Computer Lore for Occultists

This blog entry has been written in order to help some of my magician friends who do not specialize in computing, navigate around the occult trials of working safely on a Windows computer.   The idea is not to exhaustively cover every possible problem but to try to identify some easy tasks which will help a computer run smoother and problem free.   As with all demons, it is important to maintain the master/slave relationship with your computer and not get things reversed.  Computers work for us and if that relationship fails a lot of work may be necessary to re-establish control.

However just as if you have a serious possession you should consult an exorcist, if you have serious computer problems see an expert.   The final section in the document will cover some of the things you should do before speaking to a professional so that their job of fixing the issue is as easy as possible.

Most problems are resolved by rebooting.  Generally I advise people to always make sure they reboot once a day – I turn my computer off every night and back on again in the morning.  This closes everything down and clears the memory.  Using options like hibernate or sleep are not so thorough and not everything gets reset.  This option is Ok for on-off procedures during the day such as if you have to pop out but try to do a full reboot once a day or shut off your computer every night.

Finally, Should this page be useful, please send me your questions and I’ll maintain a Frequently Asked Questions document in case the question and answer will be of help to other people.

1.0 Know your tradition

There are a number of versions of Windows currently in use most likely ranging from Windows XP, through to Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 (now 8.1).  So whilst I have tried to keep these instructions as generic as possible there may be slight differences in the instructions.

There could well be some differences with future versions of windows (and I may have got some XP details wrong, so if you notice an inaccuracy here please let me know and I’ll keep this document updated.  

2.0 Cleansing and Protection.

Like any good practice, regular cleansing is necessary in order to keep your computer free from attachments.  Rogue entities called viruses and spyware can potentially sneak in whenever they find a weakness is your defences and it is worth stepping back on occasionally and running a check to see if anything has managed to invoke itself onto your computer.  

Sadly this is not as easy as soaking in a salt bath, however like any good practice routine is essential and this should be done once  every lunar cycle or thereabouts.

2.1 Installing and updating your Anti-Virus software

A good anti-virus is the equivalent to Angelic protection and is totally required to clear out the devilish unclean filth which can get onto our computers.  Anti-virus software is essential and Microsoft does have a free version which is often pre-installed on computers.  You can install it from this link if you don’t already have it:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/security-essentials-download

To use this however always ensure that you have the automatic downloading of updates switched on.  This means that any updates will be automatically added (see section 7 for instructions on opening control panel then look at Windows Updater.)

Additionally you may wish to enter into a compact with another agency to keep your computer clean and secure.  Many tools are free and are just as good as the expensive packages such as Norton/Symantec and MacAfee.  In a deal as loathsome as that made by Doctor Faustus these companies have made deals with computer distributors so that their software is distributed pre-installed on new PCs and will provide free protection usually for a month, although in some cases a full year and then they try the extortion game to keep people buying updates from them.  Symantec is notorious however in that it is a greedy program and steals processor cycles like a demon would eat childrens souls.

However I have been using computers for over 20 years now.  Whilst I agree that Anti-virus software is totally essential, using these packages is not and I recommend avoiding them.  First thing I always do with a new computer is install a different solution and then uninstall anything by Symantec or MacAfee.  This involves downloading and using the free version of Avast (or similar tool).  This has a firewall and anti-virus built in which is very good and not given me any problems in 5 years (since I have been using it).

http://www.avg.com/gb-en/av_download_2014_ppc_test

Avast is free however they do have premium alternatives (which I do not use).  It does however require a licence which means you need to register with then (this is still free).  They will then send you a registration code by owl-mail which you need to enter into your computer using the instructions provided and renew this once a year.  Occasionally it will ask you to buy the premium version however those requests can be ignored.

2.2 Other tools and checks

The first and most important of these is Microsoft Safety Scanner.  This is a free tool which has a ten day licence.  This means that you need to download it afresh each time so that you are always using the latest version (which is primed to deal with the latest threats).

http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-gb/default.aspx

The link above is where you need to go to download the latest version.  Download it, run it then let it do its work.  I have found that this tool sometimes catches out things which sneak by other anti-virus packages so a regular check as useful in preventative care and I usually run this once a month.

2.3 Ongoing habits and safe surfing

Like the reckless use of the Ouija board, frequenters of the lurid underside of the web are where people are most likely to encounter nightside viral denizens and malign stray spirits.  It is generally best to only ever download anything from a known source and before you do anything only ever download once your firewall and Anti-virus software are up to date and active.   

Also ensure that you are careful with links and read the instructions on the installation package.  Many on-line application libraries exist as portals to find software tools however they have been set up in such a way as to be confusing and to mislead unwary surfers into downloading ad-ware and other such traps. 

So it is important to check what is being downloaded.  It is also important to ensure that you read the installation questions when you install software.  A great many installers try to trick you into installing extra rubbish as the same time you are installing your legitimate tools – usually this is parasitical nonsense such as toolbars for browsers linking to now desperate past-revenants such as “Ask Jeeves”.

For example:

The above screenshot was generated whilst writing this document, it comes from a legitimate Google site (always check the URL address at the top – this is the sigil which tells you whose page you are on).  I looked to temporarily download the Google toolbar so I can describe toolbars and how to clean them.  Look at the area which I have encircled.  Google also tries to steal my homepage and make itself a default.  This is fairly innocuous compared to what some software installers tries to do, but it shows that it is always worth reading what software tries to do.

3.0 Building your circle of protection – Firewalls

Your firewall is your magical circle and is designed to only permit particular traffic between your computer and the seething chaos which is the internet.  Windows comes with its own firewall which should be enabled.  To do this go to your Windows Firewall settings in Control Panel (see section 7) and ensure that it is on.

4.0 Manage your skrying tools

There are three main ways in which you can skry the internet; Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.  Each is more of less equal and really down to individual preference.  However browsers do present problems in that they (and allied software) will try to install additional toolbars.  Occasionally it is worth running a check and uninstalling anything superfluous.  I generally consider anything except the default toolbars to be unacceptable.

These need to be first removed from the Browser and then uninstalled (see section on Banishing) from “Programs and Features”

In the above diagram, right clicking the blue area will bring up an option to remove toolbars from the browser.  This doesn’t actually remove the toolbar, merely deactivate it from the browser.  I have seen users who have had so many toolbars invading their browser that half the screen was lost.

When working with browsers I always recommend that you allow the browser to automatically update itself and install the latest updates.  This may mean that there will be an occasional interruption whilst it does this work but it means that the latest security patches are also available.

5.0 Banishing and un-installing

Software does sneak onto your computer and it is worth periodically checking to see what is installed and have a purge.  This can also potentially free up space if there are things that you do not use.

Open up the Programs and Features page as described in Section 7.

The first trick here is to look at the “Installed On” column.  Clicking this will sort the list by date and you will be able to see what has been installed.  So if your computer has suddenly started acting weirdly check that first.  If there is software here which claims that it has been installed around (or slightly before) high strangeness started effecting your computer it may be that something has snuck in.

This could be due to something you legitimately installed (software does not always work well on all systems) or it could be something malicious.  If you know what it is (and remember to skry on Google if you are not sure) then you can uninstall the software and things should improve.  It is always better to err on the side of caution though if you don’t know and get advice before deleting.

You can see in the illustration above that the top is the Google toolbar which I downloaded and installed earlier as an example.  That can go, so a quite right-click will remove it.  Some installers take you to a web page where they ask questions, answering these is optional so please feel free to ignore or be as rude as the software was in initially installing itself.

6.0 Psychic Attack.  – Is your computer compromised?

Despite all of the above, rogue daemons will occasionally sneak into your system.  The constant arms race between virus writers and anti-virus writers means that occasionally the diabolists are a step ahead and whilst this may all very well be part of the cosmic balance it is a nuisance if you have a virus or piece of malware running on your computer.  You will notice it straight away since your computer will be running really slowly.

Usually the above tools such as the Microsoft Safety Scanner will catch practically everything.  However sometimes it is useful to dig around and see what is happening.

The trick here is to see what is running.  To do this you will need to use the task manager and skry into your system to see what is running.  When you invoke the task manager servitor a windows will open which tells you everything that is running.  It looks like this:

Notice at the top there is a processes tab.  Click on that to bring you to the list and then click the CPU column to sort the list so you can see what is taking up the most CPU processes in order.  You may need click the CPU tab twice to bring the most processor intensive processes up are on the top.   If you see “System Idle Processes” on top such as we see here that is a good thing since this means that the computer is not running to maximum.  However if another process is continually taking this position then something may be wrong. 

A process hogging the processor can be caused by any of the following

i)                    It could have a lot to do and is grabbing what resources it needs to complete its task.  This can be for legitimate reasons.  For example if you cut and paste a very large amount of data it can take time to process everything, especially if you have a few applications running at once.  Give it some time such as 5 minutes and it should catch up.

ii)                   A bug in a program may mean that it has got itself a bit stuck.  It should resolve itself after a few minutes, if it does not resolve and save your work, then reboot.  That should fix that.

iii)                 A rogue process has snuck in and is carrying out its own unauthorised actions.  In a worse-case scenario malware could be controlling your PC and sending out spam messages.  This is rare but possible.

If you see something which you don’t understand look up the name of the process (under the Image name column and the command line column) from the window and type this into Google.  It does look that some of this may be in Enochian, but do not be alarmed, it is susceptible to the ultimate sorcery, that of a google search.

Almost certainly if there is a rogue programme running someone would have written about this so it should come up in a google search.   They should also give you some instructions as to how to banish it into the /dev/Null abyss forever.

7.0 Shortcuts and opening pages

 

This section details some methods to open some of the windows described through this guide.  There are other ways however this is one method.

7.1 Opening the Programms and Features

•  Click the Start Menu.  In the “search programs and features” box type in “control panel”.  Then press enter.  This should bring up the control panel
• When the control panel opens look at the top  right hand corner where there is a question “View By” and select “small icons”.  This makes everything visible.
• Look for the Programs and Files icon and click that.

7.2 Opening the task manager

• ·         Right click the bar at the bottom of the screen
• ·         Select “Start Task Manager”

7.3 Quick shortcuts

Press these buttons at the same time to get the effect.

·         [CTRL] + C = Copy

·         [CTRL] + X = Cut

·         [CTRL] + V = Paste

·         [CTRL] + [Print Screen] = Copy entire desktop view (including all open windows)

·         [CTRL] + [ALT] + [Print Screen] = Copy open window

These combinations can be used to cut and paste data quickly.  So if you have an error you can use this to save the error message.

8.0 Asking for help

Most people are always happy to help others with computer problems.  There are some things that you can do to make the task of the helper easier.

Try to record in as much detail everything that happens.  If you get an error message write it down exactly.   Remember you can also google error messages to find out what they are saying.  Sometimes people find error messages intimidating and panic before reading them but sometimes they do say exactly what to do.  Don’t forget to look at the quick shortcuts section in 7.3 to find out how to quickly cut and paste errors into an email or document to pass onto anyone helping.

Copyright Paolo Sammut 2014

UFO Mysteries and Human Evolution

UFO Mysteries and Human Evolution

Ever since I started listening to the Binnall of America podcast I have found that my interest in UFOs has found itself reignited.  In fact I have noticed that interest in this phenomena comes in waves and we are on the crest of a new wave of UFO encounters about to hit as I see an escalation in reports from around the world steadily increase. 

Ever since I read Jacques Vallee’s monumental Messengers of Deception and John Keel’s wonderful books such as The Mothman.  I have stood by the perspective that whatever is happening, UFOs are clearly not spacemen visiting Earth in a style similar to that portrayed on Star Trek; clearly something even more spooky is going on.  It seems that the best place to spot UFOs also happens to be the best place to spot ghosts and cryptids such as Bigfoot.  Such as idea seems preposterous but points the way to an exciting avenue of research.

It is difficult for a grown man to sound rational when speaking about fairies.  However it is clear that there is a lot of overlap with Fairy Lore and UFO lore.  Both mysteries involve little green men, time distortions and lost time, similar hill/spaceship symbolism and often (perhaps most importantly) UFO landing sites are often sites where people have had fairy encounters, such as within Rendlesham Forest.  

 This is suggestive that we are looking at a common phenomena but viewed through different cultural lenses, in this case that of a medieval agrarian community and a modern technological one.

The phenomena is bigger than just aliens or fairies however.  In the past there are certainly records that we have encountered these beings and given them various names through history such as witches (African tribes referred to flying lights as witches), Faerie, Djinns etc.  At the very least, the following features are found in all forms of the phenomena:

• Appearance: Often we have accounts of UFO occupants appearing similar to the descriptions given by people encountering fairies. We could perhaps ask does the term “little green men” refer to aliens or leprechauns. Similarly it has often been remarked how similar our friend Lam (as channelled by Aleister Crowley) looks is to the iconic grey alien.
• Time distortion – Often people encountering either will experience some sort of time distortion
•  An interest in babies and fertility. In fairy lore we have the concept of a changeling. In UFO lore we have accounts of breeding-programs etc
• Accounts of flying lights. These are one of the most common parts of the phenomena and seem to be universal.
• The experience of going into the hill or going into the saucer.
• Ability to drastically harm – elfshot or strange cancers developing.  In medieval fairy-lore branches of magic developed with regards to protecting from these beings and healing some of the damage they can do, which charms and anti-fairy talismans (such as iron) being developed.

On the other hand however there are also a number of accounts of UFO's being witnessed by trained astronauts in outer space.  Does this blow the idea that UFO's may be some earth related phenomena such as what we would have called fairies a death-blow?

One of the most fascinating witnesses is Dr Ed Mitchell. He was one of the original Apollo astronauts. flying to and landing on the Moon with Apollo 14. Among other things he holds the record for the longest Moonwalk (9h17m). He is also noted to have an interest in psychic phenomena being the astronaut who conducted ESP experiments with his associates on Earth whilst in flight. His background was as a pilot in the Navy before joining NASA and he holds several degrees including a number of doctorates, some being honorary but at least one being research based. As such I think we can say he is a highly intelligent man, a trained observer and a reliable witness.

In recent interviews he has gone on to express a belief in UFOs (as spacemen) and shocked the scientific world with some views. For example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhNdxdveK7c

If it was just one astronaut we might be forgiven in thinking that there could be other factors involved. However other astronauts and NASA staff have seen UFO's and ET's including Neil Armstrong and Dr Buzz Aldrin.  There are in fact many testimonies from astronauts regarding UFOs they have encountered as detailed here.  There are also very interesting albeit slightly ambiguous records of the dialogue between Neil Armstrong and Mission Control whilst he was on the moon.  The moon itself is very interesting and I shall be returning to the moon in a future post, discussing some of its many mysteries.

I could equally well have dug into the thousands of testimonies of people who have reported UFO's and other encounters throughout history.  However I have started with astronauts because these are a class of people who are very intelligent, highly trained both in terms of observation skills and also scientifically (although perhaps not as blinkered by a political scientific perspective as we might find in academia). Also and I think this is important astronauts encountering "aliens" and "UFOs" seems to suggest a "nuts and bolts" "Star Trek" view of the phenomena - a view which I do not share so am interested in looking to see if all is not as it appears.

Let’s now take a look at another perspective.  For years, a number of researchers such as Vallee have been suggesting that UFO's and entity experiences are something other than spacemen visiting from another world. There argument suggests that Aliens/UFOs have always been here and originate from elsewhere, what might popularly be labelled another dimension.

I am always a bit coy about bandying words like dimension around so let us define what I mean. Rather than say dimension perhaps we can say from a parallel reality existing and mingling with our reality as we know it. If you imagine our reality as slides from a filmstrip and the other reality as another filmstrip held next to ours I hope this illustrates what I am saying.  Certainly there is nothing that I am aware of in physics to suggest such a view is impossible.

Some UFO accounts emphasis strongly the trickster aspect commonly entangled with fairy experiences and some accounts are blatantly absurd (although not necessarily fictional)!  One of my favourites is the pancake giving alien. The only witness here was one Joe Simonton who was in his house making breakfast one April morning. He heard a sound like tires on a wet pavement and went outside to investigate. On doing so he saw a round disk about 12 ft high and 30 ft in diameter. From this a hatch opened when three men came out and telepathically asked Joe to fill a jug with water. He did so and was then given three pancakes before the UFO closed up and flew off. The pancakes were genuine and I believe tested and shown to be totally unremarkable.  As absurd as this account is there is no evidence to suggest that Simonton was lying or mad except that this encounter is totally bonkers to our consensus sense of reality; something which may itself be an illusion.

With cases like this one the mind begins to boggle. It certainly breaks the "nuts and bolts" mould simply by being so absurd.  Yet there was clearly a technologically gloss to this instance. We have a spaceship and the "aliens" were described as wearing tight fitting uniforms so beloved of 1950s/60s era B movie science fiction. But the event itself is more suggestive of a trickster entity such as faeries are reputed to me. I can imagine them in their mushroom/spaceship after this literally killing themselves with laughter over this and seen in this light it is hilarious.
 

Other accounts are more sinister and fairies have been known to turn nasty. There is a similar aspect to this with UFOs where phenomena such as Cattle Mutilations and Men in Black rear their ugly heads.  Many examples of Men in Black seem to suggest an inhuman quality to the visitors as if there are something not quite human and doing an imperfect job as masking themselves as such.  More interesting we could also examine this inhumanity and wonder if the inhuman sense is itself deliberate in order to create even more disquiet – if you can create illusions, why create almost perfect ones?

I suppose we could ask the question as to which is the truer picture. Are alien spacemen being seen though an olde-worlde earth perspective and encountered as fairies or are we seeing fairies through a scientific gloss perceiving them as spacemen?

Actually I rather think that to categorise them as one or the other would be naive. Throughout history they have shown many forms. However the Pancake incident does seem to reinforce the idea that there is a cultural filter over what we humans are perceiving. Our minds work by symbols and once a symbol is used to associate with a manifesting energy then it seems that the mind likes to keep it that way. In other words if one tends to perceive an energy as a spaceman one probably always will.

One of the most common aspects of these phenomena is that of the flying lights. These are described variously as spacecraft, fairies, flying witches etc. It is even possible that the Will-o-the-wisp phenomena is more complex that simply marsh gas as suggested in some cases, although just as some UFO's can be Venus, presumably some will-o'-the-wisps will be marsh gas. Some researchers such as Michael Deveraux have suggested that flying lights are linked to places of high electro-magnetism on the earth’s crust and this does seem to be a variable in the phenomena. Michael Persinger’s work in Canada has also suggested that electromagnetic fields can distort human perception, activate transcendent states and give one the sense of being abducted and/or out of one’s body.

I think that this research is incredibly important and in no way invalidates the paranormal aspect of these phenomena. Rather it is saying that the brain is capable of these states (which is interesting and wondrous in itself) and that these states can be triggered by electromagnetism. It points to electromagnetism as being a component in the phenomena but does not make this a necessity.

For example, I can create an illusion of heat and burning in my mouth by eating "hot" chillies. The capsaicin in the chillies stimulates the same nerves in my mouth that get stimulated when I eat hot (as in heated) food. This shows that senses and experiences can be fooled and stimulated by other means and just as chillies are not really hot (in the heated sense) phenomena may not be really electromagnetic, rather the electromagnetism is stimulating the same parts of the being that gets stimulated by phenomena. We don’t know of course and it would be hasty to assume anything here other than that much more research is needed.

Given that astronauts also perceive UFO's not only on the moon but also in the empty stretch between the Earth and the Moon, I would suggest that the electromagnetism in the earth crust is not the only factor in this. Perhaps this phenomenon needs a carrier to transmit it to us. One such carrier may be electromagnetic radiation, another may be marsh gas etc, and another may be orgone energy as postulated by Wilhelm Reich.  Again we are really on the edge of speculation here and are jumping into unknown territory.

Perhaps a form of perichoresis takes place through the transmitting medium whether it be EM radiation, marsh gas and orgone each being relatively simple "building blocks" so any influence from another dimension may find it very easy to impress and emerge in our reality through this media. This is sort of like those pictures we see of flying birds in the work of MC Escher – If one gets caught in the detail one sees the birds but if one steps back and looks at the picture as a whole we see a larger picture emerge.

There is a wonderful example of perichoresis in Salvador Dali's "Destino" animated film. If you do watch it take a look at how Zeus "emerges" from the archway.  The goodies start at 4m and 50s into the piece.

Perichoresis might also be a component towards an explanation for Crop Circles.  Andrew Collins excellent book The Circlemakers suggests that orgone is responsible for the circles, and this may well be correct.   However orgone may suggest the mechanism by which circles are formed but doesn’t necessary address the issue as to the nature of the information coming through and this I believe is where need to look towards perichoresis. Something elsewhere is  impressing these patterns on our reality.

It has been suggested that astronauts are changed by the simple fact of going into space and we do see a lot of returning astronauts being caught up in paranormal projects, getting religion or simply being awed with wonder, something many of us lose as we get older, more cynical and jaded.

Certainly for me I find images such as the opening sequence of Carl Sagan’s "Cosmos" very moving and would love to experience something like space-flight and really see and experience some of the images NASA release. I can imagine that being out there, would really open the mind to wonder and perhaps create an "enflamed with prayer" type of state where magic happens.  There is an updated space flight sequence based upon the one in Cosmos in Jodie Fosters "Contact" based upon Sagan's book

Contact Space Flight

Could this act of wonder have the effect of switching astronauts on, perhaps making them more spiritual and psychic? Is it possible that "reality" is loaded so that the act of a species travelling into space switches them on in a way similar to magic does opening up the larger universe?

In a sense something similar happened a billion or so years ago when life on earth evolved vision. At that point the visual universe opened up and because visible to all. Granted this was actually for our distant very-very-pre-human relatives but the event is rather staggering, nature went from being blind to being able to see. Our very language of spiritual attainment uses this as a metaphor. Words like “Enlightened”, “Illuminated” may in some deep atavistic way still remember this event and carry it on in our being and terminology for extended awareness.

There are some very interesting peculiarities surrounding the evolution of vision. First of all it seems to have developed on several places independently, so all life with vision does not share a common ancestor who was the first creature with sight. Rather there are several possible ancestors. This sort of suggests that the pattern of sight was programmed into evolution (in a very heretical and non-Darwinian way) to emerge perhaps in a similar process to how Sheldrake’s Morphic resonance is presented.

More interesting still is the fact that sight is supposed to have evolved before the brain at least in its current form developed. This is confirmed by looking at the human pineal gland in the centre of the brain. It actually possess some photosensitive properties suggesting that whilst atrophied will have certainly acted as an eye in our ancestors. It seems that the brain grew around the eye, adding abilities to process the new visual data being received. The brain of course does a lot more than think, and it does act as a filter and translator to what we see. For example at its simplest it filters out the blood vessels in our eyes which we do not see. It also tends to take out unexpected anomalies in our vision.  The problem however with the idea that the pineal gland is an eye is that this is not supported by the fossil record.  However if not, why does it have photo-sensitive properties?

Some experiments were done years ago involving a man dressed as a gorilla running onto a baseball game and waving at the audience. The majority of the audience didn’t even notice him because it was so far outside our expected vision that it simply processed the data out. This can work conversely as well and expected objects can appear in our visual matrix.

I think that we are on the verge of a perceptual leap perhaps similar to what was experienced when life evolved the ability to see portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Changes are taking place both through our personal evolution as magicians and as individuals as a part of the human species going into space which are shifting our perspective and as a result enhancing and mutating our perceptions to see the universe in a more connected magical state where we will be able to see the fairies, UFO's etc in all their myriad forms and maybe not understand but certainly communicate and interact with.

Occult Themes in Childrens Television

I was quite thrilled this Christmas holiday to be reminded that I have a secret vice; that of going back and recapturing all the classic fantasy programmes which haunted my childhood. This spark has always been with me of course and over the years I have maintained a fondness for shows such as the Box of Delights and of course Doctor Who.  Now adding to this there are stories such as The Children of the Stones, The Moon Stallion and The Owl Service all of which are a pure delight and are genuine time machines taking me back to the 1970s when it was safe and reasonable for children to go on quests and adventures without over protective parenting fuelled by hate and fearful politics and media wanting to coddle everything in cotton wool and anti-bacterial spray.

I will hit my 42nd year this coming February and so I was lucky enough to have grown up through the 1970s and early 80s which were a golden age in Children’s Television.  Since the mid 1990s however I have been haunted by half remembered enchantment, television stories that I watched but to which many details are forgotten.  Shows such as the Box of Delights or The Enchanted Castle have left a silver seam of magic seared across my memory ever reminding me of their presence but leaving me with the echoes of so much lost and eluded until recent research shined some light illuminating these forgotten places.  Over the years it has become very frustrating and trying to recapture a half-remembered magic is in many ways worse then not being able to find it at all.  Sometimes I could not even remember the names of the programme in question and I wasted ages searching for “Elizabeth and the Witch” when I should instead have searched for Lizzy Dripping.  Memory can be fickle in this way.

It was in these early days when the occultist fire started burning brightly.  I was 12 and picked up and read (smuggling home from the library without my mother seeing) two occults books, "Astral Doorways" by JH Brennan and "The Magician, his training and work" by WE Butler.  Both were (and still are) cracking reads, classics on the occult and as I later found out ones which still influence me greatly.  Both books lead to my reading other books by these authors and others, some of which were illuminating and other which turned out to be blind alleys which wasted a couple of years.  There is serious learning here however and I feel that when I have children getting them to read Mr Butler's books will be a high priority.  Many of these books speak about the power and important of the imagination and exactly what can be done with a trained mind.  All this however started with the fiction which inspired me to read more.

Childrens fantasy fiction can be truly magical, in enthusing our minds with such potent symbolism the magic grows within us as we assimilate this imagery and concepts binding them into our deepest consciousness creating genuine possibilities for change regardless of the colder logics of the waking world.  The fact that these shows work themselves in deep is clear whenever we re-watch an older show as an adult.  The same emotions experienced as a child are still remembered and stirred up when the show is reviewed.  For example go back and watch a classic Doctor Who story which you have not seen as a child, one which scared you then.  You will feel the same emotions as you did as a child, albeit hopefully as an adult you will be able to temper those feelings better.

Science Fiction and Fantasy really go hand in hand and both are often saturated in occultism.  We see this blended most adeptly in television of this era with Doctor Who remaining one of my favourites.  For all his protestations as to being a scientist, the good Doctor is clearly a magician first and foremost and understands the need to work towards maintaining a balance rather than being strictly a good guy.  Very much a trickster and avatar of Mercury, the Doctor walks through reality like a dream, showing us how to counter the terrors of our nightside and bring them into the day.

Some early Doctor Who stories bleed occultism to my absolute delight.  Most fondly remembered of course is The Daemons.  Here we see Roger Delgardo as the Master dressed up like a Golden Dawn magician, epically misquoting Aleister Crowley with "To do my will shall be the Whole of the Law"[sic].  We see other occult concepts also appear here such as the idea of the energetic rebound.  The concept here is simple, one sends of a magical attack in the direction of a target who has a defence in place.  The attach will then rebound off that person and hit the sender.  Whilst clever occultists will usually have a timey-wimey way to get around such limitations these strictures are staples of beginner books and occult fiction and serve mostly to keep wannabe students on the straight and narrow.

The writer of this tale, Barry Letts was an esoteric Buddhist with a massive interest in magic and we really see this shine with a later story which became Jon Pertwee's swansong as the Doctor - The Planet of the Spiders.  This tale could really have been written by the esteemed Kenneth Grant - it is very esoteric.  On Earth we have Tibetan Bon Buddhist monks who are secretly Timelords existing in self-imposed exile.  There is a heavy suggestion that tulpas are used by Timelords to shape their future regenerations, each future self is a new tulpa.   All this is framed in mauve with a very Typhonian gloss of spiders from a distant world seeking to impinge themselves upon the Sphere of sensation of wannabe black-magicians and rule our world. 

This story was released in the very early 1970s just after Kenneth Grant had released The Magical Revival.  However if it turns out that Letts had read a copy of Kenneth Grant's Beyond the Mauve Zone which had somehow got itself caught in the time distortion left in the wake of Children of the Zones and sent back in time I would not be surprised.

Tom Bakers swansong as the Doctor (Logopolis, 1979) also included a watcher; his future self existing as a projection, a tulpa already able to influence events.  This idea was abandoned by subsequent writers and producers of Doctor Who but in its day these ideas are very suggestive.  The idea of rebirth enriches much fiction, as shown, in The Lion the Witch and Wardrobe with Aslan regenerating after the White witch sacrifices him.   The idea of a phoenix as a bird of regeneration is also a common motif which pops up, of course in E Nesbit’s “Phoenix and carpet” and more recently in the Harry Potter mythos.

Occultists have always written fictional stories and embedded their ideas within fiction as a way of getting past our sceptical censor.  An early story was the seminal Zanoni, written by Bulwer Lytton and plugged as a "Rosicrucian tale".  Zanoni definitely influenced Samuel MacGregor Mathers whose wife, Moina; used it for him as an affectionate nickname.  Moina of course crossed astral swords which another seminal occultist, Dion Fortune who really made use of the occult novel as a way to transmit ideas.

I must admit that I really hate Fortune's writing style.  She cannot characterise men in her books and they all too often end up an impotent and effeminate fools seeking a stronger woman to complete them.  However in fairness to her I understand that her later books were meant as romantic fiction rather than occult novels.  Her books are loaded with occultism however and many things she left out from her non fiction made its way into her novels, so they are well worth working through despite the prose.  Her first book however; “Doctor Tavener” makes up for this in advance and (Oh look) the Doctor is an adept who helps resolve a number of problems with his esoteric knowledge and intelligence.

Weaving back to television, Children of the Stones is rightly held up as a classic and is fondly remembered by many people.  Re-watching it recently it was nice to spot a copy of Elizabeth St George's Casebook for a working occultist on the shelf in episode 2 (about 5 mins into the episode).  This is a rather obscure book now and St George has sadly faded into history and not really remembered nowadays.  In her day however she was a noted occultist who worked with the esteemed (and lovingly bad-tempered) William Gray who for all his faults certainly knew his stuff and is respected for his occult knowledge.

I feel that the story captures all the important elements of an occult tale.  We have a stone circle, a dastardly black magician (also called a priest and magus) seeking to control the population.  A lot of the modern tools used by psychic researchers, psychic questers and paranormal researchers are also shown here such as looking at stellar alignments and tracking lines on maps.  We also see a remarkably open minded scientist (played by Blake’s 7 actor Gareth Thomas) encouraging his son in experiments in psychometry.  His line "There is a lot we don’t understand" is priceless in context and I wish that the likes of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking focus upon that rather than the tiny amount achieved by humanity so far.

The story is not perfect however and there are leaps of logic which may sound scientific but degenerate into silliness.  For example arguing that the stones were aligned to a supernova is fairly plausible if unlikely.  But then saying that since the star then became a black hole things reversed is just silliness.  Similarly the whole time slip thing at the end where the protagonists drive out of Milbury (Avebury) to pass the much younger and still alive bad guy driving in at the start of his wicked adventures is not a clever twist but silliness which cheapens the whole story.  However these faults do not really matter in what is basically a fascinating and engaging romp through magic and esoteric lore.

We see other elements of magic in The Moon Stallion which features elements of magic much popularised by the late Andrew Chumbley over the past decade, namely the infamous Toad ritual.  This nasty ritual has several variants all of which basically involve finding a (sometimes already dead) toad, buying it in an anthill until the flesh has been picked away then at the right time tossing the skeleton in a river at midnight, then selecting a particular bone to keep as a talisman.  Accounts differ as to whether the required stone floats, sinks last or on the more unlikely accounts floats up against the current where the devil appears to try to wrest it from the magician.  

Here is how The Moon Stallion dramatised this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC2oFmOEC7I

The child in the above clip rightly says "who would want to do a nasty thing like that" and it is rather unpleasant and certainly anything which involves mistreating animals in any way should be utterly condemned in my opinion.  Certainly it should be remembered that toads are protected in the UK and a very serious view with be taken with those foolish enough to harm wildlife.

It is however relevant to note that these traditions are out there and we do see them reflected in children’s television.  Is this a bad thing?  I do not think so since most children know the difference between good and evil and these programmes emphasis this and teach children to be willing to get up and make a stand.  It is telling that the children in the Moon Stallion make a stand against Todman.

It is nice to know that there was a time when writers were still there weaving the magic into children fiction and subtly influencing children underneath the radar of fundamentalists or the new puritans such as mumsnet.  Magic is a crucial part of our childhood and long may it remain so.  But also this is a tribute to these forgotten writers who wrote such wonderful tales for television.  Screenwriters are never remembered but the ones who gave us these stories deserve a moment of respect and a glass in their honour.  Long may these stories be told and retold and maybe one day we will see a new golden age of powerful childrens fiction being dramatised and shown.

Happy Birthday Alexandra David-Néel

Today, October the 24th I shall be raising a glass to wish Alexandra David-Néel a very happy birthday. Alexandra was awesome as a sorceress, buddhist and adventurer, she penetrated Lhasa, indeed Tibet when it was still a closed Kingdom. She was also an anarchist fighting the fight against oppression and a brilliant writer who influenced luminaries such as Allen Ginsberg and Alan Watts.

Amongst the many reasons to remember this remarkable lady is the fact that she brought m

agical tales of Tulpas to the West. Tulpas are vital game changers of which I shall have a lot (one hell of a lot in fact) to speak about very soon. Her description of the fabled Dubthab rite was very hard to trace and even then assumes that the reader can read-between-the-lines; such was early 20th century esotericism! Even Google doesnt know everything

A tulpa is basically an imagined idea which through intensity of envivification is brought into reality as a solid object. They are different from the thoughtforms of western magicians (although often confused) in that they take a lot more work to create and are visible to other people much as a ghost is. However with work a tulpa can be as solid as a punch in the nose.

Happy Birthday Alexandra David-Néel. I say "awesome" a lot nowadays, but you really were that. If I only ever manage to follow in your footsteps I will have achieved much and lived a life worth living. October the 24th will forever be your day!

 

 

The Pantacles of Solomon by S. Alderanay

This exellent book by S. Aldaranay couldnt have come to me at a better time.  I have recently been looking at the Pantacles for a project of my own (watch this space) and walk away from the various versions in disgust.  Many editions (including the Mathers edition) have errors, the psalms cast around each circle are often unclear squiggles and it is all hard work to go through.  This version has the pantacles cleaned, corrected and redrawn and is a breathe of fresh air after pouring through so many dusty grimoires.

So this book has come to us at a perfect time and I am sure that Ceremonial magicians and Hoodoo practictioners alike will find this new version invaluable.  Get it now from Hadean press.

http://www.hadeanpress.com/portfolio/the-pentacles-of-solomon/

The Starry Wisdom: A perichoresical perambulation through the works of Kenneth Grant

The Starry Wisdom:  A perichoresical perambulation through the works of Kenneth Grant

It seems that like buses my writing comes across in twos.  Here is a link to an article I have written for Darklore which is the awesome journal put together for the Daily Grail.  I have been following the Daily Grail for ten years now and I am certain that there is not a finer source of esoteric news.

This link here will take you to a page detailing Darklore and includes links to Amazon in the UK and US.

Walking the Spectral Path

My book, "Walking the Spectral Path" is due to be published by Hadean Press on the significant date of the 31st of October.  This short work looks at ghosts from the magical perspective examining what a ghost may actually be and details some occult methods of exploring the paranormal.  It is very much a personal piece which also details a number of my own experiences.

It will be available from Amazon (UK (soon) and US) from Halloween but available now direct from Hadean Press.