A Tale of Two Nations or One Nation Divided

Election day has passed, and the results are as fearful and ignominious as the political pundits predicted it would be if Trump were reelected. While I was surprised at the results, I wasn’t really shocked. I had already written an article recently about how we live in a world of stupid people. My opinion was corroborated by an interesting exit poll that was performed during the election. The results are quite easy to understand.

“According to the final NBC News poll of the 2024 race, 76% of registered voters said they follow public affairs and politics closely. The poll showed Harris winning among that group by 5 points over Donald Trump, 52%-47%.

But among the remaining quarter of voters who said they don’t follow politics closely, Trump was ahead by a much greater margin — 14 points, 54%-40%.”

What this exit poll indicates is that those who were engaged and followed public affairs voted to elect Harris as president, and not Donald Trump. While this an aggregate poll, it is likely to have helped Harris to win the battle-ground states and to be the president-elect. The other group couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to what was happening, and they didn’t seem to be disturbed by Trump and the fact that he was a convicted felon, attributed rapist, twice impeached, and attempted to overthrow the last election, as well as held and misused classified documents, jeopardizing our national security. This is a candidate who declared that he would order to set up detention camps for illegal aliens, sneered at the idea of upholding the constitution, and promised to function as a dictator on the first day of his presidency if elected. All of these items would have killed anyone else’s candidacy, and even the factor that he will soon be 80 years old and is obviously suffering from the beginnings of dementia did nothing to deter these low information voters from voting for him. The fact that Biden was pressured to drop out because of his age demonstrates how Trump always gets a pass for his speeches and weird behavior.

I am not questioning the intelligence of those who voted for him, but I am calling to attention their obvious lack of civic responsibility. Some of them ardently belong to the Trump cult of personality, and some of them are hardened right-wing aficionados or Christian Nationalists, but that would be only be around 30% of the electorate, so the rest are just plain too busy living their lives to really engage with their civic duty to be informed. Yes, in a word, these people are ignorant, and they are selfishly motivated to be this way. I can only hope that they rue the day they voted for Trump as president, and then, maybe if it's not too late, get more involved in knowing what is really happening to their country.

We are all going to be victimized by an angry, aggrieved Trump and his cadre of lick-spittle lackeys, but as for those who unwittingly voted for Trump, they bought it and they now own it. Hopefully, they will actually realize their folly so that things can be rectified in the next two election cycles. I won’t hold my breath expecting that to happen anytime soon, but I can at least hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

As you can no doubt see, I belong to the first group of people who are engaged and follow public affairs and politics closely. I live in a media world where I get my information from a number of different news sources including ones from Europe. Yet it seems that I live in a different country and hold ideas and beliefs that represent a stark contrast to what the average American believes.

My fellow Americans have always lionized the country hick, the urban troglodyte, and the hosts of average although stupid people as the “common man” over the intellectual, the academic, or the expert. In American culture, common sense was always considered to be of greater value than what was believed or expressed by scientists, academics, and experts, who have been classified as elitists. Uneducated folks were seen to possess common sense in greater amounts than those who were highly educated, and that being average and ill informed was a badge of honor. I believe that it is now revealed as our Achilles heel, and being ill informed in the advent of the cyber age is likely suicidal.

Americans seem to mistrust mainstream news outlets, and although they are all biased to some degree, using critical thinking skills can extract the truth from the bias. News that is based on conspiracy theories, deliberate misinformation, inexpert opinions, hearsay or propaganda is not so easily parsed, especially if one possesses a woefully inadequate base of knowledge. In fact, it appears that most Americans are getting their news these days from news influencers instead of accredited news sources. Here is an interesting study of that phenomenon by Pew Research.

“A unique Pew Research Center study provides a deeper understanding of both the makeup of the news influencer universe and its audience. The project includes an in-depth examination of a sample of 500 popular news influencers and the content they produce, derived from a review of more than 28,000 social media accounts. We also conducted a nationally representative survey of Americans to better understand who regularly gets news from news influencers.

Key findings about news influencers

•    About one-in-five Americans – including a much higher share of adults under 30 (37%) – say they regularly get news from influencers on social media.
•    News influencers are most likely to be found on the social media site X, where 85% have a presence. But many also are on other social media sites, such as Instagram (where 50% have an account) and YouTube (44%).
•    Slightly more news influencers explicitly identify as Republican, conservative or pro-Donald Trump (27% of news influencers) than Democratic, liberal or pro-Kamala Harris (21%).
•    A clear majority of news influencers are men (63%).
•    Most (77%) have no affiliation or background with a news organization.”

I can tell you with all sincerity that I don’t trust news influencers, and in fact I use a factual and skeptical approach to viewing the news. Still, a large percentage of Americans get their news from You Tube, X, Instagram, Google News, Tiktok, or various other obviously tainted right-wing sources too numerous to list here. It has been suggested that reading and listening to news sources that are misleading or completely spurious can dumb-down a population. People who watch Fox News are so less informed than others who watch other networks and that they seem to be less intelligent over time. This kind of misinformation noise will make a national public less able to perform their civic duty, such as voting as a properly informed public, if one bothers to vote at all.

This is a calamity that is happening right now for all to see. And the biggest victims are young, single men, who are showing themselves as being the most gullible for hard right-wing propaganda. These are a group of people who over-all are less educated and underemployed, but who consume the internet media at a greater level than anyone else. They are also more likely to be single without much chance of finding a partner, and also having the means to buying their own home. What they have going for them is that they are W.A.S.P.s, and so there is a desperate need to maintain and expand their entitlement and white privilege, and Neo Nazi groups are happy to oblige and make them feel valued and important. They also get a nod from Donald Trump who they assume is like them. He has become a role model for what the underemployed white males see as the definition of a rich, entitled, and powerful man. Elon Musk is the same kind of role model for them, even though the very wealthy did not start out as poor folk. They had the benefits of being born into a position and were given financial help that greatly aided their pursuit of wealth and power.

All of these factors played a role in helping to elect Trump to a second term. Biden was poorly represented in the news, and his accomplishments and competent governance were fully ignored. Biden probably should have declared himself a one term president and then allowed the Democrats to vote for his replacement, instead of bowing out after undue pressure and giving his running mate only a hundred days to run for office. So some of the blame goes to Biden for making some poor choices and not promoting his accomplishments. The Democratic Party was also to blame for not promoting all of the things that they did during the last two terms to help the American people.

Exit polls showed that people had made up their mind much earlier about who they were going to vote for in the election, and that the electorate was angry about Covid19, the post pandemic inflation hike, the border crisis caused mostly by the instability in Venezuela and Haiti, and of course, the war in Gaza and Lebanon. It created a perfect storm of bad press for Biden, and dropped his approval levels to the high 30's. While Harris sought to overcome that headwind, she was not successful, largely due to a press that devalued her abilities and contributions. However, the greatest amount of blame goes to the low information and disengaged idiots who voted for Trump. Despite everything that went against Biden, and later Harris, Trump represented a far, far worse choice. And my stupid American brothers and sisters went ahead and voted for him because of various, unsupported and spurious reasons. They were angry, afraid, and blamed the incumbents, especially Democrats, and spitefully voted them out of office in sufficient numbers to give the Republicans a ruling trifecta. What awaits our nation will only truly benefit the oligarchy, the rest of us are going to be screwed royally.  

So why am I writing yet another politically inspired diatribe about the latest election that so dismayed me? Does it make any difference to the practice of magic, occultism, and being a Witch and a religiously polytheistic person? As a well-paid IT professional, will I feel the effects of four more years of the nihilistic wing of the Republican Party? The answer to all of those questions is a definitive yes! I am writing because I am concerned about our future nation, one which I love and respect, but also acknowledge as flawed and a work-in-progress. I believe that four years of Trump will be an even greater disaster than the first four years. My only hope is that his inherent incompetence and laziness, and the feckless stupidity of his minions, will attempt a grand scheme to make this country into a one party state, but who will fail in the end. I fervently hope that the incoming regime has only two years to do its worst before the midterms shut them down.

Those are my hopes, but my “hopium” has been severely challenged over the last ten years in a way that I never imagined it would. It is based on my optimistic belief in humanity and my fellow Americans. It is with this in mind that I face a future that is potentially darker and more desperate than I believed it would be, just because of one man and his sick, vindictive, and delusional pursuits, all in the name of making the world a better place just for him.

Still, millions of people voted for Trump and the Republican party, and the will of the people is now known. Many think that Trump is the lesser evil in our political civil war between the two parties. They see the Democrats as elitists and out of touch with the common folk, even though there are many of us, such as myself, who are not at all elitist who voted for them as the obvious choice. Trump has made his dystopian world view quite plain, and his plans for rectifying the ills of an imaginary failing country that doesn’t even exist will be far worse than the world we have at present. Many think that nothing really bad will happen, and that the Democrats have painted Trump as some kind of vicious and vile autocrat, when he is just an entertaining politician who likes to say crazy shit to shock the liberals. I disagree, it will be as bad or worse for the next two years, and maybe slightly better in the next two years, and maybe we will recover after the Trump presidency has finally ended. Democrats are always having to clean up the mess that Republicans make when attempting to govern. I hope that there is still be some semblance of a representational democracy in this nation when the Democrats get back into power.

So, just in case you still don’t believe that a Trump presidency will impact you and your family very much and you might be thinking that I am being too pessimistic about the future of our nation in the hands of Trump and his minions. Here is something to think about, and it’s coming to us all starting early next year.

“Trump has named three deportation hardliners to key positions in his administration, including Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy, Kristi Noem for secretary of Homeland Security and Tom Homan as ‘border czar.’  

Miller is likely to be especially influential and especially brutal. [...]

...even ‘documented’ immigrants will not be safe, because Miller has declared that he will pursue the seldom-used process of ‘denaturalization’ to go after people who have been citizens for years or decades, based on suspicions about purported fraud on their naturalization applications. Individuals stripped of citizenship will then be subject to deportation along with Miller’s other targets.”

Everyone knows that immigrants and illegal aliens who work in this country take the jobs that nobody either wants or can manage on the very low wages that they are paid. Agriculture, construction, food processing, cleaning, janitorial and low-level maintenance, and many other jobs are performed by these people who faithfully perform these low paying jobs and don’t represent a threat to anyone. Take them out of the economy and you have some pretty steep inflation, when commodities, construction, cleaning and maintenance become too expensive or non-existent. Add tariffs into this toxic brew and you have a recipe for a very heavily impacted economy, certainly a recession, but maybe even a depression. Angry because of previous inflationary prices? A Trump economy might actually make prices drop after they go sky high, but by then no one will be able to afford the basics except for the rich.

This is just a preview of what is in store for us next year. Trump will have two years of unlimited power before the body politic realizes their mistake and punishes the Republican incumbents and possibly, changes the balance of power in Washington. A blue wave for the mid-terms would likely become a tsunami at the end of Trump’s final term in office. It is doubtful that anyone can replace him, and it is likely that the worst elements of our population will crawl back into the woodwork where they came. I can at least hope that is the outcome we will experience. Yet living with such stupid fellow Americans has taught me that the best possible outcome will likely be diluted or nonexistent as the siege of online disinformation continues without any kind of mitigation, and people become less curious and more ignorant.

Until that time of reckoning, I will live in one world, founded on facts, critical thinking, skepticism, and rational reasoning. It is a world of inclusion, love, unity, diversity, tolerance, and freedom; where my freedoms are guarded and guaranteed by government institutions and the fourth estate. My other fellow Americans will live in world founded on lies, epistemic closure, conspiracy beliefs, fear, loathing the “other,” exclusion, White Supremacy, bigotry, racism, misogyny, and unfounded hatred. It is a tale of two countries, divided by the ideals of light and darkness, compassion and anger. I believe that my concept of America will win over the other, darker and dystopian version; but what is left after four years of Trump, and how readily the damage will be fixed, is the great undecided question.

If this evil that “we the people” have evoked onto ourselves continues after Trump is gone, then those who are not white Christian Nationalists or their religious allies will find themselves in grave jeopardy and may have to either leave this once great country, or suffer unwarranted persecution, imprisonment and even execution. You’ve been warned, the outcome of our future is in the hands of stupid people, so let’s help them to understand that the future could be bright if we unite and give up fear and darkness and embrace the greater good.

Frater Barrabbas

Dreams and Mysterious Teachings

A couple of nights ago I had a strange dream that occurred during the morning before waking for the day. This is not unusual for me because I have been a lucid dreamer since I was a child. However, only rarely do I receive creditable magical lore during that period of lucid dreaming, and that morning I got something really quite interesting given to me by sources unknown. This might also have to do with the interaction that I have had with Lee, my acquisition’s editor at Cross Crow Books, who has guided me to add non-gendered roles and attributes to older rituals that did not previously have such considerations. The idea of non-gendered energy fields may have come from that interaction.

I dreamt that I was with some local Witches and Pagans, and they were obviously complex gendered, and I wanted to help them perform magic in an outdoor grove. And one of them asked me, “Can you work with non-gendered energy, because that is what we will be seeking to generate?” I had to pause because I have been a proponent of magical energies gendered as archetypal masculine and feminine, which I referred to in my writings as creative and receptive. However, after a moment’s hesitation, I replied, “I think that I can do that”, and joined them in generating power in a grove compass round. I modified my approach and successfully emulated what they were doing and worked with them to generate a field of energy in the grove. Then I began to wake up, and I heard a voice in my head tell me, “This is how you would do this kind of activity using a ritual structure in your system of magic.”

Then as I awoke, I saw a ritual structure appear in my mind, and I was quite amazed how simple and obvious it was, and that I had never thought about using such a ritual structure in any of my workings. It was a new kind of hybrid vortex that uses invoking pentagram devices set to the four angles, but set in such a way that they canceled each other out, producing a kind of void or neutral energy field. Needless to say, I was quite intrigued and excited by this revelation. I guess you could accurately define me as being a kind of occult nerd or witchy dude who gets excited by a newly discovered ritual pattern. Sort of like a butterfly or coin collector encountering a wholly new specimen. Because I use a methodology that allows for many different kinds of combinations of devices and patterns structured within an eight-point magic circle, there are likely many variations that I have not attempted or even imagined.

So, the ritual pattern outline that I dreamed up with would look a lot like this example.

1. Operator proceeds to the Southeast Angle and with the dagger, draws an obverse invoking pentagram of Air and projects into it a yellow energy.
2. Operator proceeds to the Southwest Angle and draws an obverse invoking pentagram of Fire and projects into it a red energy.
3. Operator proceeds to the Northwest Angle and draws an inverted invoking pentagram of Water and projects into it an indigo energy.
4. Operator proceeds to the Northeast Angle and draws an inverted invoking pentagram of Earth and projects into it a dark green energy.
5. Then the operator goes to the altar and replaces the dagger with the sword. They proceed to the Northeast Angle and draw a line of power from there to the center of the circle in the nadir. They proceed to Northwest Angle and do the same, then to the Southwest, and the Southeast, and do the same. Operator draws a Rose Ankh and projects it into the center of the circle. Operator returns to the altar and exchanges the sword for a staff.
6. Finally, the operator proceeds to the Northeast Angle and begins to circumambulate a spiral into the center of the circle, starting in the outer periphery of the circle proceeding widdershins inwardly, passing the Northeastern Angle three times and then standing in the center of the circle, where they place the staff fully erected in the center. They project an energy field from the tip of the staff down into the nadir of the circle. The subject of a healing or spirit extract would also stand in the center of the circle and place their hands on the staff, and then sink to a seated position, still holding onto the staff. They would remain in this position until they felt relieved of their burden.

Ending the rite would consist of performing sealing spirals to the four angles and the center of the circle to seal up the rite. Once sealed, the rite would never be recalled to ensure the finality of the working.

The resultant energy field generated by the empowered vortex is pulled down into nadir, and the polarity of elemental energies cancels each other out, producing a non-gendered and non-spirit based magical power. If you think about the flow of energy in this ritual structure, then you can see that the energy polarizes and cancels out in the center and is drawn down into the singularity of the vortex at the nadir. This structure is similar to having four mirrors directed at each other across a circle of light with a drain in the bottom. It is the perfect description of a spirit trap, where unwanted energies, entities or internal psychic disruptions are extracted and grounded into the earth. One could place a piece of black obsidian or an onyx stone in the center of the circle to act as a crystal-based collector.

So what would a practitioner do with such a ritual device? It would have many functional uses, and some of these would be an exorcism chamber, an uncrossing device, a curse extractor and a powerful calming and restoring energy field. I call it a spirit bottle, since an entity that is possessing a human body would be forced to remain in the circle when that body moved through the vortex, and the spirit would be pulled down into the singularity and deposited into the collector. The collector could be a crystal, but it could also be bottle containing a liquid fluid energy condenser, such as what Bardon, in his books, has formulated. The contents of the bottle could be periodically pored into the earth and then buried, and then the liquid fluid energy condenser would be refreshed.

This is quite a powerful psychic healing ritual structure, but it could be integrated with other ritual structures and a spiritual theme to build a completed working. Still, a neutral energy field is not possible without using the polarities of the four elements combined, and spirit, as associated with the invoking pentagram has a creative and receptive quality to it, so it wouldn’t be neutral unless both were combined together.

However, spirit, undefined has no gender, and an undefined energy not associated with the four elements also would have no gender if it were conceptualized as such. The root mystery of a magical energy that has no gender defines the essential formlessness of emptiness, which is the ultimate transcendental quality of the ultimate causal condition, according to Buddhism.

Frater Barrabbas

Politics Influences Magical Practitioners

Once again we find ourselves participating in an election where the potential impact is existential to our republic. Yes, DJT has not disappeared after being fired by most of the American people almost four years ago. He has persisted simply because it is the most rewarding grift that he has been able to pull off. Why stop doing something that can make him so much money, and if he succeeds to regain the presidency, he could also eliminate most of his legal problems as well. It might even be possible that he could end our republic and replace it with an oligarchy governed authoritarian regime. While Trump himself is a cunning, unintelligent, and ruthless tyrant, he has individuals around him who more than make up for his errant stupidity. Still, at least 46% of the population will vote for him, and due to the electoral process, he might even win.

I have asked myself the question that is why do so many people like Donald Trump and would vote for him when he represents everything that is against the principals, norms and legal precepts of a representational democracy? He doesn’t care anything for those who are powerless and without material wealth, including his ardent followers. He is a typical rich asshole, and is only interested in those who could transactionally benefit him. He is the kind of lout that the fathers of our country worried about when they were formulating our republic and writing the constitution.

I have discovered for myself that the reason why some folks are MAGA adherents is because they find Trump and his over-the-top outrageous statements to be a great source of entertainment. They know that he isn’t a politician, but they identify with his grievances, paranoia, and fear, and they laugh at his crazy and deluded statements. He is a presidential version of the TV show “The Apprentice” and as long as the MAGA crowd is entertained, they will believe his lies, delusions and despicable racist and misogynist rantings. He is their mirror, and they see themselves in his beliefs and actions. He is also incredibly lucky and has been able to avoid self-destruction and incarceration through the most amazing occurrences and the help of various friends, allies and a system that favors the rich and famous.

However, I think that this time, Trump’s luck and being fortune’s favorite will fail to help him to regain his role as a world leader and banish the consequences of his illegal activities and felonious proclivities. I believe that Trump will fail to be elected president again, and he will then succumb to the various indictments that have been levied against him for his nefarious activities. Trump will fall, but he will also cause many others to fall with him. He may even bring down the entire Republican party. Of course, that is not a reason to be complacent, we need to ensure that this event does happen.

Meanwhile, between now and then, before that pivotal moment which I believe will trigger Trump’s fall, there is something of a concerning and nail-biting period of worry and insecurity. This is because, I, as a ritual magician and a practicing and even public Witch, have much to be deeply concerned and worried about a potential Trump electoral victory. Thinking about the nation remade by Trump’s minions is a fearful exercise, since I am one of the vulnerable populations living in our country. This change, and the institution of Project 2025, will profoundly affect many people, but occultists, pagans, witches and magicians will be especially vulnerable to a renewal of persecution and even forms of penal punishments. I suspect that those who are part of the various LGBTQ communities and other minorities will also suffer under a Trump regime. That is why we must as a group, vote against Trump and the entirety of the Republican Party and act as if each our votes are critically important, because truth be told, they are.

If you think that Trump’s rhetoric is just an empty threat, and that the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has been disowned by him, you should seriously rethink your position. In 2016, after Trump won the election, the Heritage Foundation came out with a set of directives in a document named “2016 Mandate for Leadership” and Trump’s administration managed to institute over two thirds of those directives. It is inconceivable that Trump would ignore the directives of 2025, since they were developed by his former administration officials and were guided by Trumps beliefs and rhetoric. Project 2025 is a vision of a MAGA American where there is little or no room for those of us who do not represent the ultraconservative mainstream. Let me quote a paragraph written by Beau Breslin from the Boston Globe, who has pretty much defined what that remaking of a MAGA America would look like, influenced by Project 2025.

“If actualized, Project 2025 envisions a nation where abortion is universally outlawed, free exercise of religion is enjoyed only by certain worshippers [sic], procedural safeguards for the accused are relaxed, previously protected categories of speech are reconsidered, diversity initiatives are forbidden, environmentally conscious programs are shuttered, same-sex couples are threatened, drag shows are banned, and true stories of our racist past are ignored. It’s not a pretty place for the tens of millions of citizens whose identities are affected, or for the tens of millions more who align with these voiceless neighbors.”

Of course, I would consider myself amongst those ten of millions whose identities are affected and have been made voiceless by a vicious, ruthless, and aggressive ultraconservative minority. Anyone who espouses or practices an occult, pagan or witchcraft tradition would be highly vulnerable to this theocratic regime. It is like the book “Handmaid’s Tale” where a pluralistic nation becomes a theocratic religious tyranny. While that might be extreme, it is what the majority of the Supreme Court envisages for our nation, and it is what Project 2025 is vigorously seeking to promote, which is a unitarian president with the total powers of authoritarianism. Wittingly or unwittingly, they all seek the end of our democratic republic, because somehow, democracy is bad, especially when your party loses.

You might be asking yourself, why does Trump seek to undue the bonds of democracy and put into its place a religious autocracy? The strange truth is that Trump doesn’t care or even understand the nature of the job of a unitarian president. He is seeking the abrogation of his many indictments and his own enrichment. For Trump, it is personal and transactional. He will leave the hard part of governing and dismantling the laws and powers of the constitution of the United States to others simply because he wants to be kept an unaccountable, powerful and a wealthy oligarch. He has proven himself to be a failure at every business venture that he has undertaken except one, the grift and empowerment of a corrupt and power-hungry political minority that is the Republican Party. Trump has broken that political party, and he intends to break our democratic republic, all simply for the power to help himself to the wealth of this nation.

I know that some who call themselves Pagans, Witches, Magicians, Mystics, or Occultists find politics to be worldly and boring, that both parties seem to be the same and therefore, they do not engage and vote as a way of expressing their disdain for all forms of politics. However, the last three elections, including this one, have been quite different. Not voting, or voting for the Republicans and therefore, voting for Trump goes against our steadfast requirement for freedom of religion and the press, which would protect us from unwanted prosecution. If Trump gets reelected, you can be certain that those rights will disappear for anyone who is not the proper kind of religious adherent. It might even affect Jews, Mormons, Catholics, and anyone else who is not a member of a conservative Protestant Christian church. It will certainly impact those of us who are not members of that kind of ultraconservative Christian movement.

Then there is the positive messages of Harris and Waltz, with the hope and freedom that such an alternative choice offers us. The difference is quite stark! On one hand is a dystopian failed nation state full of grievances and the desire for racist redetermination and ethnic cleansing, and on the other hand, a nation that has a place for everyone, including immigrants, and treats everyone equally, allowing for diversity, freedom of speech and religious practice. The choice is really that simple. I am not saying that there are problems and issues both within our country and in how we deal with the world, but at least with Harris and Waltz, there will be the opportunity to make our nation and the world a better place. With Trump, that is not a possibility, as he has made abundantly clear in his various rally rants and word-salad speeches.

So, we need to step up and vote! I have already voted, but I would like my sisters and brothers to vote when they can and help move the nation past the dark vision and potential tyranny of Donald J. Trump. Never give in to complacency, cynicism, or disdain for politics, since our freedoms depend on being vigilant and active.

Frater Barrabbas

Swamp Mystics Mini Con and Liber Nephilim

I was honored last week to attend the second annual Swamp Mystics mini convention in Tallahassee, FL. They asked me to be the headliner for the gathering, and I agreed. This was an event put on by my friends Erich and Alannah, who I have known for many years. I had initiated Erich into the Order of the Gnostic Star back in the early 1990's before I moved to Santa Fe, and I gave him the complete library of magical rituals and lore associated with that organization. I have periodically given him updates so that he has been one of the few individuals that has been privy to my work, both as a ritual magician and a founding member of the Order. Over the many years of our friendly exchange, Erich is one of the few individuals who has continued to develop his own techniques and methodologies based on the lore of the Order. In fact, of all the individuals who have been involved with the lore of the E.S.S.G., he is the only one who is currently active and using this lore in an adapted form.

While I had lived in Tallahassee from 1990 to 1994, I had performed nearly all of the workings associated with the conjuration of the Nephilim in my rented townhouse located on Keily Run, off of Old St. Augustine road on the southeast side of town. I met Eric during the last year of my residence in that town, and he was a most apt and precocious student. Since that time, Erich and his wife Alannah have formed the Temple of Limitless Light and brought the practice of ritual magic in vogue in the area of the panhandle of Florida. Swamp Mystics was an idea that they hatched a year previously, and it had been a very successful event, so they decided to promote a bigger venue this year. The event was located at a spacious Air B&B mansion that was generously sponsored by the owner, who was also deeply interested in magic and the occult. You can find the link for the event here, and see what was planned and the speakers who contributed to its success.

True to its theme and location, it rained off and on for the entire period of my visit to Tallahassee. My wife and I did not see the sun or blue skies until we were almost to the airport in Jacksonville on our return drive. We had opted to fly into Jacksonville and then rent a car to travel to Tallahassee, which was a lot cheaper than flying directly. The wet and the rain didn’t succeed in dampening the spirit of the occasion because there were several major speakers at the event, and we were buoyed by the exchange of ideas and by the demonstration of magic that occurred every day that we were there. We adapted to the rainy periods, and the beautiful mansion that where we stayed gave us refuge from the rain when it occurred.

This visit was kind of a home coming for me, although the folks that I met were not the same folks that I knew back when I lived in Tallahassee. Except for Erich and Alannah, everyone was someone new that I had not met before, but because of Eric, they knew about me. As the headliner with both a discussion/lecture and a ritual to perform, I was quite busily engaged and was only able to attend a few of the classes that were offered. However, on Friday night and Saturday night there were intense rituals performed, the first night by Erich, Alannah and the speakers, and the second night, I performed the Mass of the Great Goddess. On Friday night, a series of rituals were performed using the Archetypal Gate ritual to invoke the archangel Raziel, and this was performed outdoors in a covered stage that overlooked the pool in the gated back yard. The property was large, consisting of many acres that included a blue berry farm and many old oak trees covered in Spanish moss. In this beautiful and haunting space we shared our lore and performed magic to enrich the experience of the event.

When the invocation of Raziel was completed, I felt the presence of the archangel, who I had invoked many times in the past, particularly for the most powerful ordeals that I had performed in the previous years. He touched my mind and we shared some past experiences, and then he asked me in a kindly and humorous fashion, “What have you done, Barrabbas? What have you unleashed by publishing your works?” His question was not an interrogation, but a reminder that I had been challenged with the task years ago to present my methodologies and magical lore to the public, and I was now successfully completing that task. Liber Nephilim was now in print, and I had arranged for fifteen copies to be mailed to the event. In February, my book Abramelin Lunar Ordeal would be published, making that methodology available to my reading public for the first time. All of this lore was the most advanced magical techniques that I had developed, and much of it was developed in Tallahassee over 30 years ago. I was returning to the place where it all began, except that now I had revised the magical lore so that it could be performed by any experienced occultist or magician.

On Saturday evening I performed the Mass of the Great Goddess inside the mansion foyer and front room to a goodly sized crowd of attendees. I hadn’t said this Mass rite over seven years, and in fact, I was still in my wintering stage, so I had doubts about my ability to perform this ritual working. I even suggested that it be skipped to Alannah because the timing was running late and our bellies were full of good food. However, I was told that this ritual was a very important part of the event, so I had to persevere and perform it. By the time it started, I felt less full of food and able to perform this rite. Eric and Alannah, and the attendees performed the circle consecration and a Rose Ankh vortex rite, and then the focus shifted to me. I had set up a makeshift altar that was approximately the correct size, and I had variations on the standard mass kit to work with.

While I had doubted that I would have the stamina to perform this extended Mass rite, I surprised myself by performing it with more power and ability than I had assumed I possessed. I not only impressed my audience, but I impressed myself! The Mass was said with the greatest magical power and precision that I have ever performed it. I stumbled over a few of the barbarous words of evocation while saying the introit, but overall, it was a magnificent presentation, and I was in awe of what I had done. I had believed that due to age and lack of practice that I would perform this rite poorly, but as it turned out, I had so many years of magical practice in my past, and so much untapped energy that I was able to connect with the powers and inspiration that I had believed were long dormant. That event opened my eyes to the fact that I was not yet over the hill, and in time, I would have the opportunity to perform more workings and ordeals before the day when I would be truly retired, incapable or simply dead.

Swamp Mystics mini convention was only for one day, but I had another task on the following evening. I had discussed with Alannah the possibility of initiating her into the Alexandrian tradition of Witchcraft, giving her both first and second degree initiations in a hybrid of the traditional Lexie initiation that would allow her to assume the role of a priestess and be able to initiate men into the craft. When she would have elevated a male practitioner to the same degree as herself, she could perform the great rite and be a fully vested third-degree Witch. I left that task in her hands, but a second degree Witch priestess can be given full authority to initiate and run a coven. Additionally, I gave her the complete set of lineage documents for my Alexandrian line, which amounted to over 800 pages of written lore and history. I am handing my Witchcraft lineage off to women that I believe are worthy of this investiture so that it will continue on after I am no longer in this world. It is part of my task to distribute my legacy to worthy individuals, and I will continue to do this work while I still have the strength and stamina to do it.

Alannah’s initiation was performed in Eric’s small but efficient temple in the home they share, and we had the privilege to work this rite with two other people from New Orleans, Erich and my wife. The rite was performed effectively and even smoothly, and the end result produced a very charged and empowered Alannah. I had successfully passed my Witchcraft lineage to her, and now she can function as both a ritual magician of the Order of the Gnostic Star and also as an Alexandrian Witch Priestess. Giving this lineage to her was significant to me, because it was the one thing that I had not yet passed on to the town that I once called home, but now, all my magical and spiritual lore are fully grounded in the wonderful and mysterious location of Tallahassee. It is my hope that others in that community will be able to engage and share in the twin lineages that I have placed there. It is a legacy that will continue to bless and empower others as they further extend their magical and spiritual process.

Overall, I felt that the mini convention of Swamp Mystics was a great success. It was very magical, but the people were friendly and fun to be with. I also happened to sell a lot of my books, and Liber Nephilim was so successfully promoted that there was only one book left in that set of fifteen. I felt that the people in that location were ready to engage with my more advanced lore, and that the Temple of Limitless Light had done a lot of work to help folks get to that point of instruction. Returning to this place after so many years was an important stage in my own magical and spiritual process. I was reminded that after decades of magical work and study, I still have the capability to work powerful magical rituals and ceremonies, and that although I am no longer young or even middle aged, I remain a competent practitioner of the magical arts.

Frater Barrabbas

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

Foundation of the Four Ecclesias in the Order of the Gnostic Star

 

Gnosis, in its more modern definition, and the four Ecclesias, temples, or churches are a feature of much of the inner order work of the Order of the Gnostic Star. It is used in most of the ordeals and workings that span the fourth-degree through the seventh, and even beyond into the mythical eighth-degree. However, there was very little documentation that defined this archetypal structure, nor any kind of explanation as to its importance and how it fits into the Order’s symbolic correspondences.

I have written this article to help to define the four Ecclesias and to show their importance and ubiquity within the workings of the Order. I believe, however, that what has precedence in the Order can certainly be applied to other traditions and be shown to have a universal utility in the Western Mystery tradition. I will need to define the term gnosis in how it is used in modern ritual magic, and also discuss the four archetypal religious and magical philosophies that underlie nearly everything that is associated with the practice of ritual magic. Gnosis is an important key, as anyone can imagine, and it does not relate well to the gnostic beliefs of late antiquity - this is a break with the past representing a uniquely modern approach.

Since the pattern of four and five in occult correspondences has a wide association with nearly every aspect of occult philosophy and magic, extending it to qualified philosophical approaches and developing liturgical and magical rites and rituals to accommodate them has been the approach that the Order had taken to best represent the full spectrum of its ordeals and practices. This body of lore, grouped under each of the four Ecclesias, are called sacramentaries, which is the name used by the early Christian church to designate the book of rites and liturgies used to celebrate the full practical application of the clerical elite. The Order has picked this definition for the works associated with the four Ecclesias, and an extensive body of lore was developed to support them.

Introduction - What is Gnosis to Ritual Magicians?

The academic study of Gnosticism examines the beliefs and practices of the various groups and institutions in late antiquity that were based on the tenets of Neoplatonism and Neopythagorianism, which later produced the medieval philosophical systems of the Jewish Kabbalah, Christian and Islamic Hermeticism, practical and esoteric astrology, ceremonial magic, alchemy and occultism. Those who practice these arts today owe a great debt to the brilliant minds who built and developed them, although many of their names and identities are obscured or lost in the passage of time. However, classical Gnosticism, as practiced by the Sethians, the students of Valentinus, Marcion, Simon Magus, or a myriad of others, proposed that nature was corrupt and the source of evil in the world because it was formulated by a flawed and deluded godhead who was not the originator of the perfect spiritual creation called the Pleroma or Fullness. The myths of the Hebrew Bible were turned upside down in an antinomian exposition that was both startling and bizarre to later accepted orthodox theologies.

This antinomian perspective produced a kind of dualistic theology that promoted spirit over matter and thereby rejected the material world and its predicaments. The spiritual nature of humanity was believed to be trapped in the material world and needed to be redeemed so that it could escape the material world and the tyranny of the Demiurge, the deluded godhead who kept it imprisoned. While we can understand and perhaps appreciate the perspectives of the Gnostics of antiquity and realize that Neoplatonic Christianity, which produced these variations, had many different theologies and spiritual perspectives in its genesis, in our modern world occultists need a completely different approach that is more in tune with our post modern world. This is particularly true for those who espouse an earth-based spirituality. It is also important to subscribe to an occult philosophy that is ultimately non-dual, positive, constructive and life-affirming.

A question that must be answered, however, is whether the concept of gnosis, as it was defined in late antiquity is still relevant today. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word gnosis in the following manner.

Gnosis - “esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation”

The Greek definition of the word gnosis is ‘knowledge’ yet it was defined as a special kind of knowledge, and it was considered a mystical knowledge based on direct experience with the divine. I believe that this definition is still relevant, especially if we understand that mystical or esoteric knowledge is something that a person must fully experience in order to realize it. This is not the kind of knowledge that can be conveyed by books or teachers. It must be experienced by the individual, and therefore, it is very subjective, individual, intimate, and inexplicable. Perhaps this is why the writings of the Gnostics were so difficult to understand or unusual, since they were based on individual visionary experiences of divine revelations.

I would define gnosis in the following manner. Gnosis is defined as the intuitive apperception of Spirit and its Mystery. While it is based on the beliefs, training, and prior experiences that the individual undergoing gnosis possesses, it is also characterized by new insights, visions and revelations that ultimately instruct one with newly acquired ideas and translations of existing knowledge. While gnosis might seem to be the proclivity of the mystic or the spiritual seeker, it is also within the purview of the ritual magician who is practicing any kind of theurgistic magic involving Deity. A magical engagement of Deity will produce the realization of gnosis in the experiential field of the ritual magician. In fact, for any kind of progressive initiatory process that a ritual magician might be engaged in, whether traditional or extemporaneous, gnosis will be a key part of their practice and spiritual process.

I believe that gnosis is an important key in the practice of ritual magic because it is revelatory, instructive, progressive, and leads to the development of new lore and expanded practices. It is for this reason that all my magical workings, initiations, philosophy and foundational beliefs are involved with forms of personal gnosis that are used to stimulate growth and produce a greater understanding of oneself and the world at large. It is important to experience gnosis in magical workings and ordeals, but it is also important to analyze, examine, and where possible, corroborate those revelations and insights with what is already known, whether in books, traditional teachings, or the affirmation of peer review.

Revelation of the Four Gnostic Philosophies

My own repeated gnostic experiences engaging with Deity in my magical workings have revealed to me a simple philosophy that has allowed me to organize the various religious and occult perspectives of the Western Mystery tradition into a simple set of binary structures. All of these are based on the fundamental modern Pagan perspective that existence on this planet represents the interaction and confluence of light and darkness, life and death. It is also determined by the idea of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It is the joining of the archetypal masculine and feminine to produce both the offspring of creation and the essence of union, however brief, to emulate the greater mystery. All polarities resolve themselves into union, and union is the source of all polarities. There is the One, there is the None, and there are the Many, and they are connected in a web of conscious meaning and significance. It is the nature of the process of material nature and spirit, which both emanate from a common source.

This process is known as the way of all things, and it is called the Tao (path or way) in Chinese philosophy, whose origins can be traced to religious philosophies of Darshan (insight into the nature of reality) in India. This is analogous to the concept of the Prisca Theologica that developed out of the study of Hermeticism during the Renaissance. What these different perspectives have in common is that there is a source to everything that is intrinsic, essential to nature and spirit, and that it is found where all things converge in union into a singular One, which is changeless, immutable and all pervading. It is the particular phenomenon of the material and spiritual universes, and it is invested in the consciousness of all sentience.

With these basic principles in mind, the domains of religion, mysticism, and magic can be seen as a simple four-fold distinction. These are exemplified as polarities, even dualities, although they are ultimately dissolved into the One.

Therefore, Life is contrasted to Death. Individual Will is contrasted to Sodality, and these four ideas represent four distinct spiritual perspectives that are archetypal and occur in combination in the religions of the West, and perhaps also in the World.

I have given the name to the religious philosophy of Life as Eros, representing the elements of procreation, ecstasy, material bounty, and the mystery of creation and birth. Eros is the philosophical and religious celebration of life in all its manifestation, thus making the occurrence of life sacred and the act of creation a religious rite. Life affirmation, joy, ecstasy, creation, agriculture and its bounty, renewal, the healing arts and the Hippocratic oath are the religious beliefs and practices of this religious philosophy. The sacralization of sexual union and its holy products would represent the core practice of this magical and religious philosophy. The hieros gamos would be the apex rite, and the visions of healing wisdom, and the fertility rites of agriculture and animal husbandry would round out the practices of this religious philosophy. The religious Deities of Eros would be Aphrodite, Eros, Demeter, Artemis, Dionysus, Zeus (as progenitor), Asclepius, Hygeia, Priapuis, Pan and Plutus.

Correspondingly, I have given the name to the religious philosophy of Death as Thanatos, representing the truth and sobering realization that all life must end in death, and that preparation for that event, and its requirement for balance, abstinence, atonement, forgiveness, material renunciation, redemption, and sobriety is significantly important. Thanatos also represents transformation, charity, humility, asceticism, self-denial, temperance and compassion for the widow and the orphan. While requiem rites are to aid the living to deal with the loss caused by death, the Bardo aids and assists the individual in making the transition from life to death more acceptable and less traumatic. The Elusian Mysteries were a way that the living could accommodate the reality of death, but also the domain of dreams, sleep, and even ecstasy (little death) could be considered elements of this religious philosophy. The religious Deities of Thanatos would be Hades, Poseidon, Thanatos, Persephone, Ker, Nyx, Hypnos, Erebus, and Morpheus.

Different than either Life or Death are the antipodal religious philosophies of Individual Will and Sodality. These are humanistic activities that occur in the social domain of humanity, but they are represented by opposing and polarized religious and philosophical perspectives. These different perspectives represent the belief in the destiny and the outcome of the individual, shown as the Hero, Warrior, Great Statesman, King, Teacher, Artisan, Poet, or Philosopher, and the belief in the collective accomplishments of the social organization, the promotion of collective action, projects, and the social forces of democracy, justice, equality, government institutions, and law enforcement. We see this polarity not only in religious philosophy, but also in local and collective politics, media and cultural phenomena.

The destiny of individuals and the celebration of the will to power I have given the name Thelema, which means ‘will’ in Greek. This represents the fact that all sentient beings are given the freedom to choose their path and forge their own destiny, with certain material, social and psychological limitations. This is the religious philosophy of the mythic Hero who has a myriad of faces and roles in the history of the human race. Despite the collective nature of human existence, there have been and will likely always be individuals who will powerfully shape the world in which we live, for good or ill. Tied to this religious philosophy is the transformative cycle of the Hero, and its association with the initiation and apotheosis of the individual. Awards, recognition, election, fame, infamy, and the development of personal power and wealth are very much a part of this pathway. It is the temple of the individual genius, and immortalizing of mortal men and women. The religious Deities of Thelema would be Ares and Nike  at one extreme, and Hermes at the other, populated by Heros, some of whom became Gods, such as Heracles, Achilles, Perseus, Bellerophon, Odysseus, Theseus, Orpheus and Atalanta.

Contrasted to Thelema is the religious philosophy of the masses, the social organizations that have helped humanity survive and thrive. From this perspective, the individual is not as important as the group, and that the greatest achievements produced by humanity have been done through the social organization and the combined efforts of many individuals. It is the sodality of human kind that have made the most collective and constructive changes in the world, from the most distant times in our history to today.

Along with this ideal of collective effort is also collective support, which functions as the humanizing and social equality that proposes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the individual. While collective actions have accomplished the construction of great cities and edifices of note over the ages, like the seven wonders of the ancient world, they have also accomplished great destruction through conquest and war. However, the religious philosophy of Sodality, which I have called Agape, is a fundamental constructive force of good and progress, relying on group consensus, democracy, justice, equality to achieve a harmonious union and cooperative action. This religious philosophy is driven by compassion for the needy and the bereft, and seeks to uplift everyone to a better level of existence, leaving none to fall behind. Agape, which is the Greek word for ‘love’, represents the power that unites individuals into groups, nations and ultimately, planetary species and beyond. It’s ultimate goal is Utopia for everyone, where all human needs and wants, within limits, can be uniformly achieved. The religious Deities of Agape would be Apollo, Zeus, Hera, Athena, Eunomia, Themis, Eleos, Epiphron and Hestia.  

These four religious philosophies, Eros, Thanatos, Thelema and Agape, as defined, represent the archetypal systems present in the various religions of the West. These archetypal philosophies have their own religious systems and practices, and their own particular magical systems as well. However, no actual religious institution functions with only one of these pure archetypal perspectives, since they have many complex interacting attributes, some of which are contradictory. Thus, Christianity would ideally function as a combination of Agape and Thanatos, having placed restrictions on the acceptable associations of Eros and Thelema. Judaism would function as a combination of Agape and Eros, and Islam would be considered a combination of Agape and Thelema, where Mohammed would be considered the ideal intermediary of Allah, but where compassion, mercy and the guardianship of the religious warrior would establish its foundation. Modern Witchcraft and Paganism has brought back Eros into a religious faction, but has also taken attributes from Thelema and even Thanatos to establish its religious and magical works. Even Crowley’s Thelema actually incorporates Thelema and Agape together into a practical synthesis, heavily adding attributes of Eros as well.

The Tetra-Sacramentary

Therefore, these four religious philosophies that I have outlined here are pure archetypal models that can be used to define the attributes of a practiced religion or philosophy that has occurred in the past or exists in the world today. However, as models they can also be useful to organize and structure magical workings, and this is what I have chosen to do with them. I have developed four systems of gnostic magic based on the sacramental theurgy produced by the model Ecclesias or churches, and I have named this system a tetra-sacramentary (four liturgical ritual systems in books or grimoires), consisting of the rituals of a mass, benediction excerpts, seasonal calendar rites, initiations and holy orders, the invocation rites for the associated demigods or avatars, and an ordeal for the generating of a magical relic housed within a consecrated crystal. The stages of holy orders for each of these sacramental systems begins with the Deacon, then proceeds to Priest or Pontifex, to the Sacred King or Queen, and from there to the Bishop or Hierophant. These stages represent the four degrees of fourth-degree through seventh in the Order, straddling the threshold of the outer to the inner order; but they are magical and liturgical initiation degrees. Each system has its own book of liturgical and magical workings, representing the sacramentary established for each one.

All this lore has been developed into three major magical workings and represent the practices of four distinct archetypal gnostic religious and magical systems. The first of these is known in the Order as Ordeal XV, which introduces the seeker to the four sacramentaries and their specific liturgical and magical practices. The second ordeal is known as the Tessarenoi, or Four Ecclesias working, which seeks to produce a sacramental relic containing a talismanically charged crystal for each of the sacramental systems. The third ordeal is known as the Stellar Seven-Rayed Gnosis, which presents the fifth foundational aspect of the four sacramentaries, which is their unified synthesis.

As I have stated previously, the many are dissolved into the One, and in the case of the four Ecclesias, these four different gnostic sacramentaries are resolved into a fifth, which I have called Astris, or the Star. Thus, life and death, will and sodality are unified into a system of sacramental theurgy that is beyond all Deities and Spirit itself, although it is the source of Spirit, and therefore aligned with it. The sacrament of Astris is spiritual union or enlightenment, a full conscious realization of the One. This specially achieved sacrament is called by me Stellar Gnosis, or the intuitive apperception of the One, and the magical order that I founded is based on this achievement as the ultimate experience in the process of conscious evolution through the art of magic.

These four sacramentaries and the fifth, which is their union, are also represented by the five attributes of the Grail, which is a foundational symbol in the Order. Thus, the sacred sword is the grail of the warrior or Thelema, the sacred spear is the grail of the warden or Thanatos, the sacred chalice is the grail of the priestess or Agape, and the sacred dish is the grail of the bachae or Eros. The fifth grail is the diamond crystal, dragon’s eye or diadem of Lucifer, it is the grail of the shadow or Astris. These grails represent the emblems of the four different sacramentaries, but the fifth contains them and is the synthesis of them all.

The five grails are also symbolized by the five mysteries of the sun, moon, seasons, life-cycle and the all-pervading mystery of spirit and the unity that lies beyond it. These are associated with Eros, Thanatos, Agape, Thelema and Astris, respectively. This five-fold system is the foundation for all of the ritual magic and liturgy of the inner order, or that state of religion and magic that lies above the lesser veil between initiate and adept. It’s mastery represents the mastery of life and death, light and darkness, and the necessity of integrating them into a wholeness that reveals the inner state of all beings, which is the One. These five stages are also attributed to the cosmogonic cycle, representing the eternal cycle of creation and dissolution, and the unchanging source from which these emanations proceed and to which they ultimately return.

The four grails are also known as the Tetrapatron powers, the sacramental energies that are an integral part of the mysteries of the Undecigram, or eleven-pointed star. There are also seven virtues of the Goddess known as the heptamatrons, which are aligned to the seven planetary rays and those Sephirah of the Qabalah that reside above the base of Malkuth. The four powers of the Tetrapatron, united with the seven virtues of the Hepamatrons produce the overall pattern of the Undecigram, which is the conduit for the crossing of the Greater Abyss, uniting the Solar virtues of Tiphareth with the Saturnine virtues of Binah. There are two ordeals that work with these attributes, and these are the Seven-Rayed Star and Cross, and the Portae Lucis working. There is also the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal to assist with the spiritual transfiguration. There is the work of Archeaomancy, for both the 40 Qabalistic Worlds and the 18 Spiritual Dimensions, but these ordeals can be presented and discussed in isolation, since they do not use the tetrasacramentary. All of these ordeals, however, represent the mechanism to achieving full mastery of one’s spiritual and magical process.

Yet above and beyond this mystical structure arises the veils of the uncreated, the emptiness beyond the One, which I have named the Nought, which appears in our world of manifestation as the Goddess of Wisdom, Sophia, which is the attainment of wisdom through the establishment of a more permanent state of enlightenment. This is the core of the non-dual world, where emptiness pervades as the primal state and the final end of all emanations, since it is the mother and genetrix of the One. Yet of this mystery we can only wonder and be amazed, since in our limited minds and souls, we can realize the light and magnificence of Sophia, which is the final state of all magical transformations that stand before the dissolution of our mortal coil.  

The Gnostic Tetrasacramentary is the four-fold foundation for the workings and ordeals of the Inner Order of the Gnostic Star. It is the starting place for all initiates who have achieved the fourth-degree and seek to achieve a three-fold transformation that will lead them ultimately to mastery. This is the road map to the higher degrees of the Order, and it is also the pathway for ritual magicians to progress to the highest levels of consciousness, whatever their traditional base.

Frater Barrabbas