#james fitzsimmons

[joncronshawauthor]

The Ray Bradbury Challenge: Day 060

The Ray Bradbury Challenge: Day 060

Short story: Indian Rope Trick by James Fitzsimmons, listened to on the Cast of Wonders podcast, from August 2016. Recommended.

Poem: Do Not Go Gently Into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas, listened to on the Intro to Poetry podcast. Recommended.

Essay: The Aberfan Distaster, listened to on the BBC’s Witness podcast, from October 2016. Highly Recommended.

What is the Ray Bradbury Challenge?

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[sabatowka]

KRZYWY NIE ZNACZY GORSZY

KRZYWY NIE ZNACZY GORSZY

Nagłe trzaśnięcie drzwiami oznaczało, że do domu wróciła Zuzia. Siła trzaśnięcia wskazywała, że nie była zadowolona. Tato policzył w myślach do pięćdziesięciu, po czym udał się do pokoju córki. „Dorastanie wśród rówieśniczek bywa bolesną lekcją” – pomyślał, a później z niewinną minką zapytał córki:

– Czyżbyś dostała kosza od jakiegoś szkolnego super przystojniaka?

– Nie! – warknęło spod koca.

– A…

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[horsesintimidateme]

There was a spread on the jockey James Fitzsimmons in The Morning Telegraph.

[setemheb]

Overcoming Apep I

In Egyptian Mythology, one of the key roles of Set is in his defense of the Bark of Re against Apep. Apep reflects a kind of destructive force of disorder that grew in the primordial potential of Nun and attempted to consume Nun only to spit it back out before the creation of the cosmos. Likely inspired by the African python with jaws large enough to consume humans, and the nile crocodile, Apep became a figure of fear and avoidance. In addition as “he who was spit out” it is likely that Apep was associated with the originally nourishing, but potentially deadly placenta in and after childbirth which could constrict and kill the infant. 

In the myth of the Bark of Re, Apep distracts the neteru until their composure collapses into despondency and inaction. He does this on many fronts, from small efforts to steal their attention to larger efforts of tormenting them with their regrets or “broken kaw.” It is only Set who can maintain his composure in this crisis and disorder. With his particular clear sightedness he can overcome distraction and strike back against Apep with the birthing knife hafted to a spear. He kills Apep eliminating its powers of regret and distraction setting the bark of Re upon its course towards dawn. Setians are both challenged by and potentially strengthened through confrontation with distraction on a regular basis. The Gift of Set emerged within our particular primate lineage, transcending but including the limitations which this lineage brought with it. We are subject to what the Buddhist tradition calles “The Monkey Mind” which easily distracts due to its unsettled, restless, capricious qualities. What the Gift of Set allows is the capacity to overcome these inner distractions and to create situations that insulate against outer distractions. It does thris through its single greatest power, the ability to mindfully focus our attention on a single topic or action over a duration of time. Apep Within The Apep Within feed upon a lack of concentration and awareness. It works by breaking your concentration and internal composure. Like the metaphoric butterfly of Chaos Theory it begins with small things that eventually find other small things until massive storms of inattention ensue. As with theNeteru this Inner Apep feeds upon regret and past actions, adding a disproportional emotional response to current events or memories. Apep Without The Apep Without acts through unplanned interruption of your concentration. In our present conditions the most common of these seemingly small distractions arise from other people, emails, instant messages, text messages, and phone calls during periods when we are attempting to utilize our concentration.Indeed as our technological culture as grown and developed an entire class of distraction media has arisen aimed at breaking our concentration and pulling us towards a disoriented condition which Douglas Rushkoff terms “Present Shock” which is a state designed to be more susceptible to the methods being used in our present “attention economy.” Our top priority as Setians must be the elimination of distraction, interruption and friction in the concentration of our attention upon the tasks necessary for the fulfillment of our Desires. In doing this we act in the manner which Set acts, and we utilize the single greatest power embedded within his Gift. Unlike the various traditions of the past the Setian is not encouraged to remove themselves from the World in order to fulfill their Work. Instead we use its challenges to strengthen our abilities in all areas. The first step towards fighting Apep’s influence is to eliminate your distractions. For fixed periods of your day turn off your email alerts, sign out of messagining programs, and turn off your phone. This will likely cause something termed disconnection anxiety at first, but stick with it and you will learn that the world does not end when it cannot gain access to you at every moment. To the extent that you can schedule periods when you will be available to others via these distraction media, setting a fixed time for their use and interaction. Avoid multitasking. While many people harbor the belief that they are quite capable of doing multiple things at once, nearly every study of cognitive capacity while attempting to multitask has shown significant impairment of intelligence and output in these conditions. There will certainly be times when you will need to multitask, and it is to your advantage to schedule these periods for yourself rather than letting them bleed throughout your day. We have different conversations going on all the time, with other Setians and with Non-Setians. These happen one on one either face to face or via phone/Skype, through Instant Messaging, text messages and emails. Let our minds do not treat the different time scales of these media as being different instead it tends to treat them as happening all at once, and demanding immediate reply. In particular the un-time bound media like email or forums have a strong tendency to cause people to respond often before they have really thought about their response, or to become impatient if they do not get replies within the period immediately after their writing. Restoring the un-time bound qualities of these media will allow you to both better reflect on your ideas, and will free you from the compulsion to interact immediately despite there being no real demand to do so. One of the best tools you can use to train your skills at effective concentration is to learn to work in focused time blocks through your day. For an uninteruptable period you find one single thing that needs to be done and you do it. This not only gets you closer towards your Visions but also trains your ability to conentrate during future efforts. For physical tasks it can lead to the kind of state referred to as being “in the zone” where individual awareness becomes unfocused the the task simply arises as a result of your seemingly effortless actions. For mental tasks you may find yourself entering into the sense of personal fulfillment and cognitive awareness that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about as being a state of “Flow.” The more we can enter into these states the more aware of your highest possibilities we become, the more value we can create, and the more we can return to the world so our power might grow. At first you may find that you are setting aside focused time for unconnected tasks. As your ability to focus grows you should work to create focused blocks of uninterrupted time to work on your biggest opportunities. The combination of focus, effortless action, and flow can create a situation where the very act of doing what you need to do can be a source of indulgence. Rather than being obsessed by regret or fixation you find yourself with a mission that you are committed to for the sale of your own fulfillment. Like Set in his conflict with Apep you need clear focus. Your efforts should not be spread all over but directed like a laser-beam in a specific direction. Interruptions, clutter, friction, negativity, and open loops to incomplete actions and unfinished business rob us of this ability to have clean focus. They need to be addressed and eliminated on a regular basis. Bring completion to the areas of your life that are incomplete. Commit to fewer things and focus more fully upon what is truly of interest. Finish that unfinished business so that it can no longer rob you of energy in the present. If you do not know where to start, simply ask yourself “What would it take for me to have clear focus?” and simply write down the first five things that come to mind. In order to have clear focus you will need to develop skills at making clean cuts in your attention. When you cut from doing something, you must become completely disconnected from it. Stop one thing to start another. Do not allow these tasks to bleed into each other even if one is not yet completed. Being in between and “kinda” doing many things at once, but not doing anything at all is the stalking grounds of the Apep Within. This skill can be trained both in your active life and through your Work in Greater Black Magic, where clean cuts in activities and skills at letting things go are critical to success. By the way, if you are working on a project on your computer, opening up a different program or using it to chat with someone is not a clean cut. Get up, walk away, and do something unrelated for ten minutes before returning to your computer whether for the same project or for a new one. Change channels in what you are doing. Every day focus some of your efforts on the three primary areas of your life, the physical, the emotional, and the mental. You will find that each of these areas can have effects upon the others. For example swapping to a physical task after a period of intense mental activity can have a strong capacity for emotional renewal. Your best way to insulate against Apep comes through committed activities or daily rituals. We think we are conscious agents at all times, but as Gurdjieff has made us aware, we are creatures of habit with the illusion of control. Instead of avoiding patterned activities we are served by using those moments of awareness we have to direct our will towards creating habits, or rituals, in line with our Visions. Change of one’s routine, or lifestyle, is the most stressful thing that a human being can face, so do not look to make too many changes all at once. Focus upon creating one ritual for yourself over a 30 day period and only once it is in place should you try to add an additional ritual. The reason for suggesting 30 days as the period for creating an integrating a ritual relies upon a realization of the effects of “Habit Gravity” by Eben Pagan. Like items being launched into space, the majority of your effort will be lost early on simply to try and read escape velocity from the gravity of your past habits. For the first ten days or so you will find yourself actively resistant to your efforts. If you continue to push through you will find that for the next ten days you are simply resistant to the new rituals. Then in the last ten days you will find that you acclimate to the new ritual and have an increasingly hard time figuring out why you weren’t doing this thing previously. The challenge is maintaining through will against this habit gravity until you can get to the point where your new habit takes on an inertia of its own. Be fair to yourself in your struggle, but remain firm in your resolve. As implies already you have only a limited reserve of Willpower that you can expend at any given time. By using it to focus upon making ritual based changes in your behavior and activities, you can create new conditions that will make the fulfillment of your Visions inevitable as the result of what you are doing. If you spent a year building ten rituals for yourself that focus your attention, maximize your efforts, and create conditions congruent with your Visions how would the quality of your life and Work be different?

[setemheb]

Theoria: The Essentials of the Semiotic Theory of Magic

Acts of Magic, of whatever kind, are acts of Communication. I addressed this briefly in a private series titled the "Lesser Black Magic Primer" as follows:

A Basic Model of Communication

      One of the most useful models of communication was proposed in 1954 by Charles Osgood and Wilbur Schramm.

Communication takes place between Interpreters, with a cyclical exchange. In a single act of communication one of the Interpreters acts as the Encoder. This individual takes some Message and puts it through a code of some sort. The most common in interpersonal communication is through language. The encoded message is then transmitted in some fashion to the other Interpreter who acts as the Decoder. As long as they know the code the Encoder used they can decode it and receive the message intended. Once a cycle like this is complete, it repeats in the other direction, creating a circular feedback system.

You might notice a place where problems can arise. What happens in the Encoding Interpreter used a code which the Decoder does not know? In that situation the Message will not be received at all. what happens if the Decoder only understands part of the code being used? They will delete and distort content from the Message that was encoded, and will likely generalize from what they do understand or have experienced in the past. This model of communication will be the basic model I will be using throughout the discussion to follow. I will add to it from other Communications Studies resources, but the Osgood-Schramm Model will be the basic I will return to again and again.

Communication Studies is a rather complex field with a curious history, drawing from psychology, philosophy and other intellectual disciplines. It is outside the scope of this series to go into full details, but I encourage you to do your own independent research in this area.

From this model we see that the act of encoding is a central aspect of communication. Indeed, the creation of acts of magic comes from clearly identifying desires, seeing how to define them as intents, and then encoding this intent in a fashion that is resonant with your self of magic. For those fluent in a specific tradition or neo-tradition of magic this process of encoding will often fit within the semiotic structure of that tradition. For the purposes of this series however I am going to assume that you are not already fluent in any given tradition/neo-tradition and thus will need to come to your own means of encoding desires. It is for this reason that I draw from Liber MMM the practice of Sigil Magic.

In terms of existing texts on sigil magic, Frater U.D.'s Practical Sigil Magic is the best primary text with Jan Fries' Visual Magick being a worthwhile secondary text to challenge aspects of Frater U.D.'s thinking and to expand the potential media for practice.

All sigil magic follows a relatively simple formula. Identify a desire and turn it into a declarative statement of intent. These are best formed as positive statements. there is a strong benefit to forming these statements in a manner which J. L Austin termed a "performance utterance" in his seminal How to Do Things With Words. Once the statement has been formed, it is then put through a process of encoding. These encodings can be via nearly any media, however the two most common are visual and auditory, with kinesthetic or gestural methods being less commonly discussed in the literature on sigil magic.

Once the sigil is formed, it is then enchanted through an act of magic. A period of preparation takes place, a time for the act is determined, compression takes place, a frame rite is performed and in this magical space the sigil is charged in some manner appropriate to its communication. Once this is complete the frame ritual is used to close and the intent is let go of by the magician to work.

Much as been made in the literature of sigil magic regarding the importance of forgetting the intent of the sigil. This isn't nearly as necessary as has been suggested. What is important is not to be obsessive about the intent and continually calling it to mind. Much like a farmer you need to trust that once you have planted a well tended and selected seed that it will do the work of germinating on its own, provided they give it the proper soil.

This covers the first direction of communication, at least in terms of the encoder and the sending of the message, but what are we communicating with? As discussed previously, there are tow potential targets for our message: the Inner Ring of Perception to engage in Metamorphosis and the Outer Ring of the Objective to engage in Sorcery.

Ipsissimus Flowers provides a description of acts of magic drawn from the anthropologist Jan van Baal in his dissertation Runes and Magic.

Magic is seen by van Baal as a two sentence affair. The first is the Magician communicating their encoded desire to the other reality (Inner or Outer). The second is the response from that reality through phenomenon providing the result of the original communication.

Ipsissimus Flowers provides an interesting typology for acts of magic that are worth considering when identifying your desires. These categories are:

a) protection from destruction, forces, beings, etc. 

b) restoration of disturbed natural order, health, etc. 

c) preservation of natural order, health, etc. 

d) attraction of desired forces, beings, persons — invocations, evocations, love-magic, etc. 

e) destruction of intrusive forces, beings, persons — curses, etc. 

f) transformation of forced, beings, persons — initiation, shape-shifting, etc. 

g) perception of hidden reality — divination

It is important to note that these need not be isolated or exclusive categories. A blending of them is common, such as attracting people capable of preserving a given project, or looking to create the potential for transformation via the destruction of hindrances. Interestingly different traditions and styles of magic place emphasis upon some of these more than others. Ipsissimus Flowers notes that much of the surviving examples of runic magic deal with protection, restoration and preservation. The magic of Anton LaVey in contrast deals almost exclusively with attraction, destruction, and restoration. You will likely find in practice that you rely more heavily upon some of these categories than others. this will provide you with both a sense of your strengths and those areas where you are weakest.

[setemheb]

Techne: Focusing and Energizing the Self-Complex

from the MMM Study Group Mindfulness Series

The basic structure for Works of Magic, whether Self-Change oriented (Metamorphosis) or about changing circumstances in the world (Sorcery) has a simple arc to it, that can be elaborated as necessary by you the practioner.

The structure runs:

Develop a specific Intent 

Focus and Energize the Self-Complex 

Open via a frame rite 

Perform the act of magic itself. 

Close the ritual via frame rite.

-----

During the same period when I experience my strong need to re-evaluate the Eternal Word I developed a sense of the human Self-Complex influenced by a study of Chemistry, the works of Alain Badiou, and an anthropological study of trauma, social currency and identity.

The human personality, and self-identity, are the result of a "lowest energy state" formation. In order to make sense of experience, and restore itself to an equilibrium, the self-complex will be organized in a fashion like molecules. In high energy states of chemical bonds will break and new ones will form in order to return to a lower energy state. This is how molecules are formed form atoms or other molecules. In the same fashion when the self-complex is put under sufficient stress (eustress or distress) it has a higher energy state and needs some means of releasing that energy and forming lower energy state formations. Once these formations are made they tend to be highly durable unless new stress is introduced to change the self-complex' energy states.

The portion of the basic structure of Workings given previously, the period of "Focus and Energize the Self-Complex" is an attempt to consciously change the energy state of the self-complex to make it more malleable and capable of making changes, internally or externally.

Roger Whitaker, H.S., discussed this period of Working in his Technician's Guide to the Left Hand Path as "compression":

The Element of Compression

After making the ritual declaration (a minimum of six times, and in various vocal and written forms), and after making appropriate preparation regarding the level of knowledge necessary for the function of the rite, and then in preparing the physical environment of the ceremony, we are ready to perform the ritual itself. Once the participants have gathered, there must begin a period of compression prior to the actual working of the rite itself. There are two levels of compression, the first is the casual level. This begins when the participants first start to gather, they are still dressed in street clothes, but the first contact with other participants is beginning, and everyone knows that they will soon be engaged in a serious event. It is at this point that the psychological aspect begins as each individual tunes into the reality of the work ahead within the ritual chamber. This casual level of compression sets the tone and timbre for further movement towards the act of the rite itself. I would suggest that participants gather two hours before the actual start of the ritual. This allows plenty of time to get acclimated to the other participants involved in the rite so they can socialize and get comfortable with each other. The final step of this process is to get dressed for the Working, this then sets the tone for the second level of ritual compression. The second level of compression should occur in a room separate from where the first level of general socializing had begun. Participants should gather in this area as soon as they have finished dressing for the ritual. This level of compression is vital to the efficacy of the ritual itself for it is here that the declaration is discussed for the last time, and it is here that all participants begin to focus and contemplate upon the purpose beforehand. Ambient relaxing music should be played, and sound generators with wind, or ocean noise should be used. Lighting should be low - not dark, meditation techniques, deep breathing, stretching exercises all play a part in this level of compression. 

Properly understood, compression is a compaction of all the preparatory gestures relative to the rite, and is a gentle sliding of everyday awareness and distraction into a psychological state of physical relaxation and mental intensification that focuses itself upon the declaration of the rite. Compression, as it indicates, means to solidify the energies of activity relative to the Working into a cohesiveness with the other participants of the ritual. This compression ensures that a further density of energy is accumulated, and then directed towards the transformative goal of the rite itself. Once the participants have dressed for the ritual and are gathered together once again, a signal is given, the room unsealed, and the participants enter the sealed microproxemic environment of the ritual chamber itself.  

Another way to look at this period s as a means of clarifying and orienting the self-complex. The natural tools of perception are relaxed and allowed to take their proper role and the primary non-natural aspects of the mind are focused and allowed a crisper level of focus so that the Divine Pattern can emerge or come into resonance with the Self-complex.

The particulars of how this is done for you will become highly personal in time, however there are some fundamental aspects work learning and training to eventually allow for your style to develop. These fundamentals are the fundamentals of Peter J. Carroll’s Liber MMM, which itself derives in part from Aleister Crowley’s Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae. These fundamentals are an ability at Stillness, Conscious Breathing, and Concentration. These are not the only aspects of awareness worth developing as skills, however the narrow, internal orientation of awareness is highly portable, low pressure, and for most the easiest to develop first.

Specific techniques are easier to teach face-to-face than via a written medium. While stillness is worth pursuing, it need not be a primary focus. Relaxation of tension and basic physical mobility are of greater value than being able to sit without any discernible movement. While there are many ways to train this, the Intuflow system is a good place to start if this is new territory for you. Despite the programs of Carroll or Crowley, most people find it easier to learn breathing methods previous to mastering stillness. This presentation is a good introduction to a number of breathing methods for controlling and directing stress. In terms of concentration, you gain it not by having perfectly fixed attention at all time, but from learning how to capture your loss of concentration and returning it to your exercise.

[setemheb]

The Ba and Greater Black Magic

Extracted from the MMM Study Group Mindfulness Series

Up until now we have been working with methods which could easily be shared with non-Initiates in order to help them better use their minds in order to create beneficial changes in their experiences. For the next few sessions we will be focusing upon methods which work best for Initiates. In order to understand why this is we need to take a few moments to consider what we mean by the term "Initiate."

The Online Etymology dictionary provides the following background for the word "initiate."

initiate (n.) "one who has been initiated," 1811, from past participle adjective initiate (c.1600); see initiate (v.). initiate (v.) c.1600, "introduce to some practice or system," also "begin, set going," from Latin initiatus, past participle of initiare "to begin, originate," from initium "beginning" (see initial). In some senses a back-formation from initiation. Related: Initiated; initiates; initiating; initiator.

These are not terribly helpful, for what system do we mean when we speak of an Initate from the perspective of being a Setian?

In "Black Magic" Dr. Aquino defines the notion of Initiate in the Setian sense as:

“Initiation” is the term used to describe the experience of an affiliate of the Temple of Set. Since the term is very easily misunderstood and misused, its usage within and by the Temple deserves careful explanation. In its traditional sense, initiation is induction into the membership of a secret society, hence being entitled to successively more exclusive secrets as the level of initiation rises. There is usually a good deal of occult hot air mixed in with this, in that the candidate is exhorted concerning the excellence he has had to display to be worthy of the honor, the sublime dignity of the initiation itself, and the fearful consequences should he betray its secrets. Many initiatory societies are little more than financial rackets, while others are more or less sincere in what they are trying to do. Most esoteric knowledge imparted under the guise of initiation is not particularly practical. Rather it is vague, theatrical, mystical, and inconclusive: obscurum per obscurius(“explaining the obscure by means of the more obscure”). The new “initiate” is left with a pleasing feeling of hightened importance, yet is somehow unable to explain why. Authentic initiation is not simply the acquisition of specific knowledge or skills; it involves a certain approach to the challenges of existence in general. An initiate, like a cat, must learn to land on his feet in any situation in which he may find himself. He does this by the acquired and applied technique of “stepping back to view the situation from outside himself”. He assigns relative importance to it, estimates his options as an actor within it, and activates the most appropriate such option. He may make mistakes due to lack of information, but he rarely errs on the basis of what he does know. His developing sense of intuition, moreover, will warn him whenever a situation is not whatever it immediately seems to be. He can then avoid premature conclusions and impulsive actions. The Temple of Set conceives the process of initiation as a Socratic refutation of confused, imprecise, and unsubstantiated information and thinking. It is the imparting of truth as much as we know it to be, but even more importantly it is the imparting of the ability to pursue truth and to recognize it when it is found.

This begins us on our trail towards understanding, but what other outlines of what it means to be an Initiate do we have?

In the April 1988 Scroll of Set article “On Black Magic and Reverse Entropy” Dr. Aquino added to our understanding of what it means to be an Initiate thusly:

…the uninitiated cling to a mind/body identification of consciousness out of feat that there is “nothing else to cling to”, much as a novice swimmer grasps a life-preserver rather than trust himself to this strange new medium. Initiation must precede the exercise of the ba; otherwise there is a great danger in experiments with consciousness. … Activation of the ka is a conscious act of Black Magic, not a non-conscious act of White Magic. But the key to the ka - the initiation of the ba - must first be accomplished. Thereafter one does not try to fall asleep, or take drugs, or enter an isolation tank, or otherwise dull or anesthetize the OU body in order to experience an “altered state of consciousness”. One not only does it while fully conscious, but indeed in a state of intensely concentrated and self- aware consciousness.

So what is the Ba of which Dr. Aquino is speaking? in his most recent update to “Black Magic” he writes: 5. Ba The core-soul. This is each sentient being’s sense of self-awareness, of unique and absolute distinction from everything else (both other sentient beings and the entire natural universe). Thus it is the manifestation, or Gift, of Set, the neter of non-nature, in each so-conscious entity. The Initiate is challenged to find, in the words of Dr. Raghavan Iyer , "... not the shadowy self or false egoity which merely reacts to external stimuli. Rather there is that Eye of Wisdom in every person which in deep sleep is fully awake and which has a translucent awareness of self-consciousness as pure, primordial light." The anamnesis or “remembered knowledge” experienced by the slave boy in Plato’s Meno is perhaps more accurately described as the physical-process, stimulus/response brain reaching in to the ba for bits of its immortal, eternal wisdom. But this is akin to reaching for a coal in a hot fire. It is stressful to do, and the result can be held only for a fleeting moment without further stress. The superficial/physical “self”, which through material “hits” continuously reassures itself that it is the only self, is shaken by exposure to its falseness, its nothingness. It backs away from such “close encounters”, dismisses them as “illusions”, “fantasy”, “imagination”, etc., and hastens to rebuild its fortress of material-sensation “walls”. The ba becomes stronger through increased self-exploration and -realization: the initiatory process of Xeper. Unlike natural initiation, which draws the individual into alignment, harmony, and ultimately conscious absorption into and indistinction from one or more of the natural neteru, Xeper of the ba does not dissolve the self into Set, but attains a cohesive essence of its own. Absent Setian orientation and initiation, a ba simply continues as one’s sense of identity, thus the “essential self” around which all of the other souls coalesce and recognize themselves. Within noninitiates this results in the ba being sensed as a dreamy, meditative “state of being” which, if indulged in with persistence and intensity, leads to its overwhelming the other souls, hence “nirvana” and similar states of ba-ecstasy.

[setemheb]

A musical interpretation of the Word of Set by the Black Muse Element of the Temple of Set. I am the one doing the Invocation of Set.