Pyramidal Pieces:

A Brief Introduction to Ideas About Sorcery:
Or How I Met the Lord of Dead Thieves…

“Lord of Dead Thieves,
Guide my feet so that I might remain largely unnoticed in my travels, Guide my hands that my enemies might fear me in the dead hours of the night, Guide my voice that it might only be heard by those with ears made to hear, Aid me in beguilding the wicked, and giving silver-tongued lies to tyrants, This is yours, the secret hour, and I have long been of your flock.”

It was just a little thing. A little hunk of rock.

A little rock stolen from Khem; a little piece of the Great Pyramid. A gift from a friend, but the question came to mind: just what do I do with it?

I stared down at the little rock, and thought about it. Being nineteen, I decided on meditating on the rock. Maybe it would, like, you know… tell me what to do with it? I had no idea why that came to mind. But I promptly decided it wasn’t just the best option available; it was the only option available. And so I settled into a very, very uncomfortable position that I’d been told by Aleister Crowley would turn me into a Magus in about six months; if I was willing to, you know, move into a cave in the desert and meditate for like sixteen hours a day. (Is it sad to admit that while I couldn’t high-tail my way out to Death Valley at seventeen, I actually stopped sleeping as much as I ought have to try and meditate for as long as I could every day?)

And so I meditated. On the twenty-third minute of meditation – I know because I opened my eyes and glanced at the seemingly blazingly red digital numbers on the clock as the world went wibbly in front of my tranced out eyes – everything changed. And he walked in. Or it. Or… they. I wasn’t very sure in my journal at the time, and I’m certainly less certain years later.

“And what are you?” I asked politely. A flood of… visions. Anthropomorphic shit; Egypt, and Greece. Definitely Greece. You know that moment when you realize you did something, but you’re not sure how it’s worked out? Well, three weeks before I’d sigilized to meet Hermes. One week later the rock arrived. “And how do I know you’re Hermes?”

It seemed like I was being told to take a walk. I did. The world… changed. Full on hallucinations, with no drugs what-so-ever, as I wandered through a transformed Fresno. I walked past churches that became temples; down streets that became … changed somehow. I don’t know. Everything was brighter; weirder. And finally I came to where I’d been led. An underpass for brikers and joggers; it wasn’t a “T” shape, but I felt like it was being indicated that this wasn’t… strictly necessary.

And so from that space for about four or five years I would perform my rituals, between midnight and 3 AM. I’d take with me chalk, and a bottle of water (not to mention anything needed), and scrawled my sigils and what-not by candlelight, as the lights were always liable to going out. Hermes, of course, quite literally proved I hadn’t gone mad (or, at least, entirely mad) when my family returned from vacation with two gifts for me: one depicting a trickster god, and the other depicting a god of wisdom. They weren’t of the right religion, per say, but they were of the right quality. So regardless of whether or not I met the Hermes, I tend to assume I met something that functions in roughly the same way.

But the experience made me ask a few questions, and alter most of my theories dramatically:

1. What was that daylight trance experience I’d had, and if being overshadowed by a deity could do it… could I get back to that at will?
2. Archetypal theories, strictly speaking as being lifeless, all went out the window. If this thing could do that? What else could it do? Would it respond again if I called it?
3. Space was directly implicated. Terra firma, but made special. I would come back to this, and will continue to, for the rest of my career. I’d read my first books on magick sitting outside churches; in their shadow, using their light. (I’ve always found this amusing.) I’d often take long walks and ideas that turned out to work would occur to me. What… was this? Were there other magicians with comments on it? How might I find this works?
4. This magick shit isn’t actually supposed to work. Who let that happen?

In our discussions on topics relating to the above, but not necessarily about the above, Mr. VI and I seem to be in agreement that it’s the experience of dealing with spirits of sufficient power (or immanence, if you will) that changes one from practicing ceremonial magick to what has been traditionally regarded as sorcery.

Seeing how spirits manifest results, asking them questions about why they went down specific paths to get the desired results; or just having your head ripped about by an experience that is entirely foreign to you tends to alter what you think about what you’re doing rather radically.

But then, what is it that sorcerers do? The more traditional notion is that the biggest divergence between Ceremonial Magick and Sorcery has been that a sorcerer makes pacts with spirits; this has often been seen as explicitly taboo, namely because of the mistaken belief that doing so somehow undercuts your Will, or that the spirit inevitably will subvert your will. This brings to mind two things: the first is that trades with spirits is one of the most traditional approaches to magick that there is in existence as far as I know. Just about everything I’ve read about those crazy shaman seems to indicate that they totally made pacts with spirits. Or trades, if you will.

Being based largely on Neo-Platonic doctrine, many elements of Ceremonial Magick hold such strictures due to the fact that there are multiple levels of reality – or multiple worlds – and at the highest is the all, or Deity. Anything beneath that is not the true Source, and as such may lie or decieve you. As such, you always want to “reach for the highest.” This tends to also lend to the assumption that matter – being “lower” than spirit – is inherently corrupt; and then you swivel toward rather interesting monotheistic moral components that have nothing – at all – to do with the practice of magick.

But what would the goal of the sorcerer be if it is not to merge with the highest? I like to think of it as the cultivation of knowledge. At the forefront of the quest is knowledge, and the myriad ways it might be accessed. The more, the better, right? This is then transformed into influence, which then culminates in experience. At that point, the weight of the sorcerer’s actions and their ability to think ahead, strategize, and and remain quick on their feet will either lead to their imminent self-destruction or in wisdom. So you’ll either blow yourself up, or end up being far, far more than you were before.

The last bit is always asked: “and what do I need to do this?”

Well. I suppose I’ll have to blog about that in the future…

Tags: Hermes, Ideas, Sorcery