Reply By: EmperorofIceCreamPosted: Monday, October 09, 2006To: XytheYou have email from me waiting at the gmail address you gave.

Got it. Thank you.

This is true for you, as a Christian (I presume) or at least one sympathetic to the Christion theology. I was a Christian. I am not a Christian now. And in my not being a Christian I have repudiated the Christ I foolishly worshipped. Jesus the Christ is not God, nor the Word of God. Jesus the Christ is a God-form, created by the conviction of his believers and the persistence of that conviction over two thousand years. So far from Jesus the Christ being the instrument (the Word spoken by God through which the universe was created), it is in fact Man that served as the instrument through which God permitted the creation of Jesus the Christ.

Yes, any such beliefs are necessarily subjective. As I’ve said before, some people beliefs and views are more aligned with ‘What is so’ than others, and discernment must ultimately come from our own wisdom and inner-guidance. I am personally convinced that the Christian depiction of Christ, generally speaking, is significant and true,

Jesus taught no esoteric truth

Even though Jesus taught basic spiritual principles to the masses, he also taught esoteric truths, which would have gone over the heads of the masses - just as it goes the heads of many people today. One example that comes to mind now is when Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God. The masses asked, “Where is the Kingdom? I can’t see it anywhere?”. Jesus replied, "The Kingdom of God does not come visibly. No one will say 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!'; because the Kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17.21

LITTLE WHIP

The oral teachings you speak of make up the Talmud. It occupies some 63 volumes and was codified in writing in 500a.d.
Talmudism was the religion of the Pharisees. Babylonian Talmudism, Medieval Talmudism, Modern Rabbinism, Judaism, is all the same religion.
I know what you think of me (a fool) and this could be the ramblings of a severely biased individual.............But, the nice thing about what I say here is that you do not need take my word for it.
For I happened to find a two volume book titled "The Pharisees", written by Louis Finkelstein -( look him up in your Jewish Encyclopedia) - the book was published in 1947. In this book, the author states that the religion of the Pharisees has come down through the ages to what is now called Judiaism, unaltered. When a Rabbi reads his prayer book, he is reading words from before the pre-macabbean scholars. In Christ's time, He confronted the Pharisees, told them what He thought of their traditions, that they had usurped the seat of Moses, that their traditions made void the word of God, that they were whited sepulcres full of dead mens bones, that they were a race of vipers, that they were responsible for the righteous slain from Abel to Zachariah, that they claimed to be of Abraham, but sought to kill Him for telling the truth, which they did.
Read John chapter 8 for confirmation. Christ also identified them as the tares.

No Majyk was used here, only study........how do you like them apples, Eve?

Your pal the fool
Orionsbelt77

To: all

No, don't by any means bite the apple of the heterodox, the strange. Who knows where doing such a thing might lead you? When the Elders of the Church in which I had invested four years of my life were arguing against my leaving that Church, and taking my then wife with me, they told me I was in danger of wandering into the Outer Darkness and of falling under God's Curse. I have to say that, in their own terms (terms which I no longer share or agree with) they were right.

But you know what? I like it here. You might too.

To: all

This is probably going to be rather lengthy. If lengthy, serious responses turn you off - fuck off now. Or I'll kick your ass. Why does God make such a big deal out of the Occult? Why is the Bible filled with instances of the prohibition of Magickal practices?

There are two reasons. First, Jesus the God-form doesn't want you to know that He is not in fact God (which is something you'll realise the first time you perform the LBRP); and secondly, by making a thing forbidden it becomes more tempting. Not that God is tempting us to sin - there is no 'sin' in the Christian sense of the word - God is instead tempting us to abandon ignorance and prejudice (those of us It has made capable of feeling such temptation, that is) so we can find knowledge for ourselves.

The truest testimony as to the nature of God is not written in the books of men but in what occurs around us in the natural world, in the everyday workings of that world. Why? Because the Artist reveals Itself in Its work.

The strong prosper and the weak and ill-adapted perish and there is no morality of any kind involved - only a kind of aesthetic impulse. To say, as some have and do, 'evil be thou my good', is to take an aesthetic position in regard to the world - because, as we can see every day, evil is performed in the name of good, and well-intentioned acts have evil consequences.

No one, it seems, can understand in advance the consequences of his actions. And so no one can truly know what constitutes good or evil, because to do so requires that we be able to foresee all future consequences of an act, and accurately judge whether those consequences are positive or negastive. Which no one can do. Since there is no certain rule of what is good or evil there can be only subjective 'rules', devised to satisfy each individual. That there is any agreement at all on these matters is due to the herd instinct; to conformity, apathy, and laziness. Most of us are too indolent and too self-satisfied to devise our own morality and live by it.

One of the great advantages of performing Magickal Ritual is that, as well as transforming the world it transforms you - and it does so without your collaboration. It makes you more and more, mentally and spiritually, what you want to be. It transforms you in accordance with your will. If you want to be crazy it will make you more crazy. If you want to be sane it will make you more sane. What it does is dependant on what you want.

Contrary to popular opinion what Magick does is not make you a prisoner of forces that you can't understand and which are greater than you. Instead it introduces you to forces you can control without having to understand how their operation is possible. Not even belief is necessary. Only will. Of course, being in a position of control isn't always enough. You need to be in a position of understanding the nature of that control: why it exists, on what basis, and with what consequences. Otherwise you'll end up dancing on the hook the Angels bait with what we imagine is freedom.

You should always take care in what you wish for. Because you just might get it. And who knows with what consequences? Magick is the operation of the will in the world by means not presently understood by science. It's been my experience, and it's presently my understanding, that Magick in its operations is usually non-spectacular. So far from anything out of the ordinary happening to give expression to the Magickal will, it operates instead entirely through the processes of the ordinary and everyday.

Don't look for monsters and gargoyles. Look for the UPS guy, and the ordinary operations of your life. But look for them to work in your favor, not against you.

Actually, favor is too neutral a word. Look for the ordinary and the everyday to work in your interest. Such an Interest might be immediately material, physical, perhaps even monetary in origin. Or it might be something internal in origin and development but external in expression.

It's taken me a long time to realise, but it's not the commonplace that defines the universe, it's the exception. And that's so because because the predicate of the definition is perverse, contrary, capricious.

Contrary to Einstein, God does indeed play dice. But the dice are loaded - and the outcome of any throw will always be a beauty that we can't comprehend, and never will be able to comprehend. Some of us used to think that the tragedy of being human was embodied in the fact that we realised we occupied this position in the universe, and that we realised too that there was nothing we could do about that fact of our existence. But that's not so. The tragedy of being human is that we realise our predicament and that it matters to us. We can be tempted into the most outrageous actions because we believe we can't afford to believe that our taking hold of the material of our lives and re-working it produces essentially the same result that would have been produced had we done nothing. We won't make that expenditure.

But Magick not only re-works the shape of the body (if that's part of what is desired) it re-works the shape of the mind. Not according to the determination of some external source (as in the Christian's Holy Spirit) but in accordance with what is actually wanted by the Magickian. Whether you realise that this is what you want is beside the point. The fact that you want it - that you really, really want it, whether you know it or not - is enough. Because if you really are prepared to go beyond the everyday in the pursuit of what you want, the expenditure of more than you imagined would be necessary becomes a given of the pursuit. You have to pay a price. What makes paying the price possible is the certainty that the bargain will always be honored. You pays the price and you really do gets your choice.

Desire speaks to the will. Reason informs Will of the way to achieve what Desire has spoken. And Will strives for what Reason has described. At this point Ritual inserts itself. Through the operation of Ritual Will enters into the world and initiates the actions of all those Powers that are involved in the transformation of the world. But no one stipulates the consequences. And it's in the consequences of what we want, when desire is satisfied, that the Devil resides. Be careful of what you wish for. Because you might get it.

Or, put another way - be wary of what you awaken, lest you be unable to put it back to sleep.

Simon - One question I have is, " how does the research of magic, or the practice of magic affect my salvation?"

Can I not be a Christian who practices sacred magic? Dosent the Catholic church claim to exorcise demons?

First, Jesus the God-form doesn't want you to know that He is not in fact God (which is something you'll realise the first time you perform the LBRP);

How will this become clear?