Greetings! As you’ve no doubt noticed, I tend to release new books around this time of year. And the new book this time around is The Practical Science of Creative Visualization!
You may be asking yourself, “Why a book on Creative Visualization?” Well, I wasn’t planning to write this one, either. What happened is that I taught a class on the subject last January, only to wake up the next morning and realize, “Hey, I just wrote an audiobook last night!”
From the Notitia Dignitatum, c.a. 425 AD. The symbol of the regiment Armigeri Defensores Seniores.
Fun fact I learned yesterday: the Romans used the Yin-Yang symbol 700 years before the Chinese.
Oh, and this was recorded in the Notitia Dignitatum around 425 AD, meaning the symbol was first used by actual Roman Catholics! Those pagan Chinese were thieves!
Did those sentences sound stupid to you? I hope so, because they are. And I did it on purpose to underscore a big problem with Neopagan polemics, namely that “this thing predates that thing and was therefore stolen.” (A polemical style which, by the way, the majority of Neopagans themselves inherited from their Reformed or Radical Protestant childhoods).
For my part, I believe the Chinese invented the symbol independently. In fact they and the Romans used it for vastly different reasons: the Romans use was to denote a military regiment called the armigeri defensores seniores, while the Chinese usage is well-known. So even if the story of a lost Roman legion settling Li’chien were true, one still cannot rationally claim the Chinese borrowed or “stole” the symbol from the Romans.
Protestant Origins
Back to the point. This style of argument was created by the early Protestants, especially Continue reading
When I first wrote The Magic of Effective Prayer in early 2016, I was surprised by how much I learned from that exercise. If I had to name the book’s best benefit, writing it forced me to collect thoughts I’d long had on the subject of “praying well” and formulate them into a coherent system.
But there’s more to the story. In the back of the book I’d composed a set of daily prayers, which in turn took on a life of their own. I found them useful as a daily training exercise, which I published in Daily Magical Devotions and later outlined in My New Everyday Prayer Book. From there these prayers found a small popularity, and somewhere along the way I saw a need to revise them. Continue reading
A few months ago the concept of a “Scriptural Rosary” was brought to my attention. Now I’ve heard the term before and thought it was some post-Vatican II thing, which it is. But this time I actually looked into it and quickly recognized its magical potential!
Notice that I said “a few months,” because I don’t like talking about methods that don’t work. So after some experimentation and testing, here’s what I found!
Vatican II, the only Church Council to be photographed in color!
Well, here it is! Today is the 60th anniversary of that Council we either love or hate, the Second Vatican Council.
(Fun Fact: I’ve seen both October 11th and October 12th given as the Anniversary. I’m going for the latter date because I’m writing this post on the 11th, and would like it to publish on the Anniversary instead of the day after.)
Now if you’ve been following this website, or my broadcasts, or my social media posts for any length of time, you’ll already know my opinion of the whole affair as well as of the current Occupant of St. Peter’s Chair. That said, I also think Vatican II had some good ideas that should be evaluated on their own merit rather than just thrown out whole-cloth, and today seems as good a day as any to have a look at them!
We’ll start by pointing out that I make two distinctions: 1) the legitimacy of Vatican II as an Ecumenical Council, and 2) the validity of various ideas found in the Council’s documents. As we move forward, please keep this distinction in mind.
Available in full-color hardback (Lulu), and in black and white paperback (Lulu and Amazon).
Finally, my friends, the “Exorcism Trilogy” is complete!
Recently, Frater S.C.F.V. asked me about an English translation for the Votive Mass of the Holy Ghost, by reasons of its use for consecrating tools in grimoire magic (link to his article about consecration by Mass). Fortunately this is available most hand missals printed before Vatican II, and I obliged. He asked for permission to share it to his blog, and I asked for 48 hours to write a blog post about it first.
Here is the blog post in question, even though those words were exchanged a week and a half ago as of this writing. First because I wanted to confirm a few things, and then because real life got in the way (I’ve been doing some much-needed work on the home and vehicles, and helping some family members with theirs; lately this has occupied the bulk of my time).
As can be seen from Adam’s article linked above, several of the Grimoires call for the magicians’s tools to be consecrated by way of having them on or near the altar during the Mass; if the magician does not possess the Presbyterate, then the next best thing is to commission a Mass from a sympathetic priest, or to sneak the items into the sanctuary.
Ecclesia Christi est Ecclesia Catholica. Non modo «subsistit in» Ecclesia Catholica, sed est Ecclesia Catholica.
This afternoon I came up for air while working on my next book, and noticed my social media feed is blowing up about “What do you think about Nope Francis clamping down on the Latin Mass?”
Being buried in my own little world lately (writing, auto, and home repair), I had no idea what anybody was talking about until I googled the title mentioned in one of those questions: Traditiones Custodes. Suddenly, it all became clear.
Suddenly, it felt like somebody invented the flux capacitor took me back to 1985.
Suddenly, I remembered what the Church situation was like prior to 2007.
Suddenly, I realized this may not be a bad thing.
Everything I said above has a lot to unpack, much of it involving the way my perceptions evolved after leaving the Traditional Movement in 2008, and then after leaving all institutional attachments in 2015. So let’s dive right in! Continue reading
Why? Because I want to share this with as many interested people as possible.
About a year ago, I wrote Occult Lineages within the Traditional Roman Catholic Movement as the result of information I came across in passing, which in turn led to a deep rabbit hole spanning virtually all lines of apostolic succession within the “small box” Traditional Roman Catholic Movement. Continue reading
CLM 10085, folio 2r. “If someone wishes to exorcize or expel demons…”
If you remember a little over a year ago, I promised we’d do an exploration of the Manuals, and I haven’t forgotten. If anything I’ve spent that time collecting documents, teaching myself how to read paleography, transcribing, and translating, part of which is presented in the new book Medieval Rituals of Catholic Exorcism.
Actually, there will be more. I’m presently sitting on top of 3,000+ pages worth of documents and primary source materials, and am slowly sifting through what I have. But one of the Manuals stands out above and beyond the rest, bearing the unpresumptuous name Teilrituale (“Part-Ritual”), perhaps better known by its catalogue number of CLM 10085.
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THAVMA: Catholic Occultism and Magic in General 