Yes. This isn’t to be taken literally.
Yes, we/it will
Does this help or ring a bell?
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That Baron Samedi rum is 
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Eldritch horrors. Actually it does ring a bell, I’m trying to remember where, but I saw similar imagery somewhere recently, and I’m trying to remember if it was irl, in a dream, on TON, a vision…
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5.09.22
New home, new altar.
It was surprisingly easy to pack up and unpack, and of course, everything came with me and nothing went into storage because everything is precious. I simply wouldn’t feel at home without it. Wand and peacock pinion (the big golden feather) courtesy of Norseman.
Now if I could only remember where I put my damn Tarot deck.
…And of course, no room would ever be completely mine without the eyes of Melek Taus looking over me.
6.09.22 1.14am
Melek Taus v2
Cuervo’s bloody Hypnos trance works too damn well. I was certain I’d figured out a new, more “tame” method of connecting to Melek Taus that I might be able to make public, so I used the Hypnos trance and started the pathworking…
…and of course I fell asleep and remember absolutely nothing. I slept for two hours and woke up just past midnight.
But –
I did wake up with a name ringing in my head.
And now I have about 7 new browser tabs open because this is going to send me completely down a rabbit hole.
Sigh. Alright, let’s go then.
Fresh UPG coming soon.
While I’m at it, let me speak of a vision, or dream, that I had recently.
I dreamt I was messaging a friend, or maybe that they posted here on TON. The message was of anger so pure it crystallised into a ruby. Then the image of a viper, poised to strike, with a red crown, and red tendrils undulating out of it. In the dream I read something like “the [anger/blood] of Zeus himself” and then I heard a word(s) in a foreign language, which I think may have been simply carcharodon: “sharp teeth”.
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Those feathers ! 
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6.09.22
The name I heard last night continues to bear fruit (dragonfruit, heh). There is so much information-mining to be done that I don’t know where to begin or where to end.
Finally I may get closer to unravelling the mystery of Melek Taus.
Likely I could do it with a single name.
Maybe.
I’m investigating.
However, I feel conflicted. I think this is going to change things that I do not really wish to be changed, personally. But it seems growing pains are a part of the journey, no? I suppose it can’t be helped.
It doesn’t mean I have to leave anything behind… right? I can still call on my big feather man, my golden winged serpent, in all his chaotic glory, even if… well, I’m locking that discussion down for now; refusing to think on it further until I have more information. I don’t even like to think about it.
Melek Taus is Melek Taus, and he will be to me what he has been to me – I hope and I pray. If there’s anything or anyone else there, behind the scenes, which I think likely, I still don’t think he will be to me what Melek Taus is to me; or even similar to Melek Taus.
Conflicted, see?
Or rather I just don’t know. it’s an odd feeling, like grieving someone who is still around. I couldn’t bear to lose Melek Taus, my Melek Taus, who is so familiar to me.
I’ve been impressed by my experiments with the Greek pantheon lately, so @ReyCuervo has been kind enough to furnish me with many pathworkings to various entities, and I am looking forward to exploring them all, and seeing what the Gods can teach me.
Someone please just remind me to take a guide. Maybe I need a pact with Hermes so that every time I try a new pathworking, he will show up to guide my forgetful ass, who never even thinks of guides or diplomats or neutral entities before I go diving headlong into a pathworking trance.
I will hopefully report back soon on the Greek gods and assorted entities.
'Til next time,
Veil
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The Girl Who Played With Fire
I finished The Millennium Trilogy not long ago. I remember when it first came out and everyone was going crazy over the first novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Did you know its original name, in Swedish, is actually Men Who Hate Women? And that it was published posthumously? I didn’t.
Am not much one for fiction (I prefer fantasy, sci-fi, or supernatural genres) but the trilogy was compelling. When I first read Men Who Hate Women many years ago, I never bothered to read the remaining books in the trilogy. But I did recently finish the trilogy, and I can say I still felt very compelled by The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest. A well-written tale, but i don’t think i will be returning to it for a while. Maybe in a few years. It’s always nice to revisit a well-told story, and I’ve been working my way through my entire library for the last year or so. Like I tend to do every few years.
With that rambling out of the way, and now that I’ve gotten more of a handle on the Melek Taus → Mithras association, I suppose only a few things remain. One, to see if I can find a link between pavolatry and Mithraism. I could, at a stretch, make some connection, given that Mithras had associations with a bird and serpent, and the melding of the two was said to become the mythical phoenix; who has close ties to the peacock – death and rebirth as they go through their moult and regrowth.
In fairness, the bird of Mithras was a raven/crow (Corvax), not a dove, and it was always said to be the melding of a dove and serpent that became the phoenix. There’s also apparently some (forgive my academic ignorance here) crossover between Mesopotamian cuneiform symbols associated with the peacock, which match symbols seen associated with Mithras, or Mithras in one of his many forms.
Well, I won’t go further down that road in this entry, otherwise I’ll drive myself mad. Maybe the next step is simply to see if I can connect with Mithras, since this guy seems to be everywhere, and everything, at once. Christ and Lucifer in the same package. An interesting entity. And I do keenly want to know why Melek Taus would give me this name and nothing else.
Maybe I’m grasping at straws, or doing that horrible thing where we syncretise all deities into one giant melting pot known by many masks and aspects. In this case I soundly reject that… while there may be some association, the Melek Taus I know is… well, he just is. He’s not a mask or an aspect. And the same could be said about just about every other deity in existence, no matter their origin. To say Melek Taus is a mask or aspect of some other spirit is like saying I am a mask or aspect of my parents, or grandparents, or ancestors. No. Entities have their own individualism.
And… maybe Mithras has a pathworking for me? Let’s find out.
Since I’ve had such a warm welcome from the Greek pantheon lately (except for that time I appeared to annoy Hephaestus a little bit 
), I’ve been branching out and visiting a few more of them, with, of course, the wonderful Hermes holding my hand – literally and figuratively.
Last night I paid some back-to-back visits with Hermes as my chaperone, since I want to know these Gods and deities better.
Instead of appearing in a mentalscape, after I called him, Hermes appeared in my room. He stuck his head around the corner with a big beaming smile and shook the Caduceus at me like a court jester shaking his sceptre. Then he sat at the foot of my bed, and we shared a back-and-forth conversation, with no words spoken. I had waves of goosebumps rolling over me from head to foot constantly, which is becoming a common occurrence now in the presence of any non-demonic entity (demonic entities instead make all my muscles tense up, like a low-volt electric current is being run through my body).
Hermes took my hand. Tears sprang into my eyes. He agreed he would accompany me on these journeys.
We went to see Zeus. A limited mentalscape here, a throne between two Grecian pillars. I spoke to the Father of Gods. His eyes were blue, very blue, the blinding blue of unbound electricity seared into your retinas. He was willing to speak to me, but I submitted to let him search my mind. After that we parted on good terms, and he threw in a nice goodbye present for me. Hermes was mute at my side the whole time.
After this, Hermes took my hand again and we went to Hades. I couldn’t help picturing the Disney version of Hades, but that notion was dispelled pretty quickly. It was a very indistinct mentalscape, there were no set features, just a kind of sense of enclosure and a floating grey mist. Hades himself was all in shades of grey – all of him, like watching an actor in an old black & white film. He had slightly elongated proportions but was human-sized, maybe my height or perhaps even a bit shorter. His face kept changing ages. One moment he would be a young man, the next a grandfather, then the face of a young boy, then a middle-aged man – and would ceaselessly and seamlessly shift from one to the other, constantly. After a brief introduction and conversation, I thanked him and left, with another parting gift.
Finally we went to Medusa, Hermes and I. We entered a cave where she dwelt, and she was surprised but not unwelcoming – just like we’d dropped in as unexpected visitors without calling first, which I suppose we had done. She was pretty, and the snakes in her hair were at rest, shifting slightly, but not arrayed in some crazed halo about her face as is often depicted. I made my introductions and kept it short, thanked her, and left.
I hoped I thanked Hermes again. I drifted off to sleep shortly after this, and my memories are limited.
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I had some.flashbacks going on with your song, Veil. My girlfriend at the time burnt me a Kidney Thieves album and I listened to it in Iraq.
I met with her the other week and this is more my experience, too.
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Veil, indeed great music taste there 
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Very similar to all the times I visit him. It’s oddly calming.
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Nice SPG. I would like to try and draw her as she appeared.
And more SPG. Yes, I did find him oddly calming too, and very neutral. I always thought of him of some kind of god of death, but that is really not the impression he gives. God of those who have died, aye, but a guide for the dead, not an agent or force of death, not one who causes death.
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Idk if you’ve seen the meme but it’s Hades saying “I do not control the die” XD He was the first deity who showed up when I was starting. I love him 
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26.09.22
Not much to say. I had a bad day, maybe a bad last two days. I suppose I can at least find purpose in helping other people. Give me a problem to solve and I’ll always want to figure out how to solve it, and I won’t give up until it’s done.
While I’ve never specifically focused on shadow-work, the past year or thereabouts has really just revealed the worst parts of me, and sometimes the best… maybe. Inadvertent shadow-work. I’ve had some highs, so I suppose it must be balanced with some lows. Today was low. Yesterday evening was low. Restless, listless, self-imposed isolation. Loneliness. But again, if I can throw myself into helping others then I don’t have to think about myself.
No more Greek journeys yet, but I’m back working with the AoO. I found the pathworking I did to be quite easily accessible, more so than a lot of others I’ve tried. I’m feeling good and confident about this undertaking.
I’m slowly working on a way to speak with Mithras. I want to do it right. Or maybe I could just ask big feather man to take me to him? I don’t know. But the imagery/keys seem important.
There’s so many constructive things I could be doing with my free time, but I seem to be capable of nothing more than lying on my side and staring at the wall.
Maybe I’ll throw myself at some more pathworkings tonight, since I am just aiming for pure escapism. I say I’m lonely, but I can barely tolerate intrusion or interaction (especially irl) unless I’m seeking it.
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Altered
My sleep state is slowly moving from completely rart to tolerable. Still I find myself having odd sleeping patterns. Last night I fell asleep at about 6.30 or 7pm and woke up just before 10pm, then I was awake for a few hours. I don’t remember exactly what woke me but it was a nightmare that quite literally jolted me awake at 10 to 10 in some weird convulsive spasm. I am glad I woke, because it helped me, ultimately.
This morning I woke much the same way. Stuck in a dream and panicked, lying on a bed of flames. I heard a woman’s voice say “Preposterous” contemptuously, and the tongues of flame upon my back changed to the cool scales of serpents. Medusa? 
Edit: I wrote this at 1am and now I’m adding updates at 6am, so maybe I’m not as “there” as I wanted. And I’m annoyingly waking into this catlike state of immediate alertness, while during the day I struggle to stay awake. REM, where you at?
Dionysus
The god of wine, ecstasy, altered states, and divine knowledge? Say less fam. I will admit I knew of him but it wasn’t until I drew parallels between he and Mithras that I was interested… despite, you know, the fact that I’d probably have gotten around to him as part of the Greek pantheon.
I called Hermes and asked him to take me to Dionysus. And I wrote down the keys as a pathworking. Redacted here.
And of course I want to touch the Thyrsus again, to hold and wield it. We’ll see.
I did ask him for a message for a friend, which he gave to me and I passed on. But I need something more.
Until next time x
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Hephaestus
I realised I never really recorded the work I did with him, so I’ll record it here now, since I did promise that I’d praise him from one end of the earth to the other.
Personal parts redacted.
The first time
The second time
This was after a friend urged me with great insistence to talk to Hephaestus as soon as possible.
Suffice to say I have a very healthy respect for Hephaestus after this, and I probably won’t be bothering him again for a while. However, he delivered in 5 to 6 days, perhaps less. Incroyable.
I would also like to kindly thank beloved Raphael, who has delivered beyond all expectations re: the illness of a family member. Even the doctor was optimistic and predicted an almost complete healing within the next 3 months. Raphael, the immense one, you whose wings dominate the sky. 
If I spoke only of your virtues every second of every day for the rest of my life, I would still never find the words to praise you enough.
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10 October, 2022
Not much to report, really, so expect a lacklustre entry.
I’ve been a bit idle, and what workings I’ve done, I’ve either neglected to take notes of, or they’re not really something I am willing to share publicly since they are for others. A few fictional archetype invocations à la Chaos Magick; the Law; and working with the AoO. Pretty standard.
Am working through the divination readings I promised (in another thread) at at my own pace. @Nephenthe was kind enough to send me his spare True Black tarot deck and I’m absolutely in love with it. While my Anima Mundi deck seems to favour swords, so far True Black seems preeeeetty balanced… although it seems to slightly favour cups and coins, just ever so slightly. But I’m still only a few readings in, so we’ll see.
I’ve been evoking Uiazel specifically before readings and he seems to be exceptionally helpful in that area. I admit it has been a while since my last reading, and again, Anima Mundi is beautiful but it seems to just love throwing swords into the reading. Beautiful but deadly, hmm. Maybe I need to cleanse it to reset it or something.
“Rusty” is how I would have described my Tarot divination a few weeks ago, and even my intuition. But I’ve been getting decent feedback and this deck seems to really vibe with me, and I am getting back into the habit of trusting my intuition more. (And the art of True Black…! Phenomenal. I already have full-size prints of three of the cards; I want more. Way more.) I think fellow folk who use Tarot divination know just how much effort goes into a single reading… usually an hour to 1.5 hours for a single read. I love the feedback. It’s so helpful. If I am completely wrong, though, I want to know it so I can refine my interpretation. So far, True Black has been quite accurate for me (or not me so much as the people I am reading for, I suppose). But I guess that’s also the influence of Uiazel as well, in terms of accuracy.
Anima Mundi definitely needs to be reset, or maybe it’s just my doom-and-gloom deck. Beautiful but brutal.
What else? Tonight I am feeling nostalgic and a bit morose. Time is hard to measure, since I seem to set my markers of time by events, instead of days. Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with me, sometimes I know (or think I know) for certain.
Such is life. We ride the waves until the storm subsides and throws us back onto the shore, then we pick ourselves up and carry on.
Forgive my mixed metaphors.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:27
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11 Oct 22
"If you are a Kanye West fan, you are not a fan of me, you are a fan of yourself. You will believe in yourself. I’m just the espresso. I’m just a shot in the morning to get you going, to make you believe you can overcome the situation that you’re dealing with all the time."
– Kanye
“When someone comes and says ‘I am a God’, everybody says ‘Who does he think he is?’ – I just told you who I thought I was! A God!”
– Kanye
Years ago, when Kanye’s affections for Kim weren’t yet manifested into a relationship, he would photoshop images of himself next to the annual family Christmas Card. Now, mind you, the artist renderings of himself were absolutely dreadful. But, the importance of his action was how it transformed his intentions from wanting, to actually seeing the possibility of actually experiencing it. The child-like scribble version of himself was actually part of the family. There is a clear difference from wanting something and believing that you will actually have it.
Did you ever think of a dream too big to imagine?
Follow your passion, one day you’ll face
The law of attraction, be careful what you ask for
Means I got what I asked for, exactly what I asked for– Kanye
All’s right in the world.
Yours always,
– The greatest Fool there ever was
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I love Kanye … eh… myself. lol🙏
He understood how it works… that‘s for sure.
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19 Oct, 2022
I feel both spread thin by doing too much in too many areas, and yet still like I am not devoting enough time to practice. 
So I suspect this will be a bit of a nothing, nonsense, rambling entry.
First, let’s see. I threw myself back into the Chaos paradigm, especially what I suppose I would refer to as pop-magick. The invocation of fictional or archetypal characters. Since I have spent the past year or so re-reading through my entire library, and re-watched old and beloved TV shows and films, it’s not been difficult to pick archetypes or characters whose traits I wish to embody, or who serve me best in any given situation. In this case, my personal motivations, and my job.
It is interesting how easily the human brain slips into costume when it’s required. Or maybe I’m assuming that it’s easy for all of us, because it’s easy for me… or maybe I am insulting others by assuming it’s something they cannot do. Who knows. (See? Rambling nonsense. Sometimes I write just for the sheer catharsis of writing.)
There was one archetype who I found myself invoking frequently, and I found it outrageously simple to slip into the mindset of the character, who by all accounts is a complete coin flip of a human being. This archetype helped me immensely in coping with stressful situations. Perhaps I have my own Gemini nature to thank – or blame – for that.
Lately I’ve been passively invoking another archetype entirely (again, based on a fictional character): the Warrior-Maiden. Someone not entirely estranged from my own innate personality, but one that actually pushes me toward irl motivation instead of passivity. We’ll see if that one sticks. Clearly I need to work at it more since at the moment it’s only talk of achievement, instead of work for achievement.
Regardless, I always find Chaos magick fascinating. I think if anything I might consider it my primary paradigm… or perhaps secondary, only to the Law. I like Chaos because it calls for the right tool at the right time.
And there is a vast panoply of paths I might take, but I have been lax in following most of them. And still even more open up before me. I think I took a break because I was afraid to drive myself mad. So, I have not done any pathworking in a while, since I last spoke to Dionysus.
Which triggers a memory in me… I dreamt, a few weeks ago, of a poem, which I woke remembering only parts of, and I thought the first word was “Panoptes” as in Argus Panoptes… but maybe it was “panoplies”. I wrote it down as “panoples” and then just assumed it referred to Argus Panoptes, since usually my phonetic → actual word dream messages are not always accurate, and I was deeply entrenched in unravelling the Mithraic cult secrets, and trying to find a link between Mithras and pavolatry (peacock worship → Melek Taus).
[Panoplies],
sacred water of Yesod,
wanders [as/with] a herd of elephants,
the sacred fire of all knowledge
(NB: I don’t even know if that is relevant @ Yesod, that is one of the Qabbalistic spheres, no…? I am not into that branch of magick.)
And then after that dream, this, which I sent someone else as a message:
So seems I am being pulled between Melek Taus, to some extent, and to a greater extent, between Mithras and Dionysus, and whether there is some connection between all or any of them.
And now I feel drawn to the Norse pantheon as well – and while I know a lot of their myths and stories, I’ve never felt particularly pressed to engage them, until now.
So, seems there are a lot of pathworkings in my future. I suppose I either must spread myself thin, or make a choice to work through things one by one.
Uiazel, as I said, has been a wonderful guiding hand in my divination, and the True Black deck is really speaking to me. The art, the attention to detail… and the little flashes of insight that Uiazel helps with when I examine and ponder each card. My own devised spread seems to be working quite well, too.
And I have other workings with the AoO, who so far have always delivered for me.
I welcome the lovely Vicentia to my family. My vixen. You would think I was insane if you saw me, holding and petting this beautiful taxidermy specimen with my face pressed into the nook between her ears. Her fur is red and white and chestnut plush, her ears are soft black silk, her eyes are wise and amber, and she smells of old books. I love her dearly already, I feel her spirit close. I just hope she will get along with my Reynard.
…And I may have accidentally committed to buying a crow specimen as well. Ah, such is life. Some people spend thousands of dollars on gaming PCs, some on getting tattooed, some on cryptocurrency… I spent thousands on irresistibly fascinating taxidermy specimens, and I call their spirits back to me. Vicentia, welcome to the family.
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5.11.2022
Apophenia
I’m so glad I struggled past the initial intro to Peter J. Caroll’s The Apophenion. I tried reading it a few months ago but put it down, but I picked it up and persisted. And it is precisely the kind of insight into magick that fascinates me, and why I suppose I consider myself a Chaote at heart.
So many dog-eared pages that at this point I’m just considering getting a highlighter or pen and underlining all the parts I find of particular relevance. It comes at a wonderful time too, as I am working on a writing project and drawing the threads of magick together into one lovely – and, I hope, simple, and meaningful – tapestry.
If by techniques such as Visualisation coupled with Gnosis the magician can establish a future brain state which perceives a desired event as having come about, then physical reality will have a tendency to decohere towards a situation in which it has.
This strongly suggests that when enchanting for a future event, magicians should focus on establishing a future perception or ‘memory’ of it having occurred, rather than visualising a chain of events leading to its occurrence.
[…]So a particle can ‘feel out’ multiple possible future trajectories so long as only one of them gets reinforced by reverse time feedback to become real, as the options it didn’t actualise create only infinitesimal entropy.
Thus we can think of time in three dimensions […] they illustrate the underlying mechanisms of reality:
- Apophusis – branching, reality makes a feint at every possible thing it could do.
- Apophasis – weirdness, what doesn’t happen may still have an effect on what does.
- Apoptosis – dying off, a collapse of superimposition and entanglement to yield a result.
Curiously, at least on a subconscious level, the mind feels that it works like this as it seeks decision, inspiration, or Apophenia. This suggests some sort of quantum-panpsychic principle at work in both the microcosm and the macrocosm.
– Peter J. Carroll, The Apophenion
(emphasis mine)
He seems to approach magick with the same underlying mindset as mine, although through a slightly different lens (with the Law of Consciousness primarily influencing my language and praxis). If I could write as cogently, and break down complex ideas and little-understood, somewhat pop-science (in a non-derogatory sense of the saying) concepts into explanations of how I approach praxis… ah. But how could I compare to the wonderful Carroll? Something to strive for.
And of course its original publication date was 8/8/08.
I see you, Carroll.
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