scarletstar777

Merkavah, The Original Magic and Mysticism of Judaism
(4 Class Series)
Thursdays, January 7 - 28, 2010
8 pm - 9:30 pm , doors open at 7:30 pm
$20 per class for non WBL members

After the destruction of the Temple at the hands of the Romans, a radical change occurred in Jewish spirituality. During the period of the writing of the Talmud we see the creation of the literature of Enoch, and the Sefer Yetsirah, and evidence of mystical and magical practices focused on obtaining direct knowledge of the science of the Creation and ascent to the Heavenly Palaces to stand face to face with the Throne of God. This system stands as a direct precursor to much of Solomonic Magic, and appears an almost mystical prototype for the Enochian system. Over these four classes we will explore some of the basic concepts and texts of the Merkavah mystical and magical system, and look at how it fits into magic (k) today.

Class 1: The Merkavah: In this class we will explore the basic history and concepts of the Merkavah system, which has been referred to as Jewish Gnosticism by some. We will look at the idea of the image of God, the concept of the seven heavens, and the purpose and idea behind this ancient system of spirituality.

Class 2: The Greatest of Men and the Seven Heavens: In this class we will explore the story of Enoch, the man so great that God elevated him beyond all the angels. We will look at his role in the Merkavah system and in later magical systems. We will also begin looking at the nature of the Seven Heavens of the Merkavah.

Class 3: The Four Who Traveled in Paradise and the Dangers of Mysticism: In this class we will look at the story of Rabbi Akiva and those who went with him to Paradise in an attempt to attain the vision of the throne of God. We will also look at the concept of danger in mysticism, as this concept is prevalent within the Merkavah system.

Class 4: The Descent to the Chariot and the Merkavah Today: In this class we will look at the actual means by which the Rabbi Akiva and the others of the Merkavah stories traveled through the heavens, as well as exploring the powers and knowledged gained by them and how this is reflected in later Jewish and Christian Magical systems. We will touch on the similarities between Merkavah and the Enochian system and look at how Merkavah can relate to contemporary mystical practice.

Email: master@williamblakeoto.org
Phone: 248.885.9397

Directions to the William Blake Lodge Temple:
95N to Washington Blvd. exit
Turn left onto Washington Blvd.
Turn left onto Monroe
Turn left onto Eagle
Turn right onto Pulaski
Red Brick Building on left side (Cambridge Building)
William Blake Lodge on 5th floor, suite B
Park on street.

Hey Guys,

Unfortunately with our last release, and its instability, we were forced to roll back releases. Unfortunately in doing so, it would seem that our notification system has been broken somehow. Our engineers are working on this issue as quickly as possible. We hope to have a patch within the next day, so we can deploy our code and fix the notification system at the same time. Please *bear* with us ;)

Currently all notifications are being queued up so they can be processed as soon as the fix is pushed and verified to be working correctly.

Thank you,

So, as you smart grounded-in-reality people suggested might happen, my basil mostly died. But...mostly. The stuff in the middle of the ghetto greenhouse, the most protected stuff, still has some green leaves. So I guess we'll cut those plants down and see if they care to regrow. I'm very interested in how the fig is going to behave. It looks pretty frost burned to me, so I'm expecting it to drop every leaf and start again, but you never know. I have a couple of plants out there that looked frost burned/dead that are picking up their heads again. It's really interesting to check out every few hours, there's a lot going on out there. It's just going on at garden-pace.

Vampires and zombies, or rather, entertainment and novels about vampires and zombies which is after all where zombies and vampires reside, right?, kind of bore the shit out of me. Always have. Which leaves space for the exception to the rule. Which is, Charlie Huston's vampire quadrology. I got onto Charlie Huston through his (non-vampire, non-zombie) novel, The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, which is a sweet sweet piece of modern noir/procedural, although when I say "procedural" I don't mean police or forensic procedural, it's kind of its own procedural genre, body and body waste disposal, which sounds gross, which it is, but also, fascinating. Hmmm, that's a very bad sentence but I believe I'll leave it lie.

Anyway, Charlie Huston. Writes really tight books. So tight that it will spoil a lot of the loosy goosey, not well-crafted crime fiction out there for ya. Which is half the books on the shelf. CH has the (not completely) unique ability to really visualize an act of violence or a sequence of violent crime, and to be able to write it in a completely lucid, point by point manner. Read some of that, and the lesser-written lesser-visualized stuff looks like slop. So there's a part of me that doesn't like CH, because he's spoiled a certain amount of sloppy entertainment for me. But I digress.

For some reason, better known to CH, he is interested in vampires (and to a certain extent zombies, which show up in, oh, book 2 of the 4). And that turns out to be a good thing. It's like the best crime noir ever written, with vampires instead of Washingtonians (or something along those lines). They're highly political, his vampires. Anyway, I can't recommend it enough, even if you hate vampires. Maybe especially if you hate vampires. I mean, you'll still hate 'em, but maybe not quite as much. And isn't that what the spirit of Christmas is all about?

Charlie Huston, check him out.

At Teaism, Dupont Circle 7:00 pm:


Tuesday December 22
and
Wednesday Jan 13


(If there's enough interest, I also would be willing to do an unofficial quickie meetup on this Wednesday, December 9--say in comments if you can come!
(xposting to my journal)

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/what-i-plan-to-do-this-week.html

Write.

Walk the dog. (Seen here being walked by me half an hour ago. I was not wearing special protective warm clothing. It was remarkable.)

Not go onto the internet except occasionally to email people things they are waiting for.

Sleep.

Posted via email from Neil's posterous

I am a very lucky girl after a rather successful season working the Grater St Louis Renfair I found out about a steampunk convention in the planning stages. http://rose-society.org/index.html I am makeing several one of a kind pieces using altered found clothing and trims. Come out and see me so I can take pictures of everyone's cool outfits since I will be stuck at a table most of the time.

So far this is the true masterpiece of what I have completed but there will be much more to come. The bolero is still very much a work in process as I am sure you can tell from the pins in it.

( Click here for more pretty pictures )

Sometimes the lolspeak writes itself...

Srsly, though. If you want something you won't have to merely tolerate when you take your kids to the movies, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" fits the bill. It's just like watching a regular Wes Anderson movie except everyone is a stop-action animated animal.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/in-which-i-test-posterous.html

I'm testing http://posterous.com out, as a way of posting to Blogger from my phone, using email. So this is a test posting...

I'm attaching the "mass market" paperback cover for Fragile Things, which will be released in the US in February. It shows someone who looks like me with jam, or dreams, or ideas, squidging out of a book and all over him.

I finished a short story - technically, I suppose, a novelette, as it's 10,000 words - that I've been working on for much of the year. For most of that time, even through to the end of the first draft, a couple of weeks ago, I was convinced it was never going to work, would be a stunted, crippled little thing that was doomed to disappoint me. I knew it was missing something. What that something was occurred to me last week, exhausted after a yoga session in Boston, as my mind blanked, and later I wrote two short paragraphs in my notebook. Those paragraphs percolated and began to breathe, and I put them in and the story shifted, subtly, around them. The second draft took wing, and I found I was clear enough in my mind about what the story was that taking out things that weren't part of the story and putting in things that were was now easy, and the more I did it the better the story got, and now I'm happier with it than I've been with anything I've written for well over a year. It's called "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains..." and it is not exactly a happy story.

Right...

Dear Neil,

Patrick Rothfuss is making the world a better place in a very tangible way with his charity run Worldbuilders 2009. (http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/2009/12/worldbuilders-2009.html) My sphere of influence in this world is rather small, but you could, just by mentioning it in your blog, raise a lot of awareness and thus help a Very Good Cause. It would mean a lot to me, and no doubt a helluva lot more to Pat and the people that receive Heifer's help. Many thanks and much love,

a fan of Wonderful People,
Gaetan Verhegge

Consider it plugged enthusiastically. I sent Patrick a signed copy of the incredibly beautiful STARDUST Advanced Reader's Copy when he did this last year, and it got to him a little late, so he has that along with many other amazing and beautiful books to give to people who donate. Check it out.

Hi Neil,

Consider it spread.

Hmm. Okay. I'll email this in, now. Not sure how I can do the blogger labels, though. Let's see if it works.

Posted via email from Neil's posterous

As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Marilyn Manson. Now I realize that he has become a living joke as of late; but before he was singing duets with Lady Gaga, even back before he was experimenting with gender identity...he and his band were a bunch of drug-using Satanists...AND BOY DID THEY ROCK!!!

This Video was one of the first his band did, and was the first Video I ever saw of theirs! It shows a much different side of the Antichrist; at least different then the crap he's been shellin' (Qilpothically speaking) lately...I was nineteen when I first saw this Video, and I thought it was the coolest shit out there...check it out and you'll see why!

Hail Satan and Hallelujah MotherFuckers!
(which was his tag line back then)





( Get Your Gunn Lyrics )

Today I am off after a bit at the office to visit Alpocalypse in Ann Arbor,
MI-I will be checking out Crazy Wisdom, Nicola’s Books (who carry The
Orphan’s Tales! and the LYS which will be much fun. Plus, dinner at
ZIngerman’s (0). Hence, right now I am waiting and doing a few last minute
things at the office. So…to the RWP:

Reading: Salome and The Sphinx by Oscar Wilde. Just finished
Jeri Smith-Ready’s Wicked Game and was delighted.

Writing: Novel oddments, want to write some more poetry. Next week I am
writing a story, by gum.

Wearing: Black ankle length skirt, black overskirt, black bloomers with
green bats, tie dye kneehigh socks, boots, black turtleneck w/BPAL Thunder
Moon tee over it striped arm warmers and earrings by Alicia_stardust. BPAL
is Storytime at Dark Delicacies-starts as lightly lemony sugar cookies then
morphs into incense and paper; it’s like ceremonial magician bait. :) Love
it.



Planning: Writing. To finish the neckwarmer I am working on which goes
slowly but interestingly. Get in some reading time, some writing time and
some fun…and on Tuesday get my tattoo colored in and Saturday go see the
Xmas Revels. It is Renaissance Italy, so I am hoping to see Lucrezia Borgia
caroling.:)



How about you? What are you RWP?







(0)Do not get to do all the time, but it is yum.

We have a little snow predicted in our near future but I'm hoping my basil can soldier on anyway. There were at least a couple of mornings recently when I had to scrape ice off my windshield, and the basil persevered...and I really didn't want to spend the evening making pesto, so, I'm feeling lucky and I've built the basil bed a little ghetto greenhouse, plastic over tomato cages, weighted down all the way around, with a rug on top. It looks kind of cozy in there. We shall see what we shall see.

At Yale last night I attended an event in honor of the SPanish novelist Javier Marias (A Heart So White, Your Face Tomorrow, among many others). He read a really quite striking piece (reading, with some effort, the English translation) that involved a man and his dying father, a pistol in the family since the Spanish Civil War, and a poem of Heine's. But after that he had a conversation with people from the Romance Languages and English departments, in which he revealed (or told us about, anyway) the way he goes about writing a novel. He writes with a typewriter, beginning with the first page, with a situation he has been brooding about, and some sense of the implications or characters involved, but no real storyline. He probes forward with this, discovering as he goes (he pointed out that the Latin root of "invent" also has the meaning "discover"), but here's the thing: he does not ever go back and change what he has written. It's a pact he has with himself. He must accept and work with what he has laid down as he goes. If he has had a character's mother die at a particular time, he can't alter that, even if becomes clear it would be convenient if she died earlier, or later. And writing as he does he has to remember just what he did say, so that later on he won't violate it (without a "search" function on the typewriter; the new work is a trilogy some 1200 pages long.)

My daughter when I told her this asked if he'd ever just given up on a book because of this -- got into such a mess trying to reconcile what he laid down at first with what he wanted to happen later on that he threw the book away.

I think there ought to be a word for writing in this way, something like villanelle or roman fleuve or roman a clef. I'd never thought of it before.

Oh and: my Nicholson Baker essay is now available on the Boston review website.

LiveJournal: The First Decade

Just in time for holiday shopping, we're thrilled to announce the release of our ten-year anniversary anthology. Published by Blurb.com, the book showcases a decade of extraordinary talent drawn from LiveJournal users around the world. This must-read compilation features stories, memes, photos, comics, editorials, graphic content, and more, including:

1. Excerpts from Oh No They Didn't (a/k/a ohnotheydidnt), the largest community on LiveJournal, covering celebrity gossip, entertainment news, and pop culture
2. A look at post-Katrina New Orleans from the journal of Poppy Z. Brite
3. Gripping narratives, including a poignant reverie on a blind date
4. Photography that spans the globe, ranging from old-fashioned Polaroids to underwater photography
5. Mouthwatering dishes from food_porn

What began as a late-night inspiration back in Brad Fitzpatrick's college dorm in 1999 has grown to encompass nearly 25 million users worldwide, with journals and communities covering every conceivable hobby, passion, and topic. To get your copy, please visit the Blurb Bookstore. For updates and entries from book contributors, please join lj_turns10.

Tweaks and enhancements

• You can now ban a user from all of your communities and journals at once. To access this feature, hover over the person's userpic and choose Ban user everywhere from the drop-down menu.
• Follow LiveJournal on Twitter!

Give a little to help a lot!

In honor of National AIDS Awareness month, we've added a new charitable vgift. For each red ribbon you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine (we'll cover credit card fees). You can read more about IAVI at lj_cares. While we're on the subject, we raised $740 from our November fundraiser for Love Without Boundaries, which supports emergency healthcare and adoption of Chinese orphans. We thank you for helping us help others.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible pictures from our super-talented LiveJournal photographers. Congratulations to ilya_gorokhov, who is the winner of our very first lj_photophile poll.

We hope you'll continue to post, vote, and comment! A gentle request: Please post only one photo at a time and limit size to 350x350 (so images display properly on friends pages). And now, without further ado, get ready to cast your ballot and view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay safe and snug out there!

Hello again!

The 2nd and 3rd round of Auditions have been announced for Barataria Faire. We would love to have an airship pirate crew, and anyone else who would love to come play. There are still roles available as general cast, you can find the list here for your perusal. Auditions are necessary for cast members.

Our 2nd round will be held on Saturday Jan 9th and the 3rd will be on Saturday Jan 30th. Auditions will be in 30 minute increments with a lunch break at noon. Auditions will be open and located at 1223 S National Ave, Springfield MO 65804. Appointments will be made by email only; please email eric@baratariafaire.com the following information:

Real Name:
Contact phone #:
Email:
Character name (or role):
Brief Character description:
Requested Day and Time of Audition:

Auditions will be posted on a first come, first serve basis. If your requested time is not available you will be contacted to reschedule. So you may want to include any times you are absolutely not available.

Appointments are not entirely necessary, if you'd like to just show up and wait, feel free, we'll work you in, and will also have the above information on forms to fill out on-site.

I believe I have conspired to put a more permanent form of the True Names map into the previous entry, for those who couldn't see it.

93 All!

Now up:

Thelema Now! Guest: Susan Jameson Bonner
Artist Susan Jameson Bonner, whose distinctive mezzotint landscapes represent magick in nature, discusses making her own Tarot cards and the relationship between magick and art.

http://www.oto-usa.org/podcast.html

http://www.thelemanow.com/

93,93/93
Fra. Puck

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/chilly-and-statuesque.html

Ah, I think, for a blog post I really need more than "Coraline has just garnered ten Annie Award Nominations, more than any other animated film". (Variety) (Congratulations to Henry Selick, to Travis Knight, Dawn French, Shane Prigmore, Shannon Tindle, Bruno Coulais, Christopher Appelhans, Tadahiro Uesugi, Chris Butler, and the whole Laika and Focus crew.) But I am feeling extraordinarily blank.

The weather just got cold, and dog-walking tonight was less fun than it should have been; I wore gloves, and solitary crystalline flecks of snow spun into the light of my flashlight-beam and vanished again into the dark. I took Maddy and her friend Anna-Rose to violin tonight, and yesterday I carried the beautiful E. H. Shepard ink-drawing I got myself to celebrate the award in to the framers to be framed. I'm concerned that we should have insulated the beehives by now.

**EDIT Thu Dec 3 23:24:15 UTC 2009 **

Hey Everyone, we are about to run the last alter job that we need to on our database servers. This will effect userpics / scrapbook / vgift images for the next few hours. Have no fear, your images aren't lost, there is just a really intensive process running on the servers which store the information for mogilefs. Thank you for your understanding and all the LJ love...

Hey LJers,

I just wanted to let you all know that we are going to be performing some mogilefs maintenance over the next few days. We will be upgrading our current version to latest stable as well as changing some db config information to better handle the amount of files we are currently hosting. This shouldn't cause a big impact on site stability, but you may see some minor delays with userpic / scrapbook images appearing or other requests associated with our mogilefs. We would love to not have that happen, but unfortunately with some of the steps we need to take we have to cause a delay with images. I figured this was a better solution than taking down all of LiveJournal because well lets face it, we all need our daily LJ fix ;)

Thanks,

I saw a cool book on Boingboing today, Magic, 1400s-1950s. I went to Taschen's website to see more and I especially liked this image. The accompanying text labeled it "Hindoo Magic"--a reference to Chinnamasta, perhaps, since it's a female magician doing a self-decapitation trick? 'Cause there's not much else that's "Hindoo" about it.