This Wednesday, Soror Hermafetes will teach us a method of meditation which seems to have served them very well. I hear we’ll have about an hour of practice, with a bit of discussion afterward. They tell us:

I will be trying to distill the 120 hours of practice that I acquired at the Northfork Vipassana center into a single session. It involves three distinct forms of meditation. Day 1-3 we practiced Anapana or “awareness of breath” in which we spent a total of 36 hours observing our natural state of breathing and the sensations associated with it. This is an important foundation for the other two meditations, Vipassana and Metta Parna, which we will go over in class.

Please read the following: https://www.dhamma.org/en/about/vipassana

And I recommend everyone practice the technique outlined in this video for a minimum of 10 minutes (though longer is better): https://youtu.be/Oh5ii6R6LTM

Apologies for a slightly fatter assignment this time – we read through to the end of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. That’s chapters 10-13, pp.85-122. We eagerly await your presence.

We continue The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick! Please read chapters 6-9, pp.59-84.

This week, we continue to begin The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick. If you were with us last week, please read chapters 3-6, pages 27-58. If you’re joining us newly, read as much as you can of chapters 1-6, page 1-58.
In either instance, if you find yourself partway through the reading, do come anyhow! You are most heartily invited.

This week, we begin to read a masterwork: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick. What can be said of this brilliant artist that has not already been said? Unto him may there be granted the accomplishment of his Will.

Try to get through the first three chapters – through page 27 in our PDF. If you fall short, come anyhow!

This week, members have suggested a few works of poetry they would like to discuss with the Wizard Council. Read, ponder, and bring forth a few suppositions for us!

Two from the immortal William Butler Yeats: The Second Coming and Byzantium

The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

TS Eliot’s The Hollow Men

Sometimes a Wild God by Tim Hirons

Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight by Galway Kinnell

A Name for All by Hart Crane

Prometheus by Lord Byron

Dormition and Dominion by David Tibet – with the transcribed lyrics on page 404.

Two from H.P. Lovecraft’s The Fungi From Yuggoth: XXXII. Alienation and XXXIII. Harbour Whistles

By Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall: The Tay Bridge Disaster

For the second time and not the last, we’ll be discussing Oscar Wilde’s “The Decay of Lying.” Those who still have comments to offer on the Hermes working will be given a few minutes as well.

Looking forward to conversing with all of you!

This week, a number of us will be working Mark Stavish’s The Liturgy of Hermes, at the suggestion of Frater Ex Nihilo. On Wednesday we will discuss our results, and perhaps take a look at the Additional Prayers and the Appendix.

The text calls for observances to be made 42 days in succession, but our aim is to each try it once before Wednesday. Frater Ex Nihilo called it “one of the most effective rituals I have ever performed.”

Ex Nihilo’s comment:

I have performed this practice hundreds of times and have had all kinds of experiences with it. For completing the ritual singularly, I would create, print, or obtain the ritual implements. At the very least, print a picture of Thoth that resonates with you. If you find resonance with this initiatory practice, I would pursue the 42 day ritual, with full implements when you have the opportunity, it is well worth it. Always remember the best results come without lust for result, and indeed that is when I have had my greatest experiences.
This is an initiatory practice to the chain of Thoth Hermes and Western Hermeticism. May you exceed as a son/daughter/xer of Thoth Hermes and forever be in the chain of magical initiation as you spread your light in the world.

Let every nature of the world receive the utterance of my hymn!

Open, thou Earth! Let every bolt of the Abyss be drawn for me!

Stir not, ye Trees!

I am about to hymn creation’s Lord, both All and One.

This week, a suggestion from Soror Ahaviel:

Please read Martin Heidegger‘s “What is Metaphysics?” (pp.89-110) and “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking.” (pp.427-449)

Also read Chapter 0 of Aleister Crowley’s The Book of Lies (pp.6-7).

OPTIONAL: Ahaviel’s own comment on Heidegger.

Soror Ahaviel’s comment:

This week I would like to consider whether Crowley was right in saying that he wrote the “most complete treatise on existence” (The Book of Lies). It is not exactly clear to me that Crowley breaks free of metaphysics, so I want to look at Heidegger to ask what he and his deconstruction of metaphysics might contribute to magic. More specifically, let us read his 1919 and 1964 essays “What Is Metaphysics?” and “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,” alongside Chapter 0 of “The Book of Lies.” If Crowley was indeed still completely ensnared by metaphysics, and Heidegger managed to point to something more fundamental (what he called the “Lichtung”), then I don’t see how Crowley marked a fundamentally new aeon, if aeons are about fundamental ways of thinking. But maybe I’m totally confused about everything. I’m probably totally confused. At least thinking is more fun when you’re confused.

I also attach some fragments of what I’ve written on the Lichtung, because I think Heidegger is still pretty entrapped by the metaphysical masculinism of Kampf/polemos. It’s an early attempt, more or less before I encountered magic, to wrestle with themes that are still provoking me, even and especially as I develop magically.

For next week, January 29th:

A number of us will be working Mark Stavish’s The Liturgy of Hermes, at the suggestion of Frater Ex Nihilo. We thought it convenient to provide the text in advance.

May you flourish! May you EXCEED.