Subject: Re: Magical Timing/Kairos

At 04:57 PM 27/5/96 -0400, :) Rawn Clark wrote: I question the relationship between planetary hours/days, sephirotic years/days/hours, and the actual Universe. These are each based on extremely arbitrary human constructs... I caution that while these mental constructs may be useful tools . . . they become detrimental when held too closely as dogma. such things as planetary hours . . . should never be a barrier to the performance of a magical task. At best, they are useful in making your workings more *symbolically* significant.

My own experience concurs in this opinion. I have used planetary hours, but prefer to use the direct casting of astrological charts, using either "current positions" or transits to an existing chart to time my spellworking, or rituals that are not part of a regular cycle. Oftebn times, I will examine the astrology for even these rituals to find if we can adjust the starting time, or highlight a particularly propitious moment within a ritual.

This has be done by arranging to have someone just before the exact moment interrupt the rite, calling out something like, "Companions, I hear Mighty Ones approaching." Then, at the exact moment, a single stroke of a bell is accompanied by the Celebrant or whole company together saying something like, "We welcome the Lord Zeus and the Lady Aphrodite to our rites. Bestow your blessings upon our Work in this hour."

IMO, Planetary hours are "a poor man's substitute" for astrology. This is not to say that they cannot be used, as Rawn points out, to make "your workings more *symbolically* significant." But they should never be allowed to get in the way. any more than I allow a "difficult" chart to get in the way of my workings, if I have no readily available more harmonious alternative time.

It is no coincidence that the first magicians to bear the name "Magus" were also the fitst astrologers.

Be blessed, Michael Freedman, S.G.

Subject: The Goddess

At 05:18 PM 13/6/96 PST, you wrote: The "Convocation of heads of holy orders" was real though, and what happened at the Convocation did actually happen. It took plasce in 19782 in Auckland. Michael,

A very amusing tale - but the date you provide above... Did this take place in 1978? 1972? 1982? or was that an intentional typo for the uninitiated? ;-)

It did in fact take place in 1972. My arthritic, spastic fingers make many typos. Lacking a spell checker in Eudora, I often miss some typos when going thru my posts. The longer ones are usually prepared in Amipro, and spellchecked there, but shorter ones and intros have to depend on my piking them up on the screen myself. The point of the story was the real breads.

When our Order celebrates a Feast of the Goddess, we like to make barley breads [the classical gift to Demeter], but barley flour doesnt rise at all, so the breads are usuaslly made with some wheaten flour. We sometimes grind barley grains and have a good grinder that looks like an old fashioned meat mincer, but is designed to grind grain. I saw for sale a beautiful pair of ancient-type millstones, beeutifully carved on their top and sides when I was in Dehra Dun in India. Even though their price was ludicrously cheap, I couldnt possibly have afforded the freight back to the southern hemisphere.

BTW, as often as not now, since one of our local bakers began to produce special breads, such as Barley and Sunflower Seed, Oatgrain and Honey, there has been a tendency to use these bought-in-a-shop breads at the ritual Feasts of 0our Order.

The combination of barley and sunflower seeds is magically marvellous, Goddess and God honoured in one bite. Spread with sunflower-oil-based margarine and honey, with the faintest sprinkle of salt, and passed through flame and incense smoke before eating it, the resonances in the inner worlds can be remarkable. We wash it down with a light fairly sweet white wine usually. Now that New Zealand white wines are regularly winning gold medals over French and German whites in European wine judgings, they have become too expensive for ordinary NZ citizens to buy, so we usually drink a South African Nederburg, that is very potable.

The following comes from the canon of our Ritual for Feasts.

Tammuz and Adonis were slain and buried that they might rise again to give us grain for this bread. Dionysius shed his blood that there might be wine for this cup: The Rose who gives Honey to the Bees: From the Rose, the Honey; from the Honey, Sweetness....

Although there are now female Magicians who are Guardians, it is a Solar Order, with Inner links to what we term the Ancient Solar Mysteries. Before 1974, there is no indication that there ever had been any female Guardians. There is nothing in our rules or principles which would exclude women. I suspect that the idea had simply never occurred to the Guardians of earlier gneration to invite women to be students or apprentices. My ex-wife was the first woman to be made a Guardian, anfd it never ocurred to me to ezxclude her. Times do change.

During the late 1970s, ours like some other solar-oriented orders became increasingly aware of the importance of the Goddess. In my case, it came in the form od aa sentence recurring in my mind frequently, "The Mother is waiting to be born." Progressively, we then introduced into the solar cycle rituals which placed some emphasis on the Goddess. Throughout this same period, the words of the rites were progressively desexed. Now in our rites, if the pronoun "he" is used it reefers specifically to a male principle or being. If the pronoun "she" is used it refers specificlly to a femsale principle or Being. Various references to the Seven Mighty Archangels do not have any indication of gender, except in the Prayer of Incense offering during the principal censing in certain rites, which refers to "the brother below the altar."

There are now rites honoring Kore and Demeter [at Virgo], Aphrodite [at Libra], the Fiery Goddess, "She who informs all Life, yet is still unformed." [at Sagittarius], and Anahita, Goddess of the Flows [at Pisces].

As for specific symbols, there are displayed in the Sanctuary, a couple of mortar and pestles; a hammer and anvil, on the high Altar, there are various symbols, such a bunch of three pine cones and a black mirror. There are four statues on its extreme left, three small:an ivory Kwan Yin [Air], the Virgin Mary [Water], the Willenberg 'Venus' [Earth] and one large, a tall carving from heart Totara [one of NZS's great native trees] of a cowled, robed figure that resembles a mounting flame. Also on a lower shelf of the high altar, resting in a bird's nest is a clay figure of the Faceless One, a pregnant goddess [moulded by one of the Guardians' students] which was baked throughout the night of the Midwinter Solstice in 1980. Thewre are also various male symbols on the right side of the high altar. Before the high altar is a double cube altar of Earth

In our front garden, is a grove of the goddess, a small, flat space surrounded by tall trees, which overhang it like a roof. Discreet clipping keeps the area like a 'roofed temple' within the trees. On the eastern side of the grove is a tiny model temple [about a third of a metre high], made for us as a gift by the noted NZ potter, Bronwyn Cornish. It was baked in the same kiln as the Faceless Goddess on the same night. That was the Midwinter immediately prior to the date which we observe as the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. at that rite, I proclaimed Three Watchwords for the New Age, and which if observed would bring about the birth of the Mother Gaia who is waiting to be born: Community,Compassion and Co-operation.

Several years ago, something happened that, for us, had powerful symbolic significance. The Prior of the Guardians found thrown in the gutter in his street a badly damaged concrete statue of a female figure, about a metre high.. the face was whole and crudely primitive, the arms and legs were still there but the hands and feet had gone, leaving only a rusted core-wire stump on each limb. In the corner of the grove is a mass of hydrangeas and jasmine all tangled together with concrete walls on east and north. Reverently, we place the figure leaning against the walls in the corner and pulled the foliage back around her. She cam just be seen, if you look, peeping out from asmong the leaves, like a shy dryad. Unless you know her sorry condition, you cannot see the damage.

For us, she is now the Genie loci, and is through her that we make our libations to the goddess in the grove. Our rescue of her and the honour we give her is symbolic of our work for the Mother Earth, by our participation in the actvities of various secular groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

I have permission to upload the article on Blood, and will do so shortly.

Be blessed. Michael Freedman, S.G.

At 12:04 AM 29/5/96 -0600, Darcy wrote:

Thanks for publishing THE SOLAR CYCLE OF PENTAGRAM RITUALS OF THE GUARDIANS. Would it be a correct assumption that the Society of Guardians use different coloured candles for the signs of the Zodiac?

There is no reason why different coloured candles shouldn't be used. In fact, we dont. We have a custom of not replacing the thirty plus [sometimes up to 42 !] candles lit at each riteuntil they are down to the point where it is clear that they wont last another rite.

Reason: It is one of our ways of linking the rites. It is important to realise that in a very real sense the Guardians only do one ritual a year, but it takes twelve months to do it.

Two exceptions: The Compassion light on the Sixth Sefirah at the centre of the Holy Table is always renewed before each rite. All the candles are replaced with new ones for the Midwinter Solstice. We prefer to use good quality white kitchen candles purchased at our local supermarket. They are far better quality than the ones sold to innocents at great cost in occult supplies shops.

My apprentice is fond of varying the colours of the candles in his private sanctuary, and that of course is his right.

We do vary the incenses according to the season though. Our standard solar incense is Frankincense, with Red Sandalwood at Libra, Camphor at Aries and Scorpio, for example. Some of our rites call for fresh, crushed, sweet smelling herbs [Basil or Rosemary, for example] to be placed in shallow bowls on the Double Cube altar. Rosemary gets used a lot, largely because there is a seven foot high rosemary bush beside the path leading from the front gate to the porch. Our front path is completely lined with overhanging trees, shrubs and ferns. On very hot days, you can feel the temperature drop several degrees as you come off the public footpath and pass under the tunnel-like shade of our path. It is very pleasant meditative experience to sit on the porch and look along the high arched tunnel of green up to the summit of Mount Eden, due east of the Sanctuary.

For a Sanctuary in an inner suburb, only two miles from the centre of Auckland, we maintain a very green environment, but so do most of the houses in Mt Eden. It is part of the widespread concern for Gaia in this part of the world.

Be blessed, Michael Freedman, S.G.

Subject: Re: The Inverse Pentagram

At 06:11 PM 9/6/96 -0400, Keeper wrote: Also, the question of "up" or "down" in Magic is often a moot one when working within the imaginative confines of circles and spheres, though . . .

True. In our Sanctuary we have a pentagram, 12ft to a side, outlined on the floor of the Centre Court. It is oriented to the West, i.e. its apex is at the West where the Minister of Spirit, the Celebrant of our rites, sits facing East. The other four Ministers of the elements sit or stand at the other four points of the Pentagram. Visitors, who stand in the Outer Court, witnessing the rites through an archway behind the Spirit Throne, have sometimes remarked on our 'upside down Pentagram". As it is written of Triumph XII, in The 31 Final Statements on Magic, with an appendix, [revised, 37th edition]:

"It all depends on your point of view. Come and have a look."

In printed editions, that statement is printed upside down.

>Where I have had some experience and gained a >genuine abhorance for a symbol is not, however, in proximity to any inverse >pentagram but one that is distorted so that the points are not in balance.

True again. Sefer Dzeniutha begins: "This is the book of the equilibrium of the balance."

A balanced forn, whatever its orientation is constructive, while a distorted form always holds the risk of fallingf appart. Quoting again, this time W.B.Yeats, "Things fall apart; the Centre cannot hold."

Be blessed. Michael Freedman, S.G.

Subject: The Power of Spice

The following is a short story which presents some useful herb and spice magical lore within a fictional matrix. It is set sometime towards the middle of thge next century. The "Convocation of heads of holy orders" was real though, and what happened at the Convocation did actually happen. It took plasce in 19782 in Auckland. The real breads are also real. I accompanied John Elder to the meeting. He and I watched it all from the sidelines. John Elder is now blind, and living in Sydney where he makes a living as a professional storyteller. I have his permission to upload this story which appeared first in Magic Pentacle in 1991, and which holds the copyright.

She muttered under her breath, "Why can't I go down to the store and buy a packet of flour if he wants to make biscuits - better still, buy a packet of biscuits."

"I heard that," said the old man, who was sitting in an easy chair, his feet up and reading a tattered copy of Penthouse magazine. "Anyone can make ordinary biscuits," the old man said., ostentatiously stroking his beard and toying with the Pentacle hanging round his neck. "We're going to make real biscuits."

"What do you mean 'real biscuits' ? How can biscuits be real or unreal ? I bet any biscuits you'd make would be unreal. I came here to learn magic and, so far, all I've done is sweep floors and cook meals. When do we summon a demon to do the chores."

"I think I might have done just that when I was stupid enough to take you on. There's no quality in the occult these days, just out-of-work no-goods looking for a free meal and a bed. You've all been reading old copies of 2000 AD and Sandman, and think it is all grand battles against demons; and healing the country from the latest glowing plague. I'll tell you what it is, it's grinding flour to make your own biscuits. Let's have a look."

The old man rubbed a little of the flour between his fingers. "Put it through again while you do twenty-eight repetitions of the Arabic alphabet and one chant of the Song of the 18 Runes. That should get it fine enough. Now, let me get back to this very interesting 20th century manual on sex magic."

The apprentice began to chant the letters as she started the stone turning once again: "Alif - Ba. Ta - Tha. Jim - Cha ... "

Round and round the stone went, once for each letter, 28 letters, 28 times. At the end of each round, the apprentice shouted out "One time. Two times. Three times." and so on, until she shouted "Twenty-eight times" and launched herself in a very rapid, very loud chanting of the Runesong. The wheel spun round and round.

The old man dropped his magazine and put his hands over his ears. "Remind me to tell you about the value of silence as a magical technique," he shouted over the lusty roaring of the apprentice.

* * * * *

Later that evening, after supper of "real" biscuits and real ale, the old man stretched out his legs in front of the meagrely glowing radiator. "Looks like the power station is running on half-fuel again."

"What's real about real biscuits ?" the apprentice demanded. She knew that, after supper was as good as any time to wring information out of the old man, who clearly was determined to make her work as long as he could for every morsel of magical knowledge he grudgingly handed out.

"I could call this story The Power of Spice," the old man said.

"Is it a true story ?"

"It is indeed, and don't you dare question the veracity of any Mage of Hermes. My story begins about 25 years before they nuked the oil fields in 1998 and everything went down the drain ... or up in smoke, I suppose it was.

"I had moved to New Zealand which was about as far as you could get from the northern hemisphere and still keep warm. I was new in the city and had met only one other magician. Everyone was full of ideas of co-operation in those days, before the world broke up into little communities each fighting to survive in a grey, dark and very cold world. We still know how to do things, but we cannot afford to do them ..."

"Get on with the story," the apprentice said. "I know all about how things are today."

The old man held out his thin, bony long-fingered hands to the radiator; the young woman pulled her sheepskin around her shoulders and hunched forward.

"My magical friend invited me to go with him to a 'Convocation of Heads of Holy Orders' to which he had been invited to discuss mutual co-operation among magical orders in Auckland. Everyone was full of ideas of co-operation in those days ... "

"You already said that. Get on with the story."

"I knew it was to be a social occasion as well, because I had been told to byob."

"What's byob ?"

"Bring your own bottle of booze."

"Why wouldn't you ?"

"Things were different then, everyone had more than enough for themselves. At that time, about 25 years ago, I knew only one or two other magicians in New Zealand, so I was unsure of what to expect. I decided to prepare magical breads, known as real-breads, to take to the party. I cooked some very thin, crisp, rye biscuits ... "

"Did you grind the flour yourself ?" The apprentice massaged her hands and stretched her fingers.

"No, and I didn't have an apprentice at the time. I bought it in a shop. I said some spells over the rye flour, which is for Saturn and cold reality. The spells were designed to make the eaters, not so much tell the truth - that is too much to expect of any follower of Hermes - as to show themselves as they really were.

"Then, I added the spices. I used plenty of Cinnamon, to invoke Mercury in Gemini, which brings talkativeness. Unfortunately, while Mercury means communication, it does not necessarily mean truthful communication, although it does not automatically mean lying. It was perhaps unwise of me to have omitted anything to counteract the links Cinnamon also has with the explosively peculiar Uranus energies. I did not actually invoke Mars, but I didn't anticipate the need for Venus.

"I added a few drops of almond essence, to invoke Jupiter, which would bring the situation closer to reality, and also should mean an open and frank atmosphere. Then, a pinch of Salt. I used table salt, which traditionally links to Saturn in Aquarius and can be used to invoke reality. I should have used rock salt, which is Saturn in Capricorn and much more down to earth. I had forgotten what I did in fact know, that table salt has trace quantities of iodine in it, which would bring in Neptunian influences of lying, deceit and fantasy."

"I thought Salt was Neptune. What was Table Salt ?"

"Refined salt, made in a factory, with all sorts of chemical additives, like iodine to prevent goitre. You know what a goitre is, that young man who sweeps out the store has one, all swollen around his neck.

"In these days, salt corresponds to Neptune, because all our salt comes from the sea. This is a pity. I myself liked the earthy character of Rock Salt, rather than see it slip over to such a watery energy as Neptune. In those days, Salt was Saturnian, and sometimes it was even fiery.

"Then, I added a tiny pinch of Comfrey, which is also Saturnian, to invoke a more 'real' atmosphere, but not so much that it noticeably flavoured the real-breads.

"Rye is a Saturnian grain and is used to make people act as they really are. Using hindsight, I would have been wiser to have made the biscuits from ordinary wheaten flour, with its links to Venus. As the evening turned out, some peaceable Venus influences might not been amiss. I will not detail the actual spells I used ..."

"You mean you've forgotten them," the girl interrupted."

" ... Any experienced magician composes such spells to order for each occasion. I murmured appropriate Words and God-names while rolling the pastry and as I added each of the spices.

"I also ensured that we timed our arrival at the convocation for when my strongest and most favourable planets were in the ascendant, or in good aspect to it. I put the platter of magical real-breads which I had made on the buffet and waited to see what might happen. It was a very interesting time, in the Chinese proverbial sense of the word."

" What's that mean ?"

"It is an old Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times.' China was a northern hemisphere country . . "

"I know that."

"Well, people were still talking about that evening 20 years later! I survived the evening largely by minimising my alcohol intake and engaging in interior meditation on the follies and foibles of human beings. One or two others also withdrew into themselves and, like my friend and I, were wary observers.

"The other 'heads of holy orders' put on an amazing series of performances. Two of them decided to do one of the advanced rituals of the Order of Saturn on the dining room table ..."

"What's that mean ?"

"You're too young. Ask me again in ten years time."

"Ten years !"

"The rest of them behaved like a pack of medieval barons squabbling over newly plundered territory. Accusations were flying everywhere ... poaching members ... fraudulent charters ... enormous initiation fees charged well-to-do ladies from Remuera ...

"That used to be a few miles east of here, didn't it ?"

"Yes, it was a suburb in which only the wealthy were allowed to live. Someone took it out in 1999 with a portable nuke, in the early days of the People's Revolution. That was before the New Raw Anarchy was established and things settled down. Let me finish the story.

"The evening culminated with one Head of a Holy Order being publicly stripped of his clothes and all magical insignia by other members of his Order and expelled, rather violently, from both his Order and the front door.

"It was a very interesting evening, and an excellent example of the effects of real-breads, just one of the many ways to use spice magically. Here endeth the lesson."

The old man stretched out in his chair and wriggled his toes nearer the radiator.

"Now, off with you and warm up my side of the bed. That's the first duty of every magical apprentice. Never forget it."

Be blessed. Michael Freedman, S.G.