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To: alt.magick
From: Gnomedplume@aol.com (Gnome d Plume)
Subject: Re: Magick's Dark Mirror - Review of "Dark Mirror of Magick" part 2
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 07:08:52 GMT

On Mon, 12 Nov 2001 04:48:24 GMT, "David Cantu" 
wrote:

******David:

First let me thank you for not just a fair, but actually what I
consider a "good" review--especially good because you are a magician
and for the most part--with a few minor points I will offer
corrections on ---you "know your stuff". So with that said, let me go
through, pick up and  perhaps clarify a few minor facets: *****

>Ok, the first part of this review was really more a summary of the first
>half of the "Dark Mirror of Magick" video and was the easier part to write.
>This second part deals with the details of the procedures shown on the video
>and technical points raised there-by.   I will remind you that this is not
>meant as flame, but an honest assessment of what is presented.
>I apologize for the length and know it will stop some from reading it,
>believe me, it took quite a long time to write as well.  But I felt it
>necessary to study the ritual in some detail and hope that I shed light in
>my efforts here.
>
>The operation, as we all know, was designed to contact the spirit, Vassago,
>and as I made clear in the first part, the main reason for this seems to be
>to illicit a prophecy from the spirit.  Lets first go through the basics of
>the operation.
>
>First Poke opens the temple by lighting the lamps in the four directions and
>calling on the Archangels, followed by a formal declaration of opening.
>Next an invocation to Astarte is given by Sister Ariadne (Sp?).
>The purpose of the operation is then stated, as well as an affirmation of
>success.
>The Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, slightly modified by the change
>of YHVH to Ah Mah Sha Oh, is then nicely performed by Frater Solomon, who
>also handles a sword well.  Poke sits outside the circle while this is done
>and joins in on the vibrations of the Archangelic names.
>Poke then performs a variation on the Septagram ritual for Yesod (nice
>vibrating), declares himself the Archangel Gabriel 

******Actually no. I'm activating the internal Yesod chakra (in our
system we have the entire Tree in a straight line close to the classic
Arthur Avalon arrangement, so I'm actuating Yesod in the Name of
Gabriel---once I have expanded that chakra to encompass my whole body
I will (and do) climb back up to Chesed of Yesod------unfortunately
Henry changed the tape in his camera at that point, so we have part of
the Sepatgram ritual missing. (As Wayne said: "No rehearsals, no
re-takes" so we did not "re-shoot" any of the ritual.)*****

>and declares open the
>sphere of Yesod, and Chesed in Yesod (the evocation is never taken all the
>way to Malkuth/Assiah except as words from Solomon's mouth, but this follows
>Poke's general practice.)

*****Actually I went all the way down from Kether to Malkuth in
Aziluth, and back up to Yesod in Briah--then up to Chesed-of-Yesod in
Briah (third eye location) but, as I said, Henry was re-loading so we
missed some. BTW, the only thing we edited out of the ritual was the
sound of me dropping the sword over at the Tophet in the beginning,
and, of course the closing of the Temple after the ritual, which we
thought was redundant. Otherwise it's straight through.*****

>However, there Are some differences between the septagram ritual as
>published in "The Book of Solomon's Magick", and what appears on video and
>this appears to be largely due to editing.  The practicing novice should be
>aware of this.

******Now we have covered that---and I agree. *****

>In practice, the Archangelic Invocations would be placed at this point,

******I'm afraid that here you are wrong. The only Archangelic
Invocations that we do in Goetia are those in our invoking pentagram
ritual and the in the Septagram ritual itself. The almadel Invocation
series is all accomplished in earlier sessions. This is explained in
*TBOSM* and also in both videos.*******

>before the circumambulations; but, an edit occurs in the video, so it is
>difficult to say whether the Invocation was performed off camera at this
>point or not, there is no indication that it was.  It was stated earlier
>that this would be left out of the presentation, and one must presume that
>the Invocation was performed at some point in the actual ritual, but again,
>the novice viewer should be aware of what is missing and where.

******No edit on this. You just got this procedure a bit mixed up. I'm
sorry if we didn't make it clear enough. *****

>Thabion, Solomon, and Ariadne commence the circumambulations using a drum,
>bell and censer.  Four turns deosil for the sphere of Chesed to charge the
>circle of protection.
>Now the mirror, stool, and implements are moved into the circle where
>Solomon takes his seat at the center, in a pentagram.  The newly charged
>circle is broken several times as this is happening.  As these varied
>movements are occurring Poke (Thabion) recites the Preliminary  Invocation
>from the Bornless Ritual, except that its an edited form of the Invocation,
>even shorter than the original edit (about 1/3 of the source) in his book
>(here re-edited by at least 12 more lines).  Finally, the mirror is placed
>in front of Solomon, however the mirror is on a wooden tripod and the front
>two legs of the tripod, and possibly the mirror itself, are clearly (though
>it is dark) shown to be extending inside of the circle.  Solomon is then
>given two candles to hold and the spirit's lamen is place around his neck
>(this should have been on during the circumambulation according to a
>footnote in Poke's book).  

***Good point. It should have been.*****

>This whole process is a bit fidgety and
>willy-nilly and goes on long enough (2 and a half minutes) to break some of
>the mood.  Solomon is jostled a bit and concentration must be very hard for
>him at this stage.  The breaking of the circle will be discussed below.
>The demon's parchment seal is removed from the brass vessel and an
>invocation to the angel of the SHEMHAMPHORASH is read from the reverse side,
>in Latin (Tracy!!).  The angel invoked in this case is SITAEL.
>It should be noted that all of the invoking and vibrating is done by Poke,
>the conjurer, Solomon, the receiver, remains mostly quiet after his LIRP,
>except for vibrating SITAEL, until he acts as channel for the spirit, after
>"contact" has been made.
>Poke, with wand, next takes his place behind Solomon where he starts the
>conjuration.  This is Poke's edited version of the "First Conjuration" from
>the Goetia, and can be found in his book.  It is explained in the book that
>as he vibrates the Names of Power, he visualizes the activation of the
>receiver's chakras, tracing his wand down Solomon's spine and up again as he
>calls on the Archangels, pausing for a longer vibration on Gabriel in Yesod.
>He then asks the spirit to come using his modified form of the "First
>Conjuration", missing a small line or two, but largely keeping to it.  He
>calls the spirit of Vassago and commands it to appear in a pleasing form,
>keeping up the task and starting the conjuration over again, but with a bit
>more freedom of verse until his second vibration of Ah Mah Sha Oh, when
>Solomon states, "I am here."  He never uses the "Second Conjuration" or the
>"Constraint" from the Goetia.  The process takes 3 minutes and 22 seconds
>from the time Poke starts until Solomon states the arrival of Vassago.
>Pretty quick really.  About 10 seconds before this one can see Solomon wet
>his lips in preparation for speech.  He is not in a blissed out kind of
>relaxation trance or an ecstatic trance and Poke told me privately that such
>trances would have probably been grounds for accusations of fakery.

*******True, but that isn't why we didn't have a "voodoo" or "trance
medium" type of trance. The real reason is that the magical trance
state (for us) is not a total "possession", it is more of a state of
intense, one-pointed, relaxed concentration. I could have asked
Solomon at any time to answer me in his own identity, and he 
could have. *******

>Poke greets Vassago and asks for an oracle.  "As you wish" says Solomon, who
>is supposed to now be channeling Vassago.  What follows is the "Vassago
>Prophesy" one line at a time.  There are a few moments between lines and
>Frater Solomon's eyes are not fixed but blinking and often in motion.  When
>he states that the oracle is ended Poke thanks Vassago and asks that he lead
>those who will listen through the troubled times of the oracle.  Poke seems
>to be ad-libbing this part and Solomon answers yes but Poke continues a
>little beyond his own question so Solomon must say yes again.  This is a
>slightly awkward moment, but, true to professional form, they don't miss a
>beat, and the casual viewer might not even notice.

******I was ad-libing, and perhaps trying to get something "positive"
out of Vassago (and to some extent out of Solomon) to balance  the
doom and gloom of the oracle. ******

>Solomon/Vassago then gives some advice.  To paraphrase, he says that peace
>follows growth and that it is necessary to focus on the divine source, that
>God is Love and universal, and that Love is the key.
>Poke thanks the spirit for its prophecy and encouragement and gives the
>license to depart.
>Thus ends the evocation.
>Frater's Thabion and Solomon are then questioned by Wayne Darwin.  Poke says
>that he feels invigorated and that this is a sign of magical success.  Mike
>(Solomon) says he feels good and then goes on to do a bit of interpreting on
>several lines of the fresh prophecy.
>Darwin then notes, in a postscript, the assassination  of the Congo leader
>that followed the prophecy and asks when the other prophesized events may
>come true.
>This is followed by ads for Poke's other video and book and the video comes
>to an end with credits and dedications.
>
>There are several points raised by the video and these will be discussed in
>turn.
>
>Temple design is very nice, and all in all, the stagecraft is pretty
>immaculate.  In the bright light of camera lights, in Pokes previous video,
>one could make out the lines between sections of the wooden circle, but in
>the candlelight of this video the temple looks professional and beautiful.
>The operators also put on a pretty good show, things work smoothly and
>professionally throughout.
>
>Ritual design is a little less smooth, especially the 2.5 minutes in which
>furniture is moved about and the fact that the furniture moving requires the
>operators to break the, already charged, circle many times, and in,
>somewhat, random motion.  Even though Poke's book says to do it this way,
>this is all stuff that should have been done ahead of any ritual and it
>interrupts the flow of things and renders the circle of little worth. 

*******I see your point and if some operators are very literal about

the actual physical boundaries  of the circle, I would say that they
should  set all the furniture up first. We have never been that
concerned about this literal interpretation and prefer to
circumambulate a clean, circle with a pentacle laid in the proper
position on the pentagram as a visual-hynotic focal point. We use the
Bornless Invocation to cover moving in the furniture. I might add that
you'd need a very big room to get around an nine foot dia. circle with
a four foot easel extended beyond it. Most rooms or even garages
aren't that big. ******

>once the ritual begins, All motion and action should be very deliberate and
>geared towards the purpose at hand.  Just in case I'm being overly
>superstitious, I have asked several people about the way the circle is
>violated here and all seem to agree with me that the circle should be
>charged and then all participants should move inward and the circle should
>then remain unbroken until the end of the rite, after the license to depart.

****However, David, how many of these folks do such operations on a
regular basis? When you've done them for as long and as many times
as we have, some of things that we thought were so necessary years ago
have become less important in light of actual practice. *****

>However, putting the front legs, and possibly the mirror itself, inside the
>circle seems to go even further and violates the very basics of evocation.

>The triangle of art should remain outside of the unbroken and charged
>circle.  These two points dealing with the circle cause me great
>consternation.   I would definitely modify the ritual to take these points
>into consideration before performing it by this method myself.

******That's fine. People  should certainly do what ever makes them
safe and secure especially when beginning this kind of work. We take a
more philosophical than literal approach to the precise position of
the circle and triangle, but I won't argue the point. If it helps
people get started doing the work, I say fine: make your circle
absolutely inviolate! ******
>
>There is no way to tell if anything is actually happening during the
>evocation or not.  Nothing is manifest to visible appearance, except,
>possibly, in the receiver's mind and for all intents and purposes the ritual
>amounts to channeling via a form of skrying.  From my point of view this is
>not an "evocation to visible appearance", something that several people on
>and off this group have achieved, including myself.  By this I mean that the
>evocation is not brought down to the manifest physical world, except as
>words from Frater Solomon's mouth.

****All magical "visions" of this type are subjective, even Steve
Savedow's. (he has a copy of this video BTW) Some can be seen by
multiple receivers but none can be photographed except as a strange
whiff of smoke or unusual light.  If we had shown the face of the
spirit "in the mirror" the way the t.v. studio that edited the
broadcast version did it (as you saw in the beginning of our  tape),
then we  would have been faking. ******

>In my own case the evoked spirit was caught on tape, formed in smoke, and
>there were electrical disturbances that affected the tape and caused
>loudspeakers to pop.  In Joel's case there were also physical manifestations
>and the reader can investigate Steve Savedow's work for similar examples.
>Nothing like that happens here.

****And I am satisfied that it did not. We are not in the miracle
business, although I think our Prophecy is a phenomenal accomplishment
and  magical in a higher sense than fireworks display. ******
>
>The receiver doesn't do any of the conjuring or vibrating of Words of Power
>and so the consciousness changing effects of doing these things play no part
>in the receiver's experience, something that I consider a mistake in
>procedure.   It could be, and should be, that the receiver is doing an
>internal "Middle Pillar", but the recitation of conjurations and vibrations
>of barbarous names can also add to the "inflammation" that is necessary for
>magical changes of consciousness.   In the end we are asked to take the
>operator's word that something magical happened.  But, I fear, magicians are
>born in doubt.

*******You are thinking here of a solo-operating procedure in which
the receiver/operator would do his'her own evocation.  In our system,
if there is an operator and a receiver,  the receiver remains as
passive as possible and let's the operator do the conjuring. Nelson
White will also confirm this (and you know who learned it from Nelson
and also says that receivers remain passive.) ******
>
>The receiver also doesn't seem to achieve any growth through the controlling
>of the demon, and in fact it is the demon that controls the receiver in the
>form of a type of channeling.  This, again, seems to go against the modern
>interpretation of Goetic evocation in which parts of the deep mind (demons)
>are called forth to be faced, bound, and reintegrated into the, thus
>improved, magician. 

******in the first place we don't consider Vassago a "demon" and we
don't use the old medieval "Curse of Chains" in any case. We control
these spirits (psychic components) but we don't abuse them. And in the
second case: Solomon had already received Vassago on an earlier
occasion and was, as he and I said: "on good terms with him," Binding
Vassago was not the purpose of this operation.*******

> Again, what seems to be going on here is a fishing
>expedition for prophecy, something that May have been successful.  The same
>really goes for the demonstration video, "The Magick of Solomon", in which
>communication is staged for demonstration purposes.  I would like to see one
>of these demons constrained to carry out a task in the real world, one that
>can be subsequently checked.  I am not sure that a prophecy qualifies in
>this regard, though, I suppose, I Could argue that it does.
>
>I won't discuss the prophecy itself, but it contains little in the way of
>information previously unknown to the operators that can be checked for
>truth.  The prophecy is somewhat adaptable and hard to test, though I will
>admit that events since the prophecy have played it out nicely enough that
>my curiosity is raised.  We shall see.  Poke was kind enough to send me a
>booklet of interpretation, but I have chosen not to get into the details of
>the prophecy, only the technical points of procedure I have raised.

****This booklet goes out with every copy of the video. Solomon and I
don't always agree on interpretations  BTW.*******
>
>The edits in the video are something that a novice may miss and the edits in
>the original Goetic material are a matter of taste and experimentation.  The
>video will look Very Good to outsiders, but is of less use to more
>experienced practitioners and may mislead novices in some ways, especially
>in regards the breaking of the circle.  The video Does present a good basis
>from which a ritual could be formed but, in my opinion, needs a little work
>before being put into practice by the novice the it is likely to attract.

****That's what *The Magick of Solomon* is for. *Dark Mirror of
Magick* is documentary  footage of the real thing, and *The Magick of
Solomon* is the a training film. ******
>
>I'll now end with a bit of controversy by claiming that every magician in
>the news group Should get a copy of both of Poke's videos and watch them as
>part of their education in things magical and infernal.
>
>Thank you for your support and flames (expected).
>
>Love,
>David

****David, if you get any "flames" on this very good  review, it will
be from people who have never done anything like this before but want
us to think that  they have--or want us all to think that nobody
should ever try.*******

Good Magick!

Gnome d Plume
http://members.aol.com/CHSOTA/dmirror.html
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