Audio: Empty Institute & Deluge

The Empty Institute & The Deluge, 4th December 2022

Everything that I talk about are merely two ways - because they always come in pairs, don't they? - two ways of talking about the same thing. We've already been over the Left and the Right Hand Path, the Mountain and the Forest, the Bailey and the Motte, the Horse and the Herd, the Donkey and the Pyre.

So the Empty Institute and the Deluge are a variation on this. I'll talk about the Empty Institute first though, before I get to the Deluge, and the Deluge will make more sense then.

Preoccupations & Esoteric Anatomy

It's very common, round about the second stage of awakening, to be concerned with institutional belonging.

The first preoccupation that people have when it comes to awakening, when it comes to spirituality, is how awakening happens. What its nature is, how you go about realisation. And we could say that kind of corresponds with the idea of the head, the centre of the head or something like that, if we were to divide the body up into three energetic centres, which is a common thing that you find in many traditions.

And therefore you can think of the process of waking up or the process of initiation as like a descent. That starts off with the head, and that's the first awakening. That's when you realise that the nature of the divine mind isn't absent. It's something that's always present and it's always the case.

The preoccupation after that isn't with how one understands, and therefore all the dramas and strategies around how to make knowledge or wisdom or awakening happen in a conditional sense drop away.

And the preoccupation then is replaced with relationship. How is what's been realised - in terms of what we can call a divine mind - how does that relate to this world?

The other way in which this preoccupation is expressed is a concern around life and death. That's another way of talking about it. Because ultimately that's one way of understanding how the two worlds relate to each other: life and death.

But, generally speaking, we can talk about relationship. So you've had an awakening. How does it relate to this world? How does the transparent delusional behaviors that you continue to play out relate to this awakened mind that you've now experienced? How do they relate to each other? Because they are at odds, and that can be a painful situation to find yourself in.

It's at this stage that some people decide that it might be a good idea to eradicate emotions. Get rid of the capacity to feel this disjointed experience. Between behaviors that you can't stop arising, that don't reflect this awakened state of mind that you've realised. 

What I'm talking about is something that genuinely manifests in the world. I've seen a tradition specifically concerned with having a stage one awakening, and then doing everything you can to eradicate emotions, which you can do - there are practices which you can do, which will lead in that direction.

And I've seen people explicitly describe that process with full conscious understanding that it's 180 degrees in the opposite direction to waking up, that it's the opposite of the direction that all the teachers say you should go in. And then the resulting state is even described with four categories taken from the American Manual for Diagnosing Psychiatric Disorders.

I don't know why anyone would give that the time of day, it is a real thing that actually happened and I saw extraordinarily intelligent people, who had been engaging with practical dharma, decide that was a good idea.

Relationship - ethical behaviour! How do you behave in a way that reflects what you've realised? Because you need to now, don't you? What does an awakened human being do? Now you are an awakened human being, how do you live your life? So it becomes a concern with ethics, with morality, which is another way of just saying relationship.

But, as you can appreciate from your first rodeo - the rodeo that I just described, with waking up for the first time - you're really making up for an absence that isn't there. And that's the absence of divine relationship or divine action. Once that preoccupation goes, we could say then, the awakening process has now descended to the heart area. And you no longer need to try and make up for an absence that was never the case. Meaning divine action, divine relationship, is something that's freely expressed in the world.

Now, the next stage would be going one centre lower, into the gut area, something like that. Preoccupation becomes about what is and what is not. ‘Thus-ness’, ‘is-ness’, being, non being, and so on. That becomes a preoccupation. A more subtle and perhaps conceptually difficult preoccupation to appreciate. But nevertheless, that's the case when you get to that stage.

The Empty Institute

So an institution that embodies and expresses awakened action. So how do you relate to the world? What's the awakened way of doing that? What's the wise way of doing that?

Now necessarily, as an institutional or cultural reflection of the idea of awakening - what we might call awakened virtues, what they might look like, or characteristics - we're in the domain of appearance, aren't we?

And one wants training in that appearance. Training in how to behave, training in how to look and dress. And then quickly, you have traditions that are recognisable.

Now, of course, you don't have to be preoccupied with divine relationship or divine action to find yourself interested in a tradition. And indeed, when you're first seeking you have a similar concern, you might say, that's a reflection of this higher order concern. So you have lower level personal dramas that reflect this existential shadow about a moral or divine action or relationship and how you should behave.

It's often the case that people move out of that when they start seeking or searching for real. It'll drive them to explore an institution or something like that. And realize that it's not found in those places.

And you can also see that most people who are interested in institutional religions or spirituality are there for many different reasons, right?

And it's not always the case as well that institutions find their origin in people who've reached that stage of realisation and not gone any further, but obviously it contributes.

I remember during that stage of my own initiatory path of looking around for something to house my awakening in. Looking for somewhere where I could finally come to rest and not have to worry about all these things, what can take care of this problem for me so I don't have to think about it. As an extended network of individuals, participating in an institution. That kind of a thing.

But even before doing that, I remember going to places where I thought I would find awakened individuals as part of a lineage. You would think that maybe you'd go to these institutions - you'd go to an ashram that belongs to Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi. You'd go to a Buddhist Theravadan temple, they’re called Wats in Thailand - and you'd find a lineage there.

I thought in Thailand, because it's 95% Theravadan, everyone's going to be walking around doing noting practice and talking about stages and whatever. All I found there was the clergy. You go to your temple, you pay the priests some money, they do some blessings for you. Same everywhere, isn't it?

But yes, I'd go to these institutions expecting to find lineages and awakened people and all this other stuff. They were all empty. They were all empty. 

The Inner Thread

And what had brought me to those institutions would be reflected in individuals that I might find in those institutions. I remember going to a Theravadan temple, and I did find someone there. I don't know what the official title would have been, but he was some visiting monk from Germany, funnily enough.

Everywhere I went looking for Eastern teachers, I just found Westerners. So I went to Ramana Maharshi, thinking I'll find some kind of Indian teacher or something like that. I found an American guy, Arunachala Ramana. I went to Thailand, I went to one of these Theravadan wats, and I found a German dude.

Even then with the German dude, I could be honest with him and talk about awakening and where I thought I was at and what I'd been through and stuff. And I wanted him to teach me how to do walking meditation. I wanted the technical instructions and he wouldn't give them to me. He said, ‘Why would someone like you (meaning someone who'd already been experiencing things), why would someone like you want to learn something like that? What's the point?’ And he wouldn't teach me.

But it reflects something that brought me there, and it took me a while to learn this, that had brought him to where he is. Same with Arunachala Ramana, same with any other awakened people that I might find.

Looking for an institute, looking for a tradition, looking for a way of behaving
- whether we consciously acknowledge this or not - is an attempt to move away from what's most essential when it comes to the path itself.

The path, or any real traditional lineage, must spring organically from inside the individual.

It springs forth, and it's something that you consciously engage with yourself, which looks like self-sufficiency. It looks like individual responsibility to cultivate what it is that you find in yourself, and then what fruits are born from that conscious participation. And no one else can do that for you. And it can't be done for you.

When I was going through the process of waking up for the first time with my friend, Duncan, we were coming from this impoverished, ridiculous tradition of magic where most of the time people didn't even think magic was about the Great Work. This idea we've been talking about on this retreat of consecration,of having a genuine devotional relationship with the divine and going beyond yourself as the first step - that makes it possible for you to command the spirits and so on - none of this existed in the discourse. No one appreciated it. I don't think they do now.

And me and Duncan found ourselves following a thread. And it was an adventure, for sure. But I always had this assumption that it would be nice to be like my Buddhist friends. They acknowledged awakening, they had ways of engaging with it, but they were embedded within a culture, a cultural expression. And I thought it must be nice. It'd be very nice, wouldn't it, if there was an equivalent for magic and people could see it, and it was serious, and people recognised its value.

But time and time again, and even with those Buddhist teachers, time and time again, you would find that they were in the position they were in, not because they were part of some kind of institutional expression that claimed to be about awakening, but because they did the same thing.

They had self-sufficiency, they were honest with themselves, they could see where it was spoken about in the tradition they belonged to, but how the institute itself was empty. And then even where it did happen, often it was covered over.

And this is how it should be. If you go traveling around the world and you go looking for Sufis in the most sacred or significant location where Rumi used to live and used to work and so on, and you expect to find real work going on - something like that - you won't.

If you go to Ramana Maharshi's ashram, you won't find anyone there. If you go wherever it is you're going to go and expecting to find these enlightened masters, they won't be there.

If you do find someone, it's despite the institute.

Now that doesn't mean there shouldn't be an institution. But it does mean that you shouldn't place on the shoulders of an institution a burden that it can't bear.

With that in mind I've started a magical order for people to master the Magia practices, to focus on doing that. This would be an expression of an empty institute, and I've made that conscious up front.

But it's something that you can bear in mind when you approach any institute when it comes to awakening or realisation. Wherever your adventures might take you in the future, you should bear this in mind.

And like will be attracted to like. So those people that are self-sufficient, that cultivate what's organically developing in themselves already, will be attracted to others who've done the same thing.

And sometimes you'll find them in a surprising institution. Maybe it's the funny old lady in the church, in the back pew. Maybe she's the person you find yourself talking to.

And so like how I talked about with the horse - the wild horse, those people that are self-sufficient, that can be honest with themselves, that take personal responsibility - they find each other.

And those people, once they’ve found each other, can put that relationship and the cultural significance into words, so that it looks like some form of institution. But it can say up front, it's an empty institute. And that's how it's supposed to be, and that's what's being championed by that institution. 

Acting Lessons

The alternative to that, is what we can only describe as acting.

I once had a dream, and in this dream, I was in a park in London, and I saw Peter Kingsley. And Peter Kingsley was talking to a young girl. It was like a teaching session or something like that with this young girl, this young lady.

And I pretended in the dream not to be concerned that it was Peter Kingsley, because I didn't want to interrupt what they were doing. But I was acting, like I was pretending, that I wasn't interested.

Then I became aware of the fact that he was actually teaching her an acting lesson, on how to act. This was a student learning how to act from Peter Kingsley.

And then, once that session was over, I suddenly realised that it wasn't Peter Kingsley at all. It was someone pretending to be him.

What it was demonstrating was this idea that an institutional expression of a teacher and a student relationship, a parody of that, would be acting lessons.

If there is a Magia way of dressing, a Magia way of behaving and talking, a set of rules that you follow, a certain Magia diet - these are things that you could learn to do. You could have training in how to look this way, but that's no indication - is it? - of an organic or living relationship with the lineage. 

Problems with Guru Yoga

One example of this is the often problematic drama that you have around Guru Yoga.

So it's not that Guru Yoga isn't a valid tradition, but because it relies on physical expressions that demonstrate what should be an inner relationship, it's possible for many people to learn those actions, but for the inner relationship to be missing. And then that can also go both ways with the Guru and the Devotee. So many problems can arise out of that.

If you ever watch an Adi Da video - Adi Da Samraj - if you ever watch any of his videos and you can hear people moaning in the background, I can tell you, from people who used to be his student, that maybe, in their estimation, 60% of the people were acting. They were going along with it. They were doing what they thought they were supposed to do. They had group consent to make those strange moaning sounds. So they did, because they thought that's what you were supposed to do. 

The Deluge: Successive Waves of Totalitarian Acting Lessons

The interesting thing about acting, if we take that as the barometer for correct action, then you need to merely conform to the action, to the pretence, to be considered belonging to the lineage, or the tradition, right?

And this is what a herd is - so I was talking about a herd last time. If I can get you to conform to the acting, if I can get you to conform to the pretence, now you're in the herd, and you can tell who's not part of the herd, because they don't act the same, they don't give the same outward expression. 

Therefore, totalitarian acting lessons are required. 

That's what's meant by the deluge. It's poured out of Aquarius's cup.

The Empty Institute & The Deluge

And that's the difference between the the Empty Institute and the Deluge, the person that recognises institutions are empty. This should make sense of things like Crowley's idea of true will, what that looks like, Jung's idea of individuation. It's not individualism, it's not the idea of being an isolated individual out there on your own.

What it means is the expression of qualities that are only in evidence when the person is concerned with sacrificing themselves to themself, going beyond themselves, right? And then the ability to recognise others with the same nature.

And out of that can come something extraordinary.

But what shouldn't come out of it is the parody of totalitarian acting lessons.

By the way, that anecdote when I was talking about the guy, the German monk, Theravadan monk, him refusing to teach me the walking meditation is him acknowledging acting lessons aren't required.

Invocation

So now, magically speaking, we've looked at consecration. What the prayer is to the Song of the Stars is what unbinding practice is to an invocation.

The second step after consecration is to invoke the highest divine conception that you have, and then you proceed from that height to descend until perhaps you get to the lowest.

But it's only because you can identify yourself and claim this inheritance of being part of the highest that you then have the authority and the power to command the lowest. This is traditional magic.

With the Song of the Stars, you can call that an invocation of the highest principle. And you remember I talked about how it's like a 3D enacting of a 2D cosmology - that you might have drawn on the floor if you were to draw a circle there, and perhaps a triangle (which obviously is the Magia symbol. Yes, a circle and a triangle?) which is what you would use if you were going to call something into a triangle - but the next thing you might want to consider is, invoking the lineage or the ancestors, sometimes called the Great White Brotherhood.

And the reason for doing that - there's only one reason for doing it. Practical instruction and transmission could come through the terrestrial expression of the lineage. But through the celestial, discarnate part of the lineage, interaction with those gods, or those ancestors, can come insight into the totality of your life, seen from the perspective of eternity, that you can't get from time. Otherwise known as prophecy.

You might want to contact the discarnate representatives of the Arcanum Arcanorum, or the lineage, for prophecy. For individual prophecy, which serves as personal initiation. And that's the function provided by the discarnate element.

The Authenticity of Spirits

There is the question when it comes to working with spirits of authenticity.

The drama that magicians always find themselves in is this question around, am I really talking to what I think I'm talking to?

If you summon something, there's this idea - isn't there? - that you must test it, that you must do something to have some degree of trust in the communication, because maybe you're talking to some random spirit and it's just telling you anything.

And so the first step forward that people make is one of bad faith. You have bad faith in what you're talking to. It's like someone comes around to your house and you invite them in for dinner, and then they berate you. ‘Are you really who you say you are? Can you prove who you are?’

It's the first move. This is a drama that revolves around the presumption that knowing who and what you're speaking to is missing. It's absent, right? So you need these strategies to make up for it.

‘What we need is some kind of magical cipher, so they can give us esoteric symbolism that will prove, numerically, through some kind of extraordinary association with other ideas, that they are who they say they are.’

‘Maybe clever tests around them knowing something about you that no one else knows’.

How do we normally proceed with people? You proceed with good faith, don't you? Generosity. You seek to see how what they're saying or what they're doing might line up with who they present themselves to be.

And one appreciates an encounter as a sequence through time. So you can see what they say and how they behave and what the fruits are of that.

In other words, the attitude of being ‘willing to see’ is not one of presuming that you have the burden of deciding who and what something is. Which is actually quite an arrogant position to take, isn't it? That it's up to you to decide who and what something is.

Rather, you should take the approach of allowing the nature of someone or something to disclose itself. It will merely reveal itself if one interacts with it.

This is how it is with individuals. This is what good faith means. This is how it is with gods and with spirits.

Now, of course, one takes the practical precautions necessary to make sure one isn't putting oneself in a silly position, based on trust alone. That would just be silly.

However, in an appropriate environment for regular good faith interaction, magically or otherwise, right? This is how we proceed. The nature, the origin of anyone or anything, whether mundane or spiritual is not hidden. Nor is it absent. And all it requires is you to allow it to disclose itself. Don't add anything. Don't take anything away. Don't impose your preferences. Don't interpret things. Just let it unfold of its own accord.

So this should remind you of binding practice, if you've done that. It should remind you of unbinding practice. But this is what the path is. This is what it means to travel between the opposites to their origin and beyond. The thing that moves, the thing that travels, the trust in the silent knowing, this is what it is. It's what good faith means.

So with that in mind, any magical operation that you might do should be proceeded with in good faith if consecration has taken place, and you have a genuine and authentic relationship with the divine.

That which does not have the same identity will not trespass in that space. You can have circles and protection and stuff like that, if that's what you need, and if you're working with an entity that has a different identity and belongs in a different category of being. You can do that, but if this is authentic, then it won't want to be in your presence anyway.

Then it follows - doesn't it? - that if you're going to speak to something that has the same nature, that you're claiming for your own through consecration, why would you be suspicious of who or what turns up in your circle, if that's who you called?

A teacher, incarnate or otherwise, has the function of serving the lineage. And if someone has said ‘yes’ to that lineage, in and of themselves, then you could say what that looks like practically speaking, is that they will always turn up and say, ‘How can I help? What can I do for you?’

As a result of this culture, what usually happens is that gets thrown back in their face. But really what you can say is that all magical practice has led you to this point, right?

All magical practice is really preparation for contact with the spiritual nature that has arranged things in a prior fashion. Which is another way of saying the unfolding of your eternal destiny.

But practically speaking, this is by the by. You do the rituals, you have a chat. Then all one needs to do is record the interaction. See what comes out of it. It's not always the case that you will understand what it is that you've been told or what you've experienced. That's okay. We can just keep looking to see.

And eventually you will have an event as a sequence in time and the fruits of that interaction. Then it's a mere question of reading the details, like reading a sentence.

It's the same principle of the cultivated vision that you have through Magia practice. And by vision, it just means being willing to look, to see, to recognise when you're trying to add things and then not doing that. Holding off on judgment. ‘I'll just see where this goes.’

And in that way, a person, a spirit, regardless of what they say, they will demonstrate who and what they are through their actions, through the interaction, through the fruits from it.

If something is pretending to be other than it is, that will be disclosed. If something is claiming to be something good, to be the thing that you wish to speak to, that will be disclosed, right?

Worst case scenario: you do a working, you do have contact, you end up being fooled for one reason or another. You learn where you went wrong. But it will be disclosed, so what's the point of the bad faith? You don't need those strategies of testing, do you?

Best case scenario: your delusions are exposed in the most profound sense, and you travel through them. Isn't that the point of the practice in the first place?

Self-honesty comes into the equation. And sometimes it means acknowledging something that might be painful, especially if that's not what you've signed up for. But that should be the point. You want prophecy, you want to understand how you'll travel through that. You get to see how a human being will relate to prophecy, if you should receive one. And how we can't help but try and fall from the prophecy.

But if we proceed from the perspective of a cynical superiority, where one will absolutely make sure one is not fooled, then that means saying ‘no’ to seeing. That means not being willing to risk seeing how you are failing in any sense.

Personal Initiatory Prophecy vs. Occult Knowledge

Now a practical concern.

So let's say you decided that you want to talk to an astral representative of the A∴A∴, right? Why would you do it?

There's only one reason: individual initiatory prophecy.

There is no other reason .

If you approach the gods, wishing for knowledge or information that merely plays into the dramas you already find yourself inhabiting, you'll be making a big error.

So what do I mean by that? Let's say you want information about who runs the world. Or, what political group you should belong to? Or what are the evil other party, what are they really up to? Something like that, right?

You're looking for knowledge that confirms the drama that you're already in when you do that. You want tasty insights, don't you? Into a perspective you already inhabit. This would be to make a mistake.

You're supposed to be going beyond where you find yourself. Not reinforcing it.

And obviously, if it's not concerned with you, but with others, that's already setting off into the direction of moving back into the forest instead of up the mountain.

Individual initiatory prophecy.

Again, why couldn't you get that from a living teacher? Because the living teacher doesn't have the advantage of the perspective of eternity at that moment in time for you individually. Each side has its job.

Practical Instructions

The instructions! So you remember last time when I touched upon the Abramelin Working, Abramelin’s instructions for prayer, and he emphatically states that there will be no written prayer for speaking to God, because if it's a genuine desire then you'll be able to put it into words yourself. And if you can't do it at first, then you need to learn how to do it.

The same is true with the invocation of an astral representative of the A∴A∴. If you wanted to do that, then you should say it in your own words and do it in your own words.

So if you've set up the temple, so to speak - you have your altar, you've got your consecration, you've got the lamp lit, you've done your anointing, you've burned the incense, you do the Song of the Stars - you can then perform an invocation to speak to an astral representative. 

The Available Means of Manifestation

And here's a practical concern: the available means of manifestation.

One thing that I think is woefully underappreciated in magic is talent. Not everyone has the same capacities.

If you want to have an interaction with a spiritual entity, you need a means of communication. Can they do it with you, in terms of vision? Do you have a visionary capacity? What's it like? If you do, then that's something that you can do.

Now, visionary capacity varies between individuals by a significant degree. I was speaking to someone who has been doing magic for years. He's 38 years old. When he was 37, he discovered he has aphantasia. He had no idea. That means he cannot visualise anything. At all. He always thought when someone said picture this or whatever, it was just a metaphor. Imagine that.

However, what he does magically is he has a big copper mirror. You can put candles at either side, and then you'll do the magical invocation and then you can observe through the mirror. So there are ways and means.

So you have to make sure that if you wish to speak to the gods, don't presume that they will just turn up like some kind of visionary experience and you'll get to talk to them. Because if you don't have that talent or that capacity - which by the way, you can cultivate - but if you don't have that, then it would be silly to expect the magical operation to be a success.

There are other methods. You could use physical methods: a pendulum, cowrie shells (I used to use those), tarot deck, I Ching, some generalised symbol system.

There are benefits and there are drawbacks to using physical methods for divination, for communication. The generalised nature of the symbols, they're not personal, they're not personalised. You have to be able to read the symbols and know what they mean. If you're going to use the tarot, you better be good at tarot reading. Practical means of divination and communication with spirits is something that's an integral part of many traditions.

For me, some of the best results I've had is working with my friend Duncan, who has a scrying capacity that I do not have. My visionary experience is like a stream of mental or visionary diarrhea, out of which something can coalesce. And I've learned over the years when I'm being shown something, and when something is just part of the stream.

My friend Duncan, he has a visionary experience where it's photorealistic, 3D, with a narrative. It's like being in a place and then something will unfold. Now I know it's taken him a long time as well to learn how to interact even with that capacity.

So some skill or talent is required. So by talent, again, I'm talking about a natural capacity, but there's also something about cultivation involved. So there's an investment when it comes to the methodology.

The Estes Method

Another method is the Estes Method. Our friend Jason, in the retreat, uses a method where you put on headphones and a blindfold, can't see anything or hear anyone, but what he can hear is a radio sweeping through frequencies, so that he can catch the odd word here or there which can be used as a way for a spirit to communicate.

And then you can have an operator or operators who speak with the entity. And a communication or a conversation can take place that statistically should be impossible. Given the random nature of the sweeping, there should be no coherence whatsoever. An intelligible conversation shouldn't be possible but is and does take place. There's no bias from the operator.

Traditionally speaking, usually when you have two magicians doing the work and you have a scryer and the operator, the operator does the invocation, has the conversation with that which is communicating through the scryer. 

They don't have the normal conversational cues that would normally happen between an operator and a scryer. So a scryer can have a vision and I can ask the person, what are you seeing? And they can relay things and then you can have a conversation.

With the Estes thing, with a lack of normal conversational cues, the flow of the conversation can be stunted a little bit, or the timing can be off a little bit. But, you know that you're talking to something, because it's coherent, and it demonstrates something extraordinary. How is it possible that this can be happening?

Okay, so there are pros and cons to whatever method you choose. 

Jason says, ‘I'd say at this point it becomes more trance like. Definitely hear voices on the radio and words, but also words in the static instead of an actual voice. So EVP or sometimes I very much get the impression, ‘say this’, and it is not something I've physically heard.’

It often gets to the point with people who are skilled in this kind of technique, let's say, whether that's tarot, or the Estes Method, or even actually with scrying, that the practical concerns in the method you're doing can become secondary to something else that's going on. Or rather, the dynamic that's behind this lower order expression of doing the practice becomes more conscious.

For individual workings you can use a divinatory system. Maybe you could do scrying with a black mirror so you can see images, right? You'd angle the mirror, whatever it's made of, in such a fashion that you can't see your own reflection. Do it in a dark room with candles either side, right? So that's a method. Maybe you do that in conjunction with some divinatory method, if you don't have a visionary capacity of some description. 

It's something to explore as a next step. Like I said, you've already consecrated the space that you're working in, whether you have a physical circle on the floor, or you've established it with the Song of the Stars.

You're asking to speak to that which has the same nature as the silent knowing. That's what it is that's happening. You can do that and proceed with good faith. Maybe you want to provide a physical means of manifestation to have the communication. You will want to make sure that whatever you do, you record the session because you want to capture the details without adding anything or taking anything away. Maybe you do an audio recording, maybe you film it, but you'll need that so that you can eventually create a sequence through time. So what was said, the transcript or something like that, what was said and what the results are. And then you'll be able to appreciate the nature of the contact and what it is that happened. 

Magic is really easy

Let me say this: magic is really easy.

Magic is really easy.

If you think you would like to have a go at this, but you don't have the skill to do it or something like that, or the experience, just know that shouldn't be a factor, right? Magic is merely a question of the doing. To see what the case is.

If you think that it's not something that you can do, because you have some unrealistic idea of what magic looks like from the books or the pretentious literature that you find on the subject, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Magic is actually quite easy. But, if there is not an available means of manifestation, then what can you expect to happen? Not much. 

Using a Servitor

Jason: I have a servitor I use when doing the Estes Method now, who I ask to keep out anyone I didn't specifically call.

If you remember when we started off in the Bailey, we did Kasina, and we did a sigil. You could experiment at this stage with using sigils to create a servitor. So I did talk about that before. It's very simple and straightforward.

You write a sentence like, ‘My function is to [so in Jason's case] keep out anyone I didn't specifically call whilst doing the Estes method’. Make that into a sigil and then just address it. You could even give it an image, draw a picture for what it looks like or make the sigil that you've made into an image, flesh it out, right? You can sellotape it to a statue, and that houses the servitor. You can experiment with that.

Now, in terms of the hierarchy, we're now moving down from, let's say, God, to gods, and now we're moving down to servitors, or elementals, or we're coming down the spiritual hierarchy, aren't we? 

A note on symbols

Now it can be the case with workings, by the way, of this nature that I've talked about - with talking to representatives of the order - it's possible that some results take months or even years to manifest. Sometimes you can experience stuff that won't make sense for 20 years. So it's worth keeping that in mind.

In terms of understanding symbolism, you ask the question, ‘What is this?’ And it's not a philosophical question. If a frog appears in your dream and you have to ask the question, ‘What is this?’ The question is, ‘What is it to you?’ And maybe it turns out that you stepped on a frog the day before. Now you know what a frog is. And that's what the frog is: it's something you stepped on the day before, et cetera. So symbols are never taken out of their context. They're always there for a reason.

Sometimes, you get universal symbols. If a god or a goddess appears it's not that you shouldn't go and look up the story of that god or goddess because that's what they represent. That's not interpreting, that's unfolding what the symbol is, yes?

Usually what happens is this, you get communication and the first thing, the first move that people make, usually because it's an extension of this bad faith drama, they get a symbol and then they immediately take it out of the context. Immediately take it out of the fact that it's a personal conversation, and they're talking to you, right? They take it out of it, and then go off on some kind of bizarre esoteric tangent about what it might represent. Numerically, kabbalistically and so on. When that just ends up muddying the whole operation.

If something is said and you don't know what it is, that's fine. You can move on.

The Baptist’s Head: The Tempe Working example

Who should we contact?

An astral representative of the lineage. The A∴A∴, the Arcanum Arcanorum, the Great White Brotherhood. One of those dudes.

For those familiar with The Baptist’s Head material, an example would be The Tempe Working that I did with Duncan. That's a classic example. You have all the mistakes that you can make, and then the correcting of those mistakes, but it involves prophecy and those things then play out in time.

That's an example of it.

How to invoke

Is there going to be instructions on how to do the invocation?

The instructions are, you need to make it up yourself.

Those are the instructions: you need to make it up yourself.

The Mystery of Magical Reality

If sigil magic is a conscious effort to influence reality via the unconscious, and does that imply the unconscious behaviour, mine and everyone else's, is unconsciously influencing reality all the time? Is everyone an accidental magician of sorts?

So of course if we take Austin Osman Spare’s understanding of the mechanism of how magic works, you could go in that direction. But I think the direction is a good one, even if I think the model itself is insufficient.

If we consider a ritual act to be the creation of an impression from which we draw a non-verbal conclusion, such that appearance then reflects that understanding of ourselves - I'm putting it into Magia terms - then it would follow that everyone is constantly manifesting their understanding of themselves.

This is the mystery of magical reality, as it's described in Magia.

The understanding that we have of ourself, and that includes the falsehoods that we have about our own nature, which also extends to our understanding of all things. So how we understand creation, the world, reality, ourselves, others. We conjure those falsehoods into manifestation, into appearance, including conjuring the correct understanding, the corrected understanding.

So that's what we see when we do practice. If ever we find ourselves unbound from a case of mistaken identity, instead of finding ourselves experiencing a drama, where the actors playing the roles in the drama are conveniently available to us, right? The whole situation then changes once it's corrected.

Sometimes those actors just disappear and don't come back in your life because they're not required anymore and the scenery changes.

So in Magia, we have the idea of the mystery of magical reality, that we are continually conjuring and playing out our own understanding that we have of ourselves. Yes, including our delusion.

An example working

Jason says, ‘If you've got unused time, I can go hop into the headphones if you want to have a demonstration today.’

Do you mean on the call now?

Yeah. Do people want to do that?

Yeah, let's do it then.

Jason: Okay. So I've got my headphones in, I got my little radio. I got my blindfold. Let's see. I can set a timer for myself. So I'm not sitting here while everyone leaves. What do we say? 15, 20 minutes, something like that.

Turn on the radio.

Okay. That's good. I'll put this on.

Okay. I will ask DJ PH here, my servitor, to just keep the radio clear for us. Do you want to be the one to call for the secret chiefs or do you want me to do that? Either way is fine with me.

Alan: I don't mind, whatever you'd love to do.

J: Since you'll be asking the questions or speaking, then why don't you do that?

Okay. DJPH, you are on the air. I'd ask that you please keep the radio clear of anyone that Alan does not specifically ask to come speak with us and facilitate the communication of anyone he does ask to come speak with us.

Okay, I will turn the radio on and pull my blindfold down.

A: Before you do…

J: Yes?

A: Let's begin with a prayer.

J: Perfect.

A:

This is the new offering of a new aeon,
when the men and women of alabaster shall walk the earth,
and though it may burn,
the forest will not be destroyed.
We look to the west to find you,
out of the setting sun,
we call you.
Aion,
for this is your true name,
and you,
our true god.
Aion.
We have returned to the west
and stepped into the vanishing light.
We call upon you to gather us up
and give us the strength
to make of us your avatars.
The men and women of Alabaster,
that protect the forest and do not burn.

J: Okay. All ready, Alan?

A: Yep.

J: All right, the radio's on. I can't hear you anymore, and it's sweeping. And I will start the timer now and pull the blindfold down. It's all you now.

A: Okey doke.

I call upon the Great White Brotherhood. Please may we speak with a representative, should it be within your infinite wisdom that such a conversation would be beneficial to take place. Please let us know when you're with us.

J: Hey.

A: Hello.

J: I'm here, you called me.

A: Great, thanks for coming.

Fantastic. My name is Alan. What's yours?

J: It's Dark.

A: Ha! [Recognise the name]

Dark: Good times.

A: Indeed.

D: Come on then.

A: Okay. How do you feel the work is proceeding? Do you have any advice?

D: I know you. Look up and climb.

A: Thank you. Do you have any comments about recent events, such as what happened in Berlin? [see: Bird Song & The End of the West]

D: This is quite a ride [A: Tell me about it] to lay down and die, die and push straight through. It can be freaky, it is. Layers and layers freaky. Come to see us through the exit. If you call, I'll agree to pick up.

A: Thank you for the invitation. Do you have any advice around recent events with the Black Lodge? [see: The Warpath Prophecy, ep.5 of WORP FM]

D: It's exciting running around on the back seat. You are all starstruck. Dial zero and take your shot. Eventually, you may all hear me extremely well. You might have a good time, we make ourselves joy. It’s good, man. It's almost Christmas time.

A: It is. And will that mark the end of this phase of my work for this year?

D: Just one of twenty three. It's the time. I'll give you guys a hint. Don't think a crash is needed. It won't feel bad. The world, world of the Goose Egg Rejects, will help the passengers to arrive, generation after generation, after all. Good luck, we can find you. Next time, more come.

A: Okay, thank you.

D: Get ready. And Alan, your kids party every day. Do you feel me?

A: I feel you.

D: Have faith for a good time. That is it.

A: Thank you. Thank you for joining us and we hope to speak to you again soon.

D: It is lovely on the recording, but to what country? Work this one out with us now.

A: Oh, I see. Okay. Where would you like me to go? [Dark is answering a question I had, but hadn’t asked.]

D: Get ready to travel before going home. The first person to shake your hand is thankful, but you will need both. A beach day.

[This is Jason speaking, I heard just what sounded like a choir singing for a few moments there.]

Indefensible love. Is that enough? Enough. I think it's very well, don't you?

A: If I understand correctly, I do.

D: Yeah. Thanks for coming today.

A: Thank you for coming.

D: We're checking in on you. You're the best.

A: And you are. Thanks man.

D: It's been a good time lately, oy vey! That's right. This plan, you know the one. Relief, imperishable, a high thing. Some itching may occur. Emergency kickdown, it's going to work, but it'll be quite a night. Travel. com, if you're hearing me.

A: I'm hearing you. [This working is occurring during a challenging magical period, hence the humour on Dark’s part.]

D: The order, a survival, wouldn't you say? Oh, to carry on ahead. No bloopers. [see: Building a Cathedral]

A: Agreed.

D: Watch for the 19th. [Note: it came to pass that the 19th December 2022 marked the abrupt end of the challenging three month period, thereby answering the question asked earlier.)

***

J: Time's up.

A: Okay. Thank you for visiting and talking with us. We'll be in touch as and when required. Thank you Jason.

J: Thank you for coming to speak with us. Thank you DJ PH, you are off the air.

How was it?