I have the Power, part the second

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Last night I went to one of the sanghas (Buddhist communities) of Pittsburgh and received an empowerment.  In Vajrayana Buddhism an empowerment is essentially a blessing which allows one to properly use the mantra, visualization, and meditation practice connected with a particular figure.

In this case, the figure was Vajrapani, who represents the spiritual power of the Buddhas, protection of the law, righteous anger, and so forth.  (It’s important to note that “righteous anger” does not simply mean “anger roused for a good cause”, but “anger directed skillfully to actually produce enlightenment”.  All too … [more]

Libertarianism: A useless notion

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A recent discussion in a friend’s thread has me questioning whether the notion of “libertarianism” is even vaguely useful.  The basic notion is of course to get government out of the way of individual freedom, but “freedom” is always loosely defined by libertarians with the whole “your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose” thing.

I assert that the notion of harming another human being is too vague to be useful for defining a political philosophy.  A classic dilemma is abortion.  While many left-libertarians find laws against abortion offensive, the reality is … [more]

Site changes

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sk4p.net has received a clean new skin.  I’ll be making some updates to the collection of occult pages soon too — new moment, new rebirth, etc.

Some of the pages at my site will go away and others will appear.  The Internet should teach us all the lesson of transience.

Creative exercise of the day

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(The dice came up “sonnet” this morning.)

Could I but tell you what I long to do,
we should not long desist from what we seek;
I wish you would have said what we both knew,
then neither you nor I could be so meek.

We raced through side streets hand in trembling hand,
we told each other all our deepest fears;
We learned we shared a visit to a band,
it felt like we’d been sharing for some years.

I knew I craved your lips upon my skin,
I ached to think of ever letting … [more]

I have the power!

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This story may seem immensely cheesy.  That’s fine.

A large part of why I’ve not done much magick in a while is something I’m almost embarrassed to admit.  When one does magical work, one is supposed to be able to “feel” the energy.  Now whether you believe in this or not — you can dismiss this as creative visualization, self-deception or self-hypnosis — you need to “feel” it to really do the work, to know that you’re “working”.

I’ve not been able to get that feeling for quite a while.  As in, for months.

But today … [more]

Already in

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I just woke up, minutes ago, from an interesting dream.  I was joining a society with some secrets. In waking life, I know some of those secrets because they are widely available for reading by the curious, but I will omit them from this account so as not to “spoil” things for anyone interested.

I dreamt I was at an open-to-the-public informational meeting for the Freemasons.  People of all genders and ages were present; apparently it wasn’t just for the Masons strictly, but also for the ladies’ auxiliary group (Order of the Eastern Star) … [more]

Invocation or lack thereof

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I thought to myself in early September when planning the HGA invocation project, “You could get distracted by getting an XBox.”  Well, I’ve not played my XBox too much.  “You could get distracted by girls.”  I’ve not dallied much.  “You could get distracted by your new position at work.”  It has had a learning curve and taken some of my energy, but not that much.

No, the thing which has prevented me from invoking as I had planned — I’ve not lifted my nifty new magical tools and invoked even once this month — … [more]

Faster than the speed of rumors

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So if you do the math, in 60 ns, light should move about 18 meters. (That’s assuming 2 significant figures in “60″, which is generous; it might only be one. See below* if you don’t know what a “significant figure” is.) Given current technology, assessing distances on earth down to that accuracy is indeed possible — but that doesn’t mean they did it.

The question is then “but can we have two clocks sufficiently well-synchronized to be absolutely sure of the launch and arrival times?” Yes, if you know what you’re doing; you synchronize … [more]

Tag St. Tag

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When Crowley was proceeding from the mystical degree of Adeptus Minor to Adeptus Major, he undertook a “Great Magical Retirement”. He went to Paris (because he could) and spent a few weeks dining in cafés, frequenting billiard parlours, and shagging a model (because he could).

All the while, he was trying to keep a mantra going in his head, and when he went back to his flat, doing yoga practices and rituals to concentrate his mind on his Holy Guardian Angel, with whom he was attempting to establish contact.

He succeeded after about two weeks. … [more]

Thelemic Fallout

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Patrick McGoohan’s amazing TV series “The Prisoner” is full of strange symbolism.  How much of it was intentional versus accidental is probably known only to McGoohan, aside from the bits he’s let slip over the years.  But just like Crowley found qabalistic meaning in nursery rhymes, I give you Thelemic symbolism in “Fall Out”,  the final episode of the series.

It should be unnecessary to say this, but, spoiler alert!

The Supervisor — the agent who congratulates #6 and offers to take him to #1 — is #26, the number of Tetragrammaton.  #26 then joins … [more]