Banner Year 2024 for Frater Barrabbas

The Winter Solstice is here, and as we celebrate the various holidays associated with this time of year, I often pause to reflect on what I have accomplished over the year and what I can look forward to in the coming year. Yet this coming year is very different for me than any previous year in the last decade or so. I have been working very hard with my new publisher, Cross Crow Books, since I was let go by Llewellyn, and by the end of year in 2024, I will have ten books in print with another one forthcoming early in the following year. That is, in my opinion, quite an accomplishment.

I am quite pleased with my work so far, and I am also pleased with the response that I have gotten from my publisher. It is quite a contrast from where I was with Llewellyn a year ago. Then, I had signed a contract for “Sacramental Theurgy for Witches,” but there was no sign of when or how that book project would get to the first stage, which was the ‘vision’ marketing meaning. It was then, in March that I received notice that Llewellyn had rejected my book and broke their contract with me. I was able to get another contract from Crossed Crow Books in a matter of days, and I have decided to work with them on my book projects. They treated me in an exceptional and courteous manner, which included face to face Zoom meetings to discuss strategies and approaches to marketing and promoting my books. They signed on to complete the five volume “For Witches” series, to republish my first two books, “Disciple’s Guide” and “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” after some revitalizing editing, a beginner’s book on Witchcraft named “Mastering the Art of Witchcraft” and two new books, “Liber Nephilim” and “Abramelin Lunar Ordeal.” I have signed contracts for all of these book projects, and I am about to get the first of these books in the next couple of weeks.

Additionally, the eight projects that I discussed in a recent blog and possibly whatever else I come up in the years ahead will likely be published by them. I have a home for my books, or at least as long as CCB continues to be in the publishing business. My publisher also have a contract with Weiser to distribute their entire catalog of books along with their own, so I will get the same distribution or more if I had continued being a Llewellyn author. That’s great news for me to enjoy and be thankful for in the coming year. Never even in my imagination would I have thought that I would get to see eleven of my books in print. What this means is that my long ambition to get my ritual tech out there in the English reading public’s hands has now come to fruition, and there will be more of these book in the next five years, if my health can continue to be as sturdy as it has been so far.

So, what is coming out into print and what are the dates that these books will be released in 2024? Let me look at the calendar and mark those dates when these six book projects will be available for purchase. As I said, it will be a banner year for the author Frater Barrabbas.

Here is the schedule, although it may be subject to minor changes. Rest assured that the books will out in print, although there could always be slight delays depending on the stages of type-setting, page layout, printing and binding.

“Sacramental Theurgy for Witches” - scheduled release date is February 6, 2025. I should be getting pre-release copies in the next week or two. This book is the one that I felt was the most important of the five books in the “For Witches” series. It was the book rejected by Llewellyn as unmarketable, so we shall see if their assumption was correct through the next couple of years. I seriously doubt that this book will do poorly in the occult book marketplace, especially since it is distributed by Weiser and it has three other books in the series to bolster it. I am probably biased about this book, yet only time will tell.

“Mastering the Art of Witchcraft” - scheduled release date is July 16, 2024. I had said often enough that I would never write a beginner’s book on Witchcraft, and here it is. There must be some irony here, as in you should never say “never” when considering some project. However, this book is radically different than any previous or near future book written on the subject, and it does honor to Paul Huson and his book, “Mastering Witchcraft” published in the early 1970's. That was an important book for me when it came out, and I am hoping that my book will be as influential as that book has been.

“Transformative Initiation for Witches” - scheduled release date is August 20, 2024. This is the last book in the “For Witches” series, and it adds additional initiatory lore to the practicing Witch and the Witchcraft community. The full set of five books covers the spectrum of ritual magic, liturgical and initiatory rites that are above and beyond the traditional Book of Shadows. I believe that armed with these five books and the base-line Witchcraft tradition that a Witch or Pagan will be able to master the art of ritual magic in a manner that I believe would make ceremonial magicians envious. Once that set of magical and liturgical lore is mastered, a Witch would be able to stand eye to eye with any person trained in a ceremonial magical tradition in the Western Mystery Tradition. I am also hoping to convince the Malliway Brother’s store to produce a slip case for all five books in the series, with some nice promotional eye-candy graphically printed on it for their store.

Summer ends and blends into autumn, and there will be three more books released during that period for the year 2024. At this point in the year, I will have published everything that I sought to publish on the art of ritual magic as practiced in Witchcraft. However, that perspective was not how I started out as an author, and additionally there is an accumulation of 30 years of lore that I have only just begun to write up and get published into books. The magical order that I helped to found back in the 1980's was the mechanism where I was able to funnel what I had ordinally developed in the 1970's, and since those strategic years, I had continued my work and developed ever more advanced and sophisticated ritual magical lore. Only this year have I started to assemble manuscripts that will contain the more advanced lore that I developed in the 1990's, 2000's and 2010's. As I said, I have been busy over the last 30 years, and the books that I will produce will contain the bulk of that lore.

“Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick” - scheduled release date is September, 2024. This is the first book that I wrote back in 2006, and it represents my attempt to distill in a simplistic manner the kind of ritual tech that I was performing at that time. I have talked about my very first book that I wrote, named “Pyramid of Powers” that was never actually published. This book was a simplified and condensed version of that work, and it had the benefit of offering to the student a set of basic rituals to be used, based on a kind of paganized Christian Grail mythos. While I had moved on from this work and the second one in that series, other occultists have told me that it was a valuable book and should be kept available. It is a beginner’s book for magical practitioners, so I felt that it would be useful to republish it after some extensive editing, and my publisher happily agreed with me. So, in September, this book will become available again in a newly revised edition with a new cover. Like my other books, it will be distributed much more widely and likely gain a greater share of readers.

“Liber Nephilim” - scheduled to be released in October, 2024. This is the first book in a new series of books that I will be publishing that contains the more advanced lore that I had developed previously but had never made available to my reading public. I had proposed that the source of the Enochian system of magic was originally from the fallen angels known variously as the Watchers, Sons of God or the Nephilim. I have had a long and fruitful relationship with these angelic spirits, and they had urged me to write up their lore and their revelations for the occult reading public to examine. It is a task that I had put on the back-burner for decades, but finally I had the time and opportunity to pull together all of the materials and rituals that I had and to produce a manuscript that could be published. I think that this book will be quite controversial, but it will help to promote the lore and reveal the identities of the Nephilim to the occult community. This book, unlike any of my previous books, will be sold in soft and hard cover editions. There will also be a custom hand bound collector’s edition produced in the following year.

“Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” - scheduled to be released in December, 2024. This was my second book published, and it was a repackaging, revising and rewriting of my original book “Pyramid of Powers.” When it was originally released, it consisted of three separate books, and then a few years later, it was pulled together into a single volume, which turned out to be the most satisfactory approach to publishing it. It became known as the omnibus edition, and unknown to me, it had quite a small and loyal following. I have, over the recent past, received some praise and accolades for publishing this book, although like the first book, I had passed it by to publish a book on the Qabalah and then a book on conjuring spirits using a familiar spirit for the Witchcraft community. That was the first book in the “For Witches” series. This book will be edited and printed with a new cover in December and then more heavily distributed. Hopefully, more readers will be able to acquire this book and perhaps build their own base-line magical and religious tradition, since that is the stated purpose of this book.

I am already working on the book “Abramelin Lunar Ordeal” and I should have that book edited, with citations, graphic insertions, bibliography and an index list in the next three weeks. I have already talked about that book recently in my blog, so I don’t need to say anything more about it here. While I cannot know for certain when this book will be released, I suspect that it will likely be released either February or March, 2025. I will have celebrated my 70th birthday by then, but I will still have at least six or seven book projects that I will be working on. This book will be my eleventh book published since the first one appeared in print in 2007. It will be the second of my high ritual magic series of books, and it, too, will be available in soft and hard cover editions as well as a hand bound collector’s edition. I am looking forward to when it is finally in print.

This schedule of events represents for me the release of six books, seven if you count the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal, to occur over the course of a single year. That is quite an accomplishment, and one that I am happy to report to you. My hope is that I will be able to hear from my readers over the next few years, letting me know how they have used this material that I have written and published, and what kind of experiences they got when employing it. That could almost be enough folks some day to have a one time convention of interested parties to discuss and present this lore as one of the viable paths for Witches and Pagans practicing ritual magic.

Frater Barrabbas

Frater Barrabbas Author Literary Tour - Part 3 - MARM

My second book project was to resurrect the Pyramid of Powers and to present a more advanced approach to magical tech than DGRM. It was given the title name “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick,” and it is largest body of published work by me so far. I had wanted to use the chapters and rituals not covered in the DGRM to give my reading public a more neutral magical system that could be used to construct a personal magical system. That was my sole purpose for writing books back in those days. I wanted to give to my reading public the magical tech and tools to build their own basic system of magic. I believed that if I could make that an attractive approach then perhaps it would also attract individuals to become members of our order, the E.S.S.G.

I wanted to publish the Pyramid of Powers, but a number of chapters had been used in my book DGRM, so I couldn’t see just publishing that material again. All those chapters that had been used in that book now had to be rewritten with new material. I researched and wrote new chapters with a more advanced approach regarding magical practices. For instance, instead of the more simpler approach to personal mental discipline and meditation that I had used in my first book, I extended that lore by including an approach to using the training material in Franz Bardon’s book “Initiation into Hermetics” since I had very much treasured and used the exercises contained in that book at various times.

That approach was what I used to develop the chapter on Mind Control (book 1, chapter 5). I also made this approach when rewriting all three books, and since the writing style was of a previous and poor quality, it required a lot of work to make these books as readable as the first one already published. My live-in girlfriend (who I later happily married) had the unfortunate task of acting as the primary editor for these books. Some of the chapters were so poorly written that she had quite the task to help me rewrite those sections so that they informed the reader instead of confusing them. She helped to make my writing more accessible and easier to grasp, and that had to happen to each of the three books before they could even go to press.

Since the Pyramid of Powers was broken into three volumes, I had decided to publish it as three separate books. The first book went into print in 2008, then the second in 2009, and finally, the third in 2010. What originally seemed like a good idea to publish the revised Pyramid of Powers in three separate books turned out to be a bad idea, since it was difficult to keep all three books listed in Amazon and elsewhere. Later on, we consolidated the three separate volumes into one omnibus edition (2013), which is how it looks today.

Here is the advertising blurb for that set of books, now incorporated into a single book.

This is a new Grimoire for a New Age for the magickal explorer willing to seek out that ‘love which moves the sun and the other stars.’

The omnibus edition contains all three volumes of Frater Barrabbas’s acclaimed Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick series; a comprehensive work on how to create a personal magickal system.

While suitable for readers already having a few years’ experience with magick, the series is also ideal for diligent practitioners of any level who seek to develop a complete, customized magickal system.

Volume 1's ‘Foundation’ establishes the basic practices and sets the magician on the path to knowledge and experience. Volume 2's, ‘Grimoire’ is based upon a set of nine rituals used to build up a complete Wiccan or Pagan ritual magick regimen, including elemental magick within a seasonal and monthly periodic cycle, and volume 3's ‘The Greater Key’, presents a system of correspondences that the magician builds up with his or her own personalized symbology.

Together, these volumes present a thorough and enlightening system that will enrich the magickal lives of any dedicated practitioner.

The three-fold structure of the MARM volumes is based on the requirements of the basic semi-experienced student. The first approach is to establish a foundation of knowledge that will make the rituals comprehensible to the reader. The foundation would include the topical areas of four elements, ritual structures of magical power, mental discipline or mind control, magical topology, magical ritual structures, ritual performance, transformative initiation, and the five mysteries of light and darkness, life and death. Everything that a practitioner might need to know and understand before attempting to master the actual rituals was included in this first volume.

The second volume was the presentation of the nine rituals that made up this system of magic. All of the rituals presented in that book were spiritually neutral, with predetermined gaps and blanks that were meant to be filled in when the student embarked on the path of developing their own personal system of magic. What I was proposing to my readers was that they could and should learn how to write their own rituals, using the basic templates that I provided in my book.

Additionally, my approach to magical tech was to use a set of rituals to build ritual workings, so those rituals could also be reused in other magical workings. This was a kind of modular approach to working magic, where some of the elements of the ritual would be customized to align the working to a specific kind of magical power for a specific material objective. This is the methodology that is used in the magical order the E.S.S.G. All of the ritual workings consist of basic ritual structures that are pulled together with some elective attributes chosen to build a specific magical working for a specific purpose.

These are the nine rituals that represent the basic body of modular and reusable rites that are used to build the rituals workings of a basic magical practice. Let me list them here, and as you can see, there are a few more than the seven used in the book DGRM.

1. Consecration of the Magick Temple
2. Consecration of the Magick Grove
3. Pyramid of Power rituals (used to invoke one of the 40 Qualified Powers)
4. Rose Ankh Vortex ritual
5. Gate of Transformation
6. Assumption of the Grail Spirit
7. Ritual of the Lunar Mysteries
8. Ritual of the Solar Mysteries
9. Prefect Initiation Ritual

In addition, there were also rituals for tool (hallows) consecration, a divination vortex, mystery rite of the higher self and an elemental invocation rite. There were also chapters to outline the concourse of forces for the Qualified Powers, explain the quality and issues with godhead assumption and how to approach a transformative self initiation. The chapter that examined the foibles and profundities of godhead assumption (book 2, chapter 12) was probably one of the real gems in this volume, but the whole book with its nine rituals was something unique and highly useful amongst the available books on ritual magic.

The third volume was the ‘key’ that would guide the practitioner in developing a set of tables of correspondence that would be used to customize the body of rituals so that they would represent the spiritual and magical perspective of the practitioner. Those tables were the key that had to be developed first. The whole purpose to these three volumes was to instruct the practitioner into how to develop and deploy their own personal system of magic. In this volume I went over all nine rituals and showed where and how to modify them to produce a more personalized magical rite. The basic set of rituals thus customized would act as the essential foundation for further magical experimentation and developing ever more effective and complex magical lore.

This book, then, is for someone who already has a basic level of magical knowledge and experience and who wanted to develop their own magical system. This, then, is the first step of the magical system builder, and once such an approach to ritual magic is understood then it only whets the appetite for further development.

Yet further progress would require the ritual magician to research more advanced methods of working magic, to explore the mechanisms for a fully developed magical system working with elementals, then talismans, evocation and finally the more advanced systems of Enochian magic of the Nephilim, Sacramental Theurgy, Tessarenoi, Abramelin Lunar rite, Archaeomancy, Talismantic Portae Lucis, and the Heptarchical (7-fold Stellar) Hierophantic Mysteries. That list represents what has been already developed in the grimoire of the Order of the Gnostic Star.

Frater Barrabbas

A Literary Dream Come True

Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick - the Logo for this work is an Octagram with a sun and moon occupying the circular center. What this symbolizes is the overall magical discipline of the Lunar and Solar cycles, both of which are represented by the number eight. There are eight solar celebrations and there are eight nodes in the lunation cycle. The sun and moon (and their respective cycles) conjoined like the Yin and Yang is the key to forging a true magical discipline.

Twenty years ago this year, I embarked upon my career as an occult writer. I don’t exactly know when I started my first book project (1991?), but it was already in high gear by 1993. What pushed me to begin this writing project was a complaint informally delivered to me by two neophytes in our already formed Order of the Gnostic Star. It was, to use a paraphrase, that the lore we were using was too complex and difficult for a moderately experienced beginner to learn. We had nothing in print that could help the beginner other than our method of direct hands-on teaching.

Since these two students did not have access to me or other members of the group because they lived in Dallas (and we were in Tallahassee and Kansas City), they requested that I write up a manual for knowledgeable students. This wouldn’t be a manual for complete beginners who knew nothing, it would be just a primer for individuals who wanted some help mastering the lore of the Order.

I happily complied with their request since it seemed like a good idea, and instead of just writing up a simple manual, I decided to write up a book containing a comprehensive system of ritual magick that would function as an introduction to the lore of the Order. It would also serve Witches and Pagans to make that most difficult first step in their magical career, and that would be creating their own comprehensive magical system. Since I had done this myself more than a few times, helping others to formulate and build their own magical system seemed like a good idea for a book project. There certainly weren’t any other books already published that would fulfill this need, so I began to organize and outline what such a book might contain.

Anyway, this is how the book project, which I called the “Pyramid of Powers,” had its start. It was a giddy dream and a driving passion that I had discovered in myself, which led me to pursue my literary dream of being a published occult author. The literary bug had bitten me and there was no turning back now. I also erroneously thought that publishing a book could earn me some real money, too. Later on I discovered that idea to be quite a laughable fantasy, but the desire to be an author was realistic enough. It is amusing to note that previously I had been such a hard core, autistically focused ritual magician, and that magick had been more important than anything else. Now, I had a desire to share my knowledge with others, even with individuals who had never met me. That was quite a peculiar transformation.

Little did I realize that this project would consume around five years of my life, and it would challenge me to learn how to write in a clear and definitive manner. I didn’t have those kinds of writing skills back then, and often the first book project that an erstwhile writer attempts to write ends up in the rubbish bin. After quite a number of editing cycles that included hiring an editor, I had taken this project as far as I could take it without engaging a publisher. All three volumes were fully written, and the manuscript as a whole was well organized and structured, at least in my opinion. Even so, it was poorly written and executed and there was little that I could do to change that. Even my hired editor found the job of editing the manuscript quite onerous if not outright frustrating. I had even hired one of my friends, who was a professional artist, to produce a number of the diagrams, which I thought looked quite good.

Despite all that, I was so eager to move the project forward because I really believed that I had a good literary idea and dreamed of successfully publishing this book. So I put together a submission package and mailed it out to a dozen different occult publishers back in 1997, and then waited for some positive news. Months went by, and during that time all I got was a sequence of polite rejections. Well, some of them weren’t so polite, but I took them with a certain humble mind-set, believing that some publisher would be interested in my book. After waiting nearly 18 months, all of the publishing companies had finally replied to me, each one using the stamped and self-enclosed envelope that I had included in the package, and every one of them had declined to publish my book. After that, I managed to print up some copies of the book myself, hiring the skills of the local copying store to produce three ring-bound volumes. These I distributed to some of the members of my Order and a few friends. I gave up on the idea of ever publishing my book, the Pyramid of Powers, and felt that the personalized copies had satisfied my original intent, sans all of the glory of being a published writer. (Sigh.)

Some years later, I decided to try to publish another book. This one, I decided, would not be quite so ambitious, so I put together a scaled down version of the Pyramid of Powers. I even cannibalized some parts of the old book project to fill out the new, and in much less time, I had a completed a decent sized manuscript. By this time, several years had elapsed and I was much better at writing then compared to what I had been in the mid 90's.

I had just completed purchasing and assembling the artwork from another friend who was an artist (for the cover and other some other excellent illustration work) and I had crafted a proposal letter when a friend of mine named Nicholas suggested that I send my proposal to his friend who was opening an occult section for Immanion Publishing called “Megalithica Press.” That friend of his was, of course, Taylor Elwood, and he very quickly signed me on to publish my newest manuscript, to which I gave the title “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick.” After what seemed like just a few months of work, in May 2007, the book was released into print. I was now a pusblished author! Hazah! What a joy and a pleasure it was to finally experience seeing my words in print. (I have always been grateful for the opportunity that Taylor Elwood afforded me in getting my first book into print.)

However, my friend Nicholas, who had promoted the idea of getting my first book published by Megalithica, told me that I should also seek to publish the Pyramid of Powers. At first I was quite dubious, but then decided to give it shot. However, I had determined that the old title desperately needed to be changed. I also had to rewrite and fill in a number of chapters that I had gutted from the old manuscript in order to complete the new edition of this book. So I started to work on this project, and I got Taylor to approve the publishing of a three book set called “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick.”

This project took quite a lot more time to complete, since I had to rewrite whole new sections in the book, and the older text required some extensive editing in order to make it have the same readable quality as my previous book. It took me nearly three years to get all three volumes into print and my girlfriend Grace spent quite a bit of time going over and editing that work. I must confess that whole sections were eliminated and others were completely rewritten. In the end, the quality of writing in that book didn’t match the level that DGRM had established for me, but at least I had achieved the dream of publishing my very first book project.

As I have said, many writers are often forced to discard their first attempt, and some even have to discard their second and third attempts, so I considered myself quite lucky. The three volumes were a good addition to any comprehensive occult library, but the overall process had lost some of the original passion and luster that it had back in the 90's. The three books sold some copies here and there over the last few years, but bought together, they were indeed a bit pricey. Sales began to dwindle and I wondered if they would ever be even slightly popular with occultists.

Then, as fate would have it, something odd happened to breathe new life into this work. For some reason, two of the three volumes of MARM became unsearchable when searching the author’s name. Nothing that the staff at Megalithica or Immanion did could rectify this problem, and they did try to fix it. It was just really weird. Then late last year, Taylor Elwood recommended that perhaps the solution would be to pull the three volumes together into one large “omnibus” edition. He asked me if this would be OK, and I heartily approved. So after a few months of steadfast work, which was mostly done by Taylor Elwood, Storm Constantine (the owner of Immanion), and Andy Bigwood (the cover artist), a new version of the book came out in early April, and I got my first copies later that month.

Needless to say, I was really pleased by the look and feel of this book, and the layout was done quite well and cleanly, too. The cover art has a new illustration that incorporates the three previous covers of the old three volume set into one unified and colorful concept. I also really loved the matt finish of the book cover, and that appears to be a nice texture quality that is found in other books recently published. As I held the new omnibus edition in my sweaty hands, I felt a strange sensation occurring within me.

This book was once rejected by publishers and existed only in Xerox copied editions with ring binders. Then it was produced as three separate book volumes, which seemed to confuse a few of my critics who hadn’t bothered to read all three of them before commenting. But the new omnibus edition, which combined the Foundation, Grimoire and Greater Key into one large three-part volume seemed to make the MARM series reborn into a newer and better format. I was witnessing my book idea in its third incarnation, and the final version, at over 500 pages, seems much more like the comprehensive work that I had planned it to be all those years ago. Now the passion from the original work has been restored, and I am once again quite excited by it.

Anyway, many thanks to Taylor Elwood, Storm Constantine and Andy Bigwood for their excellent and good work. You can purchase a copy of this book at Amazon dot com at the following link. If you have waited until now to purchase this work, I can at last truly recommend it as a literary dream come true. I am quite pleased with this newly revised book, and I believe that you will find it very useful and economical as well.

Frater Barrabbas

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Some of you might be wondering why I haven’t been posting articles to this blog with my usual frequency. Is it because I have run out of things to say? That would be amazing! Of course, I doubt if I will ever run out of things to say in regards to magick, witchcraft, paganism and the occult. However, physical problems, ailments and other maladies will interrupt the work of even the most zealous writer, and that is the case with me.

What I have been dealing with over the last month or so is a deficit of sleep. What is causing me to be unable to get the sleep that I need is purely of a respiratory nature. For some reason, when I lie down to go to sleep at night, my sinuses clog up and I am forced to breath through my mouth, I end up waking after only a few hours of sleep and the rest of the evening in spent in shallow sessions of sleeping and waking. During those periods of waking, I have to drink water to keep my mouth (and body) hydrated. My eyes and nose are dry, and my throat is sometimes a bit scratchy. I thought that I might have some kind of sinus infection or a low grade allergy, but during the day, all of the symptoms completely disappear. This pattern started in January and has since then slowly become worse until the lack of sleep made it hard for me to function normally.

Needless to say, my physical malady made work difficult, and I had to focus what little energy I had towards insuring that my level of output didn’t diminish. After my work day was complete, I felt like a zombie. Weekends gave me a little respite, but obviously, my sleep disorder was really interfering with my life. I certain didn’t have any energy or focus to do any extensive research or writing during the evening, and I certainly didn’t have any energy to do any magick. I had short periods where this malady would disappear and allow me to get a decent night’s sleep, but during the week, my deficit of sleep would pile up until I was quite exhausted by the time Friday rolled around.

Over the last few weeks this sleep malady was getting worse. I tried everything to mediate this situation, from using a vapor humidifier, neti pot, nasal sprays, mouth hydrators, and this regimen even included using powerful over-the-counter drugs. I found that some drugs cleared up my sinuses but left me quite groggy the following morning, and antihistamines (like Benadryl) had no affect whatsoever. Using the art of deduction to attempt to resolve my problem, I managed to eliminate the allergy and the sinus infection theories. Finally, in desperation, I decided to try the simple solution of wearing an adhesive nose brace with the product name of “Breath Right,” and much to my surprise, it worked quite well. I am happy to say that I am now getting the amount of sleep that I need - or so it would seem. I think that I might still have a minor sleep disorder, but at least my period of sleep is around what it was before this issue materialized.

When I look at the last two months, I can see that between this sleep disorder and my regular job, most of my time was spent dealing with these two things and very little of anything else. My all-important periods of study have diminished somewhat as well as my ability to plan and execute magical workings. I had planned on getting completely engaged and immersed in my magical work during this time of high winter, but that never happened. My holiday vacation was interrupted with work related issues that had to be immediately resolved, and then afterwards, I began to have problems sleeping. It is my hope that now that both of these critical issues have been more or less resolved, that I can now begin to do what I had planned on doing two months previously. I managed to get some important accolades for my job related work and it even materialized into a sizable bonus and a modest salary increase. My lost time over the holidays will be compensated for as well, since I had asked and received 40 hours of comp-time, which I will be taking in the near future. So things are really improving for me, but I am not yet feeling happy or pleased with how things have worked out. Losing the ability to getting a good night’s sleep is a very serious issue, especially when one is in the midst of middle-age related changes.

One of the things that seems to be slightly depressing me is the harshness of the winter. I didn’t get to enjoy much of the brief period of summer up here because I was deeply entrenched in work, and now the severe winter weather has me feeling that I really missed out on all of the beautiful weather. I guess one thing that I should plan for in the future is to get away from the winter for a week or two. Many folks up here take winter vacations to tropical areas so they can re-charge their psychic batteries, and I see the wisdom of investing in that kind of trip. Yet at this time, I am unable to travel anywhere, since my girlfriend is gone five days a week, and I am the primary pet care giver while she is gone. We have three cats and one dog, and two of our pets require daily medication to alleviate their own age related maladies. Putting them both up at our favored pet boarding place is expensive, and our dog has some abandonment issues to deal with when his mistress is gone. I had planned on going to Pantheacon this February, but I couldn't find a schedule that would allow me to go and not have to board our pets. It just became a very expensive and complicated ordeal, so I decided to not attend, and I think that my decision was a wise one.

The lesson that I have learned yet again and that I have attempted to express in this article is that often times life itself has a way of intervening and interjecting itself into the elaborate planning and practice of occultism. I have found that my sleep disorder really threw a monkey wrench into my well laid plans, and my job responsibilities ate up a lot of my free time, even after the holidays. I am happy to say that things are just now settling down, so maybe, just maybe, I will get the time that I need to catch up on everything that had to take a back seat to my career and health. I am looking forward to finally getting to achieve all of those planned magical workings and research sessions that I use to write interesting articles and new books. Hopefully, I will still have some time to get these things done before the weather shifts and becomes once again warmer and milder. However, I can be assured that life up here in the northern Midwest tundra will see a continuation of severe winter weather, and it will likely continue until mid April or even beyond, which means that I still have time to complete much of that wonderful occult work.

So these are the pros and cons of living up here in the great white north. I will, like everyone else, have to adapt and deal with it. Winter will not last forever, although sometimes it sure feels like I am living in the Ice Age up here. No wonder my girlfriend Grace (who migrated here from the Southeast) is eager to move to a geographic location that has a milder winter. I have found myself in perfect agreement with her, and perhaps in time, we will find a new place to live where our lives aren't so dominated by the extremes of cold and hot.

BTW - Some interesting news. My book “Magical Qabalah for Beginners” is ranked at 227,551 on Amazon dot com, which is actually doing slightly better than a few of Lon Milo Duquette’s books, so I am quite pleased with how this new book is faring. My three volume series entitled “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” is being re-printed in an omnibus edition, where all three books will be included in one large volume. I don’t know what the cost will be, but I believe that it will at least be cheaper to purchase one large book instead of three slim books. My objective is make certain that the omnibus edition is at least as good as the previous three volumes, and so far, that seems to be happening. I will let you know when the new edition is available, in case you had demurred from purchasing the previous three separate volumes.

I am also planning on attending the local pagan convention in the Twin Cities called Paganicon. I have a class called the Practical Qabalah in Brief that I will be presenting on Saturday, March 16th, at 9 am in the morning. I will also have a book signing the next day, which is Sunday. I will give out more details about this event as it gets closer, but if you can plan to be in town (or already live here), then I would highly recommend that you come to this event. You can find the website for it here.

Frater Barrabbas