Finding joy in adversity...

Life is an adventure, it is a journey, full of all the joy and hope and sorrow and sadness that anyone of us, I am sure, can give testament to. We each have come upon our own trials and tribulations, have found ourselves head first up against the many barriers and walls that so often seem to be right there in front of us; do we knock them down, climb over them, or as is often the most simple, just walk around them til we get to the other side? I have found that rather than avoiding a situation it is best to confront it, this is of course the hardest path to take because it causes the most friction, it give us the most resistance. But it must be said that by facing our problems head on, facing up to what blocks us, we learn, we progress through a "hard time", and rather then simply ignoring such an occurence we deal with it, move on, and don't have to worry about it rearing its ugly head again.

Each thing that we have to fight for, work for, is worth more! It can definitely be said that life would be easier if we simply just didn't care enough to fight our way through and then just sailed on our merry way, but I don't thnk life is meant to be easy. I mean if life were meant to be this paradise of bliss and joy and fulfilled desire there would not be this constant yearning to become more, to learn more, to experience more. Life is hard, we each know that, but how often do we contemplate that each and every situation we have been through is in fact a piece of a puzzle that is perhaps to large for our human eyes to see, that even though we might not be able to see the "big picture" does not mean that we should stop searcing for the "pieces" that make it complete. That is life, life is the desire to complete the "picture", to obtain those bits and pieces that go to make us a whole.

We should not be afraid to face things head on, to confront our adversaries, to overcome out obstacles; when we do so we are the ones who lose, no one else, just us. I wish I could say otherwise, but no ones else cares enough either to do it for you because they are too busy getting through, or avoiding, all of their own barriers in life. It must be said though that when we do face these barries in our life and come to terms with our life situation and circumstances, we win more than we ever could lose. It is frightening I admit, and one must be courageous and bold and have strength, but really it is a matter of Will and of Heart, because really once we know what we seek, most of us would say Truth, which is the foundation of both the True Heart and the True Will, we know that with each ordeal that is passed we are one more step closer to discovering Truth; which is really just us removing the veils of illusion that hide from us that we are ourselves manifestations of Truth, that we Love and that we are Beauty incarnate.

I know many will say it's too hard, it is difficult, but that is the way of all things. All that is worth anything, is something that must be worked for, those who seek the easy way out leave this life with just about as much as they came into it with. We all want so desparately to Become, not more, not greater, but simply to BE. The conundrum in all of this however is that in order to Be we must Become, and if we are to Become, we have to embrace Life in all it's aspects, the good, the evil, the joyous and the sorrowful, we can not accept one half of Life, ignoring the other half, and expect to have anything but a mediocre life. If we want to live life to the fullest we have to dive head first into the pool and just hope we don't drown. Avoidance is the fool's route and not much will be reaped from walking this path but fools gold, and that is nothing.

Remember, that our time here is limited and yet we each fill that our Work is more than we could ever accomplish, in fact it is so, that not one of us ever completes the work of the Soul in just one lifetime. Does this mean we forfeit the work that needs to be done simply due to its being "too hard"? No, this means that we press on with the daily reminder that Death is always at our doorstep, knowing each day that passes could be our last, and with this thought in mind we must really get on with it or we get left behind; or even worse, we regret when the day comes for us to "meet out maker" and we wish we would have done things differently and with that will come the horrible realisation that it's too late.

By going through the darkness we come to the light enshrined therein. Do not be afraid.

Whisperings from the Void - New Book Via Aeon Sophia Press

I would like to take a moment to announce that in August my very first book will be published via Aeon Sophia Press.

Pre-order reservations are not being accepted.

Whisperings from the Void: The Amaranthine Arcanum of Holy Image and Revealed Exegesis.

"From Thy Forked Tongue speak thy Gnosis from  Starry Heaven made,

and here cast down the Secret Seraph's Flaming Blade."

"Whisperings from the Void: The Amaranthine Arcanum of Holy Image and Revealed Exegesis'' consists of two books that are connected by various threads of thought and philosophy, emotion and praxis, devotion and gnosis. Though sundered, they do united become whole; the force and the form of a path straying between the realms of night and day.

~ BOOK I ~

Book I: The Path of the Hermit- an anthology of essays which seek to illuminate by way of written word and artistic fashioning myriad interests regarding such topics as the Void, the Undefined Desire of the Universe as both source and foundation of the material Cosmos the Womb and opposing Tomb of all existence; the nature of the Self and Consciousnes. The Dualism of Subject and Object including the ever present reality shared between each; A personal account of the Unseen world existing in tandem to our own, as well as its effects upon us and vice versa. The Mask and the Mystery; the reality of the Soul and its placement within the Sorcerous Arte, the inheritance of Sorcerous Fire from the Witch Goddess, and the concept of discovery and growth through adversarial opposition. The lighting of the darker paths of wisdom, locating there the ever blazing flame of the Art Magical behind all veils; The true Solitary nature of the Path towards Discovery of Divinity. Of seeking to examine the multitude aspects of Being both as spiritual and earthly entities, as well as exploring our individually created and maintained universe in terms of the emotive, mental, imaginative and phantastic emanations.

In many ways this work entire must be considered ‘liminal’ in that it inhabits a space betwixt: between the auspices of writ and limn and so too of the peripheries of waking and dreaming, leading beyond worlds of spirit and of the flesh in order to issue forth from a domain of devotion and praxis, Balance and Beauty, the gnostic revelation of Lux Veritas.

Amidst all this is also featured the artwork series ‘Hermit Pathos’: 12 full page renderings, representing various concepts not readily identifiable through the conventions of articulated word, as well as a collection of sorcerous sigils acting as Keys to the world existent beyond all which is scribed: to bypass the filters of conscious mind via symbol, ordaining the opening of the gateways to the unseen and unconscious self to pour through into our world and behold the shadow-realm with eyes of pure light.

"On another level, purely visionary one could say, there exists within us an ‘eye’ of sorts, not just any eye but a Spiritual Eye, that sees and beholds ALL. It resides in the deepest parts of ourselves and yet never ceases to watch, to observe, to look out as well as within.  This Eye could be said to be the equivalent of the Third-Eye, the Ajna, the source of what has over time become know as the ‘Second-Sight’, it is via this inner ability to see both the seen and the unseen that we experience visions, partake of the Imaginal worlds, and have the ability to ‘see’ into other worlds, other dimensions. It through attuning this Spiritual Eye through various means such as occult praxis and meditation, rites and rituals, devotion and hard work that we start to open up to the invisible worlds around us, to actually hear the Voices of the Gods and Spirits, and to partake of that Grander Vision of the Universal and Infinite Godhead."



~ BOOK II ~

Book II: The Book of Blood- A treatise of prose serving to describe by various means the Path and Praxis of the Sorcerous Arte: containing prayers, devotionals, rites and modes of Praxis which commit to explaining in detail particular aspects of ritual and spirit-congress, including but not limited to: icons and invocations unto the Masculine and Feminine aspects of the Godhead through various masks called herein the Holy Sorcerous Daemonic Host; those Devils and Angels of the Arte otherwise known as the Intelligences who preside as Patrons of the Dark Arte: a path trampled through the Lands of Nod, those Dreaming Worlds of the Soul leading to the Spiritual fountain of Wisdom.

As a collective of work based upon profound personal experience and dedication to the very Gods typified within, we once more bear witness to the same dynamic fusion of prose and art which includes a series of invocations and sigillic accompaniments pertaining to each God and Goddess by which the complete manifestation of Libri ab Sanguis is intended as presented here through a succession of mystery-rites.

Libri ab Sanguis as featured here in a series of 19 full page icons along with their accompanying text and insignia shall reveal through such twin aesthetics another set of Keys which open out into the vistas of Spirit. Each deity named and petitioned represents a power and as such all image becomes a gateway revealing sigils, features and habitations which both veils and reveals their essence. Though these are but masks they allow equally the discovery of means by which they may be lifted and through which understanding of their true nature may be realised; each must be engendered and embraced if one is to locate the heart of each Mystery as it is envisioned.

"Rituals and rites are about congress with the unseen powers of the Universe, within rite we consciously interact with the powers of Heaven, Earth and the Underworld, with Gods and Spirits both Empyrean and Infernal, it is about experiencing the spiritual aspect of reality whilst incarnate, a way of enfleshing upon the Earth the Mysteries of the Eternal. It can be seen as a process that brings the seeker into communion with Divine Presence and Wsdom, Spirit unto spirit, Soul unto soul and Self unto self, it is about reaching out into Otherness."

Each work spoken of above is herein bound and presented as a single breath, One heart: in order to inform and ensoul its twin through a chaotic interplay of artistic phantasia and gnostic revelation.

"In the Blackest Light of Azazel I Illuminate the Secret House of

the Hidden God: shine I with the Radiance of the Divine ever concealed

beneath the Veils of Flesh!"

http://www.aeonsophiapress.com/-PRE-ORDER_Patrick_John_Larabee_Whisperings_from_the_Void/p1293621_6551529.aspx

And the Shadow is cast....

So often we live in a world that only we can see, a world that is wholly ours and in becoming aware of both others and Other, we seek to project ourselves into and upon it in order to make sense of their existence when in reality they exist for the exact same reason you do, just because. There is not fault in this, there is no one way to view it, it simply is. It is hard to make room for people in your life when one already has the whole world crowding in, stooping over like a vulture that is just waiting for you to die so it can feed upon the carcass of your remains, of what is left when you give up. The thing is that when we decide to give up, when we tire of trying, we seek to place the blame on someone else, we seek to shift the responsibility to another, to someone outside of ourselves, to Other.

We blame family, friends, loved ones, 'God', all the while never truly realising that we are the ones who have made the decision to let go, to stop fighting, to give up, to become carrion for the vultures, this weight can never be placed upon the shoulders of another, as hard as we may wish it could be so, it cannot be and when we try to force it we only ever hurt those who are only trying their hardest to be there for us, to help us, to love us.

Life is hard and living is even harder, but in realising that some will only try and cover it up makes it even worse. I have realised that we see the worst in others because we possess that within ourselves and when we chose not to realise that we are the ones projecting, transferring these darknesses onto those we have in our lives is when we attack them for being what is essentially ourselves.

There is a bible quote that I find to be apt for this subject and it goes "So why do you see the piece of sawdust in another believer's eye and not notice the wooden beam in your own eye?" and it is because rather than attacking ourselves for a specific unwanted behaviour we would rather attack someone else for it, it's like fighting a battle with yourself but using another person to fight it out, in the end however nothing is resolved and we only wind up hurting others in the process.

I have always found so much truth to the words inscribed above the entrance of the Delphi Oracle, where it says "Know Thyself", we have all read these words repeated in so many books of wisdom, spoken by teachers since ancient times, and yet how many of us truly know what they mean? I cannot say I truly know but I do have my own ideas and here I will share with you those ideas, it seems that so often we forget ourselves in relation to a world that is just as diverse as the thoughts in our heads, we wish to know and yet we take no time to acquaint ourselves with the knower, the seer, the watcher, the I inside, in seeking to obtain knowledge of the world and ourselves we seek outside of ourselves, taking what we find and applying it to ourselves rather than finding ourselves and applying it to the world, this can lay a difficult path before us as we then desire to become what the world wants, no, expects of us, rather then taking the world and making it ours.

We each are dealt a specific set of cards and we don't always end up with a good hand and many of us opt out rather than playing the game to the end, I can only gather that is a personal choice and one that we each must make as we play the game of life. But who really loses? The one who sticks it out even though they know they might not win or the one who gives up before all the cards have been played? I know this analogy has been spoken of before but perhaps people have never really thought about it as too many give up before the game is over.

I cannot and could not ever speak for everyone but I can speak for myself and I know that I am guilty of projecting my faults onto others, of attacking others for things I myself cannot deal with, does this make me a loser, does this make me a fool, does this make me a bad person? No. It makes me human. The human being is an enigmatic figure and one that I feel will ever be so, but does this mean that in the process we shouldn't strive to learn as much about ourselves as possible? I think it is our responsibility to discover as much as we can about ourselves, especially if we ever expect to hold a respectful and desireable relation to another. If we are constantly trying to outrun ourselves by projecting all of our faults, self-hatred, unfulfilled desires, sadness and failings onto others, onto Other, we miss out on half of lifes lessons. It is not easy to admit ones own faults, ones own shortcomings, but if we can muster just half the courage to admit that just half of what befalls us is of our own doing we open the door to the possibility to becoming so much more.

We so often attack others out of this need to place blame, to seek a release from the shadows that grip us and hold tight to us, when in truth the shadows are but the smaller parts of the light that surrounds us, we all get lost from time to time but I remember something that a great man once said " it is in straying that I found the path direct". We all lose our way from time to time, we all try so hard to become something other than exactly what we are meant to be and this is okay, at least we are trying, pushing ourselves, working on becoming more ourselves than we wish to be, we just need to be mindful and careful of whom we hurt in the process. No one is entirely happy with life, that's how it is, we either deal with it or we don't. But by giving up we lose that which is most precious, ourselves.

It is true when they say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but this is true of so much, not just beauty. For in the end the world we see is the world we behold via our own vision, it is as we are, not the other way around.

Shadow by Steven Kenny

An eternal Nature held forever within our hearts...

Recently on spending some much needed time out in Nature I had dawn upon me a revelation, one which I had thought on from time to time but never really given much time to. And this is the place that Nature holds in the more primeval/primitive and yet constantly changing and evolving Magical Artes, especically those areas known more specifically as Traditional Witchcrafts. It is from this realm that we drawn most of our inspiration and power, it is the home of much of our gnosis and knowledge within the Artes. Many of us have either been guided or chosen to enter into a direct communication or congress with the spirits of the Land and the intelligences that find their homes within the Realms of the Green, both benevolent and sinister, for that is the way of Nature, a blessing and a curse.

I went to a wooded area that, as a youth, I spent much of, it not all of my time running around in and this place held such magic for me, it was a home away from home. A true Eden, a Garden of Paradise, a retreat from the world of man in my childhood. I remember it vividly and all of it is remembered fondly. Yet, having visited this place years and years later, now as an adult. I noticed that the magic was gone, the trees bare, the paths overgrown, trash littered the forest floor and I could tell that this once beautiful place that was often frequented by not just myself but other children also searching for a place where they too could leave behind the cares of a world that has not much time for children.

As I walked down the now hidden paths that were once clearly defined and walked often, it dawned on me that this once marvelous and enchanted place that as I child I set aside, perhaps as the only place wherein I found any true sense of a god, had fallen into ruin and despair, that in so many ways it was now symbolic of the state of the world and the ideals that are now upheld by humanity, that nature, once it all its glory and held in reverence, had now become nothing more than a product,something to be used and abused, to be resourced and sold and bought by the highest bidder, only to be raped and ravaged. Destroyed. The magic was gone.

I was saddened by this, by the blatant, wreckless, and uncaring attitude with which this once truly holy place had come to be treated. Totally devoid of the magic that it once held, all that now stood there was a symbol of the world of man and his irreverence to anything truly holy and divine. I stood amidst the tress, in which I still saw glory trying to shine from out of a darkness, and yet I also stood amongst the trash thrown upon the ground from various generations, the soda cans, the refuse of the people to lazy to dispose of their garbage properly, the now rusted coffee tins that were jagged and bent, just like the people who left them there. But in so many ways I could still see myself as a child running through this one miraculous place, playing games with friends, riding my bike, building forts, and yes, doing magic that issued from my own innocence as a child is wont to do when the world of the adults if no longer impinging upon our minds, when we escape their desires and their needs to experience our own.

I now find myself wondering if it is us who hold the magic, that it is we who see through a veil of enchantment, of illumination, that it is our desire to see the beautiful and truthful aspects of a world that is so often left behind as we grow up that allows us to see what others refuse to even acknowledge? No, it is not simply we who possess this, for Nature, the Wilderness, IS MAGIC! It is a divine realm and one that we must now seek out and respect, for it has withdrawn from the many and is only revered now by the few. I can only hope and pray that one day, that children like myself and others who truly understand what place the natural world has in our lives, stand up and re-erect the Emerald Chapels of the Enchanted Realms of the Green.

In many ways I understand that we live in a dying world, but it is not yet dead and to treat it as such will only bring to you what you have sown and you shall wind up with the gold of the Fae, nothing! I pray that one day the world will be a brighter place, a balanced place, where each woman, man and child, can live in harmony with the world as it was when we were brought forth from its mighty and nurturing bosom, we have outgrown ourselves and forgotten our place.

We might be children of the starry heavens but this place is our home for the time being and as such it should be treated with the love, kindness and respect that it deserves. We are not alone here, this much is obvious to anyone who takes just a small amount of time to enter into this world within our own. Life is everywhere, and it possesses such beauty, such strength, and in it we will find the Truth we all seek if we but open our arms and our eyes to receive it once again and feel within our own beings that rhythm of Natures heart as it beats in pace with our own, for they are one and the same.

~Patrick Larabee

A Secret Unknown....

Within each and every thing there is a Secret held within a Secret, a Dark House Unseen that houses a Hidden God, it is this Truer Self that we aspire towards, it is our connection to the Gods. Those of us who walk the path of gnostic revelation seek ever the wisdom of these Gods and it is through Them that we are guided on the paths that each of our souls must take, not just within this life, but all lives; for it is They who have guided us here and it will be Them that guide us on from here, ever onwards through the spiraling path of spiritual evolution, through the massive Becoming that we all take part in every moment of our lives; whether it be known or unknown to us, we are all walking this path into Eternity.

Life, what is life but a series of experiences, of massive upheavels of consciousness, of an outreaching towards some great Unknown Mystery. What we seek is all around us and yet unseen, we feel it, we known it, we think about it, we conjure it and work with it, but it is ever a mystery, and the more we walk towards it the greater the mystery becomes. Eventually somewhere along the path we realise that it is Mystery that we seek, that it is the Unknown that we strive ever to grasp, and yet in our grasping of it we become a part of it, and how does one know Mystery when they themselves are that very mystery?

We must seek to know ourselves, and yet are not our depths inconceivable. Perhaps that is the Secret of Secrets, that no matter how much we try to uncover this Dark-Light within ourselves, we never see anything but it's shadows; that with every revelation, with every piece of knowledge picked from the Tree of Life, Wisdom and Death, we do nothing but remove a veil that shows but another veil.

What we are as human beings is but another veil, a dense and foggy veil, but a veil none the less. We are a thread in a massive tapestry woven from the things of this Universe, and beyond it; we are indeed the Sun, Moon and Stars, and more importantly our Souls are pieces of the massive Abyss of Space, pulled from the Void of All-Mystery, just as was the Black-God of the Sabbat when given birth by the Ancient of Ancients, the Goddess of All Darkness and the Queen of Heaven, Earth and Hell, so it has been from the beginning and so it shall be til the end.

We are the children of the Gods, we are selves of the Self, we are the masks of the Mask that covers the true face of the Ancient One of Spirit, the Ever-present and yet Ever-hidden Deity of the Void, from whence issues all of the Manifest and yet is the home of all that is Un-Manifest. The ONE of ALL!

We are all "I's:Eyes" of the I: the one Secret that lies an the Centre of All, the always moving, yet motionless being of Chaos! We each possess a secret within us that is the cause for this massive conglomeration of drawing together, it is at it's purest at Birth and at Death, it is untainted, unburdened, like a shining mirror that reflects the truth of the World and of Existence.

Our individual "I" is as a Pole, an Axis, that is the Centre of our own individual universe, and it is about this Axis of Sentient Luminosity that all that we are rotates, there is a Watcher within, the Great Ever-Open-Eye that exists within the depths of our being, it sees all, it knows all, it takes in all, it learns, it grows, it takes all for it's own pleasure, it does not differeniate between the sinister and the holy, it has no moral ground, it thrives on experience and seeks only to break its own laws in order to Become; it is in some ways a replication of the I:Eye that is at the centre of the Void, unknown and unknowing, yet assimilating everything, the source and the end; if there can truly be said that there is an end, that too is another mystery.

This much can be said, here there is Man, as a sentient being, containing within him a Light, a Hereditary Spark thats speaks ever to his Unconscious Self revealing unto his Dayside self the origins of his being, speaking of many things forgotten and covered long ago in mans search for a permanent truth here, in this world, and then there is the Universe, the massive deep, the Void of all Space, Time and Being; each Self reaches out into this Otherness to develope some understanding of our place here upon this Terrestrial Sphere, this world which is but one of millions of worlds, one manifestation that has issued forth from the Multitudes of Being.

As is the way of the seeker of the Eternal, all that has been said here is just one selfs ideation of personal principles, all is truth and all is a lie, a mask and mirror, and as such shall remain, as does the Mystery, a secret unknown...

By Patrick Larabee

Sayings from my Soul, Part 1

~ Humanness is a Mask and one that is worn for but a short time. We are more than we know, and the first step is side-stepping the Flesh and stepping into the sphere of the Spirit. Zazas zazas nasatanada zazas!!

~ My Light is shown darkly through Mask and Mystery, and yet my Darkness burns bright.

~ The All-Consciousness: I

~ Who will be left...after my death...to fear being dead? We dream of death while living...perhaps the dead dream themselves more alive...then ever we were.

~ "I": flux, current, or an indefinite series of insubstantial states.

~ Self takes self in self-sacrifice, not always an easy path to take. For some of us the road is lined with a sweet-smelling bait, to catch, to ensnare us, to trap and trick us. But in the going is the Way, not to give up provides us with the light that brightens our nights.

~ I have gone beyond Death, and in that darkest of darknesses I have a seen a Light!

~ All the world as we know it, "reality", is simply realisation; it is revelation.

~ Verily the truth be as such, that the Wise know nothing and the Fool knows everything, and yet somewhere in between the Wise and the Foolish they are indeed become one and the same; so perhaps, the Wise-Fool knows and understands everything about nothing, or rather, knows nothing about everything...?

~ The Cross'd-Roads is the Intersection of an Infinite Number of Possible Realities.

~ We are the Shadows cast by our Inner Light.

~ Read your books, contemplate, think, research, but live your life too!! Love and be free, and remember to always follow the Path of the Spiritual Heart. For once the Spiritual Heart is discovered, all becomes a part of that Massive-Mother-Beat that reverberates throughout all of the Existent, and even into the Beyond!

~ If you seek the secret of Life you must go to Death and ask Him for it directly; I did so and you know what He told me: "Live my child, live!"

~ Those who focus too much on the Mask, the Flesh of themselves, and not enough on what is emanating through it, the Essence, create an obsession of the Ego. When one fails to recognise the current manifestation of their Light as simply one Form in an endless series of Forms they create a Legion of Demons, of Adversarial Entities, with which they are in constant battle.

~ LOVE: it's not just one thing, it's not just one feeling, it's not infatuation, it's not being in love and yet it is a part of that, being in love is not LOVE although LOVE is being in love. It is every single emotion in one, it is so much more than any one thing. It's new and it's old, it's joy and sadness, the very thing that makes one the happiest is also the very thing that can make one the saddest, it's invigorating, it's frightening. It leaves one vulnerable, but in that vulnerability one also loses themselves in the other, in their love, and the loss of self is somewhat comparable to bliss. Love is so complex and yet the most simple of all all things, the intricasies are beyond understanding and yet the most easiest things to feel, to sense. Sometimes it is blind as they say, but I think it not blind as in cannot see, but more so in an "eyes wide shut" kind of way.

~ Self-Remembering, or Self-Recollectedness, leads to the Knowledge of the Inner Knower.

~ One must say the words, it not matter what words you say; so long as they be Words of Power for you. But they must be said, it is the words that you speak that shape the reality you live in. So start the changes by speaking the words that will catalyse the changes into manifestations.

~ A Man is Legion, He is Many. Yet all this Many comes from One, and this One is the Eye of the I of the Seekers Inner Heart of Hearts.

~ Soliloquy: Self-Talk, Verbal Contemplation, an Exclamation of Inner Processes and Mental Divergences, although usually tending to be of a positive and illuminating nature; yet possibly revealing Shadow Aspects of the Self.

~ The Body is Vessel to the Ever-Changing Spirit of the Seeker.

by Patrick Larabee
All rights reserved - NO PERMISSIONS GRANTED

In the Darkest Places of Wisdom...

In our modern times it is all too common for knowledge to be garnered from the internet, or other more obvious places, books, television, word of mouth, etc. I believe, however, that there was once a time knowledge, so-called, was found in much darker places. I can imagine a time, perhaps not so long ago, when knowledge, or maybe even wisdom, would have been a hard won treasure, something someone had to work for, it was never just given, some would say it was found, discovered even.

There is a place within us that reacts to the world around us, and through that interaction, within the subjective mind-space, one developes a special kind of knowledge, a unique kind of knowing that can only come from ones own especial interaction with the objective world. It is often in these dark inbetween spaces, these liminal zones between the subjective and objective, between the inner and outer, that an uncanny and otherworldly kind of wisdom can rise to the surface of an attuned mind.

It could be said that here, this place where two worlds bleed one into the other, that it becomes possible for the retrieval of what is commonly know as 'forbidden knowledge', a wisdom that comes from the night, from ones dreams, from sadness, from the places outside of the limits of society, from more, some would say sinister, but I would say balanced, spiritual paths.

When one looks out into the star-studded heavens, into the void, the abyss of space, that somehow holds all of this life, this beauty, and yet itself remains untouched, cold, detached, and like unto death, we are so often reminded of a distant and yet somehow familiar feeling of belonging, of yearning, of a desire to return to the void; a dissolution of the self into all of the dark spaces inbetween all of the points of light, the stars, the suns, within the abyss.

There was a time when being out at night, amid the wild places of the world, underneath the starry sky, one could, in more one ways then one, discern in some small way our true position amongst this great mystery of life, death, and becoming. Sometimes an even greater mystery, although harder and much rarer to discover, would be revealed, that of un-becoming; of some kind of distant memory of a great darkness, peaceful and homelike, and yet to our small and limited, human-bound awarenesses, quite terrifying - the Great Unknown, the Void, the Abyss, the ultimate Mystery of Mysteries.

It is also in the night, under the spell of the sandman, when we dream. Within these dreams we often learn of a far more superior, yet often times disembodied, more powerful and yet at times puzzling and enigmatic self. A self, although less confined by the laws and regulations of the ego, is still very much wrapped up in the ways of the flesh and much indeed at the pull and whim of desire. Yet here, at night, in our beds, asleep and within our own heads, we can often times find ourselves much more alive than in our waking lives. Some even prefer their dream worlds to waking reality, some at times totally forsaking the one for the other; which in my opinion is never a good thing and can often lead to a life of delusion and fantasy. There is definitely a great need for balance when it comes to the utilisation of dreamt of knowledge within the reality of the everyday.

Once people even looked to their darker emotions as a place of great learning, many times making great discoveries from overcoming their blackest moments. Many a people, and I am one of these people, so I speak from experience, when hitting rock bottom, the darkest places of sadness, and sorrow, and despair, come forth from this place, as a light shining brighter than ever before. Having once been down, as low as one can be, they can only ever look upwards and onwards. There are always those though who never do make it back from these darker places within themselves, being so overtaken by them that even the smallest remaining light is extinguished, and they become naught but hollow shells walking in a dead world.

There also was a time when great affectation was given to times of trial and tribulation, often seen as an adversary, an opponent to be overcome. Many of the hardships that once befell people were actually the very things that lead to much of the technology that is, often times wrongly, used in our world today. Had the people of the past not had it so bad there is a very real chance that much of what we take for granted today would simply just not exist.

Living off the land, preparing for the more bitter and life-endangering seasons, guarding and protecting loved ones from the great wilderness that often assailed them from all sides, can well be seen as the very reason for the developements in the modern world, wherein we are safe, usually, protected from the elements and the wild, feed, kept warm, etc., contented and numbed to the very real world that awaits each and every single one of us, right outside our front doors, in the darker places of wisdom....

by Patrick Larabee

Liber Falxifer II - The Book of Anamlaqayin - All Hallows Eve Release

The long awaited Liber Falxifer II will soon be with us, now scheduled for release on the Night of the Dead, Samhain 2011. This is going to be a grand work and those whom work the Current of 182 I am sure will find this tome to be of immeasureable value.

To reserve a copy please go to: http://www.ixaxaar.com

LIBER FALXIFER II
The Book of Anamlaqayin
N.A-A.218


The Second Book of Master Falxifer will delve further into the Necrosophic mysteries of Qayin, but will also cast a Black Light on some crucial aspects previously hinted at and at the same time veiled in the first book of the Left-Handed Reaper. One of these crucial aspects concerns the identity of and the gnosis granted by the Hidden Mother of Our Bloodline, the Bride of Qayin.

The Second Book of Falxifer shall continue where the First Book left off, as the purpose of all the publications of the T.F.C. is to make available the initiatic tools needed by Those of the Blood in order to awaken and set ablaze their slumbering Pneumatic Flames.

The Second Book will once again present an extensive set of both worded and wordless manifestations of Sorcerous Gnosis and provide access to previously hidden keys to both low and high forms of Necrosophic Nigromancy, Necromancy, Ancestral Veneration, Herbal Sorcery and Daemonology and give new detailed instruction about how the powers of the insignias, talismans and fetishes of the Lord of the Harvest can be further employed in order to achieve both temporal and spiritual power, victory and transcendence, all by walking in the fiery and blessed footsteps of the First Ones who traversed the Paths of Nod.

Some of the topics presented within the Second Book of Our Master are: esoteric discourses revealing the mythic foundation of our Qayinite Gnosticism, the Veiled Bride of Qayin, Her secret formulas of Calling and Names of Power, Her sigils and Keys of both high and low sorcery, the Dark Dead and their hidden and most fearful aspects, the cleansing, protective and empowering baths, the herbal formulas and activations of the 7 Key Sigils of Death, the Mysteries of 72 Black In Green, the powers of the First Tiller and the workings of His Green Point of the Skull, the rites of protection and concealment, the creation, loading and consecration of the aspect-specific fetish of the Lord of the Mound, the secrets of the First Dead within the Cult of Death and His Sigils of Conjuring, talismanic work against the law, the formula and ritual for the making of the Ensouling Tinctures of Qayin, the unified and transcendent aspect of the Twin-Flame of Sataninsam and the Grand Kliffotic Sigil of their Spirit, further teachings concerning the Mighty Dead, prayers, invocations and talismanic forms used for the channelling of the powers of both the soul and the spirit of Qayin and much more.

Those who have faithfully and correctly worked with and internalized the teachings offered in the First Book of the Left-Handed Reaper will, in this Second Book of our Holy Saint of Death and His Bride, receive the instruction needed to further experience the initiatic empowerments, blessings and curses of our Necrosophic Tradition.

For the Glory of the Thrice Crowned Lord and Lady
of the Ebon Skull.

T.F.C.

Find below the chapter listing released by IXAXAAR:-

Regular Edition of 1200 copies

Regular Edition: Hardcover book in black cloth with a gold stamping of Sigil of Anamlaqayin on the cover, black endpapers, gold silk-ribbon bookmark. Fullcover dustjacket. 474 pages, numerous illustrations. First Edition of 1200 copies, each book consecrated and handnumbered.

To reserve a copy please go to: http://www.ixaxaar.com

Esoteric Book Conference

I had a great time at the 3rd Esoteric Book Conference in Seattle, WA with my love. Had my first artshow ever and I would consider it successful. Met up with some long time friends from online for the first time in person, had some great conversations, saw some great art and heard a few really amazing lectures.

A Rite for Congress with the Dead...

I come to the Gates of the City of the Dead,
Three turns against the Sun, 7 coins to pay the way....

I walk the Cemetary-path through Grave-stones; stone-sentinels that mark lives that have been.

"Blessed Dead I ask for Thy guidance, acknowledge the pure-Heart of this seeker in the Darkness."

By the Full Moons Light and Black-candles Flames, Three!

By Sacred Blackthorn, Five, I entwine to Terra the Pentagrammaton of the Spirit, each Thorn into the Ground pierced, to force the Power to be stayed.

7 x's 7, to Bind the Power, Widdershins walk the Ground.

Cross'd-bones upon the Darkened Earth to mark the place where the Sun shall drown.

By the Bloodied World-tree, Gateway of the Worlds, between me and Thee.

"Lord of Death, Master of the Grave!"

I assume the Posture of Death, X'd arms upon my chest:

"King of the Black-Earth, I beseech thee Qayin!"

I become the Living-vessel of the Manes:

"Open wide the veil, let me see, let me see!"

Solely of the Shadow am I become, Body-silent becomes the Key.

By Storax, Blood of the Dragon and Incense of the Dead:

"I, the Spirits call;

"Rise, rise, the Holy Dead!"
"Rise, rise, the Mighty Dead!!"
"Rise, rise, and share with me wine and bread!"

In Sacred-meal I share communion with the Decease'd.
Upon the Earthen-floor I lay en-tranced, I leaves "I", projection of Sight.
Under the Night-sky, with the Shades I fly, to the Damn'd Sabbat of the Witches.


Commentary:-

1. - The three black candles represent the Unseen, thus black because hidden, aspects of the Sorcerers Power of Will, Desire and Belief, and here the Full Moons light is symbolic of the power of the Goddess, the Quintessential-force of the Cosmos.

2. - Blackthorn is the Sacred-arbour of the Lord Qayin, and is possessed of a most holy and dark power. Here used to mark the 5 points of the Pentagram within the Earth. To bind the 5 forces, earth, air, fire, water and spirit to the work to be done, manifesting all of the essential elements for for creation.

3. - Widdershins - in context of this rite, we use this gesture, this magical figuration of the imaginal, as a gathering of the Sinistral-forces to open wide the portal to the Other-side, in our walking against the normal flow of Life-force we create a liminal-gap inbetween this world and the the next.

4. - The Crossed-bones represent the Cross'd-roads, the meeting-place of all times and all places, and thus becomes the Gateway to the Otherside, and by placing this Gateway of the Cross'd-bones at the base of the Tree, here symbolic of the World-tree that leads to the the Three-realms of the Underworld, the Heavens and the Unseen-earth, one is essentially opening a Gateway at the Interstitial-point through the Gateway of the Cross'd-bones into the Realm of the World of Spirits entire - Earthly, Infernal and Empyrean, thus engendering Congress with the whole of the World of Spirits.


7 - A true number of Power, the Septagram, Sigillic representation of the Seven Classical Zones of Power represented by the 7 Traditional Planets of the Ancients, the Sacred Prism of Colour, etc.

3 - Number of the Goddess, the Three Worlds, the Three States of Being, the Sigil of the Triangle binding within it's lines the Triangulation of Intent, bound ever within the walls of Will, Desire and Belief, with which all things become possible.

5 - Number of the Senses, the 5 Elements, and the Pentagram, a most holy Sigil that shines with the very light of the Gods, anywhere it is placed with Intent the Two Worlds are bound together.

By Patrick John Larabee
All Rights Reserved

The ever-petaled flower of the Lily; Lady of the Gardens' sensual-mystery.

‎1 of 20 original pieces of artwork by myself that will be on exhibit at the Esoteric Book Conference in September. All original artwork is for sale and includes a signed talismanic-sigil which comes mounted on black-backing and in wax-sealed envelope bound by sacred-Blackthorn.

Descent of the Witches Fire...

A Soliloquy in the Night....

Listen not to the Voices of the Men of Un-Reason! Listen not to the Voice that issues forth from the Vile Mans Tongue! Listen to the Voice that speaketh not; listen to the Voice of Psyche whom dost reside within thy very Skull!

I will traverse the Inner Kingdoms; I will follow the Light of the One Star! I shall knell before the Altar of the Ancient One of Spirit. I shall raise my voice to the Heavens, even unto the very Depths of the Underworld so that the very Gods themselves shall hear these Words from Silence born.

Within exists a vast Empire of Lost and Ancient Worlds, these are mine by Rite of Birth. Let me seek and let me know the origins of Self, of the I inside; the very Essence of mine own Being.

My Head turns backwards: with an Eye blazing into a Darkness never seen by Human sight!

I pace the Circle in Reverse: I go back to the Beginning! By this Return, I meet my Ending!

By the Elixirs of the Sun and the Moon: I encompass my Self within the Coils of the Serpents-Twain, as ONE within the Light and the Darkness. I am the God and I am the Goddess: here in within my Body do They both reign in Unity.

May the Darkest-Light-Eternal shine forth from that which I am!

I go within to find the Reflections of those Things that are without.

Here I make my Oath to know!

That all things: here in my Body do reside. I am the Wind that sweeps across the Barren Desert to awaken, to arouse that which as fallen into a sleep Un-Divine! I am the Fire that gives Life to that whos Stars have grown dim in the War against Adversity! I am the Water that flows forth to quench tthe thirst of those that have been consigned unto the Pyre by those who lack Understanding! I am the Earth that shall lift up all that has ever been and will sustain all that shall ever be!

Here in this Place within the Sacred Precincts of Time and Space I mark the Point from which ALL shall flow. Here I am the King of my own Kingdom: to learn, to bless, to blight, to consecrate, to experience all of that which I AM!

The Soul is as Eternal as the Sun! Never does it wane in strength. It is only our Sight that betrays us. From my mouth flows Words of Truth. I speak with a Tongue of Fire!

I am here within this Present Moment: the NOW! No other exists but this.

All that I have ever been and all that I will ever be is manifest in this my Body. My Flesh is the Mask of my own Essence: a symbol when deciphered reveals Eternity. If "I" am merely a Mask of I, then all that I have become comes from I:EYE. Indeed there is no other but I! I is Eternal, yet given unto Birth and with Birth Death shall surely follow, yet still live the I:EYE. I am neither Past nor the Future - I am reborn anew each Moment.

The Pole dances with Possibilities-Infinite...in the Twilight of the Gods do I dance the Forgotten Paths.

Birth is the Beginning of the Dream and Death it's Ending, but there is THAT which dreams the Dream and fears neither Birth nor Death, but revels in LIFE - it is Eternal!

~Patrick John Larabee

Seeing the Unseen - being beyond the self - The Eye of the I

"To go beyond the veil is to go beyond the normal human condition."

All that is perceived in this world is seen through the eyes and the mind of he who beholds it, even my flesh is a part of this material Universe and as such bound by the same laws as is all matter. When one shuts out the outer world, whether it be through trance, meditiation, praxis, solitude or any of the other methods by which one can transgress the physical vessel, there is an immense pulling away from the outer which leads to an experience of the more inner spiritual levels of ones being. It could even by called 'The Journey of the self to the Self' which ends in the revelation and wisdom that is more or less our very own Daemonic Being, which literally encompasses us at all times, guiding, pushing, testing us.

And we ourselves are an expression, a manifest, incarnate reality of that essential, and yet discarnate, spiritual being, the Soul, the Spirit, the Daemon, the I as opposed to the 'I'. There are worlds beyond number, there are indeed even aspects of ourselves that we cannot fathom whilst being trapped within these clay-created bodies, these remnants of cast-off earth. To go beyond the veil is to leave behind that which is most familiar, ourselves.Verily, there is much that can be seen and experienced once we let go of the bodies that we hold so dear. In life we give so much to it and it is itself the most ephemeral of all the illusions.

Within this body, and while we are here, we are in the midst of what I call the 'sense-experience', constantly being bombarded by an infinity of stimuli, it is these very senses that allow us to experience this world, the world of the manifest. When we cross the veil at death, the senses of this body are consigned to the past, to the grave that is known as Mortality. Upon death we lose those senses that we have for so long held so dear, and yet in the true scheme of things we have only held them for a small fraction of our truer aeon-long duration of existence as spiritual beings.

After death there are no eyes with which to see, but an Eye that we use to perceive, no ears with which to hear, but an Ear that is receptive to the heavenly and infernal rhythms of the Astral, no mouth to speak meaningless words, but a Heart that utters all that needs and must be said, no hands to reach out and touch, but a Hand with we may come to grasp the entirety of the Universe.

When contemplating death, it is of paramount importance to come to a true realisation and definite understanding that as we leave this one world behind and reach out to embrace the other, we lose our physical bodies. Death takes all that is useless and leaves behind the pure adamantine light of the ONE. We are given a vehicle of burning light and sombre darkness, a true stellar body, which truly was always ours and never left us, but was trapped within the shackles of fleshly constraints, and it is the new body of stellar incandesence that enables us to carry forward our consciousness, our awareness, into another realm of existence that I have always called the Other-Side.


My entire body: the flesh, the blood, the bone, are all a part of this physically manifest universe, of matter, which in essense is a trap, a prison of sorts for the light of our beings, and yet it is also the one place where we are allowed to truly overcome those aspects of ourselves that must be physically manifest in order for us to do so. So indeed, it can be said that Life is both a blessing and a curse, for it is here that we learn and progress through our own trials and tribulations as spiritual entities within, as individuals playing out our microcosmic role within the Macrocosmic Game.

At death, the building blocks of my body, those things that the ancients connected to the elements of Earth and Air, of Fire and Water, return to the earth, it returns to that which it originally drew it's constitution, leaving behind the pure Spirit-Fire that is our Soul, the Eye of the I of the Self. When a spirit experiences this world through a body, an existent facet of the Un-Manifest, through the Flesh, it requires senses to do so, and yet Spirit itself, has the ability to experience through all of these billions-of-forms-of-being, such as when within the world itself it experiences Itself in, not just the form of the human-being, but as minerals, rocks, mountains, crystals, vegetables, plants, trees, herbs, and animals, insects, birds, everything, and of course, as stated above, even Man himself.

Spirit is not limited to or by the the physical matter of the manifest-Universe, it is truly a realm that is Imaginal, a vast Void-Abyss that contains and infuses all that is seen and unseen. Although there does seem to be some sort of manifestation process that occurs when the Light from the Absolute-Dark descends into the world of the existent darkly-lit abodes of Man.

There is within certain cults of the Ancient Worship a Four-fold Secret of the descent of the Light into the now, mostly fallen, races of the Human-being. There is a world of Spirit, a world of the Soul, a world of the Mind and a world of the Senses, impressions are sent forth by Spirit, impressions that have the ability to create, and Soul is formed, the ever incarnating and discarnating aspects of ones Self which is as a very shard of Spirit itself, and Soul, through the manifestation process of the Womb is then focused through the Mind of the newly developing individual self, and with birth is manifested within the 'sense-experience', also know as the physical, material universe.

And within this world, as an individual self, amongst other selves, I experience my world, seen through my eyes and conditioned by my mind and thoughts. The world I perceive is wholly mine and no others, no one else can experience the world as I do, such is our fate, such is our true aloneness, such is the truth of the solitude of the human-being. We each are unique and unlike all others, and as such we each shall see all that we see through the contructs erected and projected from our own minds and souls, we cast upon the darkness our own light and see all that is there within that light that we ourselves shine.

It is this very light, our own individual soul-light, that makes anything perceptable in our own, objectived-subjective world, and it is the very thing that tells us what it is we see, or sense, or feel, or think, or experience, and yet within the constructs of society we are also conditioned by our parents, our friends, our lovers, and others around us, even the communities we live in have conditioned us to certain forms of behaviour and decorum. The problem sometimes though is that what we feel and see and know as truth, is not always what the mass considers so, and hence the very true feeling of exile that is so often felt by those who act and live in accord with the light of the Spirit that abides within them.

The Eye of the Self perceives itself through differing levels of perception, each one unique unto itself and the world that it illuminates within the sphere of the Self, there is an infinitude of ways of looking at the world, or lack thereof, depending on whether one is open to or closed off from perceiving and truly being aware, for we truly are the only ones who either enlargen or diminish ourselves, we let the world and how we experience it either make us stronger or destroy us.

This Eye that resides at the centre of our being, at the centre of our Self, perceives and experiences and feel and records all that happens. In all modes of reality, of which there are many, the discovery of this Eye of the Self is the Key to experiencing any of them, for there are indeed worlds within worlds that we see only as fantasy, as mere illusion, when in fact they might very well be reflections of experiences of our Selves from within those worlds, for whether real or not, the Self does not discriminate like our lowly, smaller selves, it takes all of Itself and wastes nothing, all that Self experiences it takes as a real occurrence within It's own domain, this also mean that the Eye:I within you possesses the incredible ability to experience, by the simple visions of things, those very things themselves, whether they be worlds, or places, or things, or sensations, or whatever, all is real and possesses utility within the Sphere of the Self.

It can even be said that by living a fantasy we become that fantasy, by living a dream we become that dream, by our devotions we become and possess a fragment of that which we are devoted to. Hence the ever important rule of keeping a regular form of praxis, that with time will blossom as a rose, into a larger corpus of rites based soley on the gnosis from ones own experience with the Mysteries, thus revealing and encompassing a larger and more intricate set of working principles that govern our own magical universe.

There are 'states' of concsiousness that are outside of what one would normally term the 'human' consciousness, or state of being, for indeed being human is only one small fragment of what our Selves truly are. Many of these 'states' are closer in degree to what is commonly considered 'human', but most are foreign and extra-terrestrial, being wholly alien in the modes of perception. When one actually thinks about and considers the 'human' state of consciousness, as simply that, a 'state' of consciousness, or mode of awareness, then the very really possibility, as well as, the opportunity, to change it simply by shifting this 'state' from one mode to another, or to state it more precisely by being aware differently.

By shifting conciousness outside of the normal, consensus, everyday, 'human' state of being, we create a change of awareness, and it is these very changes of awareness that grant us the Keys to opening the Doors of Perception that let us both enter and experience other realities and dimensions beyond the scope of what we can see with our eyes, and it is indeed the very key to seeing the unseen.

"Only those return to Eternity who on earth seek out Eternity."

Written by Patrick John Larabee

Automatic Drawings, Series 1-4, are the property of Patrick John Larabee

Point of Power

The Cross Roads is a Locale of Inter-Dimensionality, it is the Grand-Point that is Central to all other Realities and Modes of Being. It is a Portal that leads to All-Possiblity. It is All Times and All Spaces, thus as it is said the Circle truly has no Centre and no Circumference, being as it is the Conjunction of All-That-Is, thus is Everywhere, at all Times, Past, Present and Future, eternally happening NOW: which is the only True Moment. And at this Portal of All-That-Is, which Resides at the Centre of the Cross'd-Roads, presides the God of Death, the Man in Black, the Devil, through whom the Seeker must pass, as the Gateway of thine own Death, to attain the Body of the Spirit-Flight Phantastique.

~Patrick J. Larabee

Souls of Shade and Stellar Dust

By Patrick John Larabee

Spectral Wood

By Patrick John Larabee

The Dreaming Eye - I

By Patrick John Larabee

Flame of Illumination

By Patrick John Larabee

Qayin - The Marked One

By Patrick John Larabee