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.

Annual Blizzard Ritual

I got to perform the annual blizzard ritual this morning. Toni managed to get the car stuck at the end of the alley. Then I got to find cat litter to grit the road, and dig the car out.

So why do I call this a ritual?

Well, if I do not have enourgh cat litter (the non-clumping style), I get to take apart one (or both) of the Temple Pillars. For those who do not know, the Pillars I built are old four-by-fours placed in five gallon pickle buckets, painted black and white and weighed down with about ten pounds of cat litter each.

And this morning, that is exactly what I had to do. I chose to take apart the Black Pillar this time. I doubt that it means anything, outside of amusing me.

Snow Days 2009

The last couple of days, I have been snowed in. Oh, I could have gotten someplace if I really wanted to, but I am finding that as I grown older that the urge to brave the weather lessens every year.

I have discovered that you can tell a lot by how someone spends a snow day. In my case, I napped a lot. My wife, Toni, spent the day napping also (she thought she was coming down with some bug).

I could have spent it working, but my heart was not into it. The same goes for homework. I am still having days when I hear my sister's opinion of my entire life in my head (basically, she thinks that I am doing everything wrong and generally wasting my time while leeching off of others).

It is for that fact that I really do not feel guilty about not accomplishing anything on these snow days; after all, I am not expected to. There is also the little fact that I am doing National Novel Writing Month starting on November 1^st. I figure that considering that I am going to be attempting to write 50,000 words in thirty days, plus do everything else that I need to do in November, that a couple of naps while being snowed in are not the end of the world. In fact, I might actually earn them next month.

Early warning---most of my posts that I do in November are going to read: Day X of NaNoWriMo, Y words done, Z words to go.

If you are going to get burned…

Earlier this week on one of the forums, I got to watch (read) another episode of When GDers Attack! I wish I could say that I am surprised at what happened, but I am not.

For a long time, I have been watching the community break into various camps. It is natural. Get three human beings together and you get politics.

At this point in time, it has not hit the point where I would label it politics, but it is getting there.

Basically, what I am seeing is the up-and-comers not living up to the standards of the old guard, and the old guard saying it openly and loudly. The up-and-comers believe that the old guard is outdated, and have not a clue. And both sides are dragging out documents to prove it.

Now, I will admit that when I saw what the member of the old guard was complaining about that I agreed with the old guard. This time the up-and-coming member had fallen far from the mark.

If I was to give the up-and-coming some advice it would be: If you are going to get burned, go for broke! Push the envelope!

The worst that can happen is that you end up looking like a fool.

(Think about it using both ways of reading that sentence. Do you want to risk either? If so, go for broke!)

If you do not want to get burned in the Golden Dawn community, you keep your mouth shut. Anyone who opens their mouth is leaving themselves open to gasoline and matches; or rather venom and criticism…gasoline and matches would actually be easier to deal with.

The old guard is being attacked for being respected and in a position of authority. Every young punk with a copy of Regardie is trying to prove themselves smarter than the old guard (or Crowley, Mathers and Westcott if they think the living old guard amounts to nothing).

The up-and-comers are attacked in return. The up-and-comers are supposed to be the next generation of leaders and experts. And if they ever hope to have any real authority, they need to learn to push the envelope and not be happy with the standard that is currently in play.

Full disclosure: Did you notice that I did not mention any names? The reason for that was it was different set of people last week, and it will be another set of people next week. No matter when you read this post, it will remain current if I do not mention any actual names.

Quote of the day: Greer on signs and symbols

This is one of my favorite quotes.

A symbol...is an object of perception that is innately linked to a pattern of meaning. A sign...is an object of perception that has an arbitrary set of concepts assigned to it. The meaning of a symbol comes from the symbol's participation in the world of meaning and cannot be changed in any real way without changing the symbol itself at the deepest of levels. The meaning of a sign, by contrast, comes from nothing more than an agreement among those who make use of it. Equally, the meanings of a sign can normally be defined exactly, however complex the meaning may turn out to be. The meanings of a symbol, on the other hand, cannot be defined in so precise a way. They can be suggested and outlined, but because the symbol participates in a realm---the realm of meaning---that is not simply a product of human thinking and thus cannot be defined by human thought.

John Micheal Greer

Inside a Magical Lodge

(a book I quite enjoy and recommend)

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?

Attack of the know-it-alls

I must be getting old...not that I have ever thought of forty-four as old...but there have been a couple of times recently that I have wanted to yell at the younger (or maybe just inexperienced) members of the forums and mailing lists to get off their broomsticks and sit down and listen to the more experienced members of the community.

Of course, it may just be the fact that I belong to a different branch of the system (or perhaps it is a different flavor).

(For those of you who are curious, I am of the opinion that there are currently just three types of Golden Dawn [Regardie book based; Zalewski work based; and Griffin ultra-secret based]. I am probably wrong. This division also appears in pagan and wicca circles, though the names of the representives are different.)

What happens is that you get people strolling in who have read a couple of books, who want peer recognition, and they promptly tell everyone, including those who are actually working the system, that they are doing everything wrong.

The most amusing part is that they want all the more experienced members to tell them all of their secrets without putting anything on the table themselves, and they want the right to call these more experienced members wrong when the answers do not fit in their simple one layer (probably no work ever done) preconceptions of what the system is supposed to look like.

This is turn brings out the worst in the more experienced members, who so want to shout "get off my lawn"...it leads to even new experienced people who just discovered new groups to be treated like they just fell off the turnip cart.

Now here is what the newbies do not understand...peer recognition sucks.

Being recognized as someone who knows what they are doing gets you hated by those who want fame and recognition which leads to morons disagreeing with everything that you say. It also results in too many lawyers, complaints and complete nutters arriving on your doorstep.

Just say no to peer recognition and fame. It will save you a bunch of trouble later.