Magic, Music, Life

I am a twenty-three year old musician, writer and mage loving my life in New Orleans, LA. I'll be bringing you thoughts and philosophy, rants, music and literature.

[considerthesong]

So the Hebrew name of Eve is Chava (חוה) which shares a root with Chai (חי) which is life. For the hell of it, since someone was going over some weird gematria of the english name "Eve", I was looking to see what that would transliterate into, and I decided the most probable transliteration would be איב which checks out to 13, and also translates more or less to Hated, which probably explains a good deal about the English speaking world’s version of Christianity and its relation to the female.

[considerthesong]

[considerthesong]

It’s so cute to see all the little occulty fledglings getting into esoterica at like 13-14. Good luck kiddos, stick it out! It’s a hell of a journey, but we need you.

Does anyone else remember playing music in Windows Media Player and just sitting there and watching this for like two hours

[pickle-inspector]

Look at the names of these stupid things, guys.

[mafiamoll]

tag urself im dance of the freaky circles

[absurdist-void]

i’m green is not your enemy

[considerthesong]

<---- Event Horizon

[iwouldliketobutteryourmuffins]

this is the arrow of destiny. reblog this and see what comes up next. this person/saying/thing will have something to do with your future

[resonance-of-libra]

I literally reblog this every time. It’s my job as a diviner.

[tarotgram]

Lol yes, how can we not???

[considerthesong]

Gotta go for this

[considerthesong]

This song is so pretty...

[pagansuncensored-deactivated202]

Is there a community on Tumblr that worships pre-Islamic Arabic gods/goddesses?

[bodaciousbanshee-deactivated202]

@considerthesong worships the goddess Al-Uzza. 

[considerthesong]

<.< “Worships”

Look Banshee, you know I find that word misleading. It conjures images of servitude and prostration and shit. I know you didn’t mean it that way, but that’s how it comes across to some people. For anyone who thinks this is what my illustrious friend meant when she said that, lemme clear this up:

Al-Uzza is Strength. She’s strength in the same way that a single mother is strong. She’s strength in the same way a recovering addict is strong. She’s strength in the same way someone who’s depressed who gets out of bed each morning is strong. Do you really think she wants you to prostrate yourself before her? Nah. 

Al-Uzza is mom for me. I respect her, I admire her, and I listen to her. I call her often. I bring her up in conversation sometimes, but we chat. I like being around her. She’s a friend, and a companion. I feel like she likes me too. Sometimes I just sit in her presence, and admire what that feels like, like when I would hug my mom. It’s always a reciprocation though. She learns from me too, she hasn’t been around much for a while. There’s a lot in my head that is kinda weird for her, unfamiliar, difficult to get used to. Al-Uzza is a friend, a matron, a parent, sometimes she’s a goddamned disciplinarian. I’ll sing her praises in this way, like I’m doing right now. But fuck if I’m going to bow to her, she doesn’t want it in my experience, and if she did we might have a lot more problems. 

She wants me to be strong. She wants to see me doing better than I was yesterday. When I ask myself “What would Al-Uzza do” in response to that form of worship, I get a “no way in hell”.

Try bowing to Strength sometime, she’ll tell you to stand the fuck up. She might even sit on your back while you try. What she won’t do is let you keep bowing.

So yeah, I “Worship” Al-Uzza. Just don’t confuse yourself as to what that means

[considerthesong]

My apologies for the time between posts, I’ve been busy working on my class on Hermetic Kaballah (Which has been going splendidly if anyone was wondering!).

Recently I’ve been considering the lines between what we think we know and what we actually know, and the result has been a tad disappointing. 

Funny how when we look at the fundamental building blocks of our universe (especially when seen from a particular viewpoint, but I'm not familiar enough with wave functions to say anything on that side of things) we see many things which are intuitively and seemingly always true from our perspective being contradicted. We are composed of specific configurations of particles, best we can figure. It does make me wonder about various configurations and the possible differences in "Obvious and intuitive truths" they may present.

One overly-simplified way I tend to view things sometimes is that we are the result of a particular program. This universe is a single configuration in a vast (Possibly infinite) sea of possible arrangements of information (Symbol sets; particles). All which exists within this universe is an extension of that: information plugged into said configuration - random chance calculated using the filter of our particular line of code. Input: chaos; output: order.

I don't believe we can understand how this universe functions until we understand the language it's written in, or at least the program being utilized. We're seeing results. We don't see the input, and we don't see the equation.

All that said: what makes us think we *know* jack shit? Our best physical sciences are simply a variety of local observations of causal relationships extrapolated into predictions based on them. If I understand it well enough: Quantum nonlocality fucks that shit hard on a fundamental level. It works when we're dealing with output, but dies a horrible death when there's no program filtering it.

We know nothing of possibility. We know nothing of the workings of our universe on a fundamental level.

Related tale: A man decides to perform an experiment. He finds a frog and says "hop frog!" and the frog hops. The man writes in his journal: "Test frog hops when commanded" He removes a leg from the frog and says "Hop frog!" and the frog again hops. He writes "Frog follows command to hop with one leg removed" He removes the last leg and repeats "Hop frog!", and the frog, predictably, does not. Man records "When both legs are removed, frog becomes deaf."

[considerthesong]

The Hermit

We stare into the void.

Standing on the precipice,

One more step is madness.

Already we are gone though,

Away from this world

Into our own.

Consumed by Will,

Chasing dreams and truths

None but us can fathom.

Logic has failed us.

Separating opposites in battle,

Unable to acknowledge Paradox.

You live in a world of ABC’s

But we choose webs above lines,

Membranes over boxes.

We pulse, grow, adapt, evolve.

We have taken what we can of your world

What we found was a light that will guide us.

Armed with naught but the lantern of self,

We step into the void.

[considerthesong]

Classes on Hermetic Kaballah

So, I’ll be teaching a class starting soon. If you've ever been the least bit interested in Kaballah or Hermeticism, you should totally sign up. Distance is no issue, these classes will be online through New Orleans School for Esoteric Arts. We will be covering basic outline and structure fairly briefly, and then progressing on to how to actually use this powerful system which has been the backbone of the Western Magical Tradition for hundreds of years. It's a 6 week course, two hours a week for $145. If you have been affected by my work in a positive way, please share this if you'd like as well. <3 you guys. 

A bit of background: I grew up in Orthodox Judaism (Chabad) and have been studying both Hebrew and Hermeticism for the majority of my life. Early on I became interested in the Esoteric Arts, and my fervor has only grown over time. It has now been over a decade of intensive study, and I was asked to teach courses on what I had to offer by the head of this school. It’s a great honor and I’m extremely excited to be working with this fantastic group of educators.

The course itself will be a tad unconventional, as the Lightning Bolt will be covered relatively briefly. The vast majority of the class focuses on the Return Path to give the most practical approach possible and dive directly into the endless complexity and usefulness of Kaballistic study.

Follow this link to check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/events/493199170867562/

[considerthesong]

The Sun Beyond Reish

Do you know who you are? Where do you fit into this grand puzzle? Could you sum it up for me? Now, the next, and greater question is thus: Is this description made up of a series of roles you play? Mother, father, daughter, son? Gamer, musician, artist, programmer? These are perfectly good places to start, however who would you be were you no longer able to do those things, if your roles were taken from you? What is it which binds all these roles together? Why do you play those roles? Because you enjoy them? Why? Because they are your responsibility? Why is that important? Because you were born as such? Why do you hold it so closely then? Because you’re good at them? What made you decide to dedicate the time effort and energy to them. Why? Why? Why? Ask why until you can’t any longer. Until any explanation you could come to leads to something less inclusive than the answer before it. Dig into the you beneath the you which you have known. Rip yourself apart until you reach something which cannot be taken, only then can you build again. Tear away all the layers until there is nothing left but nakedness. It will be raw, you will not remember the last time you were without your coverings. The process will hurt, you’ve worn these things so long they have become stuck to what’s beneath, but they CAN be removed, and they must. This is what it is to seek Gold. Follow the chains which bind you to their source, only then can you break them. Destroy what you think you are, everything you consider you. Only then can you be sure of what cannot be taken. This is freedom, the only freedom worth anything.

[considerthesong]

Today I saw a post which whatever’s masquerading as the Golden Dawn nowadays posted, and right in the title is Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn®. I’m laughing so hard right now..

[bodaciousbanshee-deactivated202]

Wait, does that mean they are trademarked now?

[considerthesong]

Honestly not sure, but I guess the name is...

[considerthesong]

Today I saw a post which whatever’s masquerading as the Golden Dawn nowadays posted, and right in the title is Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn®. I’m laughing so hard right now..

[phobso]

Succubus for ‘’Demonslayer’’ comic , sketches) Love to draw demon-ladies) 

[considerthesong]

Why do these legit look like how I tend to see Al-Uzza and Al-Lat... Like... Wow, I love these.

[secretworkings]

Grimoires exist because of the desire to create a physical record of magical knowledge, reflecting concerns regarding the uncrontrollable and corruptible nature of the oral transmission of valuable secret or sacred information. This urge to provide a tangible magical archive dates right back to the ancient civilization of Babylonia in the second millennium BCE. But grimoires also exist because the very act of writing itself was imbued with occult of hidden power. ‘A book of magic is also a magical book,’ as one historian of the subject has observed.

– Grimoires by Owen Davies (via secretworkings)

[pagansuncensored-deactivated202]

you have to be jewish to be a kabbalist. (or however you choose to spell it). the only people who say otherwise who actually study kaballah are people trying to make a buck by selling goyim some charms or some shit.

[deactivated-blog]

By this logic, the argument could be made that one ought be Assyrian to truly study it. 

The problem, naturally, is that there is no “it” to study. Jewish Kabbalah (which I do not study, being that I am not Jewish) differs exponentially from Hermetic Kabbalah (which, as a Thelemite, I am knee-deep in), and no doubt from what we know of Assyrian Kabbalah. There is also Christian Kabbalah, though I know little about that, since I am not a Christian. Within Hermetic Kabbalah alone, there are a multitude of branches, as well, not all of which I’ve explored. I expect the other aforementioned traditions have a similar situation.

I am not backing down on this, folks. The Kabbalah is too central to my practice to be abandoned, particularly after three years at this point (though that’s really a drop in the bucket when you get down to it). You can’t ask folks to abandon the complex metaphysical machineries upon which the entire WMT is predicated based on your personal sentiments.  

And, as far as selling charms? I know the folks of whom you speak, and they’re fairly despicable, but I’ve never had any dealings with them, so it would be best just to warn others about them and move on. 

I chuckle a bit, because I myself do sell charms, but they’re informed by astrology and alchemy, and not Kabbalah. Though, of course, the two are related, I suppose, insofar as the entire WMT relates to Kabbalah.

[considerthesong]

Wait, are you joking?! THESE ARE IDEAS, a series of ideas which are to be utilized for personal growth, and the growth of the world. Let’s take “Kosher” Kaballah for a second.. This is commonly stated as the becoming of a true vessel to transport the “Light of God” into this world. Goyim can do this same as Jews can, and to say otherwise is RACIST and DESPICABLE.

Not to mention, this whole idea that ONLY JEWS CAN BECOME KABALLISTS comes from the idea that Kaballah is inherently Jewish, and therefore “Belongs” to Jews. First: we’re pretty sure that what we now know as Kaballah was a development over time by multiple cultures. I mean, Abraham was from Ur as far as we can tell, and it’s thought his father was a priest there. If you’re going off of Jewish lore, Sefer Yetzirah was written (or communicated, oral traditions and whatnot) by Abraham, son of said Urian Priest probably heavily influenced by such ideas.

The second point to be addressed in that is the ownership of ideas. THESE IDEAS ARE MEANT TO BE USED, meant to be utilized, meant to be learned and taught. Another piece of this idea is Kaballah as some secret. This era of secrecy, according to about the most stalwart orthodox Jews you’ll ever meet in the US (Chassidic judaism, which I grew up in), ended with the Baal Shem Tov. Kaballah is now to be taught to all, spread to all corners of the Earth, made to usher in the Era in which God lives openly in this world (WHICH WAS THE WHOLE POINT IN THE FIRST PLACE). This is all looking at it from a purely Jewish sense, and therefore, I’m going to go ahead and say your argument is invalid. Open up a little, loosen your rigid standards for “Can” and “Can’t”, “Should” and “Shouldn’t” when it comes to the quest for understanding. It’s all God, all of it. There is nothing wrong with a part of God searching out and finding a piece of God to understand its place as, and in, God. Would you say that the spiritual experiences of a Non-Jewish kaballist were invalid because of their status as non-jew? No, I don’t think you would. Whatever path influences those sorts of experiences is a good thing, for that individual, and the world. I don’t think we should be so quick to limit people, and place more boxes and redtape in the way of something which is already difficult to comprehend in the first place. The barrier for entry into “Mystic” is already high enough, can we lower the arbitrary bar a bit?

[deactivated-blog]

What's the difference between voodoo and magick?

Voodoo is generally considered to be a form of magick by most people (please correct me, followers, if I’m wrong!), but I cannot really speak to how it differs, even from my own practices, because I know little about it. I have a friend, who I don’t see often, though, and he studied with Michael Bertiaux, so if you message me off anon or outside of Tumblr, I can always ask him his thoughts on this matter and if it’s alright for me to share them, or perhaps even put you in touch with him. In the meantime, perhaps someone out there on Tumblr could answer this question for the dearie who asked it, and perhaps clear up any misinformation I might have? 

[considerthesong]

Admittedly, I’m not particularly well versed myself, but I DO live in New Orleans, and I interact with a fair amount of Voudou. Voudou unto itself is a Haitian religion, I want to say based off of some form of traditional African religion (Don’t quote me on that origin). It deals with the Lwa, who are intercessory spirits (Like angels). The magical side of things could be similar to pagan practitioners who petition their deities for effects. The roots and such, are forms of traditional folk magic, and while can be practiced by a Voudun practitioner, are not necessarily related to Voudou. May not have been terrifically helpful. Like I said, I don’t have too much information myself.