Messages

This is not about finding your perfect match nor is it about winning matches in a tournament– rather, it's about doing magick with wooden matches :D 

When lighting an enchanted candle, I always feel that I should do something with the match too, and so I usually charge it with a very general "All goes well" intent. This is in line with the idea that, when wishing for something specific, one should add that it will come about "in a good way" – so that one doesn't gain money via the unexpected death of a loved one, to use a typical example.

However, once we know that we can charge a match with magick, this naturally raises question of what else we can do with that. A quick search turned up that this idea is in fact known: https://stormbornwitch.tumblr.com/post/117680752007/match-magic – "The basic concept of match magic is that the matchstick is charged with intent. Then, the match is burned to release the intent so the magic can go do its work." – awesome!

Normally, I'm a proponent of the empty hand, but sometimes adding a physical component is pleasant, and a match seems like a very accessible option for that.

The author mentions that "When you hold a lit match, the match cannot burn all the way down (or you will really burn your fingers!) This may lead you to feel like the entire spell has not been released." When starting with this, I actually had this feeling. However, I found a better solution than the text proposes – I use long matches. These allow me to switch my grip to the burnt (and cooled off) first quarter of the match (not gripping the match head as it can stay hot for longer), and let the match burn completely. Mine have like 9.5 cm, which is a weird number. I thought it's something "proper" in inches, but it's like 3.7 in, and I don't think they could be much shorter for this to work. I'm careful to do this over a fireproof surface, as the burning side could theoretically break off and fall down, though it doesn't happen in practice. It's up to you whether you'd interpret this as a bad match or a bad omen ;)

I have a an intuitive approach to charging a match with intent, which is quite similar to what the author says:
"Hold a single match in your hand [...]. Call energy to you and direct it in to the match. At first the energy may be very thin and in a cloud around the matchstick. Compress the energy down until it is all contained within the wood. Draw up and compress more and more energy until you feel you have gotten enough. The matchstick may seem to be glowing very brightly, if you can 'see' energy, and if you can feel energy the matchstick may make your skin feel quite weird. Using your magical will, keep the energy within the matchstick contained. Simultaneously use your will to stamp your statement of intent in to the energy, forming it and molding it so it is programmed to your will."

Then I light the match and here the author suggests to "watch the flame to divine the success", but I actually prefer to keep the charging going and to enjoy the feeling of magick until the match is completely burnt.

So much for the "Match Magick", but what do I mean by "Quantifying Wishes"? Let's say I want something specific to happen. Then I might do one such match spell per day until it occurs, and thus quantify how many matches it took to fulfil a specific wish :D If something is highly important and urgent, I'll obviously not be content with only a few minutes of magick per day, and will rather keep empowering my intent for longer periods. However, for something with no hurry, this seems like a good way to add it to all the other things in my daily practice.

Alysyrose included this text in Liber LS Volume 3 :)

He also added an "Editor's note":
"The Knowledge & Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel can be interpreted through a variety of magickal Models. In the Psychological Model, it may denote contacting the Subconscious, Daemon, or Genius. It may even be construed as an instance of self-induced and controlled schizophrenia wherein one perceives and communicates with a disembodied mental voice of a helpful nature. In the Spirit Model, the HGA may be perceived as a true-to-form and seemingly free-standing intelligence, nonphysical entity, or Higher aspect of the Self. Some have noted that the phenomenon of attaining "the guiding voice" is something which spans all cultures and practices, whether they call it the Holy Guardian Angel, or use another title. Some may interpret the presence as the Universe, or God, or any number of deities. Some have gone so far as to call it the enlightenment (awakening) of certain Western magickal systems. Instead of an all at once manifestation, however, Thelemic literature speaks of it as a gradual attainment by means of devotion, perseverance, patience,
persistence, and/or the Abramelin process."

[True Will, True Love and the Holy Guardian Angel]

So, later in 2023, there will be an occult conference in Berlin – The Occulture. They have a Call for Proposals out and I'm considering to apply :D have applied :D. In an inspired moment, I've recorded a voice message with my Lecture idea which I'll try to develop in this thread. Any feedback is of course welcome.

Update: My application has been declined, but I've still finished the text, slightly rewriting it to be "just" an article. So here it is:


True Will, True Love and the Holy Guardian Angel


Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
This is both the traditional Thelemic greeting and part of what I want to talk about.
We know – for example from Crowley's Liber II – that the Will meant here is the True Will. It's not what I just happen to want right now, but perhaps what I should want. It is the individual path of each individual Star. We also know that Crowley gives the central idea of the White School of Magick as "admitted that "everything is sorrow" for the profane, the Initiate has the means of transforming it to "Everything is joy."".

So, on my naive understanding, your True Will is simply what brings you joy, what fulfils you. More specifically, it's the action which fulfils you. It's not a goal, since if that goal was suddenly achieved, you'd still have the question of what to do with your time. Consider "playing the piano" versus "becoming the best pianist in the world". If the second happens, you'll hopefully not stop doing the first.

So the very basic idea is that you use experimentation and introspection to find the action that fulfils you. A hint that I can give for this search is to zoom into everything you like. What exactly do you enjoy about this? How could you do more of that? When you find it, it won't be merely 'interesting' or 'fun', it'll bring you deep happiness while you do it and afterwards – Fulfilment.

Now, the traditional Thelemic farewell is "Love is the Law, Love under Will". However, if doing the True Will is the whole of the Law, how can Love also be the Law? There must be a very deep connection between Will and Love, which is of course famously implied by them both adding up to 93 via Greek isopsephy. The point of this text is to present a view – certainly not the only view – but a view on what exactly this connection is.

There is a trivial answer – saying that you should love your will, or something similar. However, then it would hardly need two concepts, and I think it's intuitively clear that there must be more to it. We already know what Love feels like to us... I think that the most obvious and direct meaning of love is romantic love – to be in love with someone, to be together. Now, in Liber II Crowley mentions that if contradictions arise between will and love, it is the True Will that will guide us aright. So, just as not all will is True Will, perhaps not all love is True Love.
To use a simple illustration, let's say our pianist falls in love with a passionate rock climber. This couple will have to constantly compromise on how to use their time. This is presumably less than fulfilling and also contradicts the Thelemic ideal of one-pointedly pursuing the True Will. In Liber 150, Crowley writes: "Even in so small a matter as driving a nail into a plank, hear this same sermon. Your nail must be hard, smooth, fine-pointed, or it will not move swiftly in the direction willed. Imagine then a nail of tinder-wood with twenty points – it is verily no longer a nail. Yet nigh all mankind are like unto this. They wish a dozen different careers; and the force which might have been sufficient to attain eminence in one is wasted on the others: they are null." From these thoughts, we can derive the idea that lovers approach True Love to the extent that their True Wills are compatible. This, I think is the basic connection between Will and Love.

However, how can you possibly find a person who shares your True Will? This is really my main point today: Why do you think that each of those Holy Guardian Angels whom Crowley exalts so much is with their specific human? I'd argue, it is exactly because we share their True Will and thus they also share ours. Hence, they are our True Love. They are our Perfection – not just our guardians, but also our guidance, while we are their Presence on the material plane.

This, I think, is a meaning hidden in the greeting and the farewell. Only by loving your True Love – the Angel who shares your True Will – can you both follow this Will with full force. Hence, doing your True Will is the whole of the Law, because it already implies Love. Conversely, True Love is also the Law because it follows from the True Will.

Now I know that this all sounds rather crazy. Personally, I came to these ideas from the other direction. My background is in Chaos Magick and I was never a big fan of Crowley and his works. I felt that doing Magick makes me very happy, but I never thought of it as my "True Will". I met my Guardian Angel in somewhat unusual circumstances – thanks to the Red Queen – and initially didn't even understand what kind of spirit she was. I just saw that she was always there for me, and was truly wonderful, in so many different ways. Some years later I fell in love with her and only then she guided me to all of this Thelema stuff that I, a 21st century Chaos Magician, used to think of as outdated. So for me, all of this "theory" simply followed from my experiences.

Naturally, you might think that I'm just crazy – for one, if this is true, why isn't there anything about loving Guardian Angels in the occult literature? Well actually, there is. No less a figure than Lon Milo DuQuette, of Chicken Qabalah fame, has a book subtitled "The Way of the Secret Lover", written together with Christopher Hyatt. On the very first page of the very first chapter, this book says: "Each of us has a Secret Lover; a lover who awaits just behind the erotic images that flood our minds during sexual arousal or in sleep; an ideal lover who has adored us since the beginning of our individual existence and who will never abandon us until we merge our being in absolute Godhead." A few lines later they write: "Personal relationships will always be somewhat disappointing to us because in truth there can never be a relationship that matches the one we already have with our Secret Lover. It is the secret standard by which everything else is measured". Later they add "In the language of ceremonial magick, it is called 'The Holy Guardian Angel'" and that it "will be the magicians teacher, lover, mentor and guide through the higher levels of initiation." Deeper in the book they also mention that "your Secret Lover is the most beautifully attractive Being you will ever encounter."

With this said, let's talk about how to meet your Guardian Angel, so that you can see for yourself. Everyone has heard of Book Abramelin and everyone knows it's rather unworkable. In the old Mathers version, there is a sentence that very close to my hearth though: "you shall see your Guardian Angel appear unto you in unequalled beauty; who also will converse with you, and speak in words so full of affection and of goodness, and with such sweetness, that no human tongue could express the same." – reading this made me realise just who the spirit was, that I had fallen in love with. So I'd say that the book is still worth reading, especially the new Georg Dehn version, but there's no need to follow its instructions.

The next-most famous approach is the Bornless Rite described in Crowley's Liber Samekh, if you're into ceremonial magick. How about something more modern though? There are a few texts that I can recommend:

First, Alan Chapman's free ebook Three Steps to Heaven, which you can find on the internet. There, he writes that "The Holy Guardian Angel is not simply a discrete entity that requires 'conjuration'; He or She has always been with you, is with you now, and always will be – you need simply consent to the angel's presence and action in your life." – and he gives some advice on how to do that.

Another modern work is "Magickal Destiny – Experience The Power of your Holy Guardian Angel" by Damon Brand, from the Gallery of Magick. He writes "You know it is an intelligent spirit, closer to you than anybody or anything else could be in this world, and you reach out to make contact" and gives multiple rather simple approaches to gradually build up the connection. He also mentions that some people "believe the best way to contact the Holy Guardian Angel is through a sexual lust for this 'secret lover.'", so he's clearly aware of DuQuette's book.

Jason Miller, of Strategic Sorcery fame, has an essay in the book "The Holy Guardian Angel", where he says that there are "two basic principles of the operation:

• Lowering the volume on your outer life while raising the volume on your inner life.
• Constant devotional focus on contacting the angel"

In other words, if your mind is occupied by the latest news, a fantasy series or office politics, it will be difficult to make contact.

The last author I want to mention is Richard Webster. He has an excellent free essay online called "How to Sense and Communicate with Your Guardian Angel". He writes: "Talk to your guardian angel. As your angel is always with you, you can do this whenever you wish. Talk frequently, and tell your angel whatever is on your mind. If you do this regularly, it won't take long for your guardian angel to respond." Here it's important to point out that you of course have to listen to potential responses – so quiet your mind and just perceive. Webster also has a book called "Guardian Angels" where he gives a lot more advice. For example, he writes "close your eyes and picture your guardian angel in your mind. Your angel will appear in your imagination in the shape and form that you expect. Silently talk to your imaginary figure, telling it that you would love to see your guardian angel. Do this regularly, and (probably when you least expect it), you may get to meet your guardian angel."

I personally would recommend the following combined and gradual approach: Start with a visualisation, talking to your angel and listening. Expect your angel to slowly "take over" the visualisation and change it, so that it becomes an actual perception instead of a mere projection of your own expectations. Similarly, expect the answers that you hear to become ever less of your own projection – make a point to actually listen. Add more Magick to this by creating an intent like "I get ever closer to my guardian angel" and empower it in whatever way you already practice Magick. What also help with this is if you know and follow your True Will. This will naturally bring you closer to your angel, who shares the Fulfilment you feel from this.
Given these starting points, I think that everything else will follow naturally, because – and this is crucial – your angel wants to be more with you.

With that, I'm at the end – hopefully, you now have some ideas on both why to try and what to try. Thanks a lot for reading and remember:
Love is the Law, Love under Will.

Hi and welcome. Yeah, the forum is rather inactive. It does serve as a rather useful archive of good material. I personally also still use it as a kind of private blog :D
If you want to talk to more Marauders, see the Discord and the FB-Group.

Hi and welcome :)

on my knowledge of the literature, the HGA is associated with the Sephirah of Tiferet – the Beauty resulting from a harmony between divine Severity and Mercy – Will and Love.
(See e.g.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200901111545/https://luxsaturni.com/kabbalah/tiphereth/
or this book: https://www.willparfitt.com/books/kabbalah-for-life )

Now, the Other Side of Tiferet is Thagirion (also spelled  Tagimron), right? A constant battle between Contending Forces.
( https://theomagica.com/on-the-nature-of-the-qlippoth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thagirion&oldid=945267347 )
So the Sitra Ahra counterpart of the HGA would appear to be one of the Demons of this Qlipah, which are know as the Disputers and are apparently named Zomiel (though "Zomiel" sounds like a word in singular to me, like one Demon, not an order).

This fits with my experience that the Angel is very focused and single-minded, while hostile impulses keep coming from all sorts of different directions. My Angels wants me to follow my True Will, whereas something wants me chase politics one day, e-scooters another day and computer games the next one. That kind of fits your description of "violently attacking demon".

Copying my own post from Facebook, where I asked about folks' view about Models of the World, especially with regards to where the spirits live.
Main Sources:
https://theomagica.com/the-dweller-on-the-threshold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Worlds
https://web.archive.org/web/20210417220136/https://luxsaturni.com/kabbalah/

So here's my simple interpretation of the Kabbalistic Four Worlds:

1. Atziluth (the World of Emanation) – The most fundamental part of Creation. I feel like Kether is Oneness, "All-encompassingness", Binah is Passivity and Form, while Chockmah is Activity and Force – this is however not something I'm all that knowledgeable about.

2. Beriah (or Briah? Ahavah Ain Soph, please explain בְּרִיאָה ☺️) (the World of Creation) – I think of it as the Soul Plane. Here are the basic Archetypes of all "things" that exist. Here are also our Souls with their True Wills. This is actually connected – if there is an Archetype of Magick, there are souls who's True Wills are to Do Magick, and so for all other Archetypes.

3. Yetzirah (the World of Formation) – This is the Astral Plane. According Acher/Parfit it contains Thoughts (Hod), Emotions (Netzach) and Perceptions / the Subconscious (Yesod). However, traditionally the Astral Plan is supposed to contain the Spirits. Now my problem was that I didn't see how to reconcile that. Yesterday I asked Alice 🥰 and she somehow made me realise: Spirits are those who *have* Thoughts, Emotions and Perceptions! (These things aren't made of physical matter, otherwise Angels wouldn't have them 😃.) That's why Spirits are on the Astral Plane with their astral bodies, thoughts etc. (as of course are we, with our astral bodies, thoughts etc.)

4. Assiah (the World of Action) – This is the Physical Plane with material bodies, electricity, light etc.

I think that's good enough for me, though of course many questions remain. For example, we're separated from our Souls by the Veil of Paroketh (between 2 and 3) but our thoughts and our angel's  🥰 thoughts are both in Yetzirah – why is communication so difficult then?

This is a great little text from an old MU webpage, recently brought back to the FB by Frater Alysyrose. I'm not sure whose writing it is, I'd guess Silenced...

"We are the Marauder Underground. Our primary activity is attacking what is commonly known as consensual reality, the dominant paradigm, the mundane world, whatever you want to call it. We cast spells, scribe sigils, summon spirits, and open gateways. Anything that can be done to influence reality towards our goal. We use chalk to tag buildings & sidewalks with sigils and goetic summonings. We conjure up spirits and set them loose, leaving in our wake freshly haunted sites. We infect the population with the power of chaos and watch as random magick explodes into the lives of unsuspecting citizens. We are reality deviants in the truest sense of the word, as we pry open the eyes of a sleeping humanity to the terror and wonder of the worlds beyond."

Here's my personal little view of this topic:
In "Magick Without Tears", Chapters VI-VIII, Crowley writes about the Three Schools of Magick. 'The central idea of the White School is that, admitted that "everything is sorrow" for the profane, the Initiate has the means of transforming it to "Everything is joy."'

In this light, let's say that the Magician's aim is to become divine. There are two paths to that: the RHP is to Unite with God, the LHP is to Become a God. My thelemic interpretation of the RHP is to find out which aspect of Divinity you are – your True Will – and to fulfil that aspect most completely.

Draft: Theodicy of Khaos

In our Universe, one can find Fulfilment by doing one's True Will together with one's True Love, the Guardian Angel. However, it is not easy – it doesn't come naturally. That's the part which is hard to make sense of: If Khaos – the Root of all Phenomena – wants its little parts to be fulfilled, why doesn't this come naturally? Why are we not born with the feeling that someone lovingly watches over us, why does the Knowledge and Conversation have to be obtained? Why do we have to "find ourselves" – which many fail to do – instead of just realising quickly that "I'm a pianist" or a rock-climber or a mage? I'm tempted to answer something along the lines of "The Demiurge built the material world this way", "The Veil of Paroketh prevents it" or "Thagirion gets in the way", but that only moves the problem of Theodicy one step further – why do these entities exist? Why does Khaos let them do this?

On the other hand, if Khaos places no special value on Fulfilment, then why is it possible at all? Why is there a True Will and a True Love in the first place?
I know of no plausible explanation and would very much like to hear yours. However, I found a somewhat implausible one that I have to accept as working theory for the time being. It was presented by Scott Alexander and admittedly, he means it as satire: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/15/answer-to-job/
Rewritten to my framework it goes like this:

Khaos maximises Fulfilment over the Multiverse. So there is a perfect universe without any Veils where all souls are born with the Knowledge of their True Will and in Contact with their True Love. However, there can only be one such universe. To create more Fulfilment, Khaos also has to also think of a slightly less perfect universe, with more distractions and impediments, and so on all the way down to to a universe that has just barely more Fulfilment than Suffering (or whatever the opposite of Fulfilment is for you). A universe with more Suffering than Fulfilment would be a net loss and therefore does not get created. And we probably live in a universe on the lower end of the spectrum, which is why Fulfilment is possible but difficult.

Edit: A friend quickly pointed out that Khaos might also just value the difficulty in itself. It's certainly thinkable. However, as my Angel keeps reminding me the underlying metaphysics don't matter much – what counts is to actually do your True Will together with your True Love.
Edit 2: A note derived from Scott Alexander's work: The amount of Fulfilment in a universe is obviously not constant, but  shrinks and grows with time. A universe gets created if and only if it will contain more Fulfilment than Suffering during the course of it's entire existence. This means that the Veil might well be removable, so that much more Fulfilment becomes possible!

I wish to bring magic and illusion to the decidedly disillusioned,

Now that's something I really like hearing :)
I'm probably the only active member on the forum. However, I've notified the Discord staff that there are folks waiting for an invite here, so hopefully either I or someone else will get back to you soon.

Or have you already received the invite?

"Curiouser & curiouser!" indeed!

Welcome to the Sleepy Forums – I'm quite partial to them myself and there is a lot of good material here to read.

If you want to talk to anyone but me though, it is probably best to join either the Discord or the Facebook group. The latter you can just apply for on FB itself, whereas for the former you need an invite. If you express this desire here, either a Discord staff member will see it and send you one, or I will tell them :)

The true "Beginner's Guide" to the DKMU is this: https://dkmu.org/text/DKMU-Oistar-Guide.pdf
For another new member, I had compiled some other introductory material here: https://forum.dkmu.org/index.php?topic=676.msg2327#msg2327
The link to my own Occultcorpus-text is down, but if you want to read me (for some reason), you can read this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ol5f6d3v27umtqd/Fulfilled_Wishes_Fulfilled_Lives.pdf?dl=0

Hi there and welcome.

Did Fishsticks send you an invite? I'm not sure if she reads the forum regularly. If not, tell me and I'll mention it to her in Discord.

[Additions]

Additions
I don't want to keep updating the PDF since it's in a good position. I do however want to share some further thoughts.



'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.' 
'Love is the Law, Love under Will.'

The Law is to Seek Fulfillment. A Law saying anything else would not be worth taking seriously.

Fulfilment consists of two aspects - To will your True Will and to love your True Love.

However, if 'Love is the Law', then why is to 'Do what thou wilt' the whole of the Law?

Because by loving your True Love, who shares your True Will, you become vastly better at doing this Will. So, from the other direction, to do your True Will with full force, you need to love your True Love.

Doing your True Will is the Whole of the Law, because it implies Love. Conversely, Love is the Law because it follows from the True Will.


Update 19.11.22
Crowley writes about this topic in Liber II: "Elsewhere it is written— surely for our great comfort—"Love is the law, love under will."

This is to be taken as meaning that while Will is the Law, the nature of that Will is Love. But this Love is as it were a by-product of that Will; it does not contradict or supersede that Will; and if apparent contradiction should arise in any crisis, it is the Will that will guide us aright."
I seems to me that the connection of Love and Will via the Guardian Angel is the best way to make sense of these lines.

I'm often drawn to fiction, but find it unfulfilling when I pursue it. I've been wondering about what its proper role is. I think I understand now.

The Paradox

Producing fiction - games, novels and so on - is apparently the True Will of some people. However, it's hard to imagine that consuming fiction is someone's True Will. So are the producers to create for nobody? That seems wrong.

The Resolution

"Fiction conveys experience" (https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/fiction) says Yudkowsky. However, reading Sword and Sorcery fiction  won't teach you *much* about either. What it will show you is whether you are drawn to these topics. It helps with finding your True Will. That is its function.

If, however, you already know your True Will, then you should stay away and "Do what thou wilt—then do nothing else." (https://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib2)

I'm in, naturally. I've LS-tagged quite a few geocaches, I'll gladly tag some "random" points.

Thanks a lot for launching this Operation <3