Sulum Factum Magus

One of the great pleasures of life, in my opinion, is browsing through a second hand book shop, especially one that has a decent selection of the esoteric and arcane. During a recent visit to Hobart, I was delighted by such a bookshop, on the corner of Hampden Road and Montepellier Retreat, in the historic Battery Point area. I ended up buying two volumes here, one on astral travel, entitled “Leaving the Body”, by D. Scott Rogo (Fireside, New York, 1983) and a second entitled “Sexual Alchemy” by ceremonial magician Donald Tyson (Llewellyn, St Paul, 200). I can thoroughly recommend both these volumes as worthy of study.

I was considering buying a third volume as well, that was nestled among the miscellaneous works on witchcraft and psychic development – a small red volume by Aleister Crowley, entitled “The Book of the Law”. This book was said to be channelled by Crowley from his Holy Guardian Angel, and is written in very cryptic language. However the introduction is very readable, by Crowley himself, as I recall. From this volume comes the oft quoted “Do what thou will is the whole of the law”. This is followed by the just as often over-looked reference to “Love under Will”, and an explanation by Crowley about how the Will is to be understood, and its relation to the prosecution and achievement of the Great Work. As I recall, the gist of this explanation was that the divine will of the magician unites with the overarching divine will, and the Great Work is the awakening of and achievement of the Divine Will manifesting through the personal will.

This I found very interesting, as I have written, as you may now, a book which I have entitled “The Great Work”, which details my approach and take on achieving just this union. In my book, I place more emphasis on the planetary consciousness, with the Great Work seen as a planetary awakening. However the planetary awakening requires the union of the individual will of each person with the Divine Will, or the planetary will if you see things that way.

However, I didn’t end up shelling out the $10. To be frank, I couldn’t understand the channelled bit. And any way, I do my own channelling! It is an important part of any magical path, in my opinion, to begin to receive instruction from the Deity forms and spirit beings one invites into one’s field of awareness. Such instruction is worth more than dozens of books by the wisest sages. In my own experience, it may come in two main ways. Firstly, it may arise as a very natural knowingness of what to do or how to proceed, with no obvious source. Thoughts take shape in one’s mind, or spontaneous workings arise during one’s practice, especially during ritual or meditation with the presence of one’s Deities or Tutelary spirits evoked. When this happens for me, there is no sense of any foreign entity, but that in the depths of who I am, there is some connection with the source of such knowledge. Perhaps it is being unlocked from some past life experience, or perhaps it is transferred through resonance activated by ritual and Deity presences that act as conduits for such knowingness, or transmitted from a tutelary spirit or Guardian Angel. Whatever the mechanism, knowingness is made available to the sincere practitioner, and this knowledge is of great value.

That being so, I am still a great lover of books. I will tell you some of the reasons why. Firstly, a book can broaden the viewpoint, and bring experiences and viewpoints into frame that otherwise may have remained unappreciated. Secondly, a book can help to put one’s own experience into perspective, and to confirm that one is on the right path, so to speak. Thirdly, a book can provide information and the benefit of another’s experience, which can be valuable in one’s own practice. When one is working alone, this can be especially helpful, as one has nothing to compare one’s experiences with. When working in a group, it is not so much of a problem, as one has a working party and coveners or lodge brothers and sisters to talk things over with.

As I am for the most part a solitary practitioner, I find books especially helpful in this third sense, to validate what I am experiencing in my ritual and magical work. A lot of my personal practice revolves around the Sacred Marriage of Male and Female essences, so I found “Sexual Alchemy” by Donald Tyson very helpful, to provide some validation for some of the experiences I have been having. It presents an apparently practical system of instruction in achieving sexual union with a spirit lover, as an emanation of the Goddess, and provides a thorough survey of Shamanic, Cabalist, Chinese, Buddhist, and Hindu tantric practices, with references to similar practices in the Western Hermetic tradition. The approach is oriented towards the ceremonial magic side of things. Of course, this may not be to every one’s taste, and other approaches are certainly possible when it comes to the celebration of the Sacred Marriage, with or without sexual intercourse, physical or spiritual. As time goes by, I intend to discuss this subject more in these pages. The important point is that there is a merging between the male and female principles of creation, in order to renew and re-invigorate both the individual and the life that surrounds him or her. The connections that emanate from each of us, through friendships, relationships, and daily activities carry the vibrations of harmony and renewal instigated by the sacred marriage, spreading out like ripples on the surface of a pond. Thus life is renewed and made whole. This is indeed the Great Work, and it is a supreme irony that most in the Western World see anything to do with sexuality as degrading, perverse or demeaning, and completely ignore its beneficial, sacred and wholesome practice.

Magic, to me, is as much about a state of conscious awareness as it is about working some spell to influence events in the mundane or spiritual worlds. It is about being aware and awake and noticing the openings in the fabric of space and time. These openings occur frequently throughout your average day, but most people never notice them, because they are fixated on their problems or their busy schedules, or have insufficient sensitivity.

However, magical training of any description acts to increase one’s sensitivity to the energetic quality of every moment, and to begin perceiving the interweaving of different levels of consciousness in others and one’s self, and with the fabric of life. This provides an avenue for magical intention to be instantaneously brought to bear in the course of an ordinary day, to influence things according to the Will, or higher purpose, of the practitioner. While some mystical path ways adopt an approach of steeping aside to allow the higher consciousness, conceived as other, to work through the practitioner, the Western approach, according to my understanding, is to develop the conscious awareness and volition to the point where it is unified with the Will. One’s purpose then becomes indistinguishable from the Greater Purpose, and indeed, an agent of the Greater Purpose.

Each day presents a multitude of opportunities to exercise the magical will. Each interaction with the world, whether it be a conversation, a chore, a task, a pastime, even watching the television, is an opportunity for the Will to operate. In each such theatre of engagement, there is a moment of opportunity, when the energies are aligned, and the exercise of magical intention can tip things towards the manifestation of the Greater Purpose.

Yesterday, for example, I was sweeping the floor. Yet at the same time, I was channelling light energy through the broom, and cleansing the floor and environment on an energetic level, as well as a physical level. Such cleansing is an act of magical intention, leaving an energetic mould for love and inspiration in the domestic environment. As I walked to work, I intended the movement of beautiful red brown earth energy up through my feet with each step, filling my aura, and overflowing into the surrounding space.

Then I got carried away with my job, and didn’t magically intend anything specific for awhile, but hey – I am working on it! Talking to people is a great opportunity for allowing one’s magical intention to operate. For example, when listening to someone speak, I will sometimes focus my awareness on my heart chakra, and intend that an atmosphere of loving acceptance surround us, speaker and listener. Even watching television can become the vehicle of magical intention, as one’s magical awareness may transcend time and space, and connect with the intention of both creators and watchers, working with the concentrated focus on the created image.

So this is my motto– Every Act an Act of Magic. In Latin, Sulus factum magus, with apologies to any Latin scholars! In honour of the importance of this principle, and to remind me to endeavour to always live up to it, I have decided to change the name of this site to “Sulus Factum Magus”. May all who walk the path of wisdom seek to make every act, indeed, an act of magic.

If you have been reading these pages, you may probably have guessed that there are quite a few disagreements that  I have with modern life. One of these is the slimy strip that people seem to feel needs to be on disposable razors these days. I looked in the ingredients once – a cocktail of different chemicals. Well, I have enough problems without having chemical slime all over my face each morning. At least, that is, on those mornings when I bother to shave!

I like to have natural stuff on my skin, and on my hair. I subscribe to the theory that human beings have evolved over millions of years to have skin and hair that looks after itself. So I don’t use any soap on my skin, except on those rare occasions when I am really grimy. Grime is not really an occupational hazard of a desk jockey! Of course I would love to be much more manly, and have a job in which I could get dirty. But I am resigned now to my desk-jockeyness, and I am happy to leave getting grimy and sweaty in the course of a days work to the young, fit and vital.

Of course I have no objection to people getting sweaty, nor to the odours that this usually entails. However if there is one thing I do find objectionable it is the odour of people in polyester shirts getting sweaty, especially when mixed with the chemical throat rasping tendrils of stale deodorant. Give me a good clean whiff of natural B.O., lightly or heavily scented with human pheromones, any day. Let us rejoice in natural, clean wholesome healthy body odours – the type that people who eschew soap, deodorant and large quantities of red meat have – the type that signal attractions, hostility and the various other subtle bodily signals that communicate like and dislike amongst us. Let us rejoice in our animal natures, and embrace our naturalness, and its beauty. Let us bin those slimy razors. But we must all agree to wear no more polyester!

In

Politicians are making a lot of noise about this housing affordability crisis, and proffering various ameliorations, such as releasing blocks of crown land for development, or public housing projects. However these measures, I confidently predict, will make absolutely no difference to housing affordability.

I was talking to a colleague from the

Of course what we are seeing is the free market in operation. Supply and demand. People value living in the city, as that is where they can get a job. So prices go up. And of course there is the investment cycle that pushes up housing prices in a large step every five or seven years or so, as people move their money out of the stock market in anticipation of a correction. They have to put it somewhere – why not housing?

Commentators in Australia were very triumphant about the collapse of the

There is no solution to housing affordability while the free market is in ultimate control of prices. Whatever initiatives are taken by various levels of government will by quickly eaten up by the happy initial recipients whose subsequent re-sale will capitalise government largesse into personal profit. Subsidised rental schemes will simply increase demand on housing stock, and so increase prices. There is a possibility that large investments in public housing will so increase supply as to depress prices. But the scale of the investment required seems too large for our current rationalist governments,  whose prime sensitivity is to the needs and returns of business and investors.

A solution to land supply and affordability in the latter 18^th century in Britain was the colonization of

In bygone eras, nations solved their housing affordability crises by invading a neighbouring country, or committing genocide on a portion of their own population. This allowed them to kill off a large number of their citizens, thus reducing demand, and to annex the now vacant land of their neighbours (if all went well), and so increase supply. Now of course, it is not considered OK to simply start a war because of real estate prices. We must invent various justifications. You know the sort – they are subhuman monsters who threaten our very way of life, and so we must get them before they get us. This is a perennial favourite, and always seems to resonate well with the masses. However, it is usually us westerners branding someone else as a sub-human monster deserving extermination. We are not used to someone else branding us as sub-human monsters requiring extermination. In either case, it is obfuscation and baloney. The real problem is housing and reproductive affordability.

So genocide and wars of conquest aside, that leaves the free market. The free market must be comprehensively eliminated when it comes to real estate. Here is one approach. The government should set the valuation on any property, based on a nominal fee. The purchaser at the nominal fee is decided by a lottery system. There is no opportunity for profit, except that people may be justly recompensed for their improvements, such as buildings and so on. However, once again, the value of these improvements should be set by a government assessor, rather than the free market. Oh, dear, you think that sounds like socialism? An attack on the very fabric of western democracy? Well then, I am afraid we will have to suffer our contradictions in impotent silence, and hope that our decay and collapse as a society will be slow and graceful.