What is Archaeomancy?

I have a system of magic which I developed back in the 1980's and worked on through the 1990's that I called “Archaeomancy.” I was not the first person to use this obscure term, since it was bandied about by Michael Bertiaux when I knew him back in the late 1970's. He never actually defined it, and as far as I know never developed a system of magic out of his word-play. It left quite an impression on me, and led me later on to develop my own system of magic based on that single but fascinating word. Bertiaux was something of a creative genius when it came to dreaming up new systems of magic, and some of these ended up being quite detailed, amazing, and imaginative; others were just ideas that he spawned in the moment and never did anything with them. As far as I know, this was one of them.

The word Archaeomancy, as a contrived word,  seems to borrow the first part of archaeology, the study of early human history, with the Latin/Greek ending “mancy” (Greek manteia) which means prophecy or magic. The part of the word “archaeo” is from the Greek “arkhaios”, which means ancient or primeval, and the source of that word is “arkhe”, which means beginning. I would translate the word “arkhaiomanteia” as the primordial magic, or the magic of the source.

As I puzzled over this word for some time after I had heard Bertiaux mention it in passing, a few years later, I managed to come up with an operational definition of this word and how it could be applied to the study and practice of magic. I guess you could say that the term fascinated me and stuck in my mind. My realization was one of those peculiar moments when I felt that the divine had passed to me a vision of new magical lore, a state that I have successfully cultivated in myself. It seemed, as I defined it, that Archaeomancy would concern itself with the original magic of creation, the very process of emanation that fashioned the mysterious interlocking worlds that we consciously engage with today. It is the totality of our reality, the One, but it is also that which is beyond our reality, i.e., the source of everything itself.

Emanation, as defined by the Neoplatonists, is the process that fostered the original creation, but it also represents our thread-like connection to the One. Emanations travel from the source and return to the source, and we are revitalized by it from microsecond to microsecond, and the whole universe of consciousness is also revitalized in that same instantaneous moment. It is like a divine heartbeat that reverberates through the web of conscious being that connects everything. We are mostly unaware of it, just as we are unaware of our connection to everything else, except at rare peak moments when our conscious mind momentarily transcends our individuality.

This constant cycle from the singular source to infinite diversity, and then returning from infinite diversity again to the source, passes through a series of gateways or striated planes of being, or like spheres or rings of the ascending and descending granularity of consciousness. This gradation of being, from the monadic source to various levels of conscious being, from the highest to the lowest, has been depicted in models since the beginning of human thought. It represents our human condition of attempting to intellectually grasp what cannot be grasped with the mind, and that is the dimension of higher consciousness that is beyond definition and individuation. When we experience this transcendental reality, it produces in us a paranormal perception. We see a world where everything is united into a single beingness. It causes us to feel connected with everyone and everything, and its essence is a transcendental feeling of love, wholeness and completeness.

However, that path, which leads to such a brief vista of enlightenment, holds within it the veil of darkness and horrors produced by fear, hatred, rejection, despair, aloneness and meaninglessness. That veil of darkness must be pierced to behold the shining unity beyond it. Yet even beyond that domain of conscious unity is the apprehension of an ultimate essence, which is emptiness, but a state that has no fear nor awareness of separation. It is the ultimate state of conscious reality, and it lies beyond the subtle and the causal levels of being. It consists of overlapping veils of subtle light within a stygian realm of empty darkness.  Yet those overlapping veils lead to a final gateway that opens up to the infinite nothingness beyond. That is how we could perceive the limitless source, the point where everything as one becomes an infinite expanse of emptiness. We can find this kind of model or descriptions in the writings on Buddhist psychology, Neoplatonism, and the Qabalah (the model of the Ain Soph Aur).

Human beings have traveled through these planes and explored these worlds, and the most profound scriptures and fundamental religious and spiritual beliefs are based on a translation of them. Whether it is Enoch’s voyage through the stages of the heavens, or Dante’s visionary tour of heaven and hell, the voyage beyond the world as we know it has captured the mind of humanity. It is a fundamental process that likely began with the journey of the Shaman into and out of the World of Spirit. The Shamanic journey represents the earliest known ascent and descent from the ultimate source, which was characterized as the domain of the honored dead ancestors, messengers, deities, and spirits, and that it was the earliest archetypal representation for the magical system of Archaeomancy. The symbolic representation of this journey was the ascent up and down the world-tree, the place or location where everything converges - the midpoint gateway to the planes of the universe of consciousness.

This central converging locus or gateway has been represented as a great primordial tree in many traditions, but it could also be depicted as a singular great mountain, the heavenly worlds with a pearly gate, a ladder of lights, an elevator, a spiral stairway, or even a giant beanstalk or a great enchanted rope. The means of conveyance could be a magic horse (hobby horse), broom stick, winged boots or helm, a magical boat (the Argo) or a canoe, a magic carpet, a giant bird, or any flying wondrous creature. There would also need to be a guide or many guides, particularly an emissary who knows all and has been to all the places, high and low, which could be achieved through this method of egress. The shamanic magician who ascends and descends these planes would be a specific kind of spiritual traveler, and one who would converse and acquire wisdom in the form of tribal mythology and ancestral messages through the various emissaries that they might meet. They are a peerless group of individuals who have the ability to enter into the realm of dreams and the spirits of the dead and then return to the world of the living.

Many shamanic traditions hold the belief that the origin of the physical world and all it contains came from this shadowy world that exists in dream time. Likewise, occultists call this world the Inner Planes, and speculate that all spirituality and materiality has its origin and continued existence through it. To the ritual magician, the world of dreams is the source of all consciousness and meaning, whereas the physical world is the source of life and material existence. These two worlds merge to fortify each other, giving meaning to existence. Yet in our high-tech Western culture we have devalued and then forgotten this important world, and we have correspondingly abandoned the key to revivifying our cultural symbols and institutions. Through the distractions of the media we lose our myths and beliefs by their incessant trivial repetition, although some would maintain that media actually elaborates and keeps alive these tribal myths.

Ritual magicians seek to enter into the world of visions and dreams just as the primitive shaman to find the source of their spiritual being and to gain from it a profound spiritual renewal. When magicians accomplish this task, they harnesses a boundless creative resource and experience transcendent visions and inspirations. This causes a flood of creative images, emerging into their mind as new insights, mythic symbols, prophetic meanings and a renewed life significance. Ritual magicians are the unwitting pioneers who have re-opened the world of dreams purely for personal reasons, even so our modern world may be saved from its shedding of meaningfulness.

When magicians are exposed through ritual magic to this mental deep-structure, subtle body or collective consciousness, they experience an exalted form of personal transformation, revealing the very super symbolic level of conscious being. The methodology of Archaeomancy is revealed as the highest form of ritual magick that a magician can hope to experience, and the most effective in terms of transforming the reality of the magician. Ye it is also the most basic, fundamental, and simplistic mind state in regards to the essential formulations of individual being. Through this practice of Archaeomancy, our high-tech Western world can have an opportunity to be transformed and reborn into a new renaissance, if the techniques of Archaeomancy as practiced by ritual magicians become spiritually vogue.

The world of dreams and visions, also called the Inner Planes by occultists, is divided up into different domains, each autonomous but also joined together to form a powerful collective. For the purpose of ritual practice, the magician perceives two sets of domains or worlds within this collective, and these are based upon Qabalistic and Tarot symbolic structures. In whatever fashion the world of dreams is sliced and diced, it is still a collective and functions seemingly as a holistic entity, a unified sentient being, individually  responding to each person’s beliefs and perspectives. The magician realizes through these workings that this immanent feature of the Deity is a mystery little known in today’s world.

The system of Archaeomancy that I had envisioned uses as its foundation the Qabalah, and so the world tree or ladder of lights would be the Tree of Life itself, and the mechanism of travel would be the trance states, the various magical tools, relics, and artifacts, advanced ritual structures, and the holy and sacralized temple of the magician traveler; the emissaries would be the various angelic beings associated with the emanating planes of consciousness. Since a consecrated magic circle denotes a sacred boundary, then the world that it defines is the bridge and gateway that opens up into the Inner Planes.

I have determined that there are two perspectives and processes that function together in the art of Archaeomancy as I have developed it. The first is the Qabalah of the four worlds and the ten Sephiroth producing forty worlds, and the second would be the Qabalah of the eighteen spiritual dimensions. This first perspective is based on the traditional Qabalistic speculation that the ten Sephiroth are filtered through the Four Worlds of Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah and Assiah, producing the emanations of the forty worlds that formulate the Inner Planes. The second perspective is based on the teachings that I had received from the chiefs of the Nephilim, formulating a Tree of life that consists of the triangular shapes, which the paths produce when the Sephiroth are removed the diagram. The skeleton lattice structure of the Tree of Life reveals the eighteen dimensions that represent the mysterious essence and hidden source of the Qabalah, where all of its individuated powers, intelligences and directives converge to produce a single ultimate spiritual body of light and darkness.

The forty emanations correspond to the forty Pip cards of the Tarot and represent the structure of the Sephiroth within the four Archetypal Worlds. This is the quaternary structure of the Inner Planes, and is represented by the concept of forty worlds that are like topical places inhabited by various Gods, Angles, Daemons, spirits and symbolic beings. Each world is an enactment of the symbolic progression of spiritual transformation and physical manifestation. This means that each world imparts a separate mystery that tells the story (myth) of humanity's quest for spiritual realization and of the simultaneously occurring incarnation of Deity. Some of these myths are well represented by the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck, where the Pip cards have pictures of archetypal scenes or vignettes as if from some mystery play.

The forty worlds represent the main concourse of the Inner Planes and so contain most of the correspondences associated with ceremonial magic. The root of this symbolic matrix consists of the four Worlds, and these are analogous to the four Elements, representing the whole of the symbolism of the Tetramorph. The Tetramorph is the Qabalistic God-name (YHVH) and is the essence of all four-fold symbolism. The Tetramorph can also represent four element attributes of the Deity, which emanate from the One, demonstrating the multiplying effect of the emanation process. While the forty worlds represent the multiplicity of manifested being, they are resolved into a singular expression of Deity; and this is the relationship that naturally occurs between the Qabalah of the Four Worlds, and the ultimate source, the Unity of Being.

The Archaeomancy of the Forty Elemental Worlds is principally concerned with the invocation and evocation of the Angelic Rulers of the Thirty-six decans, as performed through the domain of the astrological decan. The decan, which is represented as a ten degree segment of the Zodiac, is the base for the definition of the Qabalistic World. There are thirty-six decans, and these correspond to a specific Qabalistic World as well as one of the thirty-six Pip cards of the Lesser Arcana of the Tarot. There are numerous other correspondences to these thirty-six decans, including the hosts of the Shemhemphorash and the daemons of the Goetia. The four element archetypes represent the highest and the most material expression of the forty worlds, which are the Element Godhead and the Elemental Kings. These four added to the thirty-six make for the complete domain of archaeomantic magic.

Through the mythic and symbolic representation of the astrological decans, the map of the Inner Planes, as associated with the elemental correspondences of the Qabalah, are defined and made accessible to the ritual magician. The decans represent the personal destiny of the magician, who is born in a place and a time, and therefore, is subject to their influences. When a magician accesses any of the thirty-six decans, it becomes a principal factor in the magician’s unfolding psychological transformation, and it promotes their ultimate spiritual evolution. It is the objective of the Archaeomancy of the forty Elemental Worlds to assist magicians in their release from the restrictions of a material existence, so that they shall be truly free and become the author of their own personal destiny.   

In the discipline of Spiritual Archaeomancy, there are sixteen triangular shapes and two trapezoidal geometric shapes, which reside just above the greater abyss between the supernal triad, and these are the eighteen dimensions. They are defined by the Sephiroth and the pathways that surround them, and also by the angular vectors of two paths proceeding out from a Sephirah. These are the powers, intelligences and directives that define each of the dimensions of the Tree of Life. What is required is for the magician as traveler or “psychonaut” to penetrate the membrane that covers this lattice for a specific dimension and to gain access to it, thereby achieving the revelation of the unified source that resides at the core of the Tree of Life.

Where did I learn about this different approach and perspective on the Tree of Life? I was shown this lore when I conjured the chiefs of the Nephilim in the early 1990's. They revealed the naked skeleton of the Tree in a vision. Examining this lattice structure of the Tree of Life, I was taught by the Nephilim that where two paths cross each other is defined a Sephirah, and also when two pathways cross, they break up into separate pathways. Thus, there are fifteen Sephiroth and 32 pathways in this new Qabalistic Tree, and the 56 angular vectors are called the Aethyrs of the Enochian system of magic, which surpasses the 30 Aethyrs that John Dee designated in his Enochian magic. The Aethyrs are the guardians of the gateway that leads into the egress of the dimension. Once within the dimension, the magician is exposed to all eighteen dimensions at once, although entering into the left-hand and then the right-hand dimensions, and then pulling them together produces an even greater empowered manifestation of deity-based consciousness to be experienced by the magician.

The Archaeomancy of the 18 Qabalistic Dimensions is the method of contacting, entering and assimilating the very facets of the teleological processes of the Deity, and so awakening the greater destiny of its associated individual sentient souls, i.e., magicians themselves. As a system of magic, it is used to assist magicians in determining their place in the greater destiny of the world, and by extension, within the cosmos of consciousness itself. While I had been developing the methods of Archaeomancy of the 40 Worlds during the 1980's, I did not add the second component, the Archaeomancy of the 18 Dimensions until the early 1990's, since it was taught to me through my dialogues with the four Chiefs of the Nephilim. I spent the whole of that period, from the early 1990's into the early 2000's working with this system of magic, seeking to enlarge and perfect it.

The profound transforming forces of the magical art of Archaeomancy affects two different yet vital areas in the development of the ritual magician. These are reflected in the personal destiny of the magician and their place in the scheme or design of the evolutionary pattern of the consciousness of the entire species. These two processes of Archaeomancy represent the microcosm and macrocosm of the ultimate effect and goal of ritual magic, that is, union with the Absolute Spirit in its form as the planetary Egregore. Archaeomancy is the ultimate discipline and practice of the high adept, particularly those who have conquered the lesser mysteries of the soul and have established the base of stability for the greater mysteries, which is the revelation of the Spirit of the Deity and its evolutionary process.

Thus, these two systems of magic, the Qabalah of the 40 Worlds and the Qabalah of the 18 Spiritual Dimensions represent the lore of Archaeomancy that I had developed and then used to work some truly profound ritual magical workings. Using the Qabalah of 40 Worlds, I was able to build a key of correspondences, which I called the Concourse of Powers and Intelligences that linked a host of angelic and demonic spirits together, and I was able to both conjure spirits, petition them for their wisdom, and enter into their domains to gain a powerful spiritual visionary kind of experience. Using the Qabalah of the 18 Spiritual Dimensions, I was able to enter into the domains that are at the core or the very source of  spiritual emanations, and traveled freely, guided by angelic emissaries, between the planes, like the heroes of old, and like Enoch, and later, Dante.

Since the magical system that I employ utilizes a form of energized immersion, where the gateways and the geometric prismatic energy structures are all internal to the magic circle, the magician is fully exposed to all that manifests and is realized in that symbolic domain. They are not outside looking in, as a person scrying would experience, but are actually inside looking deeper within. When an angel or demon is invoked, the magician is transported into their domain through the artifice of the magical ritual structures employed in this system of magic. Their only protection is their assumed godhead and spiritual alignment, because they are there, in that same archetypal spiritual world as the entity that they have summoned and invoked or evoked.

Because this system of magic uses an advanced energy system of magic to define and empower the ritual structures within the magic circle, what is conjured is also made fully manifest and tangible to the senses. This hybrid system of magic produces an experience of full immersion into the worlds or inner planes of both heaven and hell, the over planes and the underworld. Therefore, a series of magical structures layered one upon the other, to emulate the attribute of the lattice of a Qabalistic dimension, will actually expose the magician to the very essence of that domain once the rite has achieved its objective. Either technique of ritual magic will build energy structures and pass through gateways to enter into the world where resides either the spirit conjured or the dimension fully realized. Thus, these two magical systems are considerably more potent and profound in their operation and successful achievement than most other forms of magic.  

Both of these systems of magic are quite amazing, and the impact that they have on the magician traveler is to open up the domain of the spiritual source, and its associated states of enlightenment and perfect inspiration. Since I am a flawed mortal human, I could neither contain this heightened state of enlightenment permanently, nor translate its pristine wisdom into an accessible sacred writ. All I can do is to expound on the philosophical and metaphysical background to these systems of magic, and then reproduce the rituals that I used to achieve those results. I would then rely on others to perform these workings and to witness if they indeed produce the results that I claim they that they do. However, I am quite confident that these two systems of Archaeomancy will produce the results that I have stated, since I have exposed others to these workings and gained from their experience a high degree of objectivity.

This coming autumn, I will be writing up another book, and the subject matter is to be the two systems of Archaeomancy where I will compose a comprehensive background of information that helps to operationally define them, and then the ritual lore that is used to perform these two methodologies of magic. Most importantly, I will include a key of correspondences that will assist you in defining and categorizing the occult symbols and spirit lists needed to fully invest these systems of magic. Since this is a system that I still use today, I will present the latest versions of these rituals, thereby making them more relevant and up-to-date than they would be if I just used the lore that I had developed decades ago.

I will call this book “Liber Artis Archaeomancy” and I am really looking forward to writing this book in the autumn. When it is completed and finally in print, I think that you will find great use for this kind of magic in your collection of lore.

Frater Barrabbas

Living in a Stupid World

“You gotta remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land, the common clay of the New West, you know? Morons.” Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles

It is late spring, and an election year. The candidates for president have already been chosen, and on one side we have an aging but highly competent old-style Democratic politician, and on other side, we have Donald J. Trump. How that managed to happen is a mystery to me. It would appear that choosing an avowed anti-democratic, authoritarian, insurrection inciting, megalomaniac who threatens the United States, its constitution and democratic institutions to lead a major political party in the same country is acceptable to a large percentage of our population. I am, unfortunately, baffled by this sentiment espoused by my fellow Americans, and I can’t understand why they find democracy so loathsome and personally dangerous to them that they would want to abolish it?

However, behind the scenes and hyperbolic political rhetoric is the fact that these right-wing politicians are pandering to a group of citizens who feel that they alone are justified in changing the way that the nation governs from a constitutional representational republic to a single party autocracy just because they feel that their privileges are threatened (they are not), and that they are not getting the respect and empowerment that they righteously deserve. They appear to be willing to foment violence and insurrection to achieve their objective. Our nation’s government is supposed to be by the people and for the people, and that means all of them, not just a certain group. The fact that these individuals are predominantly Evangelical Christian (although, not all of them) who believe that their white, Christian, cis-gender privileges are under siege, and that they believe that their way of living and believing is the only correct way, is to me, quite disturbing.

Magicians, Witches, Pagans, Occultists and purveyors of alternative belief systems, philosophies and metaphysics have always been a vulnerable group. In Nazi Germany, they were rounded up and put into concentration camps along with Jews, Communists, regime detractors, intellectuals, gypsies, and other folks who did not fit the racial profile of the Aryan archetype. The Jews suffered greatly and millions of them were exterminated, but less known, so were many occultists, and metaphysical intellectuals, and members of occult societies. If someone felt that they should stand by their beliefs and principles, then they were liquidated with all of the other social outcasts. When I place my vote and perform my civic duty, this insight is foremost in my mind. I would never vote for anyone who would take away my rights to practice my religious beliefs as I see fit without intervention or interdiction by the government or some socially appointed proxy.

I see this distinction quite starkly, and I don’t need to ponder the political issues or play the role of both-siderism, as the MS press seems to happily to play, or pretend to be non-aligned, independent, unbiased or impartial. When I vote, I am voting for my own economic self-interests and my democratic principles, that all citizens are equal and deserve equal human rights, and that our right to worship as we see fit is one of the main rights that I strongly believe in. To equivocate or puzzle over minor disagreements is a complete waste of time. I know who can aptly represent me, and I know who is inimical to my religious and magical practices.

As I look at the upcoming election, there doesn’t seem to be any equivocation on my part. One party has abandoned democracy, and the other party has become its champion. I know that I will happily vote for all of the Democrats running in my locale, state and the nation. There is no guess work for me. I may not agree with all of the policies that the Democratic Party espouse, and I certainly have great misgivings about the role America is playing in the Israeli Gaza war, but overall, I am satisfied that their representatives will defend our constitution and preserve our democratic institutions. I will not vote for any Republicans, and I will urge all of my friends, family, neighbors and those sisters and brothers of the Craft to vote for the Democrats regardless of their differences of opinion on this policy or that principle.

In this election in November, we are deciding on what kind of country we are to become, a continuation with the democratic experiment begun over two hundred years ago, or the founding of a new religious autocracy, backed by a Christian religious oligarchy. I am not engaging in hyperbole, since Trump has stated his intentions for a second term of office. If he and his Republican minions win, there will likely not be another election, or there will be show elections where the outcome will be predetermined. Even if Trump loses, he promised not to respect the outcome, and we as a nation can expect some difficult times ahead even after his defeat.

This brings me to my great puzzlement. If I can see how one-sided this coming election is turning out, why is it that so many other of my fellow Americans can’t see it? Why are some of these people so against our representational democracy, the constitution, our laws, and the institutions that support this organization. One would think that anyone who was politically conservative would be most ardently interested in preserving the nation and its institutions as they currently exist. How have these people lost faith in such a successful experiment in governance that other nations have been copying it in some form or another ever since that faithful day when we became a nation governed by laws and institutions and not a nation governed by one or a few?

During most of my life, I associated political conservatism with the preservation of the nation and its institutions, and a robust and even macho engagement with the rest of the world, particularly the battle against Communism and the nations that supported it. While the Democratic party represented the introduction of socialism into our national fabric, which actually helped to make our nation more fair and economically balanced than it had been in the 19th century, they, too, engaged the world as a conflict between autocratic regimes and their proxies, and the free world. That was the ideal in regards to geopolitics, but the reality was a lot more dirty, unethical and complicated.

Democrats and Republicans, and even independents, had to compromise and work together to accomplish their goals. We were never about a single party having all of the power, at least not until the 1990's. It was Newt Gingrich who brought out the partisan perspective of polarization, that the other side of the aisle was somehow evil and had to be neutralized. That attitude grew and waxed under the direction of George W. Bush, but still, democracy persevered, although in a more partisan and polarized atmosphere.

When I think about what set off the conservative movement to the course of autocracy, I can readily point to Obama getting elected. The fact that a brilliant politician and statesman was readily elected president of the United States wasn’t a new event in our history. However, the fact that he was a black man and a Democrat set off a firestorm in the Republican party, and it brought together a lot of people who felt that the country had changed too much, and that something had to be done to protect the interests of white socially conservative religious people. It also activated racists, bigots, and those on the political fringe who felt left out and disfranchised by a country that was demographically changing, and where the population of white people was slowly becoming a minority.

These people believed that their privileges were somehow endangered by a liberal elite that actually had little power and the ability to influence the country. Liberalism has always been on the political fringe, and that most of the country was politically in the center between left and right. Where before conservatives had seen Communism as the enemy, they now saw their non-white, non Protestant Christian fellow citizens as the enemy. They believed that they were being persecuted and soon to be outnumbered, so with that in mind, democracy, even a representational democracy, seemed to allow too many other undesirable people to hold equal power with them. Of course, that is the basic premise of a democracy, it has to have equal representation and equality before the law, and a fair economic basis in order to be truly realized. Our nation is still working that out, but we at least have a foundation that has proven the test of over two hundred years. We don’t want to overthrow it. We just want to make it closer to achieving the ideals that it espouses.

All of this, of course, is just recent history. The fact that a black man can become president of the nation is proof that the ideals of democracy are working. It doesn’t mean that somehow things have gone awry. Yet that is how some people in our country saw the Obama presidency. Then, in 2016, a highly competent but much maligned politician, the wife of a former president (Hillary Clinton), ran against a so-called populist media personality with no governing experience (Donald Trump), and the populist surprisingly won. We suffered four years under the rule of a president and a party that had lost ability to compromise or work together as a nation, and who was an unqualified disaster as a world leader. It took two years for the current president, Joe Biden, to fix what the Trump presidency had damaged in our homes, communities and in the world abroad, and he has gotten very little credit for the enormous work that he and his cabinet has successfully accomplished.

Donald Trump is also a crook, pathological liar, and an affirmed sociopath and malignant narcissist. His presidential cabinet was the most corrupt in the history of the nation, and his misguided policies ensured that a world pandemic killed over a million Americans. When he lost the election in 2020, he and his minions attempted to thwart the peaceful transition of power, even fomenting an insurrection on January 6, when congress was supposed to certify the election results.  Now, with over 90 indictments for various crimes that he has been accused of committing, he is running again for the presidency with the full backing of his party and their constituents. All I can think about is why this is happening?

I understand that some people are afraid of the changing demographics, and that we are slowly becoming a more secular population that tolerates a diversity of viewpoints and personal perspectives. However, the very laws and institutions of our nation will continue to operate to ensure that people are represented and that their differences are respected. It has never been a perfect system, but it is a good system of government, and it should be continually updated and made more fair and balanced. As FDR said so many years ago, “The only thing that we have to fear is fear itself.” If we as a people can keep faith with our government, then we can be certain to continue our American experiment in a representational democracy.

Still, there is a movement in our nation to abolish our government and democratic principals for a single party autocracy, that it somehow will ensure that a white Protestant Christian minority will remain privileged and empowered. Of course, that won’t happen. Only an invested oligarchy and a compliant and fixed autocracy that serves it will benefit, and the lower class or poor Evangelical Christians will not be the beneficiaries. We, the little people, will get screwed over in that brave new world, and those who are not social conservatives will end up in concentration camps, along with illegal foreigners, LGBTQ folks, liberals, non-Christians, and other undesirables, and that includes me. Everyone else who survives will live a very diminished existence, with no legal representation or rights.  

Certainly, there is enough recent historical accounts that should help anyone who is considering such a change to rethink their priorities. We spent several years fighting against fascism in the world, and decades after that fighting autocracies in a cold war. How is it that today there are people in our nation who are attracted to abolishing our government for a single party autocratic theocracy?

The answer to this question is that there are a lot of misinformed, low-information, intellectually challenged people living in our country, and most of them are white. They are, in a word, stupid people. What can we do about stupid people? We can try to talk to them, and we can certainly listen to them, but at some point, we need to point out the terrible flaws in their logic and show them a rational alternative. We can help them, certainly, but they have to get out of their habit of   epistemic closure, and they need to relearn to use deductive reasoning and acquiring an open and curious mind.

Meanwhile, stupidity does cause a lot damage, and it can be undone, particularly at the ballot box. Despite Trump’s popularity during these hyper polarized political times we live in, my hope is the he and his party are thoroughly trounced this autumn, and also in subsequent elections. If enough people reject this kind of political and religious revisionism, then it will decline in popularity and adherence. This is a powerful conflict to root out mass-stupidity wherever it exists, and it is something that afflicts not only our country, but other parts of the world as well. We live in an age where stupid people have the power to undo all the good that has been accomplished in the last 100 years, and since they are easily duped by unscrupulous leaders, we have the populous of fools being blindly led by leaders, who are actually quite stupid themselves.

I hope that my belief that knowledge and wisdom will overcome stupidity and selfish ignorance in our nation and our world will show signs of happening starting in November and proceeding onward into the future.

Frater Barrabbas

Being an Unfamous Author

 

The Lonely Path: All substance and no bling.

Now that I am going to conventions again, and will be attending at least two of them next year, I can say honestly that I don’t stick out in the crowd of Witches and Pagans that gather to attend these events. I feel at home with the folks who are attending, but I don’t appear to be impressive or socially outgoing to their eyes. Even though I now have over twelve books that will be published and in print by May of next year, I don’t get noticed much and I can walk the convention hallways as an anonymous individual. My books contain a lot of advanced lore, but I have also published a book for beginners, so I have covered all of the bases. I am, as you may know, a deep and detailed writer and my magical tech is outside the spectrum of what many others are writings books about. I am, in a word, all substance and no bling. Like a really good occult book, the cover is bland, careworn, and unassuming, but the contents are quite controversial and highly useful.

Going against the grain has been something of a personal point of pride for me, and I can say that I have certainly mellowed over the decades. When I was a young man, I thrived on following a different path, and it seemed almost kind of defiant in how I expressed it. While I have steadfastly followed my own internal spiritual and magical directives regardless of what was popular or exciting at the time, I have often found myself alone on my path. I have no regrets about this state, since that is the only thing I know how to do. While others bask in the lime light of pagan and wiccan notoriety, I have quietly continued the work, advancing my lore from one ordeal to another, following a path that has taken decades to materialize. Some of these famous folks shine at events, even sparkle, and stand out from the crowd of feral or gothic looking pagans and witches. Yet I am hardly noticed, and in some way, I find that delicious.

At one time, many years ago, I sought that kind of attention from my peers, but I seldom achieved it. I was never good at acting or pretending to be someone that I wasn’t, and I was a poor deceiver, story-teller and liar, so I gave up trying that approach in my early twenties. I learned to be just myself, and that seemed to make my life a lot less dramatic and complicated. Over time, I learned to prefer a peaceful life devoid of people who seemed to love drama and conflict. I saw it as a distraction, and ultimately found ways of removing people like that from my life. Trust me when I say there seemed to be a lot of drama queens and kings in my pagan and wiccan life even as few as fifteen years ago, but happily, those people are completely gone from my life.

When I encountered other seekers, I would share what I knew with them, but only if they asked me. I felt that it was important to mind my own business, and that everyone had a right to their path and process. I believed that it was wrong to intervene in someone’s life unless they asked me to intervene. I had no secret, hidden agenda and I wasn’t looking to gain anything from them, nor did I seek to selfishly get something for myself. I was not looking to exploit anyone or get rich and famous through my contacts. I had a good job and was comfortably well-off, so I had no need to slavishly promote myself as a teacher or someone famous and unique. I just continued to do that work, and in the last few years, I developed a talent to organize my magical technology and write it up into books. Just a decade ago, I would not have been able to write books like I am able to do now. I learned that skill because my Gods and Goddesses expected me to share my knowledge with the public so that I might add, even in a small way, to the overall lore available to those who might find it important and useful - whoever they might be.

Please don’t misunderstand me. There are individuals out there in our community who have a great wealth of knowledge and experience, and who effectively teach their lore to others. Some of them are popular and well known, others, not so much.  However, these same individuals are promoting a fairly deep and advanced spiritual and magical perspective. Like me, they are path-finders and those who have passed on new and creative approaches, vitalizing our heritage as witches, pagans and ritual magicians. If you are one of these people, there is no need for me to identify you, since your work alone stands as a source of wisdom for many people. I believe that I am one of these people, but we are often overlooked because we appear bland and mundane, or odd and strange in an unappealing manner. We are not attractive, stylish, socially graced or sometimes, even noticeable. Still, we are the quiet ones in the background, but we have knowledge, gifts, visions and insights that make the flashy big name pagans or witches seem shallow and without substance by comparison.

When I was young, I was an overly self-conscious, insecure, occult nerd who was never included as one of the beautiful or popular people. In high school and college, I was such an odd-ball that in many cases, I was actually socially shunned. I wanted to be one of the beautiful people and shine and sparkle in people’s eyes, but the truth is that I was plain, socially awkward, and I appeared least likely to be a success by my peers. When I attempted to be flamboyant, I was more a topic of derision and laughter. While my childhood was difficult, my adulthood was even more difficult. Over time I gave up any pretensions or ego-based promotions and settled down to a decades long path of magical development. I was a seriously boring person, except to a few who actually saw any value in the magical work that I was performing.

When I first started to write books, and had published two, “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick” and “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” I decided to engage through the internet with my supposed peer group. The actual magical lore that I was working at the time was quite advanced, such as the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal, but at this stage of my writing career I was not able to write about those advanced topics because my writing skills were poor. Besides, I felt that I needed to set some kind of foundation for how I worked magic so that the public would be able to understand the more complex workings that I was actually engaged in at that time.

I found myself involved in a great deal of controversy, arguments, back-stabbing, even name calling. I had unwittingly gotten involved with David Griffin and that opened the door to all kinds of crazy interactions with folks. This kind of nonsense reached a kind of apex when it became apparent to me that engaging with DG and his version of the Golden Dawn was a great mistake. He was not the master he thought himself to be, he was quite delusional and aggressive towards his peers and even his supposed allies.

Once I broke all ties with him, things became peaceful again, and I realized that not being in the midst of controversy was actually a blessing. I have taken this as a great object lesson and I have moved forward from those times with a hard won wisdom. What I learned was simple, it was actually better to not be too well known and famous because it invited a lot drama and assignations with people I would rather not be socially involved with.

I moved away from the Twin Cities and its burgeoning pagan and occult population to settle in Richmond, Virginia, and then a year later, Covid struck and I became completely isolated. During that time of very limited contact with people, which has only ended last year, I managed to write eight books. What that tells me is that getting too engaged with the public is probably a distraction that I don’t need, but being isolated is not a good option either. So, I am gradually becoming more accessible, going to conventions, giving classes and writing articles, but the period of isolation has done its trick, since I am out of the limited limelight that I had been exposed to back several years ago. I have found that I have more time, peacefulness, and the ability to pick and choose where I go and with whom I engage.

I have witnessed what notoriety is like, and I have seen the presumptuousness and ego trips of various big name pagans and witches over the decades. I am glad that I can say that I am not a member of that group. I prefer the solitude of my life and the ability to work without having to respond to various critics or arm-chair witches, pagans or ceremonial magicians. I have happily left that behind, but I still continue to do the work. There are more books to write and lore to share with whoever finds it useful or helpful, and there are new areas to research and explore. I have a full life, but I don’t have to answer to my fans or my foes, and that is the secret to my happiness and fulfillment.

Frater Barrabbas