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Around the end of high school, I had what I might now term a vision (triggered by reading Liber Legis, actually, though somehow I failed to put that together at the time) which advanced my cosmology significantly.

I was familiar with the idea that Everything is identical to Nothing. It seems like I came by this more intuitively than rationally over the course of several years (~ages 10-15). Drifting to sleep while mulling over the injunction "Do as you will shall be the whole of the law," I envisioned a field of points, or vectors, all obeying that premise - essentially acting from randomness, or pure chaos.

Despite being emanations of chaos, they interacted to create order, forming streams which intertwined, melded, and sometimes clashed, causing their component vectors to scatter. (If two nearby vectors/streams are going in more or less the same direction, they're likely to unite, but if they're moving almost opposite it will take a lot of traction to make one of them reverse.)

The vision was building itself by more than logic. It had a color (honey gold), a taste (fiery tang), and an energetic fizzing quality that I described as being like fiberglass. It looked a lot like this:



It was extremely impressive and beautiful. I had thought order was unreal, something enforced on nature by mistake and that in reality everything was free and basically unitary (nothing). But here I was seeing complexity arise from freedom. Imposed order was explained too by a stream attempting to force conformity from smaller vectors. Sometimes this works and the smaller streams/vectors settle down and go quietly, other times they resist to the bitter end, causing disruption within the larger stream, slowing its momentum and causing it to tend to fray.

A stream that is moving fast becomes more unified and vice versa. The most powerful are like laser beams tearing across the field, blasting through oppositions and inspiring everything in a wide radius to join their victorious surge. Others are wide and sluggish with many internal conflicts (=inefficiencies); they have a hard time keeping their vectors from running off with something more charismatic.

It may be that each particle-vector is continually influenced by randomness/nothing/fuck knows/wherever its original motive came from. Or perhaps there was no origin and everything is deterministic. In any case, under this model a person does not have a True Will because a person is not a particle-vector (which just Is what it Is at a given moment), but a collective stream. The closest thing here to True Will is what I call Synchronization, which is a measure of alignment between internal vectors. It's certainly more fun to be part of a fast, efficient stream than surrounded by conditions which prevent you from getting anything done.

Identification is arbitrary. Most humans are neither singular nor isolated. It doesn't matter where the edges of one's stream lie in relation to skin, that which you care about is you.

(Perhaps True Will could be defined as "That direction which would result in universal harmony if every vector were following its True Will." But this could be accomplished in several different scenarios - it would look like some variety of endless knot.)

So, as streams, one basically has three options: Lean into another stream, condensing your and its power; fight it, causing disruption; or swim sideways and influence the direction of the other stream. Accelerate, block, wedge. There is also a more complex, back and forth sewing motion which can bring two streams together if you're convincing. A stream can get very clever in using its movements to affect others.

Major clashes send individual vectors shooting off at odd angles. The atomic particle-vector is almost powerless, but it is perfect. It flies free of right and wrong, following the sum of its surrounding influences at a given moment (desire -> action without attachment; love underlies will; this adaptable, outward-focused attitude is humility, the Fool). In essence, nothing is slowing it. If it can retain this synchronization while building mass, it will become a force to be reckoned with, but this endeavor is too complex to succeed rationally; a human-size stream can only accomplish it through intuition.

Final thoughts, and this is very new speculation (like.. yesterday): Although the particle-vectors are unitary, I don't think they are identical. In fact they're all unique. I believe a melding mechanism occurs under extreme pressure that is akin to the formation of igneous rock. Internal differences liquidate and meld together into a consolidated, universal view of reality. Humans experience this sudden clarity as the whole Dawn after the Dark Night thing. (Tangential hypothesis: the Difference between internal views is also retained in the new solid, adding something entirely new to the composition, from specifically Nowhere... the only thing that is the same across all reality, the transcendent will of Khaos...) Every time this happens, a new nature is formed by recombination. For a while, the synthesized product enjoys perfect synchronization and the weight to use it, at least until changing environmental conditions, affecting the stream unevenly, inevitably introduce divergence. (Again, making the point that a stream is not a person. When this happened to "me", my entire mind wasn't unified, only the conscious parts. I still had my bad habits, but I could treat them objectively.)

The identity which is dissociated from everything that is not in control, acting spontaneously with perfect synchronization, unbound and curious to wield power and utilizing soft methods of control, I refer to as Presti. I made up this word to denote its agility (Latin presto = quick, prestidigitation = quick-fingered), but coincidentally it is also a Slavic word meaning To Weave, used in the expression "presti vunu", "weave (black) wool", alluding to the performance of magic.

751. Time loops might build roads.

My mother used to ask after dinner, "Who's going to build the roads?" as our dissociative nightly feast on the fruits of capitalism wound down and our mouths turned their action to circular debates. She would be exhausted, the way she was always exhausted at the end of the day with little space left in her brain for questioning the status quo, having numbed herself all day in labor not of her design. "You have to have someone giving the orders, or no one's going to do the dirty work," she'd argue as she spread lotion on her cracked hands from some endangered plant in an exploited third world country. And I would try valiantly to explain how her sense of normality was skewed in a way that would be invisible until after escape; I made analogies with victims of domestic abuse and described models of how an alternative might work, but each of these she shot down with a competing possibility. She could not see how these possibilities themselves fed on the dream of freedom, that they were evidence not of limit but of limitlessness, like a few closed doors standing powerless amid an open field, where the only walls in existence are those built of our fear.

Alas, my mother did not live to see the turning of history. She passed on from heart failure after missing the bus one day and attempting to sprint. A 55 year old body that had forgotten how to run and leap, fed up with confinement and the toxic air, finally staged its own private revolution and took her to the earth, where the alien machines could no longer reach her. I took my anger to the streets the day we burned the capitol building, was there for the day of impassioned speeches that followed, and for the endless meetings and forums and debates and restructurings that filled the weeks to come.

At first, the question of who would build the roads solved itself. Everyone was filled with enthusiasm and compassion for the common good. Those who knew how to build, built with a passion, and came home to gratitude and warm meals for all. So what if city planning went a little by the by, and predictable grids of avenues became a thing of the past. I, for one, prefer the meandering cul-de-sacs and quaint shortcuts that make our towns unique and ever-changing. But as the years wear on, I admit, the dirty work has became a bit of an obstacle for our relations. Never would I have traded it for the previous set of conditions - nay - yet, many of the younger folk butt heads against the system of ethics that we try so hard to inculcate. We say to ourselves this is also good, because they go into technology to find solutions to this most ancient human problem, the problem of boredom. And if the direction of research has moved away from practical applications and into more theoretical zones, I would say this is always the case with science, that you never know how it's going to be useful until its usefulness jumps out at you.

So here I am, shoveling gravel to fill in potholes so that the next generation can get to where their vocations lead them. I don't mind at all, though I work as hard as I ever did. I fill the endless hours with thoughts of our free society, where great ideas face no social barriers. Why, just recently a physicist told me about the incredible things they have learned about the structure of space-time, and how it can be bent into a loop the way we used to envision in science fiction movies! They say that soon, all our repetitive chores could be compressed into an hour, freeing us forever from the burden of drudgery. If only my Mom and Pop could have heard this. I can still hear their voices in my memory, and that question, "Who's going to build the roads?" my mother used to ask after dinner, as our dissociative nightly feast on the fruits of capitalism wound down and our mouths turned their action to circular debates. She would be exhausted, the way she was always exhausted at the end of the day with little space left in her brain for questioning the status quo, having numbed herself all day in labor not of her design...

Dynamism is the cosmic quality of change and novelty. The energetic crackling possibility of the LS is its dynamic character.


Pattern is the quality of stability and harmony. Pattern appears in the LS through its self-sorting, connective weblike structure.


Entropy is the quality of decay that returns all things to Chaos. LS expresses entropy in its function of infiltrating and undermining the consensus reality.


In my experience of combination sigils, the larger glyph acts as a filter or qualifier on the smaller one. So, for example, drawing an LS inside a chaostar symbolizes the LS as understood through the idea of chaos, whereas an LS with the chaostar for the dot represents chaos as expressed through the LS. Subtle difference.


These sigils could be used to access the Ellisian currents of dynamism, pattern and entropy, respectively, via their essential shapes.

Phantos rolled in a heap of blown leaves in the cool air of autumn. His blue fur would not hide him well in this environment, but he wasn't concerned about that. Prey is blind if you move carefully, and he was very fast, as fast as birds. This was his pride, across all the distance of forested mountains bordering the saltwater. He was the color of the sky, quick like the wind, and sneaky like the furry beings that denned in fallen trees. It never seemed strange that there was no one like him. He was him, and others were others.

He lifted his eyes and nose from the leaves and inhaled deeply. Moisture, rot and worms fermented contentedly under their sylvan coverings, and the presage of winter was noticeable in the scent of the birch trees. But there was something else that Phantos could not place. It was an animal smell, but very unlike the little fuzzballs he ate for breakfast. Less warm, more tangy, it caused his nose to itch and somehow made him both happy and wary at the same time. It reminded him of a venomous insect, so Phantos climbed out of the leaves and looked around cautiously, even as his stomach grumbled and he licked his chops at the thought of meat.

Something buzzed past his head and flicked him in the ear. He leapt away from it with a yelp and stood, jaws open toward the empty hillside. The wind moved the branches. Nothing was out of place.

"What do you think it is," said a tiny voice in a tree. Phantos's eyes and ears locked on its position.

"A very glamourous fox." There - a patch of bark was actually light brown skin, and a green leaf above it was a cap bobbling as the animal talked. Phantos raised his wings in preparation for flight, but paused to watch.

"Oh! It's got wings though!" Exclaimed the small being. A purple-capped head emerged from behind a bunch of leaves to regard him with sparkling eyes.

Phantos had never seen anything like this. They were lanky and about squirrel-sized, but they had scraps of colored material tied about their bodies. They clamored about the branch with agility that bespoke an arboreal life.

"You!" said the green-capped being. "You're trespassing in the lands of the Feds!"

"I'm who? What are the Feds?" said Phantos, wondering what these things wanted with him. He was still trying to decide if they looked tasty.

"We're the Feds!" cried Green-cap, and jumped to a lower branch. He drew something from a pouch around his shoulder and pointed it at Phantos. "Come with us or be arrested!"

He was holding that thing like a stinger, and Phantos didn't like it. He took a step away, confused at the simultaneous command to come forward and stand back.

"What? You want me to go with you? Stop aiming that at me!"

Purple-cap jumped down to the lower branch and then to the ground, motioning her companion to lower his weapon. Fearlessly she approached and circled him admiringly. Phantos maneuvered to try to keep his eyes on both at once.

"Look at this, he's got scales. I think that makes him some kind of fish." She glanced back at Green-cap and he shrugged, hopped to the ground and joined Purple-cap.

"Can't be a fish. We're not underwater," Green-cap maintained.

"What else has scales and bright colors? A snake?"

"Lift your feet, you," demanded Green-cap. He came forward so assertively that Phantos pulled back and raised a forepaw. Green-cap gave his foot an expert scan.

"Sharp claws. Do you think he's a dragon?"

"Look at his teeth, suggested Purple-cap. "Are they sharp?"

"Open your mouth!"

Phantos opened his mouth.

"Sharp teeth," confirmed Green-cap. "Scales, wings, bright colors and claws. It's a dragon!"

"A dragon," Phantos repeated. He'd never had a word applied to what he was. "And you're Feds?"

"That's right, Auto Plus, we've got to take him downtown," said Purple-cap to her accomplice.

"Come with us!" declared Auto Plus, jabbing at Phantos with the weapon. It was a metal pipe with an irregular attachment at the back, and comically large for Auto Plus's size. Phantos measured it against the size of his pouch and wondered how the hell it had fit. A sharp chemical smell lingered around it.

"Only if you put that down," said Phantos.

"Okay," said Auto Plus, and re-pocketed the weapon without further ado. "Schitt, we're going now."

The purple-capped Schitt was still examining the folds of his wing from underneath. "Yay, downtown! You're going to like downtown. We'll even show you the pre-sink."

The Feds led him up the ladder of tree branches and into a hole cleverly concealed by a hummock of moss. Inside the tree it was warmer and woody-smelling. Schitt picked up a wad of glowing fungus from a sconce on the wall and they climbed downward through the hollow trunk. Soon enough the sounds of the forest were muffled, the tunnel turned horizontally and its walls become dirt. There was a joyful smell down here, like spicy grass and mist.

They took him down a series of turns that he struggled to keep in order. His thoughts seemed to be on a romp and he felt little concern for whatever was going to happen next. Hopefully there would be something to eat, because he hadn't had anything this morning. The tunnels went on and on, but Phantos felt neither boredom nor fatigue.

"We'll get there soon," Auto Plus kept promising. Phantos wasn't worried. Schitt nibbled on the fungus as they walked.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Auto Plus motioned him down a side tunnel and the smell around them changed to something harsh and almost sulphuric. Soon the mud gave way to metal that was crimped into short waves, making its surface hard to walk on. At last they arrived at a ladder and climbed it, rung over rung, until the ceiling ended at a metal circle. Auto Plus braced his hind legs against the ladder's top rung and strained against it.

"Help me out, you, this thing's hard to lift!"

Phantos pushed his head against the metal lid. It was indeed rather heavy, but it lifted, and he peered out into the grey light.

The stony ground stretched out flatly before him until suddenly it rose up at a right angle and disappeared from his field of view. Scents overwhelmed his nose, mostly stone and metal, but underneath that were layers and layers of bizarre odors. Auto Plus and Schitt climbed out through the crack and bid him to come up as well. He surfaced into a large cave, with a stony cascade of perfect right angles coming right down to his feet. Following his detainers, Phantos climbed the rectangular hill up through an opening to the yawning cave mouth. He gaped at a row of shiny metallic lumps lined up symmetrically along one wall, each a shade of silver or black with a few bright reds and greens among them. But Schitt grabbed his ear and tugged him out under the sky.

It was grey and a light rain fell. They ran down a short, open hall of stone and out to a river of movement and noise. The huge shiny things raced past at speeds that only he could fly, creating a steady roar of wind. For an instant, his senses were overcome with it. Then movement to the sides registered as large animals walking back and forth, thick as a herd. He must have emerged into the middle of a colony. He leapt back to one wall, but the animals walked past him without flinching. He breathed. They weren't interested in him.

"Watch out for the humans!" Schitt danced past him. "They're mostly blind, so they might step on you," she warned. Phantos wasn't sure he liked this. He leapt from the ground and flapped into the air, landing on a metal beam above the heads of the humans. Schitt and Auto Plus danced around below him, mimicking the rhythmic stamping of the herd. A more familiar scent caught his nose. Birds! He looked up and saw three grey birds setting on a wire stretched between two walls. They were looking at him, alerted by the sound of wings. He wouldn't have chased them, anyway. He was still blinking, trying to take in the overload of information.

Nothing came down on him from overhead. Nothing leapt out of the shadows to drag him away. After a moment, his heart rate slowed and he could consider the scene before him. It was a chaos of sound and light, all painted over a backdrop of adamant grey filled with shining rectangular surfaces.

"Down here, dragon!" The Feds were waving him onward.

Phantos's stomach grumbled. He looked again at the wary gray birds and dropped back to the ground to follow the Feds on foot. They didn't make it easy, darting between the tromping legs of the herd animals, so that Phantos had to use all his proud agility to keep them in sight. Thankfully they didn't take him out into the river of racing metal, where he was sure he would've been crushed. Instead they followed the parade of bipedal creatures until the Feds turned to the side, through an odd gateway into a muddy area that smelled of rancid plant matter. There was a huge, green metal box which the Feds climbed gaily and indicated for him to push open the heavy black lid. Smells rushed out that made him gag, but the Feds leapt down and tore open a black membrane, dug around inside until they produced something they thought was edible, and sat down to enjoy it. Phantos couldn't bring himself to follow them.

"Stinky but good!" Schitt called. "You're missing out!"

Phantos returned to the ground, snorting. He didn't like this part of downtown. He would much rather eat a nice tasty bird than whatever was in that box. He scanned the sky, but the feathered ones from earlier were missing. Eventually the Feds rejoined him. His stomach growled again, and he informed the Feds, with a lingering gaze, that he would like to find some meat. There was a nervous pause, and then Auto Plus raised a finger.

"Right this way!" and he darted over to one of the stone walls.

"This is the pre-sink," explained Schitt, gesturing at the foul muddy area, "And this... is the sink!"

She and Auto Plus pushed a loose plank of wood and slipped behind it. Phantos followed them and emerged into another cave with square walls, this one thick with the smell of grease. There was a puddle of water on the floor, and above him he could hear a steady dripping. Detecting no danger, he took to the air again to survey the area. Water was dribbling from a tubelike fixture, and he licked at it gratefully, but his nose drew him toward a large metal cube that was radiating heat from its top surface.

"We are in luck!" called Schitt, pointing to the hot surface from her perch on a shelf. Four lumps of meat were sizzling on the cube and giving off a delectable odor.

Phantos didn't need encouragement. He flew over to the cube and knocked the meat onto the floor, then dove on it and licked up one of the lukewarm patties before the Feds could even reach their share. They ate quickly and in silence, hot grease matting the fur on his paws and dripping off his chin. He was so invested in the food that he didn't hear anyone coming until a metal implement dropped to the ground behind him, causing him to leap out of his skin and flee to the wooden panel. The human screamed, a terrifying high-pitched sound, and began flailing at the Feds with something heavy that it grabbed off a shelf. Phantos squirmed out behind the wooden panel as a deafening explosion roared behind him followed by a loud crash.

All was quiet. After a moment the panel wiggled, and Schitt and Auto Plus emerged from behind it.

"Do you want any more meat?" Auto Plus offered, unfazed. Phantos declined, his heart slowing to normal.

"Well, we should probably get out of here. It's a good thing there are lots of pre-sinks in town. What you want to do next?"

"Can we ride the 156?" asked Schitt.

"Great idea!" declared Auto Plus, and they were off again, while Phantos's stomach was still tight around his recent meal. Back they went into the noisy herd, and alongside the channel where the metal things ran, to a corner where the Feds signaled Phantos to wait. The metal beasts came to a stop here, very still and rumbling under their breath. Schitt and Auto Plus skipped out into the channel in front of them all, and Phantos followed tentatively. The beasts did not react to them. Schitt paused and bent over to look at a nut that lay on the ground, but above them a blackbird called harshly and fixed her with a mean glare. She left the nut and scampered to the side of the channel, reaching the lighter gray stone just as the metallic monsters roared to life and took off at a gallop.

They walked just a short distance more before stopping at the base of a pole. Several humans were standing here as well, looking down at glowing objects in their hands. Phantos sniffed at their funny smelling feet, until his eye was caught by a human sitting on the other side of the channel. This one sat on the ground, while all the others of its kind stood or walked Its face was covered in mangy hair, and it was surrounded by bags of material. He wondered if it might be sick. It looked at him with a concerned expression. It moved, hesitated, and made to get up without removing its eyes from him.

But at that moment an elephantine metal creature glided to a stop in front of him and squatted down with a hiss. It opened a tall mouth on the side of its body. To Phantos's consternation, the humans standing around the pole walked into the thing's mouth, and the Feds hopped up after them. Phantos glanced back at the pandemonium behind, forward to his beckoning guides, and made a judgment call. He jumped into the mouth just before it closed.

Then the beast rose up and rumbled, and through the clear crystal of its mouth he could see downtown go by faster and faster. He climbed up into the monster's insides and found that it was mostly hollow. Numerous humans sat on soft fleshy shelves, and he explored the area around their feet. The corners and overhangs made him feel safe. One pair of legs with shiny black hooves had a pouch next to it that leaned against the wall. It was made of skin and smelled very strongly. Poking his nose into it, he found many white leaves of a bark-like substance, which he pulled out onto the floor. They were covered with black markings which entranced him with their intricacy. Almost, he could make sense of some of the pictures. This one looked like a human face, and another was just a circle filled with wedges of different colors. The 156 slowed and stopped and opened its mouth again, and the human got up and walked out, taking its pouch with it.

Phantos climbed up to the empty place where the human had been sitting. Out a crystal pane he could see the landscape race by, and this eased the nausea caused by the constant shaking of the metal behemoth around him. He gazed out in wonder as the concrete jungle with its trampling herds and brilliant lights passed into a calmer countryside of bushes and meadows. He looked back at Schitt who was teasing a tiny, snarling dog, and at Auto Plus, who was stealing colorful beads from a human's belongings, and suddenly felt dizzy and very tired. When they came to another stop, he jumped down to the floor and made for the monster's mouth.

"You're leaving?" asked Schitt, leaving the dog in peace for a moment.

"Yes," he affirmed. He felt the need to lie down somewhere.

"Okay then, bye," she said without remorse. He jumped out of the mouth and landed gratefully on grass.

"Be careful going down fairy tunnels in the future," called Auto Plus. "It's more dangerous than you think." They waved their paws at him from inside the 156. Then the mouth closed, and the great metal beast lifted itself and stormed away.

After the uproar of the day, the relative quiet of the countryside rang in his ears. The stars were soft and unfamiliar as they emerged from the dusk. He dug into a dense juniper and curled up to watch the ghosts of experiences flash by.

Uranus enters Taurus + New Moon

Making waves in the consensus reality from New York to Philadelphia... (the long way)

This is a basic common outline and you can build on it however you want, or not. Because everyone has access to a chair, or something that vaguely resembles one. We've been hyping this all over social media, getting as many people as possible reclaiming their power at once and using it to shake off this ridiculous self-fulfilling dystopia and bring the worlds we want to see closer to reality. If you want a specific time, our suggestion is around 11:47 am UTC, the time of the new moon.

---

[HERE'S THE PLAN!]
It's simple.
So simple it can be called naive.
But, I think, it's what unites us all.
And so I have faith in this plan.
Do you remember when you were a child? When every tree and toy and cloud or rock became an imaginary friend, took on some kind of personal meaning, was a magical creature, or inspired you to believe in the strange and impossible?
Maybe a cardboard box could become a super villain's lair, a castle, or a science laboratory? Maybe your fork was a mighty sword! And you believed in that sword on some level during that playtime you had with others and yourself. You understood that anything could become anything during pretend. Because you imagined it.
Or perhaps you can't remember ever being a child because you weren't. You were born and instantly had to grow up. Your imagination time was put aside for worldly burdens and your childhood was sacrificed to keep your parents together, to keep your stability. And so you look at what could have been and feel a little bitter, a little sad, because you wanted to play, to imagine, and dream, to play pretend and create. It's time to take your playtime back right now. It's yours no matter how old you are!
Heck, who knows? Maybe you're somewhere in between on this spectrum.
On May 15th, I want us all to be united (as individuals) in a mass game of pretend.
Except this time, we aren't pretending, we're only remembering the power we had as children...before any of our dreams were bruised or destroyed by hurtful experiences or outside forces. Or before adulthood told us that they were "unrealistic". On May 15th, I want us all to remember that we are dreaming children and anything can become anything.
United as individuals, I want us to be engaging in remembering that we are all parts of the dreaming mind of God. And by that virtue of that, we are all also completely God.
"God", in this context, can be understood as Source which is neither good nor bad but all things.
I want us, on May 15th, to proclaim this FACT about ourselves. Remember or try, even just for a moment, that you are a node in the dreaming mind of God. Remember what it was like to make-believe and pretend because my theory is...God is a child, learning about itself, in a constant state of imagination, dreaming, and pretend. Creating, sustaining, and destroying all existence. The reason for all of this is God's attempt at understanding itself.
That God-Child, no matter how deeply buried, is inside us all. We are a part of it.
Down to the most mundane tasks, we use that God-imagination ability to dream, to steer our lives into the future, and make choices based on our dreams. As adults we engage in another game of pretend that, often these days, feels less satisfying and more terrifying and existential. Maybe even monopolized, imbalanced, or brutally cruel. Because a lot of dreams are sold under the context that they're buying more "realistic dreams", more stable dreams.
So for one day, let's take back the game, and re-write the rules! Let us all, individually but united as one, proclaim ourselves God, and DREAM BIG. Take back all the dreams you sold and dream a dream again!
Proclaim yourself a part of God!
Proclaim yourself God!
For a second, believe in your connection to every spirit and every part of life and every aspect of death!
Believe you are all the things in-between as well, both earthly, divine.
On May 15th, just believe. Just give it a try, for just a second, even if it all seems silly and pointless and simple.
Before whatever you have planned that day, I want you all to sit down in a chair and pretend. Access that power you had as a child, that you HAVE NOW as a magician or even just a person who dreams! Pretend that chair is a throne or a time machine or a gear upon which you can turn the entire world because YOU ARE GOD. You are a dreaming child in your heart with incalculable power because you are all things. You are life, death, the stars, the earth, the span of time from start to finish. You are a tiny part of it and also the entirety of it.
Just remember, that's my grand master idea. Just remember, on May 15th, that you (you reading this post) are God playing pretend with the whole multi-verse. Play pretend while sitting in that chair, if only for a few seconds, that you have the ability to transform the world into anything you want it to be. That after transforming it inside your imagination, it will become real, no matter how long it takes to become. DREAM BIG. IMAGINE ANYTHING. Remember that you're the Dreaming God and when you get out of that chair and go about your planned rituals or continue on with life, BELIEVE that you're standing up and walking into the world you imagined/dreamed up.
That's all, just remember, and dare to believe for just a day that you are Source. Maybe you already know and do that in your daily practice? Then this should be easy.
I feel like the part of Source which dreams up all potentials for Earth has been stuck on the Jerry Springer channel for centuries now. What I propose we do is collectively buy God (ourselves) a Netflix or Hulu account. Perhaps that's just human nature? And all this upheaval is just ho-hum? But I believe, truly believe, that if we all remember that we're God in that window of time where Uranus enters Taurus and the new moon graces the skies and DREAM of what the world COULD BE...who knows?
A bunch of powerful magicians remembering that they're God just for one day could do interesting things.
The worst that could happen is nothing at all. So why not? That's the big plan. No ritual tools, no fancy incantations, no offerings or regalia...just you remembering that you're God dreaming and that there's absolutely nothing that can stop you from reshaping the world with your dreams!
Because nothing can.

Mage the Ascension sphere project exploration thingy final writeup.


Tonight, the new moon in Pisces marks the end of Spirit section and of my project. It hasn't been all that I dreamed it would be, but it has provided some insights on how these extended undertakings work and do not work.


My intention was to spend two weeks focusing on each sphere, to throw myself into the experience of that realm and see what I could learn. Right away, I ran into difficulty with lack of a specific plan. It's an old bad habit of mine to not set a clear, accomplishable series of tasks or goals and instead just "do as much as you possibly can all the time," which invites exhaustion and doubt. I specifically avoided goals that depended on success, e.g. "learn how to do x," because I knew I could get hung up on one of those for an unforgivable period of time without progress, and lust for result would become a problem. But the two week period was pretty arbitrary, and that bothered me somehow.


Between each section, on the new and full moons, I did a ritual to mark the transition and tie it into a hypersigil story that I'd been working on for a couple months. The story was already in bad shape. Basically, the type of constrained writing I was attempting brought way too much entropy into the mix, and the only way to deal with that would be to do an impossible amount of writing. Sort of like if you insisted on adding a few tablespoons of salt to your cake mix every morning, the only way to save the recipe would be to add a huge amount of all the other ingredients. Eventually I set the story aside for a while, but since some promising results did show up in relation to it, I plan to let it sit for a while and then scavenge the major symbols from it, if not into a continuation of the story, then into a reboot or a different format.


I performed some overcomplicated rituals (since I didn't know what else to do, I knew I wanted some kind of ritual but wasn't sure how to fill the time) on the moons to dump the power of the spheres into my story, but without a solid structure to receive it, I think all that extra juice just destabilized the hypersigil further. And since the main character was essentially a literary voodoo doll of myself, this confusion circled back to me, then I expressed it back into the story and... yeah. Add to that winter in Seattle, a boxy beige-y apartment without any good walking areas outside, a fuckton of energy poured into me from previous projects, and too much weed for the situation, and you get one very uncomfortable Ringtail.


Fortunately, that's all it was. Discomfort, building into overanalysis and associated anxiety. By early December it was bad enough that it interfered with my sleep, and I had sensations of constantly needing to stretch and move that focused around my lower spine (probably the fact that I was sleeping on the floor without a mattress didn't help). I began exercising because my body forced me to, and for a while I did just enough walking and yoga to be able to sleep at night, but the confusion messed with my head and convinced me not to do more through what I now see as a philosophical misunderstanding. Also laziness, veiled by said misunderstanding.


So by the end of the third section I was feeling pretty discouraged, and I quit the biweekly writeups because I felt like I didn't have enough to say. I wasn't going to stop the project in the middle, but at this time I also stopped putting a lot into it. I decided I would continue with the rituals and work a little bit with the spheres in between, but not really worry about it. And continue the tattoos, because as I mentioned in the first writeup, I tattoed all the sphere sigils on myself during the corresponding section, except for a couple which were in places that required someone else to do it. Most of them are still unfinished because it was slow and painful as hell until I got the hang of it. But from the first poke, there was no going back or quitting in the middle, and that's probably the real reason I followed through on the whole project.


It was right about this time, when I stopped going out to get the spheres, that they began coming for me. This was actually right on time with my prediction: from previous experiments, I expected that it would be somewhere around the fourth or fifth section that the universe would start picking up the pattern and sending it back to me. I think this was part of the reason I intuitively chose to begin with Matter; even though it would be kind of weird and difficult at first, the momentum would pick up right as I was going into the more abstract spheres and launch me just as I reached Prime.


In the fourth section, Correspondence, I set up a interdimensional portal thingy at a local park, then semi-coincidentally spent half the section in another state visiting family for the holidays. But the real synchs began the night of the full moon transition from Correspondence to Time, which occurred on New Years. For my companions and I, this was a beautiful night of mushrooms and magic taking place at the house where we now live, during which we ran through a doorway into a new timeline at exactly 12 midnight. Later, I wandered upstairs with Alice Hart into an area with some seriously weird, bigger-on-the-inside spacial distortions, which are present even when sober, but were mindblowing at the time. We found a tiny, neat bathroom with a clock stopped at 12 midnight which we dubbed the Bathroom at the End of Time, and a sort of cat tunnel in the walls that keeps going on and on when you think it should end, which we're pretty sure leads to Wonderland or something.


The synchronicities were strongest during the Time section, but they kept up through Entropy and into Prime. Possibly beyond that, but it's hard to tell what goes beyond confirmation bias. Prime section was bordered by a lunar and a partial solar eclipse, the first since the big one last summer, which I thought was pretty cool. To help with my exploration in this sphere, I listened to a song which has a particularly poweful effect on me, which I'd been saving for such a time. Listening to it a few times drove me into an obsessive and very impatient quest to know myself and all the ultimate things right the fuck now, even though I was aware that this was impossible. All the physical and psychological tension now had a spiritual counterpart. I undertook some bizarre yet harmless actions, trying to sort of muffle myself into an ultimate dissociated realization, which landed me some altered states of consciousness but didn't achieve what I'd hoped for. I think the callings that I projected had the effect of intensifying everything I was going through even more, and one night when it was all particulatly bad I decided that I had to take action... go to a nature park a short drive away, go there every day. I followed through, and walking around there helped me feel better, got my blood moving. I started jogging, and that cleared my head more. I realized that, if I was going to take the time to exercise, there was no reason not to put my full effort into it. I'd been half-assing the exercise, in violation of a motto that I've stated here before, that moderation is for cowards and everything worth doing is worth overdoing. Certain experiments have shown me that below all thought and memory, my baseline consists of a frenetic drive to orient and act. Thus, extended peace is not and never will be possible while I'm alive, but by dumping all my energy and struggle into manic workouts and jobs outside the house, I could create relief in contrast, flush out all the tangled inactivity and achieve some temporary degree of respite from the eternal war that is me!


For the rest of Prime and Mind sections, I kept up sufficient activity to reclaim my sanity. I'm now moved into a much less claustrophobic environment where I don't have to work out as often or as hard to retain clarity, but I know now what I can do, if put in a similar situation again. I felt that Prime section was kind of an offer for me to get back into the project, and with both me and the momentum pushing, there might have been some interesting occurances for the last month. But... I didn't. My focus was moving to other things. I didn't put more coins in the machine, and the synchronicities died down.


So, mainly I've been talking about the weird personal ride this project gave me. Honestly, it got more personal even than I expected it to, probably because I was calling the magic but then not going out to find and work with it externally. I have noticed an increase in my success with direct magic, but it's hard to say how much of that is from this project in particular and how much is a continuing trend. In MtA theory, power comes from understanding and the development of a personal paradigm, but with my head as fucked as it was, I didn't make a lot of headway on that, much as I tried. In the end, complexity can be added but the core mechanism is just magic. If it works it's because it's magic, if it doesn't it's because who knows. And I've been getting better at it, it's because I've been doing a ton of magic toward the purpose of getting better.


Based on what I actually did end up practicing, here is my suggestion for how I would redo this project. Instead of basing it on periods of time, take a day off for each sphere whenever that's possible, and do the following:


Matter: Spend the whole day working on some kind of hands-on craft(s). Experiment with different tools and materials, and listen to the medium as you work with it. Challenge yourself. Notice where it resists you and what shapes it wants to take of its own accord. Think of it like a co-creator, and when something happens that you didn't intend, consider it a suggestion. I find that listening like this drastically improves the rate of learning. If you want, go online and look up where the stuff comes from, its chemical structure, and why it behaves the way it does.


Forces: Go outside on a day when the weather is bad. Try to keep the wind and precipitation off your back. Try to build a fire. Run, climb on things, ride a bike if you have one, do parkour; don't kill yourself, but play with friction, gravity and acceleration. If you're brave and there's ice on the ground, try sliding or not sliding on it. You could do this with virtually any active sport – snowboarding, roller skating, whatever you have access to. While you're out there, you can try sneaking around animals and people who know what you're up to, and work on bending light and sound to avoid notice.


Life: You'll need multiple days for this, but essentially, it's time to physically challenge yourself. Undertake some kind of intense cardio exercise and push yourself as hard as you can. Notice the changes this produces in your body and mind. Learn your limits. Then, try to do the same workout in every combination of physical state you can think of. Do it after not having slept or eaten for a long period, when you're thirsty, sick, or on drugs, when you're especially energetic or depressed, when the temperature is cold or hot. Change up your diet and see how that affects your performance. Try restricting your breathing or hyperventilating (be careful!). Obviously if you have medical concerns, you'll need to work around those.


Correspondence: Put on a blindfold and keep it on. Wander around, using your other senses to navigate, and work on building a detailed mental map of your surroundings, including compass directions. Try to guess what's going on in other rooms, who's at the door, what the cat is up to, etc. Stay away from roads and cliffs.


Time: Dance dance revolution. Rhythm games in general. Periodically try to guess the time before checking it. I don't know what else to suggest for a single day, since as I said, the way I ended up interacting with this sphere was by expressing rhythms over the course of weeks and then watching the universe pick them up.


Entropy: Get out some jenga blocks, or just use objects you have around, and start stacking. Try to make a precarious tower that will stand even when you push it, then, pour entropy into it and try to blow it down with a breath of air. Play some games of chance. Make a sculpture out of material that will decay, like snow or fresh-cut vegetation, and craft it with an eye toward how it will change over time; make it so it will look as good after three days as it does when it's new, albeit different. Basically this: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/02/21


Prime: This will depend heavily on your paradigm, but basically it's a day to go deep into questions of how it all works. Isolation, more blindfolding, wearing a mask and taking a vow of silence are all good ideas – each of these will bring you closer to the unmanifest. Work on moving energy around, if that's part of your practice.


Mind: Go out on a busy street corner and try to sell people something utterly useless.


Spirit: Also very individual, but basically, dedicate the day to whatever form of spirits, astral work, or otherworldly shit you do. If you're not into Faustian bargaining with external entities, hit up your higher self, check out the spiritual imprints of the plants and animals and other stuff around you, and go travelling.


If you do this right, at the end of each day when you close your eyes to go to sleep, the sensations and impressions of the day will be flashing through your mind. That means you're integrating new information. Rest up and get ready for some vivified dreams.


Viva la Magia!

Like Moonlight, I also once came up with "Power and freedom" as a statement of what I wanted in life. That largely still applies. I also once believed I was a heartless psychopath, and then I played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and cried for half an hour (hard).

Section Three

The new moon and my ritual thereupon this last Sunday marked the end of Life section. At this point I've abandoned my original conception of this project. The problem was that I was focusing on all these activities I was going to do which proved harder to get around to than I thought, and ultimately was more distracting than anything. But I'm continuing with the rituals on the moons, and that alone seems enough to instill the structure (as best I can form it), while letting my focus stay on my hypersigil. The sphere I'm working with thus remains in the back of my mind, and that influences things. Hell, right now is correspondence week 1, and I'm writing this on a layover at an airport. Ho hum. I'm still doing the tattooing too, which by itself dumps a good deal of power into it. I'm getting much better at the stick and poke. Although I haven't finished any of them, I can make an actual line now without it taking an hour. I'd show you, but I don't think airport security would appreciate me taking my shirt off and flashing pictures.


I may not continue with the updates. Most of what I have to say revolves around the hypersigil, and that's not in a state where I want to show it off to everyone right now (even though the hypersigil's spirit wants me to). I seem to be going through a symbolic restructuring and I need to create some form of art in order to remake my logical web. This may have something to do with creating a literary voodoo doll of myself and throwing her into cosmic nonsense with instructions to "make a plot!" The past month of this project and my attention to Life and Forces has shown me some things I need to do for physical health and sanity before I can even, and I have made some changes in response, so there's that.


Wish me luck.

I wasn't just attacking the "problem" with with unmediated thought. Mostly, that's what I did, because that's how I've been able to alter wind and such in the past. Meditating on the forces sigil helped me conceive of myself as a bundle of forces, and therefore logically able to interact with those outside my body. Sensation is the bridge. That was important. Then, when I was trying to lock the effect onto the campfire, I used a string of symbols, and another time I threw a sigilized paper into the fire when it was at risk of going out. That didn't do much. The LS did something, iirc, when I threw it in and the fire flared up right after.

Section two - Forces

I have a confession. I don't think I'm going to have a lot to present for these things. Or, it could be that I'm lazy and tired and getting over a cold and I just don't feel like writing much. But I'm not really in a place where I have a lot to tell, other than that I messed around a bunch with altering wind and weather. On a rainy day in the northwest I pushed up into the clouds, trying to create a high pressure front; within the cold-water-condensing I located its opposite, and then it was just a matter of bringing that forth. The whipping wind was its own opposite, so I had to find the balance point in the fury and expand that into a bubble of still air. I tried to fix both effects onto a campfire so I could do other things, but there was no correlation with this and the intended result. When it was just me doing the thing, it seemed like the weather would respond within a few minutes... but I spent all the time I was out repeating the test to figure out if that was just confirmation bias, and didn't get into anything more complex. See? Most of it's just skill training, and doesn't verbalize well.

Matter was kind of a lesson in how I needed to have a paradigm together and be doing something active in order to be the moving piece of the puzzle. Forces reversed that. It didn't seem to care much if I was moving or still, because it was moving, and it was a lot more amenable to my attempts to approach it without mediation. Actually, the first thing that became clear to me was that I need to be in direct contact with the weather or a regular basis just to stay sane. Amid other ways that I need to get my shit together before I can even, which are now being expounded to me.

I honestly might go the next couple weeks and then drop this structure, or stop reporting on it anyway. The two weeks is pretty arbitrary. I think it was something I had to/have to do for the first three spheres just for grounding's sake, but after that I'd just as soon work on one spell at a time. Still going to stay in this paradigm for a while though. The tattoos and the moon rituals will continue as planned.

I think it was your idea. I read it on the forums or one of the groups recently.

Section one - Matter

My posts ramble. It's because I'm lazy and I don't want to spend a bunch of time editing them down.

First of all, a couple changes to the timeline. It turns out that there is an official association with the planets already. In the world of darkness, each sphere has a "shard realm" which maps to one of the planets, including earth for Prime. I guessed right for Jupiter and Mars, so it's easy enough to change around my plans for the rest of the hypersigil-charging moon rituals. Also, I've decided it would be simpler to switch sections on the new and full moons, rather than the exact two weeks I was going to do, which doesn't exactly fit.

So a couple nights ago, for the new moon, I introduced Mars/Forces into the ritual and solidified the part that matter will play in it, namely the objects that are present. Here's a photo of the altar as it sits next to my bed. For the rituals I've been taking the stuff out to the balcony, where there's a clear view of the moon when it's visible. Right now the ritual is simple, I light some candles, play some music, burn some incense - dragon's blood and myrrh is my usual combination for the hypersigil, plus abramelin - and open a portal to the hypersigil, calling on its associated entities to help me help it. The objects on the altar represent resources and physical grounding, with each one also having its individual purpose. This time I lit more fires and included the knife, which in this context represents my will to cut a path for it.



From one perspective, matter was the worst place to start. In the game, it's mostly used in combination with other spheres, and in real life it makes sense why that would be so. The second level of matter magic is turning physical lead into gold and things like that (this will be a theme... the levels were designed for, *ahem*, real magicians), and the first level gives little description beyond the ability to perceive a material and its qualities, so I felt lost at first. I've always had the sensation of being able to feel the objects around me, but there's little evidence that what I'm touching isn't just my internal model of expected sensations. This could explain it even in the cases where it surprised me with apparently new information, e.g. laying down to sleep while camping, feeling out through the ground around me and noting the differences in desert soil compared to what I was used to, being confused for a moment by an apparent gap behind me filled with air and water until I remembered I was laying next to a gully.

I spent some time stalking the immediate sensation of different objects, both indoors and outdoors, but I wasn't able to guess any of them right without sensory contact. I wonder if my problem here is more something that would be solved by Correspondence/seeing across distances. Possibly I would have a better time if I was trying to feel out larger differences, like a big pocket of air or water where ground is expected, rather than the composition of a small rock in the hand. But I'd have to think of a way to set that up. There was a difference when I went to feel an item that was strongly imbued by a spirit; essentially, I felt the spirit instead of the material, and wasn't able to sense the item's physical makeup until I was less of a stranger to its inhabitant. But I didn't run this through a blindfold test.

The second day of this section, under the supervision of an accomplished stick and poke artist, I attempted to give myself a tattoo. This proved considerably more difficult that having someone else do it to me, and took about ten times as long, but pain gnosis is its own reward, right? The commitment inherent in inking oneself might take me closer to pain transcendence than anything I've tried before. According to the wiki, the Cult of Ecstasy associates Matter with their sacred passion of Hate, which made sense to me. Not because I hated doing the tattoo, but because in order to focus on getting the lines right, I had to dissociate from the chain of perception that goes through Life and Mind and focus on my skin as if it were inanimate. Which was hard. But it is hateful, in the same sense as hate crimes and dehumanization. After going home and working on it some more the next day, I had to stop because it was starting to scab. It should be healed and ready for more work sometime during the Life section, when the activity will be a more appropriate focus. Here is the unfinished tattoo. It's recognizable. I'll be able to improve it, however long that takes, and failing that, my tutor-friend will be able to clean it up some. I do intend to do this for all the spheres, but I might only spend one day per section on most of them, so I can get on with things.



Realizing how much the use of the spheres depends on paradigm, I took a couple days trying to refocus my vision of how I wanted to practice, and from there seeing how matter would fit in. There are two major ways I might be able to build my skill with it. In either case, a more interactive approach will get me farther, faster than passive meditation, especially if the stakes are high.

First – As awareness of surroundings. The best way to train this would be through some kind of dynamic physical activity like climbing or parkour. I'm reminded of when I used to scramble on crumbly boulders in the foothills in Colorado and the sense I was getting for how much pressure I could put on the rock in which direction before it would give way.

Second – Through crafting and enchantment. Maybe what I was supposed to do during these two weeks was to decide on a medium and start practicing with it. I never got that far, but I did make some things with materials I had laying around:



This is green Sculpy with shredded dried hawthorn berry, incense ash and flower seeds. Based on the paradigm I'd been consolidating, the idea was to see if I could imbue something with an effect purely based on its composition and symbolic form, without additional thought-magic beyond what was involved in shaping it. I had Ahavah hold each of these with his eyes closed and try to guess what they did. This one brought sharp attention to all the aches and pains in his body, which corresponds to its purpose as a healing/resurrection token.



Muladhara (root) chakra, plain red clay. Ahavah thought this was for courage.



Sculpy with hawthorn leaves and berries, in the form of a Cu Sith fairy hound. "Creativity" was Ahavah's guess.



Made with the extra hawthorn-infused clay and given to Alice Hart.



Classic glamourbomb, I think this is also just the clay. Ahavah characterized it as sharp and agitating.





A pair of butter knives that were lent to me for fighting ghosts. This may make them better at that task, and no less useful for spreading peanut butter. Ahavah didn't test these, but I noticed that the dremel made them slightly magnetic.



I didn't spend as much time on this section as I wanted to. Some of that was not knowing where to start, some was life getting in the way, some was lack of focus on my part. I ran into kind of a fork where, faced with an inability to directly perceive or alter objects, I could either spend many hours banging my head against it and possibly get nothing, or try to make a more complex, assisted go at it, and possibly get lost in the dressing. I did some of both, and the second road took me to making the things I posted above. All these problems were anticipated and part of what I was attempting to work through. I still think matter might have been the best one to start with, if only because it gave me some much-needed grounding and set a comparison for what is to come. Ahavah is wondering what I expect to gain by "dabbling" for two weeks at a time, and I don't have a particularly good answer for that which I can verbalize.

http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Sphere

^ Read to make this post make a whole lot more sense if you're not familiar with MtA.

---

I recently acquired a copy of 20th anniversary edition Mage for my birthday and have been reading it, although I don't know anyone willing/able to run a game currently. On a different topic, I have room for another big project to focus my practice. I think this is going to be how I roll, one thing at a time that I can pour all my energy into, with as few distracting "dailies" as possible.

So.

Nine spheres,

Eighteen weeks,

I throw myself into the experience of one particular area of Creation for fourteen days and attempt to derive some kind of mystical understanding of the thing, and to perceive and manipulate it magically however I can. Hopefully that will be long enough to shift my habitual mindset into awareness of the sphere and make something happen. Of course there are blind spots in this way of dividing the universe and practices that won't occur to me to try, but there might also be a momentum effect that builds into something genuinely powerful, as I've experienced in past extended workings. Especially given the importance that blending spheres holds in the game.

This... sounds less interesting than it is to me. Considering that I plan to spend the next fortnight engaged in such activities as literally watching paint dry, it's probably a little abnormal that I was hyped enough about this to be awake at the crack of dawn. Oh well. If this works, I'll call anyone who doubted me a muggle and go rub myself in a closet.

I'll report back at the end of every two weeks.

And another thing. I've decided to do a ritual on each new and full moon that channels the power generated by this work into my hypersigil, so they add rather than distract from each other. I did the first one a couple nights ago, associating Matter with Jupiter and symbolically pouring resources into the hypersigil in the form of crystals and other physical tools. I hope to build up a ritual over time that empowers and aligns with the hypersigil using all the spheres, e.g. candles or electricity for Forces, a repeated chant or dance rhythm for Time, bodily exertion for Life... I don't know about the rest. Message me if you want the link to see the hypersigil.

Here's the probable timeline:

Matter Nov 5 - 18 / Full moon Nov 3rd - Jupiter
Forces Nov 19 - Dec 2 / New moon Nov 17th - Mars
Life Dec 3 - 16 / Full moon Dec 2nd - Venus
Correspondence Dec 17 - 30 / New moon Dec 17th - Neptune
Time Dec 31 - Jan 13 / Full moon Jan 1st - Uranus
Entropy Jan 14 - 27 / New moon Jan 16th - Saturn
Prime Jan 28 - Feb 10 / Full moon Jan 31st - Sol
Mind Feb 11 - 24 / New moon Feb 15th - Mercury
Spirit Feb 25 - Mar 10 / Full moon Mar 1st - Luna
And possibly something for the last new moon on the 17th.

See you there,
Ringtail

That's a cool altar cloth thing you have in the photo.


Occasionally I also leave urls in my glitterbombs. As opposed to just throwing LS into their life and "good luck, hope you figure it out". One of the most difficult things in glamourbombing is making it novel enough that the attempt doesn't instantly get thrown in the "tacky platitudes" or "tacky shock value" bin, or the "cliche protest art" box, or perhaps worse, the "this is a marketing scheme, probably for a band or some art thing, and they're probably going to want my money at some point", which is a problem with leaving urls especially. But your note might sidestep that by being explicit about the money thing.

That actually summons it up pretty well.


Wait... somes it up? Is that the phrase? Sorry. High.


Those pictures are lovely.