Quote of the day: What is an esoteric Order?

Today's quote is actually from myself. I was asking a question over on the Helium community boards. After spending several hours trying to figure out the answer to a FTC disclosure question (the one that Griffin made me think about), I decided to just ask writers and the administration there. Explaining the situation, I mentioned the fact that both parties involved belonged to esoteric Orders, which meant that I needed to define the term (I am assuming that most people there have no clue).

So here is my latest definition of esoteric Order:

For those who do not know what an esoteric Order is, think church with mysterious lore.

So what definition are you using? (Please post as a comment.)

Adepts do not have to be nice

Last night, I was reading some messages from one of the many Golden Dawn yahoo forums that I belong to. And someone (an Adept) made a comment that another person promptly labeled as "not being nice."

I found myself wondering when exactly did people start expecting Adepts to be nice. Where are people getting this idea from?

None of the Adepts that I have ever encountered can be labelled nice. Especially if you are determined to be an idiot. They will come right out and tell you exactly what they think.

And that was exactly what was happening in this particular discussion. Someone was proving that they had the IQ score of a squash, and some Adept called them on it. It was not nice, but it was the truth.

I have even seen people say that if you are not nice and super-polite, then you are not a real Adept.

I cannot think of a single teaching off the top of my head that would require an Adept to be nice. So can anyone point out to me the source of this silly idea?

(And yes, I said that I find the idea that Adepts must be nice to be a silly idea. Heavens knows that my Inner Order sponsor was not nice when I was being stupid.)

Happy Solistice!

I would like to wish all my blog readers:

Happy Solistice! May the coming year bring you Health, Wealth and Love!

Laughing at the Unlikely

There are times that I am rude---as in I cannot help but laugh out loud at some people. There is also the urge to mock them, or at least say the first thing that crosses my mind.

I had one of those moments today. I was reading the messages from one of the Golden Dawn yahoo forums. There is a discussion about diagrams going on.

One of the participants is someone that I have classified as a borderline troll...they are very much into proving that they are always right, and that they have greater understanding of Golden Dawn than the rest of us do. This one likes to twist definitions to the point that you can drive a semi-truck though the argument and not hit the broad side of wrong.

But today was absolutely precious. One of the people who responded to this person said that he had obviously never been in a Vault.

And the troll replied, "One does not need to be inside a Vault. Unless one does not know how to create a vault in one's own mind."

After I got done wiping soda off of my monitor, I told my wife why I was laughing so hard. She also suspects that he is a pure troll. She has seen the work I have done with our local Vault project...she is the one in the background saying that we cannot use that color because it is just ugly.

Now, I am not saying that it is impossible to create a Vault in one's own mind. I am saying that it is unlikely. And if this person is capable of doing it, I have to ask why they are slumming among us mere mortals.

I have done some work at building up a mental construct of the Vault of the Adepts. And I have came to the conclusion that few people are going to attempt to get past the visualization of a single generic wall. It is just easier to actually build a physical Vault in my less than humble opinion.

So for this person to imply that they have created a mental construct of the Vault of the Adepts means one of two things: either they are a troll or they are Third Order slumming with the unworthy. I know which square I placing my bet in.

Pagan prayer for the busy season

Ok, this is a lift from the Colorado Pagan Yahoo Forum; it was posted by Teresa n'ha-Pagani.

White Lady and her Consort, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lady and Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

White Lady and her Consort, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

So Mote It Be!

In love with being an authority

I had an interesting conversation with one of my fellow lodge members the other day. We were putting back together the pillar that I had to take apart during the last heavy snow day---yes, I know that it is bad to leave the pillar undone that long, but it is a two person job to get it back together. We found ourselves talking about one of the local members of the esoteric community and his recent behavior.

There were the standard sexual no-no that was committed, just one more proof that perhaps sex and esoteric traditions have no place standing by one another. Or perhaps it is proof that we need to understand these energies in an esoteric content; it is easy to mistake certain types of links between people as being sexual in nature.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about the whole sexual mystery issue. Nevertheless, you never want to suspect that someone set up their group merely so that they could get laid.

Important fact---this person is not a member of Golden Dawn. In fact, they feel that Golden Dawn has nothing to offer them which brings us to the behavior that they indulge in that I want to talk about.

They have a bad case of being in love with being an authority.

For those of us in the esoteric field, this is not a good disease to catch. We have enourgh temptations already without this one, temptations that threaten to bloat up our egos like sickly toads.

In the case of this person, he is arrogant already (not as arrogant as the person who told me that he was the only person in Colorado qualified to teach ceremonial magic, but close). He has bounced from one tradition to another. And he always ends up starting a group, to teach his lastest passion to others.

A few years ago, I rubbed shoulders with him in a group; we were briefly members of the same system for awhile. I decided that I could not work with him for extended periods; the feeling was mutually returned. In my case, he was teaching that any technique not in the original documents was improper. Being a modern student of the mysteries, I was using some techniques that I picked up elsewhere; as long as they produced results, I could care less if people a thousand years or more ago did not know or use the techinques. He also has never mentioned a single living teacher...his knowledge is all his own brilliant decoding of old books.

(I am not sure why he does not want to work with me...class clown, dangerous experiments, the willingness to question and talk back---take your pick.)

And being arrogant, he believes that his knowledge about one system qualifies him to criticize another tradition. He has actually walked out of public rituals, during the middle of them while loudly saying that the people doing the ritual knew nothing about the system that they were working. This is one of those people who do not realize that it is near impossible to raise a decent amount of energy in public ritual, and that some of us do not care to become a Ph.D. in the history of our traditions---sometimes you just want an entertaining ritual and could care less if one of the Ancients would understand it.

But talking to my friend, I realized that I had misjudged the man. I always thourght that he was smarter than I was (though I managed to aviod the icky sexual misbehavior), and perhaps more spiritiually advanced. This is what I had been blaming his behavior on; I thought that he had higher standards than I did. Now, I realize that his behavior can be explained by him simply being in love with being an authority.

The sad part is that I know several other teachers and leaders that also fall under the same disease. Well, I guess it takes all types.

And for the record, I am not in love with being an authority. I am just a hack writer, who loves the sound of their own voice. I am happy being a follower as long as I am allowed to exhibit my ADHD in a loud and obnoxious manner. For me, the height of the estoeric tradition is being a student---it is just too much work to be an authority figure.

Constructing the hundred by hundred celled magic square Part 1

Back in June, I did a quick book review of Ninevah Shadrach's Magic Squares and the Tree of Life: Western Mandalas of Power. At the time, I gave it a split rating: one for beginners and one for more advanced magicians (as always there is that question of who I am really writing for).

The review was based on first impressions. Occult books are not easy to review, especially if one wants to remain in the zone of timely. To do a proper review, one that would be suitable for including in a journal (peer-reviewed, rewritten, fact-checked, etc.), one would actually have to work their way though an entire occult book, doing the work, researching the writer's sources, and waiting for the results.

All reviews of occult books are well below journal-level, with the possible exceptations of reviewers who got the privilege of working with the rough draft of a book (more time spent with the book equals a better review). You can look at the sections that are similar to the techniques that you have experience with and estimate what is going to work and what makes sense, but beyond that you are just guessing. Even blurbs on the back of the books are suspect (there is economics involved here).

So when I did my review of MS&TOL, I stated that I was going to reserve the right to revise my opinion after working with the hundred celled square for awhile. Well, it was a long summer (my schedule was not exactly under my own control) and an even longer university semester; I am just now getting to the point of starting to create the magic square.

Now, I will admit that I agreed with some of the comments I got on the review that I should have only focused on clearness of the instructions and the power of the squares themselves. But to do a timely review required a quick guess of what your average occultist was willing to do. It is only now that I have time to construct one of the squares to work with it.

(An interesting side-note is that some people believe that you should only do timely book reviews, and never do some of the types of reviews I do----this completely ignores one of the most profitable sections of the occult book market: the used book section. It also ignores the fact that there is now a thriving pdf library of old, out-of-print occult works, including a massive pdf of a 666 page book; personally I would like to know if a book is worth downloading and reading before doing so, for more than one reason.)

Now that I am preparing to create one (or more) of these massive squares, I am having thoughts about the book I did not have before.

The primary thought that has been obsessing me for the last few days is: Where I am going to find a piece of paper big enourgh to do this square which is still light enourgh that it can be folded down into a reasonable size? There is also the matter of clearing off a workspace for the project.

I have a piece of poster board. It is not light enourgh for my purposes. And even if it was, it is still not big enourgh.

Yes, I said a piece of poster board is not big enourgh. At least, not for me.

It is only 55 centimeters across. Kicking it down to 50 centimeters because I do not own a yardstick (meterstick) with fine enourgh markings to deal with smaller units, that leaves me with a cell of only a half centimeter.

At this point, anyone who has worked with me in lodge, or who has seen my handwriting, knows that I need a bigger piece of paper. There is no way I am going to be able to write some of these numbers into a half centimeter by half centimeter cell.

The only solutions that I can think of at the moment (outside of wondering if there is not a coded version of the personal sized square) is to wonder if they make rolls of paper the width that I need. (I thought of doing it on fabric [silk maybe], but budget constraints and my lack of fabric painting skill will make it a non-possibility at this time.)

There is also the question of how thick this will be when it is folded. For those who did not do the extra credit in mathematics, a piece of paper rapidly becomes impossible to fold. Paper also becomes extremely thick when folded repeatedly. I do not want to wear a fannypack to carry around a magic square. I am not sure that they make onion-skin paper in the size I need.

Note: None of this was a glimmer in my mind when I did my original review of this book. I wonder how many average magicians would even consider proceeding once they discovered this particular problem.