The Beginning of Truth

I used to spend so much time writing a blog entry, always telling myself it wouldn't take long, but it would always end up being a novel by the time I was done with a single entry. Well surely this will be no different. Though I really should try to shorten it with a rundown of events since the last entry, it may help me practice saying more with less words.

Sometime a week or two after the last entry Lisa went for a checkup with her doctor and the blood test came back with diabetic blood sugar level. She was diabetic, I was very sad and worried about her at first, as she was shaken up, yet not surprised. The end result ended up being positive as Lisa and Irv (and myself by extension) evaluated our calorie intake vs calories burnt daily using the help of a stayfit and sparkpeople.com. They started working out and cutting off empty calories, thanks to Lisa's amazing cooking her meals were still as good as ever, with less calories. I started losing weight just without even dieting at all, simply moderating my calorie intake based on my level of activity. (and not eating half a stick of butter with toast)

My brother called me one day and during the conversation he managed to pry into how I was doing “spiritually” asking if I would ever go back to the meetings. I was already developing some interest in my spiritual research through some Hermetic literature in Lisa's bookshelf, but had not yet dealt with the old questions about the validity of my previous religion. Claudio's spiritual push over the phone had me answering me simply over how I felt, though sometime delivering answers that shocked him, such as my disbelief in the entire Bible as God's final word, and his “truth” as not “the truth” but a way to “a truth.” This sent his head spinning, “but if we can't believe in the Bible what else is there to believe in?” was his only reply. He asked how I arrived at my conclusions, I told him I felt them in my heart. He then flung an old scripture often manipulated by the Watchtower to keep their “sheep” in line. “But the 'heart of men is deceptive' the Bible tells us. This sent me into such a inner rage, yet I could not let it show, nor did I say what later came to mind. “Then why does Jesus say “love God with your whole heart...'?” would be my logical question had I not been so stunned by his attempt at spiritual bullying. I told him that I would study more on the matter and return to him, since I couldn't exactly give facts to disprove the Witness dogmas, which I knew in my heart to be wrong.
I went online and started searching for more information about the Witness, exactly what we were always told not to do. I started with wikipedia, and found a pretty broad outside view on the insular religious movement, looks up the sources and looked further. I bought The Gentile Times Reconsidered by Carl Olof Jonsson and In Search for Christian Freedom by Raymond Franz, former member of the Governing Body of JW's, I also intend on getting his Crisis of Conscience. The first gave me the archaeological evidence I needed that debunks the self proclaimed divine authority of the Watchtower, by giving ample evidence that Jerusalem did not fall to the Jews in 607 BC but in 587 BC as is the accepted date. Once I compiled enough evidence from searched Jonsson's sources in official archaeological websites, I presented it to Claudio over the phone.

A few days later he called me back thanking me for reinforcing his faith by leading him to an in depth research. He told me he found a website written by some anonymous source who doesn't identify himself as a witness. This source was supposedly making Claudio's argument using only interpretations of Bible texts to do so, without the backing of the archaeological evidence as a measure for Biblical chronology, yet relying on that same archeology to point out their desired date as an anchor point and counting 70 years backwards from then. It was clear that I wasn't going to get through to him, so I said I'd check his work on my own and get back to him later. Honestly I had been studying the subject for over a week, and felt like putting an end to it and looking forward, not backwards. I haven't called him back yet.

I invested myself wholeheartedly on establishing my spiritual path, find the truth. And it led me to a witty writer and OTO member who made the works of Crowley more accessible to me, Lon Milo DuQuette. His Chicken Qabalah was best described in one of my conversations with Lisa. I told her that it was like finding a door, opening it to the Supreme Being, the Holy of Holies in all of his and her Glory, my True Self in union with Divinity and all the intricacies of the vast Universe in the Tree of Life, nearly blinded by the light saying “oh shit!” and slamming the door shut while gasping for air. I knew, from various dreams that I was meant to find truth by connecting the pieces together, a brief look at the Qabalah gave me a preview of a flexible systematic grid that can do just that. I have since read Aleister Crowley's Illustrated Goetia, My Life with the Spirits, half way through The Magick of Aleister Crowley, half way through Jung and Tarot an Archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols (where reading about the Magician I came to the realization of ONE prior to reading the Chicken Qabalah) and just started Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig at Lisa's recommendation. I've skimmed many others and have many others on my reading list.


I'm beginning to memorize parts of initiatory banishing spells, and am internalizing their meaning as well. If it does not resonates with my very soul, then it will have no effect. But first in my practice I have to be able to meditate properly, something I sorely need and Lisa will help me with. I told Lisa “My mind is like a very demanding juggling clown who is doing all kinds of circus acts going “Lookatme! Lookatme!” Thanks to my understanding of my inner Tree of Life I realize that this is the realm of Ruach (I think therefore I am) exercising its monopoly over my consciousness, keeping me from ascending to intuitive truths from my Real Self which it simply can't grasp. I've just started reading Crowley's Book 4 (a culmination of a lot of 4s coming up daily as of lately). In it, so far, he is giving me the “how to” and the historical background of Holy men who transcended thought through meditation and were transformed by Divine truths they saw.

The personal power and control over my destiny that these esoteric universal truths give me, along with practical application of my will through its alignment with divine will accomplished through rituals make the plight of Art in Post-modernity seem like child's play. I have the Universe at my finger tips, I've always had it, and simply did not know it. I'm only now learning to KNOW it.

All of this coincided with the start of my first real expression of faith through painting, something I pulled from the great void even before the library I'm now invested in. Inspired from the Opeth song of the same name, The Apostle in Triumph. More on that on a future entry.