Wednesday, May 29, 2019

2019 - Malkuth - Black Summer


The Third Method is the Dramatic, perhaps the most attractive of all; certainly it is so to the artist's temperament, for it appeals to his imagination through his aesthetic sense... In the third, identity is attained by sympathy. It is very difficult for the ordinary man to lose himself completely in the subject of a play or of a novel; but for those who can do so, this method is unquestionably the best. 

Ch.1, Magick in Theory and Practice, Aleister Crowley

When I was discussing the principles of Theatrical Ritual with Vincent Bridges he likened the unconscious mind of the viewing audience as a kind of battery pack to ''power'' whatever the purpose of the ritual is.  In this way the Theatrical Ritual combines the more conscious aspects of the Ceremonial Ritual with the more subconscious aspects of the Natural Ritual; it acts as a conduit between these worlds.  Various strange synchronicities occurred during my last run of plays - one contained a lost submarine and then a submarine was lost in the actual world, one involved the characters attempting to cure ''sleeping sickness'' and then there was an announcement that we were close to doing this in the actual world.  As a compatibilist [a kind of soft determinist] I am not confident that these theatrical endeavours caused the synchronicities persay but that they perhaps reflected them, more like prophecy than ''magic''.  That said, as discussed in Terms and Conditions, your typical magician thinks their rituals cause the phenomena that they see in the world, they are, as a group, overwhelmingly philosophical presentists believing in multiple possible futures and that their choices ''matter''.  Reflecting on this mix of prophecy and magic, and to what extent the ''management'' of this unifying colour project are on one side or the other, I was wondering what will [potentially] be caused by these heavy dragon rituals, as they [potentially] work their influence on the unconscious minds of the viewing audience and [potentially] power the manifestation, or indeed what they will be reflecting if the future already exists.


  • Yellow (Citrine) - January, February, March
  • Green (Olive) - April, May, June 
  • Blue (Black) - July, August, September
  • Red (Russett) - October, November, December
Looking back over the predictions I made at the beginning of the year I can see that I was very much right about the Green tying into Environmentalism, and the growing strength of that movement and we've seen that borne out in School Climate Strikes, Extinction Rebellion Protests and the recent surge of Green parties in the European elections.  On that note if we can say that the Gilets Jaunes was a manifestation of the yellow that particular aspect seems to be abating as the Green takes centre stage - this stage being ''initiated'' by the Notre Dame fire - we also learned that they [Yellow and Green] were juxtaposed against each other [anti-carbon tax vs pro carbon tax] which might help us with figuring out what happens next.  I was wrong about military intervention happening, so far, but considering the ''Green Phase'' of this project culminates at the end of June there is still time for that and it would be wise to add the proviso that I think this needs to be intervention in a location which requires the use of green uniforms as opposed to other types so we can narrow it down there.  I also think all these events need to take place in the developed world for theatrical reasons.

APOPHIS
The Black quarter of Malkuth is associated with the element of Earth.  In the Qabalah, Malkuth is said to lie atop the the World of the Shells, the Qliphoth.  Then this quarter of the Sefira would be the part directly abutting the Qliphoth.  Therefore the logical prediction for the Black Summer is that the Earth itself will be the Enemy.  This brings us back to the juxtaposition of the colours.  At the moment, in the Green quadrant, we are very much focusing on ourselves as the despoilers of the Earth but also its erstwhile wardens.  In order to create a juxtaposition to that sentiment it would be necessary for the planet to be seen as an Enemy and for that Enemy status to not arise from anything we have done i.e. the damage inflicted by Enemy Earth cannot be related to anthropogenic climate change.  The tail of the serpent Apophis was said to be the cause of earthquakes in Egyptian myth.  Therefore right now my prediction has to be a major Earthquake in a major city of the developed world + perhaps a tsunami.  What else could bring our ''Black Summer'' - I guess a serious volcanic event could turn the sky grey and black? So I checked out the news and it turns out there have been various warnings about this kind of event [San Andreas, the big one] over the last few days but they are being reported in the Daily Express and some are the typical conspiracy theorist astrological alignment type stuff so I don't know what the % truthiness is in all that.  However if we are cycling through the quarters of Malkuth then mid August would be where we are directly over the source of Evil in Kabbalistic tradition.


In my eyes, indisposed
In disguises no-one knows
Hides the face, lies the snake
The sun in my disgrace
Boiling heat, summer stench
'Neath the black the sky looks dead
Call my name through the cream
And I'll hear you scream again
Black hole Sun,
Won't you come,
And wash away the rain

Black Hole Sun, Soundgarden

6 comments:

  1. I want to make a couple comments about your first paragraph and your conversation with Vincent Bridges. The unconscious as magicians typically think about it is better thought of as the layers of consciousness that have evolved in human beings over millions of years. Some of these layers of consciousness engage with the world in ways we don't understand - we are biologically adapted to the world after all.

    The "unconscious" seems like a battery pack to magicians because when it gets involved in magic, the results get juiced. But the proper way to think about it is that we're mobilizing levels of our nervous system that were responsible for human flourishing and direct interaction with reality long before we evolved the capacity for conscious thought. Typically this "unconscious" lives in Assiah, the world of ACTION, because its only ability to express itself is ACT in physical reality.

    Theatrical ritual as you're describing it operates by merging the emotional/motivational valence of Yetzirah with specific actions in Assiah, forming a bridge as you say. Ceremonial magic does this as well, but additionally makes use of specific tools. The tool thing is relevant because at our deepest level, we perceive reality in terms of stories and tools. When we can involve our unconscious in the creation of new stories, and additionally give it powerful tools to leverage for its reality-interfacing, we create successful magic that weaves itself into the unfolding story of time.

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  2. A solid Qabalistic explanation Paul, I certainly used to think in those terms and I only doubt this kind of reasoning now because of the bias towards philosophical presentism. In the compatabilist model that I've been taken through by Raziel that ''magic'' might be about ''unfolding'' an interpretation or commentary as opposed to unfolding a story persay. That story is already unfolded, we navigate through a few variants of it, we don't create it from the present on a blank page.

    And the minuscule nature of that story continues to surprise me... the labyrinth doesn't even need to be that big to keep people looping around it because memory is generally so appallingly bad. People don't even take note of their own patterns, let alone those glaringly obvious around them. More good stuff we learn from working in the theatre.

    I raised that type of magickal thinking in this post not because I believe but the group that may be orchestrating the things we are seeing might believe that.

    I struggled with the Razielian line of thinking and I struggled to hold myself in a head-space where I could reflect on it as much as I needed to because, as you say, we are or feel like ''natural'' ''actors'', but the argument against magic of this form [and agency in general] is so strong [and evidence comes from that magic itself when your results have to have been set in motion before you do the magic] that I struggle to return to my former position either. I am currently stuck in seemingly endless doldrums of reading and rereading the terms and conditions and trying to make sense of them. Movement in any meaningful sense seems to be something only a higher self can do.

    Does anything mean anything in a world[s] which is predetermined and without agency? Was the encounter with this idea/entity actually a trap to deprive me of my own agency? Who am I if I can only select from a small set of predetermined dimensions?

    Good to hear from you brother and I hope you're doing great!

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  3. I might say that the set of predetermined dimensions isn't so small. We're talking about the 14 poles of the double letters, right? I believe the doubles correspond with the cavities in the head because they represent structures through which we may perceive ultimate reality. They're limiting by nature and by purpose, and use their binaries to engage with our moral dimension of being.

    The truth is we're only really good at a couple of things. We only really have two ways of dealing with the idea of the unknown future (Kether). We can view it as a source of opportunity or a source of danger, i.e. we can treat it as good or evil. I think it's really the only choice that matters, and dictates just about every aspect of our lives.

    And I'm doing as well as can be expected, and I hope the same for you!

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  4. The number of routes through isn't small, considering you can change between ''tracks'' at various key moments even starting with something like 14! [assuming you change once between all 14 - unlikely] to figure it out we would come up with 87178291200 potential routes through although I think the set of 14 is considerably smaller than what a lot of people think they have to play with which is an infinity of options. And ''routes through'' fourteen existing histories is a very different type of freedom to infinite parallel universes.

    I like the link with the cavities, you're right they are the channels through which we sense the world - I think we are close to agreeing on the double associations with the kingships although I haven't given much thought to how they would attach to the different apertures and why.

    I would argue that the Keter-Malkuth axis you talk about here might refer to what happens at these ''robust branching moments'' that Raziel talked about, i.e. the points where they intersect and whether you change track for good or ill. In this compatabilist description they would be the points where ''you'' are free, but then we would have to talk about what ''you'' become at that point.

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  5. To clarify that would be the Kether-Malkuth axis as the ''tram track'' of linear time and the Chokmah-Binah axis as the choice to change onto another Kingship or onto a transposition [a negative] i.e. you might be on the wisdom track and then you reach a branching moment that can lead to the wealth or poverty track or you can stay on the wisdom track.

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  6. I think it makes sense to look at the 14 trees as vectors that you begin targeting at each branching moment. The journey that you cut through time and space going from branch to branch creates a unique crystallization of potential that represents the great moment that is your life.

    I would say that there are an infinity of options, but most of them are not physically plausible, meaning they exist but not in all worlds.

    I’ve been thinking of the Tree in terms of perception and integration of reality. In these terms the Kether-Malkuth axis is:

    Kether - the Unknown
    Da’ath - Knowledge or perception itself
    Tiphereth - The Knower/Perceiver
    Yesod - Knowing/Perceiving
    Malnutrition - the Known.

    This is the path and psychic structure through which we interface with reality. Reality begins in the future, takes the form of 3D space and the present in the Yetziratic portions of this process, and becomes the past, what we understand neurologically as memory and “explored territory.”

    On a macro level, this is modeled in the course of the evolution of the human species. You’re right that we may not have agency on the cellular level of consciousness that we typically experience, but I think it’s likely that we are a product of a level of agency that we can’t currently comprehend. Maybe a higher self, but I think it’s more accurate to say “the whole of ourselves.” The “us” that has survived for millions of years and is in our bones and blood.

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