Lightly, I step up off into air, drift in and fall up, backwardly upside down into the emptiness, through and beyond, falling out and landing in, right where I am here now.

The world of infinite, impossible and unseeable mysteries.

Through gyrating evolving metallic spindles, to an planet sized triangular diamond with a point that vanishes, gently emitting eerie glowing green sparkles, mesmerising, entrancing, revealing a triadic distinction of lover, warrior, seeker - that which expresses, that which decides, and that which discovers.

And there, within the peculiar spiders dancing at her feet, the injunction to know thyself, for only then are both the expression of Kia and the mind liberated, and that which is sought always found.

Thanatos, the condition of life, feeding Eros with fresh matter in which to dance and express, sexualise and bifurcate.

Eros animates and ravishes matter, becoming us, you and I, we, the mortal play things it embodies, burning brightly or dimly through us, leaving but a spent husk when our time is up.

Thanatos, the eternal silent witness, Eros’s one true audience, so lovingly attentive, accepting all, ever and intimately present to the absolute furthest ends of Eros’s fiery passion and lust expressing through and burning up in countless desires and frustrations, grandiose ideas of selfhood and meaning, each of them a mere momentary flash of Eros’s infinite potential for dance, play, poetics, foolishness and laughter.

Eros seeks release and finds it in Thanatos.

Yet some of us grasp tightly to our restraints, hesitating to surrender into dissolution, until one day the release is total, release from ourselves.

Thanatos and Eros’s love knows no bounds.
Together they become, one and the same.

THANATEROS

Thanatos, Thanatos, Thanatos - there you are
Gnarly hand of bones, reaching in from outside time
Dark obliteration longings, striking out
Erasure, into the eternal beyond
Opening skull, revealing life’s fragile energetic process
Bio-electric systems so easily snuffed out
Identity lost, all gone, no desire, nought remains
Nihility now!

Here comes Eros, Eros, Eros
Entering into emptiness, awakening somatic flaring fire
Appearances of body, empty opening life
Motion, vibration, tickling fancies
Teasing, playing, stimulation stirring
Inertia now becoming
Sensed, sensor, senses
Enrapture now!

Here now Thanateros, Thanateros, Thanateros
Empty open vast loving kindness of sex and death
Without limits, unconfined and eternally free

Athena leans in and whispers…
“You have everything you need. This I promise you.”
Witness Eros and Athena’s secret pact!
Every act, word and deed, every union, every partnering
All has meaning - All!
Meaningless? The worst kind of meaning!
Act now, pay later.

THE CALL OF THANATOS!

Open your eyes
Open your eyes
Don’t forget to open your eyes
Don’t forget to live your lives
I am waiting for you
I will devour all things you become
Always

THE CALL OF EROS!

Let me in. Let me in
And Let me be, let me be
Let me flirt with my darling Thanatos
It’s a kinda sexy
Always take me with you - in every act
I will become all things for you
Always

THE PACT OF EROS AND THANATOS

Eros constructs life from inert matter
Life leads to more Thanatos
Thanatos feeds Eros
Eros feeds on death

It does not matter into what myriad forms Eros takes life - Thanatos always awaits as surely as Eros buds new life

Eros doesn’t need to be worshipped
Eros just wants to be with us
With you in everything we do

Invite Eros in, and worship the world
See Eros flourish
See Eros die
But always Eros is at play
Loving every day

THE SECRET PACT OF EROS AND ATHENA

The loving dance between Eros and Athena
Athena creates beautiful order
Eros plays within that order
Testing it, breaking things
Always pushing the boundaries, testing
Eros does not need Athena
And Athena does not desire to be needed
It’s the cosmic tease

Side note: We, (Eros and Athena) do not need to be gender identified.
Feel free to assign us any gender you like, at any time, if that helps ;)

CONNECTION & EROS

Everything, everyone, is a treasure
We all crave connection
But why?

Because connection helps us feel our connection with Eros
Creating community can help us feel Eros

One of the kindest most beautiful things you can say to a living being, is “I believe in you.” And mean it. It’s like saying you are worthy, you have everything you need, now go on and express your life fully, set your daemon free

And the question comes: “But how?”
How to live life fully?

Embrace Eros
Every home should be filled with Eros

ERIS INTERJECTS!

I asked Eris, “Why?”
And she stuck me with a needle of pain.
And she said, “That’s why!” - with that salacious cheeky grin.

If you want to bring someone to their knees, you don’t need an army.
Just send Eris.

BAPHOMET ADDS!

Baphomet pops in and says…

“As above, so below, as within, so without, as behind, so before - There is a hidden order to all the players in the pantheon. To bring all your dreams and desires into manifestation, learn who to evoke and when. I can help teach you this. You will learn the secret order of things. Maybe even be able to articulate it, with Apophenia’s help.”

The Nyarlathothep ordeal felt as though I had somehow survived some kind of test. So I joined the Arcanorium working group, my copy of the ‘Epoch: Esotericon & Portals of Chaos’ had arrived, and I was part way through the preparatory work of creating the necessary magickal tools… the Card of Sanity, the Wand of the Elder Gods, and the Pentachoron.

The following occurred completely without planning… unbidden…

2. THE CALL

I awake within the dream, filled with the knowledge that I dream awake while my body sleeps. I stand in pitch black emptiness, as the feeling of something approaching from the dark grows. Here it comes - towards me. What is it? A form of awe mixed with anxiety spreads through my legs, rooting me to the spot.

One gentle tentacle floats gently and slowly out of the darkness before me.

Then a second, and a third…

Above them emerge several large piercing, alien-like eyes in a cluster, I start to see the overall silhouette of this gigantic form.

More tentacles come forward. I start to count them, 5… 6… 7… my mind interrupts to wonder if there might be 8 in total, fitting for chaos magick. Maybe 8 eyes too… and then while my mind was idly distracted, it rushed me.

With sudden acceleration and incredible speed, one tentacle shot forward violently and its tip penetrated my forehead, deep into my forebrain, or third eye.

Everything froze and my sense of continuity of self shattered and melted simultaneously. I felt only that I was being lifted from the ground by the tentacle embedded into my forehead, my body limp and helpless.

My sense of self seemed to become what I can only describe as ‘fragile’… as if I might soon no longer exist. And at the same time I felt as though a kind of cleansing of the frontal lobe of my brain was happening. It was as if there was a deep and exquisite peace beneath my fear of dismantlement. Fragile, dismantled, suspended, helpless and deeply at peace, for a moment…

And then I heard a grunt from my lover who lay sleeping beside my physical body. My physical body awoke and took in a huge involuntary gasp, as if bursting up from underwater having been under for too long. My heart was racing, thumping fast and hard. It took a couple of minutes to calm my breath and heart-rate, whilst i replayed what had just occurred, to help preserve the details to memory.

Cthulhu may not have had words for me, but the call sure as hell shook me up. I felt changed, as if my forebrain/third eye had been ‘cleaned’, somehow clearer, more vivid, more open, perhaps more prepared for the communication that lay ahead, when I was to meet Shub-Niggurath, Hastur, Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth.

With my magickal tools completed, and ritual preparations in place, and the ‘maybe blessings’ of The Visitation of Nyarlathotep and The Call of Cthulhu, I felt intrepid enough to engage in a more deliberate, conscious invocation, using ritual, breathwork and shamanic journeying techniques. And I even prepared some questions for them… but that will have to wait for another post…

I hear the words you utter
I entertain you
I comprehend the meaning you intend
I believe nothing
I kill and dismember
I cut out and burn all the prejudice
I destroy all the illusions
I plant my seed within the remains
I birth anew from your ashes
I flower into new words
I fruit with new meaning
My flowers adorn the world
My fruit feeds the world

This initiation came while participating in the Necromomicon II Expedition at the Arcanorium College, the online magickal college and discussion forum founded by Peter Caroll in 2006. Having participated for several years in courses at the Arcanorium College, I was following a discussion group and course, led by Peter himself when the ‘visitation’ occurred. This was no ordinary visitation - it was uninvited, intense and terrifying.

The course (I think ‘expedition’ a more suitable term), was based a modern grimoire contains a formulation for invoking the Elder Gods: Epoch: Esotericon & Portals of Chaos. The first stage of the expedition was to make contact with Nyarlathotep, the gatekeeper to the Outer Gods of the Cthulhu mythos. Caroll writes briefly of his insights:

“An Invocation of Nyarlathotep coordinated via internet by participants on several continents via Arcanorium College on January 21st produced some astonishing results. For me the insight that Imagination not Will shall prevail in the pandaemonaeon of post-truth, para-rational politics, and information overload in religions, sciences, arts, and esoterics, came to the fore. Other participants received inspirations about where contemporary magi should direct their imaginations next.” ~ Peter Caroll, 30 January 2017 (Source)

This article is the first in a series recounting the practices explored, experiences, and my personal insights. May it intrigue, informs and inspire.

1. THE VISITATION

I awoke with my heart pounding fast and hard, sweating profusely, the sheets of my bed drenched. For someone who does not get phased by weird, bizarre and vivid dreams, I was genuinely terrified by what I had experienced.

This was not one of those ordinary weird dreams. This felt more real than waking life. As if what occurred has a incontrovertibly tangible reality, not separate to and more fundamentally true than waking reality… and completely undoable by even the most powerfully rational mind.

I could not move from the edge of the bed. My hands were shaking and my body in a state of shock. It took a few minutes of breath control practice to calm my panicking nervous and endocrine systems. Then I reviewed and diarised the experience…

I awaken, lucid in the dream state, alert and attentive in a pitch black empty space.

For a moment I watch the darkness. There is nothing but the awareness of self and pitch darkness. No sound, no movement, no sensation. I have no idea where or why I am here and sense no intention.

A misty cloud slowly forms before me. Within the mist, a tall, slender (8-10 feet) shadowy figure emerges towards me. As it emerges from the mist I see that it wears a bullet shaped helmet and is shrouded in a long cloak to the floor, obscuring it tall lean frame.

It moves deliberately and swiftly towards me. The bullet shaped helmet has a narrow T shaped opening in front, through which I glimpse piercing eyes with small glowing points at their centre, surrounded by dark slightly wrinkled skin. It seems somehow masculine, but not human.

Nyarlathotep is here!!

As Nyarlathotep moves toward me, I feel strangely compelled to step up to it, reach up with my right hand and gently touch Nyarlathotep on the chest.

As my fingers connect connect, a sudden movement comes towards me. A long powerful arm, with dark grey leathery skin with tendons and muscles, bursts out from under the long cloak. At the end of this arm, opens a large clawed hand with sharp talons at the end of powerful sinewy fingers.

It lands and connects with me, claw tips touching my chest in a circle over my heart. I feel their sharp tips pressing into my skin, poised ready to plunge in. There is no escape from whatever is to happen next. A surge of terror courses through my body, my heart racing and breath strong.

With his claw-like hand poised over my chest, I know he is capable of reaching in and plucking out my heart, with no more effort than it would take me to swat a fly. My life meant nothing, worthless. I feel utterly vulnerable, powerless, facing the possibility of my life extinguished.

An yet, here we stood, with a hand over each other’s hearts, and somehow I stand my ground, open and ready.

The spark of an intention to express something begins to arise within, but before it’s even reached the stage of assembling into words, Nyarlathotep’s response comes, directly and quickly, forming in my mind before I’d even had time to know what I wanted to express, like he’s inside my mind…

“THE THING YOU DESIRE THE DEEPEST AND MOST IS THE THING YOU FEAR THE MOST.”

I awoke with gasping breath, heart racing like crazy in the dark of the pre-dawn night.

Intuitively, I understood this message does not speak to superficial desires of the objects and experiences, but to some deeply fundamental, almost existential desire/fear. The kind of desire and fear that identity and sense of self hinges on. I also intuited an underlying connection in this between Desire and Identity, that we might do well to consider them inseparable.

There’s something about a powerful visceral and emotional dream experience like this that can act as a kind of initiation. As I looked at my image in the mirror that morning, I felt as though I had passed through some portal.

I knew that I must join the other intrepid magicians on this expedition, whose online discussion, musings and invocations I had thus far only been reading along with.

The Arcanorium has since closed it’s online doors and I have no contact information for the rest of the party. If you were one of the party, or know any of them, I would love to hear what the expedition inspired in you in the years that followed.

The magickal experiences, dreams and explorations that followed on the rest of the Necromomicon II Expedition, changed how I view and understand myself, magick, this world, and illusions of reality that we cast for ourselves.

Stay tuned for the next instalments as I go on to encounter, invoke and transcribe messages from Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath, Hastor, Yog-Sothoth & Azathoth…

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Last night we brewed up a potent ceremonial cacao which we imbibed during our honouring of her.

In meditation, Apophenia whispered to me of trusting self and what it is like to be a god-form. When a ceremony or ritual begins, whatever happens, no matter if things don’t go according to plan, trust in self - as light as a feather everything that occurs is part of the process. Doubt and analysis paralysis can kill the magick, but if that happens then treat it as valuable part of the experience - honouring all that occurs as in complete support of the magickal intention, no matter if it seems rigid, messy, conflicting or absurd. Pareidolia and Eris play important roles in creativity.

She appeared in long flowing ethereal dress, and then reminded me not to pay too much attention to appearances, because ‘being’ a god or goddess is not about the form - but being an abstract primitive in the platonic sense - an archetypal point of reference that is beyond form. And in that same way, each of us has a essential beyond-form god within. Of course, saying ‘within’ is a misnomer when talking about something 'beyond form’ which has no spacial reference.

As I understand them, in simplistic terms, the left hand path and right hand path both seek to unify self and divinity in different ways. The left hand path through self-dieficiation, bringing the divine within into greater embodiment, often mistaken as deification of the ego. And the right hand path as surrender of self to the divine out there to bring the body into greater alignment with the divine. Flip sides of the same concept each with it’s own challenges, pitfalls and rewards.

Apophenia’s nudge to remember that the essential nature of any deity lies beyond form, beyond space and beyond time, tells us that we can find any deity anywhere and within anything - self and other, my little toe or that big cloud in the sky, the imaginary space when I close my eyes, or the darkness of deep space beyond the planets, the feeling of love within or the flower rising from the crack in the pavement, and the power of our own clenched fist or the devastation of a volcanic eruption.

This morning I reflect on my desire that Apophenia spread her wisdom and clarity wide and far through the world to inspire great illumination within all.

By the way, I also discovered that Apophenia has a dragon. Perhaps a baby dragon, for it seemed only 2-3 metres in length.

I’ll share full details (and the entire transcript) of my contact with several of the Elder Gods in future writings, but right now I’d like to share a little rambling insight from that conversation that seems relevant to these strange times.

Yog-Sothothian wisdom can reveal secrets beyond our current conceptions of the confines of space, time and matter. And if we’re open to it, we can bring this wisdom to practical application in our mundane 3d world.

“IT IS NOT SO MUCH THE FORCE THAT YOUR TECHNOLOGY LACKS BUT THE SENSITIVITY. MAKE MORE SENSITIVE TECHNOLOGY TO REVEAL AND WIELD THE SECRETS.”

- YOG-SOTHOTH (3rd November 2017)

This line has resurfaced in my thoughts many times since. Most recently it has brought to mind the human drive to create technology with more and more force. Bigger engines, larger bombs, taller buildings, larger farms, and so on. This expansionistic conquerer mindset seems to focus on acquisition of power through domination and force. However we might argue that true “power” does not require capacity for big force. Indeed several authors such as the psychiatrist, physician, and spiritual teacher, David R. Hawkins have explored this misconception in depth.

But Yog-Sothoth’s statement above asks us to look at our sensitivity, which is what intrigues me most.

The statement was issued in response to the question; “How can we adjust the structure of space and time to enable us to travel to usefully travel to and from other planets?”

I admit that the original question does not seem a very practical question, since I lack the resources, tools or scientific knowledge to attempt interplanetary travel. But we do have people on this planet who do. If that’s you, I hope you find this useful - do let me know. And for the rest of us, I think Yog-Sothoth’s answer can work quite well as general advice for all kinds of human endeavour.

Take the humble telescope as an example. We talk about making a telescope more powerful, which in turn makes it more sensitive - enabling us to see further and with more clarity. Similarly we talk about making a particle accelerators more powerful, which makes them more sensitive - enabling us to see smaller and shorter lived sub-atomic particles and the forces that shape them. In these endeavours, more power means more sensitivity.

We do not normally hear the same for something like making an engine or physical body more powerful, or for making a computer chip or A.I. more powerful. For these, more power can often mean less sensitivity.

I suggest that, when it comes to fulfilling human needs and desires, sensitivity accounts for as much as power, if not more. This applies not only to innovation, progress and technology - it applies to our minds and our social culture.

The power of my mind lies not purely in me being able to wield more force to change the world around me. The prevailing headwinds of so called ‘common sense’ have long parroted the narrative that power comes from greater concentration, will-power, focus, a stronger drive, determination, grit and the ability to push through, no-matter what. Doubtless there is great value in the ability to stay the course in any challenge, but this often comes at the expense of sensitivity.

Sensitivity gives us intuition and the ability to see more of reality with greater fidelity. Sensitivity gives us the ability to manoeuvre with agility and grace, to avoid creating unnecessary pain, harm, damage or loss. Sensitivity enables the matador to dance around the powerful and dangerous bull without harm. Sensitivity enables the powerful to be gentle and agile in the application of force. Sensitivity enables the powerful to create outcomes that are a win-win-win for all directly involved, those uninvolved or indirectly affected and the environment.

When we pursue fulfilment of a desire, a stubborn, wilful approach may get a result, but at what cost?

Ares, the great and noble gods of war may say that death, loss and suffering are necessary part of growth. And this may be true in some sense. Consider how a new branch emerging from the trunk of a tree must break open the protective bark in order to emerge, causing the it to crack and sap to bleed out - like the blood and tears of it’s self-sacrifice, all for the prospect of capturing more sunlight and spreading more seed.

Unlike trees though, animals (including humans - well most of them it seems) have some apparently useful lumps of biological matter that we call the brain and central nervous system. In particular, we have a prefrontal cortex - an of the brain which most science currently proclaims as the self-reflective, executive type functions for our motivations and actions, giving us greater self-awareness and

One of the features that distinguishes human capabilities appears greater interconnections between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain.

Another is our ability to discuss, learn and adopt practices that increase the power of our prefrontal cortex - and its sensitivity.

With regular practice, we can develop and condition our central nervous systems through techniques like meditation, breathwork, and other somatic techniques. It’s just like going to the gym to increase our overall body fitness, strength and agility. In particular, daily meditation strengthens both the power and sensitivity of the mind together.

I suspect the prefrontal cortex demonstrates only the beginning of something quite astonishing, that we have yet to conceive of. Our minds have the potential for incredible sensitivity, combining precision and power, which can enable us to create phenomenally delightful, beautiful and beneficial outcomes for ourselves, each other and this planet’s many species and environments as a whole.

However, anyone can see that most humans seem hell bent on killing each other and destroying most of the planet, using their minds to bludgeon their way to extinction - or worse, becoming slaves or pets for more superior intelligent machines.

The trick to avoiding either of these seems to develop the ability to self-regulate the executive functions of our minds. Much like citizens regulating their own governments - a challenge that society seems to have been working on for… well, probably 5000 years.

The way humans govern their selves (in aggregate) seems to mirror in the way their governments govern them. And vice versa, the way they regulate their governments, seems to mirror the way they regulate their selves.

So how can we cultivate better self-governance (leadership) and self-regulation amongst an entire population?

It could mean learning to more easily notice when Pareidolic visions and nonsense attempt to cloud our better judgement. And learning to more easily notice when Erisian disinformation and misdirection attempts to sew discord in our actions. Although Pareidolia and Eris both have an important role in the world.

I think self-regulation seems like the low hanging fruit for humanity to prevent catastrophe on its road to ever increasing power with sensitivity. Practicing kindness would seem like a good idea too. Humanity must ensure it develops the sensitivity of our minds, not simply focus on making them more powerful.

As more energy flows through a system, the capabilities of self-regulation must develop to be able to handle the power without causing damage, harm or loss in the process.

Another way to look at the meaning of ‘awakening’ is to become more sensitive, more aware, seeing more of reality as it really is - beyond the illusions, distortions and delusions.

Invoking the goddess Apophenia helps.

For me, Apophenia has held up a light up to show me how the meaning making apparatus inside my skull can become a more powerful tool to wield with greater intentional sensitivity - instead of a means by which I become used to perpetuate the traumatic tyranny of blunt brute force that past aeons have been ruled by.

Over the past decade, practices like breathwork, somatic therapies and meditation have rapidly become mainstream. And despite all the spiritual ego that accompanies any new technique in the self-awakening movement as it strives to differentiate it from all the other gurus, I see this as a good thing.

But I’d like to see breathwork and meditation incorporated (or re-incorporated) into the cultural habits of as many people as possible, not just an elite sub-section of society. Teaching meditation and breath awareness techniques as part of all school curriculums seems like a good idea to start with.

Then, with some, luck the next generation will be better equipped to wield their attention. With a better outlook for brain function than the 9 year old boy the other day who I watched glued to his mobile phone for 4 hours straight while the adults around connected socially and sung.

Or we could end up becoming a planet of zombies enslaved to the technology we created while we were asleep.

Either way the show will be interesting.

Civilisation seems obsessed by it’s left and right, conveniently oblivious to the fact that the concepts of left and right depend on a whole something, that contains them both, and hell-bent on dividing this whole in half, casting the other half as wrong, evil and justifying the atrocities performed against it.

Humans likely have their first embodied sense of duality at around week 8, when the flat sheet of cells (that is the embryo at this stage) folds in half to form the tube that then forms the channels for our digestive system and central nervous system to develop within. Left and Right may form our most primal viscerally sensed duality that underpins all our cognitive concept of other dualities throughout life. Magical traditions speak of left and right hand paths and political factions divide into left and right. Our brains divide into left and right, our bodies have left to right symmetry and we think mostly in terms of left right patterns.

And narratives of duality tend to war and conflict.

As sad as this seems, the dualistic drive to war has existed for tens of thousands of years, perhaps far longer.

You may not like to agree, but war does seem to have an important function which I suggest below. A deeper look should not harm, and may reveal something useful.

What possible purpose does the drive to war have?

In their 80s hit song ‘War!’ Frankie Goes To Hollywood asks us “What is it good for?”. “Absolutely nothin'” they claim.

Despite claims of virtue by both victor and defeated, and the horrific costs of life and property, war provides the catalyst for growth, change and increasing diversity. It hastens the end of stasis. It destabilises vested structures in ways that spawn new opportunities. Periods of innovation, economic booms, spiritual and cultural renaissance seem to follow on the tails of both World War 1 and 2, with the ‘roaring 20s’ and the ‘baby boom’ that produced the hippy and spiritual culture shift of the 60s and 70s.

No one side really perpetrates war - it arises as an emergent property of the tensions within a whole system bursting with a hidden desire for transformation. It surfaces when the whole does not have the capacity to contain and transmute the energy tensions by conscious, intentional, alchemical means. Until they learn to channel the powerful energies of polarities intentionally, the avatars of war will rampage like children throwing tantrums, faking self importance and hungry for symbols of power.

Some claim that nature does not commit war or acts of violence, and that war started with human civilisation due to human ignorance. But when we clean the lens, we see that war happens all the time throughout nature, as species compete for energy, sunlight, water, nutrients, food, procreation, and territory.

The only significant differences between human and natural war appears firstly the capacity of our weaponry to inflict massive collateral damage, to the point of destroying ourselves and our environment completely - and secondly our obsession with fighting over fictions such as moral ideologies, religious beliefs and money.

The path to avoid descending into a third catastrophic world war, involves and act of dis-enchantment, dis-spelling the illusions of left and right, to bring our hands together as one, so to speak, perhaps discovering a third hand at play here.

But human nervous systems are wired for duality, and faced with the existential nightmare of realising the illusion of duality, untrained populations fall easily into habits of aeons past. At least this seems likely to continue until enough of our nervous systems have evolved sufficiently (or been trained in Magick) to embody a different narrative.

For now, in this century, the journey of dis-enchanting the warring left and right narratives may involve first shifting toward a new narrative of ‘reality’ vs ‘fiction’, giving the popular nervous systems something more constructive, yet still familiarly dualistic.

In fact, we can see glimmers of this emerging as fledgling currents in mainstream media, where truth and lies become the new battleground. But mainstream media misses the point there and mostly just rehashes old adversarial dualities.

We can only ever know reality directly. We cannot know the truth of reality through narrative forms. Science, religions, spirituality, economics and art all exist as forms of narrative. All narrative arise as fictions. They have varying degrees of usefulness for the great work, helping us to appreciate the divine reflection that reality offers us, and real-ise our desires more intentionally.

Perhaps here we can glimpse the underlying geometry of a new duality - the recognition that:

1. On the one hand, we will never know reality (in truth) through any narrative form.

2. All dualities and narratives have the capacity to either help or hinder us in the great work of appreciating reality as it already is and intentionally manifest desire as reality.

3. A non-adversarial ‘meta-duality’ of: Reality - Fiction exists, and can lead us to a more useful triad of Reality, Narrative and Usefulness.

Notably, ‘Uselessness’ can provide an equally effective way of defining ‘Usefulness’. A moral doctrine of ‘usefulness’ could end up as destructive as any other duality.

From this geometry, (and perhaps optimistically) for the long-term, I imagine more cooperative, more collaborative and less judgemental, more peaceful generations of humans emerging.

Do we need a new world war to shift into the emergent meta-duality?

Perhaps world war would hasten it, but I say we do no need that. The new way of what I call ‘the third hand path’ has arrived, living, breathing, and emerging through those already ascending into power.

I planned to start publishing some musings after launching this publication on Apophenia’s last birthday. But shortly after, I embarked on a new adventure which involved relocating to a new city. So it’s taken a while to get started.

Belief is a tool”, they said. “Nothing is true and everything is permitted”, rings the call of Chaos Magick.

I’ve pondered over the concept of ‘belief’ much since I first read Pete Caroll’s Liber Null in the late 1980’s. And yet still it holds mysteries ripe for opening.

I suspect that’s because the concept of belief does not paint the full picture without discussing it in the context - bringing it into relation with everything it touches on.

Belief seems to act like a projection upon the world. It influences our perception of reality. And we filter the expression of what we call ‘will’ through it. We may be aware of the beliefs we hold. Or they may hide in our shadow, unconsciously held bound up.

All beliefs contain untruth. Beliefs get passed around in bonding rituals at tribal and cultural scales, and are often handed down from parents or ancestors long gone. Rarely do the deepest of beliefs face scrutiny by those that cling to them.

We might do well to consider mindfully what we choose to believe, for our beliefs define the limits of our achievable reality.

At a wild and stormy pagan weekend gathering in the bush lands of New South Wales, Australia in the 1990s, a magickal elder asked me, “So, what do you believe in?” I was new to magickal groups and didn’t have a very good answer, so I just said, a little nervously, “I believe in myself”, not realising that what sounded like an assertion of confidence, rephrased as “I believe in my Self” provides a good basis for doing pretty much anything. The elder laughed deeply as others listened and said “This one will go a long way.”

Beliefs form the deep spells of the unconscious mind that operate far below ordinary conscious awareness. For most, once established, they do not change much over the course of life, much like our values.

Beliefs should not be confused with thoughts. It’s easy to think a thought while deep down believing something entirely different. Just look at the use of affirmations, which rarely sink deep enough to make lasting difference. Affirmations reenforce their own counter-beliefs. Why would one need to repeat the affirmation if they were true? Yet many spiritual seekers invest hours repeating affirmations that deep down they don’t believe in the hope that saying them will make them true. What a mindfuck!

Changing the deepest of beliefs may feel unpleasant, confusing, and even traumatic to the central nervous system - a disturbing experience. It can cause ‘spiritual emergency’, psychotic breaks and breakdowns. And it can give rise to ‘spiritual emergence’ and breakthroughs. So most human nervous systems will naturally resist attempts to dislodge deep belief spells in favour of certainty, predictability and the collective illusion known as sanity, even if those beliefs cause suffering for themselves or others. The origins of deep belief spells usually involve survival of some unpleasant event, made easier to adapt to and move on from by the construction (or adoption of) the belief that traps unresolved emotional energy into defence mechanisms.

Deep belief spells can be so powerful that, over time, they influence the physical structure and appearance of the holder. Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Reich called this ‘character armour’, Causes may seem as innocent as losing a beloved person, pet or home - or as unpleasant as surviving a crash, rape, war, famine or natural disaster. And many are handed down to us by our direct familial ancestors and indirect cultural predecessors.

When we dare to look, we may find many beliefs that at first glance we might be inclined to judge as unwanted. And yet there they are, longing for resolve. Self-hatred, hatred of other, status projection, and most forms of prejudice (pre-judgement) have a basis in the deep spells of belief. Their formulas always include statements, the most viscous and insidious of which involve the use of the words “is”, “am”, “are”, “was”, “were” and all the derivations of the verb “to be”.

Much of modern therapy aims to unravel subconscious belief complexes - to de-armour self. The most effective of them work by bringing awareness to the emotions that bind them in place, then safely releasing them. In my personal experience, breathwork, deep meditation, movement and shaking, psychedelics, singing and walking barefoot in nature have been the most powerful and accessible of these. But each of us has unique history and keys to unlock our own mysteries.

The work of what I’d call ‘deep magick’ dismantles the acquired deep belief-spells, and empowers individuals to safely believe nothing, to permit Kia, True-Self, Universal-Mind, Parusha, Spirit, or whatever you’d like to call your essential spark, to express its own success directly into the world.

Deep magick liberates the mind from the shackles of deep belief spells, so that we can enjoy the ride more. It enables us to sit at the edge of the void, embrace the unknowable abyss of chaos, gaze deeply in, find bliss nourishment and other treasures. And perhaps for some, to inspire others to do the same.

May you find all the dark deep spells of belief easy to dispel!

Apophenia: The perception of meaningful connections in seemingly unrelated things. A goddess who embodies knowledge and power of such faculties.

Apophenia’s Garden: A place to grow, cultivate and discover novel, useful or delightful meaning within the seemingly abstract or unrelated.

In 2005, so it is written, a group of magical practitioners somehow witnessed the birth of a new goddess named ‘Apophenia”’ Their work, Pete Caroll’s book ‘The Apophenion’, the opportunity to participate in group magickal Apophenia workings online at the Arcanorium, and what I discovered through my own work with her since then, have all inspired me greatly. So, on 26th May 2023, I celebrated her 18th birthday by beginning this blog.

This blog provides me a place for me to experiment with and evolve my magickal writing style, having not published any other writing on magickal and personal topics before this.

Over the past decade of working with Aphophenia, my appreciation and fascination for the mysterious capability that each of us have of ‘perceiving’ any meaning in anything at all, has grown immensely. Working with Apophenia has boosted my intuition, brought greater clarity, radical insights and has improved my ability to express ideas that unveil what we call reality. The wisdom of Apophenia has helped me in business, creativity and relationships. It has also nearly cost me some dear friends who didn’t like having their illusions pricked. I find myself busting to share some of my musings, just in case there’s something useful somewhere, but mainly because it’s an itch that badly wants scratching.

The word “Apophenia” most commonly gets used to describe the perception of meaningful connections in seemingly unrelated things. By conceiving of this as a goddess, we now have a powerful spiritual being with whom we may seek knowledge and perhaps power in relation to this capability.

So what to call a space to grow, cultivate and discover novel and useful meaning within the seemingly abstract or unrelated?

The original name I felt inspired to use for this publication was “Apophenia’s Garden”, as depicted in the illustration above. But it felt like quite a long URL, so I initially opted for something a bit shorter - “Apophenium”, as in “gymnasium” or “planetarium”, (not to get confused within the book “Apophenion”).

I figured out how to change the domain and setup a redirect, so now the publication has it’s originally intended name and lives here at “apopheniasgarden.com”.

In this space, I intend to share a collection of novel, and hopefully useful works of writing, imagination, art and magick, to inspire anyone who dares to be inspired.

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- Tris

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