Teaching Yourself Esoteric Chant

Along with the Star Game and the Grade Rituals, the most sidelined Dark Art of the O9A, just from my own observations, is easily Esoteric Chant. Which is actually quite ironic, given that the Star Game, the Grade Rituals, and using Esoteric Chant with a quartz tetrahedron are all, according to tradition, means of developing the fundamental skills and awareness necessary to apprehend the acausal (e.g. acausal empathy and acausal thinking). Sure, there’s plenty of plain ol’ chant used in the O9A’s system of magick, and there’s no denying the potency of projected voice vibration in the raising of energies. But, if you haven’t noticed, all of the O9A’s most important rituals (e.g. The Ceremony of Recalling and the Nine Angles Rite) utilize trained cantors who perform in a specific way certain of the Esoteric Chants. As a tradition, one that has been absorbed into the ancestral pathei-mathos of the O9A, it goes back many centuries. So why should it ever be relegated to obscurity?

Early on after I learned of the O9A I was particularly interested in Esoteric Chant and so I wanted to see what it was all about. It seemed so novel, using singing as a magickal art, and it was such a refreshing departure from the usual theatrics and mundanity you encounter in rituals from fake occultists. So I wanted in on this Esoteric Chant thing the O9A had going on. The first sphere chant I learned was Agios Lucifer, which is of course is the easiest of all the seven since it’s so repetitive. I also learned the Diabolus early on, as should anyone wanting to learn a little dark magick. I even procured my first quartz tetrahedron early on (having had three in total over the years), and with it I had the first experiences which proved to me the efficacy of Esoteric Chant + quartz tetrahedron. Using Esoteric Chant together with the crystal, according to my own experience and to Sinister Tradition, works together to open a temporary nexion and take you to another level of awareness–what to say, then, of their use in such workings as the Nine Angles Rite. I’ve only had the experience practicing Esoteric Chant alone, so I can’t speak for the power of singing it in a group in fourths or fifths–but if it works so well when I use it properly by myself, I could only imagine what it does in a group setting. And, of course, the chants simply sound beautiful and bring to one’s awareness various aspects of the numinous when they are sung/meditated upon throughout the day.

When I teach myself a chant–I never had anyone to guide me personally–or try to learn a new one, I follow the same process every time. I first listen to it for maybe 20 minutes or so every day, reading along with the notation given in “Naos”. I listen to the Chant, and quietly follow along with the sheet music using my finger, and do this until I get a “feel” for the mode the chant is sung in. I want to get myself to a point where I can read it from the blob notation, without the track playing, so I must have an intuitive sense of what each mode will sound like.

Once I do reach that point where I can sing the chant from the sheet music alone, I practice that one chant every day for 20 odd minutes, sometimes longer, and during this part of teaching myself the chant I will then begin to try to memorize each “section” of the chant. I mentally divide the chant into different parts or sections that I can memorize one at a time until all sections are memorized–just breaking one big task down into a bunch of simpler tasks. I consider the start of a section within a chant as beginning with the “Agios”.

I had to figure this method out for myself in the absence of someone to guide me, with only just the slightest musical experience, and it works well for me if I put in the work and time. Generally one does not find a trained cantor able to train them in Esoteric Chant and so one must go to some level of trouble over causal time if they want to become proficient. It stands to reason that during the stage of External Adept one should see to it that others become trained in Esoteric Chant and that such singing is performed in a ceremonial context.

Certain chants will lack sheet music and thus will be particularly difficult to learn if one only has a recording of the chant (eg the recordings of Christos Beest). Such is the case with, for example, the Atazoth chant, which is already difficult enough on its own. I am still working on learning it myself, and imagine anyone with the commitment could do the same.

This is the method I’ve always used, and it has made Esoteric Chant accessible and usable for me in a simple enough and manageable manner, so I hope to save other unnecessary trouble and give them advice in how to become proficient in this powerful Dark Art.

Correcting myself on the Promethean Office

Some time ago I threw together some kind of working meant to be performed daily consisting of all the words of power of the spheres and the Dark Gods that I could find and just throwing it all together and giving it the name “the Promethean Office”, thinking it was somehow at all the same as the traditional Promethean Office (not knowing it was intended for the Master/Lady Master, but I’ll get into that later). In my mind, it was supposed to imbue the operator with some kind of power, or something, but looking at it now to me it just looks like a static ritual made of a hodgepodge of words of power,  now having learned a little more about this particular aural tradition. For Satan’s sake, I don’t even explain any detail on how to use the energies raised. It’s almost embarrassing to look at that shit I wrote now.

To be absolutely clear, then, the Promethean Office is an aural tradition of the O9A that most of us aren’t ever gonna even need to learn how to do–unless, of course, we have the requisite inner Baeldraca (the acausal body/double, the Beast Within, whatever) to first nourish, then unleash, and finally unite with upon our passing of the Sinister Abyssal Nexion. It is taught on a one-on-one basis, and the real one taught to those who have successfully crossed the Abyss is a secret tradition to which I am not privy. So no matter whatever I put out there, know that it was not the O9A “Promethean Office”. Actually, to be able to even perform it implies (1) certain skills that are above and beyond the capacity of most, and (2) a successful passing of the Sinister Abyssal Nexion. The latter is even mentioned in the section of “Naos” dealing with Sinister Chant, comparing the energies thus presenced to what has been called by others “Tao” or “Physis”–how I missed that one, I have no clue. Having fulfilled these requirements, one then performs the actual Promethean Office every day to maintain the apprehension of the living unity beyond the Abyss.

What the actual ritual procedure, if any, is observed, I couldn’t tell you–though I’m certain a quartz tetrahedron is involved. There are instructions for the Promethean Office given in the BBS, but I hardly imagine that coming close to what the real deal is. But what I gave here wasn’t anything worth actually applying daily. You’re better off not even listening to me and coming up with your own daily practices based off the ToW as long as you’re in the initiatory stage.

Starting Fresh

It has been some time since I’ve written anything and a lot has happened. Experiences were had, and it took me some time to work through it all. But through it all it has led to certain insights into myself and others and what my purpose really is. And now, here, I start a new chapter.

Pathei-mathos means we learn through experience: through our successes, through our failures, and through the insights attained by the same. We repeat this process of experiential learning, again and again, for as long as we are able to, as a process of a greater anados: a personal lifelong journey toward alchemical change from one type of being to another. It does not mean we get hung up on the past, but use our experiences as a segue into an inner change–and that in itself does not mean we live without regrets, but rather allow the anguish caused by such experience to change us. It is something we have to go through, again and again, experiencing the fullness of life in its highs and lows and thereby achieving a deeper insight into life. And unfortunately, screwing up terribly is a necessary part of the learning happens (the point is to not do so all the time).

Some things happen in our lives and they make us realize that the way we perceived a thing to be was not at all what we thought it was–in other words, we are flawed, capable of missing the point, of not apprehending the essence of things as they are beyond our own shitty projections, and as a result we have things happen to us that reveal the falseness of our way of being and how it does not reflect the character of someone with a true insight into the essence of things, as they are, and with a character that is noble and honorable. In other words, we expose our own selves, as frauds, as pretenders, as wannabes, as noobs, and so on and so forth. We’re made to realize, often painfully, that our understandings, our knowledge of things, is flawed and that such a flawed knowing may cause us to act in ways that are hubriatic, that cause harm to those who we love and cherish and bring shame to our person.

It is then when we gain an insight into the error of our ways, and if we have this capacity to take this bitter medicine we can move on to evolve a little bit from it. Beyond this, we must remember the greater cause we stand for before we even think of behaving like victims. As such, having exulted in life and lost much of what meant the most to me, I see now how short-sighted I’ve been in many ways and how insignificant it all is compared to the long-term goals inherent in the Sinister Way. And, as I revisit the MSS, I see new meanings in the light of the experiences and learnings I’ve gained over the last couple years. Now I just need to get back to the work of learning the Dark Arts in a real way, and before me I have the perfect opportunity to begin anew.

I have a plan laid out for the next span of causal time–how long it will take, I have no clue, but it will be at least a year, perhaps two. During this period I will work on accomplishing the beginning tasks of the Sevenfold Way. You read right, I’m starting all over, right down to Initiation. I feel like these past few years I’ve been doing it all wrong, being an O9A fake, so I’m going to start over. And I will begin with undertaking two predetermined insight roles back-to-back, with lifestyles diametrically opposite to each other. The nature of these insight roles, I will not disclose, just for obvious reasons. This is what Chloe (who happens to be a great inspiration to the author) would call the Ordeal of Extreme Unctions, I think. During this period I’ll also work on accomplishing two certain tasks relevant to the Septenary, so that all throughout I’m developing some of the rudiments of hebdomadry.

For the latter part of the insight role, which will be enacted in a specific rural location in the Southeast US, there is a hill that just so happens to be perfect for the performance of the Grade Ritual of External Adeptd. Living on the land as I do for the duration of of the insight role, I will perform workings there to empower this sort of proto-nexion–however given its location it will most likely be unsuitable as a permanent nexion (the temple should procure its own Lebensraum for this) or even as a consecrated space for the temple to gather. I have already visited this location several times and it will be effective as a temporary measure for my own use, certainly a good place to reside for a span of many months or years, but it will not help us with the goal of setting up an esoteric community.

Consider most of the stuff I wrote before this as obsolete, the reflection of someone who only had an intuitive apprehension of the dconcepts being described. Some of them are of some esoteric import, the others, just self-satisfied drivel, so exercise discernment when studying them. I will keep them here just for posterity’s sake Anything I write after this, consider it the reflections and musings of an initiate into the Sevenfold Way.

I will continue updating this blog and hope to write here more often.

Those of Us Who Depart From Their Bodies

This was hastily written–partially in response to the passing of a comrade very special to us–so please ignore of the any errors or stylistic flaws I am given to and try to pierce through to the essence. Because this is a first for our still-young tribe, I feel it is necessary that a certain attitude be encouraged so that in the future we know how to deal with such things in a way that both allows us to grieve and move forward with our duties without being held back by the pains of loss.

 

Those of our kind who depart from their material bodies, for whatever reason, are not to be considered “dead” or no longer among us, for the soul is eternal and is neither created nor destroyed, and to see them as somehow “gone” is to completely misunderstand the nature of the causal and the acausal. Rather than thinking that we will never see or speak to them again, we should say that they have concluded their mortal pastimes and have returned to the lotus feet of the Void Mother, Nythra, and that wherever the Void Mother is presenced, She will be accompanied by her eternal associates. She then decides whether the soul stays with her, or continues its mission throughout the Cosmos in some other body–and Her decisions one way or the other may actually be swayed through sincere, heartfelt prayers to Her combined with generous offerings. Knowing this, what need is there to mourn?

 

How then do we honor those of our kind who are no longer bound to our physical bodies? By rendering devotional service to Lady Nythra, tending to and worshipping Her chosen plant Datura, and living and thinking as if our dear comrades who have returned to the acausal are still right here with us, because they actually are. We simply remember them, knowing that they are present with us in the performance of our rites because of the many binding blood pacts they themselves have made with our current. In making offerings to the Void Mother, we may also give Her things intended as offerings to our departed comrades, asking Her to aid us in making offerings on our behalf to those of our kind who have left their material bodies. We say, “Here, please take this liquor or tobacco to such-and-such, I miss them very much”, and Her mercy toward Her chosen is so great that She obliges us.

 

This applies specifically to those who have undergone the rite of initiation and have thus made a binding blood pact with our tradition. If no blood is offered to the Covenant, to Morain, and to the Void Mother in one’s lifetime, we should know that their destination in the afterlife is not the same as ours and that there is no need to consider them as one of our kind. Those are the ones who are as good as dead, in this life and in the next.

 

This post is dedicated to our dear comrade Tamasi Das–the one and only Iranian Sensation–and in the eternal memory of our one of our dearest comrades, and certainly a very close personal friend of Tamasi, whom we shall only identify as Ivan.

 

AGIA H NYTHRA

Pendulum Training

The exercise with the pendulum is simple. Every evening spend some time–starting at ~5-10 minutes every evening and gradually increasing over time at a comfortable pace; never do it until you get tired–hold it in your writing hand and, gazing into the pendulum, will it to move nothing but sheer concentration. Be sure your hand is steady and that you are not simply subconsciously moving your hand slightly. The meditation in dead stillness will help with this. To further help with this you will want to work the pendulum up to a nice, broad swing, then make it stop, then change directions. For instance, start by making it move back and forth until it has a wide swing, then stop, then make it move from side to side. Or go clockwise, then pause, then counterclockwise. Experiment with this. Once you set your mind on making it move in a particular direction and in a particular manner, do not change your mind. Set your mind on one thing and do it.

Do this exercise with the dictum in mind that the observer is not separate from that which is observed. If necessary, gaze into the pendulum and imagine that you are inside of it, to the point where you actually **feel** as if this is so.

To help induce the trance state needed to make this work, you may choose to do this in the dark by candlelight, perhaps hypnotizing yourself with the candlelight before starting. You can also further develop the skills needed to do this successfully by working on developing the blood centers located in the hands–see the exercise for creating energy balls.

In order to attune the pendulum to your own energy for maximum effect, consecrate it using your own blood at some auspicious time.

The Tetragrammaton

The tetragrammaton, like all things in the Torah and Bible, is a corruption of ancient esoteric knowledge meant for the ascension of the human soul. As we all know, alchemical knowledge was historically encoded in mythical allegories so that only those possessing the necessary occult insight can decode it and make use of it, while remaining useless to the uninitiated. It is no different even with Abrahamic scripture, which is full of esoteric allegories stolen from the original Aryan mystery traditions. Now, the term “God” refers to atman, the soul. The tetragrammaton–the fourfold name of God–is actually a word of power meant to be vibrated into the soul so as to raise its energies to a high level. The invoking of the quarters traditionally performed before Western hermetic rituals is an allegory for this. The real tetragrammaton, in this case, is the combination of vowels I-O-E-A. We can break this down into two more words of power: “IO” relates to the male and female energies (the sexual symbolism of the letters I and O being rather obvious) and is the name of a Greek goddess who would be the direct ancestor of the demigod Hercules, who would go on to set free Prometheus, while “EA” is both a name of Lucifer–the creator god of mankind and earthbound representative of the Dark Ones–as well as an approximation of the German “Heilige” and the Greek “Agios”. The intersection of these two words of power and their relation to the four quarters connects directly to the Holy Swastika, which is a symbol of the Sun (which was worshipped in mankind’s original religions) as well as a representation of the human soul when properly aligned.

To properly use this word of power, one must first vibrate IO, focusing on the right side of the body during ‘EEEE’ and then the left side of the body during ‘OOOH’. One then vibrates EA, focusing on the front of the body during ‘EEEH’ and then the entire spine during ‘AAAH’. Again, this relates to the invoking of the four quarters and elements:
-The front of the body is the north, ruled by earth;
-The back of the body is the south, ruled by fire;
-The left side of the body is the west, ruled by water;
-The right side of the body is the east, ruled by air;
-The aura is the center, ruled by quintessence.
Now, the human soul is a combination of all five of these elements, whereas most astral beings are made up of just one or two. By vibrating this fourfold word of power, the energies of the soul–masculous and muliebral, plus the five elements (adding up to the divine 7)–are balanced and raised to very high levels.

Compared to this, the conventional, ritualized methods of invoking the quarters within Western occult tradition (tracing elemental pentagrams, calling forth deities, etc.) are tame and impotent. All ritual is allegorical and meant to give an outer form to certain inner spiritual processes–again, this is the encoding of alchemical secrets I mentioned earlier. The ritual forms are simply intimations of more advanced types of working; without an initiated understanding of what those ritual forms are supposed to mean, one cannot progress any further than those hollow ritual forms. Furthermore, all ritual forms are merely indirect methods of working with the aura and chakras, and may be bypassed entirely through meditation and sonic vibration. The aspect of vibration here is significant–the aura is particularly responsive to certain types of sound waves of the correct intensity, and by way of chant we can actually modify the makeup of the soul, on both a causal and acausal level.

This, in truth, is the function and meaning of the “tetragrammaton”–it is not literally the four-letteted name of God, as Abrahamic tradition would have us believe, but rather a word of power meant to seriously aid the process of spiritual ascension. It is appropriate to the four quarters and elements, and serves to align one with those energies and drastically increase them as they exist within the human organism. One may do away entirely with unnecessary ritual forms when are equipped with the correct esoteric knowledge that is symbolized by said forms–and in this case, by possessing an initiated understanding of what the tetragrammaton is and how it relates to the elements, one can hotwire ritual processes and work directly with their own energies.

Making Petrichor

Take some dry earth containing some plant life, grind it all up, put it into a pot, and collect enough rainwater to seal out any release of geosmin from the soil. Remove the plants after letting soak for ~4 hours. Cover with a lid. Boil at a high temperature for about an hour. Filter out and collect the muck. Repeat the boiler/filter process until the muck buildup is enough. Set to dry on a thin sheet. You now have petrichor. Boiling and filtering and drying can derive pretty much anything. Also, I’d say the rainwater and the specific timing prescribed in MS aren’t totally necessary. The cool refreshing smell (petrichor) you get after it rains is the acidity that releases the geosmin. This can also be done using hot water. There needs to be what chemistry calls a reagent (or maybe the term is ‘reacting agent’, I’m not sure on this one). The ‘muck’ that will be the incense however is not the barren plants that you remove, it’s the resin left over from boiling–that is, concentrated geosmin. When you light it the flame acts as the reagent and you thus produce petrichor.

Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati and the Adversarial Rasa

While studying Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, I came across some compelling evidence–much of which was (supposedly) spoken by Lalita Prasad Thakur, his brother–that Bhaktisiddhanta was in fact a demon. There are accusations of him having been an incarnation of a yogi that Bhaktivinoda Thakur had offended and who had sworn to take birth as one of his sons so as to ruin his life’s work of proliferating KCON all over the world (even though he was hugely successful, so so much for that). It is said that Bhaktivinoda refused to give Bhaktisiddhanta initiation for having offended his guru by dumping water on his head and calling him a “fart inhaler”, but Bhaktivinoda did indeed give Lalita Prasad Thakur initiation. A lot of this is actually corroborated by much of what is written in the Martinet Press publication “Purushamedha” by Rudra Das Goswami.

 

Now, whether or not Srila Bhaktisiddhanta was actually an incarnation of a demon who wanted to sabotage Bhaktivinoda’s mission is supremely irrelevant to me, because 1) Lord Krsna had obviously turned it all around to His own benefit and made all of Bhaktisiddhanta’s efforts a smashing success; 2) it is said in the Nectar of Instruction that we are to pay no mind to the superficial “faults” of a pure devotee and to never attempt to correct them in any way; and 3) we are no strangers to revering demons. The first two points will be abundantly clear to anyone with a lick of devotion and rudimentary spiritual education. So, then, what is the meaning of this?

 

We trace our spiritual heritage all the way back to God/Satan Himself (no difference, really) through Sri Guru Parampara (in our case the Brahma Sampradaya). Srila Bhaktisiddhanta is just one more link in that transcendental chain, without whom we goras would probably have never known anything about KCON and would still be sitting around with our thumbs up our ass doing God knows what with our lives. And even better, those who recognize this indisputable fact but still feel some sense of confliction, some internal dissonance, can enjoy the glorious adversarial rasa, albeit in a very, very mild form, certainly nothing compared to what awaits those who undergo certain unspeakable processes under the direction of certain unnamable persons. All the criticisms levelled against Bhaktisiddhanta, and consequently Srila Prabhupada, might have some level of superficial, mundane truth–and I say this with great caution that one might not misunderstand me and think that these criticisms are something to actually be taken seriously–and if these criticisms actually happen to seed some feelings of contempt, some serious questions that might even produce a crisis of faith, then so much the better. One can push through these crises and overcome their ego and emerge a better, more focused devotee for it. If one succumbs to this personal crisis and decides they are simply too good, too intelligent, for devotional service under the direction of the spiritual master, then it is as if the garbage has taken itself out, and by what little transcendental knowledge they did acquire in their little experiments in Krsna Consciousness will allow them to maybe, just maybe, have another shot in the next life. Either way, it all works out just fine, and no tears ought to be shed.

 

I must caution however that simply because one becomes a little bit egotistical and asks serious questions after being presented with certain information does not mean that one has truly relished the adversarial rasa in full. Most people know nothing about the adversarial rasa, and I would be a liar to even insinuate that I do. My point here is that the sort of criticisms levelled against Sri Guru Parampara that so often lead well-meaning devotees back to the cesspool of atheism are not really legitimate concerns to an intelligent person, but the sense of enmity it produces toward the Ascended Masters is. It is the beginning of learning how to have a meaningful relationship with the Lord beyond mere servitude–the most fundamental and elementary type of relationship with Him–and all relationships with the Lord, as we should all know, begin with one’s relationship with His devotees, especially the pure ones. Eventually, at the higher levels of spiritual advancement (read “bhakti”), one learns to see Krsna less as a superior, and more as an equal or even lesser-than, as is the case with Mother Yasoda, Sri Radhe, Krsna’s cowherd boyfriends, and even the demon Hiranyakasipu. Enmity is one such way of approaching this sense–this divine illusion–of equality. So if you can overcome the propensity to think you are too good to receive instruction from authorized authorities who, by the indomitable will of Lord Krsna, have assumed certain qualities that sometimes defy mundane sensibilities, then you will have overcome the very sort of egotism that so often stops people from becoming the best devotees they can be and learned to see the highest of the high on your level.

Esoteric Translation of the Gayatri

Sanskrit Transliteration:
1: Aum
2: Bhur, bhuva, svaha
3: Aum tat savitur varenyam
4: Bhargo devasya dheemahi
5: Dhiyo yonaha prachodayat

English:
1: Agios
2: Salt / Mercury / Sulphur
3: Agios, O all-attracting Divine Sun!
4: We meditate upon your sinister numinosity,
5: That it may guide our intellect.

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