THE ORDER  OF THE TEMPLE OF ARCHALLEM

(The following rant represents the personal views of the Magister only and not necessarily those of the members of this Order)

Know thyself.

Ah, the bittersweet Solstice 2010 is upon us. Bittersweet? Of course. The Solstice gives us both the longest day of the year, and the shortest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere where we happen to be glued to the planet. For sun worshipers (like me, both spiritually and physically) this is the best day of the year. But it’s also the saddest, because as of this day, the nights grow longer and the days grow shorter. This gets tempered somewhat by knowing that “summer” has just begun. But the fact remains…we are heading back into the darkness, the coldness and the dormancy of winter.

Life’s like that. Everything that grows eventually peaks and regresses, ebbs and flows. Every Solstice is a rebirth of sorts: a celebration of a brief moment of change.

Birth and death are like that too, I assume. I love life, don’t get me wrong. This is a very...

(The following rant represents the personal views of the Magister only and not necessarily those of the members of this Order)

If you are one of the three people following this, or if you happen to know me, you probably know or surmised that I am a college teacher by profession. As a result, I’m always interested in seeing what students are saying about me behind my back on those “rate your teacher tell on you dot bullshit” sites.

The reason for this interest is first based on my firm belief in the Toltec wisdom of Don Miguel Ruiz in “The Four Agreements.” Specifically, I refer to the second of the four agreements, which is “Don’t Take Anything Personally”. The wisdom behind this agreement is profound, yet the concept is simple. Whenever someone says something about you, in fact, they are really expressing their own concept of reality. People that accept anothers poisonous view of reality as their own are prone to living in that other person’s reality, rather than in their own reality. The more they...

(The following rant represents the personal views of the Magister only and not necessarily those of the members of this Order)



Faith [Feyth] – noun: confidence or trust in a person or thing; belief that is not based on proof. These are the top two definitions of the word faith at dictionary.com. This morning (Wednesday, September 29, 2010) The Globe and Mail carried an article entitled “In God they trust – in many cases blindly”. It was a summary of a recent study showing that many Americans know little about their professed “faith”. I surmise that the same can be said about most people, whether they are American, Canadian, German, French or whatever.

Needless to say – the world is shocked. There was even a reference to this article as the topic of the day at Dictionary.com, which I just visited to get the meaning of the word “faith” (see above). I, however, am not the least bit surprised.

You see, most religions are premised on faith. It’s all you need to be religious. You just have to have faith that the preacher, the pope, priest or whatever is telling you the truth. You need confidence and trust, not critical thinking and proof. You don’t even need to know about the roots of your religion, it’s history, it’s teachings or it’s dogma.

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I have a couple of problems with this latest book on Ceremonial Evocation Magic by Joe Lisiewski. I must begin by noting that I am not disputing his methodology – I have little doubt that this “Old System Magic” really works for him and for many of his readers. I would also like to say that anyone serious about Magic needs to read this book, and its predecessor, Ceremonial Magic and the Power of Evocation. Together, they will knock a considerable amount of sense into you – even if you have no intention of ever performing an evocation ceremony. For the most part, I love his writing style, and wish more people/authors would have the guts to just say what they mean. But, before you go burning your Crowley, Golden Dawn, DuQuette, Greer, Regardie collection, destroying and desecrating your working tools which you have carefully crafted over the years, and alienating yourself from all of your fellow lodge members (which Joe directs you to do as Step #1 in the process), you may want to consider the following:

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