Monthly Archives: March 2014

by

Abramelin, day 10

Woke up with a start around 5:30, realized it was not yet quite before sunrise and fell back asleep…and slept right through the sunrise alarm. I woke up maybe 1.5 hours after it. Morning rite went well and I thanked my HGA for letting me sleep in. It’s quite possible that doing this when I wake up versus at sunrise isn’t so bad but I definitely have to be cautious on that whole “letting the Abramelin wreck my sleep” thing. This rite will go on for six months and I need to be in decent health. I’ve not been sleeping well as a result of the sunrise thing and maybe I need to rethink this for long term durability.

Last night I dreamed that I had gained the ability to teleport from one place to another, then I figured out how to travel through time. I wound up in 2010 and there was some woman whom I knew I had to keep my time traveling a secret from or she’d disapprove. Very strange.

Did somewheres around 35 three card tarot readings for people today in honor of Apollo, back to back…wow I am fried. I love helping people out but next time I rethink how many I do, lol. Nice offering rite to Apollo right before all that, too.

I am exhausted and running random temperatures. This is my body’s way of saying I need to chill out before I come down with something. It’s like a warning shot. I may need to work from home tomorrow in order to get some down time and catch up on life.

Evening rite done.

by

Abramelin, day 9

Morning ritual, with incense, went well. Like a continuous conversation, this one picked up the thought I was beginning to have last night, the next step of my thought process that everything be done with mindfulness towards the rite so that nothing truly detracts from it. More so over, the idea of bringing out the spiritual further into the physical world, allowing everything about my interaction with my gods, my magic, my HGA, and me to permeate through everything. Leave nothing untouched, no stone unturned.

Went back to sleep, woke up, and saw my bedroom window beside me. Then I saw a flash of light, and was unable to tell if it came from the bedroom window that exists in my astral vision or the physical world. Things are already starting to meld.

A busy day of cleaning. I know that one day a week, I believe on Sun, is supposed to be dedicated to that task but believe me, it’ll be both days. Did lots of laundry, more to come tomorrow. A few weeks prior to starting the Abramelin I cleaned all of my gods’ altars. It seemed appropriate. There are lots of things in myself and in my life which must be burned away, and lots of purifying of the things which must remain–and a drawing in of things which I am lacking that I need. It’s a constant process.

Evening ritual, with incense, went well. I am exhausted but feel like I’m getting somewhere. I just have to be patient with myself and the process, but especially with myself.

by

Abramelin, day 8

Morning rite done well…albeit yes, some whining about the job sitch. Ugh.

I must say though, something I have observed: I seem to be pushed more often into social situations versus getting the opportunity to spend time solo. I have given this some thought, and I think it’s because I’ve been pretty hermit’d for a while now…especially for me. Beyond online interaction, I don’t do anywhere near the amount of socializing I typically do–and haven’t in quite some time. For an extrovert, it’s weird to suddenly go introvert, although I’m a fairly balanced, middle of the road extrovert with a good deal of introvert qualities. The social interactions are random, and kind of reassuring…for a lack of a better term. I think maybe I needed it a bit? I think maybe I got too comfortable being by myself all the time.

Also been thinking about the whole work situation. It’s funny; I remember in the past when I was in a really, really horrible situation and being taken advantage of right, left, and center…and I just stuck it out. Nowadays I’d be all “fuck that noise” and would be in touch with my recruiters and would drop those idiots like a hot potato. I put up with WAY less crap than I used to, one chunk of it is due to increased sense of self respect and the other is due to a decreased tolerance to stress for No Good Reason. You can only stick around and martyr yourself for an unfixable situation where you’re basically positioned to take the fail for someone else’s ineptitude so many times before you realize it’s just not a good idea. At all.

Still getting a lot of interesting questions about my doing the Abramelin! I’m at the point now where I may as well make up a FAQ on my background or something, lol.

Evening rite went well. This evening was…odd. Prior to the rite, I mean. I did get some interesting insights into cleaning up blockages on a spiritual and magical level leading to the whole cleaning of the vessel, capacity to affect change in the physical world, rend the veil, etc. Interesting stuff, need to meditate some more on it.

 

by

Abramelin, day 7

Here we are, last day in my first week of the Abramelin.

Morning rite went well, I think. I feel like I’ve made some good breakthroughs on a spiritual and psychic level. Not so much on the job front, however. I worked from home today–and am glad for it, as I’ve been fielding all kinds of fires and drama. Stress levels are at an all-time high to the point where I will either Peter from Office Space it and tune out or I will get sick. Predictably my body temperature has climbed two degrees, and this is my barometer: I think either the stress in this job needs to go or I do. Of course, the body temp rising could be due to the massive chakra and energy work I did last night too, but I’m sure that didn’t help.

So yesterday I did the evening operation of the Abramelin closer to bedtime, and despite the original instructions this seems to have a better “flow”. You begin the day and you end the day with the ritual. Seems to make sense to me, so I plan to go with it. I still plan to be mindful and aware of sunset as I am also observing sunset but will have the ritual take place close to bedtime.

I am getting “dragged” more into my religious community and amongst more opportunities for prayer, worship, and additional motivation/support for such. I think that this is an awesome thing. I have been solo and in a vacuum for a VERY long time now as my time spent in the Hellenic pagan community burnt me out, and having some personal events happen to me some years ago didn’t exactly help. It’s nice to be “back” and in tune.

I’ve also been learning that like with my workouts, my spiritual stuff has to be a “do or die” on a daily basis. Amazing that it’s taken me this long to learn this.

Evening rite went well.

by

Abramelin, day 6

Morning rite done. I had placed a bunch of empty tealights outside the temple room door, and just as I was finishing up my opening prayer I heard a “mrrrrr” then a white paw reached out from under the door to bat one of the empty tealight containers into the room. I couldn’t stop laughing for a good couple of minutes. My cats are supernaturally cute, and it’s really not unlike having furry, four legging toddlers running around. Interesting how the Abramelin stresses not letting animals into the oratory. Honestly, my furbabies have been banned from my temple room ever since they were kittens and managed to break a lamp and decapitate poor Pan.

Among the things I’m reflecting on is having more patience with myself, to see this process through and realize that changes will come over time, that while I am far from perfect this rite is also far from over. I could perceive Hermes at one point during the rite. I feel that he has a message for me.

More thoughts from my reading as posted earlier:

“Still reading through Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony and up to the part of the book where it discusses Dionysos and his various loves and lovers. One thing that strikes me is that it talks about Dionysos almost as if he gets bored easily and jumps from one person to the next. I actually think it’s the exact opposite. It’s not that the god feels nothing or changes easily; I think the god feels everything, all of that, all at once. One new lover doesn’t change feelings for a past one, it gets tacked on. I think the god feels too much, all at once, on a divine level and scale and that is maybe perhaps why he is known as the ‘mad god’.”

Dionysos may be the most misunderstood god in all of the Greek pantheon, and I blame Jung for this. Too many people thanks to Jung pigeonholed Apollo as god of “rationality” and Dionysos is a god of “passion”, not to mention the whole interpretation of Dionysos as “god of parties”. Has anyone even remotely read the Bacchae? I somehow don’t think Pentheus thought he needed to be wearing a party hat during his last moments. >.> In any event…it is my personal spiritual experience that Apollo is the one who has a goofy sense of humor and Dionysos is absurdly deathly serious.

With the help of a friend, I got some much needed cleansing/chakra work done tonight. Still very lightheaded. Went into evening ritual feeling more in the flow of things, however, and a better sense of what direction I need to be moving in.

It’s funny how many people either think I am crazy for doing this rite or just plain brave. I’m sure some are thinking “both”. They are probably much closer to the truth. Others, I’m sure, are wondering why I’m undertaking this under imperfect conditions. I can’t wait for perfect conditions. If I waited for perfect conditions in all things I would accomplish nothing. Like the man in the Fool card, I have to take that first step off that cliff. Fuck perfect conditions.

by

Abramelin, day 5

Morning ritual performed. I am trying not to whine or complain when I pray at this point, but I kinda am. I realize it’s too much to expect massive changes in five days, and I am becoming painfully aware of the fact that my life is currently a black hole of stress, consisting of little more than work, sleep, food, and workouts. I’m also aware of the fact that things have to change and I really don’t know where to begin. I guess beyond keeping myself healthy and in my skinny jeans I don’t feel like I’m doing much with my life these days. My job isn’t horrible; I’ve had far worse and I actually LIKE my boss and my coworkers plus have some reasonable perks to working here. But I do feel like I’m lacking any real sense of accomplishment or being appreciated for all the efforts and stress I’ve been going through, nor do I feel like I’m doing what I want to be doing with my career. I also feel that I am being given all of the responsibility of a lead role but none of the actual perks of having one. Adding to my concern, during the past 6-7 months I’ve been here I’ve watched (and am watching) at least 7-8 people get up and leave, and this is not a big company. I realize that it is VERY likely given my past work history and the nature of this operation that I will be somehow forced out of this job before the rite is through or at its culmination, but I also realize that tacking on a job search to this operation will be just as stressful if not more so. I am also in the process of refinancing my mortgage and can’t afford to lose my job or it won’t go through. So I am praying for the best outcome, highest and best and all that. It’s all I can do.

I think that somewhere I hit a magical and spiritual rut and instead of beating my brains out trying to figure out a way to deal with it I more or less just found distractions, and they will not serve me here. This is a no excuses zone. I suspect that much of this operation will be a struggle between being myself and living up to my highest ideals and trying to get the rest of my life to match. And I have no illusions; in order to genuinely get my life to match I need to leave the IT world and go full time for life/wellness coaching, fitness training, and writing and my overhead may be too high for that. The good news is that my coaching business HAS been ridiculously successful so it’s not entirely impossible.

There’s a lot that needs improving on all levels of my life; I just don’t know where to start. One day at a time, I suppose.

Evening ritual went well. Less whining. 😉 I’ve spent my commute today to and from work reading Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, and it’s made me think quite a bit about what I want to see in the world in regards to Hellenism and the gods in general, and how that ties into my own spiritual practice. As I posted to my other FB:

“Rereading Robert Calasso’s Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. I remember back when I was gung ho about getting us our physical temples back, land, etc…now I’m thinking in broader terms. It’s about making the gods and their worship manifest absolutely everywhere…PERIOD. Beyond land, country borders, and even language. You can destroy a building, but you cannot destroy a god.”

Taking that some steps further, it’s about the unification of mythic reality and personal reality. In short, the magical life made manifest. I need to meditate on this some more.

by

Abramelin, day 4

Morning ritual performed. What continues to strike me is how simple everything is. I also feel like this has already been going on for at least a week and I’m only on day four.

We don’t really have holy texts in my faith; the closest would be the Homeric and Orphic hymns, or Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony. I just purchased Robert Calasso’s Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony for my Kindle along with a Hesiod book collection. I have Calasso’s book in paperback and have read it a billion times since Apollo first came into my life, and it may be one of the few genuinely inspirational spiritual texts for me. Having them on my Kindle is pretty useful. I read fast and I can take it with me on my work commute.

Evening ritual went fine. One thought, though. Well, several. One of the repeated warnings about this rite is that eventually you can fall into one of those “dark night of the soul” things where everything feels like it’s not working, it’s all stupid, etc etc. I’m coming into this from an incredibly masochistic perspective given I’ve been battling the nastiest one I’ve ever had for the past few years; I figure at this point it’s “do or die”, and I’d rather thrive than merely survive.

Anyway.

I’ve been reading and rereading other people’s Abramelin accounts, and I find them pretty interesting. I wonder how similar or different mine will be in comparison with others’.

 

by

Abramelin, day 3

I woke up 15 minutes before I was due to do the ritual for the morning from a dream in which I had become a fictional character in my own world, and that “Scarlet Magdalene” was a new character on Doctor Who. Not even my real name, but the name I go by publicly in occult communities. The interesting thing was that in the episode I was brought in, there was a problem. There were TWO Doctors, the one that exists in this universe on tv and another one from another universe, and I somehow managed to cause this collision course between the worlds and hence became both real and fictional in this one. In the program guide online in talking about “me” they kept referring to me as Scarlet or Magdalene interchangeably as if they didn’t know what they would call me. Like no one is named Scarlet? Ha. Interesting.

Morning rite went well. I came back to my room, went online, and discovered that drama had been started on my FB by someone who was hoping to use pretending to know more about magic than I do in order to be a condescending pickup artist. All wondering aside if avoiding FB and people online needs to be done earlier in the operation than I would like, I wonder if the dream and the drama were somehow related. While I don’t feel the need to be entirely removed from the online world and social interaction just yet, I DO wonder if I am asking to be dragged into people’s spheres of personal melodrama and nonsense by doing so. Online I might as well be a fictional character with people attempting to interpret what I say and do for their own devices and doing the equivalent of writing fanfic about it.

I really don’t believe there is any difference other than perception between religion, myth, and fiction, and this isn’t to say that religion is false or that fiction is holy writ but instead that I am a big supporter of the multiple worlds theory, and that the idea of becoming a hero is about becoming a part of the body of myth and legend and in essence, achieving immortality. Not just through the remembrance and stories, but part of a larger set of realities beyond this small one of which we are only a mere part. I have more thoughts on this also but find it hard to put them into writing.

But in other news, no more stomach nonsense and pain. I took it easy today regardless, although I DID manage to have solid food. Woo.

Something I have noticed, especially during the evening ritual…so much of this is prayer, so much of it is confessional, the pouring of the heart out on so many things. In the process of this half rambling, half prayer, I stumbled across something important. I think some magicians may err in this is the false dichotomy of this rite in relation with the “rest of their lives”. On one hand, you don’t want to get sucked into bullshit which would be detrimental to the rite and to ultimate unification and K&C with your HGA. But on the other…creating and aiding that division between what is the rite and the “rest of your life” can give a push/pull which I don’t think is healthy and will lead to issues later on in trying to reconcile oneself after the rite is complete. Also, I think that mindfulness and pulling everything in will assist in bringing things to manifestation and true fruition. You just have to avoid the trap of getting caught in people’s muck and black holes.

Those are my thoughts for now.

by

Abramelin, day 2

What I am most thankful for is that the earlier sunrise gets, the more likely I can just go back to bed and go to sleep. I know that I will not be able to make every sunset and my best bet will be to be mindful of when it happens and offer up a silent prayer, and do the full rite before I head to bed that evening.

I’ve noticed that things tend to fly out of my mouth during the prayer and I have no idea where they come from. Certain formalities and phrases, some of them reminding me a bit of my Golden Dawn years. I also had two insights this morning, nothing I haven’t reflected on before but things which are becoming more into focus, so to speak.

One of them is the idea that quite frankly, I am a very stubborn soul with a lot of Fire. In short, I am very willful. But my best acts of magic have been when I do what I refer to as “riding the Tao”, the perfect balance between being active and passive. It’s essentially being “actively receptive”. It sounds like a contradiction but it’s very Zen. It’s a Willing to let go.

The other is having every act, thought, and emotion as I do this ritual be somehow geared towards the working itself. Nothing is a “distraction”. From going to work to my fitness regime, everything I do becomes dedicated to the rite.

The night before day 1, I had a dream that I was being recruited to join the military. All I could think to myself was, “Well…um…I like to be in shape….” I can’t relate to the idea of drills and extreme patriotism but hey, I like being in shape. Interesting that I never once thought of the possibility of going to war, killing or being killed. Weird.

I wonder if I’m the only Greek polytheist who has ever done or is doing the Abramelin. The few accounts I’ve read were people who were either very Christian or very Jewish, and I am decidedly neither. While I have found that my prayers have taken on a Neoplatonic vibe, they have been mostly directed at my patron deities: Apollo, Dionysos, and Hermes. And of course, Zeus.

My stomach continues to be super sensitive. I am wondering if it preferred doing the juice/cleansing thing but I can’t keep that up for six months. I am hoping this is temporary. Yesterday I had Indian food for dinner, it was very good but could not finish it. Afterward had chocolate brownie ice cream with hot fudge, Newman Os, and chocolate sprinkles for dessert from FoMu. One of the things that has amused me about the Abramelin is the need to abtain from animal flesh; being vegan already means no change of diet from me. But I am feeling the need to adjust my diet and eat more healthy. I think last night will be a rare thing for me in the future. If my stomach issues continue I may consider going mostly raw vegan. Lunch today was red quinoa/brown rice veggie sushi. My body didn’t like that. I tried other forms of food, no luck. Drinking kombucha and this tropical cleanser (pineapple, cucumber, turmeric, ginger, lime) helped immensely. Tomorrow I do the juicing and smoothie thing again and will attempt solid food again on Monday.

For the evening ritual I asked to be given more clear and direct signs on whether or not it is appropriate to change my diet during the operation and what to in lieu of being sick and in pain. What can I say, I’m direct and to the point.

by

Abramelin rite, day 1

I had downloaded a program to keep track of sunrise and sunset with an alarm 15 minutes in advance. Naturally I wake up 30 minutes in advance. Truth be told–I am not a morning person. I remembered the prayer, but not the oil and consecration, so I went back in. Then I couldn’t find the headband, which is actually a piece of cloth I carry in one of the few books I’ve ever consecrated. I still can’t find it nor the book. I will be beating myself up for this, I know it.

Now as I compose this I also remember that this may have a practical purpose in stalling me. I plan to take the suggestion of someone else and procure four crystals and have them at each corner of the room, and consecrate those. Then I can take them with me when I travel so I can have the temple set up, so to speak, wherever I go. Once I have everything in place, I will reconsecrate. But the show will go on. I will be in a constant state of making this and myself better and I must remember that this is part of the process–I just have to be mindful not to make this an excuse to slack off or half-ass this, either.

I did a juice and smoothie fast past two days. Yesterday I gave up my usual workout, something I never do, but given the calorie deficit I kinda had to. I had a doctor’s appointment today so I worked from home, which is frankly ideal for starting the rite. I was going to have jury duty on Monday but YAY, I do not have to report. I’m kinda glad, honestly.

The evening was more of the same. This time instead of showering beforehand, I washed my face and hands. It’s standard practice in Hellenism anyhow; you never pray or give offerings otherwise. I also thought to anoint the tealight in the lamp with the Abramelin oil. I am really, really wary of leaving anything burning unattended but am okay with tealights.

The energy of my temple room right now is…REALLY intense. And I’m definitely feeling a shift myself. The simplicity of this rite is not to be underestimated, I am thinking.