This is a clean, elegant and resourceful process for interrupting any mental shitstorm going, assessing and taking action, and get out of the way long enough to stop from being flattened under the weight of self-created catastrophes.

So, below are two versions: the original, paraphrasing the steps given the benevolent anti-guru and cage-rattler Christopher S. Hyatt, and a second, with my modifications, complications and occultations.

I have borrowed this process from Hyatt, though the title is one I gave it. He touches on this process in a couple of places; it is a direct suggestion during one of the inductions in Energized Hypnosis Volume 4 – Transcendence.

He also weaves extensive journalling activities through his patchy, impassioned, though ultimately useful romp The Psychopath’s Bible, which also has a related process of quantified self-assessment called Despair Math. I think I pinched the name of this from there, and from a White Stripes song.

Hyatt’s prescription is quite straightforward – think about all your worries, failings, unfinished business and tasks, all the open loops, and write them down. This is great as far as it goes, “to clear more brain space”, in his own sonorous, hypnotic words.

Variations and embellishments; drawing legs on a snake

Given my proclivities to overcomplicate things to see if they can be augmented or improved, I like to do this as an offering to Saturn.

So, in the appropriate hour, on the appropriate day; I prefer Saturn’s second hour, after I’ve had time to drink some coffee (black, unsweetened, strong) and catching up on the reliably-depressing old media news of the day. As the coffee stains the teeth, so does the reportage stains the mind.

Set the timer for 9 minutes. 3 x 3; a strict time limit draws a kamea of containment, measurement and commitment.

Then, write. Write down all the terrible things, all the injustices, terrors, angst and unfinished business you feel. In black ink is good, though whatever you have at hand is fine; necessity and immediacy dictate.

Write fast and hard with the barren logic of the inevitable cruelty of the world, the awareness of the symbolic violence being committed, and all the bleakness and despair you can summon.

Then, when your time is up, stop, and put it to one side. Let the feelings pass. Go and do something else. Stop the rumination. Just Stop. Eat or drink something.

Later, on that day or another, you may want to look over it; if you do so, approach with a constructive, solution-minded orientation – what can you actually fix? What is meaningfully within your locus of control?

If you don’t feel drawn to retain this document for your secret files, you will likely lose nothing by tearing it into small pieces, burning it, and crumbling the ash in your hands; this is the value of your concerns, your worries and your fears, in the face of utter, cosmic immensity. Heavy.

If further medicine is required, I like to give some change to beggars, as the children of Saturn, again in the appropriate hour and day if possible. Everyone is someone’s child, and alms given with the intent for amelioration is a time-honoured way of assuaging a heavy heart and dolorous mind.

#Hyatt #Ritual #Saturn

I needed to add meditation into my daily activities, and a good friend turned me onto this particular practice, rediscovered, developed and taken to truly ludicrous levels by Daniel Ingram and his conspirators – more details here.

The practice, as I understand and do it, is quite simple. 1. Stare into a candle flame, paying very good attention to every aspect of it. Note. 2. After a period of time, close your eyes, and see the afterimage in the darkness. Watch where this goes, and follow it. Note. 3. When this afterimage is no longer clear enough, repeat step 1.

Simple, not necessarily easy.

I find it works nicely in 30 minute-minimum daily sits, before dawn, after myinitial rituals, but before my daily planetary adorations. I prefer it on meditation stool in the middle of my ritual space.

It is the most blatantly magical of the meditative practices I’ve experimented with (including those stupid Ibis and Thunderbolt Asana, prescribed by Crowley in Liber E Vel Exitoriorum; I’ve done a lot of stupid shit, but these were among the worst.)

Some of the benefits Fire Kasina practice has provided (for me, so far, YMMV):

• A definite focus. If your capacity for single-pointed attention has been blunted or fragmented (like mine, and most of us who use technology, I’d wager), this is strong medicine. If you forget your own point you’re making when talking with someone, or you just can’t stay doing one thing at a time, this can help break bad habits and build an attention that is more sleek, tight and muscular. It’s hot, and it feels good.

• It’s active. You’re doing something. Noting sense perception or breath is fine, sure – though I find this much more engaging. It’s clear at every moment what the task is: watch the flame, or watch the afterimage. Being able to alternate also give a sense of progression (but not too much so).

• It integrates. The candle I stare into is carved with sigils and fixed with oils, on an altar, as a component of a magical campaign. It has strong consonance with the Orison of Salamanders, from the Qabala of the Green Butterfly, that magnificent and very practical operation appended to the Grimorium Verum. It really “ties the room together”. If your magic involves fire, focus, or visions, chances are, this can speak to that too.

• It builds. Almost every magical book talks about meditation, or some sort, as a foundational daily practice, as do many people seeking to make a carry out a project of value in this world. Fire Kasina has carry-over for other activities, also; with repetition, it builds significant ability to hold and project an image mentally, useful for rituals like the Star Ruby.

Full-resolution Flamegazing

It’s like the kettlebell swing of esoteric conditioning exercises. It just makes things better, in all sorts of ways.

It;'s an ancient practice, and has definite analogues in other traditions; I haven’t quite reached the levels of concentration and conversation described by Michael Bertiaux in the Voudon Gnostic Workbook, where movements of the flame can be directed.

However, I don’t doubt that, with further practice – and some of those monster retreats Ingram's crew espouse – things will develop in quite significant ways. As with anything, festina lente. There is tomorrow. The flame will be there, and with it, the door that I’ve yet to fully work out how to open.

This is a beautiful practice, and one that gives so much. If you want to add meditation into your life, and want something a bit more exciting and muscular than the usual soft and gentle, cloyingly anodyne dreck that gets served up through most mindfulness trainers, check it out.

Flame on.

#meditation #ritual

It’s a card-based “activity generator”; basically, a set of open-to-interpretation prompts for actions that will enrich or improve your life, one way or another.

I call this game the Tarot of the Arriviste, mostly because it sounds badass, and I’ve been thinking about Austin Osman Spare a bit recently.

Pull a card, do the thing. Don’t overthink it; work out the details as you go. Let it get weird. Most people won’t notice, because they rarely notice much. The ones you want to get up to mischief with might, and these are the ones you want around you anyway.

(There's a link to the free download at the bottom of the page, for the impatient.)

Technically, it’s inspired by artist and game designer Miscast’s What am I doing today generator, as well as the excellent LifeRPG android app by Jayvant Javier Pujara.

More esoterically, it pulls ideas from Austin Osman Spare’s Alphabet of Desire concept, and Timothy Leary’s Eight Circuit Brain model, by way of Antero Alli and Christopher Hyatt.

All these guys are artists, one way or another – and, more than anything else, one of, if not the, biggest factors in success in anything is actually doing and shipping the thing.

The magic happens through us, by doing things.

So, I’ve played with it a bit, and find it works well, most of the time.
It’s fun. It’s also free, a prototype, encourages your own interpretation, and has no guarantees. Just like life.

Why I made this: Context

Life can be hard.

Making a game of it can make a hard thing less confronting, or existentially devastating and crippling.

For example: Life is a game, everyone dies in the end. There are some rules but it’s mostly improvised, and there is a time limit. So, Player, the table is yours. It’s your move.

Games don’t have to be fun, but it’s better when they are. Games don’t have to be played with other people; we play games with ourselves all the time. The most fun games I’ve played have been with people, though.

When “to do” lists feel a little like chewing cigarette butts and urinal cakes, I’ve found the best way for me to keep moving is to make things a bit more creative, aesthetic and gameful.

This game started as an elaborate and active procrastination, so I tried to fake myself out; to elaborately create a system that would keep me on task (instead of actually just getting back on task).

It ended up crossing off a heap of ideas I’d had banging around for a good many years; those post-it notes, in trello boards, notebook mindmaps, journal entries. Sometimes, you just have to chuck all the stray one-liners into a pot and cook them down into some sort of weird gumbo.

This is what came out.

How to play

Print them out. Cut them out. Start doing things.

I stuck mine into card sleeves from the local hobby shop, backed with Bicycle playing cards (I made them the same size); this makes them shuffle better.

Basic version: If I’m stuck, blocked, or catch myself staring off into space in a negative way, I pull a card, and do it. No questions, no excuses. Make it happen. A short, sharp shock. Am I free to act? If not, why not?

The slightly more reasonable, sustainable version: I have a few actions I do every day. For each action I do, I pull more cards, which gives me more options to do.

Either choose the easiest or most appealing one, or pick one at random; it is a game, after all.

Don’t overthink it; this is about actions, connections, opportunity, breaking through deadlocks. I bet you Henry Agrippa or Edward Kelly made up half of the shit they did on the spot, and just kept rolling with it.

A good story is far better, sexier and more fun than an easy life.

Keep track of your daily score. Try to hit a set number of actions per day, but don’t beat yourself up about it if you end up doing something else.

Downloads

Download the Tarot of the Arriviste here (40 cards; 5-page .pdf. Make sure you print it at 100%, and remove scaling in the print options, so the cards come out the right size).

Any questions or comments, feel free to get in touch. Happy to help where I can – voidshard@pm.me

#tarot #ritual

Fortunately I was on the home stretch of my first ultramarathon when the trees began speaking.

It was all so obvious, too; they’d been there the whole time, but this was just the moment they chose to speak, or I was able to listen. Unsurprisingly, they were pissed with humans generally, and especially about what we were doing to the air and water.

It wasn’t like I was given some sacred mission or something; it was more like the resigned grumbling of a neighbour, or the talk you have standing in a queue in a store. Like, what were any of us going to do about it?

I’d had some episodes of sustained high strangeness when running before – including several weeks where every run led to a visceral awareness of physiological structures making their symbolic origin known; the “Goat legs” times. It really helped climbing steep hills.

Also, breathing – feeling, with extreme sensory clarity, that joyous detonation of cellular energy when fresh oxygen reaches the bloodstream.

I think, in this way, I came to glimpse the possibilities in that cryptic Austin Osman Spare line, “The soul is the ancestral animals” – the body lives in the soul, and so, necessarily, all the ancestors do too.

Also, to finally reach the top of a far-away hill, in a lather, with the blood singing – to claim the ascent, and perform prayers on the hill top; often this results in immediate feedback – I see all sorts of wildlife appear; goats and rabbits, hawks and bush parrots, butterflies and absolutely seductive mosses that invite the weary runner to just sit a while... Once, in the most surreal running experience I’ve had, I came across an emu, which was utterly terrifying. Those things are massive, and very assertive.

Other traditions have running weirdos too

The Marathon Monks of Mt Hiei provide a wonderful example from another tradition, of Magical running, taken to the levels that only Japanese Buddhists can go to. These monks, of the Tendai sect, undertake the formidable Kaihogiyo process involving years of dedication, with seasons of daily ultramarathon-length treks.

The monks carry with them a knife and rope, so if they fail to complete their run, the expectation is they will kill themselves. Enlightenment is the only thing that matters. A bit of material – including a great documentary on this – is available, and well worth checking out.

Adventurer Alexandra David-Neel’s wonderful Magic and Mystery in Tibet has another fascinating example. While travelling across the Tibetan highlands, her group spots a lone individual bounding across the plateau at great speed.

A cursory explanation follows, which states he belonged to a mysterious order of monks who focus exclusively on cultivating siddhis that make them light. He would prepare for his run fastidiously, then – wreathed in chains so he wouldn’t float away – was given a message to deliver (or something) and sent on his way. To interrupt a runner like this would result in his certain death.

Then, she changes the topic, and doesn’t mention it again (though does a great many other fascinating things – this is wonderful and classic occult travelogue).

Certainly, this seems like something that could be explored further, through some sort of sustained Kasina working, though this is not my area of primary focus or expertise.

Other Applications

I really learned Qabalah this way, too – mapping the tree to the body, running and chanting godnames, calling angels, visualising all the magical tools from Crowley’s 777, and all the rest of it. It all becomes quite wonderful and exciting, racing around suburban streets on otherwise peaceful nights, in all your astral get-up, surrounded in visualised golden light, clouds of incense and choirs of angelic voices.

Or – just drilling in the Middle Pillar, that venerable fix-all; breath and footfall become the metronome, pacing the meditation, literally. After a good 45 minutes of so, this really becomes quite intense. And – life is busy – it can be hard to make time for both physical and magical training; there is huge benefit in bringing these together, from an efficiency perspective, if nothing else.

There is something inherently and inescapably spiritual in running long distances, if you choose to look at it this way. Equally – spiritual growth and development are so frequently described in terms of a journey, an adventure, or climbing mountains, as well as training.

Seems a pretty obvious correlation, and offers a great way to keep strong, fit, grounded and out of the house – and out where the wild things are.

#ritual

The sensuous curve of the long waterfront is a delightful walk; not even the starving, fornicating stray cats or the constant pestering horse-and-cart touts detract overly from this lovely seaside stroll.

The place does feel different from the more inland parts of Egypt, somehow – whether the gentle Mediterranean breezes, or the faint echoes of its legendary founding and subsequent cosmopolitanism seems unclear.

A Temple of Knowledge

The Library – Bibliotheca Alexandrina – is a magnificent building, and one of the architectural highlights. Something about the place feels deeply Archeofuturist, and not in a shitty low-resolution “despise sports, love wheatfields” kind of way. The structure realises a purity of vision. This is rare these days.

Inside – the hundreds of thousand of books, in a wide range of languages. The reading room is incredible, also, and features a series of steps leading downwards, into a well, providing progressively quieter and more secreted spots for deep thinking and inquiry.

In the more open areas, there are literacy-related treasures on display – printing presses and calendaring machines of historical or technological note; tapestries embroidered with scriptures, and calligraphy; mastheads and assorted notebooks from famous local publishing houses.

The Internet Archive has servers there, too – banks upon banks of servers on display, guarding the memory of the internet. It was a wonderful thing to see this seamless integration into this newest information age, in this special place.

Ancient Rituals

A day later, preparing to leave this city, in a moment of quiet reflection, I perform the Rite of the Headless One.

I like the early form of the ritual from The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation: PGM V. 96-172, otherwise called The Stele of Jeu the hieroglyphist. A key figure in the grimoire revival, Jake Stratton Kent, called it “the single most important ritual in modern magic”, in his provocative and useful chapbook The Headless One.

Performing this short ritual here seems fitting – it was from this place, and, though in translation, the intent is there and the words still have power. The familiar feeling of momentous connection grows, as I say these beautiful words, but it hits even harder and deeper somehow.

I flap around for a while afterwards, enjoying the dis-integration and return to familiar awareness, slipping back into the usual clown costume I live in, with all its ridiculous, earnest concerns.

The Uber driver arrives – we found taking Egyptian Ubers between cities is the easiest and least-complicated way of getting around – and we begin our drive back to Cairo.

Egyptian drivers are exceptional, and have a mechanical proprioception attuned to a degree I’ve never seen before. They also drive fast, especially on the broad, straight desert roads connecting the cities.

Desert Rains

We’re out in the desert when the rain begins. Torrential – the heaviest we’ve encountered anywhere in our travels so far, and in the middle of the Egyptian desert, of all places.

Part of me questions our driver’s wet-weather driving experience. Another part immediately offers reassurance: we wanted proof, experience, knowledge. A story. You’ve got it.

The particular line from the third part of the ritual I performed earlier is booming, repeating over and over now. This is when the Magician joins with, and is empowered by, the Headless One. These words, now heavy with cosmic importance, are absolutely obvious, natural, inescapable:

“My sweat falls upon the Earth as Rain, that it may inseminate it.”

This magic is as real as it gets. And it is beautiful.

#travel #myth #ritual