A Passage That Perfectly Describes Us

"Binah," from Qabalah Art Gallery

The initiate of the Greater Mysteries is known by his serenity and impersonal attitude in all the relations of life. He knows how to be still and let the powers he has set in motion carry out the work. He knows how to await the ripening of souls and not force a premature development by personal pressure. The initiate never goes about doing good; he never trespasses uninvited upon the spiritual privacy of another. He acts by what he is, not by what he does. He works on himself, makes something of himself, and then the forces that radiate from him without effort on his part bless and illuminate. If he is calm, he calms his environment. If he has wisdom, those who are in his company unconsciously take on his attitude and he has no need to proffer unsolicited advice. Because he knows the reality of eternity, he is content to let time do its work. He is characterized by two things, the power to be still and wait, and the power to stand absolutely alone. Until we know how to be still, mentally as well as physically, we cannot handle power; and until we know how to stand absolutely alone in perfect equilibrium and contentment, we cannot accomplish the works are done in polarity. Finally, the initiate is prepared to work without seeing result, playing his part on the Great Plan that unfolds through the ages of planetary time.

-Dion Fortune, from Dion Fortune and Tarot

More "magical letters."

This guy deals with two from the English alphabet.

Lovecraft's Point Of Inspiration

Qoph, Hebrew letter meaning "back of the head"

Daath, the mysterious, invisible Sephirah, which is never marked upon the Tree, is
associated in the Western svstem with the nape of the neck, the point where the spine meets the skull, the spot at which the development of the brain from the notochord took place in our primeval ancestors.

Daath is usually held to represent the consciousness of another dimension, or the consciousness of another level or plane; it essentially represents the idea of change of key.

-Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah

LOLCrowley

Like the atom bomb, someone was going to make one eventually.

Via Gleamings From The Dawn.

Sexiest Occultist Alive* 2008: OFFICIAL WINNERS

Thank you all for your participation. As judges, this was our most challenging year. When you bring something from the astral plane to the physical, believe us when we tell you that there will be birth pangs. You probably wouldn't believe us if we told you that "you're all winners," so instead we'll quote Uncle Al and say that "Every man and every woman is a star."

But this year there were two nominees who shone particularly brightly. They are:

2008 winner, Zorigtbaatar Banzar (men's competition)

Occult Accomplishments: Mongolian Shaman.
What Put Him Over The Top: Devil-may-care sense of personal style.

2008 winner, Annie Besant (women's competition)

Occult Accomplishments: Former President of the Theosophical Society.
What Put Her Over The Top: Fearless early adopter of bondage-inspired fashions.

Sticky Wicket: We know that some will criticize us for giving the top award to Zorigtbaatar, saying that we're just bowing to the latest trend of "everything Mongolian shamanism, all the time" (as anyone shopping for back-to-school clothing has no doubt noticed).

Another point: we received far more nominations for Suri Cruise than we are comfortable with. Yes, we know that her eyeballs exude a strange power and that she has already won at least one mainstream best-dressed competition for realz, but she has a few hundred more moons to go before we can even think about you guys thinking about her in that way. This offends our most basic Yankee sensibilities about good hygiene and upright living.


SOA* 2008 JUDGES:
Dr. John Dee - Ascended Master, mostly.
Dr. Sherwood Kenning - Occultist, Qabalist, world-traveler, world-renowned Pan flautist. Foremost collector of erotic daguerreotypes in the Western world. Has returned from dead six times.
M. Silva - Agent-on-remote.
Gen Galloway - Part-time curator of The Kenning Collection. Editor-in-chief of The Galloway Chronicles.
Whaley - Deep sea animal ally.

SEXIEST OCCULTIST ALIVE* 2008: Congratulations To Our Runners-Up.

2008 Runner-Up, Cleve Backster.

Occult Accomplishments: Featured in The Secret Life of Plants. Founder, Backster School of Lie Detection.

What Put Him Over The Top: Perennial crowd favorite. We get five dozen votes for this guy every year. Truly "The People's Choice."

2008 Runner-up, Kara Rae Garland
aka Soror Ceilede

Occult Accomplishments: The first second-generation chaote we've ever heard of. Also writes.

What Put Her Over The Top: Apparent well-adjustedness.

STAY TUNED.
OFFICIAL WINNERS TO BE
ANNOUNCED LATER TODAY.

SOA* 2008 JUDGES:
Dr. John Dee - Ascended Master, mostly.
Dr. Sherwood Kenning - Occultist, Qabalist, world-traveler, world-renowned Pan flautist. Foremost collector of erotic daguerreotypes in the Western world. Has returned from dead six times.
M. Silva - Agent-on-remote.
Gen Galloway - Part-time curator of The Kenning Collection. Editor-in-chief of The Galloway Chronicles.
Whaley - Deep sea animal ally.

This Time It's Doping: Another Sordid Scandal Rips Through GALLOWAY Offices On Eve of Contest Decision

2005's winner, Michael Tsarion

Echoing the never-proven allegations that swirled around Michael Tsarion in 2005, our sources tell us that Dionysian invokestress Amy Winehouse is ineligible for our contest.

2008 nominee Amy Winehouse

(Sad face.)

"2008 Sexiest Occultist Alive" Judge Caught In Embarrassing Scandal

Contribution to science notwithstanding, the fact that these pictures of one of our most esteemed SOA 2008 judges are being released now is, to say the least, a bit suspicious.

We have always known that The Powers That Be would try to bring this blog down. With a light that shines as brightly and fearlessly as The Chronic's, one must expect the forces of darkness to be attracted. Note to the Illuminati or whatever y'all are going by these days: we were expecting nothing less.

Judging goes on, our good name untarnished.

2008 Sexiest Occultist Alive: Submit Your Nominations By July 25

2006's winner, Charles Fort

The victors will be officially announced on Monday.

We will be selecting one winner from each gender, which could potentially leave us with up to five different winners! Whew!

Each winner will receive a nifty badge for their blog signifying them as 2008's Sexiest Occultist Alive* OR a coupon towards a discounted oil change OR (if dead) a special libation at the gravesite of their choice.

Note to late-coming entrants: Remember the well-worn Internet maxim, "Pics or it didn't happen." Since Dr. Dee's shewstone is still being held hostage by the grabby British Museum, The Galloway Chronicles will need to see photos or we will be unable to clearly tell how occultalicious you might be.

Please keep it clean; some of us have strict vows of celibacy to maintain.

*or dead

More Scenes From A Life With Crowley

The girl was thin to emaciation; her eyes sunken in her head and surrounded by black circles; her lips carmined with so vicious a lipstick that she looked as if she had been kissing the wet paint on a pillar-box. Her clothing consisted of an exceedingly figure-revealing djibbah of dingy green. She looked like a sickly and unclean nymph who had had altogether too much attention from Pan.

-from Dion Fortune's fictionalized description of a mistress of Aleister Crowley in The Winged Bull.

It is unclear whether Fortune's description is meant to evoke Leah Hirsig, the best-known of Crowley's Scarlet Women, or if it is a composite.

Galloway Chronicles Now Accepting Nominations for 2008 Sexiest Occultist Alive*

2007's winner Manly P. Hall

This annual contest, normally held exclusively on the astral plane, has been moved to the blogosphere per orders of Dr. Dee, who is trying to make room on his back lawn for events of what he calls "greater occult significance."

This is probably the most important beauty contest since the judgement of Paris, so think carefully about who you nominate. We don't want just a million nominations for Michael Tsarion and nothing else, okay? That would make it very boring.


* or dead

MacGregor Mathers as a comic book character.

macgregor mathers, originally uploaded by flameape.

Long overdue. And brilliantly drawn.

Edited to add: Our agent-on-remote informs us that genealogical research is ongoing into whether MacGregor (progenitor of our spiritual heritage) is related to Marshall (minor poet).

"I'm scared that I ate a person's body."

"People placed orders with me. Then I went to get them," Moussavou said in the broadcast interview. He said they would break into cemeteries in the middle of the night to steal the skulls.

The skulls were then ground down into a powder that healers use in various drinks and amulets believed to give the wearer strength or power, he said. Moussavou added that he sold many skulls for use in a common initiation rite, known as Bwiti, in which young men and women drink a potion that is expected to bring on visions.

In Gabon, the knowledge that human bones are used in the potion was nearly as shocking to many as the news of the graverobbing operation.

"I was initiated by Bwiti. I'm scared that I ate a person's body," said Jeanne Mba, a middle-aged housewife in Libreville.

Read more here.

Via Boing Boing.

Scenes From A Life With Crowley

June 29 AM K

...12:30 PM My opinion is that one does not really get a shot at one's complexes until one has managed to eliminate the influences of convention.

1:25 PM 6 dr G + rum + wine at lunch.

2:40 PM (after lunch) Quite uncomfortable—but 666 wants his books from the P.O., so after telling him a few thoughts (re later) I went. Returned—raining like hell—Tea. Ideas connected with convention and complex. To get at people's "conventions" trouble I suggest two main lines:

1 for the simple—ask the question "What troubles you most in life."

2 for the more complex animal—Force him with a list of all the crimes? possible and ask him to mention the one that he thinks worst "wicked" or "disgusting" or some such term....

Dec 27
G 2:20 AM Msbtd—Union with Chaos—my whole idea seems to deplete my body absolutely so that I may lose my thoughts—But I am all wrong. I am starved, but I shall start to love tomorrow. There will be no more masturbation—Perhaps there will be insanity or death, but there'll be something, if I have to create it myself.

From the magickal diary of Leah Hirsig, mistress of Aleister Crowley.

"Pictorial representations of the Work...show a king and queen lying down together in a bath. They are dissolved and 'married', presumably by the fire which is applied to the sealed vessel.


They blacken and putrefy. This part of the process is known as the nigredo...The heat drives off all the vapours. The black mess should begin to show white flecks, like a night sky full of stars,



and then slowly turn white -- the process known as the albedo. The whole mass becomes volatile, then recrystallises as 'the white stone.'


...Yet this is not the end of the process...The significant point here is that the [alchemical] process ends with the sun symbol..."

From Mysteries by Colin Wilson, who may be trying to tell us something.