Somewhere I read in Dion Fortune – and I do not now have the books in front of me – that upon entering the grade of Adeptus Major, an individual was expected to devise their own magic and even form a group dedicated to it. That is the natural life cycle of Hermetic lodges, as per a leading Golden Dawn authority.

It is, no doubt, with in some cases gleeful snark and in other cases FINGERS CROSSED, that the occult community is watching a venerable thirty-five-year-old Order of the Golden Dawn once more split into distinct temples by geography.

I don’t consider the separation of Temple Het Heret of Tacoma from the Los Angeles Golden Dawn anything other than the usual growth and evolution of Golden Dawn lodges.

I call it MITOSIS, in which a cell divides to form two daughter cells.

Such divisions in the Golden Dawn are usually accompanied by cries of foul in various ways, often differences in opinion about how we ought to proceed with magical group work and even how we ought to live.

WHAT MAGIC TO DO.

So I am going to proclaim that what I have in my heart toward those Fratres et Sorores in Los Angeles to be nothing other than pure love and goodwill.

Now, for the topic of the blog, which is spying on THE GAME, let us recall that the new necromancy likes everything to be eternally the same. There are no doubt technical reasons for this, which I am parsing by being an often helpless psychic, and getting into RUE, but it is customary for the Golden Dawn to have a lot of acrimonious quarrels, going back even to the 19^th century, and, for some reason, we can’t stop having them, even when we know they are stupid.

So, for the sake of good form, what we have here is Situation Normal, Man, the obligatory Acrimonious Quarrel, this time including a Yelp review! as well as the gematria tucked into the parting document, with which I see the PIKE of Mercy, and the vision of what Tacoma needs, not Los Angeles.

My own sense of it, as a Solomonic magician, is that the work is getting increasingly magnetic – AND WHY DO WE HAVE SOLOMONIC MAGIC IN THE OUTER ORDER? — hence the distance is growing more and more untenable. Differing magical visions and intentions do AWRY, but they have a talent for one thing and we have a talent for another. It is no longer a match made in Heaven, but needful of divorce.

In more upbeat SCURRILOUS news, I would like to explain the blog moniker of my lodge mate FRATER SWORD CEREMONIES as not relating to sexuality but a private joke among family about actual swords.

While we are on the subject of swords, regarding sexuality, I have been in the theatre since the second grade. I literally grew up with gay people and have considered homosexuality normal my entire life.

The opening of the psychic centers is one of the central issues in magical training. While sex magic, often trending gay, along with entheogen use, is an effective method, it is by no means the only one.

My work with Paul Foster Case’s Cabalistic Tarot involved a brief three-year period of the strictest celibacy à la the Hindu method, worked in Golden Dawn, commonly called “Brahmacharya,” or the cessation of all sexual practice including sexual thought. Hence Lord Ganesha in my repertoire.

Now that’s a pressure cooker!

My work with John Michael Greer’s Cabalistic Golden Dawn was based on the practice of off-brand Catholic masses – the “magical eucharist” — performed with Hermetic intent. According to the Catholic religion, an authorized mass is only the exact script designated by the Church performed by an ordained priest. Any variance from this is considered a BLACK MASS. This practice was widely used in the Renaissance to make contact with spirits called “demons” by the Christian Church, but usually leftover godforms from mythology, often corrupted, and enjoyed as a rich and beautiful spirituality in tandem with ordinary religion. This practice does open the psychic capacity quite beautifully over hundreds and even thousands of repetitions, thus negating the need for sex magic or mind-altering substances at all. The only substance used is a wheaten cake – often a communion wafer — salt (kosher, in my case), and a slurp of red wine, materials that have been used magically for thousands of years.

The demons have dubbed my magical practice THE BLACK MASS OF THE CHRISTIAN CABALA, though no doubt with some disappointment, for my maleficium is not black magic at all but communion with spirits including Angels for the purpose of spiritual development and self-transformation.

Let me point out that this practice is preferential to not having children around. I wanted to be a playwright with all of the gorgeous time to myself and rehearsals, not usual in marriage and motherhood. So it was a good magic for a person childfree by choice and eternally happy.

The magical Eucharist, much loved in Thelema, and not so much in the Golden Dawn for exactly that reason, is a long process that meets MEADS with much resistance in the group mind, particularly of THE GAME, but it does pay off with a magical capacity that does not have to do things THAT WAY.

Mine is not the same magic, but it is a portal.

My own opinion of homoerotic sex magic used with drugs is that it is, no doubt, effective, transcendently beautiful, hip, and thronged by all of the cool kids, but the idea that it is the ONLY way to do things is deceptive and a result of THE GAME just going too fast. The intelligentsia should be taught other methods, including the ones here described, and allowed to make their own choices about what, how much, how fast, and what happened to AS YOU LIKE IT de gustibus?

The ATR would like to have a word with you. Can we be friends? YES. Then work with one of our spirits in those “masses” and you will FIND much support for those ideas!!!

AGREED!

Now, back to the story of FRATER SWORD CEREMONY’s blog moniker.

I have known this Frater for twenty years. We grew up five miles away from each other in East Texas and attended neighboring high schools. His ex-wife was his high school sweetheart. We used to hold lodge meetings in the living room of their home. She was not involved in the lodge or particularly enthusiastic about her husband’s unruly hobby. She would poke her nose in at a bunch of overgrown geeks traipsing around the living room in monk’s robes and costume swords, and proclaim our lodge’s rituals SWORD CEREMONIES.

We loved the missus and were glad she put up with us, letting the Adept off his leash once in a while.

However, it is not useful to keep the moniker if it seems offensive or has to be explained every time, so I am changing his name to TOMMY LASWORDA.