XXX: Bears

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Herne

XXX DOBIH

Servitors: Balabos, Badad, Holop.

The word at the outer edge of the Square, DOBIH, derives from the Hebrew דוב (dob), ‘bear.’ The spirit name apparent in the central cross relates is that of Balabos, which comes from the Hebrew term בעל הבית‎ (ba’al ha-beth), meaning ‘Master of the House.’

The Vision

The vision began with a focus on the word DOBIH which then became further focussed on the letter B (for ‘Bear,’ I sensed) in its centre. Then a cave appeared with a large bear wearing a crown standing on its hind legs guarding its entrance. The bear approached me, making me fear it would maul me, but it only wished to sniff out the Square that I held in my hand. It turned away from me peaceably when I allowed it to inspect what I held, then it departed into the cave. I followed it inside and was greeted by the stench of rotting meat. Around me were the cadavers of many dead animals, with the most prominent being the skull of a horse.

I descended into the cave, where a soft, chiming, echoing choir of voices could be heard in the distance below. I came to a gentle blue river with a milky white sheen to its surface in that deep place and entered the water. I became aware that this was a reflection of the Milky Way and was washed along on its flow until it came to a waterfall. Instead of plunging to the ground far below, however, I remained breathless and bodiless in silent space and glided at will to the ground below.

Awaiting me was an old man driving a rickety wooden cart. He was quite old and wore a ruined top hat, and donned a wispy beard without a moustache, had ruddy red cheeks and had squinting, watery eyes. We were in a dark, rocky landscape quite unsuitable for driving a wagon over, and above me in the sky was a full moon and the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, with the latter clearly orbiting the Pole Star. He offered me a ride in his cart and we headed North with Polaris before us. I noticed that the horses that pulled it, one of which was brown and the other black, were very thin and gave off the cold aura of death. He chided me for accepting a ride in such a land, as it was a place I knew nothing about. I asked him what sort of place it was and once again the word DOBIH appeared in my mind’s eye. From this, I accepted that this was the astral landscape unlocked by the Square.

As we trundled on, I became aware that we were being followed by bears, but the wagon driver informed me that I was quite safe as long as I remained in his vehicle. Then we came to a ford which was set down a bank that was too steep and rocky for the wagon to descend. He let the horses off their leashes and asked if I would assist him in pushing the cart down the bank, which I did, noticing that it was strangely light. Then the driver reattached it to the horses so that they could pull it across the shallow waters of the river, but on the other side, he asked once again if I would help him pull it back up the other bank. Doing this was somewhat harder than leading it down the bank, and led to me receiving wounds to my right hand from the splinters of the wood of its pull-handle. Looking at the wound after we got the cart up the opposite bank, I saw that the splinters had caused seven wounds which formed the shape of the Hebrew letter Zayin. The driver instructed me to mix the blood with the waters of the river we had just passed, and on doing this, the sky lightened to that of dawn. In the sky, the Sun lit the sky and Mercury and Venus could both be seen rising with it. Heading towards them, we continued eastward over the rocky land.

After a short distance I noticed a large, primitive-looking, large-toothed skull on the horizon that looked like a fortress at first, but as we approached it, it seemed to reduce in size to that of a small house and it had the appearance of the skull of a crow or raven rather than the fanged, hominid shape I had first seen. When we reached the skull, the driver informed me to leave the cart and go and take refuge inside the skull. I did this and sat inside waiting for something to come. Shortly afterwards, the seven trailing bears appeared and formed a circle outside the skull. Inside, on the floor I spotted a large rock which I picked up and inspected. On it was engraved the symbol for alchemical Sulphur.

After a brief period, the eighth figure appeared outside the skull-house, coming in the form of a man with the skeletal, antlered head of a stag. The figure came to the entrance of the skull-house and drew a sword. With it, he drew the sign of Alchemical Salt in the Earth and then thrust his sword into the centre of it. On doing this, all of the Earth around the skull-house disappeared into a void of nothingness. I stepped from my refuge into the stillness, where the stag-headed figure informed me that it was this state of Nothingness that I should be aiming for in my Work, and that the visions of the Squares were all guides in same way of how to achieve this state. On hearing this, I found myself on a cold shore, over which the sun set. Facing West, I saw a rickety boat, similar in its state of disrepair as the wagon I had earlier travelled. I thought about heading out towards the boat but was told that this was not the time to do such a thing, as the boat and the sea represented the journey to the lands beyond life. I sat patiently at the shore waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. After a few more moments, an Eagle flew towards me from over the sea and told me that there was nothing else to see in this vision. Accepting that, I ended the session.

Notes

The wound I received in the shape of the letter Zayin represents the number seven and has the meaning ‘Sword,’ both of which are relevant to this vision. Zayin is also related to Gemini in the Tarot, so this may also be a signal to pay attention to something relating to Gemini. See the visions pertaining to A Lion and A Wild Cat for specific references to Gemini, though the relevance may relate to a future rather than past vision.

Alchemical Sulphur represents the active male principle, being concordant with Fire and the Sun.

The appearance of the Sun with Mercury and Venus after I mixed my blood with the waters of the river may represent the feminine principle, with Alchemical Mercury representing the passive female element, as does the planet Venus.

Alchemical Salt represents the element of Earth that becomes purified through the interaction of Sulphur and Mercury. The striking of the Earth by the sword in the centre of the symbol for Salt represents the purification of matter in such a way, with the Sword being used to do so being reflected in the letter Zayin appearing in the wounds on my hand. Seven also relates to Venus in Qabalistic Magic, the number of stars in Ursa Minor as well as the number of stars in the Big Dipper asterism of Ursa Major.

The boat on the sea was similar to the one seen in the vision of Trees, in which the spirit in the form of an old man departed over the sea.

The names of the two ‘new’ spirits seen in this vision are Badad – בדד (badad), whose name means ‘alone’ or ‘solitary’ and Holop – חלוף (cholop), whose name means ‘transitory’ or ‘ephemeral.’

The Square was constructed with the Moon at 3º Taurus and scried with the Moon at 22º Scorpio. Venus was transiting the sign of Scorpio at the time of the scrying, where she is in her Detriment, as was the other benefic, Jupiter, Together they represent the male and female benefics resident in a Marsian, malefic sign, though the general energies of Scorpio, being the sign that Mars rules ‘at night’ are those of his passive, ‘inner’ qualities.

XXIX: Eagles

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les-harpies-a
XXIX NESIKER

Servitors: Igarag, Manties, Mara, Katsin, Irminon, Ismerik, Sigis, Gesegas, Kosem, Erimites, Nasi, Ramoras, Izozon, Isagas, Romoron, Soterion, Negen, Nagar.

The word at the outer of the square, NESIKER, derives from the Hebrew נשר (Nesher), ‘Eagle,’ with the word forcibly split by the word IGARAGI in the central cross, which is a mirrored expression of the spirit name Igarag, which expresses concepts relating to coldness, ice, crystals and frosts.

The Vision

Bright pin heads of lights, like stars, appeared in a black sky accompanied by xylophone music before water poured out of the blackness, as though from a cup, into the earth below. Pouring into the domed vessel of the Earth, the water ran down a hillside to create a river that ran down to a pool in the basin of a valley. It was twilight in that place, which had the feel of a place in-between.

I walked to the edge of the pool and in its reflection saw the face of an eagle looking back at me. I looked around to see if it was above me, but there was nothing else visible in the growing blackness of the sky. I looked to the water again and saw the eagle, appearing more solid now, and then his reflection jumped out of the water and he flew onto my right shoulder. I turned to face him and looked into his eyes and received his communication. He explained, in a slow, deep voice, how he had descended from the highest pinnacles of the universe, but could only communicate through the reflections of things, such as in waters and reflective surfaces, in this place as the naked eye could not perceive him. I understood that the form of him that I looked upon was only visible as it had manifested via its reflection in the water, but was not truly him. I was aware at this point that other eagles were circling the black skies overhead, though when I looked up to try and see them, I found them to be completely invisible. The eagle then told me that its eyes were the reflective surface I could look into in order to receive a vision from him.

On doing that, I had a vision of two men sat at a table before a drawn curtain in a pub, inn or some other kind of public place. I recognised one of the men as a friend of mine who shares the same first name as I do, but on approaching the table, I realised that both men were actually me. I assumed the identity of one of these versions of myself and looked across to the other version who sat on the opposite side of the table. Looking at the table, I saw that me and my doppelganger were playing cards and the card I had just drawn was the Five of Diamonds. I looked to see what the other cards on the table were and saw that every card in my splayed-out deck was the same as that which I had just drawn.

Then the Eagle began to speak in its slow, low voice again. It asked me how I would really respond to myself if I were another person. How would I communicate with me? What would I think of me? How would I judge me as another would, and how would I deal with me when I was being difficult or confrontational? These questions, it said, were prompts to deal with myself in all of my reactions, opinions, behaviours and patterns as though I were an external entity watching and observing such things with detachment, as though I were outside of myself. The ‘other self’ I looked upon opposite me, it said, was the part of oneself that could only be viewed in the mirror, and was not the same aspect of self as the one who does the viewing.

Once this message had been delivered, the drawn curtains I had been sat next to were opened to reveal a strange, infernal scene unfolding in the world outside. The lands were grey and the skies were black and red there; and from the Earth long, white bones jutted into the air like jagged spears. Around the bones harpies and gorgons roamed, their bodies those of women with their arms entwined with serpents and their faces blank of features save for the inverted muzzles of wolves with their fangs bared protruding from their foreheads. Their shoulders were mounted by great, leathery bat’s wings and when they thrust their groins towards me and parted their bare legs, they birthed swarms of bats that bit into my flesh with tiny, metallic teeth that ripped small chunks away from my body with each bite. In the sky above them, an armoured man wearing a black helmet with long, metal bull-horns flew on the back of a great eagle watched on.

After the unfolding of this hellish vision, the eagle spoke again on the nature of hell, commenting that it represented the state that the human mind most easily fell into, as it was easier to descend a difficult slope or fall into a hole in the road than it was to ascend a steep hill or climb a tall ladder. Ultimately though, he informed me, none of what I had witnessed represented objective reality and hell was nothing but a trap that we force ourselves into, for the human mind finds it easier to imagine its torments than its delights. To demonstrate the reality of this, he instructed me to invert all I had seen in hell to a heavenly equivalent. This I did with ease, making the gorgons angelic and golden in their appearance, while the landscape glowed with sunlight over verdant meadows as soft clouds scuttled by on the wings of sweet breezes.

Yet something about this vision was far less real than that of hell, for my mind could not imagine anything of this perfect scenario not dying, souring or ending in some way. This demonstrated to me that the human psyche is far closer to hell than heaven, as with death as its permanent reminder and great terror, nothing good could ever be seen to be more than a brief reprieve. Hell and its torments, however, could never let us down in terms of their longevity and permanence. The lesson the Eagle sought to teach was that all such ideas were nought but illusion. Hell and Heaven are but mirrors of each other in the human state of being, it said, with each being just as transient as the other. What the mind should strive to do was establish the same lack of identification as that which was advised in the previous scenario where I had sat opposite my doppelganger and observed it without any sense of emotional identification.

With this said, the heavenly scenario faded and I stood next to the pool again where the skies were once more those of twilight. As a parting gift, the eagle gave me a burning torch, advising me to use its light to guide myself through this world’s permanent, semi-lit state, for with it I could see things that the naked eye could not. To test this, I held it to the ground and saw a cat that was as black as coal appear out of the night air where there had previously been nothing. Then I held the torch above my head and saw the circling eagles high above where I had previously seen nothing more than the swelling night.

Notes

The purpose of the Hebrew word Nesher being spelled with a ‘k’ as opposed to the ‘sh’ of the letter Shin can be found by studying its reversed expression REKISEM. This word derives from the Hebrew root רחש (rechesh) meaning ‘whisper’ which either expresses the pluralised form of this word as recheshim, ‘whispers,’ or combines with the Hebrew שם (shem), ‘name,’ with rechesh in order to produce the meaning ‘a whispered name.’ Other meaningful words that appear within the square lie in the lines that spell KOLAMAS, which is either derived from the Hebrew חלם (cholam), ‘dream’ or is a mangled representation of the Greek word κάλαμος (Kalamos), which relates to a type of reed found at the side of a pond or lake. When spelled Calamos, this is also the name of one of the servitors of Ariton. Also present in the Square is the word ERAGOZE – ארגז (eragoz), ‘box,’ or ‘chest.’ Despite these possibilities, none of these words appeared to have any practical relevance to the results of the work unless the association of KOLAMAS with Calamus was represented by my beginning this vision at the side of a pool of water.

The name of the spirit Igarag appeared relevance due to its connection with the Hebrew word for ‘ice’ or ‘crystal,’ קרח (qarach), which in the case of the latter word has connections to the theme of reflection that pervaded this vision.Other pertinent Hebrew words that appear in the Square are ראי (rai), ‘mirror,’ ראים (raim), ‘visions’ and מער (ma’ar), ‘nakedness,’ which may provide an alternative etymology for the servient spirit Mara.

The theme of mirrors, crystals and reflective surfaces that pervaded this vision provide a link to Chapter IV of the Abramelin, which is also used to experience various visions, with the first Square of that chapter making things appear in mirrors, glass or crystals. Also apparent in this Square is a variation of the spirit name Erimites, who also appears in the Square relating to Eagles, as seen in the line which reads IRIIMITI.

IRIIMITI

An unsettling event occurred a short time after performing the scrying, when a sound that strongly resembled the sound of a rattlesnake’s tail came from the area of the room where I had performed the work. This was not the first time that extraneous sounds have been heard from the room before or after scrying these Squares, with the sound of chanting coming from behind me while scrying the Square that grants visions of Horses being the other example. This coincided with a feeling of unease and fear I felt right from the beginning of this vision. It is notable that the rattlesnake is of the same genus as the pit viper, with vipers being particularly related to the spirits communicated with during works of Goetia such as this, which in this case featured visions of gorgons with serpents wrapped around their arms.

The square was constructed with the Moon at 5º Capricorn and was scried with the Moon at 26º Aries.

The suit of Diamonds seen in the part of the visions in which cards were being played with equates to the suit of Pentacles, Disks or Coins in the Tarot. The Five of Diamonds therefore represents the Five of Disks which, in astrological terms, equates to the first decan of Taurus. This refers to the celestial occurrence of Mercury in Taurus and signifies ‘Worry’ in the Thoth deck. Of the energies present in this decan, Crowley stated:

“The Number Five, Geburah, in the suit of Earth, shows the disruption of the Elements, just as in the other suits. This is emphasized by the rule of Mercury in Taurus, types of energy which are opposed. It needs a very powerful Mercury to upset Taurus; so the natural meaning is Intelligence applied to Labour. The symbol represents five disks in the form of the inverted Pentagram, instability in the very foundations of Matter. The effect is that of an earthquake. They are, however, representative of the five Tatvas; these hold together, on a very low plane, an organism which would otherwise disrupt completely.”

Interestingly, with the scrying being performed with the Moon at 26º Aries, this decan represents the next decan the Moon would pass into approximately eight hours after the scrying had been performed. This seemed to be hinting towards some potential event, inner or outer, that is relevant to the timing of the Moon entering this decan. The ingress of the Moon into this position occurred at 2:29 am London time, on Friday 31st August, with Cancer’s position on the Ascendant signifying that the Moon or one’s emotional ideation of oneself was indeed the matter at hand. The first decan of Taurus is also that in which the Moon reaches its degree of exaltation, which at the moment is occupied by Uranus which brings sudden, revolutionary schemes to motivate, inspire or reinvigorate one’s emotional or reflective states. The Moon remained in this decan until 8:56 pm, making most of this day one in which the issues outlined above would be relevant in some way.

XXVIII: Peacocks

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Golden Idol

XXVIII MIDIKON

Servitors: Ilekel, Manties, Losimon, Asmiel, Lomiol, Katsin, Apolion, Pakid, Adon, Pattid, Kosem, Milon, Iparkas, Izozon, Nasi, Tolet, Ekalak, Kilik, Kokolon, Alpas, Ipakol, Soterion, Nolom, Amillis.

The word at the outer edge of the square derives from the Greek μυδεικών (mydeikon), meaning ‘mystical,’ while the name forming the central cross refers to the spirit Ilekel, whose name possibly derives from the Hebrew לחלל (lechalel) meaning ‘to desecrate,’ ‘violate’ or ‘defile.’ The lower case letters represent those altered by me to correct the errors that are evident in it in the original text.

The Vision

A long, thick baton made of plant matter and covered with needle-sharp spines appeared. Each of the baton’s spines had a tiny, lidless eye at its end, each of which turned to look at me at the same time, then started shifting around in a way that was quite unsettling to look upon. As I looked at the baton, a peacock came running towards me telling me I shouldn’t be holding it and instructed me to put it down. Entranced, I kept looking at it, and found it opening out into a blue fan that, with its eyes now spread all over its surface, resembled the tail of a peacock. As I noticed this, the peacock standing before me opened his tail in response then proceeded to run past me, telling me to put the fan down and run with him as something was coming. I folded it back up so it resembled the spiked baton again and ran with him.

Then it was apparent that we were in a thinly-wooded forest. Between, or rather above, the trees came a huge giant, crushing everything it trod on beneath its feet. Then, as the giant came to the baton I left on the floor, the eye-spines that ran up its length pierced the flesh of its feet and turned the giant to stone. Then, after a few moments, the stone giant crumbled to dust and revealed a golden statue of a man, somewhat like Michelangelo’s David, but carrying an axe over its shoulder. The Peacock and I approached the statue and the Peacock joyfully declared the freedom of the idol that had been encased within the giant’s great body. Then the arm holding the axe dropped down to its side for a moment then moved again to strike the ground with it, causing a small crack to appear in the earth. As the earth opened, I saw a pool of very blue water in which hundreds of frogs eggs had been laid. This, I realised, was the point where the spiked baton had been crushed into the ground by the giant’s foot, and had now changed from being a baton/tail/fan into a blue pool full of eggs. On inspection, each of the eggs contained tiny, swimming embryos.

Then, from the water, a large, shark-like monster leaped, its maw raised to the heavens, which peeled back lay by layer to reveal a bald-headed figure garbed in a robe of the same blue as the pool and tail feather had been. Its eyes, however, had skin growing over them which opened by the skin being split open into vertical slits with no visible eyeballs within them. As it gazed upon me, it said ‘speak what you wish, or rather, chant it.’ Doing so, I demanded, in a chant, to be shown the true visions of the square. It told me I was already seeing them, but then explained that none of what I was seeing was real, for nothing around us was actually there. The wood around me and everything in it was an illusion fabricated from the matter of my mind, it said, and this illusion could come in the form of castles, buildings, towns, banquets or anything else one could imagine.

The entity then told me that the mechanics by which spirits worked was through influencing the physical matter of the mind to produce symbolic communications. But, he asked me, how could I truly distinguish what was the work of my own mind and what was the work of the spirits communicating with me. As he spoke, I noticed that his feet became those of an ostrich that dug into the ground and that he appeared to be wearing a pink tutu around his waist. On noting my incredulity about such a ridiculous image, it laughed a bellowing laugh. It explained that they could encourage the mind to see anything they wished it to by the power of suggestion, it said and produced random images of foods like pineapples and carrots appeared for no discernible reason. The point of doing this, it told me, was that I had the mind couldn’t control the formation of these images once they had been suggested to it. This being the case, how could one truly determine whether the images impressed by the mind was the product of one’s own communications with the unconscious or some other extraneous entity. It prompted me then to form whatever images I wished in my own mind. On doing this, I noticed that everything I thought of came easily enough but that the things I was deciding to form images of now also seemed to be influenced by something that may or not be of my own mind.

The entity reiterated again that this was how spirits worked. They could manipulate any matter that they wished to by such power, and did so by working at the subatomic level, as they could range in their sizes from that of a particle, to a microbe or to a great giant. In such forms they could alter the forms and movements of anything physical in unseen, invisible ways, being able to effect the actions of viruses and bacteria, the movements of animals, storms, seas and buildings. Even, it seems, the synapses of the brain that produce various thoughts, images, predilections or emotional responses could be manipulated by them. The veils between the unconscious influence of the mind and the activities of spirits, it seems by such explanations, is thin and indistinguishable. To test this, I asked whether I could be made to see things I had never physically seen if this was the case, and the answer was affirmative. I asked it, for some reason, for it to show me a vision of Byzantium, and it proceeded to show me an image of a city with small white houses and red-brown sloping rooves surrounded by larger buildings with great golden domes. I stated to it that this place could be anywhere, and there was no proof that this illusion was Byzantium at all. That, it said, was my dilemma. How could I ever know if any of the things shown to me were ‘real’ in an objective sense if I couldn’t prove it either way. Ultimately, there is no way to tell if one is being deceived or not by the actions of mind, be it due to the actions of one’s own brain or by spirits who, in this vision, claimed that they worked by manipulating it.

Leaving me to consider such things, I sensed its impending departure and asked it to give me its name before it left. In response, the image of a highly intricate red and yellow banner appeared before me with various heraldic images such as lions and dragons stitched into it. In this centre, around a crest of some kind, two flowing ribbons had two letters stitched into them in red, AF on the left side and AS on the right, spelling out the name AFAS. With this, the vision ended.

Notes

The Square in question appears to have been corrupted in the original text and so was amended by myself to make its proportions even. The original, uncorrected Square appears as follows.

XXVIII CORRECTED

New Spirits apparent in this square are: Izozon, Katsin, Manties, Pakid, Pattid. Possible origins for these names are:

Izozon – יזוז (izoz), ‘move,’ ‘stir,’ ‘go away.’
Katsin – חצי (chatzi), ‘middle’ or ‘half,’ though the most interesting possibility is ‘moiety,’ which refers to something a single thing being split into two halves.
Manties – possibly from the term -mancy, related to divination, which ultimately comes from the Greek μαντεία (manteia).
Pakid – from Hebrew פחד (pechad), ‘fear,’ ‘dread,’ ‘terror.’
Pattid – possibly from Hebrew יפעת (ipat), ‘splendour,’ ‘brilliance.’

The bottom line of the square reveals a backward expression of the word MIDIKON to give the word NOKIDIM – נגידים – ‘Governors,’ which is suggestive of the influence of the Four Kings, Oriens, Amaymon, Paymon and Ariton, but may refer to any entity in a position of authority over others. NOKIDIM also represents the principle of averse mysticism due to the word it derives from mydeikon, meaning ‘mystical,’ and the aura of averse mysticism evident in the square, with its explanations on how spirits interfere with the laws of cause and effect in invisible ways in the physical world, appeared to confirm this. about it.

The nature of the communications in it had a degree of what a psychiatrist would probably call examples of schizotypal or psychotic thinking, due to the postulated statement that external entities may have an effect on thoughts. Such explanations are not entirely inaccurate, as when uncontrolled through the veils of mental illness and a lack of mystical or magical intent this can certainly be the case. However, most human experiences that can be called religious or spiritual, including visions, shamanic experiences, kundalini or other ecstatic states can quite easily be attributed to forms of temporary psychosis. The key here is the ability to acknowledge that mystical experiences are wilful experiments with the fabric of one’s psychic substance that can be used to tap into alternative states of consciousness by communicating with one’s deep and unconscious self. As the entity, Afas, in the vision stated however, there is a quandary involved in this in that one can no longer truly tell what is the product of one’s unconscious, which has been given free reign to act as it wills for a short time, and what is the product of the encouragement or manipulation of forces that exist beyond it.

The true key to understanding whether what we experience in such states is down to us or something extraneous to us lies in receiving proofs that point to something beyond the self. In these experiments this has happened rather consistently with the reception of words that I have had no prior knowledge off in ancient languages that I only have passing familiarity with. In this vision, this happened too, as the name given, Afas, appears to correlate with the Hebrew word אפש (afas), which means ‘wish’ or ‘desire,’ which is objectively relevant due to the entity informing me I could ‘speak what I wished for’ when it first appeared. It’s nature, then, was the granting of wishes or desires in the way that is mythically expressed in the persons of the djinn that emerge from magical lamps in Arabian lore. Another alternative explanation for this sort of phenomena is that the self has the ability to tap into an objective pool of information that lies beyond it, such as that represented by the Collective Unconscious postulated by the eminent sage Carl Jung. This possibility, however, is no less magical in its postulations than the idea of spirits or daemons having an element of influence over us, but I personally believe that the human mind cannot access information beyond its own experiences, but can be prompted and communicated with by preternatural entities that are extraneous to it.

The Square was created with the Moon at 12º Sagittarius and performed with the Moon at 25º Sagittarius.

XXVII: Cranes

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Lucifer

XXVII RAMAC

Servitors: Nolom, Mara, Malach

The word that connects this square to cranes is not its outer word, RAMAC, which comes from the Hebrew רמח (ramach) ‘spear’ or ‘lance,’ but from that in its second row and column, AGORA, which comes from the Hebrew עגור (agor), ‘crane,’ though it may also have links to the ‘gathering place’ of Ancient Greek society. The name of the spirit in the central square is presented as MOLOM, which probably refers to the name of the servitor Nolom, whose name means ‘unknown,’ ‘hidden’ and ‘concealed.’

The Vision

I was in a plane flying over a small tropical island. I thought the plane was about to land there, but found it continuing on to another beach much further away which was cold and bleak and populated by about a dozen Flamingos. The birds ambled about their business and paid me no attention as I walked around the beach, but then I noticed a bottle with a message in it coming to shore. I opened it and the note inside read ‘fly north, not south.’ Unsure who this message was intended for, I headed towards a flamingo that looked different from the others due to it being slightly larger and with white streaks in his plumage, and told him about the contents of the bottle.

He asked, with some anger, where we were, and I instinctively answered that we were in Alaska. ‘So how are we supposed to fly any further north?’ he replied. I suggested that perhaps they should continue flying north until they crossed the North pole and began heading south again. The Flamingo chief was no more impressed than before and said that the magnetic influence of the pole made birds lose their sense of direction, so this couldn’t be done. He then grew angry at me for reading the message in the bottle before he could, as those messages, which he received regularly, were read by someone the meaning of the message changed so that its original intent could never be known by the one it was addressed to. I apologised for this indiscretion, but the bird made off in anger. I then noticed that the whole time this transaction was going on the other flamingos, who remained mute the whole time, had formed a circle around me and were staring at me with evil intent.

Then I was somewhere else completely, suddenly finding myself in a house that was furnished in the style of a traditional working class home from the 1970s or 80s. Before me stood an old man, who I could only see from behind, who was wearing a flat cap, slacks and a creamy-beige coloured overcoat. He also carried a brown leather suitcase that was bulging open due to bit being overfilled. From a crack in the case’s opening, I could see a dead flamingo’s leg poking out, which the man snapped with a loud crack and attempted, but failed, to bundle back into the suitcase. After doing this, he headed towards the brown, wooden front door at the end of a beige hallway. I approached him as he headed towards the door, and he turned to face me, revealing large, silvery eyes and a dark, blank face that made it look like he was wearing a gas mask. He asked whether I had given the flamingos the message or not, and I replied that I had. He seemed pleased, and on my asking, he gave his name as Marchin. Then his appearance changed to that of a very muscular, middle-aged man wearing a green, military-style vest and a balaclava. He said something hard to recall about having to change his plans, as he was going on the run after apparently ordering some kind of ‘hit’ on the flamingos. Then, he picked up the receiver of an old-fashioned cream-coloured telephone with a plastic dial, and entered the number 7492 into it before hanging up without saying anything over the phone. Following this, he left the house and drove off in a scruffy blue car with the license plate Y161LLP.

Notes

The appearance of a plane flying over somewhere I assumed to be the Pacific Ocean represented a huge departure from the previous visions. The message in the bottle and the response of the flamingo’s leader suggested the flight issues planes have with flying over extreme northern and southern latitudes due to magnetic unreliability rather than birds, making me consider that both the message and the bird were simultaneously referring to my own travels by plane. The name given by the man in the house, which he pronounced ‘Marchin,’ resembles that of Machin, a spirit from the Livre des Esperitz who comes as a strong man who can transfer one from one region to another in an instant, which are both highly relevant to the content of this vision. Machin’s alias names across the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Lemegeton and Book of Offices are Maxayn, Marshiones, Mathias, Mathim, Bartyn, Barton and Bathin, and he is attributed to the spirits of the East under Oriens.

The last square to reveal a number of some kind was that which related to Horses, which gave the number 5932, which I equated (by analysing the numbers 5 + 9 + 3 + 2 = 19, and 59 + 32 = 91) to the gematric value for the term ‘enemy angel.’ In the case of this square the number dialled into the phone was 7429. Dividing this number into two, as I did with the Horses square, the following gematric correspondences present themselves: 74 = דיין (diyan) ‘leader,’ and 29 = דכה (decah) ‘is broken.’ This feasibly relates to the bird that the ‘Marchin’ had stuffed into his suitcase, which could have been being the white dappled ‘leader’ I spoke to on the Alaskan beach. That its leg was snapped symbolically refers to this ‘leader’ becoming ‘broken,’ which was a crime that Marchin, in his disguise as an old man, had to flee into exile for. The nature of his crime was then expressed esoterically in the index of the car he made off in, Y161LLP, reflected the gematric value of 161 expressed in the Hebrew word מנוסה (menosah), ‘flight,’ which relates to the themes of flying and fleeing that were present in the vision. The other letters present Y, L, L and P, then presented the value of 150, which equates to the words כנף (kenap), ‘wing’ and כפן (kapen), ‘to twist or bend.’ Together they add to 311, איש (aish), ‘a strong one,’ ‘oppressor,’ ‘warrior.’

Precisely what this crime of organised deceit, murder and flight relates to remains a mystery, though cranes (which here were presented as flamingoes) were equated with a sentry-like function by Pliny the Elder, and are thus a symbol of spiritual vigilance.

This square featured the first appearance of the servitor Malach, whose name may either derive from the Hebrew מול (mol), meaning ‘against’ or ‘opposed,’ or from מלאך (malak), ‘angel.’ Curiously, this fits with the numeric expression of the concept of the ‘enemy angel’ transmitted in the square relating to Horses. An extra note worth considering is that the only other square to feature a code expressed by a four-digit number was that relating to a vision of Horses, which, as mentioned previously, was a function that was misattributed (accidentally or otherwise) to this square. The ‘Horses’ square also featured the element of running away or fleeing, as was expressed in the word ARIKA and its connection to the Hebrew ערק (ariq, meaning ‘bolt’ or ‘run away’) and its associated word עריקה (ariqah), meaning ‘defector.’ In this square, the aspect of ‘running away’ was evident in Marchin’s quick escape in a battered old car, while in that of Horses it was evident in the spirit’s ‘bolting’ upstream first as the strange unicorn/zebra combination and then as the water snake. There was also a degree of somewhat antagonistic, contrarian elaboration of the animals that were supposed to appear in both visions may be significant, with the square that was supposed to deliver a vision of horses instead presenting a surreal zebra-unicorn, while that of cranes instead produced bright pink flamingoes.

In all, the strange mysteries that link these two squares may reveal an esoteric and hidden connection between them (perhaps related to the meaning behind the name of the spirit Nolom), that is hinted towards in their being mixed up with each other.

The square was constructed with the Moon at 26º Pisces and concluded when the Moon was at 17º 51’ Aries, which is very close to the position of 18º Aries that the moon was cited as being at in the vision of Wild Animals. Like this vision, that one featured décor that appeared to be date to the 1970s or 80s.

XXVI: Giants

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nephilim-giants

ANAKIM

Servitors: Ipakol, Imink.

The word forming the outer edge of the square, ANAKIM, comes from the Hebrew ענקים, (anaqim), ‘giants.’ The spirit name, APOKOK, does not directly relate to any of the servitors, but is in close proximity of the name Ipokol, which relates to the Hebrew אפוק (apoq), meaning ‘restraint,’ ‘control.’

The Vision

As many others have before it, this vision began with me standing in a green meadow. This one was of soft, short grass broken up by intermittent sunflowers and situated upon a slight, rolling hill beneath a blue sky with a single, white and wispy cloud hanging in it. I sat in silence there for a few moments and felt a breeze whisper against my skin as I waited for a giant of some sort to manifest. When nothing came I understood that the land itself was a giant, and that it was in fact either a tiny planet, a large moon or a huge meteor with its own perfect and temperate atmosphere. The planet-thing encircled a gentle sun in the same manner that Mercury does, in that is spun only once on its axis in the span of a year so that one side of constantly faces the su and knows no night.

After a few more moments, on noticing how green and perfect the grass was again, I began to think of where the planet’s moisture came from. Listening out for some, I heard the sound of dripping water echoing in a stone cave and followed the sound to seek it out. On arriving at the source, I discovered a small grotto with a wide, open face inside which a soft stream began its course towards the sea. I couldn’t discern, however, where the water came from, as there was no sign of rain in this place yet the water flowed as though fed by some great fountain from above. Inspecting the grassy top above the grotto, I noticed that a plastic pipe had been bored into the earth which, at some point between the crown of the grotto and its innards, generated its own water.

Going back down to the grotto, I discovered this observation to be true and found the other end of the pipe feeding the stream’s source. I entered the shallow pool where the water collected beneath the pipe and felt its softness about my legs and thought I detected the essence of gold upon my skin. With this feeling, I realised that the water was being drawn directly from the planetoid’s atmosphere while the gold was being drawn from the light of the nearby sun itself. After realising this, I saw a stone tunnel, much like the gullet in the cave that appeared in the vision of Steers, which the water entered and nourished the innards of the earth with. I sensed, on looking at the tunnel that it was a blood vessel or feeding pipe of some kind that would go directly to the heart of the giant living being that this planet truly was.

I had no desire to go into the depths of this being’s gut yet, nevertheless, found myself pulled in. Inside, I didn’t view its heart or innards however, but went straight to the giant’s testes which lay inside of its body in transparent sacs. On inspection, I saw that they had the appearance of two disembodied brains. I found myself touching one of the ‘ball-brains’ out of curiosity and heard a booming, echoing laugh fill the stone caverns of its innards. On touching it though, I was filled with a strange knowledge, as if its generative organs rather than its speech or thoughts were its means of communication. The gnosis it transmitted was that of the essential oneness of finding the present moment and merely existing in it without thought, with which came the fuller understanding of everything being animated and filled with a single, monistic life-force of which the separated parts were illusions—the maceration of oneness the demiurge and its archons imposed upon the world that caused us to wrongly believe we are each an island and not the organs or limbs of the same body.

On feeling this, I knew it as time to depart from the giant’s great inverted scrotum and find the shaft through which its seeds departed into the world beyond. The image of such a thing came as a window crossed with diagonal hatches of iron at the end of a long stone tunnel. The world beyond that window, which was set in an old mansion near the sea, was not that which I had entered, but was this world. Outside, the skies were set with thick swarming clouds and the sea beyond the high cliffs on which the old house stood was violent and dark. From nowhere, I produced a pick axe and decided to descend the high cliff to the sea below. On my way down, I discovered another small cave, inside which an idol sat, which at first resembled a Buddha, but on closer inspection, it appeared more akin to one of the wrathful entities of Tibetan Buddism. Its tongue poked menacingly out of its mouth, its eyes were in the shapes of two x’s and around its knees—which were crossed into a half-lotus position—gathered a tangle of writhing snakes. Set around it were a collection of garlands of red flowers, which a voice in the cave told me I too had to provide an offering of. Having no such thing with me, I offered my pick axe instead and asked if this would suffice until I could get hold of the garlands that the cave spirit wanted. The offering was accepted as a truce, but left me in the position of not being able to depart the cave in safety as I no longer had a fitting climbing implement.

Standing at the edge of the cave, I contemplated what to do next for a moment then jumped down towards the rough waters below. Before I hit the water, I found myself back in the house I had been in earlier, which now had the upper part of the grotto dedicated to the spirit who demanded a garland inside one of its downstairs rooms. On the floor of this cave, just before another flowing stream of water, was the exact kind of garland I required, so I picked it up and cast it into the channel of water before me so that it flowed down to the cave in the cliff-face below. On the offering being received, a voice filled the chamber, stating that I now had the spirit’s blessing to go wherever I wished in his land.

Notes

Similarities again with the vision of Bridges and A Village with the cave-dwelling spirits, while those of Steers were also reiterated.

The giants in question appeared to be two separate telluric spirits whose presence filled the astral lands they governed. The revelation of the first spirit, who was very benign in nature, was about the harmony and balance of nature as a living entity, while that of the second, who had a more untamed feel about him, was that of a spirit who required offerings to appease him before giving permission to access his territory. Compare this to the manifestation of the Minotaur King in Steers, who displayed a similar desire to guard his boundaries, yet was easily cowed by the threat of a superior magical force. The appeasement the second spirit required may also have been a manifestation of the principle of ‘restraint’ suggested by the appearance of the word APOKOK (apoq) and the spirit Ipokol in the square.

The two spirits of seemingly diverse nature presents the possibility that a spirit and its averse reflection appear in squares that are an even number of squares across and down due to there being a ‘double cross’ in the middle rather than a single one. The figure below better explains what I mean by this, in which the word APOKOK is presented four times in total, twice forwards and twice backwards in order to show the spirit in its upright and averse manifestations.

KOKOPA

The Square was constructed with the Moon at 7º Capricorn and performed with the Moon at 8º Pisces.

Blood Moon Eclipse

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IKKEBEKKI

‘To prevent all magic from working.’

I’ve seen a few people talking of using the blood moon eclipse and its conjunction with Mars in malefic works. This shows an ignorance of some of the finer points of astrological magic as elections designed for magical effect when a particular planet is conjunct with a Lunar Eclipse are rendered void by the restrictive, Saturnian influence of Cauda Draconis.

Put simply, the South Node—which total Lunar Eclipses are in strong conjunction with—acts as a vortex that sucks away the energies of any celestial body that comes into contact with it and makes any kind of talismanic work designed to draw upon that planet’s influence a complete waste of time. However, with the Moon representing one’s emotional self and the South Node representing past issues or karma one may be having trouble letting go of or overcoming, works designed to reflect upon one’s inner struggles and issues that are difficult to put aside would be more profitable.

XXV: Steers

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Minotauros

XXV PARAH

Servitors: Ramoras, Mara.

The word at the outer edges of the square, PARAH, comes from the Hebrew פרה (parah), ‘cow,’ while the spirit referred to in the central cross is Ramoras, whose name means ‘thunder.’

The Vision

I walked through a meadow and discovered a large puff mushroom that resembled a distorted-looking skull. Curious about what it was concealing, I took out the ankh knife I had found on my own dead body in the vision of A Mountain and cut it open. Inside were a writing mass of millipedes, but before I could look at them properly, a cloud of spores that seemed to also be tiny insects exploded out of the husk and made their way into my nose and mouth and down into my lungs. As soon as I inhaled them, I soared up into the sky, which darkened, then found myself landing in another field, though I came there by landing from below the earth, not above it. In the field a herd of Minotaurs stood guard, just as one of them had in the vision of Wild Animals. They came towards me with great suspicion and the one who led them held a chain, which another Minotaur to his right held the other end of. He explained that they were taking me prisoner as I shouldn’t be trespassing in their domain. I consented to be bound in the chains and kept a reserve of great power within me that I could easily break their bonds with if I felt any danger.

Once bound, they became winged bulls, like the Lamasu of Mesopotamian lore, and flew me to a lonely and sinister looking tower with a stone bull’s head mounted above the main entrance. Inside, on a dais at the end of a dark, stone chamber sat the monarch of the bull-men, who questioned me on how I got to his domain. On telling him that I arrived there after cutting open the puff mushroom, he seemed concerned and asked how I had managed to cut him open. In response, I showed him my ankh dagger and he grew fearful. He asked where I obtained such an artefact, and I told him I had recovered it from my own dead body on the top of a mountain. On hearing this, he apologised profusely for having me brought to him in chains, as one who had been resurrected from death as I had should not have been treated in such a way. I told him that I had not been offended as his servants had only been keeping due vigilance and had acted correctly. I reminded him that if I’d been offended by being brought to him, he would be aware of it by now.

As recompense for the discourtesy he felt he had done me, he asked me what I wanted of him to make amends, as he seemed greatly fearful. I said I wished for the essence of strength, vitality and prosperity that lay in the bones of his kingdom be granted to me, and he had one of his minions, who he named Taja, to bring me a vial that was filled with a thick, honey-gold substance. He bade me to drink it and told me it was the essence of a bull mixed with liquid gold. I drank it and felt a rush of warmth and well-being fill me. With this favour granted, I thanked him and bade him farewell and was returned back to the sunny meadow I had wandered before the mushroom spores had transported me to the darkened world of the bulls. In front of me when I returned was a brown and white cow happily chewing grass. On her ear was a white tag on which the number ‘39’ had been marked. Before the vision ended, a bull’s horn appeared in my hand and a voice came from the world above telling me to blow it if I ever had the need to summon any of its denizens to me.

Notes

The word AZOFA in the second row of the square comes from the Hebrew עזוב (azob), ‘abandoned,’ ‘forsaken,’ ‘derelict,’ ‘deserted.’ This wasn’t strongly reflected, but the castle where the Minotaur King resided was set alone in a dark environment.

The name Taja the King addressed his servant by is Minoan for ‘five’ and it was the Minoan culture in Crete that the legend of the Minotaur originated from. Both the beast itself and the culture its myth grew from derive their names from King Minos. With Minos being believed to mean ‘king’ and taur meaning ‘bull,’ a Minotaur is in essence a ‘king of the bulls,’ just as the throned king in this vision certainly was. That the king called his servant ‘five’ suggests that his minions were given numbers rather than names. This was reflected with the placid cow I saw in the field towards the end of the vision who had the number ‘39’ etched into the tag she wore on her right ear. 39 is directly relevant to the number of squares in this chapter of the Abramelin, though whether there is any esoteric meaning behind this is not something I have spent much time considering yet. Its Kaballistic meaning is ‘IHVH is One’ and also has the same meaning in its expression as the word אחד (achad), ‘unity’ = 13, reiterated three times.

The Square was constructed with the Moon at 12º Sagittarius and performed with Moon at 27º Sagittarius.