From:    Lewis Cypher                           Area: MagickNet
To:      Josh Norton                            14 Apr 95 13:01:40
Subject: Astrology & Ritual                     Rec'd UpdReq 

 Part one of two parts:
    
LC>Like I said, some of my results have been rather astounding. It would be 
profitable to me to hear your opinion. 
  
JN> I would be interested in hearing what you've found. 
  
JN> My personal view of this matter is from a viewpoint somewhat different 
from that of Agrippa (whom Barrett plagiarized) or Levi. 
  
JN> One of my two real talents is an ability to perceive the effects of 
environmental astrological forces, particularly how they affect my own 
consciousness. Recognition of this preceded my discovery of magick, 
metaphysics, cabala, etc., and has influenced my entire approach to those 
things. 
  
LC> A talent that has emerged from my ritual work is to shift to a 'magic 
state of mind' and fuction in that for long periods of time. Everything is 
significant, and emediate; it taxes a practiced point of view I aquired in my 
ritual work, refined by cause and effect trial and error, to enter this non 
ordinary state of reality and function well enough to carry out certain 
ritual acts that bring me to contact with those celestial intelligences 
called forth with the sigils from the magic squares delineated and discussed 
in Barrett's The Magus. 
  
I have made contact with these Intelligences of the planets. 
  
With every rite, I change. My question is resolved, both directly and later 
played out in my environment. A shifting of significance, a universal 
viewpoint enters my life each time. It is incredibly usefull too.
  
The old magic books like Lemmegon in The Key Of Solomon, give descriptions of 
what can be obtained from the spirits. 
  
Something like, "Teaches all science and arts." 
  
This does not mean that something sits at the edge of the circle and discusses 
stainless steel for three hours. It means that a grasp of a whole subject, 
and a shifting of awareness to encounter opportunities of a specific 
character is confered, emediately, right there in the circle, and later as 
the whole data package unpacks itself in the magician's psyche, and 
especially memory. It feels like the kind of grasp you have of economic 
theory 3 years after you took the course and got an A in it. A little reading 
and the whole thing comes to you, and it subtly affects everything you 
percieve, and makes learning related subjects easier. However, contact 
dirctly mind to mind with Planetary Celestial Intelligence produces such 
drastic changes in me that a prolonged period of contemplation and journal 
writing is necessary between rites. My last rite of this kind, contacting the 
Celestial Intelligence of Saturn, Jupiter, Sol, Venus, and the associated 
interfacing godform constructs, left me thoughtful and motivated, but in that 
uncertain state of transition we undergo usually after experiencing a 
religious experience or a car accident. A 10 megaton Ah-Ha response. It was 
fun, scary, characterbuilding, and very very stressfull. Looking back at my 
journal writing of just 3 years ago, the change in my opinions, and 
especially what I do with other people, has undergone an obvious change for 
the better. I awoke the next day, it seemed from my journal writing, 
different.
  
Financial dealings show a success which belies my rather sheltered upbringing. 
Certain knowledge, shared by others who have sweated and studied for it, 
comes directly into my thoughts-and hesitantly into my sharings with others. 
All of it is tremendously useful to me, but a comparison of journal enteries 
at different times almost reads like different persons who have the same 
wordprocessor-or different aspects of me asserted and others submerged. My 
consciousness cannot turn and look back at itself, so I am at a loss for 
words here.
  
However, I remain enough the same to comprehend the changes, maintain the 
expectations of those who know me, and successfully conduct my affairs on the 
earth Plane-and I do remember I asked for it. Acceptance is an antidote for 
fear and uncertainty in this contact work. I use the power confered by the 
sigil sparingly, taking just what I need and leaving the rest. I keep notes, 
in an effort to retain my dedicatioin to a much larger plan and because of 
the etherial nature of the memory of ritual events and their dissapearance 
from memory without using recording devices to refresh and remind my 
'speaking self" of what acually happened. 
  
Follow up comunication with the planetary intelligences is possible at any 
time after the first contact, providing I ask the question of how to do such 
'out of season' communication. 
  
Putting aside the dualism inherent in adapting The Book Of Spirits, Lemmegon, 
to Christian Demonology (where former pagan gods become demons), we are left 
with a catalogue of improvements on the magician's skills and understandings. 
  
Advice to the beginning contactee: 
  
Definately wish for mental health and improved magic skill in that first rite. 
  
 (continued...)
/s


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From:    Lewis Cypher                           Area: MagickNet
To:      Josh Norton                            14 Apr 95 13:59:04
Subject: Astrology & Ritual                     Rec'd UpdReq 

 Part 2 of 2 parts
  
Re: The perception of celestial influences as they exist around you: 
  
I have no doubt that the movement of the celestial heavens is reflected in the 
activities of the earthy mechanisms, in all their rarified and gross 
manifestation. Like you, I can see it, in a form that my cerebral cortext 
will accept-this is where training my imaginations in limited expectations as 
for the form the manifestation will appear, in the mind's eye, is useful. 
Earth Elementals 'look' a certain way to me because I expect them to-indeed, 
during ritals I demand they assume a form pleasing to my eye-and my 
expectations of that kind. Subterfuge is obvious, because I am not 'psychged 
up' during the rite; but, instead am detached and observing.   
No matter how they appear to me, my ritual preparation of the operator (me) 
ensures a set manifest result in keeping with my expectations. I would rather 
make those decisions. No dragons vomiting fire for me. If I wanted that I 
would go to a movie. 
  
My interpretation of astrology is that we humans, in our highest state of 
magical consciousness, are more like the celestial intelligences of the stars 
and planets than gross matter. We can make the same decisions. 
  
Therefore, IMHO, we can take over parts of the reality machine and mold it in 
accordance to our will, limited only by: 
  
Our understanding of the machine's essence and what button to push and the 
ability to mold our expectations and our willingness to flow with or ability 
to resist patterns of manifestation-of which we are one with the ability to 
remanifest those forces from the stars, governed by the Celestial 
Intelligences of those stars, in accordance with our will, tuned to the 
divine spark within us. 
  
Doing a chart of the moment of the rite would be riding the datawave, 
achieving the useful states of organizing input to our senses and inner 
self-dialogue so we have eyes to see while driving in that realm of reality 
machine awareness. 
  
Eyes to see, a firm hand on the tiller, and a reason for going. The last skill 
is the most subjective one. 
 Out of time now, I will get back to you. Looking forward to your reply to 
these parts,
 Lewis


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