Infernal Geometry with Toby Chappell

And so if you want to check me out, I'm at Wukar Reborn w uk and g Reborn on x Twitter and then ig is Threshold Saints as well as the show account at Threshold Saints, so serial experiments in speculative ontology. So I just dropped episode forty eight with Alex Rivera and we talked about a very in depth conversation on narcissism and Tracy Twyman. So we kind of right to the edge on that, So thank you guys.

send your thoughts on prayers out to Ethan. That poor guy has been through a lot and he's losing his father, so just keep eating in your prayers.

perhaps one more week or so. And I, just as Headless said, I just want to share my deepest sympathies to Eton and to say that we are all well, we are all thinking about him and what he's going through.

had them all last on the Languages of magic. Toby's doubling down on the idea that numbers, shapes, and words are tools for personal apothes pathiosis. So please tell me, let everybody know what your deal is, and let's up with this book.

I am a Semiititian. I'm someone that works with and analyzes and produces signs as part of not only for my magical work, but also my general way of understanding the world around me and the people within that world. I'm also a linguist. I am a dedicated student of language and a formal sense. I'm actually studying that at the university level currently. So as was mentioned, I am the author of two books at present, which are both sort of related. They both work with a specific approach

to magic and a couple of different esthetics. The most recent book, The Languages of Magic, is a more general sort of extrapolation of what I call the semiotic theory of magic, the idea that whenever we do magic, we're working with signs as a process of communication with first and foremost with ourselves, but then also with the one outside of ourselves and whatever it is that we're wishing

to affect. The idea that since we're in a conversation with the unmanifest, attempting to persuade it to bring forth whatever it is that we desire. Yeah, I would like to as places you can find me, and I'll maybe mention this again at the end if needed, but places you can find me online. You can find me at my older website is Infernal Geometry dot com. The one that I update more frequently these days is at simiurgist

dot com. S E M I U R G I S T dot com and you can find links for me there for Facebook, X, Blue Sky and email contact link. People are welcome to email me et cetera.

Satanic Rituals. That was actually written by Michael Aquino, who at the time was a very close associated of LaVey. Later branched off from the Church of Satan and then became one of the founders of the Temple of Set. Now what this sort of system is. It combines things like Pythagorea and number mysticism, some of the cosmicism, theories

of HP. Lovecraft, and as well as of you know, the ideas of like higher mathematics, and the idea that we can work with not only the three dimensions that we can reach out in touch, but also higher dimensions as well, in order to find certain gateways into understanding that are maybe not accessible through ordinary means. And a Quino didn't write this originally with the intent to create a magical system. He was writing a specific ritual, kind

of the Lovecraft themed ritual, at LaVey's request. And it was some time later that really when Stephen Flowers, who I understand will be a guest on your show, soon became part of the Temple of Set in the mid nineteen eighties. One of things that drew him to it was finding out that a Quino wrote this originally, but also want to know more about what this thing was

and seeing the operative potential within it. And I first became aware of it at the time not long after I joined the Temple of Set, which was in two thousand and there was not really a lot written about it at that time. There were bits and pieces of articles that Flowers and others had written, but no one had really made a decided attempt to pull it into

like a larger system. And that was something that within the order of the Trapezoid, which is part of the Temple of set, some people began to experiment with We did a lengthy series of workings, nine years worth of magical workings related to exploring ideas around the Angles, and it was somewhere in the middle of that that I began to realize that I was finally getting my head wrapped around it, after I don't know, probably twelve or

so years of exposure to it at that point. And as I was we explained some of the ideas to other people that I knew within the order, people suggested, oh, you need to write some of this down. We don't have anything that puts all these things together. It's hard to find the pieces, it's hard to kind of put them together on your own. And so I began to thinking about that. Originally just as hey, let me just kind of write down what I know and start trying to fill in the gaps on these pieces of it.

And then as that developed, it became a larger scale work.

And then it suddenly dawned on me that given that this is something that you know, the original ceremony the Nine Angles was from nineteen seventy two, and so we're talking about twenty fourteen at this point, so you have all these years of when people within the temple and maybe beyond as well, had been working with this, it maybe realize that, well, maybe it's time to put some of this out into the world, not all of it, because there's there's some stuff that's left out of the

book on purpose, you know, and there's some stuff that's continued to be developed. The book is a snapshot in time of really the period from twenty fourteen twenty sixteen when I was the bulk of when I was writing it, so things have changed. It's a living system, so it continues to be developed. And then that's when it that's when it occurred to me that putting this out of

the world in some way might make sense. And then, with some assistants from Stephen Flowers actually for whom I'm extraordinarily grateful for that many things, was able to get this picked up by Inner Traditions and then published in twenty nineteen.

And you could see them writing isopsophy in places like, uh, the herculaneum, where they would they would have graffiti talking about a person's number and how in love with that person's number they are. And so it's a completely different kind of perspective of associations, at least within the Greek world. Is this utilizing somewhat of that shift in perspective, Not.

So when you start to look beyond just not what numbers reveal to us in the way they relate to concrete things in the real world, but when they relate to the idea of the number itself, the idea what does it mean to be a unity, what does it mean to be a duality, what does it mean to be a triad? And so forth, you start to open up beyond just what you can gain from interacting with what's in the world to now you're interacting with what

we're able to proceed with mind. But depending on what relationship you think number has to the you know, the underpinnings of the universe itself. You could also see that as the kind of like gateways and understanding this in a more sort of cosmic level in a sense, the idea of the concepts behind numbers instead of just the brute force of a number of something as three of something.

With the Pythagoreans that they were, you know, they had you know, the monad, the dyead, the triad, and so forth, all the way up to the deckad, and then it kind of repeats, so that the tenth was sort of the kind of perfection beyond the ninth, but also the gateway to like a new emanation of number within it. So it just kind of repeated now within the way that I tend to approach that type of working with

number as a conceptual tool. I mean, I think in terms of nine, because I think partly because we use a base ten system. So that makes nine the so called kind of magic number, the one that returns to itself. As Anton Levey would say, you know, that's the idea that if you multiply some number by any number that's a multiple of nine, if you add up the digits that that that's some of those digits will also be multiple of nine, right, you know, like one and seventeen.

You know, one plus one plus seven, so means it's you know, multiple of nine and and so that becomes useful to me, is like in terms of like cyclical thinking, the idea of what what has already come into being, what can now re manifest in some way, perhaps in a new version of itself or even perhaps you know,

as a new creation in and of itself. And so for me, that kind of the idea that from the Pythagoreans about nine and ten of nine is sort of the culmination, and then ten is the rarefied beyond this the beginning to to new cycle. I sort of tend to combine those into one. But that's just a minor

kind of modification of what they were doing. But if you read, if you read through in the Ceremony of the Nine Angles, one of the things that was Michael Aquino was very influenced by, beyond the obvious HP Lovecraft was specifically the Pythagorean number of mysticism, of the moment of that died and so forth, there's a there's a central part of the Ceremony of the Nine Angles, which which is, by the way, if someone has the book Infernal Geometry in the left hand path, this printed in

its entirety at the front of the book. You don't have to have Levey's book to get a copy of it. Of course, it's all everything's online these days anyway. But anyway, there's a there's a critical there's aquittal passage in the Ceremony of the Nine Angles, which has come to be known as the Bond of the nine Angles. And this is sort of relating in Lovecraftian terms what the number is one through nine mean in that context, but if you read closely, it's also in the thagoory in terms.

So for example, from the first angle was the infinite, where in the laughing one doth cry and the flutes way into the ending of time. So the laughing one is as athoth he plays the flute. That's part of Lovecraft. But that's also that idea of a unity, a oneness, that that's the seed from which everything else he expands.

You know. From the second angle is the master who authorted the planes in the angles, who have conceived the world of horrors and its terror and glory, that's about yok Soothov, which is sort of a not conscious entity in Lovecraft's world, but it's sort of like that kind of bridge between uh, you know, the cosmic void of as a though into you know, the the more sentient arrangements of matter and thought that the arise out of that and so forth. If you so that that was

its not an accidental kind of thing. That was a very deliberate thing that Michael Quino encoded into it. So it so it wasn't so much on them as the Greeks would use the opsocopy isopsyphy with the numbers letters represent the numbers per se, but it's still taking that idea of that there's something about counting that lets us relate ourselves to the universe in a way that we can't do without that concept, and that's what's developed in

this kind of love Crafting sense. So it's a bit of kind of like ideas for Pythagoras and aesthetic and cosmology from Lovecraft and then filter through things like Antonine Leavey's law of the trapezoid and related things. So it's kind of like this kind of amalgam of a few things coming together.

So things that that's worth noting, And this is something that pops up in the Greek magic of Papyri in a very real sense as well, is the idea of sort of the differences between consonants and vowels in our speech. With consonants, we're stopping the flow of air where to greater or lesser extent, and then the vowels were kind of flowing in between the consonants. They're more about the flow of breath outward, where you know, with the tongue we're shaping the vocal cavity and then and that's what

is causing the the the the sound of the individual vowels. Now, that's interesting, right, because you have a you're talking about of continuity versus the discontinuity there, continuity being the vowels and the discontinuity continuity being the consonants. And my my.

also very important to our thought processes. It's also very important to of course, it's very important to UH to speech as far as the magical part that goes, I mean as this a fairly well known. Uh. The pathegoral ideas about the music of the sphere is the idea that the different parts of the cosmos are tuned in a sense. And this was well, that was speculative for the most part in their time. We now know, of course,

this is literally true. We have, for example, you know, the the orbits of the planet, you know, moving certain according to certain formulas that describe how gravity moves the planets around around the Sun. But you can also even stack stack them up and go, well, this orbit is this many times, or has this relationship this, uh, this proportion to this other orbit.

this other progressive function is carved out, et cetera. And if you read what he describes as the specific portions he's they're going in Apathegorian musical scale, you know, where you have the thirds and the fifth and the octave and so forth. And then so it's all it was almost like it was they're using different languages for looking at the same thing. In a sense, let's look at this mathematically. This is that we can see these things about it. This way, look at this musically, we can

see these things about it. And that's why those sciences were so closely connected, the idea that geometry and astronomy and music were all different ways of looking at the same types of relationships, the same types of of understanding, the same attempt to understand the universe.

between proportions, its interplay between mathematical relationships. It was part of what Galileo would call it, that reading the Book of Nature, the idea that we can perceive nature in certain ways that are part of our part of our own natures. But through that we have to we have to read what it's trying to say. And the way we do that is we have to have to learn as language. And and for the many of those guys,

that's language was mathematics. And so that's why you see such a math mathematically precise approaches to music, to the astronomy and so forth, because it was all part of the underpinning of what was what was really making up the universe was mathematics to them.

a very important idea in in ancient cultures. You see that, you see it very explicitly in in ancient Egypt, with the idea that that thot or Jiujute literally writes things into reality, that that it doesn't occur until he writes it in his book. You see things like in the Babylonian world with the creation epic the unuma Elish, which starts off with the very idea that before before the sky above had a name, before the gods had names, the idea that they have to be named and into being.

So there's something transcendent and foundational about the word itself that we have to you know, just like with Plato carving off parts of the cosmic describing the carbon off parts of the cosmos, we have to carve off part of the transcendent word to make it the imminent word that we actually work with. And yes, frequency is part

of that as well. You know, there are the idea that the the not only the alphabet or the writing system that the words may be written with, but also the frequencies with which they were spoken and the relationships between the different words. That's such an ancient idea, and the way we language has been largely kind of subplanted Parsi because language and writing are so widespread now, we don't think of them as weird things. Even their writing.

Reading and writing is extraordinarily weird. You know, we have to we have to dig big back deeper to understand, like how what we've lost about understanding through these ways of interacting with with the world. Sorry, Lisa, I didn't mean to cut you out there.

But like in the early days of that when you had very low resolution sound files, your ears filling in gaps that aren't stuff that's not there, all right, But we're so good at finding patterns even when they're not there that you know, there's a certain amount of capacity for missfiring that's built in because it's better to think you see a pattern and react to it than to miss the pattern, right, So it's part of our kind

of evolutionary conception as well our evolutionary development. The idea like if you're if you're in the grass and you think you see a snake, well it's better to just react a mealy as if the snake's there. Then when you notice later, oh that was really just just a branch or whatever, it's like, that's cool, but that's a much better situation than it wasn't a snake and you didn't notice, right, So we have this kind of built

in error rate in our pattern recognition. So which can be exploited magically, can be exploited, propaganda, exploited through conspiracy. You know, there's lots of ways that that's used against us. But that's also one of our sort of magic powers, if you will, is that we can we can take from things that they're maybe missing some parts of information, and we can fill it in based off of our

experience what's likely to be there. You know, it's a combination of like experience and reasoning through what may be there. I mean, one of the reasons this is not the same with all alphabets are worse usually referred to as abjods that leave out the vowels, like with Arabic and Hebrew for example, too well known examples. In a lot of cases there's only one choice for the vowel anyway, so it's not even like you have to write it

down in many cases. Now there are other other places, and you see this quite a bit in the Torah where they actually play with the idea that oh, well depends on which value fill in here. It could mean this, it could mean this, it could mean this, and so it's kind of like a puzzle puzzle for the reader to figure out. And even sometimes like there is no right answer, there's different ways to interpret this because it's

literally could be one or the other. So yeah, so like it's a really it's really interesting the move from a the move to like a fully a phonetic alphabet is actually a really weird move in human in human history that you know, has certain advantages because now some things are not left to guess work, but it also kind of takes away some things because like that ability to play with ambiguity of the well, it could be this, it could plausibly be this or this, and now you

can read read it through different ways as a result, so you think.

It's one particular system of applied signs. Now being able to use it is not the same as being the best tool, right right, I mean, and that's the same like uh, you know, like anyone that this speaks multiple languages, it knows very well that you lose certain things in translation. There's some things you can translate. It's easy to translate

hard concepts. Translate the glass, You're right, translating what the glass means, like what's what significance it has in a situation that that's that's maybe some where some things get lost in translation or you can't quite express things in the in the same way. I mean, as far as there's any perfect language for magic, I my personal feeling is that there isn't. But I think that there may be. I think that you can look at some situations where

the perfect language is the one for that. For example, in the Ceremony of the Nine Angles, when Michael Aquino first wrote it, he wrote it out in English, and you realized something was missing, wrote it entirely in English, and then then he started to play around with you know, Lovecraft didn't fully developed like a language in his books to the same extent that somebody like J. R. R. Tolkien did, But there are a few pieces here and there in a few of the stories, and so a

Quino kind of took those kind of made up, made up some of his own words, used some things in the same kind of patterns to kind of create, well, if you had a fully flesh out language of the old, great old ones, what would it what might it be like? Including the ideas, for example, that they they don't have the same vocal apparatus as humans do, so that, you know, so maybe there's some sounds we can make it that they can't, and vice versa. And so he just decribed

it as that. In the Ceremony of the Nine Angles he described it, it's an approximation as best we can do for the language. Of the Great Old Ones, because he realized that English alone didn't convey the ideas he was trying to do. And in fact, the if you read his instructions for that that ceremony, it splicitly says that you're supposed to read through the English part beforehand, but then when you actually do the ceremony itself, you do it exclusively in the youu Gothic language. This he

described it. And I've been I've been part of that before where we've we've done exactly that, and it's it's weird, like at first you're you're just like hearing gibberish almost, but then you start sort of like what Lisa was saying, like you start to pick up on patterns. He started to notice repeating little bits here and there, he started

to notice certain sounds go with certain other sounds. And when you start to kind of get that more sense of a flow for it, like it enhances what you're doing in a way that if I was reading the translation of this at the same time, like it just wouldn't have the same effect. So yeah, so I think that there's no universal like this is the best language we're doing magic in. But I think that they're depending on the situation. There are certainly options that are more

effective in certain circumstances than others. Might be same sort of thing with you know, the Catholic Mass and Latin.

A lot of people for the reason, one of the reasons there's a lot of reaction against the doing the Mass in the vernacular was that people felt they were missing something, the idea that you, even if they you understood what it meant, just the different sonorities that you were hearing from it, something felt missing when you take that out and you're just hearing the same thing in English.

all kinds of tones that are different. While our language is more linear, so it can't reach everywhere, so it's it's a more neutral frequency instead of having the really deep sounds and those high pitches that you can get from these ancient languages so like the language of the Torah that I can't remember right now. I'm sorry, I

can't remember the name. I'm getting a blank. And my question was exactly that, if you answered it, because in English, as in most modern languages, is like a monotonic tone, like I am speaking now, and it doesn't seem that I'm going up and down in my sounds on my on my tones, so it's it's monotonic almost like an

ancient languages that are not like that. They go deep down, they go up, they vary, and they can convey meaning to that intention or even purpose to what you're saying that the companies with a self actuation that you are trying to convey through what you are speaking. And that was my question. Thank you for answering that.

If you think about it, you're always cutting off some of the possibilities whatever language you're using. And as well, like you're very very good good example of that is when you have like a tonal language versus a non total language. English is a non total language, something like Mandarin is a tonal language, Vietnamese, et cetera. It's very common in Asian languages. You know, the idea that you know, the same sounds spoken to a different pitch now now

change meaning as well. So so yeah, so you're always you're always limiting your possibility somewhat. But just like the following on with Lisa's question, you're always fill You're always filling in some gaps too because you because you know that there's there are things that are that can be there that are maybe not as obvious, or things that

you fill in. Or maybe you speak in other language that uses some different sounds from English, and like you think you hear a sound from the way that doesn't go in English because you're you're has accustomed to hearing that sound in a certain way and kind of filled in the gap there.

like fucked me up. It's like I was realizing, like I think I was almost incorporating certain both and it just I don't know, I don't know how to explain it. But there was something else I wanted to say that I found interesting. It was a little bit farther back, and it made me think, like you were talking about I guess, like the brain kind of like getting confused

and maybe lying to you. And then I was like thinking about sound and like a few weeks ago while we were podcasting, I had like the sink on and it was running water but a little bit and I didn't know. And I'm sitting here and throughout like the whole show, my brain is hearing that and I am like wondering everything that it could be. Is it's something hitting the floor. I'm looking outside thinking oh no, it

sounds like it's coming from outside. Eventually, after the show's over, I'm walking around and I'm still looking and listening, and I'm like, yo, it sounds like a static TV. And I start to walk into the kitchen. And as soon as I see that water coming out of the forcet, that sound fucking changes mm hmm to sounding like water hitting the fucking sink.

know whatever, an idea. And uh with old dirty bastard from Wu Tang, with his style and the stuff that he used to do, I was like, Yo, that guy knows what he's doing with those ups and downs, those ups and downs plain full. Yeah, So often wondered about like it was all dirty best to do in.

right tool for the job. So and the right tool may include the person, the tone, the language. By with all of that, that was what I was trying to convey since the first question. M.

ways of writing, et cetera. And yeah, some of them is probably is glossal Aelia who are speaking in tongues and and one of things I do find fascinating is the way that they use They do use the vowels, because you'll see like strings of vowels, and sometimes you'll see them even though they'll have like ordered arrangements of vowels, like like in a pyramid or or things like this that that are not just on the written page. It's like as part of the ritual, you're supposed to write

that yourself. It's part of you going back to the idea of thought writing things into reality. You're making you're you're taking something abstract, the sound, and now you're literally writing into the fabric of the universe as part of this ritual. So you're you're connecting what's within you with like the world that's outside of you as part of it.

I think that, combined with the ideas like the continuous nature of vowels and the unrestricted nature of the way we articulate them, I think all those are part part of the toolkit they were drawing from when they're someone was working with one of those rituals and taking all

these pieces and pulling together. Because it's a very syncretic thing, there's lots of stuff that's pulled in from different places and different different traditions, and you know, you have some things that are like seem to be different rituals that were crammed together, like the right of the Headless One, you know. So it's very it's a very kind of like kitchen sync approach to magic about wait, this works, all right. I'm using it because it's very pragmatic. It

is very an around what works. But that idea that that underlying so many of the rituals and the PGM is the idea that words are magic in and of themselves, the idea that that I can make these sounds and now it carries not just the mean really like a mundane meaning of what this thing is, but it also carries this conceptual meaning that that I'm ringing to it, I'm adding as part of the meaning. That's that's what that's the core when I talk about the semiotic theory magic.

That's the core of what I'm talking about is that we use the signs of any type, whether it's words or something written or sound, et cetera, and we're overloading it with meaning. We're giving more meaning beyond just what is already inherently part of it, or what is conventionally part of it, but using that to you to carry our intent.

has to be some level of similarity between conversants. The idea like, for example, we're speaking English, right, and so like the extent to which you and your listeners are able to understand me is going to be hardly a function of their own ability to understand and speak English. So we have to have some level of similarity. If I started speaking German, you know, maybe fewer listeners understand

what I'm saying because they don't speak German. So there's idea that communication doesn't have to be exact equals, but they have to be somewhat relative equals in order to

even have the ability to understand. And the semiotic theory of magic of one of the parts of it is is that you know you're in communication with something, whether it's within with your with your current or future self, whether it's with the Animatama, unomathith best world, whether it's with someone that you're attempting to work some type of magic on to behave in a certain way, et cetera.

But if you're not communicative effectively with them, if you're not you know, broadly following the rules of the language you're speaking and the person or the thing you're talking to is and understand it, then you're not gonna get your point across. And that's very much like what you're saying, or the idea that you have to find. You have to find the thing to which your partner communication will

be responsive. And that's the case whether it's you know, ordering your coffee at Starbucks, or whether it's whether it's you know, impressing your will in the universe as part of as part of magic. So these things kind of they build on it. So like in the Languages of magic, and and really the start of Infernal Geometry, the Languages of Magic, my second book is in some ways it's an out growth and a generalization of some of the

ideas in infernal Geometry. But that idea that you build on a foundation of effective communication, and then you add onto that magical intent. You add onto that ways of speaking and communicating that are peculiar to magic, that maybe don't make the same amount of sense, or maybe don't have the same effect or have the same meaning outside of a magical context. And the effectiveness of your magic will largely be a function of the effectiveness of the

communication that you put the magic into. So yeah, so what you're saying is absolutely in line with the way that I've been approaching magic, and I rely absolutely with all the stuff that you're saying there.

just stand up in the subway and say the same thing. Right, So for what you're you're saying, I would say broadly yes, but I would add the caveat that it's always going to be context specific, not just the specific thing you're trying to do that magical, but also the specific circumstances of when and how you're doing it as well. So like, for example, if I am I would not use the

same words and gestures and et cetera. If I'm doing a working in the middle of the shopping mall is when I'm doing working in my apartment, right, And it's not because I care what people think or whatever, but it's because there are other parts of the situation of being out in the world that affect what I'm trying to say, the meaning to what I'm trying to say, in ways that are different than if I am, you know,

underneath the night sky or whatever. So yes, So I don't think there's a single universal like you like you do this and you're always guaranteed to have success. But

I think that it is. And this is part of the experimental nature of magic, is that you you have to have enough tools in your bag so that you can and figure out what tools are going to work right now in this particular situation to get the result that I'm looking for, knowing that even if you try to do the same thing tomorrow night, you may need different tools because other things may have changed around the context.

Does that make sense? So so it's not like it's like it's like, Okay, I figured it out, now, let's just keep doing this and I'm set. It's you have to kind of figured it out each time. But but there will be things that you can draw on that that are perennial favorites you know that that will tend

to have a have an effect. And that's part of like knowing your own style of magic, but also knowing like what works best with the type of things you're trying to work magic magic for, because like the you know, if you're trying to I don't know, just picking like

stuff for the magical papyri. If if you're doing like a you know, a spell to enhance your memory, then you're going to approach that a different way than if you're doing a spell because you know, because I need a lover, right, some of those may work on both you know, not gonna judge, but but but all those things are part of the context, right, So so you know, the thing I think that people make a mistake with

a magic a lot. And this is something to ask don Web about too specifically because I'm gonna blame him for this idea is the idea that that if you

just have the right cookbook, then you're set right. Yeah, And it's more that the cookbook is the cookbook gives you the things to pull from to you to kind of mix it up in the pot the right way you need it tonight sort of sort of like you know, you may have like a recipe you make the same recipe a bunch you know, like like you know what tonight I want more cilantro right, So I can you

have you're responding like the needs of the moment. Even if you're relying on something that you've had loss of success with that they know is a good general framework for you, you still have to kind of think about what does it mean now and what can be most effective at this point in time.

there's an academic paper that says this is nonsense. Is that in a lot of cases that would have been part of the consideration. But the thing is, I think in a lot of cases things were built in certain ways just because that's why we build that. You know, it wasn't so much or maybe maybe they for they had forgotten at one point we did it this far away for a specific reason. But now but now I just build it that way because that's the way. That's

the way we build those things. So that's what So that's what I mean when I say that like in some cases, In some cases absolutely definitely the case, and o there's maybe not so much. Like for example, one of my favorite sort of modernish examples of that is

in the the underground chamber at the Bevelsburg Castle. You know, if you want to get your conspiracy uh listeners go a going big time well because because within that it is actually constructed so that the light converges in the center of the room and then converges in the center of the room, so they're like if you're staying in the in the middle, and I've been there, and I've

tested this for myself. If you if you're staying in the middle, then if someone speaking in a whisper at the other end of the room, you can hear it just like they're right there in your ears, and you take you take a step off the center and the effect is gone. Yes, yeah, so so things like that that deliberate, that deliberate sound design, and is absolutely there in in many many temples.

What we can't exactly understand is how you can whisper in the stage and the person that is further from the stage on the top stair would hear that whisper as it was being said to his ear right, and it's an open space, right, so there's magic in the space itself. Let's let's put it that way.

keep doing that. And then they kind of they kind of build it into the way that they do things, because that's one of one of the things about about the way humans build on the products of human culture is we kind of borrow bits and pieces and we go, oh, I like that, and I like that, let's put those together and see what happens. And so, like you know, they've become part of the architectural language, if you will, about how you build those spaces. A diffusion basically, yeah, yeah.

you know, the word order in English or whatever. And then there's prescriptive, which is like you're, you know, your third grade teacher telling you not to endscendence with the preposition. Right, there's no inherent reason why you have to say that you can't ind ascendence in English with a preposition. It'shift that somebody you know, decided that's that's what we're going to do now. Actually, in in relation of Latin, where a lot of that stuff came from same thing with

splitting infinitives. But the thing is, and this goes back to some of the pattern recognition discussions we were having. I think, once once certain patterns in language like that are are understood, you can you can now start to work with them as if they were put there deliberately. And and but we forget sometimes that just because I can work with this as if this was a deliberate choice,

maybe it doesn't necessarily mean that was the case. It just means that it has that effect for me in the way that I use it.

you're good. I just want to say, that makes a great deal of sense to me what you said, because there's an idea in contra that perhaps, like what you're saying, like this layer of consciousness, you're seeing the word order for the first time, but you're perceiving it in a subtle way, maybe a magical sense or hermoneutic sense, like you're seeing what the language means or the logos behind it, perhaps even and then you're able to remix it, You're

able to change the grammar. So this is related in contra to rojas or the music like the Indian raug us. But obviously we're thinking of it in a more transgressive or contric way. So it's not like court music, but perhaps it's taking the form of court music. And then like what Don Webb talks about, he's creating like a parafiction by remixing real things in a different order, changing the syntax. And when you were giving the example of

like magic, perhaps you're walking the mall. I know nobody goes to the mall anymore, but we'll go with that metaphor.

And I know from other people who are interested in temple of some materials that they basically always emphasize the idea of the malleability, a kind of like flexibility, a flexibility of consciousness of like how can you I always call it the tree because I'm a little more into the traditional cabala, but I'm trying to be flexible in

my articulation of the other systems as well. So but yeah, you have to be able to I'm going to use a sort of a poor metaphor but skin the tree and then also be able to kind of zip it back up and then say this is my formulation, but you're drawing from real things. So I just want to say that I thought that was very profound that you saw that, Toby. But the linguistics element, even though I

am multilingual, is a little outside of my purview. But I think the semionics angle that you're bringing is really interesting. And I wanted to know if Marshall McLuhan's work. Obviously this is kind of a normy media SETI scholar, but a very interesting one for a lot of people. And I want to know what his if he influenced your work and in what ways.

However it's becoming a big influence. Uh you know specific, you know, the thing that's most well known from local witness his idea that the medium is the message, right and by by that what he what he means, well, one of the things he means, he means a lot of things by it because he was very he was a very multi level thinker. There's a lot of different

layers to everything that he's saying. He's one of those one of those guys that was whatever he says like, he's like ten steps ahead of you when when he when he said it. But part of his idea with the medium of the mess, the medium is the message, is that the form that a communication takes, even before you put the words or the symbols or whatever into it, already has meaning that's there and you can't get rid

of that's already part of what it is. And that's a that's a very powerful idea in semiotic terms because it because what that's what you would say about that in semiotic terms, is that there are some signs that are part part of this particular message, that are inherently part of the message itself. They're not added on top of it. But then you you when you add other signs into other words, et cetera, onto it, you are

it becomes the base that you build on. And so that some media are better for conveying certain kinds of messages than others, you know, very you know, very broad stroke example, or that is like, think about what you can convey in a visual meeting that you can't convey just in a smoke and medium, right, you know, because I could be making a you know, we're in a

visual media now, so like I'm moving my hands. You know, you can see the books on the shelf behind me, you know whatever else you know, that become part of the message, right because like you may be you know, you may have someone you're listort of squinting to see what the books are on my shelf, right, they become part of what I'm saying because you know, you know this is I'm in my apartment, right, so those are probably part of my influences, you know, behind me on

the wall, so that they're you know, you know, someone may see a book and is like, oh, you read that book? Okay, Now this thing he said makes sense makes more sense to me because I know how that

person that wrote that book thinks. Right. But for anybody that's listening to this, I don't know if you do an audio only version of this, but if anybody's listening to audio only, like they have no idea what I'm talking about, because I can't see any of this, right, So there are things that the I mean, this is a very broad you know example, this is not even like some of the subtlety that mcgoulan was working with, but in this very broad example, like, there are obviously

some things that are part of this communication in one medium that we're not not there in another medium. Now, when you get more subtle with it, you can get down to pretty pretty finally grained ideas of what the medium is, you know, thinking about for example, like if you're looking at a web page, is like a very old kind of web design, like and you know, like what an old web page looks like, right, you know, and maybe miss certain features that we see in common

on the way we communicate on the web. Now it may not be able to like, you know, hold your mouse over a link and see certain things, or maybe you know, the font the font can't show, you know, some of the letters that we're used to seeing now, so like you're literally missing part of the words because they're not showing up as opposed to like a very

modern designed web page. I mean, those are kind of two variations of the same kind of medium, but they're each like their own kind of sub media in and of themselves as well. And when you get into that that level of subtlety around what exactly does this type of medium good at conveying, you can you can go pretty deep on the way. You can start with the implicit message that the medium itself conveys, and then what you have on top of that message to make something

more complex on top of it. So, yeah, the other the other place where mcclulan actually does intersect with my work in a big way. And this is mclul and somebody has been aware. I've been aware of for a long time, but have not really looked at closely until fairly recently. But later in his life, the French philosopher Jean Beaudriard became very enamored with mcclulan's work. Baugurard is most well known for the idea of the simulationists of the lacrum. It's not he's not that we're living in

a simulation. That's other that's other people's ideas. This is more about the idea that as we have like copies of copies of copies of copies of cultural things, eventually like we lose sight of what the original thing was, and so like we're interacting with the thing in a different way, though we think of it like it's the original thing, but it's not anymore, the kind of detached way that our culture is kind of like endlessly remixed itself.

But Beaudriard Beaugurard died in like two thousand and three or so, I think, so maybe by the last five or six year he became very namorald with McLuhan's work and saw that as very McLuhan is very much a kindred spirit, and I'm very influenced by Boudrea's work. In fact, the what I what I put forth in the languages of magic as a word that I prefer instead of magic is the word semi urgy, going back to my

my website semi urges dot com, et cetera. For Boudriart, semi urgy was the creation in the wielding of signs, which is a very magical thing to do, especially if you think of magic and semiotic terms. So there's definitely a bit of like McLuhan influences coming at me from different like different angles, both directly and indirectly, which is

which is kind of interesting right now. I've also been I can't remember we were recording when we started this or not, someone mentioned, uh, I think it was Nick actually mentioned me being on the Hermitics podcast. One of the frequent guests on the Hermetics podcast the last several years has been a guy named Bob Dobbs. Not the SubGenius guy, although the name that's funny coincidence in the name, but Dobbs was uh, basically a close associate of McLuhan.

Dobbs is in his eighties at this point, but has fantastic stories to tell about mccluan, but also has a very deep, deep, deep understanding of mccluan's work, and it's probably one of the more even though he brings himself as a renegade mcclulan scholar, he's probably one of the more astute people on the scene now talking about McLuhan's work.

Definitely somebody worth looking into, just as it was side, Well, that's where you want to go to any of that, But that's that's kind of my that's kind of my might wind me up on McClue and let me go for a little bit idea.

and he said, this is like semiotics is magic. I remember being in an introductory class and we opened our textbooks and he said, yeah, semiotics and magic, like what is your name?

turn on the damn light. I don't need magic to go turn the light on or magic to help me out of the chair so that I can make it across the room.

tilting the balance towards certain things happening. Like in semiotics, you're you're you're conveying a certain network of signs that contain your intent, and you may have one or more signs that are very salient within that web, that are kind of like the dominant ones within that that are like, hey, pay attention to me, those kind of signs. But you can't make anybody do anything with a sign. You can, basically you can plant the idea that that they'll go

do this with a sign. But the more effectively you do that, the more likely it is that you will get the result that you're looking for by putting signs out there. That's basically how magic works in a in a b all sense as well, is that you're you're working with cracks in reality that where reality is not quite set and soone yet, because if it's too rigid,

you know then you don't need magic. You need a slash hammer if it's if it's too loose, you got to get it in a more stable configuration force if you look for the places where things are almost but not quite set the way they need to be, and then you give that last bit bit of nudge and let things work themselves into the configuration you desire them to be. So yeah, so that that semiotics is magic,

I mean, they're basically there. And that's that's part of why, you know, some of the reasons I wrote the book, right I I the language is of magic. I joked around before that it's it's depending which way you look at it's either a book about semiotics disguised as a book about magic, or it's a book about magic disguises a book about semiotics. Because there there is that that very kind of commonality in the in the way they work.

And that's also why it's also interesting people that work directly with semiotics are tend, even in the academic world, tend to be very open to new places to use semiotics to understand how something fits together, how how it works.

And so studying magic as a similar process is something that you know that people that don't even think of those sorts of magicians, you know, like maybe like an academic, you know, philosopher that works with semiotics, you know, still finds that interesting as a way to apply it, as a way to understand and a way to see that there's a there's a commonality in and and how things work. Would you you have some very cool stuff in your background.

Want I want to hear more? You should maybe an email talk about that.

I think it's his latest book on magic. The idea that you want to you want to have as rich of a tool kit as you can build, but you know, the you have you have to get used to how the tools work for you, because like the same tools may work differently for you than than they do for me.

You know, is they have may have we have certain talents, we have certain ways of thinking about things, may certain ways of relating to the world, you know, certain ways that we that we communicate, communicate our intent, et cetera. So like it's always gonna be very individual. But I think for individual person, yeah, you can. I don't think you never get to the point that you have, you know, bucket of guaranteed success and you just pull out those

things that's all you need. But you have the like, look, this this thing works for me most of the time. This is what I'm gonna do. Uh, this is I'm gonna start from here and then I'm gonna like add on other stuff depending on what exactly the current moment, current moment needs. And I think as you do that, over time, you'll find you'll find you'll build up It's like, okay,

these are these are my go tos. But that's but that can also be its own trap, right because just just like with with with words, you used to speaking in a certain way. You know, a certain language. Well, that's going to constrain in some ways. Not a rigid constraint, but just it's going to predispose you towards thinking in certain ways because this is how you normally the words you normally used to describe something, et cetera. So we have always have to be careful in magic not to

go but I always do this and always works. Well, maybe this is the time you need to do something different, right, But yes, I think it's over time you'll build up, you build up that idea that you have. Okay, look, these are the things that I go to, are things

that tend to work for me. These are things that if it doesn't work in a particular situation, I know this tool well enough, this particular technique or whatever well enough that I that I can I can modify it in the moment to work in a slightly different way, et cetera. But yeah, you don't want to get so caught up on the But but if I don't do it this way, it's not going to work. That it becomes so rigid in your approach to magic that you're

missing out in other ways of approaching problems. Think of magic as like a type of apply problem solving. So I just answer the.

works from that. So if you go to ancient texts, you find the witch's spells that are using words in sequences that make no sense, and people would say it's a wait, it's a witch because the way she's speaking conveys a different meaning to the language itself, right, or the way that is expressed. So I was just trying to figure out if there was a basic, very basic method where you build upon that to create what you want to do. So that's basically what I was trying

to get to. I'm sorry if it's confusing.

to be able. You have to be able to honestly assess how how did it go right? And so that's where that's where you can you can catch yourself with the tendency of the man. I've been clinging to that tool because I like that tool. Maybe it was the first one I used, but like it's just not working anymore because you've got the diary and you can see it. It's like, oh, yeah, well did it The last five times I did that, I got I got jack for what I was trying to do. Maybe I need to

look at a different tool. Right. See, there's that constant self reflective thing. Because like with the Greek magical papyrie, I keep going back to that because but it's a it's a good example for a lot of the things that I center magic around. You know, that's not a coherent, a single coherent body of work. It's it's a bunch of documents over four or five centuries to been on

when you when you where you draw the lines. And but the reason they're kind of grouped together as magical papyrie is because there's there's some some commonalities and the techniques and the approaches and the words that they use and and things like that. But it was very experimental.

They were probably they were probably passed around in the same way that like the the gould Biker the books of magic passed around like an early modern Iceland, the idea that if you knew somebody that again that they do this kind of work as well, and you go, well, do you have any bellows that do the kind of stuff? What's what's worked for you? And you borrow it and you make your own copy of it, and then now

it becomes part of your toolkit. And then but then like you decide, you know, maybe maybe you know, you try it for yourself and do anything, throw it out, or maybe you do and it's like, you know, what I think it needs this and you try it again, the experiment with it so like it already. Even if you're taking it from something that somebody else did as a starting point, it starts to become more personalized to you as you work with it and you decide, well, what's

really working for me over time? And yeah, I'm a big believer in that idea of that you don't be afraid to pull from different traditions, different schools, different approaches from what you're used to, because you never know what you're gonna need any any more time. You ever know what's going to become like, oh that's my go to technique. Now, I'm I'm gonna run with that one for a while until it stops working for me.

translate it. The translation that don Web uses and use, the one that I stick with or similar is that so kefer rah kefer keferu, so I have come into being, and through the process of coming into being, the process of coming into being has been established. That's a bit of a mouthful. And you notice how I have to use a long string of stuff in English to do

what was like three three short words an Egyptian. But the gist of what that is, and the reason that's so important is what what I brought into being, The way that I brought something into being this time, the way that I created being out of nothingness, the way that I carved out from from the you know, the unknown vastness of being. For this particular manifestation of being is never going to work exactly the same the next time. It's gonna be similar. I can build on it, I

can take it as a starting point. But I've established this way of coming into being, But then the next time I may have to establish a new way to come into being. And that's there's lots of different directions that goes off into extraordinary useful and initiation as well as in magic. But relevant to your part of what you're talking about there is the idea that you have you have to be constantly reinventing yourself. That doesn't mean

starting from scratch every time. It just means being on the lookout for what needs to be tweaked for this

particular instance, this particular context, this particular situation too. To do what's called for here and not just to do it this way because well I did it the way two weeks ago, so that that kind of reinvent a process is extraordinarily important, and in order to effectively reinvent, you have to be able to to honestly know what you've been doing and what happened and what hasn't been working as well.

a big believer of using tools. What you look at things in a variety of different ways, you know, well literally you know, looking for it from different angles, right, so that you can see the entirety. You can see the entirety of the thing. Because on one of the things that that's interesting about human interesting is not unique to humans, But one thing that is interesting to say all living things is that there their sense processes are

always limited in some way. In humans, for example, we can only see a visible light within a certain range. We can only hear within within the twenty hurts to twenty killer hurts range, et cetera. So there's any sense that we apply to interacting with the world is already already limited in some way. That's the same thing with language. We were talking earlier about the you know, the wide variety of sounds in humans create versus the number of

sounds that are used in any particular language. You know, So there's already some limitation there. But there's even limitations in meaning, you know, limitations in words. Once I once I describe if I have like some crazy experience, some profound experience that I had, once I describe it in words, I've cut off part of the experience. Maybe I can still think of it because I still know what it felt like. I mean, I can visualize something that I

can't describe. But if I'm describing it to you, there's always a limit to what you can understand about my experience because it was not your experience. It was it was my experience. Now you can you can maybe get a very good sense of that if you've had a similar experience. And because of the words that I use to describe it, it maps onto your experience in a way that lets you kind of get a deeper sense of what I'm talking about beyond just the words. Right,

But it's still limited, still limited in some way. And so that's that's why I find like, like tool, what you're describing, it's very handy to have tools that let you hit see those different perspectives on on things to get to what is the entirety of a thing instead of mistaking just this one way of looking at it

for being the entirety of the thing. Does that make sense? Yeah, I've not worked extensively with with what you're talking what you're talking about, although I work with sigils quite a bit, but usually more of the kind of the word method type schigils from Austin Osmond Spare but but that, but they work broadly in a similar similar way the idea

that you have. You have some particular concept, some idea, some principle that you're trying to convey, but you're you're working with some sort of a system to let you carve out part of it in order to represent the whole. I talk a bit about that a little bit in the language as a magic. That's a linguistic thing called metonomy where you use like part of something too or something closely associated with something to represent the entire thing.

Like for example, we talk about we refer to like journalists as the press, even though no one uses a printing press anymore, right, you know, use the thing associated with them kind of stands for the whole thing, but it's not the entirety of that thing, you know. But

that's when we work with magic. We're looking very often we're working in a very metaphorical analogical type of way where we're kind of where we're conceiving of something as part of our magic in a certain way that is that has a relationship with what we're trying to bring about, but they're not the same that we're there we're looking at trying to think out up with us. We're looking at some part of what we're trying to create through magic,

and we're focusing on that. That's where I'm going to direct my magic into that little bit right there, and it's going to you know, affect the rest of the concept that I'm trying to create, if that makes any sense. But yeah, that's why I'm a big, a big believer in those type of tools, just because you need need to have you need to have different perspectives on the thing you're trying to understand or the thing that you're trying to create so that you can find what is

the most effective. It's like, ah, that's where I'm going to get it right there.

And that was one of the that was one of those early things that they they kind of brought in that was like not magic in the conventional sense, but they realized, wait, this is magic. Why are we not using this as part of the magical work that we do?

And I love with Burrows especially, I love that kind of free form, kind of improvisitory like like go with what's in the moment that you need kind of approach to magic and Burrows I mean, for those who don't know, I'm sure you're aware of this, but those who may

not know, Burrows considered himself a magician. He understood what he was doing as magic, and in fact, later on even joined joined up with the Luminus of Panataros, the chast Magic organization, because he recognized, hey, you guys are taking what I'm doing in a in a new direction. But yeah, the cut up is a very a very interesting method for those listening. You may not know. The cutups have a wide variety of purposes, but it's it's the idea that you tell a very kind of easy example.

If you take like a like a magazine, right, and you cut out different pieces of different images, different pieces of pages, and you reassemble them in new ways to make something new out of it. You know that, whether it's randomly or going by the aesthetics of what you're trying to look at, et cetera. But it's it's not at all dissimilar to you know, magical work of assembling

a reality. You're basically taking pieces of what's there to work with, what's there as part of what's available for change, and you're creating something new out of it. And sometimes you can use this in like a like a divinatory way, like if you if you take like that, like a written page out of a magazine, cut it up, reassemble it, read the words the way that arrange now and sometimes you find, oh, that's that's a different way to arrange things.

You know, we've felt a lot about, you know, syntax and rearranging words as part of this conversation, or maybe it's more a visual thing. Yeah, there's it's a very ripe kind of magical technique, whether it is like a divinatory type purpose or as a you know, I'm going to rearrange these things to create a new vision of what I want to be. So so if if.

You're distilling it down to something that is that represents you know, it's one small piece of it representing the entirety in your specific example. I'm not sure, partially because I've not worked with them in that way.

are used in this in this way. So I'm sorry this comes right from my lack of knowledge in this, but I'm just trying to.

always good to get. But it's also you know, like magicians and techniques, so like, I'm not familiar with you know, because maybe that becomes part of my tool get who knows? So no, it's great, but yeah, I'm not like if I don't know something, I'm not going to make it up for you.

the word love. But when you're writing, you're sinking about love, and when you write about hate, you are sinking about hate. And that affects the water. Although the water is not connected to the process of creating the world itself, So our thinking is by writing it with intention, you might be creating a sigil if But I don't know what a sigil is in any sense, so I'm just ignorant in relate to this. But I just connected the two things, and I was trying to see if there was something to it.

It's meant to be a distillation where certainly fromation is lost or or is encoded in a way that's beyond

you know, you know, rational understanding at that point. Yeah, I mean normally in my own work, and this is not exclusively like this for everybody, but in my own work, I tend to use sigils when I'm trying to implant something for myself, basically, to to put something deep beyond just the rational mind, so that I can make sure that I remember something or that I know something or that or that I or that I think in a

certain way about something, et cetera. But you know, other people tend to use sigils more for operative, outward facing things. But that's just a quirk of my own, my own practice and in preferences, not not that it has to be that way or that excludes other ways I'm working with it.

your the first book, kind of contrast angular and circular magic. First, it's kind of like a two part question if you don't mind maybe giving as basic as you can of an understanding of those two and then how do you kind of pair them with left hand path and right hand path.

Fritz Liber Robert Block, people like that, other people that were mentored by Lovecraft to a large extent. But anyway, and in his in the story of the Hounds of Tandalos, I don't want to give it away because it's a very very cool and interesting story that's sort of written within the Cathullo mythos, and Lovecraft later uses the hounds as well. But there's this idea of introduced of curved

time and angular time. What curved time, curved circular is the perspective of time from like in the objective sense, you know, like we're going at the clock on the wall. You know it's been thirty minutes since whatever. Now, as we all know, magician or not, we know that the subjection experience of time is different. You know, it could have been that could have been a short thirty minutes, or it could have been a long thirty minute to been on what was happening right during that period of time.

And so what this becomes is that in angular time, this is the time time is experienced by an individual sendient being in their experience of time when it can stretch, it can it can compress, et cetera. Things maybe happen in different order, like you maybe have like some great insight that that kind of circumvents like a long process of reasoning, et cetera. Now, what this becomes as part of I'm just gonna it's not gonna be helpful for

people just hearing this, but I'll give it my best. So, so this image on the cover of Infernal Geometry, you see you have the have a circle, then you have a pentagram, then you have a trapezoid, and only the trapezoid is connecting the pentagram and the circle. So the pentagram and the trapezoid are what we're called we're call we call the nine angles, uh from the Ceremony of

the Nine Angles. Okay, so it starts off. The first one is the trapezoid in the upper right and then it goes to the sorry backwards, Yeah, a baride ever left is you know, because it's goes left of course left hamp path. You know. So the first wrangles or the trapezoid trace us and then you go back to the beginning with the pentagram, and then you know, those

those five traced. Okay, So if you're if you're tracing them in terms of because I'm trying to look at the camera while I'm trying to get my finger around the corner here, so give me a second. So if you're if you're tracing them in terms of the angles, you're gonna go, you know, one, two, three, four, five, sorry, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and so forth right. But if you're tracing them around, you would go, you know, one, five to eight. You know,

uh was a four, six, nine, et cetera. So there's different ways of tracing that figure, in an anger a way and in a curved way. Okay, So I'm trying to figure out how to talk about this in a six sixteenth succinct way. But in terms of your your general question around the left hand path, think of this in terms of the left hand path is dependent on the way that you subjectively understand things that you as the thinking, acting subject working against or with, depending on

what's needed at the time. The the objective universe, which is, you know, the things outside yourself, the that's the you know, the universe of matter and the laws, the government, it's the people and other sending it being is within that. It's basically everything outside of your own subjective, subjective self. So you work with this idea that time for me internally is different than it is for time outside myself.

It is perceived in a different way. We can work with it in different ways, we can use it in like for example, Lovecraft described and stories like The Haunter of the Dark and the Dreams in the Witch House. He even saw angular time as this kind of gateway to different dimensions of way of working with non conventional reality, working outside of just what what is the province of

everyday experience? Now within the within the left hand path, there's this idea that not only do you have do we stand apart in some way from the natural world. Doesn't mean that we dislike it, doesn't mean that we

we ignore the natural world. Just means that we have something that is separate in some way from it and That's what has developed as part of the left hand path, this idea that we become more potent, aware, capable, you know, understanding within within ourselves, and that this is projected outward in some way. It's known by its effects in the

world outside ourself. The way the angular time plays into that is this this idea that you sometimes when you have a different experience of time in a given situation, you're not in control of it. You know, maybe it's your you're stressed out or or you're super happy or whatever, and it's going to affect the way the time time flows. But what happens when you control it? What happens when you sort of slow down time yourself, your your perspective

of time. And I'm and I'm well aware that I'm not necessarily unless I'm traveling near the speed of light, I'm not slowing down the passage of you know, a second in the objective world. I'm talking about the passage of a second within my subjective self. What you find is that you can take more, you can find more nuance in what you're doing. You can find you can find those gaps in your understanding that maybe were not invisible when you were just blazing past it at the normal,

normal rate of time. When you're engaged in some sort of a creative process. Let's say, for example, you're writing

a piece of music, and this is an example. I go into the illustrate within the book the way the way that process looks internally acording to my own sort of angular clock, you know, the way that I process time within within myself is gonna be different from what someone watching me, like create the music or rehearse it or whatever, is going to see, you know, and like you you may even have like normal examples you've seen of this, Like if you ever watched like an elite athlete,

you know, and you watch them do moves like within a space of time, you can't even understand someone moving that fast. Well, if you ask them what they are experiencing for them, it's like, oh, yeah, I had all the time in the world to do that, to do this one move. And you're like, but that's but that's not what I saw. But that's right. It's because you're seeing from the outside as opposed to what they're experiencing

from the inside. So so that kind of being able to speed up and slow down your perception of time is crucially important for for magic. That's also crucially important just for anything that that works with the world outside yourself, because you need to be able to interact with it on your own term. So that's a critical part of the left hand path. It's the I am deciding how

this interaction that is going to go. But it's also in terms of trying to trying to have a better understanding and more deeper understanding of who am I as part of this, you know, to be able to you know, to speed up or slow down that perspective of yourself as as someone acting within time, because we can't escape from time. You know, we're you know, we've been talking for an hour and fifty fifty minutes now, right, you know that's at one level, that's an hour and fifty minutes.

I'm never going to get back. But on the other hand, I'm having a great time. On the third hand, third hand, I'm going back to Lovecraft, I guess on the on yet another, yet another hand. If you if I couldn't see that on my screen, I'm putting my hand up before I can't see it. And you asked me how long we've been talking, I would have said maybe thirty minutes so far. I don't know, right, because because you don't really we're not always aware of of of doing this.

But if I deliberately decide, you know what, I'm going to make this hour and a half last as long as I can, that opens up possibilities to you that weren't there before as well. So so I guess to make a long story short and yeah, too late. I know that's that's the case with me. But but but it's a lot of it's about that how you can manipulate and work with your own perception of time in

order to open up possibilities and work there before. But see if I just said that one sentence, so you were to go you answer a question, man, Whereas I, if I say that to sum up what I just said, is like now it's like, oh that makes sense.

to cause. That might be our own self activation, creating it to yourself, but it might be real right it all, It all depends on your ability to use that intention and transform time itself or the bubble that where you are set into.

do work with the magic we were Uh. We consider ourselves to be engaged in initiation, basically improving ourselves. But one things that's sometimes misunderstood about the temple because the name Temple of Set is they assume, oh, it's only about Egyptian stuff. That's definitely not the case. It's never been the case. The reason is that Temple of Set is for us, that is the oldest as we understand it.

That is the oldest name that we as humans know of for the figure we sometimes referred to as the Prince of Darkness. You know, it's been known by many other names Set, other than Mardu, Tescalavoca, et cetera. But Set is probably the oldest such name for it that we know of. And so that that's that kind of like getting back to the roots kind of ideas part of Wife's there. Now. We do work quite a bit with the Egyptian ideas, but that but definitely not exclusively those.

And in fact, I'm I'm probably kind of the middle of the road, in middle of the pack in terms of like focusing on Egyptian ideas. I mean, I'm well versed in it, but it's not my focus now within the temple. And this is makes more sense with that idea that it's not just an Egyptian thing. We have these groups within the temple called orders. Now, orders are led by masters of the Temple. There are people that have reached certain levels of a certain degree of initiation

within the Temple. And orders are sort of like if you think of like a university, you have like you have like the University of wherever, but then it has like the College of Arts and Sciences that has the College of Business, that has the College of this. So think kind of like the orders are like individual colleges within this broader thing that is the Temple of Set. Now I'm a member of I personally am a member of two orders within the with the Temple. That's not

an uncommon thing to have happened. There are Oh I don't know, I don't want to go, I want to sit down. Think by the Holism is like eight or ten orders active at the moment, something like that that that focus on specific areas of magic, specific areas of understanding of the set, or understanding of the things that things that we do. Now, the Order of the Trapezoli is one of those. I'm the grand master of that order. I'm part of a different order, but I'm not the

grand master of that order. I'm part of the Order of Tmot as well, which works with Mesopotamian magic and related ideas. So the Order of the Trapezoid has its roots in the Church of Satan. It was an idea originally sort of created by Anton Leave even though it never was really a formal thing within the Church of Satan.

It was just kind of it was it was an idea that that he had that there was a sort of kind of rarefied thing behind like the movers and shakers behind the church, that the Order of the trapsol was is the board of directors, the of the security staff, the but but it also had very Germanic like looking at ruins and the figure voting and things like that, because Anton Anton don't really know much about rooms, but he was very well versed in very enamored with German expressionism,

things about the Cabinet of Darda Caligary metropolis of those great movies from the and art et cetera from the nineteen twenties in Germany. Anyway, so when the Temblives that was founded in ninety seventy five, that the Order of the Trapezoid as an idea was kind of kept as a similar sort of thing. Then later nineteen eighty two by Michael Aquino, who was the founder of the Temple of Set at did A, in response to things that were happening with other temple did A working that he

came to understand more deeply. What he saw was the idea of the Order of the Trapezoid, and what he realized is that a it's focused on things like ruins and the like were it was kind of like a almost like a yin yang kind of thing with what we were doing with the the some of the work of the temple. The idea that you need kind of like you need like a different way, a different perspective, a different alternate perspective of looking at some of the ideas that we had about about Set and magic and

so forth. And so it became, alongside several other orders at the same time, became orders that were that were specific to specific ways of looking at magic, specific ways of looking at the figure of Set and related figures. And so to this day, the Order of the Trapezoid is largely focused on broadly speaking, well really it's broadly speaking about runa. Runa is an ancient Germanic word meaning

the mysteries or mystery. In fact, like the oldest long form written text in any Germanic language is the Gothic Bible, written by the Bishop of Uffalas somewhere around the year four hundred, I think that were in the fourth century. In any event, where he was translating the New Testament from a from ancient Greek into the Gothic language, which is a Germanic language. It's now extinct. No one speaks

Gothic still, at least is a first language. And so Runa was like the way that the word mysterion from Greek was translated. So that's how we know that it means not just mystery, like like where my car keys go, but like transcendent mystery, right, the idea that that there's you know, there's a hidden reality behind things that we have to discover in and of ourselves. Because that's how the word mysterion was used in the New Testament. It was referred to the mysteries of God, you know, the

mysteries of the Crucifixion, et cetera. Now, in practical sense, you know, a lot of what we work with in the order of the trapezoid is like things like ruins we work with, you know. Odin is the particular form of the prince of darkness that we kind of interact with, which is different. I mean not definitely would not say that Set and Odin are the same god, but that they are both through culturally determined way as they're expressing something essential about what it is to be a self aware,

self evolving a being than the cosmos. And so yeah, so that we also work with broader things, which is runa mystery is the connector more so than the Germanic things, but just so happens in many of things were interested in our Germanic things, like like the ruins, you know, the cosmology of of the the pros that is on

those lines. So yeah, so, I mean it's not entirely accurate, but the easiest way to describe it as like we look at basically the more kind of Germanic type forms of magic and religion and initiation, even though it kind of goes a bit more broadly than that, because like it's like for myself that that's mean I mentioned like I don't work it as much directly with with Egyptian ideas,

you know, I'm relatively well versed in them. I tend to think more in terms of the coroner of Germanic orientation, because I'm also part of the Rune Guild, which is an initiative organization founded by Stephen Flowers that all that works with the Rooms and works with it doesn't The Room Guild is an initiatory organization, a magical organization. It's not a religion, even though there are people within the Guild who are also true you know, work with you know,

the Norse gods in certain ways. But yeah, it's just different. It's a different approach to magic, a different approach to the mysteries of the cosmos, a different approach to what it means to be a self aware of self evolving being. So there's different ways to look at it. And then that's where the university metaphor is kind of apt, because like you, you know, you're you're learning whatever college you're part of, but you're learning through the lens of business

in the College of Business. You're learning through the lens of some sorts of arts or sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, et cetera. So you may learn the same things but from different perspectives and with a different orientation, with a different a different concentration and focus, if.

or even just like a a cross. Now, now what you do see a very Trapizola figure is that what's come to be known as the vauk newt youah, the no of the Fallen, even though that's a that is an old Norse name, but that is a name. That's a sign of that figure out which we have no idea what it was actually called, or even if it'd even had a name. But that's that's the three triangles that interlocked with each other, right, And it shows.

anything you read about that figure is is speculative. But I mean it fuels Whenever multiple people, multiple people speculate the same thing about a symbol like that, they're probably onto something, even if you can't prove it.

that are interlocked, like, you can't pull it apart. It's that arrangement is not going anywhere. It's stuck. Well, that's that's what weird is. It's like, weird is what has been laid down in this it's configured in the way that it happens whatever whatever actually came to be. That's that. That was it, that was that was the why it happened. But if you had those, if you had the three triangles like, it wouldn't be you could pull them apart,

but you could still maybe wiggle them a little bit. Well, you can still you know, wiggle your perception of the past. You can still think of it in certain ways. You you can you can see you can see ways that well, I can look at it this way, you can look at it this way. You know, two events, you know, peering uh, you know, differently to different observers. So like that weren't.

I don't know the exact line, but every day they fly out, and like I fear that h Can won't come back, But I fear even more than Union won't come back. If we think about it, you have to have effective thought requires effective memory. You have ever been around someone with dementia, which, unfortunately you know a couple of people in my family have. I have dealt with that.

It's one of the things that happens when someone is is losing their ability to form or to recall memory, is they use the ability to think rationally as well, because they can't hold the things in mind to think about them in in a meaningful way. So yeah, it's there's a lot of wisdom encoded in that that it's this, you know, I mean, the one thing that that bugs me to know in about myth. And this is a very modernistic way that people see myth is that Leo

is just like bad science. They just understand how the World war. It's like, yes, there's some parts of myth that that that was attempts to explain national phenomenon, But so much of myth is really about encoding. This is what matters, is what matters to us as a society, because sometimes you have in mythology around like the you know, the gods, like this is this is portraying the ideal

arrangement of of of our society. But in other cases, like Hugan immunion, it's it's encoding certain things that they understood. And if people that heard the stories would have not just thought, oh, it's a story about two ravens, they would have understood, yes, but it has this significance is why the story matters. Well, yeah, you've got to send them out to bring you to bring you back knowledge. Yeah. Well,

and even and that's the thing. Even the the old Norse term for mad for well, on one old Norse term for magic god are ultimately comes from the same roots as the root for the sounds that raven makes. So there's a very deep connection that that's there as part of it.

are are not actual words. So it may have been glossa elia, it may have been. You know, they're trying to create the sounds have the magic. The word doesn't have the magic. That idea. But if you've ever spent much time around ravens, Ravens talk all the time. You Crows are not the same. They're they're related birds, but

they're not. Crows are smaller, they're less chatty. Ravens talk all the time, and ravens are also fascinated with people that they hang around, and not just because they're waiting, wantings to give them a crumb. They're they're fascinated by I don't know if they think we're just weird ravens. I don't know what they're thinking, but objects, shiny objects.

like a random wasn't a bird song. It's not it's not beautiful speech, you know, but like you know, you you hear them, you hear them, and like it's said, it sounds like they're talking to each other because it just sounds like you can't understand it, even though some people, you know, you know, according according to the saga, some people can understand it.

Listen man, you can find my two books, Infernal Geometry and The Left Hand Path, actually right here in Fernal Geometry in the Left Hand Path, which was what we occasionally talked about today, and then and then the newest one. The language is a magic. You can find them wherever books are sold. The inter Traditions has very wide distribution, so they should be easy to get hold, easy to order, if not find in your favorite brick and mortar store.

That's what's up. I appreciate you all jumping in on the live and until the next one, everybody be well later