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Kabbalah, Part 1

Also spelled Qabalah or Qabbala. It literally means the act of receiving, acceptance.

This is an esoteric method, discipline, & school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal (“receiver”).

Jewish Kabbalists originally developed transmissions of the primary texts of Kabbalah within the realm of Jewish tradition. Often using classical Jewish scriptures to explain & demonstrate their mystical teachings.

Kabbalah came out of earlier forms of Jewish mysticism in 12th-13th century Occitania, specifically in Languedoc, among Hakhmei Provence.

Following the movement of Jews from Southern France & Spain, it was found in the Rhineland school of Judah the Pious, al-Andalus, L& was reinterpreted during the Jewish mystical Renaissance in the 16th-century Ottoman Palestine.

The Zohar was authored in the late 13th century, likely by Moses de Leon. Isaac Luria (16th century) is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah. Lurianic Kabbalah was popularized in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards.

The primary texts of the major lineage in medieval Jewish tradition are the Bahir, Zohar, Pardes Rimonim, & Et Chayim (‘Ein Sof’). The early Hekhalot literature is recognized as ancestral to the sensibilities of this later flowering of the Kabbalah, & more especially, the Sefer Yetzirah is acknowledged as the forerunner from which many of these books draw their formal inspiration.

The Sefer Yetzirah is a brief document of only a few pages, written many centuries before the high & late medieval works (sometime between 200-600 CE), detailing an alphanumeric vision of cosmology & may be understood as a kind of prelude to the major phase of Kabbalah.

The history of Jewish mysticism encompasses various forms of esoteric & spiritual practices aimed at understanding the divine & the hidden aspects of existence. This mystical tradition has evolved greatly over millennia, influencing & being influenced by different historical, cultural, & religious contexts.

Among the most prominent forms of Jewish mysticism is Kabbalah, which developed in the 12th century & has since become a central component of Jewish mystical thought. Other notable early forms include prophetic & apocalyptic mysticism, which are evident in biblical & post-biblical texts.

The roots of Jewish mysticism can be traced back to the biblical era, with prophetic figures such as Elijah & Ezekiel experiencing divine visions & encounters. This tradition continued into the apocalyptic period, where texts like 1 Enoch & the Book of Daniel introduced complex angelology & eschatological themes.

The Hekhalot & Merkabah literature, dating from the 2nd century to the early medieval period, further developed these mystical themes. This focuses on visionary ascents to the heavenly palaces & the divine chariot. Hekhalot literature (from the Hebrew word for “Palaces”) relates to visions of entering Heaven alive.

Merkabah (or Merkavah) mysticism is a school of Jewish mysticism, centered on visions such as those found in Ezekiel 1, or in the hekhalot literature, concerning stories of ascents to the heavenly palaces & the Throne of God.

According to the Zohar, Torah study can proceed along 4 levels of interpretation (exegesis). These 4 levels are called pardes from their initial letters (PRDs, “orchard”):

• Peshat (“simple”): The direct interpretations of meaning.
• Remez (“hints”): The allegoric meanings (through allusion).
• Derash (from the Hebrew darash, “inquire” or “seek): Midrashic (rabbinic) meanings, often with imaginative comparisons with similar words or verses.
• Sod (“secret” or “mystery”): The inner, esoteric (metaphysical) meanings, expressed in kabbalah.

Kabbalah is considered by its followers as a necessary part of the study of the Torah. The study of the Torah (the Tanakh & rabbinic literature) is an inherent duty of observant Jews.

There are 3 different types of Kabbalah: Lurianic Kabbalah, Meditative-Ecstatic Kabbalah, & Practical Kabbalah. These 3 types can be distinguished by their basic intent with respect to God:

• The Theosohical/Theosophical-Theurgic tradition of Theoretical Kabbalah (the main focus of the Zohar & Luria) seeks to understand & describe the divine realm using the imaginative & mythic symbols of human psychological experience. Its theosophy also implies the innate, centrally important theurgic influence of human conduct on redeeming or damaging the spiritual realms, as man is a divine microcosm. The purpose of traditional theosophical kabbalah was to give the whole of normative Jewish religious practices this mystical metaphysical meaning.
• The Meditative tradition of Ecstatic Kabbalah strives to achieve a mystical union with God, or nullification of the meditator in God’s Active intellect. Abraham Abulafia’s “Prophetic Kabbalah” was the supreme example of this. Though marginal in Kabbalistic development. His alternative to the program of theosophical Kabbalah. Abulafian meditation built upon the philosophy of Maimonides, whose followers remained a rationalist threat to theosophical Kabbalists.
• The Magico-Talismanic tradition of Practical Kabbalah endeavours to alter both the Divine realms & the World using practical methods. While theosophical interpretations of worship see its redemptive role as harmonizing heavenly forces, Practical Kabbalah properly involved Practial Kabbalah properly involved white-magical acts, & was censored by Kabbalists for only those completely pure of intent, as it relates to lower realms where purity & impurity are mixed. Consequently, it formed a separate minor tradition shunned from Kabbalah. Practical Kabbalah was prohibited by the Arizal until the Temple is rebuilt & the required state of ritual purity is attainable.

According to Kabbalistic belief, early kabbalistic knowledge was imparted orally by the Patriarchs, prophets, & sages. Eventually, to be “interwoven” into Jewish religious writings & culture. According to this view, early kabbalah was, around the 10th century BCE, an open knowledge practiced by over a million people in ancient Israel.

Foreign conquests drove the Jewish spiritual leadership of the time (the Sanhedrin) to hide the knowledge & make it secret, fearing that it might be misused if it fell into the wrong hands.

From the Renaissance onward, Jewish Kabbalah texts entered non-Jewish (Gentile) spaces. Where they studied & translated by Christian Hebraists & Hermetic occultists. Christian Hebraists are scholars of Hebrew texts who approach the works from a Christian perspective.

The syncretic traditions of Christian & Hermetic Kabbalah developed independently of Jewish Kabbalah. They read Jewish texts as universalist ancient wisdom preserved from Gnostic traditions of “the olden days.” Both adapted the Jewish concepts freely from their Jewish understanding. This made it possible to merge with multiple other theologies, religious traditions, & magical associations. In the time of the Age of Reason, Christian Kabbalah declined. Hermetic Kabbalah took a much different route, a route that some secretive “societies” went: they went underground.

The technical definition of Kabbalah varies according to sect & the aims of those following it. In its earliest & original usage in ancient Hebrew, it means “reception” or “tradition.” In this context, it tends to refer to any sacred writing written after (or otherwise outside of) the 5 books of the Torah. (This is the 1st 5 books of the Old Testament.)

After the Talmud was written, it refers to the Oral Law. In the much later writings of Eleazar of Worms (circa 1350), it refers to theurgy or the conjuring of demons & angels by the invocation of their secret names.

The nature of the divine prompted kabbalists to envision 2 aspects to God: 1.) God is essence, absolutely transcendent, unknowable, limitless divine simplicity beyond revelation, & 2.) God in manifestation, the revealed persona of God through which He creates, sustains, & relates to humankind.

Kabbalists speak of the 1st as the Ein Sof (“the infinite/endless,” literally “there is no end”). Of the impersonal Ein Sof, nothing can be grasped.

However, the 2nd aspect of divine emanations, accessible to human perception, dynamically interacting throughout spiritual & physical existence, reveals the divine immanently, & is bound up in the life of man. Kabbalists believe that these 2 aspects aren’t contradictory but complement 1 another, emanations mystically revealing the concealed mystery from within the Godhead.

As a term describing the Infinite Godhead beyond Creation, Kabbalists viewed the Ein Sof itself as too sublime to be referred to directly in the Torah. It’s not a Holy Name in Judaism. No name could contain a revelation of the Ein Sof.

The structure of emanations has been described in various ways: Sephirot (divine attributes) & Partzufim (divine “faces”), Ohr (spiritual light & flow), Names of God & supernal Torah, Olamot (spiritual worlds), a Divine Tree & Archetypal Man, Angelic Chariot & Palaces, male & female, enclothed layers of reality, inwardly channels (“limbs” of the King) & the divine Souls of Man.

These symbols are used to describe various levels & aspects of Divine manifestation, from the Pnimi (inner) dimensions to the Hitzoni (outer). It’s solely in relation to the emanations, certainly not the Ein Sof Ground of all Being, that Kabbalah uses anthropomorphic symbolism to relate psychologically to divinity.

The Sephirot/Sefirot/Sefirah are the 10 emanations & attributes of God with which He continually sustains the existence of the universe. These emanations are viewed as parts of God’s divine nature, which reveal themselves in different ways.

The Zohar & other Kabbalistic texts elaborate on the emergence of the sephirot from a state of concealed potential in the Ein Sof until their manifestation in the mundane world. In particular, Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (known as “the Ramak”) describes how God emanated the myriad details of finite reality out of the absolute unity of Divine Light via the 10 sephirot, or vessels.

According to Lurianic cosmology, the sephirot correspond to various levels of creation. 10 sephirot are in each of the 4 Worlds. 4 Worlds within each of the larger 4 Worlds, each containing 10 sephirot, which themselves contain 10 sephirot, which themselves contain 10 sephirot, to an infinite number of possibilities.

They emanated from the Creator for the purpose of creating the universe. The sephirot are considered revelations of the Creator’s will (ratzon), & they shouldn’t be understood as 10 different “gods” but through the Emanations. It’s not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes.

Divine creation through the 10 Sephirot is an ethical process. They represent the different aspects of Morality. Loving-Kindness is a possible moral justification found in Chessed, & Gevurah is the Moral Justification of justice, & both are mediated by Mercy, which is Rachamim.

However, these pillars of morality become immoral when taken to extremes. When Loving-Kindness becomes extreme, it can lead to sexual depravity & a lack of Justice to the wicked. When Justice becomes extreme, it can lead to torture & the Cain-ing of innocents & unfair punishment.

The tzadikim or “righteous” ascend these ethical qualities of the 10 sephirot through righteous action. If there were no tzadikim, the blessings of God would become completely hidden, & Creation would cease to exist.

While real human actions are the “Foundation” (Yesod) of this universe (Malkuth), they must be accompanied by the conscious intention of compassion. Compassionate actions are often impossible without faith (Emunah), meaning trusting that God seems hidden.

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Kabbalah, Part 1

Also spelled Qabalah or Qabbala. It literally means the act of receiving, acceptance.

This is an esoteric method, discipline, & school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal (“receiver”).

Jewish Kabbalists originally developed transmissions of the primary texts of Kabbalah within the realm of Jewish tradition. Often using classical Jewish scriptures to explain & demonstrate their mystical teachings.

Kabbalah came out of earlier forms of Jewish mysticism in 12th-13th century Occitania, specifically in Languedoc, among Hakhmei Provence.

Following the movement of Jews from Southern France & Spain, it was found in the Rhineland school of Judah the Pious, al-Andalus, L& was reinterpreted during the Jewish mystical Renaissance in the 16th-century Ottoman Palestine.

The Zohar was authored in the late 13th century, likely by Moses de Leon. Isaac Luria (16th century) is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah. Lurianic Kabbalah was popularized in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards.

The primary texts of the major lineage in medieval Jewish tradition are the Bahir, Zohar, Pardes Rimonim, & Et Chayim (‘Ein Sof’). The early Hekhalot literature is recognized as ancestral to the sensibilities of this later flowering of the Kabbalah, & more especially, the Sefer Yetzirah is acknowledged as the forerunner from which many of these books draw their formal inspiration.

The Sefer Yetzirah is a brief document of only a few pages, written many centuries before the high & late medieval works (sometime between 200-600 CE), detailing an alphanumeric vision of cosmology & may be understood as a kind of prelude to the major phase of Kabbalah.

The history of Jewish mysticism encompasses various forms of esoteric & spiritual practices aimed at understanding the divine & the hidden aspects of existence. This mystical tradition has evolved greatly over millennia, influencing & being influenced by different historical, cultural, & religious contexts.

Among the most prominent forms of Jewish mysticism is Kabbalah, which developed in the 12th century & has since become a central component of Jewish mystical thought. Other notable early forms include prophetic & apocalyptic mysticism, which are evident in biblical & post-biblical texts.

The roots of Jewish mysticism can be traced back to the biblical era, with prophetic figures such as Elijah & Ezekiel experiencing divine visions & encounters. This tradition continued into the apocalyptic period, where texts like 1 Enoch & the Book of Daniel introduced complex angelology & eschatological themes.

The Hekhalot & Merkabah literature, dating from the 2nd century to the early medieval period, further developed these mystical themes. This focuses on visionary ascents to the heavenly palaces & the divine chariot. Hekhalot literature (from the Hebrew word for “Palaces”) relates to visions of entering Heaven alive.

Merkabah (or Merkavah) mysticism is a school of Jewish mysticism, centered on visions such as those found in Ezekiel 1, or in the hekhalot literature, concerning stories of ascents to the heavenly palaces & the Throne of God.

According to the Zohar, Torah study can proceed along 4 levels of interpretation (exegesis). These 4 levels are called pardes from their initial letters (PRDs, “orchard”):

• Peshat (“simple”): The direct interpretations of meaning.
• Remez (“hints”): The allegoric meanings (through allusion).
• Derash (from the Hebrew darash, “inquire” or “seek): Midrashic (rabbinic) meanings, often with imaginative comparisons with similar words or verses.
• Sod (“secret” or “mystery”): The inner, esoteric (metaphysical) meanings, expressed in kabbalah.

Kabbalah is considered by its followers as a necessary part of the study of the Torah. The study of the Torah (the Tanakh & rabbinic literature) is an inherent duty of observant Jews.

There are 3 different types of Kabbalah: Lurianic Kabbalah, Meditative-Ecstatic Kabbalah, & Practical Kabbalah. These 3 types can be distinguished by their basic intent with respect to God:

• The Theosohical/Theosophical-Theurgic tradition of Theoretical Kabbalah (the main focus of the Zohar & Luria) seeks to understand & describe the divine realm using the imaginative & mythic symbols of human psychological experience. Its theosophy also implies the innate, centrally important theurgic influence of human conduct on redeeming or damaging the spiritual realms, as man is a divine microcosm. The purpose of traditional theosophical kabbalah was to give the whole of normative Jewish religious practices this mystical metaphysical meaning.
• The Meditative tradition of Ecstatic Kabbalah strives to achieve a mystical union with God, or nullification of the meditator in God’s Active intellect. Abraham Abulafia’s “Prophetic Kabbalah” was the supreme example of this. Though marginal in Kabbalistic development. His alternative to the program of theosophical Kabbalah. Abulafian meditation built upon the philosophy of Maimonides, whose followers remained a rationalist threat to theosophical Kabbalists.
• The Magico-Talismanic tradition of Practical Kabbalah endeavours to alter both the Divine realms & the World using practical methods. While theosophical interpretations of worship see its redemptive role as harmonizing heavenly forces, Practical Kabbalah properly involved Practial Kabbalah properly involved white-magical acts, & was censored by Kabbalists for only those completely pure of intent, as it relates to lower realms where purity & impurity are mixed. Consequently, it formed a separate minor tradition shunned from Kabbalah. Practical Kabbalah was prohibited by the Arizal until the Temple is rebuilt & the required state of ritual purity is attainable.

According to Kabbalistic belief, early kabbalistic knowledge was imparted orally by the Patriarchs, prophets, & sages. Eventually, to be “interwoven” into Jewish religious writings & culture. According to this view, early kabbalah was, around the 10th century BCE, an open knowledge practiced by over a million people in ancient Israel.

Foreign conquests drove the Jewish spiritual leadership of the time (the Sanhedrin) to hide the knowledge & make it secret, fearing that it might be misused if it fell into the wrong hands.

From the Renaissance onward, Jewish Kabbalah texts entered non-Jewish (Gentile) spaces. Where they studied & translated by Christian Hebraists & Hermetic occultists. Christian Hebraists are scholars of Hebrew texts who approach the works from a Christian perspective.

The syncretic traditions of Christian & Hermetic Kabbalah developed independently of Jewish Kabbalah. They read Jewish texts as universalist ancient wisdom preserved from Gnostic traditions of “the olden days.” Both adapted the Jewish concepts freely from their Jewish understanding. This made it possible to merge with multiple other theologies, religious traditions, & magical associations. In the time of the Age of Reason, Christian Kabbalah declined. Hermetic Kabbalah took a much different route, a route that some secretive “societies” went: they went underground.

The technical definition of Kabbalah varies according to sect & the aims of those following it. In its earliest & original usage in ancient Hebrew, it means “reception” or “tradition.” In this context, it tends to refer to any sacred writing written after (or otherwise outside of) the 5 books of the Torah. (This is the 1st 5 books of the Old Testament.)

After the Talmud was written, it refers to the Oral Law. In the much later writings of Eleazar of Worms (circa 1350), it refers to theurgy or the conjuring of demons & angels by the invocation of their secret names.

The nature of the divine prompted kabbalists to envision 2 aspects to God: 1.) God is essence, absolutely transcendent, unknowable, limitless divine simplicity beyond revelation, & 2.) God in manifestation, the revealed persona of God through which He creates, sustains, & relates to humankind.

Kabbalists speak of the 1st as the Ein Sof (“the infinite/endless,” literally “there is no end”). Of the impersonal Ein Sof, nothing can be grasped.

However, the 2nd aspect of divine emanations, accessible to human perception, dynamically interacting throughout spiritual & physical existence, reveals the divine immanently, & is bound up in the life of man. Kabbalists believe that these 2 aspects aren’t contradictory but complement 1 another, emanations mystically revealing the concealed mystery from within the Godhead.

As a term describing the Infinite Godhead beyond Creation, Kabbalists viewed the Ein Sof itself as too sublime to be referred to directly in the Torah. It’s not a Holy Name in Judaism. No name could contain a revelation of the Ein Sof.

The structure of emanations has been described in various ways: Sephirot (divine attributes) & Partzufim (divine “faces”), Ohr (spiritual light & flow), Names of God & supernal Torah, Olamot (spiritual worlds), a Divine Tree & Archetypal Man, Angelic Chariot & Palaces, male & female, enclothed layers of reality, inwardly channels (“limbs” of the King) & the divine Souls of Man.

These symbols are used to describe various levels & aspects of Divine manifestation, from the Pnimi (inner) dimensions to the Hitzoni (outer). It’s solely in relation to the emanations, certainly not the Ein Sof Ground of all Being, that Kabbalah uses anthropomorphic symbolism to relate psychologically to divinity.

The Sephirot/Sefirot/Sefirah are the 10 emanations & attributes of God with which He continually sustains the existence of the universe. These emanations are viewed as parts of God’s divine nature, which reveal themselves in different ways.

The Zohar & other Kabbalistic texts elaborate on the emergence of the sephirot from a state of concealed potential in the Ein Sof until their manifestation in the mundane world. In particular, Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (known as “the Ramak”) describes how God emanated the myriad details of finite reality out of the absolute unity of Divine Light via the 10 sephirot, or vessels.

According to Lurianic cosmology, the sephirot correspond to various levels of creation. 10 sephirot are in each of the 4 Worlds. 4 Worlds within each of the larger 4 Worlds, each containing 10 sephirot, which themselves contain 10 sephirot, which themselves contain 10 sephirot, to an infinite number of possibilities.

They emanated from the Creator for the purpose of creating the universe. The sephirot are considered revelations of the Creator’s will (ratzon), & they shouldn’t be understood as 10 different “gods” but through the Emanations. It’s not God who changes but the ability to perceive God that changes.

Divine creation through the 10 Sephirot is an ethical process. They represent the different aspects of Morality. Loving-Kindness is a possible moral justification found in Chessed, & Gevurah is the Moral Justification of justice, & both are mediated by Mercy, which is Rachamim.

However, these pillars of morality become immoral when taken to extremes. When Loving-Kindness becomes extreme, it can lead to sexual depravity & a lack of Justice to the wicked. When Justice becomes extreme, it can lead to torture & the Cain-ing of innocents & unfair punishment.

The tzadikim or “righteous” ascend these ethical qualities of the 10 sephirot through righteous action. If there were no tzadikim, the blessings of God would become completely hidden, & Creation would cease to exist.

While real human actions are the “Foundation” (Yesod) of this universe (Malkuth), they must be accompanied by the conscious intention of compassion. Compassionate actions are often impossible without faith (Emunah), meaning trusting that God seems hidden.

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Your contribution is appreciated.

Make a monthly donation

Your contribution is appreciated.

Make a yearly donation

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Interested in a monthly live online Q&A hang-out with an archaeologist of ancient magic? Here's a #poll for it

I receive a lot of questions and it takes a lot of time to answer them all in writing. I wonder if there would be an interest in a monthly live hang-out. This way you all could benefit from the answers and it would also be a nice opportunity to connect and exchange in person.

Very grateful for boosting 💖🙏🍀

#archaeology #scicomm #outreach #egypt #ritual #pagan #theurgy #community

And here is Shinjuku inspecting my crib sheet for the Asherah-variant LBRP #CatsOfMastodon #caturday #theurgy #magick

And here is Shinjuku inspecting my crib sheet for the Asherah-variant LBRP #CatsOfMastodon #caturday #theurgy #magick

I re-started a regular magical practice a month ago because my former lodge, dispersed right before Covid started, is reforming this summer. They asked if I’d join and help run the rituals. I agreed and decided that I better refresh my memory and magical mojo by going through the practices.

I started where everyone does in this tradition: daily Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.

It’s a self-sanctification and space purification. It’s the magical equivalent of brushing your teeth. Takes about 5 minutes, a little bit of portentous speaking, a little bit of dramatic arm gestures, and you have to know your cardinal directions.

#theurgy #magick

I re-started a regular magical practice a month ago because my former lodge, dispersed right before Covid started, is reforming this summer. They asked if I’d join and help run the rituals. I agreed and decided that I better refresh my memory and magical mojo by going through the practices.

I started where everyone does in this tradition: daily Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.

It’s a self-sanctification and space purification. It’s the magical equivalent of brushing your teeth. Takes about 5 minutes, a little bit of portentous speaking, a little bit of dramatic arm gestures, and you have to know your cardinal directions.

#theurgy #magick

The Charge and the Curriculum: How the Dark Arts Replaced Black Magic

Two phrases arrive from different centuries and now sit on the same shelf: “black magic” and “the Dark Arts.” Modern speakers treat them as synonyms. Older readers would have disagreed, and the disagreement matters, because the collapse of the two terms shows how our language for forbidden knowledge has migrated from the judicial to the aesthetic, from accusation to ambience.

“Black magic” is the older, harder word. In the historical record of Western occultism, it names magic understood as harmful, antisocial, or bound up with evil spirits. Britannica defines it as magic associated with the devil or evil spirits, and treatments of sorcery describe the practice as malevolent magic. Medieval nigromancy, corrupted in the vocabulary from necromancy, fused death magic, blackness, and illicit commerce with spirits into a single accusation. When a cleric in the fourteenth century charged someone with black magic, consequences followed: a trial, a tribunal, a sentence, often a burning. The word carried teeth because the world it belonged to took the accusation literally.

“The Dark Arts,” by contrast, does not appear in the premodern record as a settled technical category. The older learned tradition did use “the black arts” as a near synonym for black magic, and medieval and early modern writers divided forbidden practice by function rather than by atmosphere: sorcery, necromancy, goetia, maleficium, witchcraft, divination, theurgy. Each category carried its own definition and its own theological weight. A demonologist could distinguish between a witch’s pact and a scholar’s curious conjuration, and the distinction mattered, because lives depended on it. The phrase “Dark Arts” gathers all of that into one dramatic heap. It is a late label for a premodern field, and it sounds more like a book spine than a charge sheet.

The Christian demonological tradition narrows the question further. Aquinas treats divination as a species of superstition and condemns recourse to demons as rebellion against Providence. Within this framework, the operative concept is sin rather than glamour. Black magic names the moral-theological rebellion: the pursuit of harm, the reach for illicit power, the traffic with demonic agency. What a modern reader might call the Dark Arts would be, in Aquinas’s world, simply the whole condemned region of forbidden practice. The theologian did not need an atmospheric label. He already had a moral one.

Fantasy literature reversed the polarity. In twentieth and twenty-first century writing, “Dark Arts” became the more precise term while “black magic” became the vague one. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series offers the clearest example. The Dark Arts there name a corrupting discipline with its own curriculum, defenses, and lineage, practiced by institutions and taught in opposition by other institutions. The phrase implies doctrine. It implies inheritance. The phrase implies that a student could walk into a library and be seduced by it, paragraph by paragraph. Within that literary ecology, “black magic” becomes a cruder label for the same field, used when the writer does not want to spell out the structure.

So the vocabulary flipped. In the older usage, “black magic” was sharp and “Dark Arts” did not really exist in its modern form. In the newer usage, “Dark Arts” reads as architectural while “black magic” reads as generic. A modern reader raised on fantasy often hears “Dark Arts” as the more serious term because it suggests a field of study, while “black magic” sounds like something shouted from a pulpit. Four hundred years ago, the hearing would have reversed. The pulpit word carried consequences. The field-of-study phrase did not yet exist in anything like its present meaning.

This shift matters because the older vocabulary recognized distinctions the new one erases. Cultures that took magic seriously divided forbidden practice into three moral situations that modern fantasy collapses. Dangerous knowledge could corrupt a practitioner through contact alone, regardless of use. Impure ritual violated sacred boundaries such as the one between the living and the dead. Malicious intent directed power toward harm. A curse aimed at an enemy was black magic in the strictest sense. Consulting the dead might be a forbidden art without being malicious. Reading a grimoire out of curiosity could corrupt without producing any spell at all. Three different moral situations, three different theological verdicts.

When the modern imagination treats “Dark Arts” and “black magic” as equivalent, it loses those distinctions. Everything forbidden becomes everything evil, and everything evil becomes everything forbidden. That is intellectually sloppy, and it produces a literature in which dangerous knowledge and murderous intent carry the same weight because the same adjective covers both. A fantasy novel can get away with the shorthand because the reader accepts moral collapse as a genre convention. A serious account of real-world occult history, or of real-world religious ethics, cannot.

There is also a political dimension worth naming. The older vocabulary belonged to a world that punished people for using it. Accusations of black magic produced trials, burnings, confiscations of property, and the destruction of families. The accusation operated as a weapon, and it was often aimed at women, the poor, the learned, the dissenting, or the foreign. When modern fantasy dresses the same vocabulary in robes and calls it a curriculum, it borrows the gravity of that older moral world without paying its cost. The reader feels the frisson of the forbidden without any sense that someone, somewhere, once died because a neighbor used the word in a deposition.

My own view is that the two terms should be kept apart when precision matters and allowed to drift together only when the context is frankly literary. Black magic is the sharper moral word: it names intent, names harm, names the condition of having turned one’s power against the order of things. The Dark Arts, as a phrase, is a later shelf, useful for novelists and game designers and screenwriters who need a single label for an entire shadow tradition. Treating the shelf as if it were the charge, or the charge as if it were only the shelf, flattens a vocabulary that once cut cleanly.

Both terms remain in use in their own domains. The real question is what happens to a culture when its language for forbidden knowledge migrates from the courtroom to the bookshelf. A society that once tried people for black magic now markets the Dark Arts to teenagers. The words look similar, and in casual speech they mean almost the same thing, but the worlds they came from could not be further apart. That drift is itself a small history, and the history is worth knowing before one reaches for either word.

The Charge and the Curriculum: How the Dark Arts Replaced Black Magic

Two phrases arrive from different centuries and now sit on the same shelf: “black magic” and “the Dark Arts.” Modern speakers treat them as synonyms. Older readers would have disagreed, and the disagreement matters, because the collapse of the two terms shows how our language for forbidden knowledge has migrated from the judicial to the aesthetic, from accusation to ambience.

“Black magic” is the older, harder word. In the historical record of Western occultism, it names magic understood as harmful, antisocial, or bound up with evil spirits. Britannica defines it as magic associated with the devil or evil spirits, and treatments of sorcery describe the practice as malevolent magic. Medieval nigromancy, corrupted in the vocabulary from necromancy, fused death magic, blackness, and illicit commerce with spirits into a single accusation. When a cleric in the fourteenth century charged someone with black magic, consequences followed: a trial, a tribunal, a sentence, often a burning. The word carried teeth because the world it belonged to took the accusation literally.

“The Dark Arts,” by contrast, does not appear in the premodern record as a settled technical category. The older learned tradition did use “the black arts” as a near synonym for black magic, and medieval and early modern writers divided forbidden practice by function rather than by atmosphere: sorcery, necromancy, goetia, maleficium, witchcraft, divination, theurgy. Each category carried its own definition and its own theological weight. A demonologist could distinguish between a witch’s pact and a scholar’s curious conjuration, and the distinction mattered, because lives depended on it. The phrase “Dark Arts” gathers all of that into one dramatic heap. It is a late label for a premodern field, and it sounds more like a book spine than a charge sheet.

The Christian demonological tradition narrows the question further. Aquinas treats divination as a species of superstition and condemns recourse to demons as rebellion against Providence. Within this framework, the operative concept is sin rather than glamour. Black magic names the moral-theological rebellion: the pursuit of harm, the reach for illicit power, the traffic with demonic agency. What a modern reader might call the Dark Arts would be, in Aquinas’s world, simply the whole condemned region of forbidden practice. The theologian did not need an atmospheric label. He already had a moral one.

Fantasy literature reversed the polarity. In twentieth and twenty-first century writing, “Dark Arts” became the more precise term while “black magic” became the vague one. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series offers the clearest example. The Dark Arts there name a corrupting discipline with its own curriculum, defenses, and lineage, practiced by institutions and taught in opposition by other institutions. The phrase implies doctrine. It implies inheritance. The phrase implies that a student could walk into a library and be seduced by it, paragraph by paragraph. Within that literary ecology, “black magic” becomes a cruder label for the same field, used when the writer does not want to spell out the structure.

So the vocabulary flipped. In the older usage, “black magic” was sharp and “Dark Arts” did not really exist in its modern form. In the newer usage, “Dark Arts” reads as architectural while “black magic” reads as generic. A modern reader raised on fantasy often hears “Dark Arts” as the more serious term because it suggests a field of study, while “black magic” sounds like something shouted from a pulpit. Four hundred years ago, the hearing would have reversed. The pulpit word carried consequences. The field-of-study phrase did not yet exist in anything like its present meaning.

This shift matters because the older vocabulary recognized distinctions the new one erases. Cultures that took magic seriously divided forbidden practice into three moral situations that modern fantasy collapses. Dangerous knowledge could corrupt a practitioner through contact alone, regardless of use. Impure ritual violated sacred boundaries such as the one between the living and the dead. Malicious intent directed power toward harm. A curse aimed at an enemy was black magic in the strictest sense. Consulting the dead might be a forbidden art without being malicious. Reading a grimoire out of curiosity could corrupt without producing any spell at all. Three different moral situations, three different theological verdicts.

When the modern imagination treats “Dark Arts” and “black magic” as equivalent, it loses those distinctions. Everything forbidden becomes everything evil, and everything evil becomes everything forbidden. That is intellectually sloppy, and it produces a literature in which dangerous knowledge and murderous intent carry the same weight because the same adjective covers both. A fantasy novel can get away with the shorthand because the reader accepts moral collapse as a genre convention. A serious account of real-world occult history, or of real-world religious ethics, cannot.

There is also a political dimension worth naming. The older vocabulary belonged to a world that punished people for using it. Accusations of black magic produced trials, burnings, confiscations of property, and the destruction of families. The accusation operated as a weapon, and it was often aimed at women, the poor, the learned, the dissenting, or the foreign. When modern fantasy dresses the same vocabulary in robes and calls it a curriculum, it borrows the gravity of that older moral world without paying its cost. The reader feels the frisson of the forbidden without any sense that someone, somewhere, once died because a neighbor used the word in a deposition.

My own view is that the two terms should be kept apart when precision matters and allowed to drift together only when the context is frankly literary. Black magic is the sharper moral word: it names intent, names harm, names the condition of having turned one’s power against the order of things. The Dark Arts, as a phrase, is a later shelf, useful for novelists and game designers and screenwriters who need a single label for an entire shadow tradition. Treating the shelf as if it were the charge, or the charge as if it were only the shelf, flattens a vocabulary that once cut cleanly.

Both terms remain in use in their own domains. The real question is what happens to a culture when its language for forbidden knowledge migrates from the courtroom to the bookshelf. A society that once tried people for black magic now markets the Dark Arts to teenagers. The words look similar, and in casual speech they mean almost the same thing, but the worlds they came from could not be further apart. That drift is itself a small history, and the history is worth knowing before one reaches for either word.

Top ten posts in October 2025

https://library.hrmtc.com/2025/11/01/top-ten-posts-in-october-2025/

#account #achieve #AdamHassan #AdamHulse #AdeptusExemptus #AdeptusMajor #AdeptusMinor #adopted #alchemicalInquiry #aleisterCrowley #AlexanderSaxton #AliMaloney #allBeings #AmandaBlake #amongMany #amusement #AmyBoucher #Anat #ancientGods #ancientIsrael #AngelikaMay #Anglican #anthology #archivalMaterials #artists #Asherah #astarte #astralDeities #AtlanticOcean #AtlantisBookshop #Baal #BarneyMuldoon #bbc #BBCRadio #belief #BernhardBeyer #bestPosts #bestRemembered #bestTen #biblicalMagi #Blondie #BobbyCampbell #BookOfTheLaw #buddhism #CJSubko #California #Canaan #CanaanitePolytheism #CanaaniteReligionAndMythology #CatholicSuperstition #celebrated #charlatan #CharlesMocenigo #ChristianIdiom #ChristianKabbalah #ChristianNonDuality #churchRitual #churches #ChymicalWedding #cleansing #commonMetaphysicalTemplate #comparativeFramework #ConfessioFraternitatis #conspiracies #conspiracy #contemplativePractice #cosmic #counterculturalBookshops #counterculturalIcon #cultOfYahweh #curiosity #dangerousManipulator #DanteBonutto #darkArts #DavidMitchell #deliverance #deliveranceMinistry #demanding #demonology #dismissed #distinctlySeparate #divineFeminine #DivineUnity #DoWhatThouWiltShallBeTheWholeOfTheLaw #Doctrinal #doctrineOfRéintégration #Doinel #drugTaking #dues #DutchSchulz #earlyHistory #EdgarBroughton #EdwardianEccentric #ÉgliseGnostique #El #EleanorGraydon #eliphasLevi #ElizabethRMcClellan #ÉlusCoëns #emanation #encounters #esotericChristianity #esotericCurrent #esotericKnowledge #esotericMysteries #EucharisticVision #evangelicalExcess #evilSpirits #evolved #exile #exorcism #expulsion #FUCKUP_ #faith #FamaFraternitatis #fascination #fear #feast #feminineEros #feminineWisdom #figure #finDeSiècle #fire #FissionChips #flamboyantShowman #FlorenceSusanneReppert #folk #Foreign #France #FrancisYoung #fraudster #freemasonry #FrenchEsotericism #FrenchTradition #fullyDefined #GaryLachman #genius #GeorgeDorn #GeraldineBeskin #GérardEncausse #gnosis #GnosticLiturgy #Gnosticism #god #goddeses #gods #greatGoddesses #greaterFeast #greaterMysteries #HagbardCeline #hardRock #HarryCoin #heavyMetal #HebrewBible #HermeticSymbolism #hermeticism #historicallyGrounded #history #historyOfIdeas #horrors #HowardTheDolphin #IanHGladwin #identity #illuminatedTreeOfLife #Illuminatus #ineffableOne #initiated #initiaticOrders #initiatoryCodification #institutionalDiversity #integralSpirituality #integrate #interiorPath #invoked #JDMYoder #JamesFoster #JannHaworth #JazColemanmKillingJoke #jimmyPage #JohnDay #JohnDillinger #JonathanHart #journals #JulesDoinel #Juniorus #keySource #LauraCathcart #leadingGods #LeeIrwin #lesserMysteries #Levi #LindaBromilow #lineage #lodgeRooms #lodges #Logos #louisClaudeDeSaintMartin #lucidDreamers #lucifer #LydiaWaites #madMan #magickalOrder #Magister #magus #MarkSSmith #MartinèsDePasqually #MaryLouServix #masculinePrinciple #masonic #master #metalMusicians #modernEurope #MoggMorgan #Molech #monotheism #monotheisticFaith #moon #Mot #mountaineer #MrCrowley #Musicians #mysteries #mysteriesOfNature #mysticalInsight #nativeChristianNonDuality #NeoplatonicMetaphysics #neoplatonism #newGeneration #nineGrades #occultChurches #occultReligion #occultist #October2025 #OldTestament #OllyPearson #openInvitation #OrderOfTheGoldenAndRosyCross #otherDeities #outrightRejection #OzzyOsbourne #paganGods #pansentience #Papus #PatrickDMiller #PaulMorley #pedagogiesOfUnity #pervert #Philosophus #pioneeringThinker #plymouthBrethren #poet #popularCulture #Power #practicalWisdom #Practicus #primaryDeity #progressiveEstablishment #prophet #provocation #psychedelia #public #publicForm #RLoftiss #realities #rediscover #Reincarnation #reintegration #religion #religiousHorror #religiousTrauma #remarkableTransformation #remarkablyCoherent #Rephaim #Resheph #return #rigorous #riteOfExorcism #ritual #ritualForms #robertAntonWilson #RobertPearson #RobertShea #rockStars #rosicrucian #RosicrucianManifestos #rosicrucianSociety #rosicrucianism #RyanDay #sacredMarriage #SaintMartin #SaintYvesDAlveydre #SashaRavitch #SaulGoodman #scandal #scandalous #selfMythology #seven #SgtPepper #SimonMoon #soleGod #sophia #spiritualEntities #spiritualOutlook #spiritualSignificance #StephenHoward #summary #summaryOfTheMonth #sun #symbol #symbolicSynthesis #syncreticCuriosity #taoism #thaumaturgicalHeritage #TheAMA #TheBeatles #TheGreatBeast #TheOneirocriticalSociety #theWickedestManInTheWorld #theWorldSOldest #theoreticalFoundations #Theoreticus #theurgy #ToddPurse #topPosts #topTen #underworldDeities #unity #unwaveringDevotion #VanessaSantos #Vedanta #vision #westernEsotericism #wholeness #WieboGrobler #worlds #wreckedLives #yahweh

https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Various-MusaeumHermeticum/pages/000-2-title-page-full-page-border-alchemy/

A border from the title page of a compilation of several books on #alchemy #hermeticism #theurgy #occult subjects from 1678 (actually there was an earlier edition too).

I asked Google Gemini to explain the symbology and it did a credible job, if not perfect: the philosopher’s stone is the search gorr personal godhead, not for gold. See the web page for what it said.

#vintageArt #border #occult #hermetic #fobo #GIMP #Gimp_3 #engraving #phoenix #witchcraft

https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Various-MusaeumHermeticum/pages/000-2-title-page-full-page-border-alchemy/

A border from the title page of a compilation of several books on #alchemy #hermeticism #theurgy #occult subjects from 1678 (actually there was an earlier edition too).

I asked Google Gemini to explain the symbology and it did a credible job, if not perfect: the philosopher’s stone is the search gorr personal godhead, not for gold. See the web page for what it said.

#vintageArt #border #occult #hermetic #fobo #GIMP #Gimp_3 #engraving #phoenix #witchcraft

💫 Virtual Adepts: Theurgy of the Virtual Adepts. The Virtual Adept idea of Ascension, the Singularity, is transhumanistic. They want to merge with the information and become far more than humans. http://mage.gearsonline.net/anders/magick/philosophy/theurgy.html#adept #virtualadepts #magetheascension #theurgy #rpg #wod

💫 Virtual Adepts: Theurgy of the Virtual Adepts. The Virtual Adept idea of Ascension, the Singularity, is transhumanistic. They want to merge with the information and become far more than humans. http://mage.gearsonline.net/anders/magick/philosophy/theurgy.html#adept #virtualadepts #magetheascension #theurgy #rpg #wod

Stuck in the Filter: October 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Never fear, the blog’s penchant for deep lateness punctuality persists! It is likely the new year already by the time you see this post, but we’re taking a step back. Way back, into October. I was deep in the shit then, and therefore couldn’t do anything blog-related. And yet, my minions, those very laborers for whom I provide absolutely no compensation whatsoever, toiled dutifully in the metallic dinge that is our Filter. Unforgiving though those environs undoubtedly are, they scraped and scoured until, at long last, small shards of precious ore glimmered to the surface.

These glimmers are the same which you witness before you. Some are big, some are small. Some are short, some are tall. But all are worthy. Behold!

Kenstrosity’s Belated Bombardments

Cosmic Putrefaction // Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains [October 4th, 2024 – Profound Lore Records]

I was originally slated to take over reviewing duties for Cosmic Putrefaction this year, as Thus Spoke had a prior commitment and needed a buddy to step in. Unfortunately, I was rendered useless by a force of nature for a while, so I had to let go of several items of interest. But I couldn’t let 2024 go by without saying something! Entitled Emeral Fires atop the Farewell Mountains, Cosmic Putrefaction’s fourth represents one of the smoothest, most ethereal interpretations of weird, dissonant death metal. The classic Cosmic Putrefaction riffsets under an auroric sky remain, as evidenced by ripping examples “[Entering the Vortex Temporum] – Pre-mortem Phosphenes” and “Swirling Madness, Supernal Ordeal,” but there lurks within a monstrous technical death metal creature who rabidly chases the atmospheric spirits of olde (“I Should Great the Inexorable Darkness,” “Eudaemonist Withdrawal”). While in lesser hands these distinct aesthetics would undoubtedly clash on a dissonant platform such as this, Cosmic Putrefaction’s particular application of sound and style coalesces in devastating beauty and relentless purpose (“Hallways Engraved in Aether,” “Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains”). Were it not for some instances wherein, for the first time ever, Cosmic Putrefaction threatens to self-plagiarize their own material (“Eudaemonist Withdrawal”), I would likely consider Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains for year-end list status.

Feral // To Usurp the Thrones [October 18th, 2024 – Transcending Obscurity Records]

Another one of my charges that I unfortunately had to put down against my will, Swedish death metal fiends Feral’s fourth salvo To Usurp the Thrones deserves a spotlight here. Where Flesh for Funerals Eternal impressed me as my introduction to the band and, arguably, my introduction to modern buzzsaw Swedeath, To Usurp the Thrones impresses me as a singularly vicious record in the style. Faster, meaner, more varied, and longer than its predecessor, Thrones offers the punk-tinged, thrashy death riffs you know and love, with bluesy touches reminiscent of Entombed’s Wolverine Blues adding a bit of drunken swagger to the affair (“Vile Malediction,” “Phantoms of Iniquity,” “Into the Ashes of History”). Absolute rippers like “To Drain the World of Light,” “Deformed Mentality,” “Decimated,” and “Soaked in Blood” live up to the band’s moniker, rabid and relentless in their assault. In many ways, Thrones evokes the same bloodsoaked sense of fun that Helslave’s From the Sulphur Depths conjured, but it’s angrier, more unhinged (“Spirits Without Rest,” “Stripped of Flesh”). Consequently, Thrones stands out as one of the more fun records of its ilk to come out this year. Don’t miss it!

Sun Worship // Upon the Hills of Divination [October 31st, 2024 – Vendetta Records]

Back in 2020, our dear Roquentin offered some damn fine words of praise for Germany’s Sun Worship and their third blackened blade, Emanations of Desolation. It’s been six years since that record dropped, and Upon the Hills of Divination picks up right where Emanations left off. That is to say, absolutely slimy, post-metal-tinged riffs bolstered by dense layers of warm tremolos and mid-frequency roars. Opener “Within the Machine” offers a concrete encapsulation of what to expect: bits and pieces of Hulder, Gaerea, and Vorga melding together into a compelling concoction of hypnotic black metal. Using the long form to their utmost advantage, Sun Worship craft immersive soundscapes liable to scald the flesh just as quickly as they seduce the senses, leaving me as a brainwashed minion doing a twisted mystic’s bidding unconditionally (“Serpent Nebula,” “Covenant”). Yet, there roils a sense of urgency in these songs, despite many of them occupying a mid-paced cadence, which unveils a bleeding heart willingly wrenched from Sun Worship’s body (“Fractal Entity,” the title track, and “Stormbringer”). This is what sets it apart from its contemporaries, and what makes it worthy of mention. Why it’s gotten so little attention escapes me. It is with the intent of rectifying that condition that I pen this woefully insufficient segment.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Duty Free Rifftrocity

Extorted // Cognitive Dissonance [October 16th, 2024 – Self Release]

You don’t need to read this review to know that the Kiwis of Extorted plays pit-whipping death/thrash. Though not adorned with other obvious symbols, like Vietnam War paraphernalia or crushed beer cans, the Ed Repka-penned brain-ripped head figure screams “no thoughts only riff” all the same. With snares set to pow and crashes set to kshhh, Cognitive Dissonance finds low resistance to accelerating early Death-indebted refrains. Vocalist Joel Clark even plays as a dead ringer for pre-Human Schuldiner or Van Drunen (Asphyx, ex-Pestilence) as the torture in many lines grows (on “Infected” and “Ghastly Creatures” in particular). And in a continued tour of Van Drunen-associated sounds, Extorted’s ability to find a push-and-pull cadence that twists the fury of thrash with the cutting drag of death hits that hard-to-nail early Pestilence pocket with studied flair (“Deception,” “Limits of Reality”). Though a considerable amount of the Extorted identity rests in ideas borrowed and reinterpreted, a modern tonal canvas gives Cognitive Dissonance’s rhythms a punchy and balanced low-end weight that doesn’t always present itself in the world of old. Couple that with hooks that reach far beyond the limits of pure homage (“Transformation of Dreams,” “Violence”), and it’s easy to plow through the thirty minutes of tasteful harmonies, bending solos, and spit-stained lamentations that Extorted offers with their powerful debut.

Bríi // Camaradagem Póstuma [October 11th, 2024 – Self Release]

With Camaradagem Póstuma we enter the hazy, folky world of Caio Lemos’ unique vision of what experimental electronic music can be colored by the underpinnings of atmospheric black metal and jazz fusion. Using terraced melodies like baroque music of old and distant breakbeats like the Bong-Ra of recent yesteryears, Brazil’s Bríi represents one man’s highly specific melding that rarely occurs in this space. The guitar lines that do exist play out as textural, slow-developing passages. On tracks “Aparecidos” and “Baile Fantasma” this looping and hypnotic pattern shuffle resembles ambient Pat Metheny or King Crimson colors, the kind where finding the end of nylon pluck into a weaving, high-frequency synth patch feels not impossible but unnecessary. And on the more metallic side of things, Lemos cranks programmed blasts that carry his tortured, panning, and shrouded wails as a guide for the melodic evolution of each track, much in the same way a warping bass line would in a progressive house track. But maintaining the tempo of classic drum and bass, Camaradagem Póstuma wisps away in its atmosphere, coming back to a driving rhythm either via pummeling double kick or glitching break. Despite the hard, danceable pulse that tracks “Enlutados” and “Entre Mundos” boast, Bríi does not feel built for the kvlt klvbs of this world, leaning on a gated, lo-fi aesthetic that makes for an ideal drift away on closed cans, much like the equally idiosyncratic Wist album from earlier this year. And similarly, Camaradagem Póstuma sits in an outsider world of enjoyment. But if any of this sounds like your jam, prepare to get addicted to Bríi.

Thus Spoke’s Rotten Remnants

Livløs // The Crescent King [October 4th, 2024 – Noctum Productions]

Livløs are one of those bands that deserves far more recognition than they receive. With LP three, The Crescent King, they might finally see it. Their punchy intriguing infusion of Swedish and US melodic death metal—though the band themselves hail from Denmark—has a pleasing melancholia and satisfying bite. Here in particular, there’s more than a passing resemblance to Hath, to Cognizance, and to In Mourning. Stomping grooves (“Maelstrom,” “Usurpers”) slide in between blitzes of tripping gallops, and electrifying fretwork (“Orbit Weaver,” “Scourge of the Stars”). Mournful, compelling melodies woven into this technical tapestry—some highlights being the title track, “Harvest,” and “Endless Majesty”—turn already good melodeath into great melodeath; melodeath that’s majestic and powerful, without ever feeling overblown. With its relentless, groovy dynamism, the crisp, spacious production seals the deal for total immersion. If this is your first time hearing about Livløs, you’re in for a treat.

Sordide // Ainsi finit le jour [October 25th, 2024 – Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions]

And So Ends the Day, whilst another begins where I rediscover Sordide. I know not how I forgot their existence despite the impression that 2021’s Les Idées Blanches made upon me, yet all I could recall was the disturbingly simple, melty art.1 Ainsi Finit le Jour arrives with a hefty dose (53 minutes no less) of punky, dissonant black metal that’s even rawer and more pissed-off than their usual fare. “Des feux plus forts,” “La poesie du caniveau,” and the title track stand out as the most vicious, near-first-wave cuts the trio have ever laid down, with manic, group wails, and chaotic, jangling percussion. But as is so often the case with Sordide, perhaps the truest brutality comes in the slower discordant crawls of “Sous Vivre,” “Tout est a la mort,” and the particularly unsettling “La beauté du desastre,” whose creeping, half-tuneful teasing and turns to eerie spaciousness get right under your skin. It is arguably a little too long for its own good, given its intensity, but its impressiveness does mean that, this time, Sordide won’t be forgotten.

Dear Hollow’s Droll Hashals

Annihilist // Reform [October 18th, 2024 – Self Release]

What Melbourne’s Annihilist does with flamboyant flare and reckless abandon is blur the lines of its core stylistic choices. One moment it’s chugging away like a deathcore band, the next it’s dripping away with a groove metal swagger, ope, now it’s on its way to Hot Topic. All we know is that all its members attack with a chameleonic intensity and otherworldly technicality that’s hard to pin down. An insane level of technicality is the thread that courses throughout the entirety of this debut, recalling Within the Ruins or The Human Abstract in its stuttering rhythms and flailing arpeggios. From catchy leads and punishing rhythms (“The Upsend,” “Guillotine”), bouncy breakdowns, clean choruses, and wild gang vocals (“Blood”), djenty guitar seizures (“Virus,” “Better Off”) to full-on groove (“N.M.E.,” “The Host”), the likes of Lamb of God, early Architects, Born of Osiris, and Children of Bodom are conjured. Lyrics of hardcore punk’s signature anarchy and societal distrust collide with an instrumental palette of melodeath and the more technical kin of metalcore and deathcore, groove metal, and hardcore. As such, the album is complicated, episodic, and unpredictable, with only its wild technicality connecting its fragmented bits – keeping Reform from achieving the greatness that the band is so capable of. As it stands, though, Annihilist offers an insanely fun, everchanging, and unhinged roller coaster of -core proportions – a roller -corester, if you will.

Under Alekhines Gun

Theurgy // Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence [October 17th, 2024 – New Standard Elite]

In a year where slam and brutal death have already had an atypically high-quality output, international outfit Theurgy have come with an RKO out of nowhere to shatter whatever remains of your cerebral cortex. Channeling the flamboyancy of old Analepsy with the snare abuse and neanderthalic glee of Epicardiectomy, Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence wastes no time severing vertebrae and reducing eardrums to paste. Don’t mistake this for a brainless, caveman assault, however. Peppered between the hammiest of hammers are tech flourishes pulled straight from Dingir era Rings of Saturn, adding an unexpected technical edge to the blunt force trauma. The production manages to pair these two disparaging elements with lethal efficiency. Is it the techiest slam album, or the wettest, greasiest tech album? Did I mention there’s a super moldy cover of Devourment‘s “Molesting the Decapitated”? It slots right into the albums flow without feeling like a tacked-on bonus track, highlighting Theurgy’s commitment to the homicidal odes of brutality. Throw in a vocal performance that makes Angel Ochoa (Abominable Putridity) sound like Anders Fridén (In Flames), and you’re left with one last lethal assault to round out the year. Dive in and give your luminescence something to cry about.

GardensTale’s Great Glacier

Ghosts of Glaciers // Eternal [October 25th, 2024 – Translation Loss Records]

Ghosts of Glaciers’s last release, The Greatest Burden, was a masterclass of post-metal flow and has become a mainstay in my instrumental metal collection since my review in 2019. Dropping in tandem with several other high-profile releases, though, I could not give its follow-up the kind of attention it deserves. And make no mistake, it absolutely deserves that attention. The opening duo, “The Vast Expanse” and “Sunken Chamber,” measure up fully to The Greatest Burden, though it takes a few spins for that to become clear. Both use repetitive patterns more than before, but closer listens reveal how subtle variations and evolution of each cycle build gradual tension, so the release becomes all the more satisfying. I’m a little more ambivalent on the back half of Eternal, though. “Leviathan” packs a bigger punch than more of the band’s material, it lacks the swirling and sweeping currents that pull me under and demand full and uninterrupted plays every time. Closer “Regeneratio Aeterna” is a pretty but rather demure piece that lasts a bit longer than it should have. But despite these reservations, the great material outstrips the merely good, and Eternal is a worthwhile addition to any instrumental metal collection.

#AbominablePutridity #AinsiFinitLeJour #AmericanMetal #Analepsy #Annihilist #Architects #Asphyx #AtmosphericBlackMetal #AustralianMetal #BlackMetal #BongRa #BornOfOsiris #BrazilianMetal #Bríi #BrutalDeathMetal #CamaradagemPóstuma #ChildrenOfBodom #CognitiveDissonance #Cognizance #CosmicPutrefaction #Death #DeathMetal #DeathThrash #Deathcore #Devourment #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Electronic #EmanationsOfUnconsciousLuminescence #EmeralFiresAtopTheFarewellMountains #Entombed #Epicardiectomy #Eternal #ExperimentalMetal #Extorted #Feral #FrenchMetal #Gaerea #GermanMetal #GhostsOfGlaciers #GrooveMetal #Hardcore #HardcorePunk #Hath #Helslave #Hulder #InFlames #InMourning #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #KingCrimson #LambOfGod #LesActeursDeLOmbreProductions #Livløs #MelodicDeathMetal #Metalcore #NewStandardElite #NewZealandMetal #NoctumProductions #OSDM #PatMetheny #Pestilence #PostBlackMetal #PostMetal #ProfoundLoreRecords #Reform #RingsOfSaturn #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #Slam #Sordide #SunWorship #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheCrescentKing #TheHumanAbstract #Theurgy #ThrashMetal #ToUsurpTheThrones #TranscendingObscurityRecords #TranslationLossRecords #UponTheHillsOfDivination #VendettaRecords #VertebraAtlantis #Vorga #Wist #WithinTheRuins

Stuck in the Filter: October 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Never fear, the blog’s penchant for deep lateness punctuality persists! It is likely the new year already by the time you see this post, but we’re taking a step back. Way back, into October. I was deep in the shit then, and therefore couldn’t do anything blog-related. And yet, my minions, those very laborers for whom I provide absolutely no compensation whatsoever, toiled dutifully in the metallic dinge that is our Filter. Unforgiving though those environs undoubtedly are, they scraped and scoured until, at long last, small shards of precious ore glimmered to the surface.

These glimmers are the same which you witness before you. Some are big, some are small. Some are short, some are tall. But all are worthy. Behold!

Kenstrosity’s Belated Bombardments

Cosmic Putrefaction // Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains [October 4th, 2024 – Profound Lore Records]

I was originally slated to take over reviewing duties for Cosmic Putrefaction this year, as Thus Spoke had a prior commitment and needed a buddy to step in. Unfortunately, I was rendered useless by a force of nature for a while, so I had to let go of several items of interest. But I couldn’t let 2024 go by without saying something! Entitled Emeral Fires atop the Farewell Mountains, Cosmic Putrefaction’s fourth represents one of the smoothest, most ethereal interpretations of weird, dissonant death metal. The classic Cosmic Putrefaction riffsets under an auroric sky remain, as evidenced by ripping examples “[Entering the Vortex Temporum] – Pre-mortem Phosphenes” and “Swirling Madness, Supernal Ordeal,” but there lurks within a monstrous technical death metal creature who rabidly chases the atmospheric spirits of olde (“I Should Great the Inexorable Darkness,” “Eudaemonist Withdrawal”). While in lesser hands these distinct aesthetics would undoubtedly clash on a dissonant platform such as this, Cosmic Putrefaction’s particular application of sound and style coalesces in devastating beauty and relentless purpose (“Hallways Engraved in Aether,” “Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains”). Were it not for some instances wherein, for the first time ever, Cosmic Putrefaction threatens to self-plagiarize their own material (“Eudaemonist Withdrawal”), I would likely consider Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains for year-end list status.

Feral // To Usurp the Thrones [October 18th, 2024 – Transcending Obscurity Records]

Another one of my charges that I unfortunately had to put down against my will, Swedish death metal fiends Feral’s fourth salvo To Usurp the Thrones deserves a spotlight here. Where Flesh for Funerals Eternal impressed me as my introduction to the band and, arguably, my introduction to modern buzzsaw Swedeath, To Usurp the Thrones impresses me as a singularly vicious record in the style. Faster, meaner, more varied, and longer than its predecessor, Thrones offers the punk-tinged, thrashy death riffs you know and love, with bluesy touches reminiscent of Entombed’s Wolverine Blues adding a bit of drunken swagger to the affair (“Vile Malediction,” “Phantoms of Iniquity,” “Into the Ashes of History”). Absolute rippers like “To Drain the World of Light,” “Deformed Mentality,” “Decimated,” and “Soaked in Blood” live up to the band’s moniker, rabid and relentless in their assault. In many ways, Thrones evokes the same bloodsoaked sense of fun that Helslave’s From the Sulphur Depths conjured, but it’s angrier, more unhinged (“Spirits Without Rest,” “Stripped of Flesh”). Consequently, Thrones stands out as one of the more fun records of its ilk to come out this year. Don’t miss it!

Sun Worship // Upon the Hills of Divination [October 31st, 2024 – Vendetta Records]

Back in 2020, our dear Roquentin offered some damn fine words of praise for Germany’s Sun Worship and their third blackened blade, Emanations of Desolation. It’s been six years since that record dropped, and Upon the Hills of Divination picks up right where Emanations left off. That is to say, absolutely slimy, post-metal-tinged riffs bolstered by dense layers of warm tremolos and mid-frequency roars. Opener “Within the Machine” offers a concrete encapsulation of what to expect: bits and pieces of Hulder, Gaerea, and Vorga melding together into a compelling concoction of hypnotic black metal. Using the long form to their utmost advantage, Sun Worship craft immersive soundscapes liable to scald the flesh just as quickly as they seduce the senses, leaving me as a brainwashed minion doing a twisted mystic’s bidding unconditionally (“Serpent Nebula,” “Covenant”). Yet, there roils a sense of urgency in these songs, despite many of them occupying a mid-paced cadence, which unveils a bleeding heart willingly wrenched from Sun Worship’s body (“Fractal Entity,” the title track, and “Stormbringer”). This is what sets it apart from its contemporaries, and what makes it worthy of mention. Why it’s gotten so little attention escapes me. It is with the intent of rectifying that condition that I pen this woefully insufficient segment.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Duty Free Rifftrocity

Extorted // Cognitive Dissonance [October 16th, 2024 – Self Release]

You don’t need to read this review to know that the Kiwis of Extorted plays pit-whipping death/thrash. Though not adorned with other obvious symbols, like Vietnam War paraphernalia or crushed beer cans, the Ed Repka-penned brain-ripped head figure screams “no thoughts only riff” all the same. With snares set to pow and crashes set to kshhh, Cognitive Dissonance finds low resistance to accelerating early Death-indebted refrains. Vocalist Joel Clark even plays as a dead ringer for pre-Human Schuldiner or Van Drunen (Asphyx, ex-Pestilence) as the torture in many lines grows (on “Infected” and “Ghastly Creatures” in particular). And in a continued tour of Van Drunen-associated sounds, Extorted’s ability to find a push-and-pull cadence that twists the fury of thrash with the cutting drag of death hits that hard-to-nail early Pestilence pocket with studied flair (“Deception,” “Limits of Reality”). Though a considerable amount of the Extorted identity rests in ideas borrowed and reinterpreted, a modern tonal canvas gives Cognitive Dissonance’s rhythms a punchy and balanced low-end weight that doesn’t always present itself in the world of old. Couple that with hooks that reach far beyond the limits of pure homage (“Transformation of Dreams,” “Violence”), and it’s easy to plow through the thirty minutes of tasteful harmonies, bending solos, and spit-stained lamentations that Extorted offers with their powerful debut.

Bríi // Camaradagem Póstuma [October 11th, 2024 – Self Release]

With Camaradagem Póstuma we enter the hazy, folky world of Caio Lemos’ unique vision of what experimental electronic music can be colored by the underpinnings of atmospheric black metal and jazz fusion. Using terraced melodies like baroque music of old and distant breakbeats like the Bong-Ra of recent yesteryears, Brazil’s Bríi represents one man’s highly specific melding that rarely occurs in this space. The guitar lines that do exist play out as textural, slow-developing passages. On tracks “Aparecidos” and “Baile Fantasma” this looping and hypnotic pattern shuffle resembles ambient Pat Metheny or King Crimson colors, the kind where finding the end of nylon pluck into a weaving, high-frequency synth patch feels not impossible but unnecessary. And on the more metallic side of things, Lemos cranks programmed blasts that carry his tortured, panning, and shrouded wails as a guide for the melodic evolution of each track, much in the same way a warping bass line would in a progressive house track. But maintaining the tempo of classic drum and bass, Camaradagem Póstuma wisps away in its atmosphere, coming back to a driving rhythm either via pummeling double kick or glitching break. Despite the hard, danceable pulse that tracks “Enlutados” and “Entre Mundos” boast, Bríi does not feel built for the kvlt klvbs of this world, leaning on a gated, lo-fi aesthetic that makes for an ideal drift away on closed cans, much like the equally idiosyncratic Wist album from earlier this year. And similarly, Camaradagem Póstuma sits in an outsider world of enjoyment. But if any of this sounds like your jam, prepare to get addicted to Bríi.

Thus Spoke’s Rotten Remnants

Livløs // The Crescent King [October 4th, 2024 – Noctum Productions]

Livløs are one of those bands that deserves far more recognition than they receive. With LP three, The Crescent King, they might finally see it. Their punchy intriguing infusion of Swedish and US melodic death metal—though the band themselves hail from Denmark—has a pleasing melancholia and satisfying bite. Here in particular, there’s more than a passing resemblance to Hath, to Cognizance, and to In Mourning. Stomping grooves (“Maelstrom,” “Usurpers”) slide in between blitzes of tripping gallops, and electrifying fretwork (“Orbit Weaver,” “Scourge of the Stars”). Mournful, compelling melodies woven into this technical tapestry—some highlights being the title track, “Harvest,” and “Endless Majesty”—turn already good melodeath into great melodeath; melodeath that’s majestic and powerful, without ever feeling overblown. With its relentless, groovy dynamism, the crisp, spacious production seals the deal for total immersion. If this is your first time hearing about Livløs, you’re in for a treat.

Sordide // Ainsi finit le jour [October 25th, 2024 – Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions]

And So Ends the Day, whilst another begins where I rediscover Sordide. I know not how I forgot their existence despite the impression that 2021’s Les Idées Blanches made upon me, yet all I could recall was the disturbingly simple, melty art.1 Ainsi Finit le Jour arrives with a hefty dose (53 minutes no less) of punky, dissonant black metal that’s even rawer and more pissed-off than their usual fare. “Des feux plus forts,” “La poesie du caniveau,” and the title track stand out as the most vicious, near-first-wave cuts the trio have ever laid down, with manic, group wails, and chaotic, jangling percussion. But as is so often the case with Sordide, perhaps the truest brutality comes in the slower discordant crawls of “Sous Vivre,” “Tout est a la mort,” and the particularly unsettling “La beauté du desastre,” whose creeping, half-tuneful teasing and turns to eerie spaciousness get right under your skin. It is arguably a little too long for its own good, given its intensity, but its impressiveness does mean that, this time, Sordide won’t be forgotten.

Dear Hollow’s Droll Hashals

Annihilist // Reform [October 18th, 2024 – Self Release]

What Melbourne’s Annihilist does with flamboyant flare and reckless abandon is blur the lines of its core stylistic choices. One moment it’s chugging away like a deathcore band, the next it’s dripping away with a groove metal swagger, ope, now it’s on its way to Hot Topic. All we know is that all its members attack with a chameleonic intensity and otherworldly technicality that’s hard to pin down. An insane level of technicality is the thread that courses throughout the entirety of this debut, recalling Within the Ruins or The Human Abstract in its stuttering rhythms and flailing arpeggios. From catchy leads and punishing rhythms (“The Upsend,” “Guillotine”), bouncy breakdowns, clean choruses, and wild gang vocals (“Blood”), djenty guitar seizures (“Virus,” “Better Off”) to full-on groove (“N.M.E.,” “The Host”), the likes of Lamb of God, early Architects, Born of Osiris, and Children of Bodom are conjured. Lyrics of hardcore punk’s signature anarchy and societal distrust collide with an instrumental palette of melodeath and the more technical kin of metalcore and deathcore, groove metal, and hardcore. As such, the album is complicated, episodic, and unpredictable, with only its wild technicality connecting its fragmented bits – keeping Reform from achieving the greatness that the band is so capable of. As it stands, though, Annihilist offers an insanely fun, everchanging, and unhinged roller coaster of -core proportions – a roller -corester, if you will.

Under Alekhines Gun

Theurgy // Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence [October 17th, 2024 – New Standard Elite]

In a year where slam and brutal death have already had an atypically high-quality output, international outfit Theurgy have come with an RKO out of nowhere to shatter whatever remains of your cerebral cortex. Channeling the flamboyancy of old Analepsy with the snare abuse and neanderthalic glee of Epicardiectomy, Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence wastes no time severing vertebrae and reducing eardrums to paste. Don’t mistake this for a brainless, caveman assault, however. Peppered between the hammiest of hammers are tech flourishes pulled straight from Dingir era Rings of Saturn, adding an unexpected technical edge to the blunt force trauma. The production manages to pair these two disparaging elements with lethal efficiency. Is it the techiest slam album, or the wettest, greasiest tech album? Did I mention there’s a super moldy cover of Devourment‘s “Molesting the Decapitated”? It slots right into the albums flow without feeling like a tacked-on bonus track, highlighting Theurgy’s commitment to the homicidal odes of brutality. Throw in a vocal performance that makes Angel Ochoa (Abominable Putridity) sound like Anders Fridén (In Flames), and you’re left with one last lethal assault to round out the year. Dive in and give your luminescence something to cry about.

GardensTale’s Great Glacier

Ghosts of Glaciers // Eternal [October 25th, 2024 – Translation Loss Records]

Ghosts of Glaciers’s last release, The Greatest Burden, was a masterclass of post-metal flow and has become a mainstay in my instrumental metal collection since my review in 2019. Dropping in tandem with several other high-profile releases, though, I could not give its follow-up the kind of attention it deserves. And make no mistake, it absolutely deserves that attention. The opening duo, “The Vast Expanse” and “Sunken Chamber,” measure up fully to The Greatest Burden, though it takes a few spins for that to become clear. Both use repetitive patterns more than before, but closer listens reveal how subtle variations and evolution of each cycle build gradual tension, so the release becomes all the more satisfying. I’m a little more ambivalent on the back half of Eternal, though. “Leviathan” packs a bigger punch than more of the band’s material, it lacks the swirling and sweeping currents that pull me under and demand full and uninterrupted plays every time. Closer “Regeneratio Aeterna” is a pretty but rather demure piece that lasts a bit longer than it should have. But despite these reservations, the great material outstrips the merely good, and Eternal is a worthwhile addition to any instrumental metal collection.

#AbominablePutridity #AinsiFinitLeJour #AmericanMetal #Analepsy #Annihilist #Architects #Asphyx #AtmosphericBlackMetal #AustralianMetal #BlackMetal #BongRa #BornOfOsiris #BrazilianMetal #Bríi #BrutalDeathMetal #CamaradagemPóstuma #ChildrenOfBodom #CognitiveDissonance #Cognizance #CosmicPutrefaction #Death #DeathMetal #DeathThrash #Deathcore #Devourment #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Electronic #EmanationsOfUnconsciousLuminescence #EmeralFiresAtopTheFarewellMountains #Entombed #Epicardiectomy #Eternal #ExperimentalMetal #Extorted #Feral #FrenchMetal #Gaerea #GermanMetal #GhostsOfGlaciers #GrooveMetal #Hardcore #HardcorePunk #Hath #Helslave #Hulder #InFlames #InMourning #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #KingCrimson #LambOfGod #LesActeursDeLOmbreProductions #Livløs #MelodicDeathMetal #Metalcore #NewStandardElite #NewZealandMetal #NoctumProductions #OSDM #PatMetheny #Pestilence #PostBlackMetal #PostMetal #ProfoundLoreRecords #Reform #RingsOfSaturn #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #Slam #Sordide #SunWorship #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheCrescentKing #TheHumanAbstract #Theurgy #ThrashMetal #ToUsurpTheThrones #TranscendingObscurityRecords #TranslationLossRecords #UponTheHillsOfDivination #VendettaRecords #VertebraAtlantis #Vorga #Wist #WithinTheRuins

Stuck in the Filter: October 2024’s Angry Misses

By Kenstrosity

Never fear, the blog’s penchant for deep lateness punctuality persists! It is likely the new year already by the time you see this post, but we’re taking a step back. Way back, into October. I was deep in the shit then, and therefore couldn’t do anything blog-related. And yet, my minions, those very laborers for whom I provide absolutely no compensation whatsoever, toiled dutifully in the metallic dinge that is our Filter. Unforgiving though those environs undoubtedly are, they scraped and scoured until, at long last, small shards of precious ore glimmered to the surface.

These glimmers are the same which you witness before you. Some are big, some are small. Some are short, some are tall. But all are worthy. Behold!

Kenstrosity’s Belated Bombardments

Cosmic Putrefaction // Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains [October 4th, 2024 – Profound Lore Records]

I was originally slated to take over reviewing duties for Cosmic Putrefaction this year, as Thus Spoke had a prior commitment and needed a buddy to step in. Unfortunately, I was rendered useless by a force of nature for a while, so I had to let go of several items of interest. But I couldn’t let 2024 go by without saying something! Entitled Emeral Fires atop the Farewell Mountains, Cosmic Putrefaction’s fourth represents one of the smoothest, most ethereal interpretations of weird, dissonant death metal. The classic Cosmic Putrefaction riffsets under an auroric sky remain, as evidenced by ripping examples “[Entering the Vortex Temporum] – Pre-mortem Phosphenes” and “Swirling Madness, Supernal Ordeal,” but there lurks within a monstrous technical death metal creature who rabidly chases the atmospheric spirits of olde (“I Should Great the Inexorable Darkness,” “Eudaemonist Withdrawal”). While in lesser hands these distinct aesthetics would undoubtedly clash on a dissonant platform such as this, Cosmic Putrefaction’s particular application of sound and style coalesces in devastating beauty and relentless purpose (“Hallways Engraved in Aether,” “Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains”). Were it not for some instances wherein, for the first time ever, Cosmic Putrefaction threatens to self-plagiarize their own material (“Eudaemonist Withdrawal”), I would likely consider Emerald Fires atop the Farewell Mountains for year-end list status.

Feral // To Usurp the Thrones [October 18th, 2024 – Transcending Obscurity Records]

Another one of my charges that I unfortunately had to put down against my will, Swedish death metal fiends Feral’s fourth salvo To Usurp the Thrones deserves a spotlight here. Where Flesh for Funerals Eternal impressed me as my introduction to the band and, arguably, my introduction to modern buzzsaw Swedeath, To Usurp the Thrones impresses me as a singularly vicious record in the style. Faster, meaner, more varied, and longer than its predecessor, Thrones offers the punk-tinged, thrashy death riffs you know and love, with bluesy touches reminiscent of Entombed’s Wolverine Blues adding a bit of drunken swagger to the affair (“Vile Malediction,” “Phantoms of Iniquity,” “Into the Ashes of History”). Absolute rippers like “To Drain the World of Light,” “Deformed Mentality,” “Decimated,” and “Soaked in Blood” live up to the band’s moniker, rabid and relentless in their assault. In many ways, Thrones evokes the same bloodsoaked sense of fun that Helslave’s From the Sulphur Depths conjured, but it’s angrier, more unhinged (“Spirits Without Rest,” “Stripped of Flesh”). Consequently, Thrones stands out as one of the more fun records of its ilk to come out this year. Don’t miss it!

Sun Worship // Upon the Hills of Divination [October 31st, 2024 – Vendetta Records]

Back in 2020, our dear Roquentin offered some damn fine words of praise for Germany’s Sun Worship and their third blackened blade, Emanations of Desolation. It’s been six years since that record dropped, and Upon the Hills of Divination picks up right where Emanations left off. That is to say, absolutely slimy, post-metal-tinged riffs bolstered by dense layers of warm tremolos and mid-frequency roars. Opener “Within the Machine” offers a concrete encapsulation of what to expect: bits and pieces of Hulder, Gaerea, and Vorga melding together into a compelling concoction of hypnotic black metal. Using the long form to their utmost advantage, Sun Worship craft immersive soundscapes liable to scald the flesh just as quickly as they seduce the senses, leaving me as a brainwashed minion doing a twisted mystic’s bidding unconditionally (“Serpent Nebula,” “Covenant”). Yet, there roils a sense of urgency in these songs, despite many of them occupying a mid-paced cadence, which unveils a bleeding heart willingly wrenched from Sun Worship’s body (“Fractal Entity,” the title track, and “Stormbringer”). This is what sets it apart from its contemporaries, and what makes it worthy of mention. Why it’s gotten so little attention escapes me. It is with the intent of rectifying that condition that I pen this woefully insufficient segment.

Dolphin Whisperer’s Duty Free Rifftrocity

Extorted // Cognitive Dissonance [October 16th, 2024 – Self Release]

You don’t need to read this review to know that the Kiwis of Extorted plays pit-whipping death/thrash. Though not adorned with other obvious symbols, like Vietnam War paraphernalia or crushed beer cans, the Ed Repka-penned brain-ripped head figure screams “no thoughts only riff” all the same. With snares set to pow and crashes set to kshhh, Cognitive Dissonance finds low resistance to accelerating early Death-indebted refrains. Vocalist Joel Clark even plays as a dead ringer for pre-Human Schuldiner or Van Drunen (Asphyx, ex-Pestilence) as the torture in many lines grows (on “Infected” and “Ghastly Creatures” in particular). And in a continued tour of Van Drunen-associated sounds, Extorted’s ability to find a push-and-pull cadence that twists the fury of thrash with the cutting drag of death hits that hard-to-nail early Pestilence pocket with studied flair (“Deception,” “Limits of Reality”). Though a considerable amount of the Extorted identity rests in ideas borrowed and reinterpreted, a modern tonal canvas gives Cognitive Dissonance’s rhythms a punchy and balanced low-end weight that doesn’t always present itself in the world of old. Couple that with hooks that reach far beyond the limits of pure homage (“Transformation of Dreams,” “Violence”), and it’s easy to plow through the thirty minutes of tasteful harmonies, bending solos, and spit-stained lamentations that Extorted offers with their powerful debut.

Bríi // Camaradagem Póstuma [October 11th, 2024 – Self Release]

With Camaradagem Póstuma we enter the hazy, folky world of Caio Lemos’ unique vision of what experimental electronic music can be colored by the underpinnings of atmospheric black metal and jazz fusion. Using terraced melodies like baroque music of old and distant breakbeats like the Bong-Ra of recent yesteryears, Brazil’s Bríi represents one man’s highly specific melding that rarely occurs in this space. The guitar lines that do exist play out as textural, slow-developing passages. On tracks “Aparecidos” and “Baile Fantasma” this looping and hypnotic pattern shuffle resembles ambient Pat Metheny or King Crimson colors, the kind where finding the end of nylon pluck into a weaving, high-frequency synth patch feels not impossible but unnecessary. And on the more metallic side of things, Lemos cranks programmed blasts that carry his tortured, panning, and shrouded wails as a guide for the melodic evolution of each track, much in the same way a warping bass line would in a progressive house track. But maintaining the tempo of classic drum and bass, Camaradagem Póstuma wisps away in its atmosphere, coming back to a driving rhythm either via pummeling double kick or glitching break. Despite the hard, danceable pulse that tracks “Enlutados” and “Entre Mundos” boast, Bríi does not feel built for the kvlt klvbs of this world, leaning on a gated, lo-fi aesthetic that makes for an ideal drift away on closed cans, much like the equally idiosyncratic Wist album from earlier this year. And similarly, Camaradagem Póstuma sits in an outsider world of enjoyment. But if any of this sounds like your jam, prepare to get addicted to Bríi.

Thus Spoke’s Rotten Remnants

Livløs // The Crescent King [October 4th, 2024 – Noctum Productions]

Livløs are one of those bands that deserves far more recognition than they receive. With LP three, The Crescent King, they might finally see it. Their punchy intriguing infusion of Swedish and US melodic death metal—though the band themselves hail from Denmark—has a pleasing melancholia and satisfying bite. Here in particular, there’s more than a passing resemblance to Hath, to Cognizance, and to In Mourning. Stomping grooves (“Maelstrom,” “Usurpers”) slide in between blitzes of tripping gallops, and electrifying fretwork (“Orbit Weaver,” “Scourge of the Stars”). Mournful, compelling melodies woven into this technical tapestry—some highlights being the title track, “Harvest,” and “Endless Majesty”—turn already good melodeath into great melodeath; melodeath that’s majestic and powerful, without ever feeling overblown. With its relentless, groovy dynamism, the crisp, spacious production seals the deal for total immersion. If this is your first time hearing about Livløs, you’re in for a treat.

Sordide // Ainsi finit le jour [October 25th, 2024 – Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions]

And So Ends the Day, whilst another begins where I rediscover Sordide. I know not how I forgot their existence despite the impression that 2021’s Les Idées Blanches made upon me, yet all I could recall was the disturbingly simple, melty art.1 Ainsi Finit le Jour arrives with a hefty dose (53 minutes no less) of punky, dissonant black metal that’s even rawer and more pissed-off than their usual fare. “Des feux plus forts,” “La poesie du caniveau,” and the title track stand out as the most vicious, near-first-wave cuts the trio have ever laid down, with manic, group wails, and chaotic, jangling percussion. But as is so often the case with Sordide, perhaps the truest brutality comes in the slower discordant crawls of “Sous Vivre,” “Tout est a la mort,” and the particularly unsettling “La beauté du desastre,” whose creeping, half-tuneful teasing and turns to eerie spaciousness get right under your skin. It is arguably a little too long for its own good, given its intensity, but its impressiveness does mean that, this time, Sordide won’t be forgotten.

Dear Hollow’s Droll Hashals

Annihilist // Reform [October 18th, 2024 – Self Release]

What Melbourne’s Annihilist does with flamboyant flare and reckless abandon is blur the lines of its core stylistic choices. One moment it’s chugging away like a deathcore band, the next it’s dripping away with a groove metal swagger, ope, now it’s on its way to Hot Topic. All we know is that all its members attack with a chameleonic intensity and otherworldly technicality that’s hard to pin down. An insane level of technicality is the thread that courses throughout the entirety of this debut, recalling Within the Ruins or The Human Abstract in its stuttering rhythms and flailing arpeggios. From catchy leads and punishing rhythms (“The Upsend,” “Guillotine”), bouncy breakdowns, clean choruses, and wild gang vocals (“Blood”), djenty guitar seizures (“Virus,” “Better Off”) to full-on groove (“N.M.E.,” “The Host”), the likes of Lamb of God, early Architects, Born of Osiris, and Children of Bodom are conjured. Lyrics of hardcore punk’s signature anarchy and societal distrust collide with an instrumental palette of melodeath and the more technical kin of metalcore and deathcore, groove metal, and hardcore. As such, the album is complicated, episodic, and unpredictable, with only its wild technicality connecting its fragmented bits – keeping Reform from achieving the greatness that the band is so capable of. As it stands, though, Annihilist offers an insanely fun, everchanging, and unhinged roller coaster of -core proportions – a roller -corester, if you will.

Under Alekhines Gun

Theurgy // Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence [October 17th, 2024 – New Standard Elite]

In a year where slam and brutal death have already had an atypically high-quality output, international outfit Theurgy have come with an RKO out of nowhere to shatter whatever remains of your cerebral cortex. Channeling the flamboyancy of old Analepsy with the snare abuse and neanderthalic glee of Epicardiectomy, Emanations of Unconscious Luminescence wastes no time severing vertebrae and reducing eardrums to paste. Don’t mistake this for a brainless, caveman assault, however. Peppered between the hammiest of hammers are tech flourishes pulled straight from Dingir era Rings of Saturn, adding an unexpected technical edge to the blunt force trauma. The production manages to pair these two disparaging elements with lethal efficiency. Is it the techiest slam album, or the wettest, greasiest tech album? Did I mention there’s a super moldy cover of Devourment‘s “Molesting the Decapitated”? It slots right into the albums flow without feeling like a tacked-on bonus track, highlighting Theurgy’s commitment to the homicidal odes of brutality. Throw in a vocal performance that makes Angel Ochoa (Abominable Putridity) sound like Anders Fridén (In Flames), and you’re left with one last lethal assault to round out the year. Dive in and give your luminescence something to cry about.

GardensTale’s Great Glacier

Ghosts of Glaciers // Eternal [October 25th, 2024 – Translation Loss Records]

Ghosts of Glaciers’s last release, The Greatest Burden, was a masterclass of post-metal flow and has become a mainstay in my instrumental metal collection since my review in 2019. Dropping in tandem with several other high-profile releases, though, I could not give its follow-up the kind of attention it deserves. And make no mistake, it absolutely deserves that attention. The opening duo, “The Vast Expanse” and “Sunken Chamber,” measure up fully to The Greatest Burden, though it takes a few spins for that to become clear. Both use repetitive patterns more than before, but closer listens reveal how subtle variations and evolution of each cycle build gradual tension, so the release becomes all the more satisfying. I’m a little more ambivalent on the back half of Eternal, though. “Leviathan” packs a bigger punch than more of the band’s material, it lacks the swirling and sweeping currents that pull me under and demand full and uninterrupted plays every time. Closer “Regeneratio Aeterna” is a pretty but rather demure piece that lasts a bit longer than it should have. But despite these reservations, the great material outstrips the merely good, and Eternal is a worthwhile addition to any instrumental metal collection.

#AbominablePutridity #AinsiFinitLeJour #AmericanMetal #Analepsy #Annihilist #Architects #Asphyx #AtmosphericBlackMetal #AustralianMetal #BlackMetal #BongRa #BornOfOsiris #BrazilianMetal #Bríi #BrutalDeathMetal #CamaradagemPóstuma #ChildrenOfBodom #CognitiveDissonance #Cognizance #CosmicPutrefaction #Death #DeathMetal #DeathThrash #Deathcore #Devourment #DissonantBlackMetal #DissonantDeathMetal #Electronic #EmanationsOfUnconsciousLuminescence #EmeralFiresAtopTheFarewellMountains #Entombed #Epicardiectomy #Eternal #ExperimentalMetal #Extorted #Feral #FrenchMetal #Gaerea #GermanMetal #GhostsOfGlaciers #GrooveMetal #Hardcore #HardcorePunk #Hath #Helslave #Hulder #InFlames #InMourning #InternationalMetal #ItalianMetal #KingCrimson #LambOfGod #LesActeursDeLOmbreProductions #Livløs #MelodicDeathMetal #Metalcore #NewStandardElite #NewZealandMetal #NoctumProductions #OSDM #PatMetheny #Pestilence #PostBlackMetal #PostMetal #ProfoundLoreRecords #Reform #RingsOfSaturn #SelfRelease #SelfReleased #Slam #Sordide #SunWorship #SwedishMetal #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheCrescentKing #TheHumanAbstract #Theurgy #ThrashMetal #ToUsurpTheThrones #TranscendingObscurityRecords #TranslationLossRecords #UponTheHillsOfDivination #VendettaRecords #VertebraAtlantis #Vorga #Wist #WithinTheRuins

Hello, I'm Vesper. I'm something of an amateur philosopher looking to explore ideas of how to best benefit mankind and the world at large.

A few things about me and what this account is about:

- #Neoplatonism and #Stoicism
- Practical philosophy as it pertains to living in alignment with the Good
- #Polytheism through the lens of a humble Philhellene and devotional posts dedicated to the Greek Gods
- #Theurgy and light mysticism focused on meditation and contemplation

Be seeing you!

The thing about geometry is that it has postulates. Symbols and their relationships imply rules and formulas. So, when you combine magical symbols with geometry, it implies a relationship, rules, and postulates. It really frustrates me when people circumscribe magical ciphers and words within geometric figures where there are no underlying axioms, postulates, or theorems.

Combining magical symbols with geometry without any type of postulate that you can prove makes the entire thing pointless. What is the relationship between that magical symbol and that angle? That is a 45-degree angle. What relationship does that angle have with that magical symbol that denotes a magical entity? I can’t look at most magicians’ magical seals without cringing. They never provide formulas or explain why they used those formulas. The lack of structure undermines the potential significance or effectiveness of the magical practice if the magical system is predicated on structure.

It irks me even more when the seal has arbitrary or random planetary or zodiac symbols that have nothing to do with the geometry and angles of what those symbols denote. If you are going to use geometry in your magic, then it should have logical rules and principles and a connection to the geometry. The complex magical seals are pretty, but they mean absolutely nothing. I would rather have their fictional narrative, i.e., a mythology.

Mathematics is a symbolic language. While it is a precise language, it is a language nonetheless, so it tells a story. When you are working on an intuitive level where precision is not needed, everyday language like this will suffice, where a visual representation can be basic glyphs. Storytelling is a more intuitive and engaging approach to understanding mystical concepts compared to the opaque and cryptic symbolism of complex magical seals. The effort in appearing to be legitimate without being legitimate irks me when a basic story and illustration will suffice.

#Animism #animistic #Astral #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #egregore #egregores #Goetia #grimoire #grimoires #hermeticism #magick #pagan #paganism #sigil #sigilMagic #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #theosophy #Theurgy #witch #witchcraft #zodiac

The thing about geometry is that it has postulates. Symbols and their relationships imply rules and formulas. So, when you combine magical symbols with geometry, it implies a relationship, rules, and postulates. It really frustrates me when people circumscribe magical ciphers and words within geometric figures where there are no underlying axioms, postulates, or theorems.

Combining magical symbols with geometry without any type of postulate that you can prove makes the entire thing pointless. What is the relationship between that magical symbol and that angle? That is a 45-degree angle. What relationship does that angle have with that magical symbol that denotes a magical entity? I can’t look at most magicians’ magical seals without cringing. They never provide formulas or explain why they used those formulas. The lack of structure undermines the potential significance or effectiveness of the magical practice if the magical system is predicated on structure.

It irks me even more when the seal has arbitrary or random planetary or zodiac symbols that have nothing to do with the geometry and angles of what those symbols denote. If you are going to use geometry in your magic, then it should have logical rules and principles and a connection to the geometry. The complex magical seals are pretty, but they mean absolutely nothing. I would rather have their fictional narrative, i.e., a mythology.

Mathematics is a symbolic language. While it is a precise language, it is a language nonetheless, so it tells a story. When you are working on an intuitive level where precision is not needed, everyday language like this will suffice, where a visual representation can be basic glyphs. Storytelling is a more intuitive and engaging approach to understanding mystical concepts compared to the opaque and cryptic symbolism of complex magical seals. The effort in appearing to be legitimate without being legitimate irks me when a basic story and illustration will suffice.

#Animism #animistic #Astral #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #egregore #egregores #Goetia #grimoire #grimoires #hermeticism #magick #pagan #paganism #sigil #sigilMagic #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #theosophy #Theurgy #witch #witchcraft #zodiac

The thing about geometry is that it has postulates. Symbols and their relationships imply rules and formulas. So, when you combine magical symbols with geometry, it implies a relationship, rules, and postulates. It really frustrates me when people circumscribe magical ciphers and words within geometric figures where there are no underlying axioms, postulates, or theorems.

Combining magical symbols with geometry without any type of postulate that you can prove makes the entire thing pointless. What is the relationship between that magical symbol and that angle? That is a 45-degree angle. What relationship does that angle have with that magical symbol that denotes a magical entity? I can’t look at most magicians’ magical seals without cringing. They never provide formulas or explain why they used those formulas. The lack of structure undermines the potential significance or effectiveness of the magical practice if the magical system is predicated on structure.

It irks me even more when the seal has arbitrary or random planetary or zodiac symbols that have nothing to do with the geometry and angles of what those symbols denote. If you are going to use geometry in your magic, then it should have logical rules and principles and a connection to the geometry. The complex magical seals are pretty, but they mean absolutely nothing. I would rather have their fictional narrative, i.e., a mythology.

Mathematics is a symbolic language. While it is a precise language, it is a language nonetheless, so it tells a story. When you are working on an intuitive level where precision is not needed, everyday language like this will suffice, where a visual representation can be basic glyphs. Storytelling is a more intuitive and engaging approach to understanding mystical concepts compared to the opaque and cryptic symbolism of complex magical seals. The effort in appearing to be legitimate without being legitimate irks me when a basic story and illustration will suffice.

#Animism #animistic #Astral #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #egregore #egregores #Goetia #grimoire #grimoires #hermeticism #magick #pagan #paganism #sigil #sigilMagic #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #theosophy #Theurgy #witch #witchcraft #zodiac

@Grail

The Magic Square of Mercury is a type of kamea and magic square. The context of that conversation was about how mages are always complaining about Mercury in retrograde, though any magician worth their salt would understand that planetary magic squares can be used to block the astral energy.

I am more of a sorcerer than a diviner, so I use magical symbols, systems, and subjunctive conditional (prescriptive fictions) to alter reality instead of trying to predict it. Therefore, the predictive power of astrological systems is irrelevant to me personally because I use them to manipulate, not predict, possible futures.

Mathematically, a magic square is a grid of numbers arranged in such a way that the sum of the numbers in each row, column, and diagonal is the same.

While I am not otherkin, I am a cambion (half-demon). An incubus ‘altered’ my father’s sperm, so I have a human father, a human mother, and a demonic parent. You can think of it as an astral virus. My preternatural insight is knowledge of sorcery and thaumaturgy, which gives me mathematical aptitude. My mathematical abilities and my magical abilities are intrinsically linked and are manifestations of my demonic heritage.

#alchemist #Alchemy #Animism #animistic #Astral #astrological #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #Hellenism #Hellenistic #HermeticOrderOfTheGoldenDawn #hermeticism #magick #occultism #otherkin #pagan #paganism #paranormal #ritualMagic #ritualMagick #sigil #sigilMagic #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #talisman #talismans #Thaumaturgy #Thelema #theosophy #Theurgy #Twitter #witch #witchcraft

@Grail

The Magic Square of Mercury is a type of kamea and magic square. The context of that conversation was about how mages are always complaining about Mercury in retrograde, though any magician worth their salt would understand that planetary magic squares can be used to block the astral energy.

I am more of a sorcerer than a diviner, so I use magical symbols, systems, and subjunctive conditional (prescriptive fictions) to alter reality instead of trying to predict it. Therefore, the predictive power of astrological systems is irrelevant to me personally because I use them to manipulate, not predict, possible futures.

Mathematically, a magic square is a grid of numbers arranged in such a way that the sum of the numbers in each row, column, and diagonal is the same.

While I am not otherkin, I am a cambion (half-demon). An incubus ‘altered’ my father’s sperm, so I have a human father, a human mother, and a demonic parent. You can think of it as an astral virus. My preternatural insight is knowledge of sorcery and thaumaturgy, which gives me mathematical aptitude. My mathematical abilities and my magical abilities are intrinsically linked and are manifestations of my demonic heritage.

#alchemist #Alchemy #Animism #animistic #Astral #astrological #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #Hellenism #Hellenistic #HermeticOrderOfTheGoldenDawn #hermeticism #magick #occultism #otherkin #pagan #paganism #paranormal #ritualMagic #ritualMagick #sigil #sigilMagic #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #talisman #talismans #Thaumaturgy #Thelema #theosophy #Theurgy #Twitter #witch #witchcraft

I’m always highly amused when ceremonial magicians or energy workers claim to practice high magic or have some skill, but then when I whip out a very basic magic square of Mercury, they claim they do not do Math magic. It’s quite amusing to me because there’s a slight medieval difference in the connotation between Sorcery and Thaumaturgy, and many of them will call the basic magic sorcery they do, such as sigils, thaumaturgy.

Technology, art, and magic can inspire awe and wonder, so the artist is similar to the technologist, which is similar to the magician in that their disciplines are marvelous. Many occultists incorrectly use thaumaturgy to reference any art, technique, or technology that is marvelous or even extraordinary, so it is frequently conflated with sorcery, albeit there’s a large difference between black and white magic from an esoteric perspective.

Orthodoxly, the adept is not the sorcerer. While both inspire awe and wonder, Johnathan Dee explicitly mentioned Thaumaturgy as a mathematical art in The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara. In that preface, John Dee primarily discusses foundational principles and concepts of geometry as presented by Euclid. Euclid’s “Elements” is a comprehensive compilation of the fundamental principles of geometry, including definitions, postulates, propositions, and proofs.

In addition to that, Enochian Magic is highly algorithmic and uses techniques that John Dee discussed in The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara. The modern understanding of Thaumaturgy is predicated on Math, though. Math and technology elicit the same aesthetic sense of awe and wonder that miracles and magic do. For example, lightning is awesome. It inspires awe and wonder. We can call a lightning strike beautiful and thus grant it an aesthetic value that we seek to capture in art. Since this is willful and deliberate, the art is magic. So, we can call lightning magical; however, that isn’t sufficient to call it thaumaturgy.

High Magic is highly metaphysical and uses formal symbolic languages, such as Geometry and Math. If you are bad at Math or do not like Math, you are quite limited.

Alchemy and Thaumaturgy are branches of Natural Magic which do not necessarily depend on spirits. So I am always highly amused when so-called occultists on Twitter try to discredit me while acknowledging they actually know nothing about the magic I practice.

I hate fraternities. Always have. Always will. I was never tempted to join one in college, though my sister pledged to a sorority. This applies to occult fraternities too. Occult lodges are just occult frat bros. For some reason, though, not subjecting myself to the abuse of occult orders somehow makes me less knowledgeable. It’s so bizarre.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love The Vampire Diaries universe, and I really relate to the members of the Gemini coven, especially the siphoners, like Josie. While they are known for their vampire and witch hybrids, the Gemini coven is especially skilled at hoary and creating mechanical devices based on hoary astrology that serve as astrological machines. They called it an ascendant, and it’s normally presented as a key to a prison world in the show.
Gemini coven

My husband and I are putting together something like those devices from 3D printing parts and gears to create an astrological engine. That is an example of Thaumaturgy. See this link for a copy of The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara.

#alchemist #Alchemy #Animism #animistic #Astral #astrological #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #Hellenism #Hellenistic #HermeticOrderOfTheGoldenDawn #hermeticism #magick #occultism #pagan #paganism #paranormal #ritualMagic #ritualMagick #sigil #sigilMagic #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #Thaumaturgy #Thelema #theosophy #Theurgy #Twitter #witch #witchcraft

I’m always highly amused when ceremonial magicians or energy workers claim to practice high magic or have some skill, but then when I whip out a very basic magic square of Mercury, they claim they do not do Math magic. It’s quite amusing to me because there’s a slight medieval difference in the connotation between Sorcery and Thaumaturgy, and many of them will call the basic magic sorcery they do, such as sigils, thaumaturgy.

Technology, art, and magic can inspire awe and wonder, so the artist is similar to the technologist, which is similar to the magician in that their disciplines are marvelous. Many occultists incorrectly use thaumaturgy to reference any art, technique, or technology that is marvelous or even extraordinary, so it is frequently conflated with sorcery, albeit there’s a large difference between black and white magic from an esoteric perspective.

Orthodoxly, the adept is not the sorcerer. While both inspire awe and wonder, Johnathan Dee explicitly mentioned Thaumaturgy as a mathematical art in The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara. In that preface, John Dee primarily discusses foundational principles and concepts of geometry as presented by Euclid. Euclid’s “Elements” is a comprehensive compilation of the fundamental principles of geometry, including definitions, postulates, propositions, and proofs.

In addition to that, Enochian Magic is highly algorithmic and uses techniques that John Dee discussed in The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara. The modern understanding of Thaumaturgy is predicated on Math, though. Math and technology elicit the same aesthetic sense of awe and wonder that miracles and magic do. For example, lightning is awesome. It inspires awe and wonder. We can call a lightning strike beautiful and thus grant it an aesthetic value that we seek to capture in art. Since this is willful and deliberate, the art is magic. So, we can call lightning magical; however, that isn’t sufficient to call it thaumaturgy.

High Magic is highly metaphysical and uses formal symbolic languages, such as Geometry and Math. If you are bad at Math or do not like Math, you are quite limited.

Alchemy and Thaumaturgy are branches of Natural Magic which do not necessarily depend on spirits. So I am always highly amused when so-called occultists on Twitter try to discredit me while acknowledging they actually know nothing about the magic I practice.

I hate fraternities. Always have. Always will. I was never tempted to join one in college, though my sister pledged to a sorority. This applies to occult fraternities too. Occult lodges are just occult frat bros. For some reason, though, not subjecting myself to the abuse of occult orders somehow makes me less knowledgeable. It’s so bizarre.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love The Vampire Diaries universe, and I really relate to the members of the Gemini coven, especially the siphoners, like Josie. While they are known for their vampire and witch hybrids, the Gemini coven is especially skilled at hoary and creating mechanical devices based on hoary astrology that serve as astrological machines. They called it an ascendant, and it’s normally presented as a key to a prison world in the show.
Gemini coven

My husband and I are putting together something like those devices from 3D printing parts and gears to create an astrological engine. That is an example of Thaumaturgy. See this link for a copy of The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara.

#alchemist #Alchemy #Animism #animistic #Astral #astrological #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #Hellenism #Hellenistic #HermeticOrderOfTheGoldenDawn #hermeticism #magick #occultism #pagan #paganism #paranormal #ritualMagic #ritualMagick #sigil #sigilMagic #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #Thaumaturgy #Thelema #theosophy #Theurgy #Twitter #witch #witchcraft

I don’t bother to argue and correct people about wrong occult or paranormal information because 9 times out of 10, they are not the type of people I want practicing magic. Out of boredom, I took a look at r/occult on Reddit. Not only is 99% of it wrong, but the people there are so messed up I dare not correct them. Going through their other posts and the subs they are subscribed to on Reddit is disturbing.

There was one person in particular who inspired this post. I’ve had encounters with this person in the past and know enough about them to know that they are likely schizophrenic and have an obsession with occultism and occultists. All the quotes in this post are from the same dumb Redditor. They said:

Really, the sigil generally means what the person tattoing it onto themself means it too. In this case it might just indicate their bond.

There really isn’t anything special about foreign/modern symbols. It’s prefectly fine to use english and drawings of dicks if you really want too. At thene of the day, when you practice magic, what’s important is how the symbol has meaning to you, the person who’s involved with the spell

On the subject of not being able to back it, it’s on the internet, if they stop giving a shit, they can ultimately just stop looking at the thread and forget that people here even exist.

That last part of the last quote highlights the problem with Internet cultures, however. Normalization of the lack of concern for the accuracy of information and the tacit belief that you are entitled to people because they are on the Internet (which is parasocial) is a large reason why I avoid many online communities. I actually know this person… The belief that you should not have to provide evidence for something if it is on the Internet is a horrific stance to me. For example, while typing this post, I actually made an effort to double-check everything I have said. The idea that no one gives a shit means that no one, including them, gives a shit about the truth. The tacit belief in conspiracies—secretive esoteric communities—coupled with the normalization of misinformation is what’s wrong with occult communities, especially the ones on Reddit.

Sigils are mnemonically identifiers and formal names. A seal is a name or signature. We can examine how asinine this is if we have a person with a tattoo that says William:

Person 1: “Why did you tattoo William on your arm?”
Person 2: “What do you mean? I absolutely adore Sarah, so I got Sarah tattooed on my arm.”
Person 1: “No, what is written in English is William.”

Pragmatically, sigils are mnemonic; however, in formal ontology or language, they have a defined meaning where a seal is an expression of that definition.

Unlike the runes of the Elder Futhark, which are graphemes, Goetic seals are not graphemes. Goetic seals are logograms that represent entire concepts. Since they are logograms, Austin Spare’s substitution/sigilization technique is a good way to generate logograms that possess the aesthetic and symbolic qualities reminiscent of ceremonial sigils or esoteric, occultic ciphers that have the meaning you intend for them to have. Honestly, personally, I am over the ceremonial magic aesthetic, so Austin Spare’s method is not useful for me.

William is not spelled Sarah; therefore, tattooing William does not denote your bond to Sarah, nor does it imply you have a bond to Sarah. Many creepy incels go out and get women’s names and faces tattooed on their arms. It doesn’t make the bond real.

I have a personal gripe with people being super secreative with magick, on the basis I think as a society we’d learn more by working with and sharing things with eachother.

Yeah, because it goes against their interests. The question is whose society does it inform? Magic is deliberately causing something to change, so you’re tacitly creating or at least committing to the future you want. Therefore, magic is prescriptive and sufficiently normative. That means magic is predicated on interests. A way to think about it is that a magician is prescribing to reality how reality ought to behave in accordance with their will and interests. For more information on normativity, see:

Normativity in Metaethics

Predicating magic on will makes it intrinsically something that follows interests—an agenda. Typically, you can group magicians as stoics, hedonists, or solipsists. But, there’s an underlying interest there that is implicit in the philosophy.

An organization or group is an entity. If it is not in an entity’s interest to give you. In magical paradigms, entity usually implies some discarnate intelligence. In everyday language, an entity normally refers to an established organization. Magic is predicated on interests, and if it is not in an entity’s interest to give you access, they won’t. And, since magic is tacit, you need a psychic way of transmitting it or a shared experience among a cohort. Initiations create a shared, lonely space among a cohort. They are symbolic ways of apprehending an experience where the knowledge of “how” comes from how it seems to think about that shared experience.

The type of magic I practice is completely tacit and can’t be communicated through conventional cultural frameworks like language or pedagogies. It has to be telepathically transmitted. Any psychic who tries to communicate their psychic experiences through language will tacitly understand why. The point is that it’s esoteric.

I find it funny. The Internet is intrinsically language-based down to the low-level machine language of the devices. Psychic and magical knowledge is tacit and ineffable, so access via the Internet to the semantics of magical cultures and text doesn’t grant understanding. Ironically, it just obfuscates.

They were giving incorrect information about Lilith relating to demonolatry here:

I personally see Lilith as a sort of dark motherly archetype based on my own personal work, and could be intepreted that you are essentially under her protection

Lilith is not a motherly figure. Lilith is associated with infanticide and sex without having human children, and cambions or changelings.

Actually, a few days ago, my husband and I were having a conversation about my mother and my trauma, and that started an entire conversation where I told my husband about how my mother emphasized that not all women love their children and that I should be grateful she did not drown me in the bathtub like some women did to their children. My mother was referencing Andrea Yates at the time… Yes, my mother believes not killing your children is something to be proud of.

That prompted me to look up and tell my husband the statistics of the amount of SIDS cases that were cases of infanticide where the mother murdered their child. In the 1970s, Waneta Hoyt derailed SIDS research because she was actually suffocating her children. Why do I know all of these cases offhand? Because my mother had a fascination with serial killers and mothers who murdered their children. My husband said that people like my mother who are walking around give him the creeps because she seems so nice. Yes, my parents are twisted. How do you think I came out this way? That’s the type of motherhood Lilith represents. It is just very interesting how people like this person spin up these mythologies to cope with being rejected.

This particular person is a trans woman who used to be Wiccan and is feeling drawn back to Wicca, Thelema, and also feels sympathy with Babalon, so this interpretation would make sense for them. Ironically, I think Christian influences — that I know this person hates — have caused them to overlap Lilith with qualities of Eve, too. On a more pejorative note, what’s the difference between mommy issues and daddy issues? It screams of seeking a maternal figure through parasocial relationships with fictional characters.

No, Lilith wouldn’t be the mother of Adam’s children. She would strangle them in their crib. There’s a common syncretism with Lilith and Hecate that’s popular among Neopagans. Both are associated with aspects of femininity, darkness, magic, and independence, making them complementary in certain Neopagan and eclectic spiritual practices. In fiction, Lilith is associated with vampires and cambions, which is a tacit nod to her symbolism regarding unnatural and preternatural reproduction in that vampires are sired, made, and not born. So, it is very interesting to see this peculiar version of Lilith, embodying a maternal role, when Lilith is an antipole notions of Abrhaminc notions femininity. It’s like they’re conflating the qualities of Eve with Lilith.

Lilith is associated with the Qliphoth Gamaliel. Gamaliel is often linked with the darker aspects of femininity, such as seduction, independence, and rebellion against traditional roles. Thus Lilith represents opposition to motherhood and a rejection of the conventional expectations placed on women to fulfill maternal roles and adhere to societal norms of femininity. The maternal aspects this person is attributing to Lilith are actually associated with the Sephirot Binah, exemplified by Eve. So, we can see the absurdity in this.

Am I a cambion? Yes. Am I the scion of Lilith? No. Am I a Satanist? Yes. However, considering that every person wants to be a Satanic psychopath and doesn’t want to put in the work, there is a lot of misinformation, such as this. The devil is the person whom you know, and the women in the Sunday hats in church on Sunday.

I get a weird type of pleasure seeing incompetent people chase their asses, so I don’t correct them. Giving magic to schizophrenic people is worse than giving them a gun. Don’t mistake me. It is not about moral clarity on my part. It is about power.

Is my post on Reddit? Nope, because I am a real magician. There’s nothing on Reddit but incels and the insane and drug addicts. No powerful magician would consistently post anything there.

#Animism #animistic #AustinSpare #blackMagick #cambion #cambions #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #Christian #Christianity #conspiracyTheories #conspiracyTheory #cryptid #cryptids #cults #demon #Demonolatry #Demonology #demons #egregore #egregores #elderFuthark #femininity #feminism #Gamaliel #Goetia #Hellenism #Hellenistic #hermeticism #horror #incel #incels #infanticide #Jew #Jewish #Jews #Kabbalah #Kabbalistic #LGBTQ #Lilith #magick #mentalHealth #mentalIllness #monsters #myth #occult #occultism #pagan #paganism #paranormal #Qabalah #Qliphoth #Reddit #runes #satan #Satanism #Satanist #schizophrenia #Sephirot #SIDS #sigil #sigilMagick #sigils #supernatural #Theism #Thelema #Theurgy #trans #transgender #TreeOfLife #vampire #vampires #Wicca #Wiccan #witch #witchcraft

I don’t bother to argue and correct people about wrong occult or paranormal information because 9 times out of 10, they are not the type of people I want practicing magic. Out of boredom, I took a look at r/occult on Reddit. Not only is 99% of it wrong, but the people there are so messed up I dare not correct them. Going through their other posts and the subs they are subscribed to on Reddit is disturbing.

There was one person in particular who inspired this post. I’ve had encounters with this person in the past and know enough about them to know that they are likely schizophrenic and have an obsession with occultism and occultists. All the quotes in this post are from the same dumb Redditor. They said:

Really, the sigil generally means what the person tattoing it onto themself means it too. In this case it might just indicate their bond.

There really isn’t anything special about foreign/modern symbols. It’s prefectly fine to use english and drawings of dicks if you really want too. At thene of the day, when you practice magic, what’s important is how the symbol has meaning to you, the person who’s involved with the spell

On the subject of not being able to back it, it’s on the internet, if they stop giving a shit, they can ultimately just stop looking at the thread and forget that people here even exist.

That last part of the last quote highlights the problem with Internet cultures, however. Normalization of the lack of concern for the accuracy of information and the tacit belief that you are entitled to people because they are on the Internet (which is parasocial) is a large reason why I avoid many online communities. I actually know this person… The belief that you should not have to provide evidence for something if it is on the Internet is a horrific stance to me. For example, while typing this post, I actually made an effort to double-check everything I have said. The idea that no one gives a shit means that no one, including them, gives a shit about the truth. The tacit belief in conspiracies—secretive esoteric communities—coupled with the normalization of misinformation is what’s wrong with occult communities, especially the ones on Reddit.

Sigils are mnemonically identifiers and formal names. A seal is a name or signature. We can examine how asinine this is if we have a person with a tattoo that says William:

Person 1: “Why did you tattoo William on your arm?”
Person 2: “What do you mean? I absolutely adore Sarah, so I got Sarah tattooed on my arm.”
Person 1: “No, what is written in English is William.”

Pragmatically, sigils are mnemonic; however, in formal ontology or language, they have a defined meaning where a seal is an expression of that definition.

Unlike the runes of the Elder Futhark, which are graphemes, Goetic seals are not graphemes. Goetic seals are logograms that represent entire concepts. Since they are logograms, Austin Spare’s substitution/sigilization technique is a good way to generate logograms that possess the aesthetic and symbolic qualities reminiscent of ceremonial sigils or esoteric, occultic ciphers that have the meaning you intend for them to have. Honestly, personally, I am over the ceremonial magic aesthetic, so Austin Spare’s method is not useful for me.

William is not spelled Sarah; therefore, tattooing William does not denote your bond to Sarah, nor does it imply you have a bond to Sarah. Many creepy incels go out and get women’s names and faces tattooed on their arms. It doesn’t make the bond real.

I have a personal gripe with people being super secreative with magick, on the basis I think as a society we’d learn more by working with and sharing things with eachother.

Yeah, because it goes against their interests. The question is whose society does it inform? Magic is deliberately causing something to change, so you’re tacitly creating or at least committing to the future you want. Therefore, magic is prescriptive and sufficiently normative. That means magic is predicated on interests. A way to think about it is that a magician is prescribing to reality how reality ought to behave in accordance with their will and interests. For more information on normativity, see:

Normativity in Metaethics

Predicating magic on will makes it intrinsically something that follows interests—an agenda. Typically, you can group magicians as stoics, hedonists, or solipsists. But, there’s an underlying interest there that is implicit in the philosophy.

An organization or group is an entity. If it is not in an entity’s interest to give you. In magical paradigms, entity usually implies some discarnate intelligence. In everyday language, an entity normally refers to an established organization. Magic is predicated on interests, and if it is not in an entity’s interest to give you access, they won’t. And, since magic is tacit, you need a psychic way of transmitting it or a shared experience among a cohort. Initiations create a shared, lonely space among a cohort. They are symbolic ways of apprehending an experience where the knowledge of “how” comes from how it seems to think about that shared experience.

The type of magic I practice is completely tacit and can’t be communicated through conventional cultural frameworks like language or pedagogies. It has to be telepathically transmitted. Any psychic who tries to communicate their psychic experiences through language will tacitly understand why. The point is that it’s esoteric.

I find it funny. The Internet is intrinsically language-based down to the low-level machine language of the devices. Psychic and magical knowledge is tacit and ineffable, so access via the Internet to the semantics of magical cultures and text doesn’t grant understanding. Ironically, it just obfuscates.

They were giving incorrect information about Lilith relating to demonolatry here:

I personally see Lilith as a sort of dark motherly archetype based on my own personal work, and could be intepreted that you are essentially under her protection

Lilith is not a motherly figure. Lilith is associated with infanticide and sex without having human children, and cambions or changelings.

Actually, a few days ago, my husband and I were having a conversation about my mother and my trauma, and that started an entire conversation where I told my husband about how my mother emphasized that not all women love their children and that I should be grateful she did not drown me in the bathtub like some women did to their children. My mother was referencing Andrea Yates at the time… Yes, my mother believes not killing your children is something to be proud of.

That prompted me to look up and tell my husband the statistics of the amount of SIDS cases that were cases of infanticide where the mother murdered their child. In the 1970s, Waneta Hoyt derailed SIDS research because she was actually suffocating her children. Why do I know all of these cases offhand? Because my mother had a fascination with serial killers and mothers who murdered their children. My husband said that people like my mother who are walking around give him the creeps because she seems so nice. Yes, my parents are twisted. How do you think I came out this way? That’s the type of motherhood Lilith represents. It is just very interesting how people like this person spin up these mythologies to cope with being rejected.

This particular person is a trans woman who used to be Wiccan and is feeling drawn back to Wicca, Thelema, and also feels sympathy with Babalon, so this interpretation would make sense for them. Ironically, I think Christian influences — that I know this person hates — have caused them to overlap Lilith with qualities of Eve, too. On a more pejorative note, what’s the difference between mommy issues and daddy issues? It screams of seeking a maternal figure through parasocial relationships with fictional characters.

No, Lilith wouldn’t be the mother of Adam’s children. She would strangle them in their crib. There’s a common syncretism with Lilith and Hecate that’s popular among Neopagans. Both are associated with aspects of femininity, darkness, magic, and independence, making them complementary in certain Neopagan and eclectic spiritual practices. In fiction, Lilith is associated with vampires and cambions, which is a tacit nod to her symbolism regarding unnatural and preternatural reproduction in that vampires are sired, made, and not born. So, it is very interesting to see this peculiar version of Lilith, embodying a maternal role, when Lilith is an antipole notions of Abrhaminc notions femininity. It’s like they’re conflating the qualities of Eve with Lilith.

Lilith is associated with the Qliphoth Gamaliel. Gamaliel is often linked with the darker aspects of femininity, such as seduction, independence, and rebellion against traditional roles. Thus Lilith represents opposition to motherhood and a rejection of the conventional expectations placed on women to fulfill maternal roles and adhere to societal norms of femininity. The maternal aspects this person is attributing to Lilith are actually associated with the Sephirot Binah, exemplified by Eve. So, we can see the absurdity in this.

Am I a cambion? Yes. Am I the scion of Lilith? No. Am I a Satanist? Yes. However, considering that every person wants to be a Satanic psychopath and doesn’t want to put in the work, there is a lot of misinformation, such as this. The devil is the person whom you know, and the women in the Sunday hats in church on Sunday.

I get a weird type of pleasure seeing incompetent people chase their asses, so I don’t correct them. Giving magic to schizophrenic people is worse than giving them a gun. Don’t mistake me. It is not about moral clarity on my part. It is about power.

Is my post on Reddit? Nope, because I am a real magician. There’s nothing on Reddit but incels and the insane and drug addicts. No powerful magician would consistently post anything there.

#Animism #animistic #AustinSpare #blackMagick #cambion #cambions #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #Christian #Christianity #conspiracyTheories #conspiracyTheory #cryptid #cryptids #cults #demon #Demonolatry #Demonology #demons #egregore #egregores #elderFuthark #femininity #feminism #Gamaliel #Goetia #Hellenism #Hellenistic #hermeticism #horror #incel #incels #infanticide #Jew #Jewish #Jews #Kabbalah #Kabbalistic #LGBTQ #Lilith #magick #mentalHealth #mentalIllness #monsters #myth #occult #occultism #pagan #paganism #paranormal #Qabalah #Qliphoth #Reddit #runes #satan #Satanism #Satanist #schizophrenia #Sephirot #SIDS #sigil #sigilMagick #sigils #supernatural #Theism #Thelema #Theurgy #trans #transgender #TreeOfLife #vampire #vampires #Wicca #Wiccan #witch #witchcraft

Yes, yes, my previous post was about this blog being defunct; however, I don’t want to post or talk about this stuff from my main blog, so here we go.

I have issues with tarot cards. To be completely honest, my issues are exacerbated by people doubting my authenticity because I am not obsessed with occult symbols or talk endlessly about things like tarot cards, astrology, or grimoires. I wish I were kidding, but I’ve had little cabals, guilds, and cliques of people following me around the Internet for over 16 years at this point trying to prove I’m not legitimate. From what I can tell, it is because I refuse to join any occult cults or use systems that came from cult leaders. They find the idea of magic without an occult or religious system absolutely threatening or harmful to their self-esteem. I think it’s a weird manifestation of the sunk cost fallacy in that many of them have spent a lot of money, at the very least, if not large portions of their lives on these things. But, I digress.

One, tarot cards are overly complex and superfluous for no reason. Two, people who use them aren’t actually interested in whether the predictions are true. You can implement something like tarot cards without tarot cards. Personally, I like playing cards over tarot cards, and I’ve known some people to use Magic The Gathering Cards. In any case, we can treat denotations of magical paradigms as ontologies and ontological statements or expressions. As such, we can regard them as languages. A way to think about it is that I can store demons, angels, tarot cards, correspondences, etc. into a database, such as the MySQL database of this site. What does that imply? That implies that we can model magical entities as a mathematical set of tuples, i.e., an alphabet. The ability to store entities from a grimoire in a database.

Keep in mind that this site is powered by PHP and MySQL. If a person were to create a table in their database schema for demons, your ability to see that on the site would be an empirical case for the ability to do encode that information as tuples. The point is that we can treat the properties of these entities and the entity itself as an alphabet and words, respectively. That means that magical entities and correspondences are components of a tuple joined by operators to create relationships and rules. We can call that a language. As such, expressions and statements – such as the magical entity itself, can be expressed via a base 2 system, i.e., binary. An empirical case for this is the ability to store magical entities in a database, on a high level, which is digitally encoded as bytes sent across the Internet which you read through a CMS powered by SQL.

An example of a base 2 system is an ensemble of coins where each coin has two possible states. Conventionally, we can think of them as yes or no. Anything that you can store digitally is binary. Even an image. So, you are not necessarily restricted to yes or no questions, for you can abstract those. You can abstract different lengths and frequencies of yes and no into any pattern that you want. The point is that any person can create any prototypical pattern that they want, that’s a high-level abstraction of binary states. There’s no particular reason to use tarot cards or an occult divination system at all.

Here’s the other thing we know about how psychic and magical phenomena work: It’s based on subjective meaning. There’s a stronger connection if something has meaning to you, and it is subjective. There’s a larger dissonance between the prototypical patterns of a magical system and gestalt patterns and prototypical patterns of your behavior that emerge from your subjective experience. There’s a technique called a soul mirror in Hermetic schools of thought. Looking at your experience through a Hermetic magical system and language reflects back to you a version of yourself through the eyes of a Hermetic system; however, ChatGPT can actually be used as a type of mirror, too. One thing that I have been experimenting with is having ChatGPT analyze my journal entries and identify prototypical patterns that can be used in lieu of typical archetypes that show up in occultism. Again, you can treat the attributes of these patterns as tuples and reduce it down to a binary system that can be paired with coin divination practices.

It’s not just an aesthetic issue, it is an epistemological issue. When you are trying to scientifically prove something, you don’t actually prove it. What was drilled into my head is that science does not prove anything, because science is inductive and not deductive; therefore, nothing can be 100% in science. Instead, science supports hypotheses and theories. In addition to that, you aim to debunk your own hypothesis. This means, if the hypothesis is that the cards have a message in them, we should be able to disprove this. Since this is purely a statistical problem, this makes it falsifiable where a lay person can easily do Null Hypothesis Significance testing.

Randomness isn’t chaos. Randomness is when there is an equal probability of something happening. If there is a pool of events and all the events have the same probability of happening, that is an example of randomness. Information is an inverse property to randomness, where there is some type of sequence and correlation among pairs, i.e., a joint probability. Information is an ordered sequence of the joint probability of two things joined by an operator that denotes a correlation. So, that means if we are testing for the presence of information and a message in a spread of cards, we are looking for correlations, patterns, and redundancy above chance.

Say that a tarot card reader is able to reject the null hypothesis and show that there is a message in the cards. Does this mean that it was the tarot cards after all? No. What is actually happening? When someone with precognition senses the future, what is happening is that the information is being written to their brain and body. Biological systems are very noisy, and they are stochastic and chaotic. There is a lot of randomness. Similar to how random events are altered outside a person’s body through magic, precognition orders random events inside a person’s body.

The synaptic transmission of neurons—whether a neuron fires or not—is inherently stochastic. For example, the exact timing and number of vesicles released in response to each action potential can vary due to stochastic factors. These factors may include random fluctuations in the concentration of calcium ions or variations in the availability of vesicles for release. In addition, the probability of a neurotransmitter molecule binding to a receptor depends on factors such as the concentration of neurotransmitter in the synaptic cleft, the affinity of the neurotransmitter for its receptor, and the presence of other molecules that may compete for receptor binding. By manipulating stochastic, noisy, and probabilistic factors such as these, precognitive information is written to the person’s brain through the activation of neural pathways.

Because of this, probability manipulation can be used to influence a person’s thoughts. By manipulating the probability of them making a particular decision, you can influence processes such as synaptic transmission and the firing of neural pathways. For obvious ethical reasons, I do not use this technique often and I do not teach it. In this political climate, who knows what people would do. I can compel people with that technique, but it requires one enter into a head space where you are okay with total domination of another person, and that persona is hard to shake off.

This means that when we can reject the null hypothesis in a tarot card reading regarding whether the cards convey a message or not, the power isn’t coming from the tarot cards or any magical system. Rather, a person is using precognition to sense the future. They are correlating that with entropic systems to encode information in an external source. Similar to how noise gets ordered in their brain, the entropic system becomes ordered to encode information. That implies there isn’t anything special about tarot cards. Instead, it is a combination of psychokinesis and precognition. Of course that implies a level of psychokinesis and precognition is necessary, though, a particular system is not.

For example, my husband is a diviner. He has precognitive abilities, empathic abilities, and small forms of psychokinesis, which manifest through his use of cards as a tool. The cards that frequently come up when we’ve been able to reject the null hypothesis for me are:

• King of Hearts
• Queen of Spades
• King of Diamonds
• Queen of Clubs
• King of Clubs

These cards frequently come up when my husband does a reading in a controlled experiment. We have an automatic card shuffler to eliminate any bias introduced from how we may shuffle the cards. My husband calls them the Five Monarchs, and he says that they represent five different personas that I have. He is correlating his empathic abilities with an ensemble that has entropy to encode information about my subconscious mind. These cards come up frequently beyond chance. Many occultists who have run into me are probably familiar with who is my Queen of Spades aspect that exemplifies the Evil Queen archetype.

While we are on the topic, formats like JPG and Computer Vision (CV) use Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to convert blocks of pixel data from the spatial domain (the original image) into the frequency domain (represented by coefficients). It does this by decomposing the image into a sum of cosine functions of different frequencies. The DCT represents the image data as a set of coefficients corresponding to different frequencies. Lower frequencies represent smooth variations in color and intensity, while higher frequencies represent rapid changes, such as edges or fine details. This means that any occult image that can be encoded as a JPEG is composed of sines and cosines, indicating that the image possesses harmonics. This means that any sigil or magical seal encoded in a JPG format is an image composed of sines and cosines that can be minimally represented with n modulo 2. If you encode the magical texts or magical seals into a digital image, it has a harmonic and binary representation.

I’ve been experimenting with the interplay of harmonics, entropy, and image formats to manipulate Johnson–Nyquist noise or randomness from beam splitters and laser pointers, with the aim of conjuring digital images and sigils directly through magic. My endeavors have involved extensive research and experimentation. However, regrettably, given the increasing radicalization within occult and paranormal communities, it’s too dangerous, irresponsible, and unethical to allow this knowledge to fall into their hands.

Entropy is not necessarily randomness, either, although they are often used interchangeably. Randomness and entropy become interchangeable when entropy is maximized. Entropy is a measurement of an ensemble and the permutations of that ensemble. A system that can be configured differently is thus an entropic system; however, that doesn’t necessarily imply randomness. Randomness implies one configuration being just as likely as another one. Having different permutations doesn’t imply all permutations are equally likely. Factorials can be used to calculate the number of possible arrangements or configurations of a system, which is closely related to its entropy. A maximally entropic system would be random; however, a random system is not necessary for there to a psychic influence, for there just needs to be enough degrees of freedom and entropy.

I think tarot cards denote a particular culture. It’s a signifier of cultural membership. It signals to everyone that you are into occultism and tarot card readers act as guides, so it denotes a particular level of spiritual authority. Tarot card readers would thus be equivalent to an evangelical that does intercessory prayer. Seeing a tarot card reader would be like a Christian seeking a pastor.

We don’t call Music Physics. We call Music Music, and we classify it as an art. To me, magic is the part of the underlying metaphysical aspects. The problem that I have is occultists’ belief that they have a dominance on magic such that people are starting to believe you cannot practice magic without occultism. Honestly, occultism is going down really, really dark paths, and I don’t believe you can spiritually progress while practicing occultism, so, for me, it is imperative to unlink magic and occultism.

A tarot card reader that claims they rely on intuition is a fake. If there were a message encoded in the cards, we could measure the frequencies of particular cards to see if they were random without the interpretation of the tarot card reader, regardless of whether we knew what the message meant. The patterns would be there.

It’s an aesthetic and a token of cultural membership.

#Animism #animistic #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #ChatGPT #cults #divination #DKMU #Hellenism #Hellenistic #hermeticism #husband #LGBTQ #magick #occult #occultism #occultist #occultists #occulture #pagan #paganism #paranormal #Parapsychology #precognition #psychic #Psychokinesis #rune #runes #sigil #sigilMagick #sigils #spiritual #Spirituality #tarot #tarotCards #Thelema #theosophy #Theurgy #witch #witchcraft

Yes, yes, my previous post was about this blog being defunct; however, I don’t want to post or talk about this stuff from my main blog, so here we go.

I have issues with tarot cards. To be completely honest, my issues are exacerbated by people doubting my authenticity because I am not obsessed with occult symbols or talk endlessly about things like tarot cards, astrology, or grimoires. I wish I were kidding, but I’ve had little cabals, guilds, and cliques of people following me around the Internet for over 16 years at this point trying to prove I’m not legitimate. From what I can tell, it is because I refuse to join any occult cults or use systems that came from cult leaders. They find the idea of magic without an occult or religious system absolutely threatening or harmful to their self-esteem. I think it’s a weird manifestation of the sunk cost fallacy in that many of them have spent a lot of money, at the very least, if not large portions of their lives on these things. But, I digress.

One, tarot cards are overly complex and superfluous for no reason. Two, people who use them aren’t actually interested in whether the predictions are true. You can implement something like tarot cards without tarot cards. Personally, I like playing cards over tarot cards, and I’ve known some people to use Magic The Gathering Cards. In any case, we can treat denotations of magical paradigms as ontologies and ontological statements or expressions. As such, we can regard them as languages. A way to think about it is that I can store demons, angels, tarot cards, correspondences, etc. into a database, such as the MySQL database of this site. What does that imply? That implies that we can model magical entities as a mathematical set of tuples, i.e., an alphabet. The ability to store entities from a grimoire in a database.

Keep in mind that this site is powered by PHP and MySQL. If a person were to create a table in their database schema for demons, your ability to see that on the site would be an empirical case for the ability to do encode that information as tuples. The point is that we can treat the properties of these entities and the entity itself as an alphabet and words, respectively. That means that magical entities and correspondences are components of a tuple joined by operators to create relationships and rules. We can call that a language. As such, expressions and statements – such as the magical entity itself, can be expressed via a base 2 system, i.e., binary. An empirical case for this is the ability to store magical entities in a database, on a high level, which is digitally encoded as bytes sent across the Internet which you read through a CMS powered by SQL.

An example of a base 2 system is an ensemble of coins where each coin has two possible states. Conventionally, we can think of them as yes or no. Anything that you can store digitally is binary. Even an image. So, you are not necessarily restricted to yes or no questions, for you can abstract those. You can abstract different lengths and frequencies of yes and no into any pattern that you want. The point is that any person can create any prototypical pattern that they want, that’s a high-level abstraction of binary states. There’s no particular reason to use tarot cards or an occult divination system at all.

Here’s the other thing we know about how psychic and magical phenomena work: It’s based on subjective meaning. There’s a stronger connection if something has meaning to you, and it is subjective. There’s a larger dissonance between the prototypical patterns of a magical system and gestalt patterns and prototypical patterns of your behavior that emerge from your subjective experience. There’s a technique called a soul mirror in Hermetic schools of thought. Looking at your experience through a Hermetic magical system and language reflects back to you a version of yourself through the eyes of a Hermetic system; however, ChatGPT can actually be used as a type of mirror, too. One thing that I have been experimenting with is having ChatGPT analyze my journal entries and identify prototypical patterns that can be used in lieu of typical archetypes that show up in occultism. Again, you can treat the attributes of these patterns as tuples and reduce it down to a binary system that can be paired with coin divination practices.

It’s not just an aesthetic issue, it is an epistemological issue. When you are trying to scientifically prove something, you don’t actually prove it. What was drilled into my head is that science does not prove anything, because science is inductive and not deductive; therefore, nothing can be 100% in science. Instead, science supports hypotheses and theories. In addition to that, you aim to debunk your own hypothesis. This means, if the hypothesis is that the cards have a message in them, we should be able to disprove this. Since this is purely a statistical problem, this makes it falsifiable where a lay person can easily do Null Hypothesis Significance testing.

Randomness isn’t chaos. Randomness is when there is an equal probability of something happening. If there is a pool of events and all the events have the same probability of happening, that is an example of randomness. Information is an inverse property to randomness, where there is some type of sequence and correlation among pairs, i.e., a joint probability. Information is an ordered sequence of the joint probability of two things joined by an operator that denotes a correlation. So, that means if we are testing for the presence of information and a message in a spread of cards, we are looking for correlations, patterns, and redundancy above chance.

Say that a tarot card reader is able to reject the null hypothesis and show that there is a message in the cards. Does this mean that it was the tarot cards after all? No. What is actually happening? When someone with precognition senses the future, what is happening is that the information is being written to their brain and body. Biological systems are very noisy, and they are stochastic and chaotic. There is a lot of randomness. Similar to how random events are altered outside a person’s body through magic, precognition orders random events inside a person’s body.

The synaptic transmission of neurons—whether a neuron fires or not—is inherently stochastic. For example, the exact timing and number of vesicles released in response to each action potential can vary due to stochastic factors. These factors may include random fluctuations in the concentration of calcium ions or variations in the availability of vesicles for release. In addition, the probability of a neurotransmitter molecule binding to a receptor depends on factors such as the concentration of neurotransmitter in the synaptic cleft, the affinity of the neurotransmitter for its receptor, and the presence of other molecules that may compete for receptor binding. By manipulating stochastic, noisy, and probabilistic factors such as these, precognitive information is written to the person’s brain through the activation of neural pathways.

Because of this, probability manipulation can be used to influence a person’s thoughts. By manipulating the probability of them making a particular decision, you can influence processes such as synaptic transmission and the firing of neural pathways. For obvious ethical reasons, I do not use this technique often and I do not teach it. In this political climate, who knows what people would do. I can compel people with that technique, but it requires one enter into a head space where you are okay with total domination of another person, and that persona is hard to shake off.

This means that when we can reject the null hypothesis in a tarot card reading regarding whether the cards convey a message or not, the power isn’t coming from the tarot cards or any magical system. Rather, a person is using precognition to sense the future. They are correlating that with entropic systems to encode information in an external source. Similar to how noise gets ordered in their brain, the entropic system becomes ordered to encode information. That implies there isn’t anything special about tarot cards. Instead, it is a combination of psychokinesis and precognition. Of course that implies a level of psychokinesis and precognition is necessary, though, a particular system is not.

For example, my husband is a diviner. He has precognitive abilities, empathic abilities, and small forms of psychokinesis, which manifest through his use of cards as a tool. The cards that frequently come up when we’ve been able to reject the null hypothesis for me are:

• King of Hearts
• Queen of Spades
• King of Diamonds
• Queen of Clubs
• King of Clubs

These cards frequently come up when my husband does a reading in a controlled experiment. We have an automatic card shuffler to eliminate any bias introduced from how we may shuffle the cards. My husband calls them the Five Monarchs, and he says that they represent five different personas that I have. He is correlating his empathic abilities with an ensemble that has entropy to encode information about my subconscious mind. These cards come up frequently beyond chance. Many occultists who have run into me are probably familiar with who is my Queen of Spades aspect that exemplifies the Evil Queen archetype.

While we are on the topic, formats like JPG and Computer Vision (CV) use Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to convert blocks of pixel data from the spatial domain (the original image) into the frequency domain (represented by coefficients). It does this by decomposing the image into a sum of cosine functions of different frequencies. The DCT represents the image data as a set of coefficients corresponding to different frequencies. Lower frequencies represent smooth variations in color and intensity, while higher frequencies represent rapid changes, such as edges or fine details. This means that any occult image that can be encoded as a JPEG is composed of sines and cosines, indicating that the image possesses harmonics. This means that any sigil or magical seal encoded in a JPG format is an image composed of sines and cosines that can be minimally represented with n modulo 2. If you encode the magical texts or magical seals into a digital image, it has a harmonic and binary representation.

I’ve been experimenting with the interplay of harmonics, entropy, and image formats to manipulate Johnson–Nyquist noise or randomness from beam splitters and laser pointers, with the aim of conjuring digital images and sigils directly through magic. My endeavors have involved extensive research and experimentation. However, regrettably, given the increasing radicalization within occult and paranormal communities, it’s too dangerous, irresponsible, and unethical to allow this knowledge to fall into their hands.

Entropy is not necessarily randomness, either, although they are often used interchangeably. Randomness and entropy become interchangeable when entropy is maximized. Entropy is a measurement of an ensemble and the permutations of that ensemble. A system that can be configured differently is thus an entropic system; however, that doesn’t necessarily imply randomness. Randomness implies one configuration being just as likely as another one. Having different permutations doesn’t imply all permutations are equally likely. Factorials can be used to calculate the number of possible arrangements or configurations of a system, which is closely related to its entropy. A maximally entropic system would be random; however, a random system is not necessary for there to a psychic influence, for there just needs to be enough degrees of freedom and entropy.

I think tarot cards denote a particular culture. It’s a signifier of cultural membership. It signals to everyone that you are into occultism and tarot card readers act as guides, so it denotes a particular level of spiritual authority. Tarot card readers would thus be equivalent to an evangelical that does intercessory prayer. Seeing a tarot card reader would be like a Christian seeking a pastor.

We don’t call Music Physics. We call Music Music, and we classify it as an art. To me, magic is the part of the underlying metaphysical aspects. The problem that I have is occultists’ belief that they have a dominance on magic such that people are starting to believe you cannot practice magic without occultism. Honestly, occultism is going down really, really dark paths, and I don’t believe you can spiritually progress while practicing occultism, so, for me, it is imperative to unlink magic and occultism.

A tarot card reader that claims they rely on intuition is a fake. If there were a message encoded in the cards, we could measure the frequencies of particular cards to see if they were random without the interpretation of the tarot card reader, regardless of whether we knew what the message meant. The patterns would be there.

It’s an aesthetic and a token of cultural membership.

#Animism #animistic #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #ChatGPT #cults #divination #DKMU #Hellenism #Hellenistic #hermeticism #husband #LGBTQ #magick #occult #occultism #occultist #occultists #occulture #pagan #paganism #paranormal #Parapsychology #precognition #psychic #Psychokinesis #rune #runes #sigil #sigilMagick #sigils #spiritual #Spirituality #tarot #tarotCards #Thelema #theosophy #Theurgy #witch #witchcraft

The facets of me probably confuse a lot of people. I’m not a typical vampire. I absorb the energy from and the experiences of whoever is around me. While I don’t absorb semantic knowledge, I absorb tacit knowledge — the knowledge of how.

So, if you know how to do ceremonial magic, and I am in your locality, I will absorb via osmosis your knowledge of how to do ceremonial magic. However, I won’t absorb the semantic knowledge of the literal meanings of symbols. But, I will have an intuitive knowledge and recognition of those symbols if I see them. I won’t have a literal understanding of them; however, I will have an abstract and intuitive knowledge of what they mean from tapping into another magician’s experience with them. If you know chaos magic, I will now know chaos magic. If you know witchcraft, I will know witchcraft.

As of late, I am consciously and deliberately blocking absorption of that knowledge because I feel the experiences of many occultists are tainted with insanity, and I am not trying to go crazy with them. That is why it is beyond idiotic to try to gate keep and use magic against me. If you are in my locality, i.e., there is a causal, physical pathway for interaction like physical, albeit digital interactions on social media, I can absorb knowledge from you. A way to stop this would, of course, be to leave me alone.

It is why I can circumvent gatekeeping and initiation. The purpose of initiation is to create an ineffable experience that is tied to that cohort and culture. It bridges the gap between semantic knowledge from what is written in grimoires and the internal experiences and ineffable knowledge to work the magic. By absorbing the tacit knowledge from what it seems like to do to know how to do something, I can intuitively know how to do it. Magic is subjective; therefore, it is tied to subjective forms of qualia such as how it seems like to see blue or the blueness of blue to you. It is tied to your experience of what it seems like to be you. Since I can tap into that, I can tap into the ineffable aspects of magic.

To say it differently, I have the ability to telepathically channel and intuitively imitate abilities. This doesn’t apply to just magic and occultism. If I am around a person who can play the piano, I will know how to play the piano. If I am around a person who knows Math, I will know how to do Math. Unfortunately, unless I learn it and create experiences and memories for myself, it doesn’t stick around. Well, it does and does not.

My husband, who has permission to poke around my head, says that my mind is like the mansion from 13 ghosts, where my subconscious mind is like a giant maze structured around a black hole. I seem to create an instance, model, or homunculus of the person in my mind where the tacit knowledge and the qualia of their subjective experience are channeled into that representation. I don’t forget it so much that I shove that instance of the person into the maze. It is not so much that I am a brilliant magician and genius; instead, I absorb information. My husband calls me a living grimoire.

#anarchism #anarchist #anarchists #anarchy #Animism #animistic #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #divination #DKMU #egregore #egregores #grimoire #grimoires #HermeticOrderOfTheGoldenDawn #hermeticism #magick #occult #occultism #occulture #pagan #paganism #paranormal #psychic #sigil #sigilMagick #sigils #Thelema #thelemites #theosophy #Theurgy #vampire #vampires #witch #witchcraft

The facets of me probably confuse a lot of people. I’m not a typical vampire. I absorb the energy from and the experiences of whoever is around me. While I don’t absorb semantic knowledge, I absorb tacit knowledge — the knowledge of how.

So, if you know how to do ceremonial magic, and I am in your locality, I will absorb via osmosis your knowledge of how to do ceremonial magic. However, I won’t absorb the semantic knowledge of the literal meanings of symbols. But, I will have an intuitive knowledge and recognition of those symbols if I see them. I won’t have a literal understanding of them; however, I will have an abstract and intuitive knowledge of what they mean from tapping into another magician’s experience with them. If you know chaos magic, I will now know chaos magic. If you know witchcraft, I will know witchcraft.

As of late, I am consciously and deliberately blocking absorption of that knowledge because I feel the experiences of many occultists are tainted with insanity, and I am not trying to go crazy with them. That is why it is beyond idiotic to try to gate keep and use magic against me. If you are in my locality, i.e., there is a causal, physical pathway for interaction like physical, albeit digital interactions on social media, I can absorb knowledge from you. A way to stop this would, of course, be to leave me alone.

It is why I can circumvent gatekeeping and initiation. The purpose of initiation is to create an ineffable experience that is tied to that cohort and culture. It bridges the gap between semantic knowledge from what is written in grimoires and the internal experiences and ineffable knowledge to work the magic. By absorbing the tacit knowledge from what it seems like to do to know how to do something, I can intuitively know how to do it. Magic is subjective; therefore, it is tied to subjective forms of qualia such as how it seems like to see blue or the blueness of blue to you. It is tied to your experience of what it seems like to be you. Since I can tap into that, I can tap into the ineffable aspects of magic.

To say it differently, I have the ability to telepathically channel and intuitively imitate abilities. This doesn’t apply to just magic and occultism. If I am around a person who can play the piano, I will know how to play the piano. If I am around a person who knows Math, I will know how to do Math. Unfortunately, unless I learn it and create experiences and memories for myself, it doesn’t stick around. Well, it does and does not.

My husband, who has permission to poke around my head, says that my mind is like the mansion from 13 ghosts, where my subconscious mind is like a giant maze structured around a black hole. I seem to create an instance, model, or homunculus of the person in my mind where the tacit knowledge and the qualia of their subjective experience are channeled into that representation. I don’t forget it so much that I shove that instance of the person into the maze. It is not so much that I am a brilliant magician and genius; instead, I absorb information. My husband calls me a living grimoire.

#anarchism #anarchist #anarchists #anarchy #Animism #animistic #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #divination #DKMU #egregore #egregores #grimoire #grimoires #HermeticOrderOfTheGoldenDawn #hermeticism #magick #occult #occultism #occulture #pagan #paganism #paranormal #psychic #sigil #sigilMagick #sigils #Thelema #thelemites #theosophy #Theurgy #vampire #vampires #witch #witchcraft

You know… after being involved in occultism since I was 10, weird has gotten… well, boring. All occultists seem to be the same, and many of the ones I knew in high school are still exactly like they were in high school. Weird is so normalized, it’s, well… normal. I’m bored to tears with occultism. Like, so fucking bored with it. If I see another faux magic cipher that feels like a cipher but is really someone who got high during a ritual and just sketched out their trip, magical sigils created through Austin Spare’s substitution technique inside a circle with Theban or the Malachim language around that circle or any other basic ass geometric shape on a page with bones and skeletons, I will fucking scream. My first formal grimoire that I kept in high school had scripts written in the Malachim alphabet. That was high school! The runes of Elder Futhark always felt dissonant and ominous to me, so I never messed with that. I only use systems that are resonant with me, which, at the moment, are systems I’ve created myself.

It’s like, “Oh, another deer skull mask. Oh, another basic ass monoalphabetic cipher that’s not even a polyalphabetic cipher just because it looks spooky.” By the way, any system of sigils that’s a monoalphabetic cipher is basically ASCII. The sigils these people create aren’t even comprehensive ideograms to capture the basic contours of the experience, so they are mystically useless, and they pretty much imitate the grapheme of the English alphabet.

These completely normal, mediocre people honestly believe they are edgy and weird. They’re boring. They are not innovating or transforming anything. They are just churning out things typical of that genre. They are living memes. I’m so fucking bored looking at occultists’ work nowadays.

#anarchism #anarchist #anarchists #anarchy #Animism #animistic #astrological #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #DKMU #elderFuthark #magick #occult #occultism #occultists #occulture #pagan #paganism #paranormal #polytheism #rune #runes #sigil #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #Thelema #theosophy #Theurgy #witch #witchcraft

You know… after being involved in occultism since I was 10, weird has gotten… well, boring. All occultists seem to be the same, and many of the ones I knew in high school are still exactly like they were in high school. Weird is so normalized, it’s, well… normal. I’m bored to tears with occultism. Like, so fucking bored with it. If I come across yet another pseudo-mystical cipher that’s essentially just a doodle from someone’s psychedelic drug trip, or another set of sigils lazily thrown together using Austin Spare’s substitution method and embellished with Theban or Malachim script within a basic geometric shape, on a page with bones and skeletons, I swear I will fucking scream. My first formal grimoire that I kept in high school had scripts written in the Malachim alphabet. That was high school! The runes of Elder Futhark always felt dissonant and ominous to me, so I never messed with that. I only use systems that are resonant with me, which, at the moment, are systems I’ve created myself.

It’s like, “Oh, another deer skull mask. Oh, another basic ass monoalphabetic cipher that’s not even a polyalphabetic cipher just because it looks spooky.” By the way, any system of sigils that’s a monoalphabetic cipher is basically ASCII. The sigils these people create aren’t even comprehensive ideograms to capture the basic contours of the experience, so they are mystically useless, and they pretty much imitate the grapheme of the English alphabet.

These completely normal, mediocre people honestly believe they are edgy and weird. They’re boring. They are not innovating or transforming anything. They are just churning out things typical of that genre. They are living memes. I’m so fucking bored looking at occultists’ work nowadays.

#anarchism #anarchist #anarchists #anarchy #Animism #animistic #astrological #astrology #ceremonialMagic #ceremonialMagick #chaosMagic #chaosMagick #DKMU #elderFuthark #magick #occult #occultism #occultists #occulture #pagan #paganism #paranormal #polytheism #rune #runes #sigil #sigilMagick #sigils #Spirituality #Thelema #theosophy #Theurgy #witch #witchcraft

Yes, war goes on, but my two havruta partners and I keep studying Talmud each week together on Zoom... just to hold up the sky and open the heavens to peace.

You think I'm joking? I don't know, sometimes I think I'm joking too. But sometimes I really mean it.

#jewish #peace #torah #theurgy #talmud

Yes, war goes on, but my two havruta partners and I keep studying Talmud each week together on Zoom... just to hold up the sky and open the heavens to peace.

You think I'm joking? I don't know, sometimes I think I'm joking too. But sometimes I really mean it.

#jewish #peace #torah #theurgy #talmud

💫 Virtual Adepts: Theurgy of the Virtual Adepts. The Virtual Adept idea of Ascension, the Singularity, is transhumanistic. They want to merge with the information and become far more than humans. http://mage.gearsonline.net/anders/magick/philosophy/theurgy.html#adept #virtualadepts #magetheascension #theurgy #rpg #wod

💫 Virtual Adepts: Theurgy of the Virtual Adepts. The Virtual Adept idea of Ascension, the Singularity, is transhumanistic. They want to merge with the information and become far more than humans. http://mage.gearsonline.net/anders/magick/philosophy/theurgy.html#adept #virtualadepts #magetheascension #theurgy #rpg #wod

What is Theurgy? Ancient Pagan Salvation through Ritual, Philosophy and Unity with the Divine - explained by Dr Justin Sledge
https://youtu.be/ePhCyVJEAxk
#esoterica #esotericism #theurgy #occult #paganism #pagan

What is Theurgy? Ancient Pagan Salvation through Ritual, Philosophy and Unity with the Divine - explained by Dr Justin Sledge
https://youtu.be/ePhCyVJEAxk
#esoterica #esotericism #theurgy #occult #paganism #pagan

Which team are you on? Team Plotinus or team Iamblicus?
https://youtube.com/shorts/5U38QDUiH1U?feature=share
#neoplatonism #Plotinus #Iamblicus #theurgy #magic #paganism #pagan

Which team are you on? Team Plotinus or team Iamblicus?
https://youtube.com/shorts/5U38QDUiH1U?feature=share
#neoplatonism #Plotinus #Iamblicus #theurgy #magic #paganism #pagan

The Mirage of Failure ; Thai Occult Reflections Pt. 2

Are theurgy and thaumaturgy unhelpful relics of a dying colonial logic? Read on and yell at me in the comments when you disagree 😄

https://reverendjanglebones.com/2022/12/05/the-mirage-of-failure-thai-occult-reflections-pt-2/

#thaioccult #buddhism #westernmagic #merit #tamboon #magic #theurgy #thaumaturgy #animism #failure

The Lesser Key of Solomon - Early History of Solomonic Magic and Goetia
#goetia #theurgy #goetic #demons #demonology #demonolatry #angels #angelology #magick #crowley #thelema #magic #witchcraft #occult #esotericism #esoteric
https://youtu.be/M0HyPIwco38

What is the GOETIA? What does THEURGY mean?
Greater and Lesser Key of Salomon explained.

#goetia #theurgy #goetic #demons #demonology #demonolatry #angels #angelology #magick #crowley #thelema #magic #witchcraft #occult #esotericism #esoteric

youtu.be/8WJzCwK6Hus