My dear readers, if there are any out there anymore, I offer you my sincerest apologies. Life got too hectic for quite a while and I wasn't able to post anything. At this point, it has been over a year since my last post. I will give you a run down on what's been going on with me up to this point, then wrap up the posts on Tyson's Magician's Workbook.
So, going back to April last year, I was in Iraq. Our mission changed a bit and I ended up unable to get online at all for quite some time. Upon returning to the US, life continued to keep me under it's thumb with various over riding priorities. At this point, I am slated for yet another deployment later this year. On the magical side of things, I did finish out the daily exercises with Tyson's book; I read a good deal of other books, articles, blogs, etc; and I somewhat recently decided it would be best to return to the basics and better embrace the roots of my beliefs and practices in order to get rid of some of the nonfunctional and unsavory habits that I picked up along the way. Think of it as a bit of spiritual spring cleaning that is long, long over due.
To wrap up the bit on Tyson's book, I did finish out the exercises. My opinion at the end of the whole thing is that while it is a good system of daily practice for those who don't already have one, I don't know how applicable it is to people who are not already familiar with the general Qabalistic inspired ceremonial magical practices. Also, I feel that it presents a great way to break into a bit of daily, or near daily, practice but I think that any practitioner worth their salt will end up changing things over time in order to better suit their personal needs. I do realize that the primary people who pick up the book will have these ideals in mind, but it is still something I would warn about when introducing the book to someone who is a newfound seeker.
In the last couple months, I have read through quite a few grimoires. The ones I gave the most focus to were Michael Cecchetelli's Crossed Keys published by Scarlet Imprint, The Goetia of Dr. Rudd and The Magical Treatise of Solomon or Hygromanteia both published by Golden Hoard. Other than those, I have read through the rest of GH's Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic series with the exception of their latest which is Dr. John Dee's Spiritual Diaries. I am quite impressed with MC's work, and I thoroughly enjoyed the way Goetia of Dr. Rudd was presented. When it comes to Hygromanteia, it spurred an interest in the pre-solomonic ritual magic practices which has found me looking into the GPM and reading some wonderful stuff by Jake Stratton-Kent (Geosophia), as well as Aaron Leitch's Secrets Of The Magical Grimoires. I also, very recently, started on Frater Rufus Opus' Red Work Courses.
I am quite taken with Fr RO's approach and the way he presents his work. I am only on his second lesson of the Black Work section, but it is really refreshing to get to the basics of it all. Reading and working through, from the beginning like this, has allowed me to really strip away a lot of the things I have been doing and really evaluate what does and doesn't work for me. Having read through his Neoplatonic Basics, I find that a lot of it meshes well with what I already believe (though I haven't ever taken the time to really hash it all out). I am looking forward to really putting into practice everything in The Red Work Courses, and cleaning up my overall practices.
Prior to beginning The Work, I had already started to strip away things in my usual practices that either had no mileage or just plain didn't make sense to me. I began a regimen of near daily prayer and contemplative meditation, and had been working with a couple familiar spirits for primarily theurgic reasons. For those of you who may be curious, when called upon to define what it is I believe, I have come to say that I am an Esoteric Abrahamic Panentheist. To explain, I hope I don't have to define the term Esoteric for most of the people who come to this blog but just in case, according to Webster esoteric means - a : designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone <a body of esoteric legal doctrine — B. N. Cardozo> b : requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group <esoteric terminology>; broadly : difficult to understand <esoteric subjects>. Abrahamic is having to do with the faiths that stem from Abraham so Judaic, Christian, and Islamic. I find value in the overall current of Abrahamic faith. And, for panentheism, I prefer the Encyclopedia Britannica explanation - "...the universe conceived of as a whole is God and, conversely, that there is no God but the combined substance, forces, and laws that are manifested in the existing universe. The cognate doctrine of panentheism asserts that God includes the universe as a part though not the whole of his being." So, there ya go, if you ever wondered what I believe its an amalgamation of Hermetic, Abrahamic, and panentheist thought.
So, going back to April last year, I was in Iraq. Our mission changed a bit and I ended up unable to get online at all for quite some time. Upon returning to the US, life continued to keep me under it's thumb with various over riding priorities. At this point, I am slated for yet another deployment later this year. On the magical side of things, I did finish out the daily exercises with Tyson's book; I read a good deal of other books, articles, blogs, etc; and I somewhat recently decided it would be best to return to the basics and better embrace the roots of my beliefs and practices in order to get rid of some of the nonfunctional and unsavory habits that I picked up along the way. Think of it as a bit of spiritual spring cleaning that is long, long over due.
To wrap up the bit on Tyson's book, I did finish out the exercises. My opinion at the end of the whole thing is that while it is a good system of daily practice for those who don't already have one, I don't know how applicable it is to people who are not already familiar with the general Qabalistic inspired ceremonial magical practices. Also, I feel that it presents a great way to break into a bit of daily, or near daily, practice but I think that any practitioner worth their salt will end up changing things over time in order to better suit their personal needs. I do realize that the primary people who pick up the book will have these ideals in mind, but it is still something I would warn about when introducing the book to someone who is a newfound seeker.
In the last couple months, I have read through quite a few grimoires. The ones I gave the most focus to were Michael Cecchetelli's Crossed Keys published by Scarlet Imprint, The Goetia of Dr. Rudd and The Magical Treatise of Solomon or Hygromanteia both published by Golden Hoard. Other than those, I have read through the rest of GH's Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic series with the exception of their latest which is Dr. John Dee's Spiritual Diaries. I am quite impressed with MC's work, and I thoroughly enjoyed the way Goetia of Dr. Rudd was presented. When it comes to Hygromanteia, it spurred an interest in the pre-solomonic ritual magic practices which has found me looking into the GPM and reading some wonderful stuff by Jake Stratton-Kent (Geosophia), as well as Aaron Leitch's Secrets Of The Magical Grimoires. I also, very recently, started on Frater Rufus Opus' Red Work Courses.
I am quite taken with Fr RO's approach and the way he presents his work. I am only on his second lesson of the Black Work section, but it is really refreshing to get to the basics of it all. Reading and working through, from the beginning like this, has allowed me to really strip away a lot of the things I have been doing and really evaluate what does and doesn't work for me. Having read through his Neoplatonic Basics, I find that a lot of it meshes well with what I already believe (though I haven't ever taken the time to really hash it all out). I am looking forward to really putting into practice everything in The Red Work Courses, and cleaning up my overall practices.
Prior to beginning The Work, I had already started to strip away things in my usual practices that either had no mileage or just plain didn't make sense to me. I began a regimen of near daily prayer and contemplative meditation, and had been working with a couple familiar spirits for primarily theurgic reasons. For those of you who may be curious, when called upon to define what it is I believe, I have come to say that I am an Esoteric Abrahamic Panentheist. To explain, I hope I don't have to define the term Esoteric for most of the people who come to this blog but just in case, according to Webster esoteric means - a : designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone <a body of esoteric legal doctrine — B. N. Cardozo> b : requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group <esoteric terminology>; broadly : difficult to understand <esoteric subjects>. Abrahamic is having to do with the faiths that stem from Abraham so Judaic, Christian, and Islamic. I find value in the overall current of Abrahamic faith. And, for panentheism, I prefer the Encyclopedia Britannica explanation - "...the universe conceived of as a whole is God and, conversely, that there is no God but the combined substance, forces, and laws that are manifested in the existing universe. The cognate doctrine of panentheism asserts that God includes the universe as a part though not the whole of his being." So, there ya go, if you ever wondered what I believe its an amalgamation of Hermetic, Abrahamic, and panentheist thought.
