BESZ) and “Love” (Wine – the blood or venom of AOPHRASZ).

Line 8
He acclaims His Angel as having “eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”; otherwise, having become wise (in the Dyad, Chokmah) to apprehend the formula of Equilibrium which is now His own, being able to apply Himself accurately to His self-appointed environment.

Line 9
He acclaims His Angel as having laid down the Law of Love as the Magical formula of the Universe, that He may resolve the phenomenal again into its noumenal phase by uniting any two opposites in ecstasic passion.

Line 10
He acclaims His Angel as having appointed that this formula of Love should effect not only the dissolution of the separateness of the Lovers into His own impersonal Godhead, but their co-ordination in a “Child” quintessentialized from its parents to constitute a higher order of Being than theirs, so that each generation is an alchemical progress towards perfection in the direction of successive complexities. As Line 9 asserts Involution, Line 10 asserts Evolution.

Line 11
He acclaims His Angel as having devised this method of self-realization; the object of Incarnation is to obtain its reactions to its relations with other incarnated Beings and to observe theirs with each other.
1Any such formula should be used only when the adept has full knowledge based on experience of the management of such matters.

Section Aa.
Line 1
The Adept asserts his right to enter into conscious communication with His Angel, on the ground that that Angel has Himself taught him the Secret Magick by which he may make the proper link. “Mosheh” is M H, the formation in Jechidah, Chiah, Neshamah, Ruach, – The Sephiroth from Kether to Yesod – since 45 is Sum 1-9 while Sh, 300, is Sum 1-24, which superadds to these Nine an extra Fifteen numbers. (See in Liber D, the meanings and correspondences of 9, 15, 24, 45, 300, 345.) 45 is moreover A D M, MDA, man. “Mosheh” is thus the name of man as a God-concealing form. But in the Ritual let the Adept replace this “Mosheh” by his own motto as Adeptus Minor. For “Ishrael” let him prefer his own Magical Race, according to the obligations of his Oaths to Our Holy Order! (The Beast 666 Himself used “Ankh-f-n-Khonsu” and “Khem” in this section.)

Line 2
The Adept reminds his Angel that He has created That One Substance of which Hermes hath written in the Table of Emerald, whose virtue is to unite in itself all opposite modes of Being, thereby to serve as a Talisman charged with the Spiritual Energy of Existence, an Elixir or Stone composed of the physical basis of Life. This Commemoration is placed between the two personal appeals to the Angel, as if to claim privilege to partake of this Eucharist which createth, sustaineth and redeemeth all things.

Line 3
He now asserts that he is himself the “Angel” or messenger of his Angel; that is, that he is a mind and body whose office is to receive and transmit the Word of his Angel. He hails his Angel not only as “un-nefer” the Perfection of “Asar” himself as a man, but as Ptah-Apophrasz-Ra, the identity (Hadit) wrapped in the Dragon (Nuit) and thereby manifested as a Sun (Ra-Hoor-Khuit). The “Egg” (or Heart) “girt with a Serpent” is a cognate symbol; the idea is thus expressed later in the ritual. (See Liber LXV which expands this to the uttermost.)

Section B
The Adept passes from contemplation to action in the sections now following B to Gg. He is to travel astrally around the circle, making the appropriate pentagrams, sigils, and signs. His direction is widdershins. He thus makes three curves, each covering three-fourths of the circle. He should give the sign of the Enterer on passing the Kiblah, or Direction of Boleskine. This picks up the force naturally radiating from that point 1 and projects it in the direction of the path of the Magician. The sigils are those given in the Equinox Vol. I, No. 7, Plate X outside the square; the signs those shewn in Vol. I, No. 2, Plate “The Signs of the Grades”. In these invocations he should expand his girth and his stature to the utmost 2, assuming the form and the consciousness of the elemental god of the quarter. After this, he begins to vibrate the “Barbarous Names” of the Ritual.

Now let him not only fill his whole being to the uttermost with the force of the Names; but let him formulate his Will, understood thoroughly as the dynamic aspect of his Creative Self, in an appearance symbolically apt, I say not in the form of a Ray of Light, of a Fiery Sword, or of aught save that bodily Vehicle of the Holy Ghost which is sacred to BAPHOMET, by its virtue that concealeth the Lion and the Serpent that His Image may appear adorably upon the Earth for ever.

Let then the Adept extend his Will beyond the Circle in this imagined Shape and let it radiate with the Light proper to the element invoked, and let each Word issue along the Shaft with passionate impulse, as if its voice gave command thereto that it should thrust itself leapingly forward. Let also each Word accumulate authority, so that the Head of the Shaft may plunge twice as far for the Second Word as for the First, and Four Times for the Third as the Second, and thus to the end. Moreover, let the Adept fling forth his whole consciousness thither. Then at the final Word, let him bring rushing back his Will within himself, steadily streaming, and let him offer himself to its point, as Artemis to PAN, that this perfectly pure concentration of the Element purge him thoroughly, and possess him with its passion.
In this Sacrament being wholly at one with that Element, let the Adept utter the Charge “Hear me, and make”, etc. with strong sense that this unity with that quarter of the Universe confers upon him the fullest freedom and privilege appurtenant thereto.

Let the Adept take note of the wording of the Charge. The “Firmament” is the Ruach, the “mental plane”; it is the realm of Shu, or Zeus, where revolves the Wheel of the Gunas, the Three forms 3 of Being. The Aethyr is the “akasha”, the “Spirit”, the Aethyr or physics, which is the framework on which all forms are founded; it receives, records and transmits all impulses without itself suffering mutation thereby. The “Earth” is the sphere wherein the operation of these “fundamental” and aethyric forces appears to perception. “Under the Earth” is the world of those phenomena which inform those perceived projections, and determine their particular character. “Dry land” is the place of dead “material things”, dry (i.e. unknowable) because unable to act on our minds. “Water” is the vehicle whereby we feel such things; “air” their menstruum wherein these feelings are mentally apprehended. It is called “whirling” because of the instability of thought, and the fatuity of reason, on which we are yet dependent for what we call “life”. “Rushing Fire” is the world in which wandering thought burns up to swift-darting Will. These four stages explain how the non-Ego is transmuted into the Ego. A “Spell” of God is any form of consciousness, and a “Scourge” any form of action.

The Charge, as a whole, demands for the Adept the control of every detail of the Universe which His Angel has created as a means of manifesting Himself to Himself. It covers command of the primary projection of the Possible in individuality, in the antithetical artifice which is the device of Mind, and in a balanced triplicity of modes or states of being whose c
ombinations constitute the characteristics of Cosmos. It includes also a standard of structure, a rigidity to make reference possible. Upon these foundations of condition which are not things in themselves, but the canon to which things conform, is builded the Temple of Being, whose materials are themselves perfectly mysterious, inscrutable as the Soul, and like the Soul imagining themselves by symbols which we may feel, perceive, and adapt to our use without ever knowing the whole Truth about them. The Adept sums up all these items by claiming authority over every form of expression possible to Existence, whether it be a “spell” (idea) or a “scourge” (act) of “God”, that is, of himself. The Adept must accept every “spirit”, every “spell”, every “scourge”, as part of his environment, and make them all “subject to” himself; that is, consider them as contributory causes of himself. They have made him what he is. They correspond exactly to his own faculties. They are all – ultimately – of equal importance. The fact that he is what he is proves that each item is equilibrated. The impact of each new impression affects the entire system in due measure. He must therefore realize that every event is subject to him. It occurs because he had need of it. Iron rusts because the molecules demand oxygen for the satisfaction of their tendencies. They do not crave hydrogen; therefore combination with that gas is an event which does not happen. All experiences contribute to make us complete in ourselves. We feel ourselves subject to them so long as we fail to recognise this; when we do, we perceive that they are subject to us. And whenever we strive to evade an experience, whatever it may be, we thereby do wrong to ourselves. We thwart our own tendencies. To live is to change; and to oppose change is to revolt against the law which we have enacted to govern our lives. To resent destiny is thus to abdicate our sovereignty, and to invoke death. Indeed, we have decreed the doom of death for every breach of the law of Life. And every failure to incorporate any impression starves that particular faculty which stood in need of it.

This Section B invokes Air in the East, with a shaft of golden glory.
1This is an assumption based on Liber Legis II, 78 and III, 34.
2Having experience of success in the practices of Liber 536, BATRAXO-RENOBOOKOSMOMAXIA.
3They correspond to the Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt of Alchemy; to Sattvas, Rajas, and Tamas in the Hindu system; and are rather modes of action than actual qualities even when conceived as latent. They are the apparatus of communication between the planes; as such, they are conventions. There is no absolute validity in any means of mental apprehension; but unless we make these spirits of the Firmament subject unto us by establishing right relation (within the possible limits) with the Universe, we shall fall into error when we develop our new instrument of direct understanding. It is vital that the Adept should train his intellectual faculties to tell him the truth, in the measure of their capacity. To despise the mind on account of its limitations is the most disastrous blunder; it is the common cause of the calamities which strew so many shores with the wreckage of the Mystic Armada. Bigotry, Arrogance, Bewilderment, all forms of mental and moral disorder, so often observed in people of great spiritual attainment, have brought the Path itself into discredit; almost all such catastrophes are due to trying to build the Temple of the Spirit without proper attention to the mental laws of structure and the physical necessities of foundation. The mind must be brought to its utmost pitch of perfection, but according to its own internal properties; one cannot feed a microscope on mutton chops. It must be regarded as a mechanical instrument of knowledge, independent of the personality of its possessor. One must treat it exactly as one treats one’s electroscope or one’s eyes; one influence of one’s wishes. A physician calls in a colleague to attend to his own family, knowing that personal anxiety may derange his judgment. A microscopist who trusts his eyes when his pet theory is at stake may falsify the facts, and find too late that he has made a fool of himself.In the case of initiations itself, history is scarred with the wounds inflicted by this Dagger. It reminds us constantly of the danger of relying upon the intellectual faculties. A judge must know the law in every point, and be detached from personal prejudices, and incorruptible, or iniquity will triumph. Dogma, with persecution, delusion, paralysis of progress, and many another evil, as its satraps, has always established a tyranny when Genius has proclaimed it. Islam making a bonfire of written Wisdom, and Haeckel forging biological evidence; physicists ignorant of radioactivity disputing the conclusions of geology, and theologians impatient of truth struggling against the tide of thought; all such must perish at the hands of their own error in making their minds, internally defective or externally deflected, the measure of the Universe.

Section C
The adept now invokes Fire in the South; flame red are the rays that burst from his Verendum.

Section D
He invokes Water in the West, his Wand billowing forth blue radiance.

Section E
He goes to the North to invoke Earth; flowers of green flame flash from his weapon. As practice makes the Adept perfect in this Work, it becomes automatic to attach all these complicated ideas and intentions to their correlated words and acts. When this is attained he may go deeper into the formula by amplifying its correspondences. Thus, he may invoke water in the manner of water, extending his will with majestic and irresistible motion, mindful of its impulse gravitation, yet with a suave and tranquil appearance of weakness. Again, he may apply the formula of water to its peculiar purpose as it surges back into his sphere, using it with conscious skill for the cleansing and calming of the receptive and emotional elements in his character, and for the solution or sweeping away of those tangled weeds of prejudice which hamper him from freedom to act as he will. Similar applications of the remaining invocations will occur to the Adept who is ready to use them.

Section F
The Adept now returns to the Tiphereth square of his Tau, and invokes spirit, facing toward Boleskine, by the active Pentagrams, the sigil called the Mark of the Beast, and the Signs of L.V.X. (See plate as before). He then vibrates the Names extending his will in the same way as before, but vertically upward. At the same time he expands the Source of that Will – the secret symbol of Self – both about him and below, as if to affirm that Self, duplex as is its form, reluctant to acquiesce in its failure to coincide with the Sphere of Nuith. Let him now imagine, at the last Word, that the Head of his will, where his consciousness is fixed, opens its fissure (the Brahmarandra-Cakkra, at the junction of the cranial sutures) and exudes a drop of clear crystalline dew, and that this pearl is his Soul, a virgin offering to his Angel, pressed forth from his being by the intensity of this Aspiration.

Section Ff
With these words the Adept does not withdraw his will within him as in the previous Sections. He thinks of them as a reflection of Truth on the surface of the dew, where his Soul hides trembling. He takes them to be the first formulation in his consciousness of the nature of His Holy Guardian Angel.

Line 1
The “Gods” include all the conscious elements of his nature.
Line 2
The “Universe” includes all possible phenomena of which he can be aware.
Line 3
The “Winds” are his thoughts, which have prevented him from attaining to his Angel.
Line 4
His Angel has made “Voice”, the magical weapon which produces “Words”, and these words have been the wisdom by which He hath created all things. The “Voice” is necessary as the link between the Adept
and his Angel. The Angel is “King”, the One who “can”, the “source of authority and the fount of honour”; also the King (or King’s Son) who delivers the Enchanted Princess, and makes her his Queen. He is “Ruler”, the “unconscious Will”; to be thwarted no more by the ignorant and capricious false will of the conscious man. And He is “Helper”, the author of the infallible impulse that sends the Soul sweeping along the skies on its proper path with such impetus that the attraction of alien orbs is no longer sufficient to swerve it. The “Hear me” clause is now uttered by the normal human consciousness, withdrawn to the physical body; the Adept must deliberately abandon his attainment, because it is not yet his whole being which burns up before the Beloved.

Section G
The Adept, though withdrawn, shall have maintained the Extension of his Symbol. He now repeats the signs as before, save that he makes the Passive Invoking Pentagram of Spirit. He concentrates his consciousness within his Twin-Symbol of Self, and endeavours to send it to sleep. But if the operation be performed properly, his Angel shall have accepted the offering of Dew, and seized with fervour upon the extended symbol of Will towards Himself. This then shall He shake vehemently with vibrations of love reverberating with the Words of the Section. Even in the physical ears of the adept there shall resound an echo thereof, yet he shall not be able to describe it. It shall seem both louder than thunder, and softer than the whisper of the night-wind. It shall at once be inarticulate, and mean more than he hath ever heard.

Now let him strive with all the strength of his Soul to withstand the Will of his Angel, concealing himself in the closest cell of the citadel of consciousness. Let him consecrate himself to resist the assault of the Voice and the Vibration until his consciousness faint away into Nothing. For if there abide unabsorbed even one single atom of the false Ego, that atom should stain the virginity of the True Self and profane the Oath; then that atom should be so inflamed by the approach of the Angel that is should overwhelm the rest of the mind, tyrannize over it, and become an insane despot to the total ruin of the realm.

But, all being dead to sense, who then is able to strive against the Angel? He shall intensify the stress of His Spirit so that His loyal legions of Lion-Serpents leap from the ambush, awakening the adept to witness their Will and sweep him with them in their enthusiasm, so that he consciously partakes this purpose, and sees in its simplicity the solution of all his perplexities. Thus then shall the Adept be aware that he is being swept away through the column of his Will Symbol. and that His Angel is indeed himself, with intimacy so intense as to become identity, and that not in a single Ego, but in every unconscious element that shares in that manifold uprush.

This rapture is accompanied by a tempest of brilliant light, almost always, and also in many cases by an outburst of sound, stupendous and sublime in all cases, though its character may vary within wide limits. 1

The spate of stars shoots from the head of the Will-Symbol, and is scattered over the sky in glittering galaxies. This dispersion destroys the concentration of the adept, whose mind cannot master such multiplicity of majesty; as a rule, he simply sinks stunned into normality, to recall nothing of his experience but a vague though vivid impression of complete release and ineffable rapture. Repetition fortifies him to realise the nature of his attainment; and his Angel, the link once made, frequents him, and trains him subtly to be sensitive to his Holy presence, and persuasion. But it may occur, especially after repeated success, that the Adept is not flung back into his mortality by the explosion of the Star-spate, but identified with one particular “Lion-Serpent”, continuing conscious thereof until it finds its proper place in Space, when its secret self flowers forth as a truth, which the Adept may then take back to earth with him.
This is but a side issue. The main purpose of the Ritual is to establish the relation of the subconscious self with the Angel in such a way that the Adept is aware that his Angel is the Unity which expresses the sum of the Elements of that Self, that his normal consciousness contains alien enemies introduced by the accidents of environment, and that his Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel destroys all doubts and delusions, confers all blessings, teaches all truth, and contains all delights. But it is important that the Adept should not rest in mere inexpressible realization of his rapture, but rouse himself to make the relation submit to analysis, to render it in rational terms, and thereby enlighten his mind and heart in a sense as superior to fanatical enthusiasm as Beethoven’s music is to West
African war-drums.

1These phenomena are not wholly subjective; they may be perceived, though often under other forms, by even the ordinary man.

Section Gg
The adept should have realised that his Act of Union with the angel implies 1 the death of his old mind save in so far as his unconscious elements preserve its memory when they absorb it, and 2 the death of his unconscious elements themselves. But their death is rather a going forth to renew their life through love. He then, by conscious comprehension of them separately and together, becomes the “Angel” of his Angel, as Hermes is the Word of Zeus, whose own voice is Thunder. Thus in this section the adept utters articulately so far as words may, what his Angel is to Himself. He says this, with his Scin-Laeca wholly withdrawn into his physical body, constraining His Angel to indwell his heart.

Line 1
“I am He” asserts the destruction of the sense of separateness between self and Self. It affirms existence, but of the third person only. “The Bornless Spirit” is free of all space, “having sight in the feet”, that they may choose their own path. “Strong” is G B R, The Magician escorted by the Sun and the Moon (See Liber D and Liber 777). The “Immortal Fire” is the creative Self; impersonal energy cannot perish, no matter what forms it assumes. Combustion is Love.

Line 2
“Truth” is the necessary relation of any two things; therefore, although it implies duality, it enables us to conceive of two things as being one thing such that it demands to be defined by complementals. Thus, an hyperbola is a simple idea, but its construction exacts two curves.

Line 3
The Angel, as the adept knows him, is a being Tiphereth, which obscures Kether. The Adept is not officially aware of the higher Sephiroth. He cannot perceive, like the Ipsissimus, that all things soever are equally illusion and equally Absolute. He is in Tiphereth, whose office is Redemption, and he deplores the events which have caused the apparent Sorrow from which he has just escaped. He is also aware, even in the height of his ecstasy, of the limits and defects of his Attainment.

Line 4
This refers to the phenomena which accompany his Attainment.

Line 5
This means the recognition of the Angel as the True Self of his subconscious self, the hidden Life of his physical life.

Line 6
The Adept realises every breath, every word of his Angel as charged with creative fire. Tiphereth is the Sun, and the Angel is the spiritual Sun of the Soul of the Adept.

Line 7
Here is summed the entire process of bringing the conditioned Universe to knowledge of itself through the formula of generation 1; a soul implants itself in sense-hoodwinked body and reason-fettered mind, makes them aware of their Inmate, and thus to partake of its own consciousness of the Light.

Line 8
“Grace” has here its proper sense of “Pleasantness”. The existence of the Angel is the justification of the device of creation. 2

Line 9
This line must be studied in the light of Liber LXV (Equinox XI. p. 65).
1That is
, Yod He realizing Themselves Will and Understanding in the twins Vau He, Mind and body.
2But see also the general solution of the Riddle of Existence in The Book of the Law and its Comment – Part IV of Book 4.

Section H.
This recapitulation demands the going forth together of the Adept and his Angel “to do their pleasure on the Earth among the living.”

Section J.
The Beast 666 having devised the present method of using this Ritual, having proved it by his own practice to be of infallible puissance when properly performed, and now having written it down for the world, it shall be an ornament for the Adept who adopts it to cry Hail to His name at the end of his work. This shall moreover encourage him in Magick, to recall that indeed there was One who attained by its use to the Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel, the which forsook him no more, but made Him a Magus, the Word of the Aeon of Horus!

For know this, that the Name IAF in its most secret and mighty sense declareth the Formula of the Magick of the BEAST whereby he wrought many wonders. And because he doth will that the whole world shall attain to this Art, He now hideth it herein so that the worthy may win to His Wisdom.

Let I and F face all 1; yet ward their A from attack. The Hermit to himself, the fool to foes, The Hierophant to friends, Nine by nature, Naught by attainment, Five by function. In speech swift, subtle and secret; in thought creative, unbiassed, unbounded; in act gentle, patient and persistent.
Hermes to hear, Dionysus to touch, Pan to behold.

A Virgin, A Babe, and a Beast!
A Liar, an Idiot, and a Master of Men!
A kiss, a guffaw, and a bellow; he that hath ears to hear, let him hear!
Take ten that be one, and one that is one in three, to conceal them in six!
Thy wand to all Cups, and thy Disk to all Swords, but betray not thine Egg!

Moreover also is IAF verily 666 by virtue of Number; and this is a Mystery of Mysteries; Who knoweth it, he is adept of adepts, and Mighty among Magicians!

Now this word SABAF, being by number Three score and Ten 2, is a name of Ayin, the Eye, and the Devil our Lord, and the Goat of Mendes. He is the Lord of the Sabbath of the Adepts, and is Satan, therefore also the Sun, whose number of Magick is 666, the seal of His servant the BEAST.
But again SA is 61, AIN, the Naught of Nuith; BA means go, for Hadit; and F is their Son the Sun who is Ra-Hoor-Khuit.

So then let the Adept set his sigil upon all the words he hath writ in the Book of the Works of his Will.
And let him then end all, saying, Such are the Words! 3 For by this he maketh proclamation before all them that be about his Circle that these Words are true and puissant, binding what he would bind, and loosing what he would loose.

Let the Adept perform this Ritual aright, perfect in every part thereof, once daily for one moon, then twice, at dawn and dusk, for two moons, next, thrice, noon added, for three moons, afterwards, midnight making up his course, for four moons four times every day. Then let the Eleventh Moon be consecrated wholly to this Work; let him be instant in continual ardour, dismissing all but his sheer needs to eat and sleep. 4 For know that the true Formula 5 whose virtue sufficed the Beast in this Attainment, was thus:

So may all men come at last to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: thus sayeth the Beast, and prayeth His own Angel that this book be as a burning Lamp, and as a living Spring, for Light and Life to them that read therein.

666

1If we adopt the new orthography VIAOV (Book 4 Part III Chap. V.) we must read “The Sun-6-the Son” etc. for “all”; and elaborate this interpretation here given in other ways, accordingly. Thus O (of F) will not be “The Fifteen by function” instead of “Five” etc., and “in act free, firm, aspiring, ecstatic”, rather than “gentle” etc. as in the present text.
2There is an alternative spelling TzBA-F Where the Root, (ABz) “an Host”, has the value of 93. The Practicus should revive this Ritual throughout in the Light of his personal researches in the Qabalah, and thus make it his own peculiar property. The spelling here suggested implies that he who utters the Word affirms his allegiance to the symbols 93 and 61 that he is a warrior in the army of Will and of the Sun. 93 is also the number of AIWAZ and 6 of The Beast.
3The consonants of LOGOS, “Word”, add (Hebrew values: sGL) to 93. And EPH, “Words”, (whence “Epic”) has also that value: EIDE TA EPH might be the phrase here intended: its number is 418. This would then assert the accomplishment of the Great Work; this is the natural conclusion of the Ritual. Cf. CCXX. III. 75.
4These needs are modified during the process of Initiation both as to quantity and quality. One should not become anxious about one’s physical or mental health on a priori grounds, but pay attention only to indubitable symptoms of distress should such arise.
5The Oracles of Zoroaster utter this:”And when, by often invoking, all the phantasms are vanished, thou shalt see that Holy and Formless Fire, that Fire which darts and flashes through all the Depths of the Universe; hear thou the Voice of the Fire!”A similar Fire flashingly extending through the rushings of Air, or a Fire formless whence cometh the Image of a voice, or even a flashing Light abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying aloud. Also there is the vision of the fire-flashing Courser of Light, or also a Child, borne aloft on the shoulders of the Celestial Steed, fiery, or clothed with gold, or naked, or shooting with the bow shafts or light, and standing on the shoulders of the horse, then if thy meditation prolongeth itself, thou shalt unite all these symbols into the form of a Lion.”
This passage – combined with several others – is paraphased in poetry by Aleister Crowley in his “Tannhauser”.
“And when, invoking often, thou shalt seeThat formless Fire; when all the earth is shaken,The Stars abide not, and the moon is gone,All Time crushed back into Eternity,The Universe by earthquake overtaken; Light is not, and the thunders roll,The World is done:When in the darkness Chaos rolls againIn the excited brain:Then, O then call not to thy view that visibleImage of Nature; fatal is her name!It fitteth not thy Body to beholdThat living light of Hell,The unluminous, dead flame,Until that body from the crucibleHath passed, pure gold!For, from the confines of material space,The twilight-moving place,The gates of matter, and the dark threshold,Before the faces of the Things that dwellIn the Abodes of Night,Spring into sightDemons, dog-faced, that show no mortal signOf Truth, but desecrate the Light Divine,Seducing from the sacred mysteries.But, after all these Folk of Fear are drivenBefore the avenging levinThat rives the opening skies,Behold that formless and that Holy FlameThat hath no name;The Fire that darts and flashes, writhes and creepsSnake-wise in royal robeWound round that vanished glory of the globe,Unto that sky beyond the starry deeps,Beyond the Toils of Time, – then formulateIn thine own mind, luminous, concentrate,The Lion of the Light, a child that standsOn the vast shoulders of the Steed of God:Or winged, or shooting flying shafts, or shodWith the flame-sandals.Then, lift up thine hands!Centre thee in thine heart one scarlet thoughtLimpid with brilliance of the Light above!Drawn into naughtAll life, death, hatred, love:All self concentred in the sole desire -Hear thou the Voice of Fire!”
6See Equinox I, VIII, 22.

POINT III
Scholion on Sections G & Gg
“The Seeds of Immortality!”
The Adept who has mastered this Ritual, successfully realising the full import of this controlled rapture, ought not to allow his mind to loosen its grip on the astral imagery of the Star-spate, Will-Symbol
, or Soul-symbol, or even to forget its duty to the body and the sensible surroundings. Nor should he omit to keep his Body of Light in close touch with the phenomena of its own plane, so that its privy consciousness may fulfil its proper functions of protecting his scattered ideals from obsession.
But he should have acquired, by previous practice, the faculty of detaching these elements of his consciousness from their articulate centre, so that they become (temporarily) independent responsible units, capable of receiving communications from headquarters at will, but perfectly able 1 to take care of themselves without troubling their chief, and 2 to report to him at the proper time. In a figure, they must be like subordinate officers, expected to display self-reliance, initiative, and integrity in the execution of the Orders of the Day.
The Adept should therefore be able to rely on these individual minds of his to control their own conditions without interference from himself for the time required, and to recall them in due course, receiving an accurate report of their adventures.
This being so, the Adept will be free to concentrate his deepest self, that part of him which unconsciously orders his true Will, upon the realization of his Holy Guardian Angel. The absence of his bodily, mental and astral consciousness is indeed cardinal to success, for it is their usurpation of his attention which has made him deaf to his Soul, and his preoccupation with their affairs that has prevented him from perceiving that Soul.
The effect of the Ritual has been
a. to keep them so busy with their own work that they cease to distract him;
b. to separate them so completely that his soul is stripped of its sheaths;
c. to arouse in him an enthusiasm so intense as to intoxicate and anaesthetize him, that he may not feel and resent the agony of this spiritual vivisection, just as bashful lovers get drunk on the wedding night, in order to brazen out the intensity of shame which so mysteriously coexists with their desire;
d. to concentrate the necessary spiritual forces from every element, and fling them simultaneously into the aspiration towards the Holy Guardian Angel; and
e. to attract the Angel by the vibration of the magical voice which invokes Him.
The method of the Ritual is thus manifold.
There is firstly an analysis of the Adept, which enables him to calculate his course of action. He can decide what must be banished, what purified, what concentrated. He can then concentrate his will upon its one essential element, over-coming its resistance – which is automatic, like a physiological reflex – by destroying inhibitions through his ego-overwhelming enthusiasm. 1 The other half of the work needs no such complex effort; for his Angel is simple and unperplexed, ready at all times to respond to rightly ordered approach.
It is impossible to overcome one’s inhibitions by conscious effort; their existence justifies them. God is on their side, as on that of the victim in Browning’s Instans Tyrannus. A man cannot compel himself to love, however much he may want to, on various rational grounds. But on the other hand, when the true impulse comes, it overwhelms all its critics; they are powerless either to make or break a genius; it can only testify to the fact that it has met its master.
But the results of the Ritual are too various to permit of rigid description. One may say that, presuming the union to be perfect, the Adept need not retain any memory soever of what has occurred. He may be merely aware of a gap in his conscious life, and judge of its contents by observing that his nature has been subtly transfigured. Such an experience might indeed be the proof of perfection.
If the Adept is to be any wise conscious of his Angel it must be that some part of his mind is prepared to realize the rapture, and to express it to itself in one way or another. This involves the perfection of that part, its freedom from prejudice and the limitations of rationality so-called. For instance: one could not receive the illumination as to the nature of life which the doctrine of evolution should shed, if one is passionately persuaded that humanity is essentially not animal, or convinced that causality is repugnant to reason. The Adept must be ready for the utter destruction of his point of view on any subject, and even that of his innate conception of the forms and laws of thought. 2 Thus he may find that his Angel consider his “business” or his “love” to be absurd trifles; also that human ideas of “time” are invalid, and human “laws” of logic applicable only to the relations between illusions.
Now the Angel will make contact with the Adept at any point that is sensitive to His influence. Such a point will naturally be one that is salient in the Adept’s character, and also one that is, in the proper sense of the word, pure. 3
Thus an artist, attuned to appreciate plastic beauty is likely to receive a visual impression of his Angel in a physical form which is sublimely quintessential of his ideal. A musician may be rapt away by majestic melodies such as he never hoped to hear. A philosopher may attain apprehension of tremendous truths, the solution of problems that had baffled him all his life.
Conformably with this doctrine, we read of illuminations experienced by simple-minded men, such as a workman who “saw God” and likened Him to “a quantity of little pears”. Again, we know that ecstasy, impinging upon unbalanced minds, inflames the idolized idea, and produces fanatical faith fierce even to frenzy, with intolerance and insanely disordered energy which is yet so powerful as to effect the destinies of empires.
But the phenomena of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel are a side issue; the essence of the Union is the intimacy. Their intimacy (or rather identity) is independent of all partial forms of expression; at its best it is therefore as inarticulate as Love.
The intensity of the consummation will more probably compel a sob or a cry, some natural physical gesture of animal sympathy with the spiritual spasm. This is to be criticized as incomplete self-control. Silence is nobler.
In any case the Adept must be in communion with his Angel, so that his Soul is suffused with sublimity, whether intelligible or not in terms of intellect. It is evident that the stress of such spiritual possession must tend to overwhelm the soul, especially at first. It actually suffers from the excess of its ecstasy, just as extreme love produces vertigo. The soul sinks and swoons. Such weakness is fatal alike to its enjoyment and its apprehension. “Be strong! then canst thou bear more rapture!” sayeth The Book of the Law. 4
The Adept must therefore play the man, arousing himself to harden his soul.
To this end, I, the Beast, have made trial and proof of divers devices. Of these the most potent is to set the body to strive with the soul. Let the muscles take grip on themselves as if one were wrestling. Let the jaw and mouth, in particular, be tightened to the utmost. Breathe deeply, slowly, yet strongly. Keep mastery over the mind by muttering forcibly and audibly. But lest such muttering tend to disturb communion with the Angel, speak only His Name. Until the Adept have heard that Name, therefore, he may not abide in the perfect possession of his Beloved. His most important task is thus to open his ears to the voice of his Angel, that he may know him, how he is called. For hearken! this Name, understood rightly and fully, declareth the nature of the Angel in every point, wherefore also that Name is the formula of the perfection to which the Adept must aspire, and also of the power of Magick by virtue whereof he must work.
He then that is as yet ignorant of that Name, let him repeat a word worthy of this particular Ritual. Such are Abrahadabra, the Word of the Aeon, which signifieth “The Great Work accomplished”; and Aumgn interpreted in Part III of Book 4 5; and the name of THE BEAST, for that His number showeth forth this Union
with the Angel, and His Work is no other than to make all men partakers of this Mystery of the Mysteries of Magick.
So then saying this word or that, let the Adept wrestle with his Angel and withstand Him, that he may constrain Him to consent to continue in communion until the consciousness becomes capable of clear comprehension, and of accurate transmission 6 of the transcendent Truth of the Beloved to the heart that holds him.
The firm repetition of one of these Words ought to enable the Adept to maintain the state of Union for several minutes, even at first.
In any case he must rekindle his ardour, esteeming his success rather as an encouragement to more ardent aspiration than as a triumph. He should increase his efforts.
Let him beware of the “lust of result”, of expecting too much, of losing courage if his first success is followed by a series of failures.
For success makes success seem so incredible that one is apt to create an inhibition fatal to subsequent attempts. One fears to fail; the fear intrudes upon the concentration and so fulfils its own prophecy. We know how too much pleasure in a love affair makes one afraid to disgrace oneself on the next few occasions; indeed, until familiarity has accustomed one to the idea that one’s lover has never supposed one to be more than human. Confidence returns gradually. Inarticulate ecstasy is replaced by a more sober enjoyment of the elements of the fascination.
Just so one’s first dazzled delight in a new landscape turns, as one continues to gaze, to the appreciation of exquisite details of the view. At first they were blurred by the blinding rush of general beauty; they emerge one by one as the shock subsides, and passionate rapture yields to intelligent interest.
In the same way the Adept almost always begins by torrential lyrics painting out mystical extravagances about “ineffable love”, “unimaginable bliss”, “inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness”. 7 He usually loses his sense of proportion, of humour, of reality, and of sound judgment. His ego is often inflated to the bursting point, till he would be abjectly ridiculous if he were not so pitifully dangerous to himself and others. He also tends to take his new-found “truths of illumination” for the entire body of truth, and insists that they must be as valid an vital for all men as they happen to be for himself.
It is wise to keep silence about those things “unlawful to utter” which one may have heard “in the seventh heaven”. This may not apply to the sixth.
The Adept must keep himself in hand, however tempted to make a new heaven and a new earth in the next few days by trumpeting his triumphs. He must give time a chance to redress his balance, sore shaken by the impact of the Infinite.
As he becomes adjusted to intercourse with his Angel, he will find his passionate ecstasy develop a quality of peace and intelligibility which adds power, while it informs and fortifies his mental and moral qualities instead of obscuring and upsetting them. He will by now have become able to converse with his Angel, impossible as it once seemed; for he now knows that the storm of sound which he supposed to be the Voice was only the clamour of his own confusions. The “infinity” nonsense was born of his own inability to think clearly beyond his limits, just as a Bushman, confronted by numbers above five, can only call them “many”.
The truth told by the Angel, immensely as it extends the horizon of the Adept, is perfectly definite and precise. It does not deal in ambiguities and abstractions. It possesses form, and confesses law, in exactly the same way and degree as any other body of truth. It is to the truth of the material and intellectual spheres of man very much what the Mathematics of Philosophy with its “infinite series” and “Cantorian continuity” is to schoolboy arithmetic. Each implies the other, though by that one may explore the essential nature of existence, and by this a pawnbroker’s profits.
This then is the true aim of the Adept in this whole operation, to assimilate himself to his Angel by continual conscious communion. For his Angel is an intelligible image of his own true Will, to do which is the whole of the law of his Being.
Also the Angel appeareth in Tiphereth, which is the heart of the Ruach, and thus the Centre of Gravity of the Mind. It is also directly inspired from Kether, the ultimate Self, through the Path of the High Priestess, or initiated intuition. Hence the Angel is in truth the Logos or articulate expression of the whole Being of the Adept, so that as he increases in the perfect understanding of His name, he approaches the solution of the ultimate problem, Who he himself truly is.
Unto this final statement the Adept may trust his Angel to lead him; for the Tiphereth-consciousness alone is connected by paths with the various parts of his mind. 8 None therefore save He hath the knowledge requisite for calculating the combinations of conduct which will organise and equilibrate for forces of the Adept, against the moment when it becomes necessary to confront the Abyss. The Adept must control a compact and coherent mass if he is to make sure of hurling it from him with a clean-cut gesture.
I, The Beast 666, lift up my voice and swear that I myself have been brought hither by mine Angel. After that I had attained unto the Knowledge and Conversation of Him by virtue of mine ardour towards Him, and of this Ritual that I bestow upon men my fellows, and most of His great Love that He beareth to me, yea, verily, He led me to the Abyss; He bade me fling away all that I had and all that I was; and He forsook me in that Hour. But when I came beyond the Abyss, to be reborn within the womb of BABALON, then came he unto me abiding in my virgin heart, its Lord and Lover!
Also He made me a Magus, speaking through His Law, the Word of the new Aeon, the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child. 9 Thus he fulfilled my will to bring full freedom to the race of Men.
Yea, he wrought also in me a Work of wonder beyond this, but in this matter I am sworn to hold my peace.

1A high degree of initiation is required. This means that the process of analysis must have been carried out very thoroughly. The Adept must have become aware of his deepest impulses, and understood their true significance. The “resistance” here mentioned is automatic; it increases indefinitely against direct pressure. It is useless to try to force oneself in these matters; the uninitiated Aspirant, however eager he may be, is sure to fail. One must know how to deal with each internal idea as it arises.
2Of course, even false tenets and modes of the mind are in one sense true. It is only their appearance which alters. Copernicus did not destroy the facts of nature, or change the instruments of observation. He merely effected a radical simplification of science. Error is really a “fool’s knot”. Moreover, the very tendency responsible for the entanglement is one of the necessary elements of the situation. Nothing is “wrong” in the end; and one cannot reach the “right” point of view without the aid of one’s particular “wrong” point. If we reject or alter the negative of a photograph we shall not get a perfect positive.
3This means, free from ideas, however excellent in themselves, which are foreign to it. For instance, literary interest has no proper place in a picture.
4Liber Al vel Legis, II, 61-68, where the details of the proper technique are discussed.
5The essence of this matter is that the word AUM, which expresses the course of Breath (spiritual life) from free utterance through controlled concentration to Silence, is transmuted by the creation of the compound letter MGN to replace M: that is, Silence is realized as passing into continuous ecstatic vibration, of the nature of “Love” under “Will” as shewn by MGN = 40 + 3 + 50 = 93 AGAPH, ThELHMA etc., and the whole word has the value of 100, Perfection Perfected, the Unity in completion, and equivalent to KR the conjunction of the essential male and
female principles.
6The “normal” intellect is incapable of these functions; a superior faculty must have been developed. As Zoroaster says: “Extend the void mind of thy soul to that Intelligible that thou mayst learn the Intelligible, because it subsisteth beyond Mind. Thou wilt not understand It as when understanding some common thing.”
7This corresponds to the emotional and metaphysical fog which is characteristic of the emergence of thought from homogeneity. The clear and concise differentiation of ideas marks the adult mind.
8See the maps “Minutum Mundum” in the Equinox I, 1, 2, & 3 and the general relations detailed in Liber 777, of which the most important columns are reprinted in Appendix V.
9For the account of these matters see The Equinox, Vol. I, “The Temple of Solomon the King”, Liber 418, Liber Aleph, “John St. John”, “The Urn”, and Book 4, Part IV.

10,000 Days and the Current-ride

// May 3rd, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

It’s happening again. TOOL releases an album and I find myself inside a ritual space. A bubble opens up and I become that which I am, underneath this worldly flesh. It invokes me. It invokes my True Will and allows me to bind once again to my consciousness. I feel like I’m walking around with scales under my skin, my eyes slits in the reptile vein. I feel honed. I feel focused. Yesterday while listening to 10,000 days, I had to pull over on the way to an appointment because the words started spewing out of my like they did five years ago after the release of Lateralus when I wrote “Entropy and Winter” and the “The Command Voice” and the “Däath Project.”

Thinly veiled magick disguised as music. Talented Shiva’s they are, those 4 known as TOOL. Now go on boys, go one and be the destroyers. Shake it up and cleanse our systems of our spiritual constipations.

TOOL – 10,000 Days….InLoveWithTheDarknessIHaveFound

// May 2nd, 2006 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I ran to BestBuy on my lunch hour to purchase the new TOOL release that I’ve been waiting 5 years for. Five years of playing Lateralus, Aenima, Opiate and Undertow. Five years of supplementing A Perfect Circle releases for my intravenous injection of pure, unadulterated TOOL, and today was the day of my release.

So, I scurry up to the store in my blackmagick mobile and swoop up a whole handful of 10,000 Days. Why a whole handful. Because TOOL fucking ROCKS! And they deserve more royalties. Hell, I think I’m going to pirate 100 copies and just mail a check to them for the retail price! Fuck the middle men. Fuck the distribution companies. Anyone who can create, produce and perform magick thinly veiled as music this well deserves a portion of my income! Tribute!!! I demand tribute be paid to the 4 they call TOOL.

I wasn’t the only one scooping up handfuls of the release. It was prominently placed on an end cap at the store and in the 5 minutes it took me to pick it up and run through the register I saw no less than a dozen quiet TOOLheads make their own purchase of the new release we’ve waited so long for. Then, in the parking lot the car parked next to me held a pudgy middle-management man or workerbee like myself, intently peering through the included stereographic glasses into the liner note images that come with 10,000 days. I beeped and held up my copy and got a understanding nod. Driving through the parking lot I heard more than one car with windows closed STILL rattling with the TOOL music as they munched their pre-packaged lunches before returning to work.

I’m only through two songs as I listed to this at my desk. I can’t even leave for food it is so good. I want to hear every note. Over and over and over… I’m in love with this darkness that I have found.

Thanks TOOL guys. Can’t wait to see you in the new year. Good job…again. Carry on. As it Is…So Be it! Love is the Law, Love Under Will. LVX / NOX