Space/Time Tarot/Deity experiments

I decided to do some space/time work with tarot cards after finishing A Brief hirstory of Time by Oryelle Defenstrate-Bascule. In his book he'd explain some of his own space/time tarot techniques and it reminded me of some of my experiments with space/time tarot, which I'd done a year or so back. As good as any reason to break out the cards and do some further experimentation as well as deal with a few gnawing situations in my life. As Oryelle points out and I have pointed out as well, tarot isn't just for divination. It's also for conjuration. A reading provides you more than a glimpse of the future...it also provides you an opportunity to manipulate the possibilities presented to you. I used the voyager deck to create a magical circle and an evocation triangle. The magical circle and triangle is based off the book Portable Tarot by Donald Tyson, but the technique described here is an extension of his concepts into my own style and experimentation of magic. Here's what it looks like (Note you can also click the link to see the full picture):

The aces are in the center. They form the elemental foundation. On top of them is the card, which represents my current self. My presence is the Hanged Man. The outer circle is the trumps cards used to create the magical circle or tarot temple or whatever else you want to call it.The row of cards above are trump influences I am relying on. All of them were appropriate as gateways and power providers.

The summoning Triangle is the Priestess, the Fool, and Space/Time. Normally the Hanged man would be part of the Triangle, but I replaced him with the Priestess card, thinking it appropriate, plus the Hanged man is the presence of me. The Master of Worlds is the Future self I picked for myself. I thought of going to the usual card, the Woman of Crystals aka the Gaurdian, but I realized that didn't feel right, so I randomly stirred the voyager cards until my hand came to that card, which said I am the future of you. I realize now that the Guardian card is no longer representative of me. She was the guardian of my lies, illusions, and delusions which Babalon stripped away from me this last year. The presence of the Hanged Man is that which stares into the emptiness of zero seeking answers while submitting to the suffering necessary for achieving those answers. That suffering, for me, is really the emptiness work and the work with my past, with the roots of all that has haunted me in this life. The Master of Worlds is also the Master of time, but to master anything, you have to submit to it first, surrender to the flow in order to understand the force and manifest a movement that goes in sync with others. The master has surrendered to the emptiness and so understood it. He is me after this year is finished, or at least a possible variant of me.

I did the activation of the circle as well as the invocation of the future self into my present self, asking him to guide my hands for the reading I was going to do. I evoked the spider goddess of time, Purson demon of time, and Thiede the Dehar of space/time. I also evoked Xah my Personal Daemon and fox spirit and guide. Each of these beings are essential to my mythology of time. I wanted their presence and guidance in the working I was doing, because I wasn't just doing a divinatory reading, but actually a conjuration across the silver web of time. Below is a picture of me meditating with the forces that I'm working with:

I felt my older self lay his hands into mine and I shuffled my Alchemy deck and created a reading specific to circumstances in my life, both present circumstances, but also seeking for the person(s) who are part of a very specific magical working in my life that is yet to come, which this emptiness working and the love working has been a prelude to. Below is the cards pulled for the alchemy deck (Note you can also click the link to see the entire picture):

You can see most of the cards, though one got caught in the glare of the light. The Three in One, in the center, are present situations in my life. The two cards above and below the three card spread are current potential factors I can use that also involve what it is I'm seeking for. The card to the left is the past, and aptly reflects who I was. The cards to the right is an action to take as well as the desired reality. This not justr a reading...it is actually a specific working, a conjuration of reality, which utilizes the principles of the cards to manifest specific goals. The last time I did this type of working, was for Leisa Refalo's Podcast on Tarot and the magical working I did has come to fruition and continued to manifest since then. I mention that because I want to emphasize the dynamic nature of this working. It isn't a divination...It it a conjuration of potential that is manifested into reality. It does provide necessary information for how the conjuration will manifest, while also aligning the realities into one. It's also a kind of retroactive magic, because I'm using my future self to guide my presence in manifesting this potential into specific reality.

After I did this reading, I then spent some time working with the spider goddess of time in particular. I asked her to show me how to weave webs of potential into reality. I put my hands together as if in prayer, but as I looked at my hands, I felt the Astral fingers of each hand go through the other hand, so that I held my physical fingers in prayer, but held my astral fingers in a kind of V and used both sets of hands to weave the silver strands of time into reality. She guided my weaving and as I looked into those hands, I began to see a flickering of images that represented different potential realities. I started weaving the images into the silver webs and then cast the webs into reality. The webs of time would take the images of the possible future and meld them into reality. Below is a picture of the prayer pose I was doing. Obviously you can't see the astral fingers, but it gives you an idea of what I was doing on a physical level:

When I finished with the meditation, I thinked each deity of time and then thanked my future self. I recorded the cards and the specifics of the reading in my personal journal and then undid the temple, releasing the silver webs into reality. I'll be experimenting with this technique in more depth and there will likely be an article about it in the future, but I also wanted to show a work in progress as it were as well as how I do some of my space/time magic work. This post will likely end up in my book on identity and magic, as a lot of my research and experimentation is involving a lot of space/time work. This is a small example of that work.

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Review of A Brief Hirstory of Time by Oryelle Defenstrate-Bascule

For any chronomancer out there, this book is a must read. Not only will it put you in touch with the Spider Goddess of Time, but it also demonstrates experimental magic at its finest. Oryelle presents some very intriguing concepts and ideas about time magic. I found it hard to put this book down as I was enthralled by his ideas, as well as noticing some intriguing synchronicities in our work (which isn't surprising as this seems to be common amongst Space/Time magicians), most notably the silver strands of time. Oyrelle artfully blends poetry and art into a discourse on space/time magic which is revolutionary for what it offers, namely a non-linear perspective on time as well as methods for practicing some potent space/time magic. I'll definitely be utilizing some of this techniques and experimenting with them, because I know the process described within the book works. I've already started working with the spider goddess of time and she is a very real presence. I highly recommend this book. You will get a lot out of it and also be supporting and artist and magician in his work.

5 out of 5 silver webs of time.

Emptiness and Time

Since I've started reading Oryelle's A Brief Hirstory of Time, and also because of a conversation with a fellow practitioner, I've been thinking a lot about time's role within emptiness. It strikes me that time has a very prevalent role, both in emptiness itself, and in what comes after emptiness. Within emptiness time is representative of all the possibilities that could exist. Time isn't static in emptiness, though it may seem like it would be. Rather everything is occurring all at once. Time is non-linear, indistinguishable from reality. Time occurs, but isn't defined into measurements or increments.

When emptiness changes, when possibility becomes reality, time can be linear or cyclical, depending on how one perceives the event occurring. Oryelle says time becomes emit, or time is emitted and that works as well for our purposes. Time is emitted from emptiness when possibility manifests into reality.

It's interesting to realize that emptiness is not a vaccuum...there is existence even within emptiness. It's fluid, constantly changing, almost entrophic and the only thing which makes it non-entrophic is that a choice can be made and when the choice is made, progression occurs, something comes out of nothing, 1 originates out of 0.

If you think about it making a choice is when time begins. Or at least a version of time related to that choice...or not because there's everything leading up to choice, at which it might be cyclical instead of linear.

So it seems like the element of emptiness is also the element of time. It makes sense to me. I'm actually developing a new meditation technique, using time and the element of emptiness, but I'll discuss that at a later date.

An intriguing phenomenon I've noticed

I just finished reading The Apophenion by Peter Carroll and started a Brief Hirstory of time by Oryelle Defenestate-Bascule and I've noticed a really intriguing in both those books and Farber's latest book. It seems like all these authors have created specific entities that are engaged with, invoked, etc., by the very act of reading the book. It's as if the book acts as a gateway into the mind of a person and then uses that to create a connection to the entity which allows it to manifest. In fact, there's principles of memory which could be worked with in that way. If the entity imprints on the memory, then every time the entity is remembered or imagined it's invoked into the life of the person. I can see some roots of this in Burroughs work and Austin Osman spare's art concepts. With william S. Burroughs, you can feel the character's come alive, and I think his books were his way of invoking himself into the lives of other people, through his use of characterisation...as some of his characters were based off him. And of course a lot of written books inadvertently invoke entities, because the characters are so real to the people that they become a live for those people, but it's only with these books that I've noted an intentional effort toward creating an entity. I imagine too, that if you faithfully do the exercises that this strengthens the connection of the entity to you, as well as how it manifests in your life. It does make me wonder if I could create such an entity myself...Actually I think we do it all the time...but creating one where the book itself activated the entity is fascinating to me.

As is I can safely say that the goddess apophenia is now a presence in my life as a result of reading Carroll's work and I'm inclined to sustain that effort by working with her...it makes the book more efficacious when I read it next time. Although I've decided to already reattribute her as a time goddess, instead of how Carroll treats...which then makes me wonder if the book allows you to create your own variant of the entity, which could even work at cross purposes of the writer's intention.

Book Review: The Apohenion by Peter Carroll

I was really intrigued when Carroll released a new book on chaos magic. The Apophenion is the introduction to a goddess, more space/time speculatation, theory, and practice from Carroll, an exploration of the multi-mind and much more. It is a book worth picking up if you're into chaos magic or experimental magic, or if you're curious as to how someone who has training in math and science is applying that training to magic.

What I liked about the book was Carroll's succinct explanations of his theories about time magic and the multi-mind. I also liked his explanation of Apophenia and how one can work with her. I already consider her a deity of space/time workings from his description of her. I will note that the Apophenion is mainly a book of theory and that it assumes that readers already know a good deal about magic. Any practical applications of it, are left entirely in the hands of the readers to produce.

With this book, Carroll charts new path for chaos magic, while also updating readers on his own work. I highly recommend it as an inspiring and thought-provoking read.

5 out of 5 chaostars