Facing The Darkness

Doing The Star Ruby Challenge

Hello, good people of the internet, and welcome to the Redux Series, which is a series that involves me going back to my old blog posts from the last 10 years of my Adventures In Woo Woo blog to see if I still align with them, or if I have anything to add or subtract from them. In the end, I'll collect it all together as a book.

---

We're swiftly moving towards the end of this redux series, with only a handful of posts left to go through. These last posts, however, feel like the most important posts on AIWW, and mark a massive turning point in my spiritual and magick life.

This first series of final posts are an account of an AIWW group challenge, in which we did The Star Ruby every day for 30 days. And it is here where I feel the tone or the foundations for the current period I find myself in were laid. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that this challenge is when the fuse was lit.

WHY THE STAR RUBY?
Well, I had been avoiding banishing rituals at the time because when I did a regular LBRP back in the day it seemed to make my life worse! This isn’t an uncommon experience, it appears, judging by having heard similar reports from people over the years. I assume it is part of the design. Sometimes things need to become worse before they get better, but at the time I didn’t have the energy or the fortitude to get to the other side of the shit bit. So, I quit doing it before a dawn or even a hint of a dawn appeared.

So, I wanted to shake my practice up a bit and try something I normally would avoid, this time, I was determined that I wouldn’t quit if things went south.

But also, at the time, there were a lot of people in my circles doing the very Chaos Magicky thing of immediately changing rituals to suit their tastes rather than even doing it once correctly to understand the how's and why's of its design.

I wanted to do a challenge where you had to do a “classic” ritual exactly as described for 30 days to see how that felt or worked out compared to doing our own thing. Would doing it “right” leads to greater success than doing what “felt right”? But, unsurprisingly, though people agreed to attempt this as described, a lot of them immediately changed the ritual in some way to fall more in line with what they usually do – which defeated the whole purpose of the challenge, but what can you do?

I followed the Star Ruby for 30 days as described, and it caused some strange and interesting events and insights to unfold. And some deep uncomfortableness, too.

MAGIA
At this point, I was heavily embedded in the ideas and teachings of Alan Chapman’s Magia, and you can see the influence all over this Star Ruby series and the posts that follow. I was convinced at the time that Magia was the path I had always been looking for, but while I learned a tremendous amount from it (and Alan himself over the years), I ultimately ended up having deep feelings of aversion to it.

That said, as part of my greater Reclaiming Work, I have very recently gone back and listened to the original recordings. It seems likely that my aversion stemmed less from a fundamental rejection of the core teachings and more from everything surrounding them—the commentaries and online Magia retreat I attended, a cringeworthy yet deeply revealing Twitter drama about various issues (including a ritual I participated in), and the way Alan’s personal opinions and proclivities were presented with the same weight and authority as the Magia teachings*. Added to this were my general interactions with the wider Magia community, which further skewed my perspective.

Magia teaches you to follow your “Silent Knowing” which can loosely be seen as your inner guide. And my Silent Knowing was screaming at me to get the hell out of Dodge.

But leaving Magia and its influence felt quite hard too. There came a point where it seemed like I couldn’t have a conversation with anyone about Magick that didn’t turn into a conversation about Alan or Magia within a sentence or two. Which felt very frustrating, isolating, and suffocating.

Now, I must stop here to interject and say that I know many people who have nothing but good to say about Magia. They would say that their experiences with it were life-changing, deeply rewarding, and exactly what they were looking for and needed. Magia works and works well for lots of people.

But, the whole thing triggered me in ways I still don’t really understand. Perhaps it’s because I just don’t want to see or face the truth, perhaps it all felt a bit too culty to me, or perhaps it's nothing more than me playing out my shadows from childhood. While all three seem to be a factor, the last one seems the biggest.

Another part of Magia I struggled with was the pedestaling of Peter Kingsley to a height beyond what I feel is rational. Kingsley was a big influence during my Magia period because of his massive influence on the Magia teachings themselves. I first came across him through Alan about ten years ago or so, and that became more focused over the following years.

I have to admit that Kingsley annoys me more than any author I have spent any length of time with – and I have spent a lot of time with Kingsley. I’ve read all his books several times, watched his video lectures countless times, and listened to his audio series more times which was probably wise.

The man is clearly on to something and has many amazing insights but Christ, he is so, so pleased with himself. And holy moly how his ardent fans deify him. He has a massive self-congratulatory style of writing and a way of presenting his ideas. He’s the only one who can see the truth and everyone else is an idiot, but yet all the while he’s constantly feeling the need to remind you how special he is, and how special other people think he is. It's very hard for me to look past his personality to get to the often fantastic insights he offers.

Carl Jung points out that when we are annoyed to this sort of extent by someone or something we should investigate that because it will tell us something about ourselves. This notion has been badly bastardised into “what you hate in others is what you hate in yourself” these days, which is clearly nonsense if you think about it for even a moment. The original idea, as far as I can grok, is in asking yourself: that of all the possible things that can upset or annoy me why is this person/event in particular causing me so much anger, hostility, frustration, or whatever?

Of all the people in this world I could be annoyed by, why does Kingsley get under my skin so much?

The easy and I would suggest the wrong answer would be because I think deep down he is right about everything and I don’t want to acknowledge that.

But, I don’t think that’s it – or not all of it. I think it's closer to: deep down I FEAR he is right about everything, and that makes me hate what that would reveal about the world and creation, and I don’t want to look at that.

The difference is subtle, but important. He may be right, or he may be wrong, but my fear of him maybe being right means I’m not “looking just to see” as Magia would propose. And so, like Magia, I am re-engaging with his teachings in an attempt to meet him where he actually is rather than where I am.

Anyway, I think that is as much background context as may need going into this series. I think it's important here at the beginning to set the stage as best I can for the events ahead. As usual, it's always interesting to note how my life seems to come round in complete circles during this series, and I find myself in similar territory that I was in the past.

And so, here are my write-ups for the preparation days and the first week of the challenge, and little did I know what was ahead of me over the next few weeks.

_____
*Which is, admittedly, more a wider issue I have with Spiritual/ Magick teachers and not specific to Alan or Magia. I’m not a fan of teachers and their personalities being presented as being as important or even more important than the teachings they teach.

PREPARATION DAYS

30th September 2020

I spent a few hours yesterday evening and last night relearning the Star Ruby as it's been a number of years since I last did it. I began by brushing up on the various imagery, correspondences, and ideas used in the ritual, and I am very glad I did so as I feel I have a much greater understanding of it all than I did when I performed it in the past. I also did a brief run-through of the movements both physically and “astrally” – as in I did it in my head. Not quite as rusty as I feared.

I am really enjoying looking into the whole nature of the ritual and the elements involved, it has made the whole ritual structure unfold in a much greater way before me. That said, I do have some confusion around why the elements/ attributions differ between the Divine Names of the Quarters and the Guardians, but perhaps that will become clearer as I go on. Elemental attributions seem to be a bit of a free-for-all at times. I personally like: EAST-AIR, SOUTH-FIRE, WEST-WATER, NORTH-EARTH but that could be solely for the reason that that is how I originally learned them. I know in some Norse circles ICE is to the North and I do also like the idea of that, but never actually employ it.

One thing I found quite interesting is that the word KAKODAIMONOS, from the opening “APO PANTOS KAKODAIMONOS” declaration, means “EVIL GENIUSES” – which is the exact phrase Alan Chapman recently stressed to me to be a literal description of the Shadows that are to be bound in the Magia practice of “THE HOUSE OF GOD”. So not only can this be seen as a declaration of “Get behind me all ye meddling demons!!!” it is also saying something about putting all your Shadows (in the Magia sense) behind you. Which I like the sound of.

Well, as long as it doesn’t make them harder to find when I want to catch and bind them, of course.

THE GUARDIANS
For those who don’t like the idea of calling in Angels in rituals like the LBRP then the Star Ruby may be a good alternative for you. It stays away from any sort of troublesome Judeo-Christian imagery.

As always, all of this below is very much a UPG moment for me here, so discount and dismiss as needed.

Unlike the LBRP you call in group guardians rather than singular entities.

The Iynges to me, appear as a swarm of screaming magic birds flying in the wind – but it is also interesting that they have a connection with witches and wheels and this made me think of wind turbines – though I am a bit obsessed with them right now from doing my new comic which has Turbines as a recurring motif. I see the calling of the “Junges” as calling forth the power of magick. What could go wrong there, right?

The Teletarchs can also be rendered as “founders of the Mysteries” or “Lords of Initiation”, or something like “the invisible guardians of the Magical Tradition”. So, the debate in my head is whether to see these as Lineage Ancestors (not talking about your dead Uncle Frank here, more the Magic Lineage Ancestors) or perhaps they are something closer to The Secret Chiefs – I am currently leaning towards Secret Chiefs as depending on what way you call in the Earth Element you could have Lineage Ancestors there. See below.

The Synoches are the “maintainers”. I see these currently as something like the elementals that work in the furnace of existence, keeping the fires going. This is in the element of fire so that works well. Also, think of welding, with the whole “joined together” which also fits the Fire element.

As mentioned above DAIMON simply meant any sort of spirit or “genius” with DAIMONOS being its plural. This is the word used in the second version of the Star Ruby that Crowley supplied us and the one I am planning to do. However, it is “DAIMONES” in the first version, which is similar and related but different. DAIMONES, perhaps referrs to “the souls of men of the Golden Age, forming a link between gods and men”. The H.G.A. was once called Daimon, so the Daimones were those who “had their genius” i.e. people who had achieved K&CHGA.

I’d like to bring in some Magia correspondences here. Magia is concerned with the setting sun, and the darkness, and that the “Men and Women of Alabaster” are to be Lamps in this Darkness. Therefore, being that Daimonos are assigned to the North, “the place of the greatest darkness” would it be fair to suggest that this is calling “The Men and Women of Alabaster”? Also, the Mountain and Forest analogies fit well with the Earth Elemental placing

Or, is it just more likely that you are calling general helpful earth spirits? More importantly – do I get to decide which?

I am going to remain open to all this and see what appears rather than holding tight to any idea I might want to project on the ritual. The whole “Look just to see rather than look to confirm” thing.

ANYTHING HAPPENING YET?
For me, I managed to completely put my back out while I dried myself after a shower. This I feel is more aged-related than banishing related, but I think it is worthy of note. On the other side, I was bought a lovely present of a book.

This is why we need to keep good notes – it would be all too easy to see the muscle strains and not the free books.

So, the actual Challenge starts tomorrow. I am looking forward to it.

…mostly.

Star Ruby Week 1: Facing The Darkness

7th October 2020

So, that was the first week, eh?

Well, today is day 7, and I guess I technically shouldn’t be writing the write-up for the week until tomorrow, but it's happening today because today is the day that I have time to do it, and more importantly the will and inclination to do it.

Had I tried to do this last night I would have given up very quickly, as I dipped into a really horrible despairing state and just wanted everything to fuck right off away from me!

It was time to Face the Darkness.

A warning upfront – this is a whingey-ass post that’s probably best ignored.

SPIRITUAL CHEMOTHERAPY
The appearance of the state I had last night was the thing I was most trepidatious about going into this challenge as the previous time I did any sort of similar daily banishing I also experienced these states.

My regularly vocalised aversion to daily banishing stems from the fact that it sort of feels like spiritual chemotherapy to me, whereby all the bad stuff gets nuked but so too does the good. It’s a bit like burning everything to the ground to start again. This, of course, isn’t everyone’s experience of banishing, and I’ll ignore the whole “But you need to Invoke too, you idiot!” debate for now.

During my previous experience, which I abandoned after around two months of daily practice, I experienced a number of good things (from my humble perspective – the view of the gods may differ) being removed such as a pretty immediate sizeable impact on my income -all my guitar students quit their lessons in a matter of hours of each other one afternoon – all unrelated, and all for different reasons, all assuring me that it wasn’t anything to do with me.

Now ultimately, this could be perceived as a good thing as I hated teaching guitar and really only did it because I had to in order to pay the bills. So while the argument could be made that the banishing was just getting rid of stuff that was, I dunno… me not following my True Will™? However, it did leave me in a much worse position than I was before the banishing as I was now pretty broke – and that experience is much, much worse than the sheer mind-numbing boredom of having to teach kids music who have no interest in learning music.

I ended up having to go down to the local social welfare office, cap in hand, and sign on the dole. I felt so ashamed and worthless.

Everything fell apart and stayed apart for, frankly, a number of years. Dark, depressing, horrible years.

So, my previous experience of daily banishing is that rather than removing the bad stuff from your life it just makes your life much, much worse. Why you ask then would I want to try it again? To try to get past the “it has to get worse” stage to get to the “Before it gets better” stage.

SO, WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?

I could feel last night’s state coming hours before it arrived. It had that freight train coming towards you feeling.

Over the last week along with the daily Star Ruby, followed by a Fire Practice, I have been really delving deep into some Bindings that are showing me areas of my life where I am reacting to events in, let’s say, a less than ideal manner.

Any sort of shadow work will be intense and make you feel like a shitty person (rather than just a person displaying shitty behaviour) and it is easy, in the midst of it, to get down, depressed, and despondent. Ultimately though there is a great reward for shadow work in that you are able to clearly see your level of assholness and so are finally able to laugh at yourself for being said asshole.

However, you do really have to travel through the darkness to get to the light. Once you see it, it’s next to impossible to continue the behaviour – you really have to try, and you really have to be OK with knowing you are an asshole for doing it.

I had been getting really good headway into these bindings until I noticed that an older binding that I felt I had dealt with suddenly was active again – basically, I was playing the same old asshole again in the same area. This was quite devastating and led to a very quick downward turn into darkness.

Now, as some of you may also have experienced, once the Universe sees that you are spiralling into the pits it does it's very best to exacerbate things by throwing in a few other stings just to make sure you are getting the full experience. I’ll not bore you with the details as the details aren’t important. Besides, they involve other people and I have decided it is only ever fair to tell my story.

I spiralled badly.

I started to see just how trapped I had become in my life and thinking – for instance, my notion of money is a complete mind trap I can’t get out of.

If I don’t have enough, I obviously feel terrible and worthless. If I have enough I also feel terrible because I feel guilt, or that I am doing something wrong, or that I will get in trouble or something that I haven’t quite worked out yet. Having more money than I need just turns me into an anxious mess as I am just waiting for it to blow up in my face.

Due to the fact that I have this very thin line of an unsustainable (probably unachievable) comfort zone when it comes to money, it just feels like the whole thing is a trap, a prison that no matter what happens works out terribly.

I started to feel suffocated.

I then noticed some other shitty behaviour I repeatedly around spiritual attainments (or more correctly lack of attainments) that unfolded into seeing it as a much wider shitty behaviour I perform in all areas of my life which ultimately is just plain old envy and jealousy – how fucking boring of me? Even my shadows are clichés, not even fancy shadows.

It ended with me thinking all of it is bullshit – ALL OF IT!!! Me, other people, books, magick, money, living, existence, being alive, being dead, trying to improve, the fucking physics of this planet, phone keyboards where you have to type everything three times cos they suck… I could go on – and last night I did, for a number of hours.

Good times.

But you know within all that, below the steady boil of anger and resentment – I knew what the problem was, but knowing it didn’t stop me going on my little spat. Too much enjoyment to have in the indulgence to stop.

The problem, of course, is me.

Or more precisely, the problem is seeing, yet again, the full shine of my shittiness, the full extent of my assholicness and the glory of my useless destructive repeating roles that just seem to be endlessly layered – deal with one only to reveal a darker one and so on, and so on… and pretending its creations fault.

The outward expression of this role is me blaming creation for me being sad all the time.

BUT…
But, this is what I signed up for with this Star Ruby Challenge.

This is also why I do Bindings, why I do the Magia practices, and why I do magick at all.

I’m trying to stop being an asshole.

Magick for me is about working towards not being an asshole to myself first, and then to the people around me, and then to creation as a whole.

The problem I think with the banishing the last time was that I gave up when the going got rough. I stopped going through the dark to get to the light. I had a look at the dark and said: “No, thanks, I’m out of here!” and turned away from it. And have kept my back turned since, hoping it will go away.

Eventually, though, we all have to look at the darkness and walk straight into the heart of it.

Which brings me to Peter Kingsley’s Catafalque, a book that took me well over a year to read. Not because it's that long, but because I have been spending my entire life turning away from the darkness of the themes this book is about.

I felt physically nauseous when I finished it.

I really didn’t want to accept what it was saying, or even look at it, I wanted to make a liar out of Kingsley and condemn him as a fraud, or at the very least mistaken or misguided. But the realisation that came with finishing a book I didn’t want to face is that by not facing it, I would never even know what the actual nature of this darkness I have been so avoiding is.

This whole thing deserves a post of its own – perhaps a video or podcast, so I’ll not go into it now. But I mention it because it is all relevant to the theme of this week, which having gone through it and had a look back I can see is “Facing the Darkness”

Anyway, that’s week one. It’s going exactly as anticipated. Let’s see how the next three or so weeks go.

---

You can read the rest of the Blog Redux Series here!

---

And that's it for another AIWW Newsletter, I hope you got something from it. If you'd like to chat about it, you can leave a comment below, or come find me on Bluesky!

If you would like to support me in doing all the things I do, then feel free to join the PATREON, buy a FORTY SERVANTS deck, get me a book or something from my Amazon Wish List, or just send me some money via PAYPAL. It all really, really helps, and is very much appreciated.

So, until next time,
MAY YOUR BEST DAYS BE AHEAD!

Tommie

---

My name is Tommie Kelly, and I’m an artist, musician, writer & chaos magician from Ireland. I’m probably best known for creating the magick and divination system, THE FORTY SERVANTS. These periodical newsletters are about my adventures in creativity, spirituality, and magick. Check out my website: Adventures In Woo Woo