ApophisOmnibusEdition PDF
ApophisOmnibusEdition PDF
ApophisOmnibusEdition PDF
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APOPHIS
by Michael Kelly
A Publication of the Order of Apep
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Copyright 2009 by the author of this book Michael Kelly. The book
author retains sole copyright to his or her contributions to this book.
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CONTENTS
Introduction..............................................................................7
Further Reading...................................................................287
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INTRODUCTION
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Michael Kelly
- The Dragon Fafnir -
Winter 2009
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CHAPTER ONE
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await it eagerly.
An Unholy Trinity
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doesn't matter.
We might pause to ask why a being such as Set would
bother to bestow the Gift of consciousness upon our species.
There are two possible reasons that spring to mind
(additional, more complex, factors will no doubt occur to you
as your Initiation progresses, but these initial considerations
are the principal pair). Firstly, we might as well wonder why
human magicians seek company. Why join Orders, Temples,
and so forth? Partly for company, partly for like minds to test
our ideas on, who can provide feedback and enthusiasm – or
correction and criticism when necessary – thus inspiring us to
further Becoming. Since our own consciousness must by
definition be similar to that of its Giver, we can presume that
Set too desires companionship. Indeed, in Dr Aquino's Book
of Coming Forth by Night, Set's Initiates are bidden to
approach Him as they would a friend.
The second fundamental reason behind Set's Gift of
consciousness to our species is to assist Him in retaining His
own sense of Self. Consider a being in Set's position, the
Universe responding to His Will and reshaping itself
according to His Desire. The Universe would become a
simple mirror of Set, reflecting and expressing His every
thought. He and it would ultimately be indistinguishable, He
would lose His boundaries, His sense of Self as a separate
entity would be gone. In the end, He would inevitably
succumb to inertial sleep and consciousness would once again
be lost. It is by our differences that we define ourselves and
in order to remind ourselves of who we are and what vitalises
our essence, our Wills need to meet with resistance, with
something which is not us and which may be moving at a
tangent to our plans, forcing us to adapt and revaluate. So it
is with Set too. He is a warrior, who loves a challenge. He
therefore bestows consciousness upon other creatures as a
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for Rûna, the Lady of Mystery, who is always just beyond the
next horizon. It is the unquenchable yearning of the heart for
its Other.
The term 'Scarlet Woman' is of great antiquity, dating
back to the Mysteries of Ishtar. It was already old by the time
it was used to describe the consort of the Beast in the Biblical
Revelation. But let us seek a definition from the Beast, for it
is through the Work of Aleister Crowley that the term has
been made most familiar to contemporary magicians. In The
Magical Record of the Beast 666, Crowley's magical diaries
from his Cefalu period, we find the following definition of the
Scarlet Woman: “the vehicle of the Power of the Beast”.
This is an Absolute and True definition.
Hands up those who were outraged at the blatant
sexism of the above definition. Now hands up those who
were even more outraged by my defence of this definition as
“Absolute and True” (with capital letters, no less). Crowley
has often come in for criticism of this sort, with claims that he
was misogynistic. There are, of course, those who excuse
him by saying that although his views and treatment of
women were poor by our modern standards, they were
remarkably enlightened for the times in which he lived. He
constantly fought against the bias of his own age and
upbringing to declare that “every man and every woman is a
star”. But how dare I, as a modern magician in an equal
opportunities age, echo his definition of the Scarlet Woman
as “the vehicle of the Power of the Beast”? It dismays me to
have to spell out the obvious, but our minds are so shaped by
the agendas of political correctness that we tend to forget to
stop and think for ourselves. Surely I should not have to point
out that the logical and necessary complement to the above
definition should be that it is equally Absolute and True to
declare that the Beast is “the vehicle of the Power of the
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Scarlet Woman”?
Having established that the Scarlet Woman is first
and foremost a Goddess, we may ask what form that Goddess
may take. Her aspect will differ depending upon the
individual Initiate. Some magicians of my acquaintance have
found great favour by bending the knee to one of Set's three
wives: Nepthys, Anat or Ishtar. Babalon, the Enochian
Goddess with whom Crowley was enamoured, is another
perfect example of Her face and form. But it is very likely
that the ultimate choice will not be yours to make. You may
begin by selecting a suitably appealing Goddess Form to
approach Her, but when She replies She will dress Herself in
the image She chooses. She came to me as the ancient Celtic
Goddess Badb and thus I am a devotee of the Cult of the
Banshee. When She does come, it will be unmistakeable.
All of this begs the question whether it is necessary
for the Scarlet Woman to manifest Herself in a fleshly form to
the Initiate. Need the Idea take on incarnation? Crowley
certainly thought so and he spent his life searching for Her,
though he always kept Babalon as a Goddess at the forefront
of his mind. I feel that it is wrong to assume that any given
person is going to be the sole conduit of Her power and
influence. She will speak to you through many masks and
guises throughout the course of your life, very often without
Her temporary vehicle even being aware of it, or such is my
experience at least. Crowley perhaps erred in expecting each
of his mistresses to be the One instead of accepting each as
the Star she was. This is not to deny that a skilled magician
of the opposite sex cannot deliberately and Willfully manifest
herself as your complement in a long term manner. I have
known several powerful and magical relationships established
for very many years in this manner. But in such a case you,
of course, must also provide her with her own complement for
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balance to bring out the very Self of me. What we Need is not
always what we want, and I have long understood that
fulfilment is very bad for me. And this Formula of Desire
over distance brings me far closer to the deep roots of the
Banshee. Employing careful capitalisation, one might say
that when Need is strong and she is distant, She is near.”
All of this is to say that Her goals are not human ones, nor are
they your own. The Invocation of the Scarlet Woman will
inevitably bring forces into play in your life which will
change you irrevocably in the ways you Need, not necessarily
the ways you would want or choose from your previous
perspective.
It remains to point out one obvious fact that has
doubtless been overlooked by the politically correct in their
fervour to find fault. I have written this account of the Scarlet
Woman wholly from the perspective of the heterosexual male
magician. As a man, I can do no other: mine is the Path of
Odin, not of Freyja. It remains for a female Initiate to write
the other half of this chapter. Accusations of sexism are thus
utterly refuted. I may only write of the Path I experience.
Crowley did the same and has often been unfairly condemned
for it. But only a fool will pontificate on the Mysteries he is
not given to experience.
What should be obvious to any discerning Initiate is
that what is true for the current of the male magician will be
true in the opposite direction for the current of the female
magician. The male will tend to adopt the Prince of Darkness
as an initiatory role model and will Desire the Mysteries of
the Scarlet Woman: the female will tend to adopt the Scarlet
Woman as an initiatory role model and will Desire the
Mysteries of the Prince of Darkness. But each sex will draw
inspiration and sustenance from each Deity, although the
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The Serpent
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Serpent.
The Serpent finds a wonderful form in the entity
named Leviathan, an enormous sea creature that embodies
primordial Chaos, both in its own vast and coiling motion and
the deep abyss in which it dwells. It was as Leviathan that the
serpentine consciousness arose within the Temple of Set
through the person of James Lewis. Leviathan became
defined as “the principle of continuity and ageless existence”
and shaped the Temple's views on immortality, ultimately
birthing the magical process of Remanifestation.
In Egypt, a land well familiar with snakes, the Serpent
manifested in many symbolic forms. There was the kingly
Uraeus – the cobra poised about to strike – which adorned the
pharaonic crown, thus symbolising the peak of Initiation and
Self-deification. There was the dual serpent Mehen, whose
Mysteries are touched upon in Don Webb's published
writings. But primarily for our purposes there was Apep – or
Apophis in Greek – the Serpent of bewitchment and illusion,
who sought to devour the sun.
The relationship between Apep and Set was wholly
different in the various stages of development (both temporal
and geographical) of Egyptian mythology. At one point, they
were enemies and fought at sunrise each day, Set being the
only God capable of resisting the Serpent's hypnotising stare,
driving it back and preventing it from swallowing the barque
of the sun. At other times, they were seen as allies, two
raging dragons opposed to the stately order of the Egyptian
cosmos. In the final muddied mythologies their distinctions
were blurred altogether and Apep was seen as simply another
form of Set.
The confusion is understandable, though
disappointing. The relationship between the two is easily
discovered by examining the principles they embody. Set is
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*********
*********
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CHAPTER TWO
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Remanifestation.
When I established the Order of Apep in 2002 as a
Remanifestation of my own teachings in my time as Grand
Master of the Order of Leviathan, I too sought guidance from
the great Serpent to determine the focus of this new Order. I
wanted a true resonance with the founding principles of the
Order of Leviathan as originally established by James Lewis,
so I emulated his series of Apep Workings, invoking each of
the Enochian Aethyrs in turn. Apep spoke to me and
reaffirmed the centrality of the quest for immortality to the
Order. But the Serpent also revealed to me the programme of
initiatory Work that was to be employed within the Order, a
programme based upon the powers of the seven heads of the
Dragon and described in detail in this present book.
But the first thing to be done is to publish the record
of the Apep Workings themselves. These are recounted
below, in the words that the Serpent spoke to me. The
messages were received in an altered state of consciousness
of an especially clear and focused kind.
30 – TEX
“Time is what you must destroy. Every day you shall strive to
shatter its shackles upon your senses. Devour them, as I
strive to devour the Sun. Consume time as I consume the day.
Thus shall it sustain you instead of ruling you. You must see
the roots of things even as you see the full flowering of
things.
“Yes, time is the barrier you must overleap. You
must leap and dance on the unbound outside, free of its
malign embrace. Spray your poison upon the roots of events,
so that they are your servants and not your masters. Then all
things shall be for your play, for you will be among those of
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the Outside, the Mesu Betesh, who are the Children of Set.”
29 -RII
“You persist in your illusions, although you know them to be
false. Have I not shown you this? Do I not send to you the
knowledge and the understanding that you Need when it is
Needed? Doubt not the omens and synchronicities which
arise in response to your Will. Some things which arise are
foreshadowings. Again, you are mired in time and this is
difficult to see.
“Your senses must be stripped down and laid bare.
You shall create a programme of exercises to restore your
senses to their pristine state, pure and open to all stimuli. The
mental conditioning and programming must be erased so that
you can see with new eyes, hear with new ears, feel with new
hands, smell with new nostrils and taste with a new tongue.
Then the world will yield its secrets to you.
“And when the body is reforged, the fetters of the
mind will be broken, and you shall know the Absolute.
“Taste of the dragon's blood and speak the tongues of
the beasts.”
28 – BAG
“What is it, this consciousness you seek? You have drawn it.
It is the eye of the ancient serpent, remote and aloof from the
world of events. Yet through the matrix of space-time, it may
perceive and manipulate the world of events.
“Learn this too. Your fellows have spoken of
Ouroboros. The phenomenal world is formed and defined by
the body of the serpent, even as its eye is alone at the centre,
as observer. Go and reread the Book of the Law in this light.
For Apep is both Nuit and Hadit at one and the same time,
because for myself I am everything. But behold, I devour
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27 – ZAA
“You who seek immortality, know that you have it. If you
live, then you live. Your life is all that defines you. Do not
think that life is different here or hereafter. Life is life,
fuelled by Desire and shaped by action. For this reason you
project yourself into the phenomenal realm.
“How to teach immortality? The same way that I told
James Lewis: by not dying.
“But you do not truly know the life that you have.
The Children of Set are not bound in the flesh; they exist
outside of Space-Time. You find it hard to grasp this true
mind of yours, for it remains Outside and reaches through to
influence the flesh in which it rides. Do not mistakenly call
this your Higher Self: it is your only Self. It is all that has
coherence. Nor deny it the flesh; you choose this path for joy,
not for sorrow. But learn to keep your senses open, your
mind open.
“Not all are such, only the Children of Set. But as the
Black Flame burns, the breaks become ever more frequent,
and eyes may view the dancing shadows with dawning
curiosity.”
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26 – DES
“Consider the spark of your life, what a blasphemy it is. The
sense of wonder reflected in a child's eyes is a thing of more
moment than any cosmic spectacle. For without that wonder,
cosmic affairs are meaningless. But how that wonder is
suffocated and crushed out all too often. Teach your children
to be strong of spirit and wondrous.
“Wonder is slain by conformity, by the Self being
swallowed by the crowd. And, unable to express itself in the
world, the Self withdraws into its own inner domain, and lives
no more in the splendour of the outside universe. 'A magician
is one who dreams outside of his skull'.
“Live then in the world and do not die to the world.
Wonder and infinite expansion, these are the tools for your
survival.”
25 – VTI
“You wish to know of Remanifestation? I shall tell you of it.
Time is to be devoured; live in an Eternal Now. Every
moment in time is a discrete particle, and in order to
experience each matrix of possibility, you must destroy all
prior manifestation, all prior relationships, and create yourself
anew in the new moment.
“Ordinarily, this is an unconscious and automatic
process, which provides the illusion of passing through time.
But manifestation in the matrix of happenings is particulate,
not continuous. The only thing which possesses continuity is
your consciousness of previous states. Therefore, seize
control of your Remanifestations. Choose what to destroy
and what to empower, which events and relationships to
empower and which to lay low. This is contained within the
very Key whereby you called me.
“Now do you Understand the Red Magus? He
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24 – NIA
“The human falls away. The accretions crumble and are dust.
The process is painful and yet inevitable if you would see and
understand and partake of what really is.
“What really is? You really are!
“Here is the third of the seven skins of Apep which
must be shed, so that the seven heads of the Dragon may arise
unfettered. Now do you see where this Work is heading?
You asked for a Teaching and you shall have it! It may not be
to the liking of many.
“So, having determined to take the initial step, and
having trained and sharpened the senses, now the faculties of
the mind must be honed razor sharp and severed from their
attendant baggage.
“Question every thought, every opinion, every
impulse, every habit. Question its value, question its origin.
Question it all. That which is strong enough to stand up to
such scrutiny may pass to the next Aire.”
23 – TOR
“How long have you lived? How much of you that is now has
been before? How much of you that is now has arisen in
response to the matrix of happenings in which you find
yourself?
“Look back through the ages and trace the presaging
of your own arising. Realise then that you are your own
cause. You are the chooser and the chosen.
“Count well the coils of the Serpent, the cycles of
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22 – LIN
“What is this that surrounds? Where does your identity
express itself in play? What arena have you chosen for
yourself?
“It is a place of terror and dismay, for it is subject to
laws and mechanics, the rules of the game. It is twisted and
shaped by Wills other than your own.
“It is a place of laughter and wonder, where you may
discover things which were formerly absent from your
Understanding, where you may recreate yourself in new and
powerful ways.
“It is a place of ultimate Victory, for at no time is it
you, and you soar above it. And yet you may find your face
within it, gazing back at you.
“Walk and Act; Perceive and Reflect. These are the
actions of a god.”
21 – ASP
“Consider the image of Ouroboros. Consider the serpent that
bites its own tail. Your mind runs also in cycles, chasing the
pathways it has previously pursued, reinforcing the patterns
with which it is familiar.
“No thought is judged upon its own merits; no sight is
appreciated for itself. All are referenced back to what is
already known. Oh, to gaze upon the world through fresh
eyes!
“The Universe is an infinite ocean of chance and
happening, of splendour and possibility. Unshackle your
mind from its preconceived patterns so that every new
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20 – KHR
“Have the patterns of your mind been overwritten? Have the
furrows been turned over by a layer of the fresh soil of
consciousness? Is all virgin and fresh?
“Then whore yourself! Spread your legs to all
experience, erect your member to all happenings.
“Build new structures within your consciousness,
raise high new towers of the mind dedicated to the symbols
whereby you shape your life. Arrange your mind and senses
to perceive those things which are meaningful to you. Thus
you will not miss the synchronistic patterns which may steer
your course.
“And so your mind shall be your own, not anybody
else's.
“And those of you who Understand the Mystery of
Remanifestation shall also secretly build siege engines within
your mind against that day when this new creation too will
become tired and need tearing down.
“But today is a day for building.”
19 – POP
“All things lead to stifling imprisonment and chains, all things
soever. No matter how well meant, no matter how
unrestrained, the trap of comfortable attachment awaits.
“Old ghosts haunt you and comrades crowd you and
the bonds of affection seize you tight. How to escape from so
terrible a prison?
“But escape you must, and you can see the way
already. But that secret is the Key to the next Aire, and the
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18 – ZEN
“Know that all manifest things decay. Even your attachments
and joys become stifling traps, as has been said. This is as it
must be, so that the old may pass away, making room for the
new.
“How shall the Dragon shake off the tattered rags of
stale days and stagnant meanings? He shall fan a great fire in
the innermost core of his being, until it flames forth from his
jaws, consuming and transforming all.
“The name of this fire is Desire. The new heat of the
fresh passion bursts all bonds asunder and gives new vigour
to tired limbs.
“The hot flame of Desire is all that will save you from
the mires of stagnant regrets. Learn to live with a fire in your
eye and a sword in your hand. Then the very stars shall dance
for you.”
17 – TAN
“Are you weary yet of this Work? Do you wish for it to
finish? Do you resent the time you set aside for it? Would
you rather be doing other things? Yes? Good!
“Desire wavers. Passion falters. All seems for
nothing. Tedium reigns. The featureless sands of the
sweltering desert surround you for miles on all sides, and you
really could not be bothered for a moment longer. And yet
you persist. Why?
“Because there comes a point when Desire
Remanifests as Will. There comes a point when Passion
Remanifests as Purpose. There comes a point when Man
Remanifests as a Power.
“So, rejoice in your Struggle, for then shall you
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16 – LEA
“Where shall your Desire lead you? She is dancing amid the
stars above your head; Her hot blood pumps in the Earth
beneath your feet; Her sweat is the salt of the sea; Her scent is
in every breath that you take. Your pulse quickens in lust for
Her, your heart trembles in terror of Her. She is the maiden
of Life; She is the dragon of Death.
“Life in all of its forms is a thing of beauty. Every
time you draw breath, you win a victory, inspired by the
Shieldmaiden of the Stars. And when your life is finally laid
down, She will take you unto Remanifestation.
“Beauty is in proportion to Struggle. Do not be afraid
to fight, it is a noble and glorious thing.
“If you cannot see and taste and feel the ecstasy of
your muse by now, then return to crawl in the gutters.
Otherwise, onward!”
15 – OXO
“The mind of the Magus must be upon many things. A mind
with clarity of thought and clarity of passion. A paradoxical
mind, which has both precision of focus and breadth of view.
Such a mind may manipulate reality at all of its levels.
“Have you ever wished you could go back in time,
reverse some deed, undo some mistake? Then do so. If your
mind is truly exalted to this Aire, then you can see how it may
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14 – VTA
“What is the purpose of your life? Why do you live it? When
the machine breaks down, why not let it rust? Why not drift
into the peaceful sleep of oblivion? Is it better never to have
been than it is to be and then have to end?
“You ask me for a Teaching. It resides in these
questions. Do you expect easy and comforting answers? Of
course you don't. These are the questions of a lifetime. And
to those who bemoan the lack of easy answers, shrug your
shoulders. Their answers are not yours to give. But ask the
questions.
“How not to die? Your body will ultimately fail, and
you will know then that it is time for a transition, for you will
have heard Her crying in the night. But I repeat and affirm
the prophecy spoken of you by Setnakt. After your death, you
will be seen leaving with Her. One will see you, and thus you
will show them immortality.
“Do not offer answers to the Initiates of Apep;
instead, teach them to craft walking sticks.”
13 – ZIM
“High through the Aires you have ascended. Sharp is your
mind, focused your Essence. Yet you shall totter and sway at
these rarefied heights if you have no deep foundations.
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“For here the icy core which has fought for its
independence, which has risen on the planes, must form new
bonds of its own shaping, and the awakening Dragon shall
know that although the Great Eye abides in the heights, it
looks ever down. For now that vision births within you.
“Look down and move your hand upon the Earth. It
changes, and it changes in vibration with the changes in
yourself, yet buffeted by contrary winds.
“This has been called a garden, but it is like a game of
chess, played by one man against ever-changing opponents,
who each play a single move and vacate their seat for the
next. But only the Player understands that it is a game.
“Here, in the playing of the game, the fifth skin is
shed and the sixth head stirs in its sleep.”
12 – LOE
“The world is a spinning thing of flashes, sounds and delicate
threads, a sphere of wonder, glamour and enchantment which
rotates around you.
“You stand now at its centre and you know that it is
indeed a glamour, a wonder, an enchantment. It is an illusion,
a kaleidoscope vision only of true reality. But yours is the
hand which turns the lens and shifts the colour and pattern of
the illusion until it is pleasing to your Eye.
“Your centrality and your consciousness of it begin to
affect you deeply now, don't they? I can sense the awe and
dawning Understanding within you even as you scribble these
words. You have always known these things, you have
always seen in this way. You just never realised, did you?
But you have been told of the simple things, the roots of stars.
You see now that words can never suffice; Secrets can never
be told. But the words mean something more precious than
jewels in the wake of experience.
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11 – ICH
“Is everything in perfection? Have you developed and
strengthened all of the faculties of your Being? Have you
drawn together and integrated the various threads of your
Essence? Have you attained Mastery over your own soul and
over the world around you? Does reality shift and adjust in
response to your mere presence? Have you indeed Become a
Black Magus?
“Yet you are conscious that a wall rises before you,
that there is a barrier yet ahead of this State of Being. Beyond
the wall, guarded by daemons of Self-preservation, yawns the
Pit.
“To proceed and raise the sixth head of the Dragon to
full wakefulness, it is necessary to first lay down the sixth
skin: your own uncertainty. What you risk is the loss of your
own cohesion as all of your support lines are severed and the
Void gapes. How well have you made yourself?
“If deliberately set loose and unravelled to the four
winds, what will you Remanifest?”
10 – ZAX
The sixth skin of the Serpent is shed.
9 – ZIP
“So now you know that beyond Desire there is to be found
Desire. When all of the bonds are loosed, when all of the
attachments are severed, when the sense of Self is all that
remains, cast adrift in a Void... you were carried through by
Desire.
“Not Desire for the things you had known and lost.
The remembrance of the most urgent and important things in
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8 – ZID
“The sixth head of the Dragon is that of the Player, the
strategist, who sits astride his horse on a high place, surveying
the field of battle below, despatching runners to carry his
instructions to the combatants.
“In the uppermost Aires, you are out of sight and
mind of Men, looking down through cold, dispassionate eyes
far removed from their troubles, always seeing the larger
picture and making your plans.
“Cold and dispassionate, do I say? What then became
of that burning Desire which brought you here? It remains as
fierce as ever, but its goals and struggles are far beyond the
understanding of those who have not tasted this.
“A cruel, heartless monster you may appear to them,
when indeed you appear to them at all, a schemer whose
blood is cold. A wonderful Dragon you now make! Cold you
may be, but your blood melts steel, and your Desire leaps
from your mouth in tongues of flame.”
7 – DEO
“The Universe is a Whore: She gives birth to all senses and
impressions, all ideas and expectations, all things sick and
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sublime. And She laughs as they devour each other and She
takes Her play with each as it takes Her fancy.
“So you too shall take your play in the world, and you
shall admire Her whoredom. But will you laugh? For even
here, even now, there is a trap.
“The Cosmos in which you will take your pleasure is
a falsely painted strumpet, a she-spider who will catch the
unwary in her webs and paralyse them with her venom as she
slowly sucks the life from them.
“She is but a reflection of one who lies seductively
behind a further veil. If you have seen behind that veil, you
may take your pleasure indeed.
“The flesh of that Hidden One is your flesh and Her
blood runs in your veins.”
6 – MAZ
“Where is the Ancient Dragon? Where is its lair? Where
does She who ripped asunder the primal Chaos coil in Her
repose? In what skies does She rise on flaming wings?
“She is the fabric of reality itself; the very molecular
bonds that hold the cosmos in an illusion of cohesion. She is
the substance of your flesh; She pulses in your blood; the
whirling of your mind is the beating of Her wings; your
thoughts are the fire of Her breath; your desires are the
throbbing of Her heart.
“The glue of Her drool binds all; Her searing venom
dissolves all. And how hard it would go for you were you not
Her kin.”
5 – LIT
“The seventh skin loosens, but you hesitate to shed it. You
know why. It is your footing in the Universe. It is the mask
you wear in the mirror, behind which is no substance.
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4 – PAZ
“What is left when all that has made you is gone? When all
else is unmade, what remains but the one who did the
making?
“What have you made, then? And to what purpose?
What is it that endures when the foundations of the Earth
have shivered into dust?
“The seventh skin falls free...”
3 – ZOM
“Behold! Only Leviathan!
“Thy end hath been attained.
“For now you see that your end is as your beginning.
You are a book fully bound, and the passage of time is but the
turning of the pages whereon you write.
“This is freedom, Time Lord. To hold the book of
your Being in your own hands, to flick back and forth through
the pages as you will, to edit and amend.
“Close the book. Now what remains, when the very
idea of Space-Time can be set aside as casually as you lay a
book on a coffee table?
“Turn around and behold the War in Heaven...”
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2 – ARN
“All Creation is at war and carries within its parts the seeds of
destruction. How could it be otherwise? For the parts are not
the whole, but to wholeness they aspire. Thus they fight to
win more space and being for themselves at the expense of all
others. Even love is such, seeking to draw the beloved into
the personal sphere, to become part of one's wholeness.
“How few rebel and find joy in their limitations and
boundaries! How few have the courage to take up the
birthing knife and sever themselves, becoming a star in the
void, self-illuminated.
“Even so with your creations. Watch as they war and
develop and intertwine and take joy in that, for they follow
your Will. But take still greater joy in those creations which
break free and run a course uncharted.
“And fight with your Self – often!”
1 – LIL
In this Aire, I saw myself as I am and I learned a great and
terrible magical Secret. It is a Secret which is shocking and
monstrous and heretical. It is easily communicated in words,
but not really graspable unless experienced. Therefore, I am
not going to share it as I don't want to spoil the shock and the
surprise for you when you discover it for yourselves. But I
will freely discuss it with those who demonstrate their own
knowledge of it to me, either in word or act.
Finally, Apep spoke a single sentence to me.
Interpret it carefully:
“There Is Never A Moment In Which You Are
Not”.
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1. A Scorpion
2. A Whirling Cross, or Thunderbolt
3. A Leopard, or Hyena
4. A Serpent
5. A Raging Lion
6. A Rebellious Giant
7. Typhon, Angel of the Fatal Wind
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scorpion, who crawls out into the desert night after the heat of
the day. Also the angelic messenger, who traverses the astral
plane (Lunar) between Man (Earth) and God (Sun). The
symbolism is of the subconscious mind, whose
communications and contents become more open to our
consciousness as the powers of our own senses are enhanced
and paid attention to. By becoming more attuned to the
physical world outside of ourselves, we open ourselves more
to the promptings of the subconscious world within.
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The final head is that of Typhon, Set Himself, the God who is
against the Gods. The final goal of the Initiate is to become
like Set, the Red Magus, who ransacks and destroys in order
to create new playthings from the rubble.
The moment at which this head rises is the moment at
which humanity is left behind and divinity is attained (though
it will not be sustained without further Work; there are no
instant and irrevocable attainments in Initiation). It is the
most exalted state of being of which we can currently
conceive, yet paradoxically it is only a beginning. The
Initiate pursuing this Work of Self-divination must build a
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CHAPTER THREE
The Work of the first head, that of the Scorpion, focuses upon
the Initiate's interface with the physical world, the human
body. This Work can be divided into four main categories:
(i) posture and breath; (ii) motion; (iii) sharpening the senses;
(iv) defining and ultimately extending physical limitations. It
is our consciousness which makes us beings capable of magic,
but the most potent magical tools with which we are provided
are our own flesh, blood and bone.
Before detailing the recommended exercises,
however, it will be a good idea to examine an example of the
ways in which physical events and experiences can open the
door to profound initiatory developments. The following
account by Order Initiate Paul Fosterjohn is reprinted from
issue #3 of the Apophis journal.
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b) Basic Postures
One of the first skills to master with regard to the magical use
of the physical body is the use of posture. A magical posture
is a meaningful / symbolic bodily position which is adopted
and then held for a period of time. Sometimes the posture is
but one movement in a linked series of movements, but the
posture may sometimes constitute an entire magical process
in its own right and may be held motionless for an extended
period.
There are a great many benefits to be won when
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1. The God
This simple posture involves sitting on a hard-backed chair,
with feet together flat on the floor, knees together and hands
on knees. The back, neck and head should all be perfectly
straight and vertical. The posture is the same as that depicted
in the rigid, seated god figures in Egyptian art, hence its
name. It is the most common posture for beginners due to its
generally applicable symbolism and its simplicity.
2. The Dragon
This posture involves kneeling down and sitting back, so that
the buttocks rest upon the heels. The hands are placed on the
knees and the back and neck are upright. The symbolism is of
a dragon sitting alert on its haunches.
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c) Magical Breath
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SIGHT:
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HEARING:
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TOUCH:
SMELL:
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TASTE:
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1. Exhaustion
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walk until you literally can not take another step without
collapsing (note that the point of the exercise is not to
collapse, but to discover the point at which it is imminent and
then to stop). Be harsh with yourself, as most people will
tend to give up and tell themselves they have reached their
limit long before it is actually approached. Bring sandwiches
by all means and definitely equip yourself with plenty to
drink. But don't sit down and have a picnic, you should eat
and drink whilst on the hoof, just pausing long enough to take
a bite or a drink. When you finally feel that you cannot take
another step phone your friend, who must be prepared to
come and collect you no matter what time of day or night.
Also, be sure to check in on an hourly basis.
2. Alcohol
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3. Fasting
4. Sleep Deprivation
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5. Orgasm Exhaustion
Set aside a free day to discover how many orgasms your body
can endure in a twenty four hour period. This does not mean
how many you want to have, you would probably be satiated
after two or three. How many can you physically endure,
even when you don't want to? When it becomes too much,
take an hour off, then get back to it with gusto! Masturbation
is probably preferable to intercourse for this practice, as love-
play will serve to increase the delay between orgasms, it is
just too distracting for the current purpose, which is a
dispassionate experiment. This exercise, here intended to test
the body's limits, will be returned to under the auspices of the
second head when considering eroto-comatose lucidity.
6. Orgasm Deprivation
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CHAPTER FOUR
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intellect
memory
emotions
repressed shadow aspects
inherited characteristics
idealised image
public face
tutelary projection
post-mortem shade
focal core, the sense of Self itself
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Monitoring Thought
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Stopping Thought
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seem like the hydra: cut one off and two more spring up in its
place. You will despair at how little progress you seem to be
making. You will be fooled as you think to yourself, "I'm
doing really well, I haven't had a single thought in ages," only
to realise how insidious the little bastards are by playing off
your own vigilance and enticing it to thought. They will
laugh at you, mock you, dance rings around you. You want to
know the best thing to do? Laugh with them, don't get
uptight. Your subconscious will cease rebelling and will
eventually start to work with you if you convince it that you
are not its enemy and that its cooperation will benefit your
whole Self.
It may seem disheartening to say that after a lot of
work and practice you may find yourself able to truly cease
thinking for a mere three or four seconds. But this is a truly
incredible achievement and the sense of pure Self that will
arise in these moments is – quite literally – like a good
orgasm. Consider that an orgasm to tends to last for only
seconds, but that doesn't stop people striving for it. This
degree of mental control will be of tremendous value in the
magical workings of the later heads, especially the temporal
manipulation of the sixth head. But you will need to practise,
and often.
Single Pointedness
Once you are able to successfully still your thoughts for a few
brief seconds (which is the Key to magical gnosis and
prophetic powers), it is time to start focusing upon single-
pointed concentration, which is a related and similarly
difficult discipline.
Begin by staring directly at a single fixed point. It
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Visualisation Exercises
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you can detect. Carry out this exercise many times in many
different scenarios until they seem 'real'. This practice too
will translate into direct magical work in the next head, which
will prove quite difficult going if this prior experience and
expertise has not been gained now by hard graft.
Mantras
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Liber Jugorum
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results, with the mind gradually and willingly taking its cue
from the strength of your determination and desire.
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Eroto-Comatose Lucidity
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A B C D E
F G H I/Y J
K L M N O
P Q R S T
U V W X Z
F A I R W
E T H B C
D G J K L
M N O P Q
S U V X Z
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sigils:
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and left to do its work. This is neither the time nor the place
for the passionate willing for results; that should have come
earlier in the actual formation stage of the sigil. The time of
casting, or charging, needs to be free of 'lust of result', a
surrender of the Desire to the depths of Hell, the subconscious
mind. Only by completely releasing it in this way will it be
free to move and to act, fulfilling its directive to manifest in
the outer world.
Probably the simplest and most used way to charge a
sigil is to intensely visualise it or stare at an image of it at the
moment of orgasm. It sounds great in theory, for at this
moment the mind is incapable of ordinary conscious thought
(just try saying your multiplication tables while you're
coming) and the sigil should penetrate straight through to the
subconscious. Many people report very great success with
this method. Personally, I have always had rather poor results
using it, which just goes to show that what is reportedly the
single most effective method for charging sigils will not
necessarily be the best for everyone.
Death posture is another highly recommended
method, placing the sigil at eye level as the dead stare is fixed
upon it. This one I have had excellent results with, also with
the right way of walking described under the first head.
Really, any of the physical and mental exercises so far
described can be adapted for this form of results magic. This,
after all, is what all of that hard training is ultimately for.
Personally, my supreme triumphs with sigils have
been when I have combined them with Workings of demonic
evocation. Aa a goeticist of long standing and great
enthusiasm, nothing pleases me more than whipping my mind
into a state of consciousness wherein I can conjure some
demon or obsession into seeming visible appearance. In such
Workings, the evoked entity is passed the inscribed sigil to
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During the course of the Work of the second head, the Initiate
should begin in earnest to keep a dream diary if he / she does
not already do so. There are many benefits from keeping such
a diary, but in terms of our Apepian Work at this second head
stage it is primarily because the process of consciously
recalling dreams upon waking will work miracles in
establishing a consistent dialogue between the conscious and
subconscious minds. This process of mental integration is the
whole focus of the second head of the Dragon. As a negative
symbol, the whirling thunderbolt can represent the chaotic
thoughts which must be reined in and controlled; as a positive
symbol, it represents the whole psyche turning as a unified
force, with each part coming to the fore in its turn. One of
Don Web's sayings which impressed me greatly was that
dreaming is the battleground for immortality.
The practice of keeping a dream diary is therefore an
essential part of the work of this head and will assist greatly
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Emotional Control
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patterns. You will learn what your hot buttons are: what
makes you angry; what makes you sad; what inspires your
lust; what makes you swoon into mushy lovey-doviness.
Once you have identified these factors, you will be able to
realise when they are being triggered and you will find that
you can coolly detach yourself and switch off the
programmed emotional response if you so wish. Emotions
are a vital part of life, but they should arise because of your
desires and experiences, not because someone is pushing your
buttons to manipulate a response. The greater your insight
and success with this exercise, the more immune to
manipulation you will become.
Once your pre-programmed hot buttons have
effectively been disconnected, you can concentrate instead on
discovering what really makes you happy. A little
introspective meditation – and perhaps divination – will work
wonders here and you can channel your enthusiasm and
affections into projects, people and things that truly mean
something to you. Similarly, your hate and anger can be
turned away from media-promoted bogeymen and turned
upon your true enemies. You will be greatly empowered.
One extremely helpful side effect of this exercise is
the ability to redirect unproductive emotional energies into
other magical projects. When you become aware that you are
getting angry or otherwise emotionally stimulated because
one of your hot buttons has been pressed, don't just let the
unwanted emotional response dissipate. Put it to good use
instead. All effective magic is fuelled by emotion, so redirect
the awakened energies into a sigil or similar work-in-
progress. Make these things work for you instead of simply
draining or frustrating you.
Any truly initiatory Right-Hand Path programme
worth its salt – I am thinking of Buddhism in particular – will
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CHAPTER FIVE
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Clairvoyance
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Developing Clairvoyance
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Trance States
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Experiments in Telepathy
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course, a very real danger in the flux and flow of that astral
world, but the Will can hold a vision true by continually
checking every symbol and happening for proper resonance
with the invoked force. Ipsissimus Crowley's writings place
considerable emphasis upon this and should be consulted for
further guidance. In short, the astral realm is as real as we
make it, which is every bit as real as the outer objective
world, but in direct proportion to the proper application of
skill and Will.
The Seal of the Eye of Leviathan is, of course, the
symbol par excellence of the Order's aspiration and its
superimposition upon any astral phenomena should test their
relevance to the Draconian Gnosis: if it is true, the Eye will
strengthen the phenomenon; if false, the Eye will whither it
away. Only Truth can stand in the gaze of the Absolute.
Skrying
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you can chart these important psychic nexus points and begin
the task of mapping your own magical universe.
You will discover many places of personal
significance which you will revisit many times during the
course of your consciously directed trance journeys and
skrying. But often those which are most striking and affect
you most deeply are the ones which continually haunt you in
your sleep.
Start with a blank piece of paper. In the centre, draw
some symbol to mark the entrance to your dreamscape. Then
proceed to mark those places which have figured prominently
for you in your astral work, but most especially in your
dreams. Mark each place in the relative position that feels
most right. Is it above, below, to one side or the other?
Where do you feel it lies in relation to other places? Near or
far away?
Once this highly personalised map has been fleshed
out a little (it will never actually be complete) you can
experiment with marking the same places on the more
conventional maps and models of the traditions you are
familiar with, such as the Tree of Life, the worlds of
Yggdrasill, the Enochian Aethyrs or the Celtic Otherworld.
Interesting comparisons can thus be drawn and relationships
suggested: you will come to understand yourself and the
tradition in which you work a little better. Your map should
always be malleable, subject to change with the shifting of
dreams.
Lucid Dreaming
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new visions, new powers. But it also means that the area of
overlap is much more difficult to influence, for it is partially
shaped by another's Will as well as our own.
The situation becomes even more complex, of course,
when further individuals are added to the model, as shown.
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extend it, take hold of the cup and then lift it. You must use
your body as an intermediary between your mind and the cup.
But your body and the cup are of the same substance; both are
composed of matter and the Universe is by definition but one
thing. All of its particles come from a single ultimate source
and are shaped and re-shaped by the ever-shifting fields of
sub-atomic attraction and repulsion. There is no difference.
For some reason, our bizarre biological mindsets try to
persuade us that we and our world are solid and enduring.
But the truth is that there is hardly anything there at all. The
universe is almost completely Nothing.
We can shape our own minds as we can control our
own bodies. Within our social circle we can exercise a lesser
but still powerful degree of control if we exercise the skills of
Lesser Black Magic. Within the matrix of our societies we
can manipulate our position and influence by means of
Medial Black Magic. Global and cosmic patterns require
Greater Black Magical Workings simply to understand, let
alone manipulate.
The key to making sense of all this and to gaining real
power over it is to truly perceive, understand and integrate
your own magical universe. This is the purpose of the dream
exercises in the work of the third head. If you can seize upon
the power symbols that work for you then you will have
found the keys to those doors whereby the deep mind can
access and influence the larger continuum. This is also the
reason for mastering one of the traditional schools of magic as
it gives you a coherent, tried and tested framework upon
which those unearthed power symbols may be arranged and
more easily integrated.
If we use the runes as an example, each rune
represents a mysterious quality which is active within both
the inner and outer worlds. Once an Initiate has aligned his
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Divination
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Dragon which glares at the world from the edges of time and
space. This was made explicit during my time as Grand
Master, when I remodeled the triangular perspective into my
personal seal, the reptilian Eye surrounded by three
interlocked triangles within a circle, a seal which I carried
forward into the Order of Apep. But the Eye has always been
associated with dragons and serpents, not least because of the
sexual symbolism of the masculine one-eyed snake and the
secret crimson eye which opens in the female.
The Magic of the Void casts this model into the field
of practical results magic – as well as Greater Black Magic –
and works by first establishing the triangulation, then
allowing the Eye to open in the Void at the centre. Some
examples may help.
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Only then can he bridge the Void, collapsing the three points
into one, where he, the employer and the job are unified. It is
important to note that the Void is bridged between all three
points: the magician has bound himself to the employer and
to the job just as closely as they are bound to him. Be careful
what you ask for.
Let's leave 'headology' behind now and consider a
different example employing Medial Magic: a
straightforward lust spell. A friend of mine once saw a very
naughty French girl on a train and fell head over heels in lust.
He was an accomplished magician, so how might he have
gone about fulfilling his wicked desire? In the diagram, he
himself is at point [a]; the French girl is at point [b]; his
vision of their lustful union is at point [c]. All of these things
are connected but are not unified: [a] and [b] have
encountered each other on a train; lustful imaginings [c] arise
in [a] and are directed toward [b] with all the force of his
heightened emotions. But the void [x] lies between them.
[a]'s goal is to draw the three points together, so that he and
the French girl [b] may unite in lustful union [c]. To achieve
this, the magician must open the Eye in the Void, thus
bridging it and uniting the three points of the triangle in a way
that transforms them all. He may attempt to do this by sigils,
mantras, meditation or ritual, but ultimately he will succeed if
he can open the Eye and destroy the barriers that isolate the
three outer points with the fiery breath of the awakened
Dragon. When this crisis of magical transformation happens,
the magician must be aware that he binds himself to the
French girl through his lust to the exact same degree that he
inflames her desires and binds her to him. All three points of
the triangle are affected and transformed by the magic coming
through the Void.
Greater Black Magic will follow a similar pattern. In
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this case, the point [a] still – as ever – represents the magician
in his role as aspirant to change and / or knowledge; [b] is the
matter upon which he wishes to exercise change or to be
illuminated; [c] is the divine source from which he seeks
illumination or the transformative principle (Apep / Set / Odin
/ Badb, etc...). In this case, [x] is a Void which will reveal the
desired wisdom as he opens his Eye within it. Such wisdom
may manifest in words, images, feelings or other forms, all of
which must be recorded immediately. GBM Workings will
be forgotten by the conscious mind if they are not deliberately
and painstakingly recorded at the time they happen. Note that
the knowledge gained will inevitably alter the magician to the
same degree that it changes his worldview.
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opening the Eye in the Void. Do not use magic unless you
yourself are willing to be changed by it!
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CHAPTER SIX
There are three main parts to the Work of the fourth head.
The first of these is an understanding of the Dragon's Eye and
the means of its opening. The second is the apprehension of
the Daemon, the personal tutelary deity. The third is the
vision of the Striding God who abides in the seventh head.
Upon arriving at this head, the Initiate will find little
in the way of new exercises and techniques to practise. The
Eye now begins to open and the sorcerer must use those skills
already learned to pursue a lifelong quest. It is at this stage
that we begin to appreciate why we have developed these
magical muscles so painstakingly, to understand what it is all
for.
The chapters that follow hereafter are therefore
addressed to the great questions of life and magical
experience instead of the acquisition of the skills necessary to
understand such questions, let alone answer them. Your bag
of tools should by now be full. The fourth head is a place and
time of realisation and Self-recreation. The magician
discovers his place in the Universe and obtains a Vision of
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Priesthood
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future. I later adopted the idea that – like the valknutr – the
triangles might actually be interlocked as admirably
illustrated below by Order Initiate D.V. Graal), with one point
of each extending to past, present and future, a truly
dimensionally transcendental image.
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Permutations
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The Valknutr
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1. Chaos
2. Order
3. Understanding
4. Being
5. Creation
6. Death
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7. Birth
8. Recreation
9. Rebirth, or Victory
TINAMIWYAN
TINAMIWYAN, usually rendered in Enochian characters as
above, is a Word composed of the initial letters of the final
statement recorded in the Apep Workings 2003: “There Is
Never A Moment In Which You Are Not”.
It is worth spending some time to explore the many
levels of meaning which are borne in the statement. I will
then 'analyse' the Word using the techniques of several
different magical systems. Such practices can throw up some
astonishing synchronicities and subtle shades of meaning.
“There Is Never” - This is a positive statement.
“There Is” implies a positive state of being, a function of the
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Enochian
We'll begin the analysis with Enochian, since this system was
the driving force behind both series of Apep Workings (by
James Lewis and myself), and also because these are the
written characters in which TINAMIWYAN is usually
expressed, as follows:
TINAMIWYAN
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9+60+50+6+90+60+70+60+6+50=461
or 3+60+50+6+90+60+70+60+6+50=455
The two values are caused by the fact that the Enochian letter
T may be equivalent to either 9 or 3 numerically.
The underlying meanings of the Enochian letters are
as follows:
T T Desire / Attraction
I I Wisdom / Skill / Ability
N N Death / Completion
A A Student / Beginning
M M Magus
I I Wisdom / Skill / Ability
W W Ecstasy / Bliss
Y Y Wisdom / Skill / Ability
A A Student / Beginning
N N Death / Completion
Runes
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TINAMIWYAN
17+11+10+4+20+11+8+12+4+10=107
The formula reads thus: The axis around which the cosmos
turns T is the isolate focus of the Eye I, which must
necessarily N project its divine Essence A into fleshly
manifestation M so that it may perceive its own reflection I in
its interactions and relationships W with others and the world
beyond Self. Thus, a new cycle commences Y with a fresh
and expanded appreciation of its own innate divinity A, which
in turn leads it to seek new ways to test its own boundaries N.
Once again, we have a formula of spiral
Remanifestation, cycling around the constant of the watching
Eye.
Ogham
>tinamiuian
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8+20+5+16+11+20+18+20+16+5=139
Qabalah
naywymanyf
9+10+50+1+40+10+6+10+1+700=837
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Æon
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Word
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Zain
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means 'sword' and this is also suggested by its shape. Its path
on the Tree of Life diagram extends from Binah
(Understanding) to Tiphareth (Beauty / Harmony), spanning
the Great Outer Abyss. All of these attributions are
suggestive of its significance to us.
In his Typhonian Trilogies, Kenneth Grant alludes to
an Æon of Zain, a 'Wordless Æon' of the unshaped future.
Why should this Æon be described as 'Wordless'? The
answer is quite simple. In Qabalistic terms, zain is a path
which bridges the Abyss, extending from regions beyond
manifest Space-Time. It is The Lovers – duality rejoined in
one flesh. It is the sword, the only weapon which avails
against Choronzon, the Archdemon of Dispersion. From our
perspective, it is Choronzon. In Tarot lore, Atu VI indicates a
choice: zain is unmanifest potential, the choice which has not
yet been made. Zain is that which lies ever beyond the
horizon of Runa; here may be found the omnijective
perspective for which we aspire when the Ring of Runa has
been penetrated.
In many ways, Apep is kindred to Choronzon. Both
are hypnotic, dispersive entities; both are Forms beyond
Space-Time; both are terrifying monsters to the uninitiated
psyche.
Zain is a Wordless Æon (or perhaps more accurately,
an Anti-Æon) simply because it cannot be expressed. It is
ever-potential and always a shadow in the future, never yet
manifest. As soon as it Comes Into Being and its
indeterminacy is resolved, it has become something else. Yet
an Anti-Magus may perhaps show its terrors through veils of
Silence, through the act of Not-Uttering. It is similar to
Neheh, the unshaped future which is the domain of Set. To
call it 'the shape of things to come' is inadequate. It is the
shape of things which may come and the shape of things
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which may never be: all are Real in zain. But whatever else
it is, it is the abode of the Eye of the Serpent, so much at least
is clear.
I could wax long and lyrical about this, but would add
nothing to the above, which expresses it as well as the
inexpressible may be expressed. So instead I choose Silence
(cue slithering sounds from beyond the Barrier as a further
choice has been made).
“But Apep spoke Not and smiled Not, for Who knows the
mind of a Serpent.”
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Having studied the Seal of the Eye and gained its Vision, the
Initiate of the fourth head begins to gain an Understanding of
the nature of reality and his place in it (and out of it). The
practices and sorceries of the previous heads suddenly expand
into a far wider picture. The Self stands alone in a great
Void, but as in the Seal, it may extend its gaze in order to
experience and change the phenomenal world. One thing is
certain though: upon realising the extent of the Universe and
the Self and upon beginning to discern the nature of their
relationships, the Initiate is going to need a guide.
The concept of a divine advisor is an ancient one and
the notion of acquiring one as a distinct initiatory step –
generally considered to be the mark of Adepthood – goes
back a long way. In modern magical works, it can be traced
in the Golden Dawn, with their 'Bornless Ritual' (more
accurately 'Headless' than 'Bornless', a ritual derived from a
papyrus fragment of an ancient Setian spell). It resonates
throughout the Work of their inner Order, the R.R. et A.C.,
and owes a lot to Macgregor Mathers' translation of the
Fifteenth Century grimoire entitled The Book of the Sacred
Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage.
Abra-Melin is quite unlike any other of its
contemporary grimoires. Its ritual requirements are simple
and basic in the extreme, with the operation being charged by
the passion and ardency of the magician rather than any
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and dawn pass over it. Such periods of calmly sitting and
waiting for communion in an evocative location are an ideal
counterbalance to the more structured invocatory aspects of
the Work.
It is pertinent to ask what benefits the Initiate will
receive from this Working. What does communion with the
Daemon give us? The result of such a successful operation is
literally life-changing.
As mentioned above, the Daemon is a multi-faceted
manifestation. It is part of the psychic heritage passed down
from our ancestors, something that grows with every
generation. As such, it brings with it an awareness of the
evolutionary current within us and where that current is
carrying us, not only on a personal but a multi-generational
level. It is also a projection back from the Self we have the
potential to become and brings with it the gift of foresight and
accelerated initiatory transformation. This creates a sense of
Destiny within the Initiate. It is a fundamental consideration
of the fourth head and one we will return to in greater detail
later in this chapter.
There are other practical magical enhancements too.
When the insight of the Daemon is gained, extending beyond
our usual dimensions of consciousness, significant magical
powers become available by the application of Will alone.
These dwarf the little spells and sigils and so forth that the
Initiate may have practised to date.
In the original Abra-Melin grimoire, these powers are
presented in a series of hundreds of magic squares containing
patterns of letters, each of which has a specific purpose. The
instructions encoded on these squares was carried out by
legions of demons. The magician gained authority to
command these by summoning the four Princes of Hell and
receiving their allegiance after being fortified by his Holy
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Guardian Angel.
This very symbolic and poetic description expresses a
simple underlying truth: once the Initiate has attained the
insight of his Daemon and understands the patterns unfolding
around him and his own very Essence, he may also perceive
and manipulate the patterns that shape reality and causality
itself (symbolised by the patterns of letters on the squares).
The demons symbolise the interface between the Will of the
magician and the situation he wishes to affect. We will
investigate the nature of demons, spirits and so forth under
the fifth head.
I have known magicians who have very successfully
used the squares from the Abra-Melin system, indeed I have
done so myself, sometimes accompanied by a demonic
evocation, sometimes simply used as a focus for the Will. If
you take time ro read Mathers' notes on the meanings of the
words on the squares and determine a personally satisfying
system of alphabetical coding that makes sense, this can be
very appropriate. However, sticking with the grimoire is
unnecessary, though it can occasionally be fun if indulged for
aesthetic reasons. The Daemon will empower whatever
magical tools you choose to employ and amplify your magic
through them. Indeed, at this level the best Initiates will
change a situation simply by entering into it and turning their
attention upon it. This 'on the fly' sorcery is surprisingly easy
and unnerving to those who witness it and realise what is
going on. A formal act of Will, such as a ritual, is advised for
specific purposes which are planned in advance, however. It
keeps things tidy.
It is to be remarked that in Aleister Crowley's
published writings, he regularly downplays or chastises the
use of magic for material ends, complaining that such detracts
from the Great Work and so forth. I make no such objections,
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Remanifestation
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future, perhaps years hence, and its results are also intended
to Come Into Being on a much larger scale, both in ourselves
and in the world. The Initiate is looking ahead and planning
the path of possibilities that will change his life and reshape
the world in which he lives. It's as simple as that. Every
magical Working – even unsuccessful ones – are of course a
Remanifestation of what has or has not been put into them.
But in an initiatory sense, we use the Word for those
Workings whose results will wipe the slate clean and rewrite
the rulebook.
This should all become more evident in the remaining
chapters.
Now that we have reached the fourth head, the head of the
Serpent itself, and have won its perspective, we can cast our
eyes back over our Work to date and begin to tie up some of
the loose ends. We have just been discussing
Remanifestation and a good metaphor for Remanifestation is
when a snake outgrows its old skin, shedding it and emerging
as a remade being. We have now raised four of the heads of
Apep, but before we proceed further it is time to shed the
skins we have outgrown. Just as there are seven heads to
upraise, there are seven skins to shed.
The skins that we outgrow are directly related to the
heads. They represent the values of the heads grown stagnant
and constrictive. Once the viewpoint of the fourth head has
been attained, it is necessary to ensure that our Work within
the previous heads has not become routine and formulaic. We
need to continually expand our horizons and reassess our
patterns of Work. We need to break the bonds and habits that
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A Word on Ritual
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A Sense of Destiny
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impact upon our way of life and our ability to practise our
magic without obstruction, however, and these need to be
addressed. When we first begin in magic, the emphasis is
upon getting the things we want: little things for the most
part, that make our own lives better or more exciting. But as
Initiation progresses and as we Remanifest, our Vision
becomes clearer and we see further. And as Vision
progresses, so too does Desire. We want more things and
better things. This is good, no matter what other creeds may
have told you. Soon it is not enough to sit in a comfortable
home with a few personal treasures. Soon we want to see the
world in which we live reflecting the values and ideals that
we have come to treasure. As has been explained, this
expansion of Vision is a manifestation of the fourth head of
Apep, hence the need to address these matters now. It will
also be freshly apparent why the Abra-Melin Working has
always insisted that the conjuration of the Demon Princes
should always directly follow the knowledge and
conversation of the Daemon itself: the Initiate needs to see
the World of Horrors with clarity, in all of its loftiest and
basest manifestations. The biggest mistake imaginable – and
one that is made all too often – is to naively assume that
everyone else has the same ideals, perspectives and general
sense of decency that we do, and that everyone will listen to
calm reason. This is manifestly untrue and such a false
perspective leaves us open to every form of abuse.
It is not my place to set forward a political agenda
here, nor to suggest the kinds of changes that would produce a
better world. The criticisms I have levelled thus far and the
faults I have pointed out are simple facts. Whether you
decide the answer to these problems lies in a hippy utopia, an
anarchy, or a totalitarian regime, is up to you. You must be
guided by the Vision you have won through your Initiation.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
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A Passion Play
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write a list of all the things you are passionate about; this
should come as no surprise. What might trip you up are the
nature of some of the things I'm going to ask you to put on
that list.
It is so difficult to shake off the conditioning that has
been imprinted upon us since birth. Even at this stage, it will
still keep creeping back in and entwining its tendrils around
your thought processes no matter how many times we shake
them off. Don't be disheartened by this, it is important to stay
awake and to keep casting off our shackles anew. This
struggle is actually good for us. Cherish every new Victory in
the war against non-consciousness (for it is a war).
Your first instinct is probably to reflect that this is a
serious, spiritual question and merits serious, spiritual
answers. You will make a list of worthy causes which arouse
your passions – either for or against, rage is as much a
passion as lust – and then you will draw a line under it. You
may struggle a little and then add a few vaguer general
principles, such as 'truth' or 'justice' to your list. Then you'll
pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself on a job
well done. Or at least you would if your mind hadn't put its
blinkers on.
In following the above course, you would omit nearly
everything that you are really, truly passionate about,
probably without ever realising it. You would then stumble
through the Work of this head in a kind of half-life,
wondering why you kept hitting a brick wall. This is because
we are preconditioned to believe that only big issues and
worthy causes are deserving of our time and attention;
everything else is deemed to be trivial. This is a lie. This
misconception is the biggest stumbling block to the Work of
the fifth head and I am breaking my usual rule by pointing it
out so bluntly instead of letting you discover it, because it can
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for the perfect sexual partner, the so-called 'soul mate'. This
Desire is closely bound up with Babalon, whose influence is
at its strongest in this head.
This is one of the most difficult operations in the
entire Work and one which will be resisted by your entire
conditioning. It requires an act of sovereign Will. You see,
throughout all of your progress so far, you will have been
dogged by that preconditioned supposition that the spiritually
advanced man sheds the personality, whether you
acknowledge it or no. In truth, he only distances himself so
that he can break the chains that hold his mind in thrall. This
done, the full richness of the personality explodes into
Remanifest life, stronger and more forceful than ever before,
freed of all masters save Self. But your conditioning will kick
against this initially. In this head you must come to
Understand that all Will is born of Desire.
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standards. Since this sabotage will arise from within the deep
places of your Self, there will be little you can do about it.
Your consciousness will Desire a partner who matches the
blueprint established in your Workings. Naturally, not all
relationships will suffer this fate. A good partnership with a
magically aware person might well be strengthened by these
processes, but let's be honest when we admit that such
relationships are few and far between. If you are currently in
a relationship that satisfies you and you don't wish the boat to
be rocked, I would advise you to cease reading now.
Personally, I believe that to follow the Lady's teasing dance is
worthy of any sacrifice.
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The Shadow - This is the fear which grows within the Lover.
Paradoxically, we all fear to see our desires realised and made
manifest. This has been so deeply ingrained in us, and is
indeed so much a part of the naturalistic, herd animal aspect
of us, that it arises in even the best of us. Also, we fear that
which we love; that which we love is something to which we
have granted the capacity to hurt us. An enemy may wound
our bodies, but those we love may wound our souls. This also
represents our awareness of nearing the ring of Runa, that
moment when we are about to step once more into the
Unknown, when we must ad-lib in our Play. The Shadow
which arises is a thing of terror which can hold us in thrall, or
it is a delicious and dangerous Unknown, something which
promises adventure and fascination whichever way the dice
roll. The former is the way of the natural brute; the latter is
the way of the Initiate.
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merely act as a link between the deceased and the places and
people he knew, fading with the passing of time until it too
goes the way of the physical body. In either case, the enaid
retains some vestige of the delbh, giving it ethereal shape and
substance for so long as it subsists.
The menma and the cuimhne – the mind and the
memory – continue to be associated with the féin, since the
Self retains the sense of its own continuity. If the shade of
the deceased is an active ghost seeking to complete some
earthly task, it may retain some awareness of the cuimhne, but
probably not the menma since reason is not required for such
a function; perhaps some faint vestige of the emotion that
drives the desire for completion.
Traditionally, all ancient authorities agree that the
Celtic druids taught that the soul of the deceased will be
reborn, usually among his own descendants or near relatives.
But the tales also allow that some considerable time may pass
prior to rebirth and that during this time the féin will pass into
the Underworld and travel through the magical realms of
Celtic cosmology, having experiences and forming
relationships there every bit as real as those in earthly life.
Indeed, binding debts and promises will pass over from life to
the post-mortem existence and vice versa.
So much for the traditional view. At the time of the
Immortality Engine Working, I had accepted the Celtic model
of the soul as a pragmatic and essentially accurate one and
was happy to give it my stamp of approval. I also broadly felt
that the dying process as described above was essentially
correct as regards the effects upon the various parts of the
soul. I was a magician and accepted the reality of the magical
realm and the ability of the Self to exist in this realm
independent of the physical and I also believed that rebirth
could indeed occur in certain circumstances. But I did not yet
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since these are the ones who concern us closely. In The Book
of Coming Forth by Night, the document upon which the
Temple of Set was founded, Set declares two things. Firstly,
He establishes Himself as an objective, intelligent being: not
an archetype, nor an ideal, nor a symbol. Secondly, He
declares that all other gods of whatever type have been
created by men. Both of these statements by the Prince of
Darkness require consideration before we move on to
consider other gods, demons or spirits.
The heart of the argument for Set as a unique and
intelligent being is His own quality. He makes no claim to
have created the Universe, nor to have created the human
species (though He does claim to have adjusted our
development). He holds a very specific position: He is the
living Principle of Isolate Intelligence. In other words, He is
the God of consciousness and individuality, of Self-awareness
itself. It is a reasonable assumption that a God of
consciousness must Itself be conscious. The only question is
whether that God's consciousness is a facet of our own in
exteriorised guise (as the Church of Satan would suggest) or a
unique, independent entity in its own right (as the Temple of
Set would suggest).
We first need to remind ourselves that we are not
postulating any kind of omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent
God here like those of the majority religions. We are
postulating a highly evolved entity who has developed
consciousness and Self-awareness to the degree that It has
freed itself from the constraints of the physical universe and
exists as a powerful force in the Magical Universe. In other
words, the Prince of Darkness is a Being of the same order
that we ourselves seek to attain. So if our practices and
aspirations mean anything, the existence of a Being such as
Set should come as no surprise. One of the descriptions
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which I heard used of the Dark Lord in the Temple of Set was
“the First of our Kind”. If we aspire to attain to such a State
of Being, it should come as no surprise that one got there
before us. If this is the case, we need to ask ourselves about
Set's possible origins.
It is unlikely that Set is of human origin, since a Set-
like being appears in the very earliest mythologies known to
our species. The purest Form is the Set of the Egyptians, of
course, the red terror of the desert who murdered death and
mocked the static gods who tried to calcify civilisation. He is
the Serpent in Genesis who Gifted Man with consciousness
and Self-will; He is the Satan who whispered in Job's ear,
trying to persuade him to deny the unbelievably callous
Yahweh who inflicted such suffering upon his poor, demented
servant for sport. In all of the oldest tales of humanity, the
Lord of Darkness is already present.
It would seem evident, therefore, that Set predates our
species since He appears fully formed in our earliest records.
It would seem that Set must be an alien intelligence who
attained the power of individuation – Xeper, or Coming Into
Being – in some distant time and place.
Even if we postulate a blind, mechanical cosmos,
where life forms and evolves by a purely natural process, the
spark of Self-awareness only needed to be ignited once, by
accident. If such an awakened being managed to sustain the
flame of Self through force of Will, it could rip itself free
from the laws binding the cosmos, asserting the laws of its
own Being. This may have happened only once, or perhaps
many millions of times, consciousness flaring up and then
flickering out. But at some point one managed to assert His
Will and Utter the Law of Xeper, creating a new pattern for
His own Becoming and Remanifestation. This Being was Set,
accomplishing that which we seek to accomplish.
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book. Once your mind has been touched by the living mind
of the Prince of Darkness, the matter will be settled for you.
The above obviously applies to those other faces
worn by the Prince of Darkness in other cultures, such as
Satan, Odin / Loki (see the runic writings of Edred Thorsson
for the relationship between these two), Tezcatlipoca and so
on. But we maintain that Set is the purest and loftiest
conception of the God.
Babalon – the Scarlet Woman – has long been linked
with the Lord of Darkness. Where He is the God of
Consciousness, She is the Goddess of Desire. Where He is
the First Form of Isolate Intelligence, She is the First Form of
Passion. She is associated with Set and thus She partakes of
consciousness through that association. But an Initiate's
interactions with Her will be of a more emotional nature.
Whether She is Self-Created, a being originally envisioned by
humanity, or a necessary extension projected from Set's own
Being to reflect His own purposes, there is no doubt that She
exists as a unique entity and is a conscious, Self-aware Deity.
Apep is a different matter altogether. Apep predates
Set. Apep predates the Universe itself. Apep is the coiling
Chaos from which manifestation unfolds. It has no
consciousness of Its own, but echoes and may partake of the
consciousness of all that is spawned from It. Thus, It is a
fractured and contradictory consciousness. To use the
symbolism of Enochian magic, Apep is the Abyss and
whatever momentary and fragmentary consciousness it may
manifest is Choronzon, the Guardian of the Abyss. Apep is
all-potential, a vortex of all possibilities, including those that
never come to be. It is the Void and the only thing which may
see in the Void is the Eye of the Serpent – that still centre
which perceives everything that has been, will be, may be and
may not have been. The only being who could withstand the
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hypnotic gaze of Apep and stare into the Void, seeing through
the Serpent's Eye, was Set. Thus, we must Become as Set is,
exalting our consciousness to such a dignity that we too may
choose what Comes Into Being on a scale beyond the merely
personal. This is the very essence of Draconian magic.
The consciousness of your Daemon is a more
complex thing, linked to your own, but certainly distinct from
your own present mind. This entity and its origins has
already been thoroughly discussed in the last chapter,
however.
Where does this leave other gods? Some of them, of
course, are aspects or different cultural interpretations of the
main Left-Hand Path trinity. Thus we have Set, Satan, Odin,
Prometheus, Tezcatlipoca; or Babalon, Badb, Ishtar, Freya; or
Apep, Leviathan, the Serpent of Eden, Fafnir. But there are
many others. Human beings have required deities to represent
a whole host of phenomena to their inner selves. Are these
beings purely symbolic? Are such symbols powerless to act?
The answer to the second question should be easy for anyone
who has mastered the second head. It will be understood that
any symbol may wield power if a person with a strong Will
and imagination invests it with such. So a fervent invocation
of any deity – including one made up on the spot – may be
effective in the hands of a skilled magician. So a deity's
effectiveness in producing rain or smiting the unrighteous
(always a favourite with spiteful, demented yokels like the
Judeo-Christian god) is no measure of the deity's own
essence; it may simply be the worshippers doing it.
Let's reflect back on Set's statement in the Book of
Coming Forth by Night that all other gods are made by men.
Note that He does not say that they do not exist; only that
they were made by men. As explained in the paragraph
above, such a god may still wield effective power, dependent
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There are two masks that the magician may wear in his
interactions with the world. It is to be expected that each
individual Initiate may wear each mask at different times and
in different circumstances. One of these masks is invisible;
when wearing it, the Initiate keeps his head down, ignores
what is happening in society and pursues his own Work,
keeping himself to himself. The other mask is that of the
trusted adviser, the power behind the throne, who whispers
the words of power in the ears of the great and mighty and
influences large-scale events in the world. The option to
become a tyrant oneself seems doomed to failure, since the
other two masks immediately become unavailable for further
use and Initiation inevitably stalls.
There is a balance to be had here, of course. Like all
true magical skills, the matter is polarised and the Initiate
must tread two paths at the same time. If time is not spent
developing our magical abilities and understanding in private,
we will be ineffectual in public. If time is not spent keeping
an eye on the patterns in the world around you and in
insinuating yourself into the positions where you can
influence those patterns, then you will be ineffectual.
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must wear both. By the time we are working with the fifth
head, the power is ours to wield. Learn to do so.
Shedding Skins II
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CHAPTER EIGHT
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Far-Seeing
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The Doppelgänger
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Dimensional Doorways
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Invisibility
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A Rite of Rejuvenation
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Rewriting History
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“To hold the book of your Being in your own hands, to flick
back and forth through the pages as you will, to edit and
amend.
“Close the book. Now what remains, when the very
idea of Space-Time can be set aside as casually as you lay a
book on a coffee table?”
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Freezing Time
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Past Lives
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insight to make his own mind up – the fact remains that past
life memories do arise and that they can be relatively easily
accessed. The Initiate alone can determine which of the
following three categories these memories belong to: (1) pure
fantasy or wish fulfilment; (2) genuine memories extracted
from the Underworld which may once have belonged to any
number of people, but not necessarily the person who is now
accessing them; (3) genuine previous incarnations of the
Initiate's own Self. I feel that the first category should
(hopefully) be easy for any Initiate who has reached this stage
to recognise and dismiss and that the second category
accounts for the majority of 'genuine' memories, i.e. they are
not necessarily personal. But if we do indeed Remanifest in
the flesh, there must be some relating to category 3. The
following technique can be used to attempt to access them.
This method was set down by Aleister Crowley for
his students and can be found in his published writings, such
as Gems From the Equinox, under the title 'Liber ThIShARB'.
Basically, the Initiate strives to remember the events of the
day backwards. Not just occurring in reversed order, but
literally running in reverse like a film being played backwards
in a projector. Once this can be done easily, the time is
stretched back to a week, a month, a year, finally to birth, and
ultimately beyond. The Initiate tries to remember back far
enough to recall the death of his previous body, then
recapture the events of that life.
I have had success with this technique and have my
own opinions concerning the information I have recovered.
Trading Futures
All of our consideration so far has been given to the past. But
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our minds back again and ensure that our progress is not
being hampered by bad habits and accrued detritus.
What skin might the fifth head, the Raging Lion, be
throttling us with? What new prison may we have
constructed for ourselves that we now need to break free of?
We need to test the integrity of our passions. Desire
is the basic driving force of the Draconian magician and we
need to keep it pure. Which of your passions have turned
stale, but you are clinging onto them out of sheer habit or
because they are comfortable? A passion, by definition, is
never comfortable. If old attachments claw at you and hold
you back, shake them off. If you find yourself wearied by
things that once inspired you and are ever seeking to inject
some new sport into them, perverting the original Desire, be
done with it. Cast them loose and seek for something
altogether new.
Also, be careful that your tired eyes do not dismiss or
fail to recognise a searing new passion. Strive to be awake,
lively and lusty at all times.
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CHAPTER NINE
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will fall flat on your face when you reach the seventh head.
You may well think you Understand the metaphor of
annihilating the Universe and believe it to be obvious. Yes,
by this stage it should be. And if you have realised it and
have not paused to consider the next step, then you are in
grave danger of triggering the trap I have spoken of. I am
willing to discuss this trap and to speak of it to aspirants of
the seventh head who have worked out for themselves how to
destroy the Universe and “behold only Leviathan”. Contact
me in such a case.
In the meantime, if you want a further clue, go back
and reread the Apep Workings. The clues are all there in
plain text. Indeed, the clues are plainly stated throughout this
entire book. They're everywhere you look and present in
every thought that passes through your consciousness.
These thoughts – whether they are recognised for
what they are or not – are the Fatal Wind, the wind that brings
inevitable change, that topples the towers of the pious and
holy and impales the human race on the horns of its
existential dilemma. With the rising of this head, you are
become the Angel – the Divine messenger – who breathes
forth that Wind and uses it to fan the Black Flame of
consciousness.
It is said of the Red Magus that he shall “behold only
Leviathan”, that Leviathan is the Absolute and that when he
perceives it, his End has been attained. This is another riddle
easily solved by words, but best solved by experience.
We close with a radiant Initiate, an ascendant God,
who is that seven-headed Dragon, the fourth head blazing in
His midst, the other heads all upraised around it. May you
Become such.
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*******
*******
*******
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FURTHER READING
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Sex Magic
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Aleister Crowley
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Kenneth Grant
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ÆGISHJALMUR
by Michael Kelly
A Publication of the Order of Apep
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Copyright 2011 by the author of this book Michael Kelly. The book
author retains sole copyright to his contributions to this book.
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CONTENTS
Introduction..........................................................................309
Dragon Runes.......................................................................325
Further Reading...................................................................547
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INTRODUCTION
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Michael Kelly
- The Dragon Fafnir - December 2010
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CHAPTER ONE
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than others.
The union of Draconian Magic and Northern lore is a
profound and enriching one, a perfect magical marriage.
Dragons are a major feature of the myths of Northern Europe
and there are three particular wyrms featured in the Eddas and
sagas which will feature heavily in our Work, each
manifesting a separate aspect of the primordial serpent.
This brings us to a point where we need to define the
patrons of the curriculum that lies before us. In Apophis, the
three Deities pertinent to Draconian Magic were defined as:
the Lord of Darkness, the Scarlet Woman and the Ancient
Dragon. We must now take some time to examine these
Deities as They manifest to us in the Northern tradition. If
you, like me, have the blood of Northern ancestors flowing in
your veins, you will find that this will become a marvelous
revelation, a sense of coming home. It should not be mistaken
as choosing a tradition, any tradition, and making its Gods fit.
If these Gods are in your blood and you use the Work of this
book to call upon Them, believe me, you will know about it!
Odin
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Freyja
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found among the Æsir, yet She was not one of the hostages
exchanged at the conclusion of hostilities. The catalytic
action of Gullveig in initiating the conflict, and Her ability to
Remanifest in ever more powerful form, are also
characteristics of the Other, as the Initiate will discover when
his own Other begins to manifest Her influence in his own
life.
A word should be said about the differences between
the two races of Gods: Æsir and Vanir. The former are Gods
of the vertical axis, the spiritual dimension, linking Midgard
with the worlds above and below. They are associated with
consciousness, culture, life and death. The Vanir, however,
are Gods of the natural order of things, the yearly agricultural
cycle, animal husbandry and so forth, the means of survival
and propagation in the natural world. Following their initial
war, both groups of Deities feature in Northern mythology,
representing life in all of its aspects, natural and supernatural.
Freyja's name is actually a title rather than a personal
name; it means 'Lady', as that of Her twin brother Frey means
'Lord'. These two members of the Vanir are of enormous
importance in old Northern religion and following the war
they abode largely with the Æsir. Freyja in particular features
heavily in the mythology and it will repay us to examine
another of Her mythic tales now.
The Brisingamen was a necklace (or a belt or girdle)
which was of exceptional beauty. It was being forged by four
dwarfs and its virtue was such that it gave its possessor
tremendous power over natural forces and wealth. Freyja
desired this necklace and She obtained it through Her sexual
favours, agreeing to sleep with each dwarf in turn as payment
for the Brisingamen.
The powerful qualities of the Brisingamen were not
lost upon Odin, who desired it for Himself. He persuaded
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A Triplicity of Dragons
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historical.
Fafnir is the guardian of a great treasure of gold and
the bearer of the Ægishjálmur, the Helm of Awe, after which
this book is titled. Sigurd kills Fafnir and wins the gold and
the Helm. He also tastes the dragon's blood and acquires its
wisdom, exemplified by his newfound ability to understand
the speech of birds. The sequence of transformations in this
tale forms the central Initiatory process of this book and is the
focus of chapter six.
The transformative process described in the tale of
Sigurd and Fafnir extends throughout the book, however,
including some of the practical techniques taught, such as the
use of the Helm of Awe as a tool for operative magic. Most
of these allusions and developments will be pointed out, but
the Initiate is well advised to read the source texts several
times in order to draw their atmosphere and mythic pattern
within.
The second great mythic serpent is Jormungandr,
often referred to as the Midgard Serpent. This enormous
beast is a sea serpent, dwelling in the ocean depths.
Jormungandr was originally a monstrous child of Loki and
was cast into the sea by Odin. Once there, it grew to such a
size that it encircled the entirety of Midgard with its body.
The symbolism of Jormungandr echoes that of the
Ouroboros, the serpent forming a ring and taking its own tail
in its mouth. The function of this great sea dragon is to
establish the boundary of the world and to mark its limits. If
Fafnir represents the Dragon Within and the initiatory journey
of the magician, then Jormungandr represents the Dragon
Without and the arena in which that journey takes place. The
two are distinct and yet there is a link between them. This
polarisation between the two dragons will be discussed more
fully later in its proper place.
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CHAPTER TWO
DRAGON RUNES
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2 U uruz U aurochs
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7 G gebo G gift
8 W wunjo W joy
9 H hagalaz H hail
10 N nauthiz N need
11 I isa I ice
12 J jera Y year
13 | eihwaz EI yew
14 P perthro P lot-cup
15 Z elhaz -Z elk
16 S sowilo S sun
17 T tiwaz T Tyr
18 B berkano B birch
19 E ehwaz E horse
20 M mannaz M man
21 L laguz L water
23 D dagaz D day
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24 O othila O property
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Knowing the names and shapes of the runes is one thing, but
it is necessary to Work with them, carving and colouring
them, singing them and shaping them, meditating upon them,
in order to make them your own. These practices all form
part of the curriculum of this book and will be presented in a
logical and workable order.
The information given here will be sufficient for
anyone to use the runes in Draconian Magic. However, those
who desire to create a deep and authentic connection with the
runes are referred to The Nine Doors of Midgard by Edred
Thorsson, published by Runa-Raven Press. Edred's book
details a three year course of study and practice which will
ingrain the runes deeply in your soul. It is a demanding
course, but the rewards are immeasurable. Needless to say, it
will greatly enrich your experience with Ægishjálmur.
The process of making the runes your own will make
you acutely aware that each rune has an existence both within
and without. A rune expresses certain elements inside your
own being, but it also embodies a quality that is found in the
world outside of yourself. Once you have identified the
essence of a rune within you and in the world you will
become conscious that the two are linked; in a sense, they are
one thing. A stream flows between them in both directions
and thus the manipulation of the runes within your own mind
can cause changes to occur in the outside world. In a similar
way, the shifting of the runes in the outside world can cause
new insights and understanding to manifest within your own
being, through practices such as divination.
Ultimately, all runes, both within and without, are but
aspects of a single Rune (the word 'rune' actually means
'mystery'). This is Rûna itself (or Herself, since Rûna is often
referred to as a Lady), the Mystery that lies behind all
mysteries, that which is always sought after but never quite
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found, the promise that lies just over the horizon. A lot more
will be written about Rûna in this book and the subject will be
discussed at length in the appropriate place. Rûna is the
entire motivation for magic.
Dragon Runes
F Fehu
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cursed hoard. The rune refers to both the dragon's fire and the
gold it guards. This is explicit in the words of the Old
Icelandic Rune Poem:
U Uruz
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{ Thurisaz
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A Ansuz
R Raidho
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K Kenaz
G Gebo
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W Wunjo
H Hagalaz
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N Naudhiz
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I Isa
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J Jera
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| Eihwaz
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P Perthro
Z Elhaz
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S Sowilo
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T Tiwaz
This is the rune of the axis of the worlds, around which all
revolves. It is the serpent who coils around the pole in the
night sky.
For the Draconian Initiate, this axis is his own
innermost Self, the only true and abiding constant in his life.
Upon the aesthetic and ethical standards of this Self, he must
establish the laws of the world in which he chooses to reside.
It will be observed that the pole itself neither moves
nor transforms: only the appearances that spin into
manifestation around it.
The worlds derive their meaning and their ordering
from the pole: the pole finds its sense of identity reflected
back to it from the worlds.
B Berkano
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E Ehwaz
M Mannaz
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This rune may be viewed as two uruz runes facing each other
and overlapping. This creates a central gebo rune in an
elevated position. The interpretation of this is a definition of
Man as a creature in whom the Gift of consciousness has
assumed dominance over the bestial nature.
This illuminated, Self-aware Man is the one who is fit
to command the Beast, to tame / slay / steer the Dragon. This
Man is a hero of Sigurd proportions, properly fitted to face
and overthrow Fafnir, assuming the Dragon's powers and
riches.
As illustrated in the shape of the rune, this Man is the
strength and vitality of a Beast merged with the consciousness
and Will of a God.
L Laguz
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0 Ingwaz
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D Dagaz
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new direction.
O Othila
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upwards hard and deep into the soft underbelly, cutting deep
into the Beast, burying the sword to its hilt.
A great tumult breaks out, the Dragon shrieking and
hissing, spraying a poisonous spume in its agony. It recoils
back over the top of the cliff and throws itself to the ground,
thrashing and coiling. You cling desperately to the ledge as
the earth bucks and shakes beneath its death throes.
Finally all is still and the hoarse, venomous breaths
have silenced. You climb slowly back onto the upper ground
and survey the huge, still body of the Dragon in its ruin.
Overcome with the adrenaline and emotion of this experience,
return to your physical environment and think over what has
transpired.
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roasting it. As the mighty organ cooks, you reflect that this is
that which pumped life and power through the Dragon's
being.
You reach out to see if the heart is cooked yet, but
burn your thumb upon it. You snatch your hand back and
suck your thumb to soothe the pain of the burn. But it
spreads, searing your body and your mind in waves of
blistering heat, the venomous blood of the Serpent, energised
by the fire, coursing now through your own veins,
transforming every cell in your body, every thought in your
mind.
Finally, the pain passes and you fall in a swoon,
allowing your mind to blank for several moments.
When you recover, you feel stronger and more whole
and alive than you have ever done before. You have
assimilated and embodied the qualities and Essence of the
Beast you have overthrown. Part of you now is the Dragon.
Return to your normal mode of consciousness and
your normal place to reflect upon this fact.
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There are three treasures that you carry forth from the
cave, representing the Dragon's hoard. The first of these is
gold, which brings strife as well as wealth; the second is a
sword, which offers invulnerability to the courageous; the
third is a magic cloak, which brings invisibility, strength and
the power of deception. Think upon these treasures and how
you may harness and use them. They will be discussed more
fully in the chapters that follow, but you should make them
your own first.
A further thing that settles invisibly upon you is the
burden of the Work. You have set foot upon the Draconian
Path which brings riches of body and soul, but this is a
Cursed treasure and it comes with a price. You must keep
ever pushing forward, following your Vision. It was lying
still and failing to progress that led to the Dragon's fate. The
Dragon now in you must not fall by the same mistake.
You return to the area outside the cave, where you are hailed
by two ravens sitting on the branch of one of the dead trees.
You can understand the birds' language, one of the powers
you have gained through tasting the Dragon's blood.
They tell you that you have also inherited the Helm of
Awe, the pall of horror and mesmerising power that radiates
from the Dragon's gaze. Operative keys for using the Helm
will be given later, but for now consider its implications for
yourself.
Listen now to what the ravens have to tell you. They
will have a private message for you. Wait and meditate until
you are sure you have grasped it.
The ravens also warn you of the treachery of your
own nature. Your own mental conditioning will rob you of
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all that you have realised in this place if you do not master it
and overthrow it, establishing a new ordering in your soul of
your own devising. This is symbolised in the mythology by
Reginn.
Go on your way, but be wary and do not forget.
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CHAPTER THREE
ESTABLISHING SOVEREIGNTY
IN MIDGARD
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Stadhagaldr
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Both arms are raised at an angle in front of the body, the left
arm higher than the right.
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Q{
Stand upright, the fingers of the left hand touching the left
hip, the elbow jutting sideways.
The fingers of the left hand rest upon the left hip, the elbow
sideways. The left leg is raised sideways from the body.
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The arms and legs are extended from the body to form the 'X'
shape of the rune.
The left hand touches the top of the head, the elbow jutting
sideways from the body.
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The body forms the shape of the rune as the right arm is
raised sideways at 45o and the left arm is lowered in like
manner.
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The right arm is angled forward and bent back at the elbow
to touch the top of the head. The left arm is angled back and
bent forward at the elbow to touch the hip.
The arms are stretched forward at 45o from the body and the
right leg is bent back to form the lower hook of the rune.
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This is a seated position. The legs are together and the knees
drawn up. The arms are bent forward, the elbows resting on
the knees to form the shape of the rune.
The arms are raised at a 45o angle on each side of the body,
the head forming the third, central arm of the rune.
The arms are held straight at the sides. The knees are bent
and the body inclines forward at the waist, forming the rune's
lightning flash shape.
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The right arm and leg are kept straight. The left arm is
extended to the left, the hand resting on the hip. The left leg
is likewise extended sideways, the knee bent, with the heel
touching the right ankle.
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Both arms are raised straight up, then bent at the elbows so
that the forearms cross over the face, each touching its
opposite armpit.
The elbows are pointed sideways and the hands turned back
across the body to touch before the abdomen.
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The arms are crossed across the breast, the fingers of each
hand touching the opposite shoulder.
The arms are raised above the head, elbows bent and
fingertips touching. The legs are splayed.
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Breath Work
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Nine Worlds
The Work of this first chapter is concerned with the body and
the world in which it finds itself. The mortal world of
physical manifestation is called Midgard in Northern lore, but
it is only one – albeit the central one, into which the others
pour their influence – in a system of nine worlds spanning
multiple dimensions. These worlds are collectively arranged
in a structure like a cosmic tree, named Yggdrasil. Although
we are currently focused upon Midgard, it is important to
understand its place in the larger framework. Accustomising
yourself to the ideas of all nine worlds now will prove helpful
in later chapters, when consciousness can be projected further
afield to explore the world-tree.
An ilustration of the worlds on the Yggdrasil
framework is on the following page. This has been scanned
from a full colour painting by the author. Sadly, the colours
are not reproducible here, but every Initiate will benefit
greatly in understanding the worlds if they study the
attributions and paint their own Yggdrasil.
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Asgard
This is the enclosure of the Gods, where Odin has his great
hall, Valhalla. In terms of the psyche, Asgard is the abode of
the pure spark of consciousness, the bright flame of Self.
Ljossalfheim
This is the realm of the bright elves, masters of lore and
wisdom. It is a place of ecstatic inspiration. Some ancestral
secrets may be discovered from the dwellers here.
Midgard
This is the world of earthly manifestation, into which the
influences from the other eight worlds pour. It is thus the
realm of potential, a melting plot where Will and passion may
lead to Becoming.
Svartalfheim
The realm of the dark elves, or dwarfs. A land which fosters
cunning and intricate craftsmanship and invention.
Frequently linked with subterranean places.
Hel
The realm of the dead, ruled over by the Goddess of the same
name, daughter of Loki. A place of cold mists and gloom,
shadows and memories.
Vanaheim
The land of the Vanir, the race of Gods responsible for the
cycles of nature. As such, it is a green and fertile land, the
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Jotunheim
This is the land of the giants, the etins. In the Norse myths,
these beings – descendents of Ymir – are often portrayed as
enemies of the Æsir, and of Thor in particular. Yet Odin will
occasionally seek knowledge and wisdom from one of their
kind. These are monolithic forces of resistance, the opposite
of consciousness and Initiation, yet because of their great age
they may harbour some forgotten wisdom or insight that
needs to be won from them by guile.
Niflheim
This world is one of the two great poles of Northern creation
myth. This is a place of ice and contraction. The further one
progresses into Niflheim, the more cold, compacted and
massive it becomes. The heart of Niflheim is at Absolute
Zero, possessing zero energy, a solid mass in which all
vibration has ceased.
Muspellsheim
This is the polar opposite to Niflheim. It is a world of heat
and fire, an expansive force of furiously vibrating energy and
escalating heat. A cosmic furnace, ever rushing outwards.
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Now that the student has familiarised himself with the runes,
both on an intellectual level and by manifesting them in his
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Combat Readiness
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Alcohol as a Sacrament
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Sex as a Sacrament
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certainly not the only means. The act of sex is not essential to
this current plan of Work, I personally prefer a more cold-
blooded and spartan method of working, although Desire is
certainly an absolute necessity.
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A Vigil
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CHAPTER FOUR
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seen. The names of these ravens are derived from parts of the
Norse model of the soul, which we will be examining more
fully in the next section of this chapter. Huginn is related to
the hugh and Muninn to the myne.
The hugh is the intellect, the reasoning faculty within
the soul, and myne is the memory and the pattern-making,
imaginative part of the mind. They basically represent left-
brain and right-brain consciousness respectively. So in effect,
Odin sends forth His own consciousness in the form of
ravens, to gather news and insights and report back to Him.
The intention of this chapter is to train our own two
ravens (hemispheres of the brain) to be equally useful and to
work equally well together. This phase of the Work is all
about the balancing and focusing of consciousness, so that it
can be used as a ladder to higher states later on.
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The Wode-Self:
The Wode-Self is a state of consciousness aspired to by the
Initiate of the Northern Mysteries. It occurs when the wode,
hugh and myne are aligned in perfect balance within an
individual and the entire intelligence is illuminated by the
influx of Divine consciousness. This state of being will be
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Thought Control
Concentration Exercises
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employs it.
Through long practice (which began with the
stadhagaldr exercises in the previous chapter), the Initiate
establishes a familiarity with the runes and learns to recognise
and direct their influence. This process of invoking and
'steering' the runes toward a Willed end involves the
combination of four qualities. Galdor is a technical skill,
which relies for efficacy upon the correct combination of
these factors by the operator:
Shape:
The Initiate must carefully formulate and focus upon the
shape of every rune used in his casting. This may be done by
assuming the runic posture given in the last chapter; by
drawing the rune boldly on paper; by carving the rune on
wood in the form of a taufr (a talisman); by strongly
visualising the rune; or by any combination of these.
Sound:
The word 'galdor' means something akin to 'whispering' or
'croaking' and sound is key to the runic Mysteries. Every rune
used must be clearly uttered, its key sound seemingly rolling
from the Initiate's vocal chords out to the far corners of the
cosmos. The rune songs discussed shortly provide the fullest
method of summoning the runic stream through incantation.
Number:
Each rune has its number, from 1 (fehu) to 24 (othila). When
runes are used in combination, their numbers are added
together to give an overall number for the formula of the
spell. The number of actual runestaves employed in a given
formula is also significant. Runic number lore is too huge
and complex a field to be adequately explained in this present
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Will:
The final element in the practice of galdor is the Will of the
magician, which binds these factors together, energising them
and sending them on their way. What is Will? I am not
talking about simply thinking hard about your goal in the
vague hope that it will happen. Will is a combination of three
elements: Vision (seeing the need and the opportunity for
change); Passion (having a genuine Desire for the stated
result that is ardent enough to fuel the magic); Precision
(possessing the lore and knowledge of the runes necessary to
communicate that Desire to the magical realms).
Runic Visualisation
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Runic Meditation
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Rune Singing
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There are three specific ways in which you may use the skills
you have learned so far in order to practice magic for
objective results. Indeed, at this stage in the curriculum it is
imperative that you should do so and should not be satisfied
until you can be confident in your abilities to produce some
actual, observable change in the world due to your magic.
The first stage in all three cases is to select which
runes to employ in your spell. This should not be difficult
since you have spent a good period meditating upon the runes
and their meanings by this point in time. So, for example, if
you were to cast a spell for money, fehu would certainly be
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Bind Runes
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Fafnir's Galdrabók
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- Havamal, 146
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"Thrice spoken:
chains are broken" (X3)
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oratory skill to talk one's way out of trouble. The helm itself
supplies the sense of awe to cow those who would detain you.
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?
Comment: Not telling.
Dream Recall
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Remembering
The Initiate should also use this phase of his Work to begin
training his memory. The names, order and values of the
runestaves ahould all be committed to memory. Then learn
the rune poems or sections of the Eddas by heart. This is
another thing which improves dramatically with practice:
once you train your subconscious to realise that you desire
this level of recall, it will begin to make the process easier for
you. But regular practice and striving is the only way to make
this happen.
Other, related practices of great use are learning other
languages. Any Germanic language, ancient or modern, is of
value to the runic magician. This discipline will not only be
of practical use, it will also develop the mental qualities
necessary to this phase of the Work.
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CHAPTER FIVE
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Magical Trance
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Becoming a Seer
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your still half-formed plans for this year's holiday, the raidho
that drives you to work in the morning, and the raidho that
takes a space shuttle into orbit. All are manifestations of the
same rune. All are connected.
Once you truly awaken to this fact, you will become
aware of just how interconnected the whole of reality is. The
term 'web of wyrd' will never have seemed so appropriate.
This continuity of the runic streams, this underlying pattern
behind each manifestation of Mystery, is the reason magic
works.
You will become aware that there exists one place
and one place only where the runes within and the runes
without can meet. There is only one gate through which they
can possibly pass, a single locus which must – to you – be the
axis upon which the whole cosmos turns. This gate is your
own centre of consciousness.
Once this is realised, you will be able to open that
gate and take the patterns of the runes without into your own
consciousness, to tell their tale there and inform you of what
is happening in the world and why. They may whisper
directly in your ear (seith) or reflect themselves in your own
staves as they fall from your fingers upon the casting cloth
(galdor). But speak they will. Then you may send your own
runes through that same gate, riding and guiding the patterns
in the world outside, steering them to suit your desires.
That 'magical link' so often pondered by magicians –
that which connects the inner and outer worlds and allows
each to influence the other – can only be your own
consciousness, for this is the only thing in your Universe
which touches both realities and through which each can pass.
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Rune-Casting
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your own inspired intuition. Let the runes speak to your deep
mind, do not simply recite accepted meanings by rote.
The information provided is sufficient for a good
student to use the runes for divinatory purposes. Much more
detail on this subject, with examples and additional layout
methods and ritual guidelines can be found in Edred
Thorsson's book At the Well of Wyrd, which is the last word
on the subject.
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Now that you are training your mind to perceive the rune
streams in the world around you, it is time to reach out with
your consciousness to explore the worlds beyond this one.
Midgard is the centre of all the worlds, the realm of
manifestation, but it is important to grow to understand where
these runic streams are ultimately flowing from. Note that the
previous sentence should be interpreted very carefully; your
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but the legs of the imagination may ride throughout the other
eight worlds.
How does one set about exploring the World Tree? First of
all, remember that you are established in Midgard, the central
world, into which the influences of all the others flow and
become manifest. So don't make the mistake of assuming that
you start at the bottom and work up, or at the top and work
down. Your journeys will begin in Midgard, the centre, and
wend outwards, up and down from that point.
If you refer back to the diagram of Yggdrasil in
chapter three, you will note that pathways run between the
various worlds, connecting them all. A journey will consist
of establishing your consciousness in Midgard, then sending
it forth along these paths, making note of all that you see and
experience along the way, finally arriving in one of the other
worlds described in the third chapter.
You will notice that there are twenty four of these
paths and it makes sense to assume that this number is
significant, with each path relating to one of the runes. I am
not going to spell out for you which is which or suggest an
authorised interpretation, I will simply suggest that if you
begin in Midgard and chart your path out, up and down from
there, you will find a pattern of meaning that appeals to you.
Let each path speak to you and inform you of its own merits.
Ultimately, if you have put the groundwork in and are
confident of your rune lore, you cannot be wrong, since every
path contains every rune to some degree, just as all runes are
but aspects of the one Rune.
Each journey should have a specific destination. For
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Ginnungagap I:
The Creation Myth as a Model of Magic
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The Initiate who has got this far without skimping on the
exercises and who has taken time to study the mythology and
lore, will begin to notice a few peculiar changes in himself at
about this time.
As well as his ordinary, everyday personality, he will
begin to detect a new focus within his consciousness, almost
an 'other self' which takes the reins at times of peak
experience, and most particularly when engaged in acts of
magic. A secondary consciousness, encapsulating those parts
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they touch. This is true magical power and the triumph of the
magical approach of galdor.
You should be accustomed to using inspired prophecy
as part of your divinatory toolbox by this stage. The next
time you use it, try to capture your impressions in words and
weave them as skillfully and as powerfully as the words are
used in the Eddas. Become a prophet in truth.
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CHAPTER SIX
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The question now facing the Initiate is: how precisely does
one use one's Will in such a way as to loosen and rebind the
valknutr? How do we actually change reality? In what way is
the magic effected?
The process whereby the Will is focused in order to
carry out this task is known as 'the opening of the Eye in the
Void' and it is a task of the Dragon within, the state of
Draconian consciousness symbolised by Fafnir.
Let's examine the precise mental processes that entail
opening the Eye in the Void, laying bare the manner in which
the Draconian Initiate works his magic. Following this, I will
list some of the ways in which these processes may be
enhanced to suit the individual practitioner.
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These are the basic steps involved in the process known in the
Order of Apep as 'Opening the Eye in the Void', which is the
fundamental means of Draconian Magic. There are several
ways in which an Initiate can enhance this bare process, both
for aesthetic purposes and also to better clarify and express
his Will. Some of these means are suggested below:
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A magic cloak
The final treasure, according to The Nibelungenlied, was a
magic cloak known as the Tamkappe. This cloak was used by
Sigurd to win Brynhild as wife for Gunter by deception. It
had the power to deceive, to render the wearer invisible and to
boost his strength. It is clear that this 'cloak' is the same
sorcerous tool known as the Ægishjálmur – the Helm of Awe
– in the Old Norse sources. The magical powers and
adaptations of the Helm have already been extensively
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discussed.
Volsungadrekka – A Working
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Runa
Mention has already been made that the twenty four runes of
the futhark row are themselves but aspects of the Ultimate
Rune – Runa – which is Mystery itself. I would be
disappointed if everybody following this curriculum had not
had at least an intuitive glimpse of this truth by this point.
But it is now time that we started to look at Runa a bit more
closely and to examine the implications of the concept.
Runa is the Word of the Magus Stephen Edred
Flowers and it is upon this Word that Edred founded the
Rune-Gild. The Formula associated with the Word – and the
sole task of all Gild Initiates when it all boils down – is Reyn
til Runa!, which means 'Seek After the Mysteries!'
To place the preceding paragraph in context, a Magus
is one who Utters a sacred Word, the meaning and implication
of which revolutionises the current of magical thinking and
the world itself. The Formula is an expression of the Word in
action.
Runa – Mystery – is the Key to all of our Work. It is
the thing that makes us get out of bed in the morning. It is the
whole aspiration of and motivation for magic, indeed for life
itself. It is Runa that stirs you to find out what lies over the
next hill. It is Runa that teaches you the distinction between
your Self and the world outside of your Self. It is Runa that
engenders Desire, not only for the things you see and want,
but for the things you can only imagine. It is Runa that
makes the extraordinary happen in the midst of the mundane.
Some of the things in the above list prefigure the
Work of the next chapter, but it is as well that they start to
gestate within your mind now. This too is a function of
Runa. Also, bear in mind that Runa is often deemed to be a
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Two parts of the soul complex really begin to come into their
ascendancy at this stage of the Work and you should sense
each of them as they begin to stir within your mind and
rearrange its contents to gravitate around their own mighty
presence. The first of these aspects of Self, which should be
stirred into wakefulness by the preceding rite, is the Wode-
Self. This is that higher, more essential Self to which the
lower self or ego is sacrificed.
Let's briefly recap what was written about the Wode
when discussing the parts of the soul earlier: “Wode is a
condition of accelerated, intensified consciousness, a Divine
inspiration, a kind of ecstasy or even rage in which the
contents of the mind are illuminated by magical perception
and insight.”
In other words, you can expect to experience a
heightened state of consciousness, one inspired by the touch
of Divinity itself, inspired and ecstatic. This consciousness is
not something outside of yourself, it is your Self. It is that
part of you most capable of peering between the worlds and
seeking the Mysteries. It is a part of you which is
qualitatively different from your normal, everyday awareness
and which can be rapidly sealed away behind mental barriers
again by the drudge of your daily routine. It is not something
new, it is something which has always been there, but beyond
the threshold of your ordinary ways of thinking, occasionally
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The Fetch
The fetch, or fylgja, is another aspect of the soul that you will
probably begin to first become consciously aware of at about
this time. This is a tutelary spirit which will set you specific
initiatory challenges. We will examine the nature of those
challenges and the nature of the fetch itself in the next
chapter, but it is likely that you will intuit the first inklings of
this entity prior to that and you should begin to keep an eye
open for them now and record meticulously any strange
things that may happen.
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because the future has not yet happened. Edred Thorsson has
pointed out in his writings that unlike most other languages,
the Germanic group of languages (of which English is one) do
not have a proper future tense. It is possible to reference the
past, by saying “I drank the beer”. It is possible to reference
the present, by saying “I drink the beer”. But we cannot
directly reference the future. Instead, we have to add another
verb to fudge the issue, saying “I will drink the beer”. But
this statement does not inform us that some future event is
going to happen. It is but a statement of intent. We can
rephrase it as “It is my intention to drink the beer”. We
cannot use the English language to reference the future
directly, as we can the past or the present. This is strongly
indicative of how our ancestors thought of such things, and
the language we use affects our own thinking and concepts
now.
If this is the case, if our forefathers saw the future as
an unwritten page, what is Wyrd? How could the
prophetesses and practitioners of seith foretell the future?
What was the point of casting the runestaves for purposes of
divination?
Wyrd is not an account of what will be; it is a
complete picture and understanding of all the intricate cross
connections in the past that have led us to the present
moment, all of the causes and all of the effects, together with
all of the synchronicities and resonances that have rippled
sideways in mysterious ways. By analysing these patterns of
events, it is possible to determine the manner in which the
pattern is likely to continue to unfold, and thus to determine
the likely direction of future events. But these events have
not happened yet; they are merely most likely to happen given
the prevailing patterns of manifestation. The magician
understands that behavioural patterns in human activity tend
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idea that all possible futures exist and that we steer our course
through these possibilities, selecting which time stream to
actualise on this plane of reality. This latter model is
delightfully paradoxical, allowing for both complete
predestination and total free will both at the same time, within
a single model. There is something about this which is
magnificently Odian. Again, we shall be returning to such
considerations in chapter eight.
So what does all of this mean when we consider
Destiny? It means that the notion that our fates and the fate
of the world are set in stone is erroneous, but it allows that
our paths into the Is-To-Be may be predictable to a greater or
lesser degree. It also means that the patterns established by
past events and modes of behaviour acquire a kind of gravity,
wearing grooves of least resistance into probability, steering
cause and effect along certain lines (orlog). That which has
happened once is most likely to happen again. That which
has happened several times will most definitely happen again.
If time is a stream, it rarely flows up mountains, it tends to
follow a well-worn course.
But it will have occurred to you over the course of
your Work so far that much of magic is concerned with the
threefold process of: (a) identifying the aspects of our Self;
(b) pruning those patterns of behaviour which are not
conducive to our Will; (c) creating and establishing new
patterns of behaviour which will lead to the fulfilment of
Desire.
This raises the intriguing notion that an Initiate
creates his own behavioural patterns and takes absolute
responsibility for his own deeds. We therefore produce our
own orlog, which resonates with our magical Will and
Vision. Thus, as we progress along our Path, our every action
– indeed, our every intent – builds up a magical momentum, a
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A Creature of Midgard
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CHAPTER SEVEN
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Goethe – Faust
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made.
Rediscovering Sorcery
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So the hero (the conscious Will) slays the Dragon (the bestial
nature) because of Desire for the maiden (the fetch), through
which relationship he becomes ruler of the land (the
integrated psyche, with all its powers awakened).
We have already mentioned the Faust legend in
relation to Desire as the Immortality Engine, and this pattern
is played out there, as Faust defies the Devil for the sake of
Margaret and wins redemption (this thematic emphasis is
superbly realised in F.W. Murnau's movie Faust).
But we can most profitably trace these Dragon-
slaying mythological themes in the tale of Sigurd, who is the
heroic exemplar of the Ægishjálmur curriculum. Sigurd
himself is the hero, of course, and he is of noble blood, the
surviving heir of the Volsung line. He overthrows Fafnir and
gains the powers of the Dragon. This victory grants him the
power and the courage to penetrate the wall of fire which
surrounds the Valkyrie Brynhild and awaken her from her
sorcerous sleep. Brynhild represents the Divine messenger,
Sigurd's link with the Gods. Upon that hill they pledge
themselves to each other.
This is the theme of the Work of Ægishjálmur: that
the conscious Self overcomes the Beast within and integrates
with it. This balanced, whole Self may then reach out and
touch Divinity. This is the Work that every Initiate must do
who has persevered through to the present chapter and it is a
Work which will be primarily approached through the fetch.
With the assistance of this transpersonal essence which
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impinges upon your own soul, you must reach out to discover
the principles and the aspirations which truly drive you on
when all else has been left behind. You must discover,
identify and follow after the Beauty that you Desire, which
will make you truly immortal.
In the saga, of course, things ultimately ended
tragically for Sigurd and Brynhild. They are brought low by
greed and treachery, the cursed, averse aspect of fehu. But
this need not and should not be the case for you. Remember
that the Dragon's treasures must be allowed to flow freely.
They are not to be seized or jealously hoarded. The further
you progress in your Initiation, the more expansive you
should become. Remember this and you should do well.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
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chapter.
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The Norns
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runes for you. If you can't achieve it yet, you need to go back
to the beginning and work through the previous chapters until
you can as you are not yet ready for this Work. Secondly, this
current material is still in the experimental stage for me, so I
do not wish to mislead anybody by presenting what I feel to
be a partly speculative and not fully proven design of my own
making.
Having designed your bind-rune and correctly
fashioned and charged it by carving, colouring, singing, etc.,
it is time to decide which time period you wish to visit. You
may decide to look at a period in general, or you may wish to
home in on a particular historical event. I say 'historical',
because it is best if you explore the past to begin with and
leave the future well alone. We have already established that
the future is a nebulous and indeterminate concept in
Northern belief. You will certainly want to extend your
perception in that direction when you have some practice
under your belt, but you will need considerable skill to
navigate its multi-layered mirage of maybes. So begin with
the past until you have amassed some considerable skill and a
proven, reliable track record.
It is helpful if you can gather some items, pictures or
music relating to the time or event you wish to see and use
these to set the mood. Open a ritual and explain your wish
clearly. Spend some moments in intense concentration upon
your goal. Then relax your mind, stare at the bind-rune and
think only of travelling. Let the rune's lines draw you in and
send you on your way. After you have mentally seen and
heard what you need to know from the past (remembering that
to invite more than is freely given leads only to error and self-
deceit), refocus your consciousness in the here and now and
write up your results.
Test the veracity of anything you see or experience as
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best you are able, using the most reputable sources to do so.
You can probably only expect to bring back three or four
precise pieces of information with you to start with,
increasing as you become more adept with the practice.
Again, do not push for more than readily appears, because
your subconscious will gladly paper over the cracks for you if
you push it. You are looking for truth, not necessarily
coherence. It will take time for things to gel.
Once you have a proven record of successfully
travelling to the past, you can then start to look to the future,
bearing in mind the caveats already given.
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their slumbers. From them you will learn long forgotten skills
and you will achieve a great sense of completeness as they
reintegrate themselves with your current manifestation. You
will now realise the truth that nothing is ever truly lost or
forgotten.
For those who have access to the archives of the
Order of Leviathan in the Temple of Set, the 'Apep Workings'
of Ipsissimus James Lewis have strong echoes of this theme
and can be read as a practical example.
The second approach is to bring the dead to you,
awakening your past selves by ritual invocation and
revivifying them with the sacrificial mead and bread offered
at your altar. This ritual should be constructed by your own
genius, guided by your deepest instincts (those parts of you
which have most affinity with your previous manifestations).
The basic formula should be akin to that used to call upon
other wights described in this chapter, using the tools and
basic steps of ritual previously discussed in this manual.
This is obviously highly skilled magic, requiring a
powerful focus of mind and an open channel to the
subconscious in order to receive and correctly interpret the
communications of these earlier selves. But if you have
practised diligently up to this point in the curriculum, you
should be perfectly capable of such skilled magical
application.
Repeat the invocations frequently, building up a
strong rapport with these earlier shells of yourself, until you
have reawakened their identities fully and begun to
incorporate them within your own current being. This will be
a far more transformative experience than you can possibly
imagine whilst simply reading these words. It is something
that must be experienced.
In time, you will become aware that these selves are
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CHAPTER NINE
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Remanifestation
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FURTHER READING
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Rune Magic
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Dragonscales
by Michael Kelly
A Publication of the Order of Apep
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Copyright 2011 by the author of this book Michael Kelly. The book
author retains sole copyright to his or her contributions to this book.
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CONTENTS
Introduction..........................................................................577
Common Sense....................................................................601
Visualising / Activating the Postures...................................607
Vortigern's Tower................................................................613
Carpe Diem..........................................................................637
A Draconian Alphabet.........................................................641
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Runic Mysteries
Runes in Action...................................................................753
Volsungadrekka...................................................................757
A Draconian Rune Poem.....................................................785
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INTRODUCTION
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- Michael Kelly
The Dragon Fafnir
July 2011
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Draconian Magic
and Philosophy
in General
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process of Remanifestation.
After I left the Temple of Set and founded the Order
of Apep, I carried out the series of Apep Workings (published
in Apophis) to redetermine the focus of Draconian Initiation.
That focus can be briefly broken down as follows:
There are three fundamental processes at the heart of
Draconian Initiation:
• The Magic of the Void
• The Magic of Desire
• Remanifestation
Remanifestation, as described above, was the Word of
the Magus James Lewis, and was declared and expounded
within the Temple of Set. Much reference to the Word
Remanifest is made in both Apophis and Ægishjálmur. It is
the process whereby the Self (and indeed everything)
eternally Remanifests its Essence in new forms.
The Magic of the Void and the Magic of Desire were
two operative magical models devised by me to explain the
operations of magic and the impetus which drove them during
my time as Grand Master of the Order of Leviathan. Both are
discussed in great detail in Apophis and expanded upon by the
additional material in Ægishjálmur. There are also new
essays concerning both models in the present volume.
All three of these processes are expressed visually in
the Order Seal, the Eye of Leviathan. The symbolism of this
Seal is discussed thoroughly in Apophis and elaborated upon
in Ægishjálmur.
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meet Its gaze and not be mesmerised. This has echoes of the
Sigurd myth mentioned above. Set is able to overpower the
Serpent only because He too shares its powers, being a God
of confusion and antinomianism. Apep is seen as the force of
mesmerism and illusion (which is Ultimate Reality). Set is
able to conquer and wield that illusion to reshape Reality as
He Wills. So here again is a very clear model of the
Draconian Initiation, in which the Initiate assumes the powers
of the Dragon within his own psyche, learning to wield them
instead of succumbing to them.
This conception of the Dragon is greatly enhanced by
the use of three distinct Dragon myths in Ægishjálmur. The
first of these is Fafnir, linking to the heroic model of Sigurd
as the Initiate mentioned above. The second is Jormungandr,
the Midgard Serpent, who encircles and bounds the Cosmos,
giving shape and form to time and space, thus fulfilling the
Apepian function of sustaining and spinning the illusion of
Reality. The third is Nidhogg, the most sinister and
dangerous of all – the Draconian Essence Itself, one might say
– yet also the most exalted initiatorily, who may transform the
ascendant Initiate from the 'dragon dark' to the 'Serpent
bright'.
So Dragons are essential to the mythic structure of the
Order, being both the creator of the illusion of Reality and the
boundless potential beyond the manifest order. To be fully
Initiate we must perceive both poles of the Stooping Dragon
depicted in the Order Seal at one and the same time: the
concentrated focus of the Eye and the extended boundary of
the encircling world.
It might be wondered how the Order of Apep is
structured and what it actually does. The Order exists to
promote the practice of Draconian Initiation. Its members
follow the curriculum established under the ægis of the Seven
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The Head
of the
Scorpion
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Common Sense
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The God:
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its design based upon his forked tail, and was used to cut the
umbilical cord, separating the newborn infant from its mother.
So, as the arms are spread wide in the 'V' shape, the Initiate
performs this cutting action, unfastening the ties that bind and
opening the way for a new future. The head is then upraised
in pride and determination, shaping that new future by Will.
The Dragon:
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Runic Postures:
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Vortigern's Tower
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2. For a start, this experience has its roots in the flesh, and in
the generative and pleasure producing parts of the flesh at
that. This immediately rates it as taboo by most 'civilised'
moral standards. Well and good: dragons are not civilised
beasts. Also, the sexual element identities the experience
as authentically Left-Hand Path, quite apart from other
considerations.
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The Head
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Thunderbolt
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consciousness.
It will also be readily apparent if you choose to adapt
the Second Head exercises to encompass emotions as well as
thoughts, just how good a preparation and foundation these
practices are for the Work of the Fifth Head, when Desire
comes into its own. It is absolutely true that all of the
Understanding won in the later Heads is founded upon the
discipline and seeming drudgery of the daily exercises of the
first three Heads. The more you put into the Apophis
curriculum, the more you will get out.
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“Making” it so.
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The Head
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Hyena
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Carpe Diem
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A Draconian Alphabet
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B D F G R T Q
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
F H X S L K Z
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
U I E O M N A
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
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B D F G R T Q
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
F H X S L K Z
2 4 6 8 10 12 14
U I E O M N A
3 6 9 12 15 18 21
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B D F G R T Q
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
F H X S L K Z
1 4 9 16 25 36 49
U I E O M N A
1 8 27 64 125 216 343
M+I+C+H+A+E+L+K+E+L+L+Y = ?
By Claw:
19+16+13+9+21+17+12+13+17+12+12+16 = 177
By Serpent:
15+6+12+4+21+9+10+12+9+10+10+6 = 124
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By Void:
125+8+36+4+343+27+25+36+27+25+25+8 = 689
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The Head
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imagination.
14.Whilst keeping your awareness of the three points focused
and clear, allow the Draconian consciousness to arise
within you, taking shape as a vast Eye which takes shape
in the centre of the Void. This Eye is capable of
perceiving all of the limitless strands of possibility that are
latent within the Void.
15.Keep your perspective focused within the Eye and upon
the three points of the triangle. You should be aware that
your Deep Mind is scanning the Void for those
possibilities that will draw the points together and
manifest the Desired result. You should not strive to do
this consciously. Just keep your focus and wait patiently
for it to happen. You may decide to assist this process by
visualising a pre-designed sigil, or staring into a
representation of the Void, such as a magic mirror (I often
use an obsidian egg).
16.There will come that critical moment when the points
seem to come rushing inward, fusing into one inseparable
point, whilst the Eye seems to go rushing outwards,
expanding beyond the limits of the Universe. This will be
an intense moment of ecstatic joy. Your body may
tremble and feel faint in consequence. Like an orgasm, it
will last mere seconds before your conscious awareness
begins to reassert itself, but also like an orgasm it will be
unmistakeable when it happens.
17.As the magical moment fades and your consciousness
returns to its normal state, let the Desire go. Know that
the magic has been wrought, that you have gained the
wisdom and insight you sought, and let it go, stop thinking
about it. You will find all sorts of valuable insights
bubbling up into your mind over the next few days as a
consequence of what you have done. Heed them and act
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upon them.
18.Reach out with your arms and draw your hands together,
as if closing the Veil between worlds.
19.Say: “Hail Set! Hail Babalon! Hail Leviathan! Hail
to the Self ahead of my self! (You may use this Being's
name if you know it.) I have gazed into the Void and
Worked my Will, through the power of the Black
Flame.”
20.Extinguish the candle or lamp.
21.Stamp your feet or clap your hands to 'earth' yourself
properly.
22.Say the closing words: “So It Is Done!”
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Zen as a Weapon
by Steve Davies
I don’t know about you but I own far too much occult tat-
“magical bling” a working partner calls it (and he’s as
guilty as I am)- too many misspent years working within
the Thelemic/Chaos paradigms- “so many gods, too little
time!” Frankly sometimes it’s good to strip it right down to
basics and ask what all this effort and attention is really for.
We need the Magic of the Void.
In Apophis Michael Kelly maps out a magical
working that is both stark and striking. Built upon his work
and past leadership of the Temple of Set’s Order of Leviathan
he challenges us to question how we will really work when
faced with the yawning potentiality of primal chaos (Apep).
When the eye of the dragon is staring you down, is your
pseudo-masonic choreography going to meet the mark? Via
the working of the Void I think that Michael is highlighting
something of critical importance both in terms of the true
nature of magic, and how we as practitioners withstand its
rigours. The contemporary occult scene seems rather strong
on its espoused aim of “To Dare and To Will”, but is arguably
rather weak in the “To Know and to keep Silent” department.
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The Head
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Raging Lion
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inadequacy.
3. Half-Arsed Left-Hand Path:
This is upsettingly familiar even among those who do their
utmost to live according to the principles of the Left-Hand
Path. Any Left-Hand Path magician worth his salt will
sooner or later stand upon the edge of the Abyss and
behold Leviathan staring back at him. Some few I have
known turn their backs in fear at this point and try to
retreat, but once seen it cannot be forgotten and they are
invariably drawn back again to stand upon the precipice,
often for years. The true Initiate will revel in the
immensity of the Mystery of Self and Not-Self and will
launch fearlessly into the depths of his own inner Hell,
opening his own Eye in the Void and Becoming a Black
Magus. The problem that then arises is that so many of us
– yes, even us – still carry the vestiges, the guilts and the
attitudes of our Christian indoctrination within us, even
though we swear that we don't. Thus, so many of the
Black Magi succeed in opening the Eye in the Void, only
to then renounce the 'lower ego' altogether and live a life
professing piety. Their intent remains true, their magical
prowess is not diminished, but they are only half the God
they could be and should be.
4. True Left-Hand Path:
This follows the previous course until the Eye in the Void
has opened. But this Initiate – a true devotee of the
Stooping Dragon – does not then seek an ascetic existence.
Freed from the shackles of his everyday personality, he
now returns to it and embraces it as a long lost brother,
with one enormous difference: he is now the Master, no
longer the slave. He has transformed compulsion into
Indulgence, actualising the Formula of the Magus LaVey.
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which the energies of all the others run. Whilst retaining that
Essence which abides in Asgard and which roves throughout
the worlds, bear in mind that this world is the manifestation
of all the others; this world is the object and purpose of
creation; this world is where the soul yearns to take on flesh
and express itself in form after form. The Desire and
aspiration of the highest, most spiritual spark of your
consciousness is to clothe itself in flesh and personality and to
Come Into Being here and now. The purpose of Initiation is
not to swap one for the other: it is to open the eyes of both,
perceive what is Real, and empower the entire Self to its
maximum potential, chasing after the shadows of possibilities
yet to come.
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make your magic work. Then, and only then, can you adapt
your model, refining it to include your new insights. These
are insights which are already operant on a subconscious
level, which is what is prompting your sense of constriction
and ineffectuality. You need to allow these insights to arise
into full awareness so you can use them and integrate them.
Having done so, the horizon will retreat far from you
once more, the world seeming larger than it ever has before.
You will also find that lighting your candles will once again
power your magic, for you now understand the inner process
which this simple action sets into motion. But you may find
that you can also now work magic without the need of any
candle or any other prop.
The pattern repeats, time after time, worlds leading
into bigger worlds, ever Remanifesting and ever revealing
something new, something that revitalises the old but also
offers something new.
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But this is one of the traps that people can fall into
when they presume they understand why a thing is being done
instead of simply doing it without preconceptions and seeing
where it actually leads them. We are born into a society
which is still conditioned to believe that happiness and
progress are only achieved by giving things up instead of by
learning to use them better. The Draconian Initiate needs to
be aware of this tendency in contemporary thought so that he
can put it down should it arise.
The object of the exercise is not to identify your
emotional and erotic treasures so that you can then nullify and
exclude them. The purpose is to identify these things so that
you can channel your Desire more efficiently.
Once you have identified the triggers which fuel your
Desire, they will cease to control you. But you are now free
to choose to indulge those Desires by switching those triggers
yourself. An example and a little history of a personal
Working will help to illustrate this point.
I was born in the mid 1960s and so I reached that
impressionable era when my erotic crystallisation inertia (to
use Anton LaVey's term) was being established during the
mid to late 1970s. In other words, I became sexually aware
during the Punk period and this is what imprinted upon my
centres of erotic consciousness, becoming the decisive factor
in my sexual fascination for the rest of my life.
But it is an utter waste to simply then discard this key
to your Desire once you have discovered it. You have already
analysed it and dissected it, you have freed yourself from its
compulsion. Now you have to do the LaVeyan thing and
learn to use it as an Indulgence, playing the game by your
own rules. We gain nothing by casting our imprints aside, we
simply strip ourselves back to hollow, unformed shells,
defeating the very object of incarnating in the first place. No,
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the real magician will release himself from his shackles, then
begin to playfully toy with them, using them as a tool for his
own Becoming.
So the Initiate of the Raging Lion will seek to
reincorporate the obsessions he once sloughed, forging them
now into weapons of his sovereign Will, refashioning them as
Keys to the Mysteries which will speak to him and him alone.
He then goes out into the world to see where these enchanted
Keys will lead him, what new sorceries they will reveal.
I have titled this essay 'Games Within Games',
because life definitely becomes a game at the Fifth Head
level, one which the Initiate plays with joy, enthusiasm, and
expectation of the unexpected. Using the new Key that he has
forged his Desire into, he will now find fresh obsesions
springing up around him. If he has a thing for short haired
girls, as I do, he will find that new people begin entering his
life in strange ways who press all the right buttons, and that
when he pays attention, some new magical secret or formula
will be revealed to him in consequence. This is where those
tangential tantra come into play, when Loki introduces new
playing pieces to the board and the rules of play change on
the fly. Because of the very nature of this, I can't give you
any rules or guidelines of what to look out for. I can only tell
you to keep your eyes and your mind wide open. This really
is magic spilling fresh from the Void. It can't be pinned down
by expectation or rote or prior experience, it is raw and real.
These are the kinds of energies that Draconian Initiates
should expect to be dealing with at this level.
There is also a clue in Aleister Crowley's writings
which hints at why the Initiate now finds powerful tools for
growth and liberation in the very things that once enslaved
him. As he wrote, once you have crossed the 'Great Outer
Abyss', i.e. Opened the Eye in the Void, many things are
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after all, let alone the Fifth. When the Other calls, you drop
everything and you come running.
As a few examples from my personal experience, I
have been called to follow my Other's lead as She has taken
the guise of a vampire from a series of novels; a homeless
woman sitting in a doorstep asking for change; a young
Ukrainian woman; and an Anime heroine. Half of these
manifestations came via works of fiction and the others came
through unusual circumstances. If we look at these four
instances, I have respectively learned the following magical
Keys: the Principle of the Other; the lore of the Banshee;
Aloneness; and the Immortality Engine. A fifth Working is
ongoing and not yet to be spoken of.
There are two important things to be learned from the
above encounters with the Other. I have spoken of both
things before, but they bear repeating. Firstly, each
manifestation is accompanied by a barrage of synchronicities,
not necessarily significant in their own right, but all lending
their weight to a warping of the Universe. Secondly, none of
the manifestations come through any expected means. The
Other is an active Principle and She will appear in your life
through your own interests and entertainments, playing a
game with you. She will almost definitely not appear in a
specifically occult context. Since many magicians seem to
switch their magical senses off when they exit their ritual
chamber, many don't recognise Her when She calls, but She is
a part of larger life and will not be constrained by spells and
circles. Your accumulated magical wisdom will not reveal
Her to you, but it will help you to Understand Her when She
has chosen Her own means to reveal Herself. Be vigilant.
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bridge the gulf between the three points with his own
consciousness. In this ecstatic moment, the potential in the
Void is released and can come into manifestation. The three
points are fused in that instant, allowing the fulfilment of the
Initiate's Desire – the third point – to actualise.
On the level of a consciously directed application of
Will, the Initiate has experienced a Mystery here: assuming
his Working is successful, he has tapped into the patterns of
the universe and directed the rune streams to create a change
by his sovereign Will. But this is the Mystery that he has
specifically sought out; this is his intent. There are three
other layers of Mystery that will also come into being at this
time, but which are not always looked for or consciously
recognised.
The first Mystery is the awareness of what has
happened to his own self. If he has successfully
accomplished his magic, then he is no longer the same person
who went into the rite. When the Void is bridged and the
worlds are reshaped, all three points in the magical triangle
are affected by that change. Since the Initiate is always one
of those points, it is impossible to work any magic without
changing yourself in the process. Your own being will be
changed by the forces you wield, even if it's only a simple
spell to find enough loose change to buy a hot dog. So be
careful what you choose to do, in seemingly trivial matters no
less than large-scale Æonic Workings. What do the runes you
chant say about you and how will they change you? Always
be aware of this. Many magicians, especially in their early
days, press blithely on, ignorant of what they are doing to
themselves, often ignorant that they have even changed at all.
The second Mystery is linked to the first, but is longer
term. Every magical Working is an expression of who we are.
It is also a statement of who we may Become. As we gain
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the other will always fail. This is the gap between the
runestaves that I spoke of earlier, the gap through which we
may perceive Runa Herself. But before we can do so, we
need to recognise the runestaves that frame that gap.
The crucial balance is that we need the skill, the lore
and the means of communication in order to act upon the
Mystery. But we need to be free and wild enough to allow
the Mystery to touch us in the first place. Finding that perfect
balance between Work and Play in life is crucial to effective
Initiation.
Once the balance is achieved, how will Mystery
manifest to you? I don't know. It will assume some form
unique and personal to you, something that arises from your
broader interests and that will motivate and inspire you. But
when this kind of Mystery comes through, a direct touching
of your soul by Runa, then it will be BIG. The Vision itself
will probably have nothing to do with your ordinary
curriculum of runic Work. But the skills that you have
learned by following that curriculum are precisely what you
will need in order to pursue it and wrest its secrets from it.
Something may leap at you from a book or a magazine, a
stranger may make a peculiar comment, you may see
something that is simply utterly out of place or hear a piece of
music that moves you strangely. But something will grab a
hold of your soul and obsess you.
I can't lay down any rules as to where Mystery will
lead you, I can only offer a few remarks from my own past
and current experience. Whenever I have been seized by such
a Vision, I know that I am expected to devote my all to
pursuing it, without reservation. Money, time, inconvenience,
these are all irrelevant as I prepare to charge off on another
batshit crazy quest, chasing after a beguiling Mystery. Such
events always reach out and grab me from a source which is
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approach to it, the decision that leads to it, and the passions
that fuel it and where they may lead. I will also say now that I
have been on the verge of choosing this Path on more than
one occasion, but have always turned my feet away. I will
pass judgement on no-one who chooses to tread the dread
road.
The manifestation of the Werewolf may come in two
forms. I am not talking here of the man who simply loses his
senses and allows his bestial, instinctual nature to come to the
fore. Any fool can do that, such transformations occur in
hundreds of drunken brawls every night.
Instead of a descent into the animal nature, I am
talking of the rising of the Beast into consciousness. This is a
process which will be familiar to any magician who has
reached or passed the level of the Fourth Head. It is most
explicitly described in Ægishjálmur, the process of slaying
the Dragon and assuming its powers and integrating them.
The question at the Fifth Head becomes: what do we
do with those bestial powers once we have them? We can
choose the Path of Desire, aspiring to use the powers we have
gained as a launch pad to Godhood, or we can choose the Path
of Hunger, eager to sate our appetites for pleasure and satiety
right here and now, with no aspiration toward further
progress. Such is the Path of the Werewolf, not the slavering
thug described earlier, but a Royal Beast, a King among
predators, but a Beast nevertheless.
The decision that distinguishes a Werewolf from an
Initiate revolves around the Hunger for immediate
gratification and a disdain for any further spiritual
development. All that matters now to the magician is power.
Like the Initiate, he exercises Sovereignty over the Self, but
unlike the Initiate he also seeks Dominion over others. The
Other – that key figure of the Fifth Head – is seen as
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The Head
of the
Rebellious Giant
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D
For the dull-witted, things just are and there ain't no
use to question. For such, dagaz is two opposing triangles
which press their points against each other without either ever
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• An opening.
• The centring of the Initiate's consciousness at the cross-
point of dagaz.
• Following the line of the rune into the known territory of
the past, evoking a series of memories.
• Following the line as it slings back through the centre
point and out into the unknown future, evoking a series of
impressions of things which have not yet been.
• Re-centring and assimilation.
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'chosen' to arise.
• Flashes / fragments of future potentialities, to be recorded
and assessed for accuracy with the passing of time.
• New insights into the very nature of time.
• A fresh experience of the perspective of the Eye.
1. Decompression.
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8. Let the mind sling back to the still point and remain there.
Sing the rune-song again to re-equilibrate consciousness.
11.“So It Is Done”.
13.Leave for two days, then meditate upon what may have
been revealed to you. Consider the Working in the light of
the aims listed above. What have you learned?
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consider again the functions of the Black and Red Magi and
decide how the former may ultimately Remanifest as the
latter.
The Black Magus is the Initiate immersed in
Darkness. Having discovered the Keys to unlock his
consciousness and learned how to effectively use them, he
now enters that Darkness wholeheartedly to discover the
Secrets hidden in its shadows. He has abandoned the
shackles that once bound his mind and has turned his Vision
into the places where no light has ever shone, the Void that
was before the first star was born. Here he may create
himself on his own terms and shape the world according to
his Will. Here he will discover the powers and the potential
that lie within the Void, a maze of infinite possibilities
awaiting the chance for manifestation.
This is all well and good. But how is the Black
Magus to see in the Darkness? How is he to perceive the
Secrets that lie hidden there? How is he to navigate that maze
of possibilities? Having entered the Darkness of the Spirit
and dared to Work the Black Magic taught by Belial, no
outside agency is going to illumine his path. He must instead
rely upon a Light from within, a flow of determination, the
Star of Self rising to shine brightly in the Darkness of his own
Being. Then, pierced by this radiance, the Dark will begin to
yield up its Secrets to him.
There will come a time when the Darkness is
illuminated to its horizon by the radiance of the magician's
own Essence (note that there will always be more to discover
beyond that horizon, however, the path never ends). At this
point, when the magician blazes as his own internal Sun,
when the Universe has yielded its Secrets to his gaze, holding
nothing back that he can discern within the limits of his
current Vision, we may declare that he has become a White
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Magus.
What does it mean to be a White Magus? This is one
who has attained the initiatory degree of Magus according to
the grade systems of the A.'.A.'. and the Temple of Set. If a
Magister Templi is one who enters the Creative Darkness in
order to Understand it and to mould a Teaching from it, the
Magus is one who has turned the white heat of his Will upon
that Teaching in order to create a whole new Magical
Formula from it, Uttering a Word which will transform the
very Æon itself such are its potency and implications. In the
initiatory model of the Order of Apep, the White Magus
resides within the Sixth Head of the Dragon. His Æonic
Utterance is the seal of his Mastery over time and space. He
has stepped outside of their constraints so that he can let loose
a new current within the Universe by his own Will. He has
Become the Rebellious Giant in very truth.
We must pause a moment here to stress that the White
Magus is very different from a White Magician. The
definitions of White and Black Magic employed in the
Temple of Set (and intended by me when I use such terms)
are basically as follows:
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The Head
of
Typhon
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Runic
Mysteries
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Runes in Action
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:Volsungadrekka:
The Dragon and the Awakened Psyche
by D.V. Graal
I. Introduction
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Here the Past and Non Past are aligned vertically whilst the
Moment of Absolute Freedom is to the side and outside of the
Time Space continuum.
Taking this understanding further, Urdhr, the Norn of
the past or origin is the Ideal Reality, the Wellspring or origin
of wyrd or orlog. This may help to explain why in his book
The Well and the Tree, Paul C. Bauschatz suggests that the
three wells of Germanic mythology; Urdhr, Mimir and
Hvergelmir are really one well seen from three different
perspectives.
We may use this on a personal basis by establishing
good reviewing skills and assessing those things that have
past, we are able to see those events, good and bad that have
been essential to our development and look to recreate them.
Verdandi, the Norn of the Present, establishes the
turning out or becoming as a direct result of the Ideal Reality,
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The Dragon is often associated with the dead and much study
has been carried out by the academic world on the folklore
associated with the Dragon. Of particular note is the work of
HR Ellis Davidson in her essay The Hill and the Dragon,
Folklore 61 1950. Reproduced in Gods and myths of
Northern Europe.
In this essay Davidson states that the Dragon was
“regarded as the guardian of the burial mound, and so it is
described in the Old English poem Beowulf:
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Indeed, the last verse of the Voluspa 57 which are the last
words written in the Edda reads as thus;
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Voluspa 18;
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The Drachenknut
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Belief or Trust
Seeing Hearing
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Understanding
Knowing Doing/Ability
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Conscious awakening
Thought Memory
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The mythic accounts from the Eddas suggest that the Dragon
was more than just a demon of immense proportions as the
Egyptians documented Apep.
Located in Nifleheim, an icy realm recounted in the
myth of the making of the worlds, a misty cold and dark place
of stasis. Within this realm is Hvergelmir, described as the
source from whence all rivers run. Dependant upon the source
and translator, the number of rivers that are named varies,
although my preference is for 40 names as it is the number of
degrees required to divide a circle into nine equal parts.
Brian Branston in his Gods of the North, Thames and
Hudson, translates Hvergelmir as meaning “roaring cauldron”
and is a geyser. This interpretation suggests that the well or
spring is dynamic and active rather than a realm of stasis that
would share the attributes of Niflhel. Branston goes on to
compare Hvergelmir with the greek myth of “Okeanos”.
However, the comparison doesn’t explain why there are two
concepts, both complimentary in the North; Hvergelmir and
Nidhoggr whilst in the South, there is only the term Okeanos.
Nidhoggr meaning “Dread Biter” is at Hvergelmir
under the third root of the world tree; Yggdrasill. Nidhoggr
gnaws at this root promoting new vigorous growth.
Grimnismal 35
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Grimnismal 36
Yggdrasill Ash
Has troubles of its own
More than any man knows
The stag bites above,
On the side it rots,
While Nidhoggr gnaws beneath.
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Fafnir – embracer
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The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs,
William Morris, Ellis and White, 1877.
Although a dated book, it has stood the test of time as
being one of the best treatments of the mythology associated
with Sigurd. The story of “How Sigurd awoke Brynhild upon
Hindfell” is just full of useful operant magical technology and
will reward an awakened reader.
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A brief note is apt here; if you are not conversant with Old
Norse then you should get as many different translations of
the Edda as possible. This will give you a more rounded
understanding. Also, the Fafnismal, Volsunga Saga, Voluspa
and Skaldskaparsmal are found in the Edda’s and they are
necessary for understanding the Dragon Fafnir and the heroic
figure of Sigurd.
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Other Approaches
to the Dragon
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by Steve Davies
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hand and she chooses instead to cast him into the sea in a
leather bag. This bag is then found by Elffin son of the Lord
of Ceredigion as he fished for Salmon. As he drew the
wondrous child from the bag he was startled by the whiteness
of his forehead “This is a radiant brow!”-and thus he was
named Taliesin; the infant’s ability to speak and create verse
demonstrating both the potency of the Awen and his destiny
as the greatest of British Bards.
In truth this is a heady tale- as with all truly potent
myth it speaks to the deep parts of ourselves as it touches both
conscious and unconscious, but the question remains “what
lessons can we learn?”
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G iven all the Work that has been done within the
Draconian current over the years, within both the
Order of Apep and the Order of Leviathan before it
during my tenure as Grand Master, it would be remiss of me
to close this book without making some mention of the so-
called Enochian system of magic developed by John Dee and
Edward Kelly in Elizabethan England. These two men were
assisted in their endeavours by a band of Fallen Angels (or
Angles, as suggested by Anton LaVey), guided throughout by
a spirit named Madimi, the Daughter of Babalon.
Many of the founding Workings of the Order of Apep
(including both sets of Apep Workings – those by James
Lewis which established the Order of Leviathan, and the later
ones by me which established the Apophis curriculum) were
based upon the technologies of Enochian magic. Also, one of
the inspired texts of the Temple of Set, channeled through Dr
Michael Aquino, is The Word of Set, a fresh interpretation of
the Nineteen Enochian Keys. I will also now go on record
that I have accomplished extensive personal Work with the
aid of Madimi.
Given this obvious affinity between Enochiana and
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