Green Alchemy

Can you use hops in green alchemy?

Today, on one of the Golden Dawn forums that I occasionally read, Steve Nichols asked if there was a way to substitute renewable substances for the toxic chemicals that are typically used in most of external lab alchemy.

Now, my long-time readers know that me and Steve do not get along. It is a combination of the fact that I am a card carrying member of Golden Dawn (honest, I carry cards that says that I am involved in the tradition) and the fact that I do not value his work with Enochian Chess and other esoteric games systems as highly as he does. In other words, it is for strictly business reasons that we do not get along; we are both writers working in conflicting areas of philosophy and magical practice---of course, we can barely stand one another.

But Steve is asking something that I have wondered about for years. Can we make alchemy more green and less toxic?

Honestly, I do not want to risk poisoning myself, the cats, or my wife. Nor do I want to worry about my god-daughter sneaking into my lab. There is also the little fact that the local police department (as well as the Feds) periodically do raids on meth labs and suspected terrorists---a mineral alchemy shopping list looks a hell-a-lot like a bomb or making list.

(It brings a whole new meaning to the term "turning lead into gold" when you stop and look at the bomb and meth "puffers," doesn't it?)

Now, I like to think that I do a certain amount of green alchemy already. I occasionally work at making plant tinctures. I typically use whatever herbs I can get to grow in my yard. I am forced to work with lemon balm a lot. Lemon balm might be a weed.

Of course, I am not a real alchemist because the lady who taught me my basic tincture making skills is not a card carrying alchemist who can trace her lineage back to the Ancient Egyptians. Therefore, my opinion that plant alchemy is green (planet friendly) alchemy is completely wrong. But it is my opinion.

Now, if I could only figure out something alchemical to do with the hops that doesn't end up tasting like beer.

Enochian Chess Piece Godforms

Given the comment about my cheap Enochian Chess set being almost tattwatic in nature, and Pat's comments about the godform polarity (something he realized though Enochian Chess), I thought this would be a good time to talk about another reason why I think it is a good idea to have a generic set of pieces.

One of the reasons that I like my simple set of pieces is that it allows one to associate whatever attributes one would like on the pieces without disturbing the focus of the other players. As long as you can agree on the elemental nature of the pieces, which in my opinion is the simplest set of attributions, you can play a game with each player seeing the game happening with whatever mental furniture they are most comfortable with.

So you can have one player just thinking of the pieces on the level of the subelements (just one step above Lesser Battle Formula), another using the court cards of the Tarot, and two others focusing on two different sets of godforms, and still have no apparent conflicts on the board that would distract any of the players.

Now some may ask what do I mean by two different set of godsforms? Isn't there just the official set?

Yes, there is just the official set if you believe that the Golden Dawn documents published by Regardie are perfect in every way (and all that there is to Golden Dawn). Could Mathers and Westcott, and all the other great dead Adepts, have gotten some stuff wrong?

If you open the door to the fact that they might not be perfect, you open the door to the possibility that the Enochian Chess papers might not be perfect.

For myself, I have been exposed to the possibility several times. I tend to attract Inner Order mentors that ask, "Do you believe everything you read?"---a lot. It may just be my happy cynicism that draws these people to me. Or maybe it is just something I need to hear---a lot.

There is also the fact that I have developed a strange operating quark. I was taught that you do things by the book until you know why they were done that particular way in the first place. But I am also someone who can feel energies. I am not as sensitive as many people, but the sensitivity does create situations where I do not understand the reason, yet I can feel that there is something wrong with the operating procedure. Often I have made a change, and later learned that I have changed it to the method being used by those who are lodge trained from even better lineages than mine.

It is this feeling of wrongness that have driven me more and more to the conclusion that the godforms of the Earth set are not right. The two pieces that are driving me nuts are the Knight and Bishop. The more I work with the traditional godforms for them, the more wrong they feel.

I will not go any further into this subject; the response I have gotten previously is that unless I have documents from some old dead guys to back it up, I am simply wrong. I prefer to go by my feeling and just imagine another set of godforms for these two pieces. And that is a really good reason for me to have a set that are just represented by the subelements and piece type rather than the full godform version.

Developing Enochian Chess

Last month, Frater A.I.T. of the HOGD/A&O posted a blog entry on Enochian Chess. In the entry, he asked the question about why we do not see more people playing (and perhaps developing) the game. At the time, I did not have the time to write down my own opinions about the issue...I forget who I was annoying that week, but I do remember that I kept getting sidetracked.

It is an old question.

Why do we not see more Golden Dawn students playing the game?

Regardie asked it.

A bunch of people asked it after the HOGD/A&O declared all the published material to be Outer Order. A lot of students thought that they would be playing Enochian Chess after making Zelator...funny, no one actually sees them around.

I know Enochian Chess Steve tried to get more people to play the game. He was quite impressed with the system; he thought it could replace the entire Golden Dawn/A&O system. It is just too bad that all the conversations he started ended up with him trying to sell you books and a membership in his course.

I do not know anyone who ever graduated from his course. I have heard both good and bad things about the Enochian Chess program that he sold.

I have tried to get people interested in the game...needless to say I have failed to spark any interest in the game.

Now I have kicked it around. I think that a large part of the problem lays with how Enochian Chess is taught, or rather not taught. The way we have Enochian Chess today and we first get exposed to it is much like being taught to swim by being thrown in the deep end of the pool.

(For the record, you can actually be taught to swim this way. I am proof. I am also proof that it makes a person not want to swim or go near any large bodies of water ever again.)

First, we get exposed to a system that was never developed. I know that the Mathers crowd is going to burn me for saying that, but I feel that is the truth. We do not see anyone develop the system until Chris Zalewski comes along. Of course, that book is out of print; my copy was brought used at a public library sale (the fact that it was being sold says that no one was ever checking the book out).

We are also expected to be a full-fledged Adept when we are exposed to it. As far as I can determine, the exact level the papers for the game was issued originally was at PAM (Practicus Adeptus Minor); later it was dropped down to ZAM (Zelator Adeptus Minor) when the higher Adept Minor subgrades were removed from the system by Mathers.

The game is occasionally mentioned by Pat Zalewski as a tool to study the polarity interaction of the Outer Order officers. This technique has been used by at least one of his students, but to what extent I am not sure of.

For divination purposes, Enochian Chess (I have been told) is the best system to use for figuring out how governments, businesses, sport teams are going to behave in the future.

Nevertheless, despite the importance of the game for these functions, I know maybe a half dozen people who have studied the game. And they are scattered all over---we would have to play by email (something that one of my cats would just love---he likes to wander off with the chess pieces).

Of course, it does not help that one has to spend hours analysising the game afterwards. Nor does it help that most people no longer play ordinary exoteric chess.

Now I have kicked around developing a couple of items for the game. One is the ugly subelemental chess piece set I made. Another thing I have attempted to do is to create a single (double sided) page set of rules for the game. Heck with throwing people in the deep end of the pool, we need a shallow end of the pool to begin people off in.

(Yeah, yeah, I know the HOGD/A&O has moved it all to Outer Order...you are aware that I am not a member of the HOGD/A&O, and I am still against the curriclum change?)

We need to introduce people to the Enochian Chess system the same way we teach them the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. First, we teach them the moves, slowingly adding more to the system as the previous lessons become automatic.

Of course, my idea will not be adapted...I am not a Third Order contact, not a super-Adept, or any of the other things that one would need to convince people to accept this course of action. But I can dream of the day when I can actually sit dwn and argue about Enochian Chess with someone as we play, can't I?

The cheapest set of Enochian Chess pieces ever!

I proud to own the cheapest and cheesiest set of Enochian Chess pieces ever! Ok, maybe they are not the cheapest and cheesiest, but they have to be in the running, right? I created them with a couple cheap plastic chess sets from Target, with some model paint used to color code them (I used green for earth because brown on brown did not stand out enough for my tastes which leans towards gaudy; plus there is some ZAM and THAM teachings that support the color scheme). I am fairly sure that the coloring pattern is self-explainatory.

Oath of secrecy

(Readers may want to note that this is in response to a yahoo group posting about an unfavorable Enochian Chess book review I did a couple of months ago. Those who are interested in my reaction as a book reviewer can read the entry on my writing blog. Under normal conditions, I wouldn't care to give this more time, but there was a point about secrecy that I think needs addressing.)

Today, the notorous Steve Nichols posted a comment on a couple of Yahoo groups about a recent unfavorable book review of his first Enochian Chess book. I am fairly sure that it was written by me; if not, I still feel some guilt about the one that I wrote. Nevertheless, he made one comment that I want to address.

(Actually two comments, but the response to the one {about his attempt to divorce Enochian Chess from Golden Dawn} can be summed up as "Prove that Enochian Chess was not a Golden Dawn invention.")

(Anyways...) Nichols said that "Polytheists such as myself, or Wiccans, or even atheists, cannot in all seriousness take any GD vows and oaths that are required. Personally, I think Oaths to be a bad thing on the whole, as they restrict freedom of the ba, and may not be appropriate to you at a later time when conditions in your life (or beliefs) might have changed from the time you made the Oath. Also the internecine politics of belonging to one or other of the modern GD factions can often make practitioners lose sight of the Work."

Say what?

Outside of the atheists (who I can not imagine being in Golden Dawn considering that they believe in no higher power, souls, or magic), the others can take the oath. Wiccans and polytheists have taken the oath to the Order, or tradition; I know because I have administered it to several. In fact, I am a polytheist and a Wiccan and I have taken the oath of obligation (I was already one when I swore my oath in Hathoor Temple, and they had no problem with administering the Neophyte, Portal, and Adept Minor oaths to me).

Those who view the oath of obligation as too restricting are the same people who view Satan in Paradise Lost (John Milton) as a hero, rather than the nasty envious toad that he is. (Not that I believe in Satan, but after spending half a semester reading it in literature class, I am going to get at least one reference out of it.)

The oath does not restrict you to remain in Golden Dawn for the rest of your life; if you want to leave, just quit paying your dues and quit practicing.

(As for the internecine politics, I agree with Nichols that it is terribly distracting. But you can study and practice the system without getting involved in that nonsense, so it is not proof enourgh to abolish the entire system.)

Another Enochian Chess Book Review

So I finally finished reviewing all the Enochian Chess books in my library. I saved my favorite one for last; it is just too bad that it is out of print.

Book Review: Enochian Chess of the Golden Dawn (Chris Zalewski)

I own a couple of other books that mention Enochain Chess; these I ignored, they did not suit the purpose of what I was up to.

I also did not review Regardie's publication of the Golden Dawn doucuments; I figure that everyone in Golden Dawn has one or both of these publications already.

I must admit that I am not surprised that there is so little published about Enochian Chess. Trying to convince a publisher to print a general Golden Dawn book is hard enough (students of Golden Dawn being a really small market); the number of people who play Enochian Chess probably only number in the hundreds, if that many.

If I missed any generally available Enochian Chess books, let me know. I know that there were a couple of small booklets and facsimiles that have also been published; but considering their small print runs, most students will never see a copy of them. I also presume that the Orders have their own lessons drawing off of this material, though it is debatable that there is anything new in them.

Ultimately, I would love to know where Westcott intended to go with the material. I presume that he had more stuff planned for this particular subsystem of Golden Dawn. As it stands now, I have only seen a few groups edge up to frontiers of this subject.

Enochian Chess Book Reviews

I have reviewed all the Enochian Chess Books that Steve Nichols has produced though Lulu (a Print on Demand service) over at Helium.

Enochian Chess (Book One): Foundations

Enochian Chess (Book Two): Practical

Enochian Chess (Book Three): Alpha et Omega

Enochian Chess Four Board Set