Frater Barrabbas Author Literary Tour - Part 4 - Magical Qabalah for Beginners

 

After I had successfully placed four published books in the public domain, which is what DGRM and MARM consisted of at that time, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at writing a book that was not wedded to my previous opus, “Pyramid of Power,” since both of these books were a product of that original work. I also wanted to publish a book through either Weiser or Llewellyn, the biggest occult book publishers at that time. I felt that I would get a lot more notoriety being an author with books published in either of those publishing firms. These were my thoughts back in early 2010.

Since I personally knew the acquisitions editor for Llewellyn, having met her at Pantheacon gatherings and briefly talking to her, I thought that I would try my luck with that publishing company first. When talking to her, she told me that they were looking for authors to publish books in a “For Beginners” series, and one major unfilled entry that they had was the Qabalah. Of course, I sort of shuttered at first about taking on such a writing project, but then I realized that I already had a lot of writings on the Qabalah. As part of the background education for the Order I had written up some documents for the Qabalah and had passed them around to my fellow members. These documents were written poorly and did not have my current style of writing, so they would need to be revised and rewritten. However, that was better than having to start with no writings at all.

I was able to put together a table of contents quite easily to scope out what I wanted to write, but then I realized that not only were some of my ideas out of date, some of them contained information that was incorrect or inaccurate. I also lacked a standard set of practices and rituals, and I did not have a very good understanding of the history of the Qabalah. So, I began a period of research that lasted for several months while I also worked on rewriting the sections of text that I had previously poorly written. This has become the typical pattern when embarking on writing a book. What I think I know and have used for many years can be either stale or actually erroneous. I had a number of erroneous ideas and perspectives on the Qabalah that needed some deep research to bring them into a much more accurate presentation. It was an excellent learning situation, and I added considerably to my existing knowledge of the Qabalah as a result of that research. I submitted my first manuscript version in April 2012, and a month or so later, had my final version. The book came out in print in January, 2013.

Despite all of that rewriting and researching, I had to rewrite whole chapters of that book after I submitted it to Llewellyn. The marketing staff at Llewellyn had problems with the more advanced writing style and conceptual narrative that I used, and the subject matter was thought to be too complex or difficult for a beginner. What I didn’t want to do was write a book “Qabalah for Dummies” that was too simplistic to be useful for most occultists and ritual magicians. I wanted to write a book that presented the basic concepts to my readers, but also included more advanced ideas and practices for the more advanced student.

The book, as it was finally sent to the printers, took a middle ground between beginner and advanced students that I felt would be more engaging and interesting to someone who already knew something about the subject area, but wanted to proceed to a more advanced perspective. I feel that I was correct in taking that writing approach, although a few readers left negative reviews because they had assumed that the book was really a beginners guide. I don’t really feel bad about that, since the Qabalah is a very complex topic and if you are going to approach it as a magical discipline then simplicity and a shallow purview must be replaced with a more complex and deeper presentation. The Qabalah is not really a topic to be tackled by the uninformed nor the rank beginner, so it is in a similar position as Enochian magic or grimoire magic - it is not for actual beginners. So that is how the book “Magical Qabalah for Beginners” was developed.

Here is the advertisement for the book, as it is currently written on the back of the cover.

Discover the history and theory of Qabalah as well as its practical ritual uses. Explore the five basic but essential parts of Qabalah: the ten Sephiroth, the twenty-two paths, the Four Worlds, the Three Negative Veils, and the Tree of Life.

The Qabalah is the symbolic key to the Western Mystery tradition. Gain invaluable insights into all occult systems including high magic, Tarot, astrology, alchemy, hermetics, and more. In Magical Qabalah for Beginners, Frater Barrabbas shows ritual magicians, Pagans, and occult students how to incorporate the Qabalah into practice, using tables of correspondences, numerology, acronyms and formulae, sigils and ciphers, contemplation, and the theurgy of ascension. Now is the time to penetrate the mystical properties of Qabalah and make them work in your life.

I also had some good reviews from a few individuals who read the printer’s galley version, and these were included in the book. I guess that Llewellyn had to have some kind of good word, or ‘bon mot,’ for my book to get people excited or curious enough  to purchase and read it. The book “Magical Qabalah For Beginners” is still in print, and has sold over 4,000 copies. It is also available in Polish and Russian.

All of that research, writing and rewriting served an important purpose. It made me much more knowledgeable about the Qabalah than I had ever been in the past. As a system, it is complete and without the need for any ancillary practices or studies. You can be a magical Qabalist, but it would seem that being a Qabalist and a ritual magician might be either redundant or a contradictory approach to an applied occultism. That was one thing I discovered.

Writing that book also had another curious effect on me. I lost my passion for the Qabalah when I discovered that to truly function as a Qabalist you had to have sacred scriptures to act as your foundation. Qabalah is not practiced in a vacuum. It should always be focused on revealing the occult truths and magical capabilities within that sacred literature. Also, such a practice elevates the linguistic paradigm of mystical and magical practices, basing it on the power of words and their companions, numbers. I found that lacking a sacred literature was a real deficit in the study and practice of the Qabalah. That lessened my interest in the Qabalah, and I found other magical practitioners were coming to the same conclusion.

It seems almost blasphemous to say that I believe now that the Qabalah is over utilized and contrived in its current occult formulation. One of most important things that I have said about the Qabalah is that the mystical Jewish community created the Kabbalah to add and augment the Talmud as an esoteric commentary on the Tenach, or Hebrew Bible. That is what the Zohar represents to the Jewish study of the Kabbalah. It is the crown jewel, since from that commentary and analysis much of the mystical and magical elements of Judaism has its roots. It is a mystical, occult and magical Talmud, founded on the sacred writings of the Jewish Bible.

If a religion has a sacred body of writing then a Qabalah can be fashioned to develop and gather occult insights into the mystical foundation of that religion. This is true of religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Hinduism. Thelema has Liber Al, the Book of the Law, so it would qualify as well. Qabalah is founded on a sacred written language, so Hebrew, Greek, Latin (Vulgate), Arabic, Farsi, Sanscrit and English would represent that sacred language. Since Liber Al is written in English there is a place for an English Qabalah, too.

What is missing in this list is a language and sacred book for Witches and Pagans. While the Chaldean Oracles probably comes the closest to functioning as a kind of sacred writ for modern Pagans, there is nothing for modern Witchcraft. The Chaldean Oracles exist as quoted fragments related by other contemporary and later authors and no complete version of the full text has been found. It is possible (but doubtful) that Neoplatonism might be the answer for a mystical and philosophical discipline that could be reconstituted and used by modern pagans, yet it is even less likely to be relevant for practicing Witches.
 
The same could be said about the ancient Egyptians, since nearly all of their sacred literary work contains a large volume of magical spells with only some myths and stories passing down through the ages to us. What was sacred to the Egyptians was magical spells that could obtain for them immortality and life beyond death, and they seemed to mix religion and magic quite freely, so there never was anything like a Bible for the ancient Egyptians. In fact despite the dominance of Amun-Ra in the later dynasties of ancient Egypt, there was never actually a single unified religious faith throughout the history of that land, until Christianity came, and then later, Islam.

The lack of a definitive sacred book is also likely true with many of the ancient western polytheistic religions that academics have examined. Books may have been written for priests to perform priestcraft (although little of any of that remains today), and the absence of such an organized clergy in the Greco-Roman period made the Jewish Tenach that appeared after the end of the Temple period a unique contribution to organized religion, especially when it was translated into Greek. Christianity followed suit, the Gnostics were prolific writers of sacred texts, and so did Islam later on.

Zoroastrianism and Hinduism have had a religious literary tradition for nearly 3,000 years, and the Zend Avesta and the Vedic texts are probably distantly related, both linguistically and doctrinally. Zoroaster reformed his creed, and the Vedic texts were complimented with books called the Upanishads. It might be difficult to formulate a Qabalah for those two faiths, but it would not be impossible, as the later heretical cult of Zurvan attempted to do with Zoroastrianism.

What this simple requirement does is leave modern Pagans and Witches out in the cold when it comes to the Qabalah. We have no sacred writings and no sacred language, so the very foundation of a Qabalistic system would evade us. The Tree of Life glyph, based on the Hebrew alphabet and numbering system, would be somewhat useful; but as a model of eschatology it is limited and not very insightful to a pagan or a witch. I have found that the three or four layered world perspective of traditional Shamanism more useful as a model of the natural and spiritual worlds than the Tree of Life. Additionally, the Hebrew Kabbalah does not use the Tarot as a method for characterizing the twenty-two paths, and if a Christian-Greek alphabet were used then two more pathways would have to be derived in a Christian Tree of Life glyph representing that system.

What is left, then, are the many tables of correspondences, based on the 32 paths (Sephiroth and Pathways) or their various sub-structures. Many of the full 32 path-based tables of correspondences are somewhat awkward and not particularly useful, while the ones that are based on the numbers 4, 7, 10 and 12 are much more useful since they can be readily used to build correspondences for the elements, planets, prime numbers and the signs of the zodiac. These tables are also handy for building correspondences for the full Tarot deck, which is probably one of the most powerful magical systems in use today. It stands by itself and doesn’t need the Qabalah to give it meaning and purpose.

Then we come to the topics of Gematria, Notariqon and Temurah. Gematria is the numerological method for equating numbers with words through the art of adding up the letter number values as found in a Hebrew word. Using the Greek alphabet might also be helpful, and there is an association of number values to Greek letters, since they were once used to write numbers when the Hindu-Arabic system of numeration had not yet been invented. It was likely the Greeks who developed this methodology and the Jews found it eminently useful in their Kabbalah.

The key to Gematria is to develop a book of words (Sepher Sephiroth) that has all of the relevant words found in the sacred text attributed to their letter numeric value, and the book is ordered by numbers to group them together. Without such a book, the process is not as revealing and it has the fault of being quite narrow, showing where connections make sense while avoiding those that make no sense whatsoever. A perusal of Crowley’s book Sepher Sephiroth shows that while some numbers have interesting connections, others are practically meaningless in their obscurity.

While I have found Gematria to be a clever curiosity, I have never found it as a useful method of proving a semantic correlation between word concepts. Authors like Kenneth Grant have over-used Gematria to formulate occultic proofs that are as flimsy as the paper they are written on. I think that Gematria has been overused by Grant and some others, since it should only focus on strategic religious terms, and then it also suffers from the noise of correlations that are irrelevant or meaningless.

Notariqon is the art of building and exploding acronyms and Temurah is the art of letter substitution. I have used Notariqon in building letter and word formulas to bind the segments of rituals together into a seamless whole, but it is just a process of building clever acronyms - there is nothing sacred or mysterious about it. These letter number technologies are interesting and at times, clever, but I have not found them very insightful. Perhaps if I had a sacred text to use them against I would discover all sorts of amazing and fascinating mysteries, but I don’t have such a book and so the greater appreciation of the Qabalah is unavailable to me.

After all of these considerations, I do still find the Qabalah useful and since I have incorporated it into my magical workings, it is still relevant to me. Yet I have found that the overuse and even abuse of the Qabalah to be disappointing. There are many other mystical and occult systems to use in the workings of magic. Sometimes not using any system will yield results that are more straightforward and less convoluted than having to add a thick and sometimes awkward layer of Qabalah to a magical working or process for esthetic reasons. These are, of course, just my opinions.

The book “Magical Qabalah for Beginners” is not only recommend by me, the author, but also by other occultists. The large number of sold copies should be an indicator that this book is worth having and reading. It is, however, not really for beginners, despite what the title of the book says.

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

Frater Barrabbas Author Literary Tour - Part 2 - DGRM

The first book that I managed to get published was entitled “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick” which was published in 2007. It took me around a seven months to write this book, so I had started in early 2006 to write this work. What I did was take a number of the chapters from the Pyramid of Powers manuscript and use that body of text to pull together this book. I also included additional texts and qualified the rituals with a pagan Arthurian-Grail theme. 

It was in early September 2006 that I got a referral from an online friend for a possible publisher for my newly written book. That referral was to Taylor Elwood, an accomplished author himself, who was embarking on a new publishing arm of an independent publisher named Immanion. This was the beginning of a long and very fruitful friendship, and Taylor was not only an inspiration to me but also a mentor who helped me navigate the complex world of internet media.

Here is the official plug for that book.

The Disciple's Guide to Ritual Magick is a book written for the beginning occult student who seeks the integral practice of a ritual magician. This book presents concepts and insights found in no other book on the subject. Frater Barrabbas believes that all magicians seek enlightenment and gnosis, whether they know it or not.

Since Magick is the Yoga of the West, then it follows that it should be as comprehensive and complete a spiritual discipline as the various practices of the Eastern traditions. This means that the practice of Magick must be expanded and broadened so that it is as much a full spiritual discipline and means to gaining Gnosis as any other spiritual system.

This book is an attempt at making magick a comprehensive discipline that affects all aspects of life. To aid this quest, Frater Barrabbas not only expounds upon the philosophy of magick that is a part of most occult teachings, but he also provides a grimoire of seven rituals that the student can use to build a complete magickal discipline.

The grimoire allows for the magickal operations of material acquisition and uses the Pyramidal Pylon and the Vortex as the sources of magickal power. The Lunar and Solar Mysteries chart the inner and outer spiritual worlds of the magician, and the Mystery of the Self is used as a mechanism of self-initiation. As Frater Barrabbas writes: “For it is my desire to make the student and reader of this book into an accomplished ritual magician and an initiate..”

One of the more intriguing aspects of the grimoire of seven rituals is that it is written with an occult context, and that is the Grail Mythos of the Western Mystery Tradition. Although everyone probably knows the stories about the Quest for the Holy Grail, King Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table, there are powerful allegorical undercurrents and occult threads in these tales, that when realized, can become translated into life changing experiences for the magician.

Frater Barrabbas has been working and teaching new forms of Magick for over 35 years, and assisted in starting a magickal lodge where this discipline was taught and practiced. The rituals in the grimoire are based on the rituals that were used by this order, whose lore is also modeled upon the Grail Mythos. These rites were tested by seasoned magicians and certified to produce the effects that they promise. Frater Barrabbas has written these rituals and the accompanying curriculum so that Magick might experience a renaissance in the new millennium.

We believe that you will find this book both compelling and challenging. It is the first foundation for the practicing ritual magician, and one that is necessary for the ultimate attainment of knowledge, fulfillment and wisdom through the revelation and gnosis of Magick. The second work in this series is a trilogy entitled Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick.

While it had taken me five years to write my first book, it only took me seven months to write my second book. This is because I had cannibalized the Pyramid of Powers to write that second book, so I had plenty of material to work with and to rewrite into a new approach for individuals who were interested in building their own system of magic. While I had used the Grail mythos to qualify the basic seven rituals included in the grimoire portion of the book, they were the basic seven presented in the Pyramid of Powers.

Those seven rituals consisted of the following rites, which I believe represent the basic set of rituals that anyone would need to build their own ritual magical practice.

1. Circle and temple consecration rite
2. Pyramidal Pentagram rite (pyramid of powers rite)
3. Rose Ankh vortex rite
3. Godhead Assumption rite
4. Lunar Mystery rite
5. Solar Mystery rite
6. Self Initiation rite
7. Magical Tool Consecration rite

What was missing was a stand-alone ritual for the western and eastern gateway rites, but these were included as a part of the lunar and solar mystery rites, so everything that was needed to put together a basic magical system was there in that book. However, since I had qualified the rituals with the Arthurian Grail mythos, with paganized Christian undertones, the book would have a limited audience. As a book, it was not a best seller, but it did help me realize the possibilities of writing non-fiction books. I did have help in putting this book together though, since the artwork was not my own but that which was provided by two good friends.

Perhaps one of the best chapters in the book, and the one that makes it a useful addition to your library, is where I used the writings of Ken Wilbur, particularly his book “Eye of Spirit” and the book “Atman Project” to build a chapter named “The Search for Spirit: An Exploration of the Higher Mind” (part 1, chapter 3). I not only defined the concepts of transformation, transcendence and teleology, I had also mapped the levels of higher consciousness, which would be far beyond the experience level of the basic forms of magic, as outlined in the rituals in the book. 

However, some of the more advanced magical workings that I had performed in the past produced these kind of conscious states, indicating to me that the more advanced forms of magic can cause one to experience transcendence, and ultimately over time, enlightenment. While this chapter might represent the results of a kind of magic that is far beyond the kind of workings this book espouses, that one chapter explains the whole process of being a spiritual seeker and how magical and spiritual work can culminate in a higher baseline of normal consciousness. That is something to contemplate as one begins and proceeds through the magical path of transformations and inspired illumination.

Anyway, each of my books has some real treasures and some actual wisdom to impart to the reader, even if the magical tech is not particularly impressive.   

Frater Barrabbas

Frater Barrabbas Author Literary Tour - Part 1 - The Beginning

 

 Logo Pyramid of Powers

 At the time of this article I have written a total of seven books. Five are in print, one is at the printers and one is in manuscript form waiting to be submitted to the publisher. In the Spring of 2023 I will have all seven books in print and I will be likely developing yet another. That’s a lot of books and materials on the occult, magic and Witchcraft, you might say. What is driving me to write down everything I know about these topics? I can safely say that there seems to be a spiritual force that is inspiring me, and also my methodology for working magic is quite different than the ceremonial magician or the traditional Witch. I am something of an anomaly, a hybrid between various modern traditions of pagan religion and the practice of ritual magic. I have gone through many phases of my work and practice, but the books that I have written represent the later fruits of my work and do not represent all of the places where I have been nor my original path.

There was a time when I heavily engaged and studied Gnosticism, and there are still some elements of that topic which appeal to me, but I have pretty much rejected the antinomian perspective that nature is somehow corrupt and negative. I am just too much of an optimist to have such a dreary attitude towards nature, and life itself. I could never ditch my sentimental attachment to the natural world, and after all these years I stand in awe of everything that I have seen and experienced within the spectrum of nature and natural habitats. I certainly haven’t seen everything, and in fact I am less traveled than many; but still nature is something that I feel deeply attached to and will not forsake what I feel is intrinsic to my faith as a pagan and a witch. Gnosticism was sort of a fad for me, and I am much less passionate about it than I was 30 years ago, back in the early 90's.

The topic of Qabalah is another one of those areas of occult study that I was deeply engaged with over the decades but now it is less interesting to me. I have even written a book on the topic, and some have said that it is one of the better books in print. Yet after writing that book and doing all of the research that was required to accurately represent it in a completely cogent manner, I discovered that the Qabalah was not actually very relevant to my work as a ritual magician and a Witch. I will write another article about that book and why I came to find the Qabalah a useful methodology but not the panacea that other occultists believe it to be.

What I wanted to discuss is that my literary career started many years before my first book was ever published in 2007. We are talking about a span of time from around 1991 to 2007 when I published my first book, based on some of the material that was in that original work. My first attempt at writing was a book I named "Pyramid of Powers," named after the ritual I developed to project a masculine energy field, similar to the cone of power. The reason why I wrote this book and for whom were individuals who had joined the magical order of the Gnostic Star and found the beginning rituals to be a bit too difficult to readily master. Two of my acquaintances from when I had lived briefly in Dallas had decided to adopt the rituals of that order into the regimen and become initiates. They visited me a couple of years later after I had moved to Tallahassee, FL.

However, concepts that I took for granted, such as the vortex, using the cardinal directions and the angles, the pylon, the western and eastern gateways seemed based on an underlying magical technology that they had never seen before. They didn’t have me around to show them how these rituals worked, and they were more experienced than their friends and potential members. If my two friends couldn’t explain what a vortex was and how it was able to work then they couldn’t explain that to their friends. They asked if there was some kind of underlying documentation that they could read and study in order to understand how to employ these rituals. In fact, they said if I could provide them with a set of rituals that were more basic and easier to understand, along with a body of lore to give them background, then they could master these rituals and ultimately begin mastering the lore of the order.

Of course, what they were asking for didn’t exist, and in fact, because I had been the main teacher and the developer of this lore, the mother temple in Kansas City had ample opportunity to hear me explain and even demonstrate how these rituals worked. Since this lore was also developed gradually level by level with the participation of the group, there wasn’t any need for me to provide simpler rituals for beginners to introduce them to these concepts nor any deeper explanations to describe how they functioned. It was a strange experience for me to explain how a vortex worked to my friend “Fish” from Dallas who understood the cone of power, but was unable to fathom how a vortex could possibly function without causing the energy field of the magic circle to collapse altogether.

I had to scratch my head for a bit on that one, but was able to explain that the vortex was established inside a magic circle, and that the circle functioned as a sacred boundary, and whatever occurred within that boundary didn’t violate or interfere with the proper external magic circle. Learning to work with these concepts, at least for a beginner, was something of a leap of faith. My friends told me that while I could explain these concepts to them and even show them how they worked when they visited me in Tallahassee, they would find it quite difficult to explain it to their colleagues.

It was at that point I realized that the ritual lore of the order needed a set of beginner rituals and a thorough explanation of how they worked so that one might be able to later learn and operate the more advanced rituals in the order. That was my inspiration, and I set to work on it immediately after my friends had left to return home. I would write up a complete set of lore that was easier to understand and operate, and in fact, it would resemble a more ritual magical version of what I had been using in my days as a Witch priest and coven leader.

Once I started with this task, I discovered that it was not as simple as just writing a series of rituals. I had to explain the whole basis of my ritual technology, and my writing skills were woefully inadequate to accomplish that goal quickly. While I may have written my last book in around 80 days, I could hardly be able to write what would become a three volume book in that kind of time. I took me five years to write my first book, and it was not very well written either. I was organized enough and had a good chapter structure to follow, but my ability to write was rudimentary, and my earlier writings were barely readable. I had to learn how to write non-fiction, so it was a long and torturous writing process for me. I begged some friends to help me edit that work, but even then it was poorly written and did not have the kind of easy access and readability that my books and articles have today.

I can recall printing out all 500+ pages of the three volume book and taking it to Kinkos and having them make books with colored covers and a spiral binding to hold the pages together. I still have a couple of copies, but it was at least good enough to help individuals learn about my magical technology and to then have the understanding and background to make use of the many rituals and ceremonies that were part of the legacy of the E.S.S.G. or the Order of the Gnostic Star. Completing this task whet my appetite for writing and in the process made me a good enough writer to actually consider writing a book on magic and getting it published. It is typical that the first book that we write takes years to produce, but never gets published. That is not exactly what happened to me, but overall the book Pyramid of Powers was never actually published, at least in the format that it was at that time. More on that in the next couple of episodes of the Frater Barrabbas literary review.

Since I had written a massive three volume book, I did have a lot of material already written up to serve as the source for future books. I would need to rewrite sections, add new sections and remove other materials, but my first book would serve as the source for my next two books.

Frater Barrabbas  

These Be Dark Times in Our Land

 

To believe that Witchcraft and Ritual Magic represent some kind of a-political perspective is foolish at best, delusional at worst kind of reasoning. This is why I feel the need to point to the politics of our time and present it from the perspective of a practicing Witch and ritual magician. What I can say is that regardless of one’s political persuasions or lack thereof, our beliefs and practices thrive when there is an overall openness and progressive bend to the social and political body of our nation. Tolerance, the acceptance of diversity, and empowered rights of the individual, including the most powerless and vulnerable of our populace, is the kind of environment in which Witchcraft both as a religion and as a magical practice can thrive. This is because we are all truly free when everyone is given the respective and dignity that they, as human beings, deserve.

What disturbs me most is when a particular religious faith within the body politic decides to impose their beliefs, prejudices and mythic thinking on the rest of the populace of the nation. I am not a Christian, Muslim nor Jew, but I respective everyone’s rights to practice their faith within a nation where the local and national government is secular and unbiased by religious prejudice. However, lately it seems as if a certain minority of ultra-conservative Christians have pushed forth an agenda that has the backing of the Supreme Court of our nation. I am, of course, referring to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but other recent decisions have made the court a place of Christian fundamentalism, both Protestant and Catholic, instead of a secular body that respects previous decisions.

I cannot abide the mind-set that has elevated an ultra-conservative Christianity to become the law of the land. There is no one truth in regards to religious beliefs and practices, and there is no one true religion. As I have said, because of the common threads between all religions, either they are all true or none of them are true. Of course context is important to any kind of religious perspective, which means that religious truths must be placed within the context of their perspective, and no truth from one religious perspective can overturn or deny the truth of any other religion. Yet this is what we are enduring for these dark times in the nation of supposed freedoms and rights. It reminds me of the hypocrisy of the seven Christian virtues of humility, charity, chastity, gratitude, temperance, diligence and patience and how it is practiced as a divisive and sectarian creed. It would seem that the seven deadly sins are more popularly practiced in Christianity than its virtues.

There is a wonderful book that I read back in the early 1980's during the Reagan presidency, entitled “The Handmaid’s Tale” written by Margaret Atwood, and later became a series on Hulu. In that book, the U.S. has been transformed into a theocratic nation called Gideon, where the elite ruling class are the religious leaders of an aggressive and tyrannical Christian fundamentalist movement. I read this book not long after it was published in 1985, and it seemed not too far off for a fictional concept with the ascendancy of the Religious Right happening at that time. I felt at least comforted by the fact that we are a nation of many diverse faiths, with a growing percentage of non-aligned, agnostic or atheist citizens. 

Such a diverse religious population should require a secular government to fairly treat them all with the respect that they deserve, and that not one group and its creed should be placed over and above the others. What worries me is that in the course of time since the publishing of that book I have seen the planks for a foundation of such a theocratic government start to be put into place by various politicians, pundits and even jurists. The Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion and states that no law shall be passed that would violate that guarantee, but we are incrementally slipping into an abyss of autocracy and theocratic rule unless people take their liberties seriously and aggressively defend them from those who would impose on us their creed based values and beliefs.

Roe vs Wade was part of a series of judicial pronouncements from previous SCOTUS rulings that were based on the premise that laws against abortion unduly violated a woman’s right to privacy as based on the 14th amendment of the Constitution, back in 1973. That amendment guaranteed extensive due process rights to individuals. That part of the amendment reads:

“..that neither federal nor state governments can restrict fundamental decisions that affect their liberty or property rights without proving that there’s some kind of overwhelming national interest at stake”

Based on that part of the amendment and how it was interpreted, starting in the 1960's, there were five landmark rulings that defined a greater scope of legal and allowable conduct of private citizens that made them beyond the interdiction or interference of the State. These rulings included Roe vs Wade. Let me list them for you, in case you need a helpful reminder of what is at stake in our legal nation at this time.

1. Griswald vs Connecticut - the freedom to purchase contraceptives to block fertility. Yes, at one time, the pill and family planning were illegal.

2. Loving vs Virginia - the freedom to marry someone of another race. There were laws in the south that made marriage between individuals of difference races (particularly Blacks marrying Whites) illegal or at the very least, unrecognized.

3. Roe vs Wade - abortions became legal with some minor restrictions throughout the nation.

4. Lawrence vs Texas - this abrogated sodomy laws that made same sex intercourse illegal. A number of laws, including sex acts that were outside the missionary position, were forced to be abolished.

5. Obergefell vs Hodges - this started out as several legal cases brought in a number of States that argued for marriage equality, making a marriage between the same genders as legitimate as the marriage between the opposite sexes.

Many of these rulings have a particularly important value and meaningfulness to those of us who are practicing Witches and Pagans. Many of us are also members of the LGBQT community, or at least stand apart from the Christian Religious Right, realizing that anyone who is denied their basic rights puts at risk the freedoms and rights of everyone. We are not alone in seeing the risk of overturning any of these rulings and what that might do to the world we live in today.

The current 2022 ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade represented the Supreme Court’s rejection of precedence and throwing out the whole basis of the 14th amendment on which these rulings were originally based. What that does, in fact, is jeopardize the other four rulings, since they were based on the same right to privacy that allowed Roe vs. Wade to be the law of the land for almost 50 years. If the people’s right to privacy is no longer a valid and dependable right, then we are in for a very rough period indeed. It is likely and possible, with the current make up of the Supreme Court that at least three of those current rulings will possibly fall in the very near future. 

That means that contraception will become illegal, same sex marriage and intercourse will become illegal, and maybe some States will be allowed to once again outlaw marriages between people of different races. It also means that States could be allowed to force certain religious beliefs on their populations and outlaw other unacceptable faiths, such as my own. No one knows how far these precedents will push the legal domain of the Federal Government and States to make life more difficult and a lot less free than it has been. Some States won’t go in this direction, but others will happily interdict their populations with all sorts of restrictive laws on the behavior and life-style of individuals.

All of these events have me dreading the future, since there doesn’t seem to be much that anyone can do right now to push the nation in the other direction. However, there is one antidote to this pernicious slide to a theocratic autocracy, and that is to vote, and get your friends, family and colleagues to vote. We need to build liberal super majorities in States and the U. S. Congress and Senate and pass laws that will enforce the right to privacy. It is something that actually protects all of us from unwarranted scrutiny and interdiction, and we need to be motivated as if our freedom and the conservation of our life-style depends on it - because it does!

No excuses - get out and vote in November. If you don’t vote and these conservative cretins successfully gain power, those of us who are practicing non-Christian based faiths will rue the day that we didn’t act as a majority to save our nation. Keep in mind that the Religious Right represents a distinct minority, and when we act as a coalition of majority minded folks they will be out-voted and put out of power.

Frater Barrabbas

Satanic Panic is Back

So, here we are, in the year 2022, and what do I read in the news? That QAnon is pushing a Satanic child predation conspiracy to destroy the political careers of politicians who are not extreme enough in their support of the former president or who happen to be Democrats, with a big “D” next to their name on the ballot. As an elderly Witch and ritual magician with a long memory, I can recall something similar to this event happening back in the 1980's. I view this occurrence with a bit of horror and also shock at how stupid and misinformed some people are in our nation.

A Satanic Panic, also known as a moral panic, is where individuals or groups are allegedly accused of holding forbidden rites where children are ritually and sexually abused, or even murdered and cannibalized. It is a form of the persecution of stigmatized others lacking validity or any basis in fact, and it relies on the sinister effects of a conspiracy, media manipulation and public gullibility. It is the myth where people believe in the double nature of supposedly good and upright individuals who are allegedly perpetrating untold acts of evil against innocent children. Typically, such accusations are made against individuals who represent a social minority or who are unable to defend themselves. It is similar to the pogroms against the Jews, Catholics, Blacks, Irish, Mormons, Asians, socialists and communists. It represents the basest form of fear mongering and persecuting otherwise innocent individuals who are powerless to prevent their victimization.

The so-called Satanic Panic of the 1980's started with a book titled “Michelle Remembers” written by Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist husband, Lawrence Pazder, and published in 1980. In the book she luridly describes her experiences as a child being ritually abused in Satanic rituals, although it is never claimed in the book to be her own personal experiences. Her husband even coined the term ritual abuse, or RA, and began a career promoting the belief that ritual abuse was a wide-spread social phenomenon. They gave lectures and training to law enforcement agencies even though there was no real proof that such events were actually happening. The idea of a Satanic conspiracy and the horrors of ritual abuse or even the murder of children caught the imagination of some people, particularly those who were religiously conservative and intellectually compromised.  However, by the 1990's, Pazder had already assisted law enforcement agencies in the investigation of over 1,000 cases, ensuring that the seeds of these unfounded beliefs and accusations were promoted as factual truths.

This book was very likely responsible for child welfare case workers being advised to begin to more deeply investigate the possibilities of ritual abuse based on State directed guidelines, and law enforcement agencies were also keen to investigate the possibility of Satanic Ritual Abuse, or SRA, as it was called. A social phenomenon was created by this book and the seriousness of the allegations, coupled with people’s imaginations, made others come forth to admit that they had been ritually abused as children, and some parents admitted to it when pressured by police and accepting plea deals from aggressive district attorneys. Suddenly, this phenomenon became endemic in Canada, the U.S. and the UK. All of this was happening without a shred of actual evidence. It was based on dubious accusations, hear-say, and rumors. In many cases it was a modern version of the Witchcraft scares and persecutions of the pre-modern era.  

The most notable of these prosecutions was the California McMartin Preschool case, where the owner and director (Peggy McMartin and Ray Buckey) in 1983 were accused of engaging in Satanic Ritual Abuse. I recall this time quite well, and the two defendants were given terrible press and depicted as evil Satanists who were secretly engaging in the ritual and sexual abuse of the children placed in their care. This was a highly sensationalized event that got national coverage and was played in the news for months. Even author Michelle Smith got into the fray, counseling the parents of the children who had been supposedly abused. Of course, the prosecution had little hard evidence for all of the counts of sexual abuse alleged against the two figure heads (they had dropped the “Satanic Ritual” part of allegations) , and after three years they were finally acquitted of all charges. Their lives and the pre-school business they ran was utterly destroyed, and all it did was fan the fires of a sensational conspiracy that seemed to have a life all of its own. These conspiracy allegations were taken so seriously that they inspired the U.S. Congress to investigate and to promote bills to protect children against a phenomenon that had no basis in fact or reality.

Child abuse is a real factor throughout the world, but a conspiracy based Satanic Ritual Abuse underground movement is the stuff of fantasy and nightmares. It has no basis in fact. By the early 1990's the press had grown skeptical of the SRA phenomenon and some brave individuals in the psychiatric and law enforcement academic and organizations disputed the claims and argued that there was no hard evidence that SRA was actually a problem requiring legal and government intervention. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, combined with the University of California, studied over 12,000 cases and found no evidence of an organized movement. The Satanic Panic, which had ultimately captivated and horrified many nations was based on nothing more than hysteria and superstition. The sad effect of this Satanic Panic was that it deflected from the real problem of child abuse, and abrogated resources that would have better spent on a real endemic social problem instead of a phantom menace.  

That period of time did have an impact on the Pagan and Witchcraft communities. As a means of safe-guarding our communities, some parents decided not to allow their children to attend public or pagan festival gatherings. We as a community became a lot more cautious and scrutinized potential new members to our community, fearing that some local law enforcement would target us and plant informers who would lie or distort what was happening at Pagan or Wiccan gatherings. We also became more adverse to any form of Satanism, and even barred some who were inclined to diabolatry in a gothic guise to attend our gatherings and associate with us as invited equals. It was, overall, a sad time to be a Witch or Pagan, and we were glad when it finally died out and left the public sphere.

Having enduring that troubling time, now I am reading in the news that a new group of manipulative pundits and politicians, some within the QAnon conspiracy organizations, and some in hard-core conservative news or political organizations are pushing a new and revised version of this nightmare. Although this time the moral panic is also focused on the LGBTQ community as well as the Pagan and Witchcraft communities. Politicians who are liberal or even mildly conservative are being accused of aggressively recruiting children to become queer or engage in occultism, Paganism or Witchcraft. Those of us who are actual members of these communities are seeking to avoid any controversy, knowing all too well what might happen if a new moral panic gripped the nation.

Since the political classes in the U.S. are so polarized, it would seem that a revised Satanic Panic with accusations of ritual abuse, murder and cannibalism would seem to be believed by a significant minority of religiously conservative groups. However, it is also likely that the mainstream media will find such accusations to be completely ridiculous, which will shield the general public from assuming that such accusations are anything but complete nonsense. QAnon has not found much respect or acceptance in the majority of the American public, but if the Republican party regains power in the next two years then all bets are off. We may find ourselves hounded back into the broom closet for most, and real live persecution for those of us who are published or publicly known, like myself.

Frater Barrabbas  

Temporal Model of Magic and Gods of Time

 

In my forthcoming book, “Talismanic Magic for Witches” I talk about a new magical model that I recently discovered that explains the magical efficacy of what I call the talismanic equation. There are basically two parts to this consideration. The first part promotes the idea that the best and most stable talismanic force is one that combines both a planetary intelligence or archetype with an element. The second part is that incorporating the attribute of time through the use of the planetary day, hour and the astrological auspices of associated transits occurring when the magic is to be performed places that working into a more powerful disposition than if one were to ignore time altogether.

The first part is based on the concept that a mind and body joined together has greater utility than a mind without a body, or a body without a mind. In talismanic magic, the mind part is the planetary intelligence and the body part is the element energy, and when joined together creates a self-sustaining magical field. You can, of course, work planetary magic without adding an element to it, but there is something special about the energy and the intelligence when combining the two together.

A talismanic field that consists of both a planet and an element represents a kind of magical force that is intelligent (guided) and empowered (embodied) to a specific purpose. Such a magical force is radiant, and, I might add, perpetual. A planetary intelligence attached to a godhead archetype and fused within an element envelope that is continually charging it will continue to radiate its magical effect practically forever, or for as long as the talisman is maintained. Thus, talismanic magic is unlike any of other form of magic.

To ground and preserve this perpetually charged and active magical force, it is projected into a metallic body that is inscribed with symbols and sigils denoting the qualities and authorities (spirits) used to generate it. The importance of using a metallic body for containing the talismanic artifact is to ensure its longevity, since other material containers would be subject to the ablative effect of time and use. As long as the owner of the talisman maintains a mental link with the talisman, it will continue to operate perpetually. A talisman can be destroyed by destroying the base in which it resides and disbursing its energy, and it can become dormant if lost or unused for a period of many months. A dormant talisman can be easily awakened when merely summoned and focused within a consecrated space.  

Talismans can be created through a process of either active or passive magical actions. The active magical process incorporates a star polygon, such as a hexagram or a septagram. It uses the same methodology that is used to generate an element using a pentagram. Drawing the lines of force of a star polygon will produce the energy and intelligence of a specific planet or zodiacal sign. This can done at any time such a field is needed in a magical operation.

The passive methodology relies strictly on the astrological auspices of a given event to invoke and thereby focus that quality on an object or person. It teaches that merely exposing and invoking a celestial quality at the right time will suffice to complete a magical operation. An elective astrological chart is often required, along with the use of the planetary day and hour. Using the active magical approach overrides the necessity for predetermining the astrological auspices and selecting the best time, and many people work planetary magic using this approach. The passive approach has its benefits, and some would argue that it is superior, since it incorporates the omens and portends of a successful outcome. However, it requires more than a working knowledge of astrology and it is locked into a specific time and location to take advantage of a celestial event, thereby limiting when the working can be performed.

A magical  rule to consider whenever approaching magic that uses celestial objects, such as planets, is that there is a greater impact and long-term effect to be gained in the magical working when the factor of time is considered for such a working. When I am referring to time, I am, of course, referring to the event of the working, when it is performed, where and under what conditions. There is an important archetypal factor at play when the ritual magician incorporates time into a working. Not only are there the symbolic auspices at play, such as the planetary day, hour and associated astrological transits that link into the operator’s natal chart, but there are also the nature and qualities of the deity of time itself. There is also a magical model called the temporal model of magic that is also at play as we shall see later.

Planetary magic is more effective when the planet is combined with an element, to produce a matrix of twenty-eight empowered spiritual intelligences. However, some folks can just work planetary magic without combining the planets with elements and produce an effective method of magical workings. Similarly, a ritual magician can use a star polygon to generate a planetary force and summon the angel or archangel for a working whenever needed and set that working to make a change in the physical world.

Yet this kind of magic is no different than performing an elemental working or an evocation. It is a single event that seeks to produce a very specific outcome. Using a planetary force and its associated angel or archangel might have different qualities than performing other kinds of magic, but it is really no different than just summoning an angel or archangel to help one successfully materialize an objective. All of these methods of magic require mundane steps to help the working to produce the desired results, and the more extensive these steps, the more likely the outcome.

It can been seen that combining a planet with an element would likely produce a more effective outcome because it generates a talismanic field that is constantly working, day and night, practically forever. Since the talisman is constantly working on an objective, there would be less mundane steps needed to ensure a successful outcome. Additionally, if the event of generating that talismanic field is governed by a careful selection of astrological auspices and incorporating the planetary hour or day into the elected date of the working then the effect of that working will likely require even less or no mundane steps to ensure success. Combining these three magical actions together, active generation of the planetary quality, empowering it with a base element and performing the working at the most auspicious time will produce a magical artifact that will be superior to using any other methodology.

You can imagine what could be possible if a ritual magician constructed, generated and charged a series of talismans, each to handle a specific aspect of his or her life, and arrayed them altogether in a sacred place in the home. It would be like creating a “charmed” life for the individual, where misfortune is blunted or even avoided, and good fortune amplified. Creating such a treasure of talismans operating in one’s life would certainly obviate the need for working any other kind of magic, at least for material gain and the blessings of good fortune. This would certainly put someone into the place where they could focus on working magic to expand their knowledge and quench their curiosity while the talismans would handle all of the material based concerns. Not only is this a possibility, but it is one that I have crafted for myself, and so far, it is working and greatly aiding me at all times.

What makes this kind of talismanic magic so potent is the underlying powers and effects of the archetypes, myths and the deity of time itself. It is called the temporal model of magic, and it is one that we should pay close attention to whenever we work any kind of magic.

The temporal model of magic is succinctly stated that when a ritual is performed, that moment in time becomes profoundly significant and auspicious. It places an indelible mark upon the operator’s time line. The more important that ritual working is then the greater its significance and auspiciousness. This event of magic becomes similar to the event of divination, or the event of casting an astrological chart. That event, in of itself, causes a change, whether imperceptible or profound, in the life of the operator. This is because the event triggers the layered occult symbology that is part of our cultural collective, and this causes a transformation of consciousness for everyone connected to that event.

Therefore, it would be highly prudent for a ritual magician to recognize the temporal model of magic working in their practice and to be mindful of the astrological auspices operating when choosing the moment or event of a magical working. The connection to elective astrology or even horary astrology should be evident when considering the efficacy of choosing the optimal time and place to perform an important magical working. There are reasons for this opinion that go far beyond the astrological auspices of a given moment.

The core of the temporal model of magic is the Deity of time itself, known in some circles as Chronos (not be confused with Kronos, the father of Zeus). Chronos is the Greek word for time, but as a Deity, he did not have a shrine nor was he part of the civic state religious cult. Chronos was given an important role in the writings of an early Presocratic philosopher Pherecydes, who was a contemporary of Pythagoras (6th century CE). For the perspective of magic, Chronos is considered a lintel deity who symbolizes both the beginning and end, and the gateway that leads from the past into the future. He is, therefore, similar to other lintel deities, such as the Roman Janus, Herne, Eris, Saturnus, and Laverna, or the Persian God Zervan, to mention a few. He is both the Lord of Misrule and the embodiment of the Celestial Order of continual change.

Such a deity represents the mystery and the magic of the greater potential of change, and the spark of fate or destiny that can be generated for the benefit of the magical operator. It is necessary, then, to give homage to this mysterious and multiform godhead so as to aid a specific magical working, especially a celestial working that incorporates astrological auspices. A simple rule to understand about this kind of magic is that the more the operator knows about the moment and event of the celestial operation, and the greater the focus on performing this act at the best or most auspicious time will ensure that the results will be in accordance with the magician’s objective. It would seem, therefore, that time and the temporal model of magic can help a magical working, or any kind of magical operation, to be more effective and profoundly meaningful.

Frater Barrabbas