2018 Preface
Back in 2010, I moved through the world with the wonder of the Fool still fresh in my mind and heart and an excited and open mind, ever-ready to make mystical and secret discoveries. Sometimes, synchronicities would jump out at me in a way that would command my attention. This one such day.
2010 Magical Journal Entry
Date: 23/07/10
Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 94% Full
Time: 23:00 (11) P.M.
Synchronicity
Today, I was perusing Crowley’s Liber Tzaddi. The number of the True Will is 23. The day was full of 23s. The date was itself June 23, but when we went to buy beer just as the local Depanneur (Quebec’s equivalent to a convenience store) was closing, I realized that it was 23 o’clock (11 pm), and was surprised when our wine came to a total of $23.23. Very eerie.
Commentary from my friend Caliban:
The 23 enigma was first noted and commented upon (I think) by William Burroughs and Brian Gysin, though Gysin may have been building on observations of surrealist Tristan Tzara.
Hippy/Yippy culture became aware of this weirdness, and it became adopted into Discordianism from the Beats (who were seen as countercultural heroes). Popularized by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea in the Illuminatus! trilogy, and entered the Occultural underground largely through this venue.
TOPY took advantage of the relative freedom of the 23 enigma from any religious or mythical or paradigmatic overtones to make it a key symbol in their deliberately spare and functional method, which is practiced at 23:00 on the 23rd of each month, for 23 consecutive months, in the full practice of this method.
TOPY was a seed-bed for Chaos Magic, if certainly not its sole font, and the 23 enigma kind of rode the edge of that influence, into the graphic fiction of Alan Moore and so on.
1. Its meaning is flexible. It is said to be an especially synchronistic number. It therefore can be taken as a shorthand for synchronicity itself as a measure of one’s attunement to the magical current, or as an indication that one is, in Thelemic terms, Doing What one Wilt.
2. You are being encouraged to realize how well your current mode of life empowers your magical exploration, development and growth. At this point in time, you are “getting it”. In Lucasian terms, the Force is with you.
***
Date: 04/07/2010
Moon Phase: Third Quarter Moon 48% Full
Sun Position: Afternoon
Time: 3:15-3:43
Activity: FELIRP, Rite of Elemental Equilibration, ALU, Middle Pillar Ritual, QC
Today’s rituals left me feeling calm, peaceful, in a soothing internal quietude. The mind and the emotions were balanced with the forces of the external universe, the internal and external, the apparent two, but really One.
I currently feel a kind of glowing feeling around my forehead area. Whenever I close my eyes, I see a kind of pulsation of light in that area. Within my heart I also feel a kind of warm vibrating feeling. I wonder if these are effects of the Middle Pillar ritual and the bringing-in and centering of Divine Energies it involves.
I feel very clear and happy. My thoughts are peaceful and settled, like the waters of the stream after the children have left it and the once stirred up sediment has had time to settle once more, leaving the waters crystal clear. I feel fulfilled and my thoughts move slowly, but sharply and without disruption.
This combination of rituals seems quite powerful. The FELIRP draws in all four elemental energies; the REE equilibrates them within the aura and body-mind; the ALU offers the divine reverence, worship, peace and love; the Middle Pillar draws down divine Energy/LVX into the Qabalistic centers of the body; the QC performs a final gesture of equilibration. Just closing my eyes and sitting silently is blissful and restful. The mind is perfectly clear as if I had meditated for an hour. Overall, today’s was a beautiful session of practice.
At the end of the ritual, I thanked each of the powers of each element for being present and bowed to the symbol of each before raising my hands into the air and making a final prayer:
“Greatest thanks and praise be to you, Oh Lord of the Universe,
The Transcendent and Immanent One who
Dwells in the Ultimate Dimension
Of No Birth, No Death, No Existence, No Non-Existence,
The Praiseworthy Whom Nature Hath Not Formed,
The Great, The Exalted,
The True Nature of all things,
Lord of the Light and of the Darkness!”
Light in Extension: A Magical Journal 