Carcosa Bound

In the wonderful, artful and powerful Grimorium Verum, almost as an appendix casually tacked onto the end, there is a curious operation called the “Cabala of the Green Butterfly”.

This charming, oblique little text contains a range of challenges to the human security system – physical, social and philosophical.

It takes the operator outside, in many ways.

My own recollections and thoughts, from this very strange time

When actually trying to do this stuff, it has a way of really reminding you how these texts can make you seem really mad, bad and dangerous to know.

This is the work of warriors, and requires a level of physicality, fearlessness, skill, cunning, and perhaps a bit of wilful stupidity and stubbornness.

Climb a tree, they said

The nearest trees to me what the time were, actually, really tall; pines, probably 80 or 100 years old. To climb these things needs some practice, skill and also the stones, man. Astaroth doesn't want any dropnuts in her crew.

To climb them to the top – where the branches are flimsy enough to actually be cut with a single blow – means getting quite high. If the operator falls, they will probably not experience a good outcome.

In the southern hemisphere, following this as written means trekking around in the woods in the winter, which was bracing.

The South winds blast straight up from Antarctica, and the trees move, too. Trees move a lot, in the wind. You really notice this when you're in them. They also grow in spirals, which is a completely different insight. I developed a whole new appreciation for trees.

I tested this in mid-Summer too, as perhaps the author intended. This work led to spending a lot of time in the woods – and at the peak of Summer provided completely different experience.

Wandering around, chanting the extremely powerful Orison of the Salamanders, I experienced the sense of every living thing rejoicing in it's elemental empire, and burning with aspiration towards the Sun itself.

Backdoor low-Platonism, church skulking, priestcraft

This engagement with this process allowed me to get what JSK called the “low Platonism” of the grimoires, and set up the ground plan of an experimental and experiential world system – that, most importantly – is grounded in my insight.

Also, modern churches in my town don't have places to stash an ash-stained, poorly varnished wooden box. I did get to visit a lot of churches, though – so there is an element of comparative theological instruction here too.

This inability necessitated becoming a priest myself, learning Pyramidos and doing my own damn mass, but this is another story, with its own ludicrous tangents.

Grimoires have a range of challenges, and when approached directly, as a set of direct instructions, trigger insights in completely unexpected ways.

They're much more than a way to call spirits – they can make the operator into someone who spirits will respond to when called.