Living in a Stupid World

“You gotta remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land, the common clay of the New West, you know? Morons.” Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles

It is late spring, and an election year. The candidates for president have already been chosen, and on one side we have an aging but highly competent old-style Democratic politician, and on other side, we have Donald J. Trump. How that managed to happen is a mystery to me. It would appear that choosing an avowed anti-democratic, authoritarian, insurrection inciting, megalomaniac who threatens the United States, its constitution and democratic institutions to lead a major political party in the same country is acceptable to a large percentage of our population. I am, unfortunately, baffled by this sentiment espoused by my fellow Americans, and I can’t understand why they find democracy so loathsome and personally dangerous to them that they would want to abolish it?

However, behind the scenes and hyperbolic political rhetoric is the fact that these right-wing politicians are pandering to a group of citizens who feel that they alone are justified in changing the way that the nation governs from a constitutional representational republic to a single party autocracy just because they feel that their privileges are threatened (they are not), and that they are not getting the respect and empowerment that they righteously deserve. They appear to be willing to foment violence and insurrection to achieve their objective. Our nation’s government is supposed to be by the people and for the people, and that means all of them, not just a certain group. The fact that these individuals are predominantly Evangelical Christian (although, not all of them) who believe that their white, Christian, cis-gender privileges are under siege, and that they believe that their way of living and believing is the only correct way, is to me, quite disturbing.

Magicians, Witches, Pagans, Occultists and purveyors of alternative belief systems, philosophies and metaphysics have always been a vulnerable group. In Nazi Germany, they were rounded up and put into concentration camps along with Jews, Communists, regime detractors, intellectuals, gypsies, and other folks who did not fit the racial profile of the Aryan archetype. The Jews suffered greatly and millions of them were exterminated, but less known, so were many occultists, and metaphysical intellectuals, and members of occult societies. If someone felt that they should stand by their beliefs and principles, then they were liquidated with all of the other social outcasts. When I place my vote and perform my civic duty, this insight is foremost in my mind. I would never vote for anyone who would take away my rights to practice my religious beliefs as I see fit without intervention or interdiction by the government or some socially appointed proxy.

I see this distinction quite starkly, and I don’t need to ponder the political issues or play the role of both-siderism, as the MS press seems to happily to play, or pretend to be non-aligned, independent, unbiased or impartial. When I vote, I am voting for my own economic self-interests and my democratic principles, that all citizens are equal and deserve equal human rights, and that our right to worship as we see fit is one of the main rights that I strongly believe in. To equivocate or puzzle over minor disagreements is a complete waste of time. I know who can aptly represent me, and I know who is inimical to my religious and magical practices.

As I look at the upcoming election, there doesn’t seem to be any equivocation on my part. One party has abandoned democracy, and the other party has become its champion. I know that I will happily vote for all of the Democrats running in my locale, state and the nation. There is no guess work for me. I may not agree with all of the policies that the Democratic Party espouse, and I certainly have great misgivings about the role America is playing in the Israeli Gaza war, but overall, I am satisfied that their representatives will defend our constitution and preserve our democratic institutions. I will not vote for any Republicans, and I will urge all of my friends, family, neighbors and those sisters and brothers of the Craft to vote for the Democrats regardless of their differences of opinion on this policy or that principle.

In this election in November, we are deciding on what kind of country we are to become, a continuation with the democratic experiment begun over two hundred years ago, or the founding of a new religious autocracy, backed by a Christian religious oligarchy. I am not engaging in hyperbole, since Trump has stated his intentions for a second term of office. If he and his Republican minions win, there will likely not be another election, or there will be show elections where the outcome will be predetermined. Even if Trump loses, he promised not to respect the outcome, and we as a nation can expect some difficult times ahead even after his defeat.

This brings me to my great puzzlement. If I can see how one-sided this coming election is turning out, why is it that so many other of my fellow Americans can’t see it? Why are some of these people so against our representational democracy, the constitution, our laws, and the institutions that support this organization. One would think that anyone who was politically conservative would be most ardently interested in preserving the nation and its institutions as they currently exist. How have these people lost faith in such a successful experiment in governance that other nations have been copying it in some form or another ever since that faithful day when we became a nation governed by laws and institutions and not a nation governed by one or a few?

During most of my life, I associated political conservatism with the preservation of the nation and its institutions, and a robust and even macho engagement with the rest of the world, particularly the battle against Communism and the nations that supported it. While the Democratic party represented the introduction of socialism into our national fabric, which actually helped to make our nation more fair and economically balanced than it had been in the 19th century, they, too, engaged the world as a conflict between autocratic regimes and their proxies, and the free world. That was the ideal in regards to geopolitics, but the reality was a lot more dirty, unethical and complicated.

Democrats and Republicans, and even independents, had to compromise and work together to accomplish their goals. We were never about a single party having all of the power, at least not until the 1990's. It was Newt Gingrich who brought out the partisan perspective of polarization, that the other side of the aisle was somehow evil and had to be neutralized. That attitude grew and waxed under the direction of George W. Bush, but still, democracy persevered, although in a more partisan and polarized atmosphere.

When I think about what set off the conservative movement to the course of autocracy, I can readily point to Obama getting elected. The fact that a brilliant politician and statesman was readily elected president of the United States wasn’t a new event in our history. However, the fact that he was a black man and a Democrat set off a firestorm in the Republican party, and it brought together a lot of people who felt that the country had changed too much, and that something had to be done to protect the interests of white socially conservative religious people. It also activated racists, bigots, and those on the political fringe who felt left out and disfranchised by a country that was demographically changing, and where the population of white people was slowly becoming a minority.

These people believed that their privileges were somehow endangered by a liberal elite that actually had little power and the ability to influence the country. Liberalism has always been on the political fringe, and that most of the country was politically in the center between left and right. Where before conservatives had seen Communism as the enemy, they now saw their non-white, non Protestant Christian fellow citizens as the enemy. They believed that they were being persecuted and soon to be outnumbered, so with that in mind, democracy, even a representational democracy, seemed to allow too many other undesirable people to hold equal power with them. Of course, that is the basic premise of a democracy, it has to have equal representation and equality before the law, and a fair economic basis in order to be truly realized. Our nation is still working that out, but we at least have a foundation that has proven the test of over two hundred years. We don’t want to overthrow it. We just want to make it closer to achieving the ideals that it espouses.

All of this, of course, is just recent history. The fact that a black man can become president of the nation is proof that the ideals of democracy are working. It doesn’t mean that somehow things have gone awry. Yet that is how some people in our country saw the Obama presidency. Then, in 2016, a highly competent but much maligned politician, the wife of a former president (Hillary Clinton), ran against a so-called populist media personality with no governing experience (Donald Trump), and the populist surprisingly won. We suffered four years under the rule of a president and a party that had lost ability to compromise or work together as a nation, and who was an unqualified disaster as a world leader. It took two years for the current president, Joe Biden, to fix what the Trump presidency had damaged in our homes, communities and in the world abroad, and he has gotten very little credit for the enormous work that he and his cabinet has successfully accomplished.

Donald Trump is also a crook, pathological liar, and an affirmed sociopath and malignant narcissist. His presidential cabinet was the most corrupt in the history of the nation, and his misguided policies ensured that a world pandemic killed over a million Americans. When he lost the election in 2020, he and his minions attempted to thwart the peaceful transition of power, even fomenting an insurrection on January 6, when congress was supposed to certify the election results.  Now, with over 90 indictments for various crimes that he has been accused of committing, he is running again for the presidency with the full backing of his party and their constituents. All I can think about is why this is happening?

I understand that some people are afraid of the changing demographics, and that we are slowly becoming a more secular population that tolerates a diversity of viewpoints and personal perspectives. However, the very laws and institutions of our nation will continue to operate to ensure that people are represented and that their differences are respected. It has never been a perfect system, but it is a good system of government, and it should be continually updated and made more fair and balanced. As FDR said so many years ago, “The only thing that we have to fear is fear itself.” If we as a people can keep faith with our government, then we can be certain to continue our American experiment in a representational democracy.

Still, there is a movement in our nation to abolish our government and democratic principals for a single party autocracy, that it somehow will ensure that a white Protestant Christian minority will remain privileged and empowered. Of course, that won’t happen. Only an invested oligarchy and a compliant and fixed autocracy that serves it will benefit, and the lower class or poor Evangelical Christians will not be the beneficiaries. We, the little people, will get screwed over in that brave new world, and those who are not social conservatives will end up in concentration camps, along with illegal foreigners, LGBTQ folks, liberals, non-Christians, and other undesirables, and that includes me. Everyone else who survives will live a very diminished existence, with no legal representation or rights.  

Certainly, there is enough recent historical accounts that should help anyone who is considering such a change to rethink their priorities. We spent several years fighting against fascism in the world, and decades after that fighting autocracies in a cold war. How is it that today there are people in our nation who are attracted to abolishing our government for a single party autocratic theocracy?

The answer to this question is that there are a lot of misinformed, low-information, intellectually challenged people living in our country, and most of them are white. They are, in a word, stupid people. What can we do about stupid people? We can try to talk to them, and we can certainly listen to them, but at some point, we need to point out the terrible flaws in their logic and show them a rational alternative. We can help them, certainly, but they have to get out of their habit of   epistemic closure, and they need to relearn to use deductive reasoning and acquiring an open and curious mind.

Meanwhile, stupidity does cause a lot damage, and it can be undone, particularly at the ballot box. Despite Trump’s popularity during these hyper polarized political times we live in, my hope is the he and his party are thoroughly trounced this autumn, and also in subsequent elections. If enough people reject this kind of political and religious revisionism, then it will decline in popularity and adherence. This is a powerful conflict to root out mass-stupidity wherever it exists, and it is something that afflicts not only our country, but other parts of the world as well. We live in an age where stupid people have the power to undo all the good that has been accomplished in the last 100 years, and since they are easily duped by unscrupulous leaders, we have the populous of fools being blindly led by leaders, who are actually quite stupid themselves.

I hope that my belief that knowledge and wisdom will overcome stupidity and selfish ignorance in our nation and our world will show signs of happening starting in November and proceeding onward into the future.

Frater Barrabbas

Being an Unfamous Author

 

The Lonely Path: All substance and no bling.

Now that I am going to conventions again, and will be attending at least two of them next year, I can say honestly that I don’t stick out in the crowd of Witches and Pagans that gather to attend these events. I feel at home with the folks who are attending, but I don’t appear to be impressive or socially outgoing to their eyes. Even though I now have over twelve books that will be published and in print by May of next year, I don’t get noticed much and I can walk the convention hallways as an anonymous individual. My books contain a lot of advanced lore, but I have also published a book for beginners, so I have covered all of the bases. I am, as you may know, a deep and detailed writer and my magical tech is outside the spectrum of what many others are writings books about. I am, in a word, all substance and no bling. Like a really good occult book, the cover is bland, careworn, and unassuming, but the contents are quite controversial and highly useful.

Going against the grain has been something of a personal point of pride for me, and I can say that I have certainly mellowed over the decades. When I was a young man, I thrived on following a different path, and it seemed almost kind of defiant in how I expressed it. While I have steadfastly followed my own internal spiritual and magical directives regardless of what was popular or exciting at the time, I have often found myself alone on my path. I have no regrets about this state, since that is the only thing I know how to do. While others bask in the lime light of pagan and wiccan notoriety, I have quietly continued the work, advancing my lore from one ordeal to another, following a path that has taken decades to materialize. Some of these famous folks shine at events, even sparkle, and stand out from the crowd of feral or gothic looking pagans and witches. Yet I am hardly noticed, and in some way, I find that delicious.

At one time, many years ago, I sought that kind of attention from my peers, but I seldom achieved it. I was never good at acting or pretending to be someone that I wasn’t, and I was a poor deceiver, story-teller and liar, so I gave up trying that approach in my early twenties. I learned to be just myself, and that seemed to make my life a lot less dramatic and complicated. Over time, I learned to prefer a peaceful life devoid of people who seemed to love drama and conflict. I saw it as a distraction, and ultimately found ways of removing people like that from my life. Trust me when I say there seemed to be a lot of drama queens and kings in my pagan and wiccan life even as few as fifteen years ago, but happily, those people are completely gone from my life.

When I encountered other seekers, I would share what I knew with them, but only if they asked me. I felt that it was important to mind my own business, and that everyone had a right to their path and process. I believed that it was wrong to intervene in someone’s life unless they asked me to intervene. I had no secret, hidden agenda and I wasn’t looking to gain anything from them, nor did I seek to selfishly get something for myself. I was not looking to exploit anyone or get rich and famous through my contacts. I had a good job and was comfortably well-off, so I had no need to slavishly promote myself as a teacher or someone famous and unique. I just continued to do that work, and in the last few years, I developed a talent to organize my magical technology and write it up into books. Just a decade ago, I would not have been able to write books like I am able to do now. I learned that skill because my Gods and Goddesses expected me to share my knowledge with the public so that I might add, even in a small way, to the overall lore available to those who might find it important and useful - whoever they might be.

Please don’t misunderstand me. There are individuals out there in our community who have a great wealth of knowledge and experience, and who effectively teach their lore to others. Some of them are popular and well known, others, not so much.  However, these same individuals are promoting a fairly deep and advanced spiritual and magical perspective. Like me, they are path-finders and those who have passed on new and creative approaches, vitalizing our heritage as witches, pagans and ritual magicians. If you are one of these people, there is no need for me to identify you, since your work alone stands as a source of wisdom for many people. I believe that I am one of these people, but we are often overlooked because we appear bland and mundane, or odd and strange in an unappealing manner. We are not attractive, stylish, socially graced or sometimes, even noticeable. Still, we are the quiet ones in the background, but we have knowledge, gifts, visions and insights that make the flashy big name pagans or witches seem shallow and without substance by comparison.

When I was young, I was an overly self-conscious, insecure, occult nerd who was never included as one of the beautiful or popular people. In high school and college, I was such an odd-ball that in many cases, I was actually socially shunned. I wanted to be one of the beautiful people and shine and sparkle in people’s eyes, but the truth is that I was plain, socially awkward, and I appeared least likely to be a success by my peers. When I attempted to be flamboyant, I was more a topic of derision and laughter. While my childhood was difficult, my adulthood was even more difficult. Over time I gave up any pretensions or ego-based promotions and settled down to a decades long path of magical development. I was a seriously boring person, except to a few who actually saw any value in the magical work that I was performing.

When I first started to write books, and had published two, “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick” and “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” I decided to engage through the internet with my supposed peer group. The actual magical lore that I was working at the time was quite advanced, such as the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal, but at this stage of my writing career I was not able to write about those advanced topics because my writing skills were poor. Besides, I felt that I needed to set some kind of foundation for how I worked magic so that the public would be able to understand the more complex workings that I was actually engaged in at that time.

I found myself involved in a great deal of controversy, arguments, back-stabbing, even name calling. I had unwittingly gotten involved with David Griffin and that opened the door to all kinds of crazy interactions with folks. This kind of nonsense reached a kind of apex when it became apparent to me that engaging with DG and his version of the Golden Dawn was a great mistake. He was not the master he thought himself to be, he was quite delusional and aggressive towards his peers and even his supposed allies.

Once I broke all ties with him, things became peaceful again, and I realized that not being in the midst of controversy was actually a blessing. I have taken this as a great object lesson and I have moved forward from those times with a hard won wisdom. What I learned was simple, it was actually better to not be too well known and famous because it invited a lot drama and assignations with people I would rather not be socially involved with.

I moved away from the Twin Cities and its burgeoning pagan and occult population to settle in Richmond, Virginia, and then a year later, Covid struck and I became completely isolated. During that time of very limited contact with people, which has only ended last year, I managed to write eight books. What that tells me is that getting too engaged with the public is probably a distraction that I don’t need, but being isolated is not a good option either. So, I am gradually becoming more accessible, going to conventions, giving classes and writing articles, but the period of isolation has done its trick, since I am out of the limited limelight that I had been exposed to back several years ago. I have found that I have more time, peacefulness, and the ability to pick and choose where I go and with whom I engage.

I have witnessed what notoriety is like, and I have seen the presumptuousness and ego trips of various big name pagans and witches over the decades. I am glad that I can say that I am not a member of that group. I prefer the solitude of my life and the ability to work without having to respond to various critics or arm-chair witches, pagans or ceremonial magicians. I have happily left that behind, but I still continue to do the work. There are more books to write and lore to share with whoever finds it useful or helpful, and there are new areas to research and explore. I have a full life, but I don’t have to answer to my fans or my foes, and that is the secret to my happiness and fulfillment.

Frater Barrabbas

Foundation of the Four Ecclesias in the Order of the Gnostic Star

 

Gnosis, in its more modern definition, and the four Ecclesias, temples, or churches are a feature of much of the inner order work of the Order of the Gnostic Star. It is used in most of the ordeals and workings that span the fourth-degree through the seventh, and even beyond into the mythical eighth-degree. However, there was very little documentation that defined this archetypal structure, nor any kind of explanation as to its importance and how it fits into the Order’s symbolic correspondences.

I have written this article to help to define the four Ecclesias and to show their importance and ubiquity within the workings of the Order. I believe, however, that what has precedence in the Order can certainly be applied to other traditions and be shown to have a universal utility in the Western Mystery tradition. I will need to define the term gnosis in how it is used in modern ritual magic, and also discuss the four archetypal religious and magical philosophies that underlie nearly everything that is associated with the practice of ritual magic. Gnosis is an important key, as anyone can imagine, and it does not relate well to the gnostic beliefs of late antiquity - this is a break with the past representing a uniquely modern approach.

Since the pattern of four and five in occult correspondences has a wide association with nearly every aspect of occult philosophy and magic, extending it to qualified philosophical approaches and developing liturgical and magical rites and rituals to accommodate them has been the approach that the Order had taken to best represent the full spectrum of its ordeals and practices. This body of lore, grouped under each of the four Ecclesias, are called sacramentaries, which is the name used by the early Christian church to designate the book of rites and liturgies used to celebrate the full practical application of the clerical elite. The Order has picked this definition for the works associated with the four Ecclesias, and an extensive body of lore was developed to support them.

Introduction - What is Gnosis to Ritual Magicians?

The academic study of Gnosticism examines the beliefs and practices of the various groups and institutions in late antiquity that were based on the tenets of Neoplatonism and Neopythagorianism, which later produced the medieval philosophical systems of the Jewish Kabbalah, Christian and Islamic Hermeticism, practical and esoteric astrology, ceremonial magic, alchemy and occultism. Those who practice these arts today owe a great debt to the brilliant minds who built and developed them, although many of their names and identities are obscured or lost in the passage of time. However, classical Gnosticism, as practiced by the Sethians, the students of Valentinus, Marcion, Simon Magus, or a myriad of others, proposed that nature was corrupt and the source of evil in the world because it was formulated by a flawed and deluded godhead who was not the originator of the perfect spiritual creation called the Pleroma or Fullness. The myths of the Hebrew Bible were turned upside down in an antinomian exposition that was both startling and bizarre to later accepted orthodox theologies.

This antinomian perspective produced a kind of dualistic theology that promoted spirit over matter and thereby rejected the material world and its predicaments. The spiritual nature of humanity was believed to be trapped in the material world and needed to be redeemed so that it could escape the material world and the tyranny of the Demiurge, the deluded godhead who kept it imprisoned. While we can understand and perhaps appreciate the perspectives of the Gnostics of antiquity and realize that Neoplatonic Christianity, which produced these variations, had many different theologies and spiritual perspectives in its genesis, in our modern world occultists need a completely different approach that is more in tune with our post modern world. This is particularly true for those who espouse an earth-based spirituality. It is also important to subscribe to an occult philosophy that is ultimately non-dual, positive, constructive and life-affirming.

A question that must be answered, however, is whether the concept of gnosis, as it was defined in late antiquity is still relevant today. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word gnosis in the following manner.

Gnosis - “esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation”

The Greek definition of the word gnosis is ‘knowledge’ yet it was defined as a special kind of knowledge, and it was considered a mystical knowledge based on direct experience with the divine. I believe that this definition is still relevant, especially if we understand that mystical or esoteric knowledge is something that a person must fully experience in order to realize it. This is not the kind of knowledge that can be conveyed by books or teachers. It must be experienced by the individual, and therefore, it is very subjective, individual, intimate, and inexplicable. Perhaps this is why the writings of the Gnostics were so difficult to understand or unusual, since they were based on individual visionary experiences of divine revelations.

I would define gnosis in the following manner. Gnosis is defined as the intuitive apperception of Spirit and its Mystery. While it is based on the beliefs, training, and prior experiences that the individual undergoing gnosis possesses, it is also characterized by new insights, visions and revelations that ultimately instruct one with newly acquired ideas and translations of existing knowledge. While gnosis might seem to be the proclivity of the mystic or the spiritual seeker, it is also within the purview of the ritual magician who is practicing any kind of theurgistic magic involving Deity. A magical engagement of Deity will produce the realization of gnosis in the experiential field of the ritual magician. In fact, for any kind of progressive initiatory process that a ritual magician might be engaged in, whether traditional or extemporaneous, gnosis will be a key part of their practice and spiritual process.

I believe that gnosis is an important key in the practice of ritual magic because it is revelatory, instructive, progressive, and leads to the development of new lore and expanded practices. It is for this reason that all my magical workings, initiations, philosophy and foundational beliefs are involved with forms of personal gnosis that are used to stimulate growth and produce a greater understanding of oneself and the world at large. It is important to experience gnosis in magical workings and ordeals, but it is also important to analyze, examine, and where possible, corroborate those revelations and insights with what is already known, whether in books, traditional teachings, or the affirmation of peer review.

Revelation of the Four Gnostic Philosophies

My own repeated gnostic experiences engaging with Deity in my magical workings have revealed to me a simple philosophy that has allowed me to organize the various religious and occult perspectives of the Western Mystery tradition into a simple set of binary structures. All of these are based on the fundamental modern Pagan perspective that existence on this planet represents the interaction and confluence of light and darkness, life and death. It is also determined by the idea of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It is the joining of the archetypal masculine and feminine to produce both the offspring of creation and the essence of union, however brief, to emulate the greater mystery. All polarities resolve themselves into union, and union is the source of all polarities. There is the One, there is the None, and there are the Many, and they are connected in a web of conscious meaning and significance. It is the nature of the process of material nature and spirit, which both emanate from a common source.

This process is known as the way of all things, and it is called the Tao (path or way) in Chinese philosophy, whose origins can be traced to religious philosophies of Darshan (insight into the nature of reality) in India. This is analogous to the concept of the Prisca Theologica that developed out of the study of Hermeticism during the Renaissance. What these different perspectives have in common is that there is a source to everything that is intrinsic, essential to nature and spirit, and that it is found where all things converge in union into a singular One, which is changeless, immutable and all pervading. It is the particular phenomenon of the material and spiritual universes, and it is invested in the consciousness of all sentience.

With these basic principles in mind, the domains of religion, mysticism, and magic can be seen as a simple four-fold distinction. These are exemplified as polarities, even dualities, although they are ultimately dissolved into the One.

Therefore, Life is contrasted to Death. Individual Will is contrasted to Sodality, and these four ideas represent four distinct spiritual perspectives that are archetypal and occur in combination in the religions of the West, and perhaps also in the World.

I have given the name to the religious philosophy of Life as Eros, representing the elements of procreation, ecstasy, material bounty, and the mystery of creation and birth. Eros is the philosophical and religious celebration of life in all its manifestation, thus making the occurrence of life sacred and the act of creation a religious rite. Life affirmation, joy, ecstasy, creation, agriculture and its bounty, renewal, the healing arts and the Hippocratic oath are the religious beliefs and practices of this religious philosophy. The sacralization of sexual union and its holy products would represent the core practice of this magical and religious philosophy. The hieros gamos would be the apex rite, and the visions of healing wisdom, and the fertility rites of agriculture and animal husbandry would round out the practices of this religious philosophy. The religious Deities of Eros would be Aphrodite, Eros, Demeter, Artemis, Dionysus, Zeus (as progenitor), Asclepius, Hygeia, Priapuis, Pan and Plutus.

Correspondingly, I have given the name to the religious philosophy of Death as Thanatos, representing the truth and sobering realization that all life must end in death, and that preparation for that event, and its requirement for balance, abstinence, atonement, forgiveness, material renunciation, redemption, and sobriety is significantly important. Thanatos also represents transformation, charity, humility, asceticism, self-denial, temperance and compassion for the widow and the orphan. While requiem rites are to aid the living to deal with the loss caused by death, the Bardo aids and assists the individual in making the transition from life to death more acceptable and less traumatic. The Elusian Mysteries were a way that the living could accommodate the reality of death, but also the domain of dreams, sleep, and even ecstasy (little death) could be considered elements of this religious philosophy. The religious Deities of Thanatos would be Hades, Poseidon, Thanatos, Persephone, Ker, Nyx, Hypnos, Erebus, and Morpheus.

Different than either Life or Death are the antipodal religious philosophies of Individual Will and Sodality. These are humanistic activities that occur in the social domain of humanity, but they are represented by opposing and polarized religious and philosophical perspectives. These different perspectives represent the belief in the destiny and the outcome of the individual, shown as the Hero, Warrior, Great Statesman, King, Teacher, Artisan, Poet, or Philosopher, and the belief in the collective accomplishments of the social organization, the promotion of collective action, projects, and the social forces of democracy, justice, equality, government institutions, and law enforcement. We see this polarity not only in religious philosophy, but also in local and collective politics, media and cultural phenomena.

The destiny of individuals and the celebration of the will to power I have given the name Thelema, which means ‘will’ in Greek. This represents the fact that all sentient beings are given the freedom to choose their path and forge their own destiny, with certain material, social and psychological limitations. This is the religious philosophy of the mythic Hero who has a myriad of faces and roles in the history of the human race. Despite the collective nature of human existence, there have been and will likely always be individuals who will powerfully shape the world in which we live, for good or ill. Tied to this religious philosophy is the transformative cycle of the Hero, and its association with the initiation and apotheosis of the individual. Awards, recognition, election, fame, infamy, and the development of personal power and wealth are very much a part of this pathway. It is the temple of the individual genius, and immortalizing of mortal men and women. The religious Deities of Thelema would be Ares and Nike  at one extreme, and Hermes at the other, populated by Heros, some of whom became Gods, such as Heracles, Achilles, Perseus, Bellerophon, Odysseus, Theseus, Orpheus and Atalanta.

Contrasted to Thelema is the religious philosophy of the masses, the social organizations that have helped humanity survive and thrive. From this perspective, the individual is not as important as the group, and that the greatest achievements produced by humanity have been done through the social organization and the combined efforts of many individuals. It is the sodality of human kind that have made the most collective and constructive changes in the world, from the most distant times in our history to today.

Along with this ideal of collective effort is also collective support, which functions as the humanizing and social equality that proposes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the individual. While collective actions have accomplished the construction of great cities and edifices of note over the ages, like the seven wonders of the ancient world, they have also accomplished great destruction through conquest and war. However, the religious philosophy of Sodality, which I have called Agape, is a fundamental constructive force of good and progress, relying on group consensus, democracy, justice, equality to achieve a harmonious union and cooperative action. This religious philosophy is driven by compassion for the needy and the bereft, and seeks to uplift everyone to a better level of existence, leaving none to fall behind. Agape, which is the Greek word for ‘love’, represents the power that unites individuals into groups, nations and ultimately, planetary species and beyond. It’s ultimate goal is Utopia for everyone, where all human needs and wants, within limits, can be uniformly achieved. The religious Deities of Agape would be Apollo, Zeus, Hera, Athena, Eunomia, Themis, Eleos, Epiphron and Hestia.  

These four religious philosophies, Eros, Thanatos, Thelema and Agape, as defined, represent the archetypal systems present in the various religions of the West. These archetypal philosophies have their own religious systems and practices, and their own particular magical systems as well. However, no actual religious institution functions with only one of these pure archetypal perspectives, since they have many complex interacting attributes, some of which are contradictory. Thus, Christianity would ideally function as a combination of Agape and Thanatos, having placed restrictions on the acceptable associations of Eros and Thelema. Judaism would function as a combination of Agape and Eros, and Islam would be considered a combination of Agape and Thelema, where Mohammed would be considered the ideal intermediary of Allah, but where compassion, mercy and the guardianship of the religious warrior would establish its foundation. Modern Witchcraft and Paganism has brought back Eros into a religious faction, but has also taken attributes from Thelema and even Thanatos to establish its religious and magical works. Even Crowley’s Thelema actually incorporates Thelema and Agape together into a practical synthesis, heavily adding attributes of Eros as well.

The Tetra-Sacramentary

Therefore, these four religious philosophies that I have outlined here are pure archetypal models that can be used to define the attributes of a practiced religion or philosophy that has occurred in the past or exists in the world today. However, as models they can also be useful to organize and structure magical workings, and this is what I have chosen to do with them. I have developed four systems of gnostic magic based on the sacramental theurgy produced by the model Ecclesias or churches, and I have named this system a tetra-sacramentary (four liturgical ritual systems in books or grimoires), consisting of the rituals of a mass, benediction excerpts, seasonal calendar rites, initiations and holy orders, the invocation rites for the associated demigods or avatars, and an ordeal for the generating of a magical relic housed within a consecrated crystal. The stages of holy orders for each of these sacramental systems begins with the Deacon, then proceeds to Priest or Pontifex, to the Sacred King or Queen, and from there to the Bishop or Hierophant. These stages represent the four degrees of fourth-degree through seventh in the Order, straddling the threshold of the outer to the inner order; but they are magical and liturgical initiation degrees. Each system has its own book of liturgical and magical workings, representing the sacramentary established for each one.

All this lore has been developed into three major magical workings and represent the practices of four distinct archetypal gnostic religious and magical systems. The first of these is known in the Order as Ordeal XV, which introduces the seeker to the four sacramentaries and their specific liturgical and magical practices. The second ordeal is known as the Tessarenoi, or Four Ecclesias working, which seeks to produce a sacramental relic containing a talismanically charged crystal for each of the sacramental systems. The third ordeal is known as the Stellar Seven-Rayed Gnosis, which presents the fifth foundational aspect of the four sacramentaries, which is their unified synthesis.

As I have stated previously, the many are dissolved into the One, and in the case of the four Ecclesias, these four different gnostic sacramentaries are resolved into a fifth, which I have called Astris, or the Star. Thus, life and death, will and sodality are unified into a system of sacramental theurgy that is beyond all Deities and Spirit itself, although it is the source of Spirit, and therefore aligned with it. The sacrament of Astris is spiritual union or enlightenment, a full conscious realization of the One. This specially achieved sacrament is called by me Stellar Gnosis, or the intuitive apperception of the One, and the magical order that I founded is based on this achievement as the ultimate experience in the process of conscious evolution through the art of magic.

These four sacramentaries and the fifth, which is their union, are also represented by the five attributes of the Grail, which is a foundational symbol in the Order. Thus, the sacred sword is the grail of the warrior or Thelema, the sacred spear is the grail of the warden or Thanatos, the sacred chalice is the grail of the priestess or Agape, and the sacred dish is the grail of the bachae or Eros. The fifth grail is the diamond crystal, dragon’s eye or diadem of Lucifer, it is the grail of the shadow or Astris. These grails represent the emblems of the four different sacramentaries, but the fifth contains them and is the synthesis of them all.

The five grails are also symbolized by the five mysteries of the sun, moon, seasons, life-cycle and the all-pervading mystery of spirit and the unity that lies beyond it. These are associated with Eros, Thanatos, Agape, Thelema and Astris, respectively. This five-fold system is the foundation for all of the ritual magic and liturgy of the inner order, or that state of religion and magic that lies above the lesser veil between initiate and adept. It’s mastery represents the mastery of life and death, light and darkness, and the necessity of integrating them into a wholeness that reveals the inner state of all beings, which is the One. These five stages are also attributed to the cosmogonic cycle, representing the eternal cycle of creation and dissolution, and the unchanging source from which these emanations proceed and to which they ultimately return.

The four grails are also known as the Tetrapatron powers, the sacramental energies that are an integral part of the mysteries of the Undecigram, or eleven-pointed star. There are also seven virtues of the Goddess known as the heptamatrons, which are aligned to the seven planetary rays and those Sephirah of the Qabalah that reside above the base of Malkuth. The four powers of the Tetrapatron, united with the seven virtues of the Hepamatrons produce the overall pattern of the Undecigram, which is the conduit for the crossing of the Greater Abyss, uniting the Solar virtues of Tiphareth with the Saturnine virtues of Binah. There are two ordeals that work with these attributes, and these are the Seven-Rayed Star and Cross, and the Portae Lucis working. There is also the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal to assist with the spiritual transfiguration. There is the work of Archeaomancy, for both the 40 Qabalistic Worlds and the 18 Spiritual Dimensions, but these ordeals can be presented and discussed in isolation, since they do not use the tetrasacramentary. All of these ordeals, however, represent the mechanism to achieving full mastery of one’s spiritual and magical process.

Yet above and beyond this mystical structure arises the veils of the uncreated, the emptiness beyond the One, which I have named the Nought, which appears in our world of manifestation as the Goddess of Wisdom, Sophia, which is the attainment of wisdom through the establishment of a more permanent state of enlightenment. This is the core of the non-dual world, where emptiness pervades as the primal state and the final end of all emanations, since it is the mother and genetrix of the One. Yet of this mystery we can only wonder and be amazed, since in our limited minds and souls, we can realize the light and magnificence of Sophia, which is the final state of all magical transformations that stand before the dissolution of our mortal coil.  

The Gnostic Tetrasacramentary is the four-fold foundation for the workings and ordeals of the Inner Order of the Gnostic Star. It is the starting place for all initiates who have achieved the fourth-degree and seek to achieve a three-fold transformation that will lead them ultimately to mastery. This is the road map to the higher degrees of the Order, and it is also the pathway for ritual magicians to progress to the highest levels of consciousness, whatever their traditional base.

Frater Barrabbas

Wintering of Frater Barrabbas

 It has been a while since I performed a magical ordeal, and in fact, it has been quite a while. Recently, I created a time line to examine when I had undergone my most intense and powerful ordeals, and based on my calculations, the last major workings that I had performed were on the Summer Solstice of 2017. That’s almost seven years ago this coming summer. Since that time, however, I have written and published seven books, and each book was not an easy task to complete, especially the one dedicated to talismanic magic. So, it would seem that I have not been complacent and that my efforts have been focused on getting my ideas and practices into print for the sake of my Witchcraft and Pagan community and my readers of all stripes.

However, I have not been working magic during that interval, and so I would label the last seven years as a period of magical dormancy, or what Taylor Elwood has called “Wintering.” My Wintering period is more like a long period of hibernation that was coupled with a relocation and diminished resources. Whereas before May 2018, I had a large house with a permanent temple and an outdoor grove on three acres of land, I now have a smaller house with a very small backyard. The kind of magic that I work really requires a permanent temple, and I don’t have room for such an area in my current home. It is also the first time that I have not had a temple to work my magic since I lived with my parents. That was a long time ago. In fact I have lived by myself for probably around 17 years, and I have had a partner for another 17 years. This the first time that I am without a temple, and I not sure how long that will last.

Still, I have practiced magic regularly for decades before the wintering, and concluded many ordeals and major workings. I have started and built up four covens, helped to establish a regional pagan festival that is still occurring (Heartland Pagan Festival), and assisted in founding a magical order, all during that time. I have been quite busy with magical work, sharing and teaching others for many years until recently. It is also true that today I am an elder and sometimes elders retire from their work, although I have no plans to go that route. There is still much that I have to do and want to accomplish from a magical perspective, but only at present do I lack a place to perform this work. I have space to meditate, and it is possible that with so much experience I could actually perform magic while in a meditative trance, and I may seek that out as a possibility when time becomes a little more convenient for me.

When I look at what I accomplished over the preceding decades, the fact that I am not working magic regularly at this time becomes less critical or important. This is a temporary situation, because when the need arises, I am certain that a place to work my art will become available to me in some fashion. When one door closes, another opens, and that has been my experience in all areas of the my life over time.

Here is a time-line of what I have accomplished over the decades from the 1990's to the present. You will notice that starting in 2018, I no longer was working any substantive ordeals or major magical workings. That was beginning of my wintering phase.

Work during the 1990's - Continuous Magical Development and Ordeal Performance
There was a lot of magical work going on during this decade. The entire corpus of magical workings from the third degree and higher being developed for use by my brothers and sisters in the Order of the Gnostic Star. Some of this work had started in the 1970's and the 1980's, but it was finalized during the decade of the 1990's. This was a very busy time for me.

Enochian Ordeals - evocation of the Nephilim chiefs and seven of the 49 Bonarum
Archaeomancy of the 40 Qabalistic Worlds and the 18 Qabalistic Dimensions
Tessarenoi - Four Temple workings
Seven-Rayed Stellar Gnosis workings
Wrote the book Pyramid of Powers in 1992 - 1996

Work during the 2000's - this was also a busy period up to 2017.

Rediscovery of Witchcraft Roots and Old Craft Traditional Witchcraft
Continued working with the 18 Qabalistic Dimensions
Founded two new covens
Developed Grove Witchcraft
Published “Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick” in 2007
Published MARM in three volumes, then in one volume - 2008 - 2009, 2013
Abramelin Lunar ordeal - 2009 to 2011
Portae Lucis ordeal and building seven talismanic magical machine - 2012
Published Beginner’s Guide to the Magical Qabalah - 2013
Handing fasting in grove - 2014
Published Spirit Conjuring for Witches - 2016
Performed Portae Lucis 5-year anniversary, developed and performed Talismanic Septagramic Vortex Gate Ritual using the talismanic magical machine, developed and performed Egyptian Underworld Ascension rite (uncrossing). Focused workings on selling house and relocating to Richmond. Spring 2017. These workings were very successful and helped to make my relocation smoother than it might have been.

Hiatus from working magical ordeals due to the increasing demands of my work and relocation to a home without a temple. This is the beginning of my wintering period - 2017 through 2019. My father died in the autumn of that year (2019).

Covid19 Pandemic - 2020 - 2022. Work from home and sequestration. Wintering intensified.

Published Elemental Powers for Witches - 2021
Published Talismanic Magic for Witches - 2022
Wrote Sacramental Theurgy for Witches and Transformative Initiation for Witches in 2022
Attended Paganicon in March 2023 - first time to meet and greet in public.
Wrote Mastering the Art of Witchcraft, Liber Nephilim and Abramelin Lunar Ordeal in 2023
Published Sacramental Theurgy for Witches - 2024

What you can see is that I had switched over from working a lot of rituals and ordeals to writing up and publishing my revised and refined ritual technology in seven books. While one might consider that the writing of a book is something of an ordeal, and indeed it is, it does not help me to devise, develop and experiment with new ritual technologies and methodologies. It also doesn’t help me to retain a certain ritual fitness that is required to perform rituals and practices for protracted periods of time. I would spend as much as four to five hours solidly working a series of rituals in a single evening to complete a part of an ordeal for that period. I wonder if I even have the stamina to do that kind of focused work now that I am many years older than when I performed this kind of ritual work.

I do not know what the future holds, although I have done Tarot card readings and used other forms of divination to peek at the future potentials. What I see as the possible future for me is that the greatest work lies ahead of me. I have established a good foundation of lore that is mature and consistent, and I am sharing that lore with the magical and occult community, this will give a certain longevity. There are a number of areas where further development might add considerably to this lore, and I would like to pursue those directions in the future. However, I will need a temple to do that, although I can develop the lore and save it for when I can perform it in a temple environment. I will explore these other areas where I would like to develop new ordeals and ritual workings and methodologies in my blog over the coming year.

The one factor that could interfere with my plans is my health. I am no longer young, and after dealing with a bout of pneumonia, I realize that I need to do something to build up my strength, stamina and over-all health. The time for being sedentary due to a pandemic is past, and I need to get more active and physically engaged with life if I am to live through my seventies in good health. I look to the year of 2024 for a new beginning and to see what opportunities might fall my way.

Frater Barrabbas

Calends Meditations and Insights

The year 2023 is coming to an end, and there is much to be thankful for and to acknowledge successes and also some failures. However, there is a great deal of potential awaiting me in the coming year, and I also suspect that significant outcomes will occur deciding the fate of our nation. I won’t talk about politics in this article, since I have already discussed that topic in a previous article. What I will focus on are the personal struggles that I have waged over the course of the year, and the outcomes that can be realized as specifically magical, spiritual, and metaphysical. I am also aware of the fact that I am getting older and more prone to illness as the years progress, and that I am in the autumn period of my life. I will have good days of brilliant sunshine and amazing clarity, and other times will be dark, gloomy, confusing and sad as I contemplate what I have failed to accomplish or what still evades me after years of effort.

Therefore, let me celebrate and commiserate the highs and lows of my life in the calends of the year 2023, and seek to see clearly into the coming year 2024 and beyond. As I have said, the coming year will be an important mile-stone for me, and one that I can celebrate as an amazing accomplishment by itself. My dream to make much if not all of my magical lore available for anyone who would seek to perform it is becoming fully realized. This was one of my spiritual and magical objectives set upon me by my personal Goddess and the agency of my Higher Self, one that I struggled for years to achieve. I lacked the writing skills to make this happen when first the mandate was delivered to me, and I had to spend more than a decade of writing to finally get to the point where I could actually write up this lore into books that were intelligible to the occult reading public. Few would guess that I was a poor writer, barely able to put my ideas down on paper unless it was a ritual. I couldn’t spell very well and my writing skills were awkward and clumsy. Over time, that changed, but I had a long way to go before I managed to achieve the level of writing that I now possess. It was a hard earned skill, that’s for certain.

So, I have six books coming out in 2024, and I should be thrilled by that fact, but in some ways I am not as excited as I should be. The reason for this blunting of my enthusiasm is simple. I have been sick off and on again since late September. It’s hard to get too excited when your health really is n poor shape. Some of this is because I have become more sedentary than I should be, but writing books and functioning as a data warehouse architect requires me to sit at my desk for long periods of time. However, that is just an excuse I should try to overcome if I expect to live through my 70's without any serious illness because I am doing so little to manage my health. What will ultimately happen is based on genetics, of course, but these potential diseases can be mitigated through exercise and getting out more often into nature, and traveling around this marvelous state where I currently reside. I have made promises to myself that I have not fulfilled, so now I realize all too well what will be my fate if I continue to procrastinate regarding getting more physically active. I caught a lower tract flu in late September, then got a really bad cold in October which mutated into bronchitis, and then pneumonia. Right now, I am recovering from pneumonia, and it is a hard slog to get back to having a reasonable healthy body. That series of illnesses are a warning to me that I better change my basic habits if I want to avoid more of the same, or even worse occurrences.

One thing that saddens me somewhat is that I don’t have a temple to work my magic and to celebrate my connection with the Deities and the mysteries of light and darkness, life and death. All I can do is meditate in a quiet space in my office. This is the first time in decades that I don’t have a temple, and it means that there is a lot of new lore that I could be developing, experimenting with new approaches to working magic, and engaging in new ordeals that have presented themselves to me as I have been writing up my lore. The last set of major workings that I performed was in 2017, prior to the change in my career that had me working and traveling to Richmond, VA, where I now live. The house that we bought in Richmond was new and well-built, but it lacked the space for a real temple, and the extra bedroom became an office for my wife so she could seek to expand her career and become the main contributor to our household.

My job status has stabilized and I can continue in my current role beyond 2026. I won’t have to deal with getting laid off or terminated anytime in the future, so at least that part of my life is in a good state. Still, I miss my old home where I had a large temple and an outdoor grove. That place is where I performed some of most significant magical workings of my life as a ritual magician, and that is saying a lot. What I realize is that my current home is likely a temporary location, and that in time I will find a new home that can accommodate my need for a temple.

The pandemic made my relocation to Richmond quite complicated, since it forced me to be sequestered for two years. Since I have allergies and I am elderly, I felt that it was prudent not to expose myself too much to the public except where necessary, such as going to stores and buying groceries or other needed items. Due to the demands of my job, I had not started to reach out to the community and get acquainted with the Witches, Pagans and Occultists living in my community when the pandemic occurred. I did attempt to work with a local OTO body, but the body master was a control freak and unable to allow the members of the group to share their knowledge and experiences, and this turned out to be something that I decided not to invest any further time. I did meet a few interesting people, and I have continued to be connected with them, but overall, I have failed to make any important impact on my community.

I am living in the same location as other many other folks, many of whom are beginners, but I am unknown to them, and that is wholly my fault. I was slow to get out from the pandemic sequestration, and I have not yet become a known personality in my community. You would think that with as much knowledge and experience that I have to give to others that I would have, by now, made inroads into my community and made myself available to teach and share with others what I know. That hasn’t happened yet, and it is one of my failures.

What I can at least take consolation from are my book writing projects and the fact that I have a new publisher who treats me like a Rock Star. I am hoping that sentiment continues into the next year, and there is no reason to think that it will change. Blake and Wycke Malliway, and their publishing company, Crossed Crow Books, understand that I am at a point in my writing career where I can produce new books quickly and efficiently, particularly because I have three decades of material to assemble, edit and pull together into publishable books. While Llewellyn trained me for a decade on how to write occult books, the CCB publishers are the one’s that are reaping what I learned during that period of indenture. It seems sad to me that a year ago I was still solidly a Llewellyn author, and although they still have four of my books in print, I cannot rely on them to publish any of my new manuscripts because they are so outside of what they typically publish. So, CCB will acquire the benefits of my mastery of the art of writing occult books and it is my hope that they prosper accordingly. The books that I write in the coming years will contain the magical workings and techniques that I am most excited about, since I have now established a foundation of work for all to use in order to make this newly available lore accessible and useful.

For the coming year, I am planning on making an appearance at Convocation in Ann Arbor, MI, which is happening on February 22, 2024. I am going because my publishers are paying for my travel and accommodation for this event. They have also taken care of my registration and set me up to teach two classes there. I will write another article to give more information about this event as we get closer to the time when it will be held. I am quite amazed that my publishers have afforded me this privilege, and it only shows that they have a great deal of reguard for my work and what I am seeking to share with my reading public. Llewellyn would never have spent that kind of money on me, even though they are a much larger company. In fact, I found that Llewellyn treats their authors rather cheaply, and this has been a factor for decades. Maybe it makes some business sense to be this way, but it is much more a corporatist mind-set that is all too common in our post modern world. So, I am glad that I am considered a valuable author and treated well by my current publishers.

Other travels for the coming year would likely include a return to New Orleans with an emphasis on marketing my books. I would like to travel there sometime in October or November after my book “Liber Nephilim” has been released, and make that a focus of my trip. I was enthralled with NOLA, and it seemed like such a very Witchy friendly place. I have some friends who have occult contacts in that town with Witches, healers and the local chapter of the OTO. I intend on making the most of being there and meeting with as many people as possible. I will seek to do some book signings and maybe even a couple of classes. I have discussed this possibility with my publishers and seems likely that they will also be interested in traveling there at the same time and see if the witchcraft oriented stores would stock more CCB books on their shelves. I think that event would be quite amazing, and I look forward to exploring it for the coming year.

Another amazing event that has occurred to me is that I have met the owner of a local occult bookstore who is interested in working with me and also getting trained and initiated as a Witch. It was something that I had not been looking for and it just dropped into my hands. I won’t name any names or identify the store, but all I can say is that this person is strikingly knowledgeable and mature in her work as a Witch and a Pagan. Being the owner of an occult bookstore has the option of meeting nearly everyone in the community who is following this path, so it would be likely that through this person, I might be able to finally connect with my community. There is a great deal of potential that might happen through this chance meeting, but until my health improves, I cannot spend the time to determine how it will work out, so I must wait until the coming year and the holidays are over. Then, if I have healed up sufficiently from my bout of pneumonia, I should be able to move forward with developing this relationship and helping this person gain whatever I have that can aid the process of self-validation and enrichening the path of Witchcraft with advanced forms of ritual magic.

Thus, there is a lot of potential on my horizon for the coming year. A lot of good change is coming my way, and I am looking forward to meeting it with all of the positive energy that I can muster. I am an optimist by nature, so feeling down or depressed is always a temporary state for me. There is much to be thankful for in the closing of this year, but also very much to look forward to in the coming year. Thinking about it all energizes me and makes me feel a lot more happy, just in time for this festive season.

Bright Blessings to One and All this Winter Solstice Season 2023.

Frater Barrabbas

Banner Year 2024 for Frater Barrabbas

The Winter Solstice is here, and as we celebrate the various holidays associated with this time of year, I often pause to reflect on what I have accomplished over the year and what I can look forward to in the coming year. Yet this coming year is very different for me than any previous year in the last decade or so. I have been working very hard with my new publisher, Cross Crow Books, since I was let go by Llewellyn, and by the end of year in 2024, I will have ten books in print with another one forthcoming early in the following year. That is, in my opinion, quite an accomplishment.

I am quite pleased with my work so far, and I am also pleased with the response that I have gotten from my publisher. It is quite a contrast from where I was with Llewellyn a year ago. Then, I had signed a contract for “Sacramental Theurgy for Witches,” but there was no sign of when or how that book project would get to the first stage, which was the ‘vision’ marketing meaning. It was then, in March that I received notice that Llewellyn had rejected my book and broke their contract with me. I was able to get another contract from Crossed Crow Books in a matter of days, and I have decided to work with them on my book projects. They treated me in an exceptional and courteous manner, which included face to face Zoom meetings to discuss strategies and approaches to marketing and promoting my books. They signed on to complete the five volume “For Witches” series, to republish my first two books, “Disciple’s Guide” and “Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” after some revitalizing editing, a beginner’s book on Witchcraft named “Mastering the Art of Witchcraft” and two new books, “Liber Nephilim” and “Abramelin Lunar Ordeal.” I have signed contracts for all of these book projects, and I am about to get the first of these books in the next couple of weeks.

Additionally, the eight projects that I discussed in a recent blog and possibly whatever else I come up in the years ahead will likely be published by them. I have a home for my books, or at least as long as CCB continues to be in the publishing business. My publisher also have a contract with Weiser to distribute their entire catalog of books along with their own, so I will get the same distribution or more if I had continued being a Llewellyn author. That’s great news for me to enjoy and be thankful for in the coming year. Never even in my imagination would I have thought that I would get to see eleven of my books in print. What this means is that my long ambition to get my ritual tech out there in the English reading public’s hands has now come to fruition, and there will be more of these book in the next five years, if my health can continue to be as sturdy as it has been so far.

So, what is coming out into print and what are the dates that these books will be released in 2024? Let me look at the calendar and mark those dates when these six book projects will be available for purchase. As I said, it will be a banner year for the author Frater Barrabbas.

Here is the schedule, although it may be subject to minor changes. Rest assured that the books will out in print, although there could always be slight delays depending on the stages of type-setting, page layout, printing and binding.

“Sacramental Theurgy for Witches” - scheduled release date is February 6, 2025. I should be getting pre-release copies in the next week or two. This book is the one that I felt was the most important of the five books in the “For Witches” series. It was the book rejected by Llewellyn as unmarketable, so we shall see if their assumption was correct through the next couple of years. I seriously doubt that this book will do poorly in the occult book marketplace, especially since it is distributed by Weiser and it has three other books in the series to bolster it. I am probably biased about this book, yet only time will tell.

“Mastering the Art of Witchcraft” - scheduled release date is July 16, 2024. I had said often enough that I would never write a beginner’s book on Witchcraft, and here it is. There must be some irony here, as in you should never say “never” when considering some project. However, this book is radically different than any previous or near future book written on the subject, and it does honor to Paul Huson and his book, “Mastering Witchcraft” published in the early 1970's. That was an important book for me when it came out, and I am hoping that my book will be as influential as that book has been.

“Transformative Initiation for Witches” - scheduled release date is August 20, 2024. This is the last book in the “For Witches” series, and it adds additional initiatory lore to the practicing Witch and the Witchcraft community. The full set of five books covers the spectrum of ritual magic, liturgical and initiatory rites that are above and beyond the traditional Book of Shadows. I believe that armed with these five books and the base-line Witchcraft tradition that a Witch or Pagan will be able to master the art of ritual magic in a manner that I believe would make ceremonial magicians envious. Once that set of magical and liturgical lore is mastered, a Witch would be able to stand eye to eye with any person trained in a ceremonial magical tradition in the Western Mystery Tradition. I am also hoping to convince the Malliway Brother’s store to produce a slip case for all five books in the series, with some nice promotional eye-candy graphically printed on it for their store.

Summer ends and blends into autumn, and there will be three more books released during that period for the year 2024. At this point in the year, I will have published everything that I sought to publish on the art of ritual magic as practiced in Witchcraft. However, that perspective was not how I started out as an author, and additionally there is an accumulation of 30 years of lore that I have only just begun to write up and get published into books. The magical order that I helped to found back in the 1980's was the mechanism where I was able to funnel what I had ordinally developed in the 1970's, and since those strategic years, I had continued my work and developed ever more advanced and sophisticated ritual magical lore. Only this year have I started to assemble manuscripts that will contain the more advanced lore that I developed in the 1990's, 2000's and 2010's. As I said, I have been busy over the last 30 years, and the books that I will produce will contain the bulk of that lore.

“Disciple’s Guide to Ritual Magick” - scheduled release date is September, 2024. This is the first book that I wrote back in 2006, and it represents my attempt to distill in a simplistic manner the kind of ritual tech that I was performing at that time. I have talked about my very first book that I wrote, named “Pyramid of Powers” that was never actually published. This book was a simplified and condensed version of that work, and it had the benefit of offering to the student a set of basic rituals to be used, based on a kind of paganized Christian Grail mythos. While I had moved on from this work and the second one in that series, other occultists have told me that it was a valuable book and should be kept available. It is a beginner’s book for magical practitioners, so I felt that it would be useful to republish it after some extensive editing, and my publisher happily agreed with me. So, in September, this book will become available again in a newly revised edition with a new cover. Like my other books, it will be distributed much more widely and likely gain a greater share of readers.

“Liber Nephilim” - scheduled to be released in October, 2024. This is the first book in a new series of books that I will be publishing that contains the more advanced lore that I had developed previously but had never made available to my reading public. I had proposed that the source of the Enochian system of magic was originally from the fallen angels known variously as the Watchers, Sons of God or the Nephilim. I have had a long and fruitful relationship with these angelic spirits, and they had urged me to write up their lore and their revelations for the occult reading public to examine. It is a task that I had put on the back-burner for decades, but finally I had the time and opportunity to pull together all of the materials and rituals that I had and to produce a manuscript that could be published. I think that this book will be quite controversial, but it will help to promote the lore and reveal the identities of the Nephilim to the occult community. This book, unlike any of my previous books, will be sold in soft and hard cover editions. There will also be a custom hand bound collector’s edition produced in the following year.

“Mastering the Art of Ritual Magick” - scheduled to be released in December, 2024. This was my second book published, and it was a repackaging, revising and rewriting of my original book “Pyramid of Powers.” When it was originally released, it consisted of three separate books, and then a few years later, it was pulled together into a single volume, which turned out to be the most satisfactory approach to publishing it. It became known as the omnibus edition, and unknown to me, it had quite a small and loyal following. I have, over the recent past, received some praise and accolades for publishing this book, although like the first book, I had passed it by to publish a book on the Qabalah and then a book on conjuring spirits using a familiar spirit for the Witchcraft community. That was the first book in the “For Witches” series. This book will be edited and printed with a new cover in December and then more heavily distributed. Hopefully, more readers will be able to acquire this book and perhaps build their own base-line magical and religious tradition, since that is the stated purpose of this book.

I am already working on the book “Abramelin Lunar Ordeal” and I should have that book edited, with citations, graphic insertions, bibliography and an index list in the next three weeks. I have already talked about that book recently in my blog, so I don’t need to say anything more about it here. While I cannot know for certain when this book will be released, I suspect that it will likely be released either February or March, 2025. I will have celebrated my 70th birthday by then, but I will still have at least six or seven book projects that I will be working on. This book will be my eleventh book published since the first one appeared in print in 2007. It will be the second of my high ritual magic series of books, and it, too, will be available in soft and hard cover editions as well as a hand bound collector’s edition. I am looking forward to when it is finally in print.

This schedule of events represents for me the release of six books, seven if you count the Abramelin Lunar Ordeal, to occur over the course of a single year. That is quite an accomplishment, and one that I am happy to report to you. My hope is that I will be able to hear from my readers over the next few years, letting me know how they have used this material that I have written and published, and what kind of experiences they got when employing it. That could almost be enough folks some day to have a one time convention of interested parties to discuss and present this lore as one of the viable paths for Witches and Pagans practicing ritual magic.

Frater Barrabbas

Are We Becoming Medieval?

 

As I read the news each day with a certain sobriety and sometimes, despair, I see our age becoming contaminated by perspectives, beliefs and opinions that would have been normal in the dark ages of the 12th century, but has no real place in our post modern world. Often, I feel that some of my fellow citizens are quite ignorant, misinformed, selfishly motivated, self-absorbed and incapable of seeing any higher purpose in life outside of their narrow communities. This is not the majority of the citizens of our nation who are so indisposed, but enough of them to either vote to end our representational democracy or not even bothering to vote at all.

What really concerns me is the ascension of racism, bigotry, religious sectarianism, overall stupidity that appears to plague primarily individuals who espouse to be politically conservative. They seek to completely overturn the very thing that makes our country unique, and that is the inherent principals of civil equality, democracy, religious freedom, freedom of the press, and personal civic responsibility. What they seek to replace it with is autocracy, oligarchy, and minority rule by a Christian Nationalistic political entity. They seek a kind of medieval religious theocracy consisting of white Christian power-elites and their favored minions, dominating a disenfranchised public of minority races, non-white ethnicity, minority religious adherents, and those who are not part of the cis-gender and heterosexual population. It has often proven to be true that those who part of the disenfranchised other are often persecuted, discriminated against, exiled, and when that can’t be done, even exterminated.

When I was a young man, there were many politically fringe groups on both the left and the right political sides who were readily dismissed by mainstream political organizations of both conservative and liberal perspectives. These were the members of the John Birch Society, Neo Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, survivalists, gun-nuts, and other groups who sought to overturn and subvert our nation’s principles of civic equality. They had one common foundation, and that was a form of Protestant Christian nationalism. Yet these groups were vilified, mocked and shown to be basically against the majority who did believe in civic equality and other principles sacred to a republic. When I was a Witchling, I paid them no heed, but I was aware of certain aggressive Christian movements in my youth culture, such as the Jesus Freaks and the Moonies. However, the incident of Jones Town showed that any kind of religious extremism led to very unfortunate circumstance and should be avoided by all as a pathway to personal destruction. I had to fight against the intrusiveness of some fringe Christians, but otherwise, these groups were not something that I encountered or had to contend with at that time.

That was back in the 1970's, but in the 1980's Christian fundamentalism became popular along with Reagan Republicanism, and I noticed that some of these disaffected fascist groups were becoming more legitimate. Klan members and skin-head Nazis were not welcomed, of course, but that would unfortunately change over time, as the conservative political movement was revitalized in the post Watergate era by a form of religious nationalism. What I didn’t know was that this rebirth of popular conservatism in the 1980's went hand in glove with Dominionists and Evangelical Fundamentalists who saw the critical need to reform American in a manner that they thought agreed with their religious beliefs and perspectives. Through the 1990's and into the 2000's, this engagement with Christian Nationalism became ever more firmly entrenched in conservative politics. Still, the mixing of religious absolutism and national politics has always been a toxic brew, and the founders of the United States sought to eliminate that possibility by ensuring that the institutions of the government were separate from the church and completely secular to deal equitably with all people regardless of their faith. That separation was being challenged in a pernicious manner by the conservative-based Christian Nationalists.

I have always found that Christian fundamentalism deals with an obviously complex world in an overly simplistic fashion. It is based on the premise that Protestant Christian values and beliefs are absolute truths that cannot be denied or refuted. It promotes one set of ideas over all others, and denigrates all other religious traditions as false and inspired by the Devil. I have been told too often by individuals who are drunk on this delusion that because I am a Pagan and a Witch that I will be condemned to eternal hellfire if I don’t repent and become reborn in Jesus Christ. I can argue that their faith doesn’t contain any absolute truths, and is only subject to the context of their beliefs, which are completely different than my own. I am steadfast in this belief, but Christian fanatics to whom I have revealed this bit of truth act as if it beyond their mental abilities, and perhaps it is. There are no absolutes in the religions of the world except one, that they are based on a common human experience. This means that the world religions are either all valid, or none of them are valid. One religion alone cannot be the sole arbiter of truth.

My faith is backed by many decades of experience, but it resides within the context of my religion. I would never use those experiences as a means to negate the religious experiences of anyone else if they practice a religion that is decidedly different than my religion. Those who do not adhere to a religious perspective are not subject to it, whether throughout their lives or in the supposed after-world. An atheist is not afflicted by either my religious beliefs nor the religious beliefs of anyone else in the world. That is how things really work, so for some Christian to tell me that I am in error and that I am going to hell because of my faith, I can dismiss them as profoundly misinformed. I am at peace with this perspective of world religions, and with the firm knowledge that my faith is as legitimate as the faith of anyone else.

However, the dark times appear to coming upon us in this sad nation of political and spiritual turmoil. We had to endure four catastrophic years of a Donald J. Trump presidency, and it appears that we are once again poised on the precipice of the fall of democracy as he seeks to regain the powers of the presidency for a second, and likely, final time for us all. It would seem that the astonishingly incompetent, ignorant, racist, bigoted, corrupt, and autocratic tendencies of this man are considered not only as celebrated bonifides, but he is considered to be a Christ-like personality sent to redeem our nation, at least in the eyes of Christian Nationalists. He has also brought into his following all of the nasty far-right fringe politics of the Klan, Neo Nazis, Birchers, and sectarian Christian Nationalists and allowed them to occupy  the forefront of his political movement. This event has transformed the current Republican party into the Party of Trump, and even when he is finally gone, that legacy will continue to live and perhaps, even thrive.       

I am inspired to vote again next year to help make certain that Trump and his party of fascists will be denied the power that they crave. I will tell all my occult and Witchcraft friends and allies not to vote for  party because our freedom to worship and to practice as we see fit will be in jeopardy. In this coming electoral year, like 2020, we will be experiencing an existential threat to all that we hold dear regarding our representational democracy, because Trump has declared himself to be the final candidate solution to what he and followers think is wrong with this nation. What he and his red cap followers seem to miss is that he and his Republican cult worshipers are the malady that afflicts our country.

It is not liberals, the Democrats, the Deep State, the immigrants, the gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, queer folk of all strips, not to mention those who are not conservative Christians, like Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Neopagans, Witches, occultists and esotericists of all types that are to be blamed for the crisis confronting our nation. It is Trump and his cultists who the very serious problem facing us, and we who not part of this crowd (and are the majority, I might add), should vote them out of power to such a degree that the Republican Party will cease to exist. That is what I am advocating, and I believe firmly that anyone who votes for these clowns are themselves the true enemy of the people and the government of the United States.

If by some chance, we succumb to our own selfishness and not relieve the nation of this threat through our votes, then I suspect that our ability to vote will begin to be diluted until it disappears, making the U.S. into another autocratic state. At that time, I will likely have to move to another country, probably Canada, to continue to live, believe and practice my faith and magic as I see fit to do. Such freedoms will disappear in American, and I am certain that I will be part of the population that will be rounded up and sent to a concentration camp to be worked to death or exterminated.

Think that I am joking about this possibility?  Am I spouting too much hyperbole? The door to autocracy was briefly opened on January 6, 2021, and then shut, but it was a near thing that might have ended our democracy. That was just a dress rehearsal for what it coming in 2025.  As members of a minority religion and its practices, we are a vulnerable people, and Christian Nationalism sees us as a threat to their beliefs and to the kind of nation that they seek to build. We are also expendable, and few will protest or seek to intervene when the Trump black-shirts come to arrest us and relocate us to what will be our final destination - an early grave. These red cap fanatics, these MAGA adherents will have no scruples when it comes to attacking their presumed enemies, and the Christian Nationalists will be setting the tone and establishing their targets of interest. At that time, we will likely be doomed.

However, if we en-mass go out and vote against these evil and corrupt politicians and deny them their offices of power and privilege, then we can start to push back against the blight that infects our land. I don’t seek revenge or retribution for the masses who have been suckered into voting for Trump and the Republicans, I only seek to assist in their education and to help them acquire some compassion for people who are different then them. Yet if they deny themselves this rebirth of knowledge and insights, then they can crawl back into the rural quagmires where they came from, bereft of power and civic consideration.

I have hope for the coming year, but I am also looking at Canada as a last ditch refuge from the American Nightmare. Our nation will either reject fascism as it once did in the 1930's, or become another medieval failed nation-state, like so many others that are falling in this so-called century of enlightenment and post modernism.

Frater Barrabbas